What older games did you play for the first time in 2014?

The side effect of 2014 being a somewhat sparse year for games is that I found myself exploring older titles to a greater degree than I have in the past. I started the year off by beating Persona 3 for the first time, a game that I had started, and stopped, playing multiple times since 2009 and moved on soon after that to Persona 2: Innocent Sin, which is an outstanding game in its own right that only suffers a little bit due to its age. Other games that I played extensively for the first time in 2014 included Quake, Quake 2, Doom, DmC: Devil May Cry, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Manx TT Superbike and Bastion. So my question is this: what older games did you discover, play, or finish for the first time in 2014?

Metal gear solid. It was awesome.

Off the top of my head, I played Dark Souls, Bayonetta and Darksiders. All games I'd been meaning to play for a long time, and now have ended up enjoying immensely.

Yakuza 4 which was just released on PSN. I've been talking about it a lot lately but with good reason.

The story is well written and just slightly more over the top than a good John Woo movie.

The multiple protagonists system is done way better than it was in GTA5 by having the characters play fundamentally differently, from having different combos and heat moves to entire mechanics just for one of the characters.

The best thing about the game though is definitely the heat moves which are super rad and range in craziness from stomping on a dude's face to breaking a guy's neck, flipping him into the air, jumping, catching him, and slamming him onto the ground on his spine.

Most of the Metal Gear Solid games, Chrono Trigger (which is incredible), Devil May Cry 1, FF Tactics + a bunch of older fighting games. I've played a lot of stuff this year but only a handful of 2014 games.

Interesting question that is, I discovered a little gem called Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death. I'm not done it yet, it feels like its starting to drag a bit, but playing it is the perfect companion piece to the Dredd movie that came out a few years ago, you can arrest people for complete nonsense (being fat, owning a hamster or goldfish) and the main gun is pretty cool, just like the movie (and I suppose the comics? All my Dredd knowledge is from the movie and and now this game) it can switch bullet types on the fly, so you are shooting dudes with armor piercing then can immediately switch to explosive bullets and it is pretty fun.
The a.i. is pretty fucking horrific though.
But over all it was a pretty nice older surprise.

Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2 after getting inspired by Metal Gear Scanlon. Got a whole week off work/school next week, so I'll probably get MGS 3 in there.

Also did my yearly "I'll play through KOTOR I and II and finish them this time" before other games started coming out and putting it off yet again. I mean, I beat both back on the OG Xbox, but nowadays I still can't make it past getting off Taris...

I played the Metal Gear Solid games for the first time this year as well as Tales of Symphonia.

I played the MSX version of Metal Gear (included in the MGS HD Collection on Vita) for the first time, not finished yet but that game is really good. I played NES Castlevania for the first time. I also played Far Cry 3 for the first time. Just played the first 3 hours so I'd have the gist of it in preparation for playing 4.

Persona 4. I bought Persona 3 a couple of years ago and I finally finished it this year, it was around the time Persona 4 arrived on PSN, so bought Persona 4 shortly after and played it. Since then it has been a Persona Obsession with sprinkles of other Shin Megami Tensei games thrown in. I still need to play Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga 1 and finish Shin Megami Tensei IV.

I beat Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 with some friends this year, and we're working on 3 now. Surprisingly, this was not because of Metal Gear Scanlon; we started late last year and it's just taken us about 6 months each to beat the games. As everyone here is aware, those games are quite cool. I also played Castlevania and Simon's Quest for the first time, and god damn those games are brilliant in their own little ways. You can really tell how they influenced game development in some neat ways, plus they're just fun to play.

Don't know if this counts but I just now decided to finally play and finish uncharted 2, got it at release, played a bunch of MP but for some damn reason never played through the SP.. really don't know why I did that, and it's not like I got deep into the MP for it too, I played it for a while but that was it.

I played Dark Souls after having enjoyed the second one; I thought it was great. I also bought Fallout: New Vegas, but I couldn't get into it despite the story being engaging. Lastly, I played Gears of War 3 and really didn't enjoy it, even though I played the first two and liked them at the time, but that was almost 6 years ago.

Bought a SNES this year, so a bunch of games on that (Super Metroid/Castlevania/Mario, Unirally and Zombies Ate My Neighbours).

I am getting ready to play Star Ocean 2. Got it from a friend who speaks very highly from it. The only thing I remember is it being featured in an old playstation magazine of mine and me awing over the art. So looking forward to that.

Burnout Paradise. Pretty good game.

I finally played that Minecraft game.

Most of what I played this year are older games, like all of the Wario Land series. All of those games are fucking awesome, save maybe Shake It. I also picked up Kirby's Dream Land 2 and Mole Mania, trying to find the Game Boy games that are Super Game Boy enhanced.

I also picked up newer stuff like Red Steel 2, Killzone 2, DMC4, and Resident Evil 5 because they were all dirt cheap used. Red Steel 2 was definitely worth it, maybe not so much the other 3.

I played Twilight Princess for the first time this year. It was great. It surprisingly looks good still for a gamecube game. 8.8

Harvester is the only one that comes to mind.

Doom 1 + 3(love the immersive sound design and small touches like the crosshair turning into a cursor when pointing on computer screens and such), Voodoo Vince(that music <3), Otogi (the REAL demon souls begins here...haha this game can be so frustrating but still fun and again, amazing music ), Project gotham racing 2 and Halo (YES, this game is still awesome imo, back in the day I only played a demo in a store and I played a bunch of halo2 co-op at a buddys place but never played the first) all on OG xbox.

And this year I finally bought my first two sega consoles ever :) the Mega Drive and the Dreamcast. In the 2D-era I used to mostly just dismiss sega because of how not fun I found the sonic games to be but I have to say 23 year old me has been enjoying the shit out of those 3 shinobi games and streets of rage II this past year (and found out sonic is still not gelling with me). Also played a bunch of sega homebrews like Gunlord and Sturmwind which where both especially enjoyable imo.

I also never invested any time in a Gta game pre-GtaIV before this year either so I have played all of them on and off over the past year. 1+2 on psx and 3-vice city -san andreas on xbox (the only playable versions imo as the cars are uncontrollable in other versions where you cant control how much your car accelerates without the xbox triggers)

I played through DMC, Enslaved, Borderlands (1) and Brütal Legend this year, does that count? I also tried Overlord 2 but eff that game.

Also Tiny and Big because I heard the music was great. It was and the game was awesome.

Metal Gear Solid 2, 3, 4, Peace Walker. I finished 4 shortly before Metal Gear Scanlon was announced, so it wasn't actually because of that.

Oh man.

I just recently bought this from a retro-games retailer here in my area. I don't have a whole lot to say beyond, man, that game is wacky. Like, I got to a point where vampires started showing up. Which I don't think is especially far into the game.

It's really weird, though. Definitely more on the HBO-animated cartoon grotesque side of things, tonally.

Earthbound, Persona 3, and Bayonetta.

I'm going to try and knock out Devil May Cry 1 and 3 before the end of the year too.

Tactics Ogre would be the big one for me.

Bunch of PS1 stuff. Castlevania SotN and Hot Shots Golf 2, which I can report are both totally playable on a Vita and are still good. I also played RE2, but not on Vita. The PSP remake of Persona, but I got busy and dropped it around the first boss. I'll probably restart it in the new year, though Legend of Dragoon and FFVI are on my Vita too, waiting to be started for the first time.

I got my first Nintendo system this year (a 3DS XL) and I know a rural Walmart that has a bunch of old DS games, so I played Picross 3D. I anticipate playing my first Zelda next year.

Speedrunning a bunch of old NES/SNES games: Castlevania III, Darkwing Duck, Moon Crystal, Rockin Kats, Road Runner's Death Valley Rally, Dragon's Lair (SNES). Planning on playing through the Shantae series soon. Finally getting myself a 3DS this Christmas so I'll soon be playing some of last year's releases like Fire Emblem: Awakening, Zelda: Link Between Worlds, and Bravely Default. Oh, I also played through Persona 3 after putting it down for a few months, and absolutely loved it. Also, Trails in the Sky is an old game that got a port to Steam this year that I played and liked. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

I'm playing through Fatal Frame right now if that counts.

Several.

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.

I enjoyed Ico as s piece of history, something to be appreciated even if it doesn't hold up super well. Shadow of the Colossus is still genuinely great.

I played some of Valkyria Chronicles 3, Link Between Worlds, and Bravely Default. Did not finish any of them, but I would like to go back to them at some point.

The best <2014 games I played for the first time this year:

• Spelunky (HD)
• Frozen Synapse
• Ecco: The Tides of Time

Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy XIII were both games I owned but never had the time or put the effort into really trying until this year.

I tried a whole bunch of really old games for the first time this month, including:

• Crimson Sea 2 Kinda stylish fun little 3rd person shooter
• Black I never understood the hype for this until now
• John Romero's Daikatana yep, even with a fan-patch this game blows

I'm currently trying to actually play through Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver :)

I've played, and finished, 26 games this year that weren't released in 2014.

In contrast, I've played, and finished, 1 game that was released in 2014.

A Link to the Past and Super Metroid.

I had briefly played both back in the Snes days but didn't really get into either of those games because I was a dumb kid.

Beat and loved every second of both in 2014.

I played the original Fallout out and Dungeon Keeper. Dungeon Keeper is too rough for me, but Fallout was fairly playable with some help with stats. I also finally played Metal Gear Solid 3 thanks to the HD collection. Metal Gear Solid 3 is still pretty great. I don't think the camouflage stuff was too bad, either.

I had never played the full version of Strife (1996) before, only the shareware version.

I've also played a bit of Panzer Elite Action (2006), NAM! (1997), Corporation (1990), Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere (1999), Valkyria Chronicles (2007), Z (1996), Wings Over Europe (2006), F-14 Fleet Defender (1994) and F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 (1991).

Yup, I absolutely adore late 80's to late 90's air combat games.

Jak and Daxter via the PS3 collection. It was a bittersweet ride. It was fun to play obviously, but also kinda depressing because all I could think about was that that era/style of video games, so to speak, is essentially dead. No one really makes those sorta Saturday-morning-cartoony, quirky, colorful platformers anymore. I mean, obviously Nintendo is still cranking out Mario games, but those have always been a different type of platformer I feel. They're clearly very good games and everything, but they've always lacked the sorta cartoon-y aspect that games like Jak, Spyro, Sly, Crash, Ratchet, etc had. I dunno, kinda hard to explain.

We still get a new Ratchet game every now and then and Sly 4 came out like last year so I guess I can't really that style of game is completely dead, but still...I don't like change. I can just feel myself getting older as all the things I love slowly fade away into obscurity haha

Terraria , Dead Space 2 , Dead Space 3 , Far Cry 3 , The Swapper , Binding of Issac (the first one) , Borderlands 2 (Im only including the ones I actually played for more than a hour/finished)

I went back and finished Borderlands 1, To The Moon, Dust: An Elysian Tail, and finally got around to playing the non shareware portions of Doom. Most significantly I got into Binding of Isaac around the time Patrick started streaming it, and I've now put more time into it than anything other game this year by far.

Demons Souls. Minecraft. Pretty different games.

Let's see - Metal Gear solid 2 and 3, Ocarina of Time, Half Life 2 episode 1, Castlevania; Aria of Sorrow, Red Faction 1. It was a pretty good year in games for me.

This year I played Ghost Trick, which led to me currently playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. These are both very good games.

This year I also played Assassin's Creed Revelations, Assassin's Creed III, and Assassin's Creed IV, all to 100% sync. These are okay games that didn't deserve the time it took to get to 100%, but I couldn't help myself (those collectibles weren't going to collect themselves, right?).

I have yet to try Suikoden 2 but I hear things...I hear things...

here is a 15 dollar coupon for the GB store 0a66c6fe9342-24d46das

I played a bit of Fallout. It seems pretty cool, but I haven't invested much time in it.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Madden NFL 2005, Guitar hero I and II. I bought a used PS2 at Goodwill for 15 bucks, and there are so many games that were simply beyond me at the time because I was a little too young. I'd like to try Shadow of the Colossus, Gran Turismo, Jak and Daxter, Resident Evil 4, FFXII and some other ones too.

i pretty much only played older games but these are what i'd consider older older

• metroid prime
• final fantasy 8
• persona 3

Dark Souls, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider