GotY Twenty Baker's 'Doz
I haven't finished nearly as many of these as I'd like to, but I've had a bad habit this year of nearly finishing a game and then going right back to my #1 pick.
I haven't finished nearly as many of these as I'd like to, but I've had a bad habit this year of nearly finishing a game and then going right back to my #1 pick.
I have played this game longer than any other game ever - all in the span of one year - and I'm still pretty bad at it. I could try to explain how or why either of those things have come about, but I don't know. I just don't know.
I could gush a lot about the combat, and the story, and the art, but I'll just leave it at saying that I COULD gush about those things. The sole problem this game has is that a large chunk of fairly unremarkable content sits between the player and some of the most inspired and incredible sequences ever found in a game. Even so, this is easily my game of the year... Or, WOULD be, if not for the eternal spectre that inhabits my #1 spot and also my dreams.
Turns out all Conviction really needed was a few key tweaks and some extremely talented level designers to turn that whole series around. Multiplayer is a blast too.
This game hit me in that spot where only Zelda can reach, but this one with a certain force that I had been lacking the past few years. Item renting is an absolute genius change that appalled me before I experienced it.
Columbia is an incredible place to explore, and Elizabeth is an excellent character to do it with. I probably diminished my experience with this game by playing on hard for some godforsaken reason.
A large part of my enjoyment of this game came from the awe over the incredible mirror-image world that they've brought to life with such realism - and the characters therein. Bathing in that feeling made the less exciting parts a lot more fun.
GTA:O retroactively soured my experience with this game, as I booted the game proper up on several occasions to finish the story and instead foolishly spent the next two hours trying to make the online work. Not a fun time right there.
Thought I'd lost interest along with everyone else, but then they go ahead and make an excellent AC game again. The out-of-animus stuff is really quite hilarious as well.
Initially this game not being made by Japanese crazy people kind of bummed me out, but I soon learned to appreciate it upon it's own merits. The combat had a brand new and really fun skill curve of it's own, and the visual design was enough to string me along the game's length all the way to completion.
This is the token surprise late entry. Makes you feel like a pro fresh out of the tutorial, which ignited a fiercer interest in the sport than I thought I had in me. Pretty sure it's made my real game better too... Or worse, depending on how many swerve shots I try and fail at in a given frame.
It's a real shame this game has had so many troubles, because the little while there when I could put up with it's relatively broken state provided me world class fun-times with guns and friends. If not for all it's technical issues, this would be the best shooter to come along in a very long time.