Before I begin the actual list, there’s something you need to know first: I am REALLY bad at finishing games. My Pile of Shame has countless games at 75% percent completion that I swear up and down I will get around to eventually. I honestly could not tell you why this happens. In some cases it’s this weird psychological thing where I’m enjoying it so much I don’t want it to end, therefore I never actually finish it. (I hear a lot of people do this with certain TV shows; Deadwood springs to mind, though I’ve never watched that one.) In most cases, though, something else comes along and I move on. Well, since this list is going up on January 1^st, consider this a tacit resolution: I will finish every game I start this year. I will also take stock and decide which games of years past I’m going to actually finish. Witcher 2, I’m looking at you. Skyrim too, although that’s more of a formality than anything (170 hours in, never finished the main quest). Onto the games!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

These just missed the cut. On any other day, they might have made it.

The Fall – Amazing storytelling and presentation; this one’s a real gem.

Wolfenstein: The New Order – Like others have said, who would have thought we’d have a great Wolfenstein game in 2014? Way more than the sum of its parts.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare – The first COD game I’ve bought since MW3. JETPACKS FOR LIFE

Super Time Force – So damn clever, challenging, and pretty fucking funny to boot.

Thief – Okay, I know most people hated this game, I understand their reasons, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it. The AI isn’t great—in fact, it’s pretty dumb—but there’s still something to this game. Plus, I got it on sale for like $15, so there you go.

HONORALE MENTIONS ROUND 2

First, a word: these are games I simply didn’t/couldn’t put enough time into.

Divinity: Original Sin – I’m excited to dig into this one this coming year.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter – This game is stunningly gorgeous. Consequently, my 5-year-old computer struggles to run it at an acceptable framerate. I’ll have to come back to this one.

Dragon Age: Inquisition – Only in an RPG of this scale could I say 30 hours wasn’t enough time to adequately assess its merits, but alas, here we are. I only just acquired the last party member, only recently arrived at Skyhold, and have barely begun to put the moves on Cassandra (I’ll call you soon, I PROMISE).

Transistor – This is the one that pains me the most, because of my deep and abiding love for Bastion. Absolutely gorgeous, fantastic combat, and goddamn, the music in this game is so good.

ACTUAL TOP TEN

These probably aren’t really in the order I put them in, with the exception of the top three.

10. Desert Golfing – I love how minimalist this game is: no menu, no settings, sparse graphics, just get the ball in the hole. There’s nothing better than getting a hole-in-one on a nasty-looking hole.

9. Monument Valley – I don’t usually play games on my phone, especially since it’s Android, and most good stuff doesn’t make the jump. This game is the exception. I was lucky enough to experience it on an iPad when it first came out, but got the game and the expansion on my phone. Great art, soothing atmosphere, and puzzles that were just clever enough. You have no excuse for not experiencing this gem.

8. Titanfall – Titanfall is what got me to get an Xbox One. More specifically, its beta made me pull the trigger. I loved dropping my titan, setting it to AI mode, and running interference for it on the rooftops. It’s too bad the player base dropped off so quickly, because this is a damn good time. My only complaints: the gun unlocks are too few and far between; they feel like Halo weapons (i.e. weapon archetypes with no variety among types) doled out over the course of the progression. Number two: the jumpkick-as-melee-attack is fucking STUPID.

7. Shovel Knight – Do you like old-school games that are actually good in their own right? What about fantastic music and super-tight controls? Well, then you should play Shovel Knight. My brother and I played through this by swapping the controller back and forth between levels, just like when we were kids. Maybe that sounds too precious for you; maybe you should find more room for love in your heart, Mr. Grinch.

6. Diablo III: Reaper of Souls – I’ve put more aggregate time into Diablo 3 than probably any game ever. A lot of that was in the vanilla game, but I hadn’t played it much since around September of 2012. Once they put out the patch in anticipation of Reaper of Souls, I fell right back into it, promptly putting another couple hundred (you read that right) hours into it. Adventure Mode is a literal game-changer. It makes the loot treadmill more exciting than it was, and the Loot 2.0 system ensures that you stop getting garbage drops (well, mostly). I even got a character past level 60 on the Xbox One because of a Redbox binge one weekend. Shit, why isn’t this number one?

5. Sunset Overdrive – Full disclosure: I haven’t finished this one yet. But I’ve played enough to know it deserves a spot on the list. It’s so much goddamn fun blasting OD from the power lines and the moment-to-moment travel is actually fun, for once. As has been said by other, more talented writers, it’s a perfect melding of Tony Hawk and Ratchet & Clank.

4. Nidhogg – I first played this about a week ago. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard playing a game as I did the night I bought this. Couch co-op is where it’s at as far as Nidhogg is concerned. My brothers and I were falling all over each other laughing. For a game with only 2 buttons, there is a surprising amount of depth to the gameplay. The next time you have a party, bust this one out.

3. Shadow of Mordor – Seriously, who knew this would be this good? I admit, it took me a little while to get into it, but it really opens up once you get the ability to brand Uruks. Which, speaking of, why does it take so long to get that? Seriously, branding a bunch of Uruks, specifically so they can rise through the ranks, only to betray the warchiefs you’re hunting, is one of the most satisfying things I’ve done in a game this year. If the Nemesis system isn’t stolen and appropriated into more games this next year, it will be our loss.

2. Destiny – Le sigh. This game has so many problems, it almost has no business being this high on my list. But I can’t quit you, Destiny. When I only have like ten minutes to just tool around with something, Destiny works surprisingly well. Just load up some bounties, do some farming and BAM! Actually, that makes it sound shitty. Okay, how about this: since I’ve never played an MMO before, doing the raids in Destiny is the closest I’ll get to that experience, and it’s probably the most fun I’ve had with a multiplayer game this year. It really is strange how partying up with other players can make a mediocre game good, and that’s the case with Destiny.

1. Far Cry 4 – Bar none, this is the most raw, unfettered fun I had in a game this year. Sure, it’s mostly just more Far Cry 3. And yeah, sure, it’s got issues, but man, nothing beats jumping on an elephant and knocking a truck full of bad guys down a mountain. Or loosing an explosive arrow in a perfect arc to take out a courier speeding away on a four-wheeler. Or flying over an outpost in a buzzer with a buddy and raining grenades down on the hapless soldiers. Or letting a tiger loose and watching it eat everyone in an outpost. Or OH GOD THE EAGLES GET AWAY FROM ME YOU FLYING DEVILS. All of these things happened to me, and they’re all cluttering up my hard drive in 30-second chunks, because I couldn’t help yelling XBOX RECORD THAT

By now I assume everyone has seen the leaked screenshots of what purports to be the upcoming content for Destiny. If not, Kotaku has a good post about it. And if you're worried about spoilers, come on. It's not like Destiny's story makes any sense anyway. In fact, that's the whole point of what I'm about to say. A lot of people have postulated (Reddit, of course) that a large portion (if not the whole damn enchilada) of Destiny's story was gutted once writer Joe Staten left, and dumped into the grimoire cards. That's not too hard to believe, given the state (or lack thereof) of Destiny's story in its current form. Obviously Bungie would like to address that, but in looking these leaked screenshots, it sure doesn't look like they have any plans to fix the story anytime soon. Every single one of those new missions listed are either strikes or raids. Now, that by itself doesn't mean they won't be interesting gameplay-wise (though I haven't yet run the currently available raid, Vault of Glass, I hear that it changes up your expectations pretty well), I kind of doubt that there will be much of anything important happening story-wise. Think back on the strikes that appear in the game. The only story to speak of is just thinly-drawn exposition dump by Dinklebot that ultimately only tells you who you're going to be fighting at the end. That's it. Since these are explicitly designed as multiplayer events, I imagine that Bungie didn't want people to have to worry about other people fucking up the story by running ahead of everyone else, triggering events no one else is ready for. For example, try playing any of the Gears of War games co-op with randoms and see how many of them will actually watch the cutscenes without skipping ahead. (Yes, the story in Gears isn't anything special, but it's got a leg up on Destiny, since it, you know, exists.) I don't see it being any different with these new missions.

Now, let me back up a bit. In other games, especially loot-driven games like Diablo and their ilk, I don't particularly care about the story. Diablo 3's is only so much nonsense that only serves to set up the fiction and setting. And I'm totally okay with that! USUALLY. Destiny's lack of a story is a problem because of both Bungie's pedigree and because the game that most closely resembles what Destiny is trying to do is Borderlands, which just oozes personality and back story (if anything, Borderlands 2 is a little too long, but that's beside the point). I want to know more about the world of Destiny, but I have to fight for every single scrap of it because there's so little in the actual game. It's story by inference, at best. I love the Halo games and their fiction, which has been fleshed out like crazy in all sorts of other media. But those works only ever got made because the games told a story first that people found interesting. If this is all we have to go on with Destiny, that kind of backstory is never going to happen, because no one will give a shit.

So, what is Bungie to do? I honestly don't know. If I did, I'd be working there, making it happen. But I have a few ideas:

1. Make those new missions be actual story missions that people can do solo. Make them interesting, and for God's sake, use the characters that you paid all those actors to provide the voices for. I mean, you're really going to go out and get Peter Dinklage, Lance Reddick, Gina Torres, James Remar, Peter Stormare, Bill Nighy, and Nathan Fucking Fillion and give them the most boring, half-assed, throwaway lines to give you boring, generic side quests with? What gives? Make that world breathe, give it personality, give it life. The NPCs in Borderlands might not all be great, but at least they're memorable. Everyone in Destiny besides the Queen is a cipher, with the possible exception of her brother (who doesn't even have a name! He's just "the Queen's brother"!).
2. Reboot the whole damn thing with Destiny 2, á la Final Fantasy 14. If you recall, FF14 was a steaming pile of garbage when it came out. Square Enix retooled the whole thing and rereleased it last year, and now a lot of people consider it one of the better MMOs of the last few years. On some level, I don't really see any other option. It would be too hard to overhaul the structure of Destiny as it currently stands to accomodate this change, so a total reboot is in order.

All of this criticism comes from a place of love and respect. Halo is one of my favorite series, and I really like a lot of what Destiny offers. I have put a ton of time into it, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. But between what I've enumerated here and their fuck-up with how loot works (which, to their credit, they're fixing), it might be hard to keep playing this after a few months. I really hope that changes.

Time for an update! I've done fuck all to catch up on anything. Sorry. Well, that's not entirely accurate. I have been playing Skyrim, but just the Dragonborn DLC. Full disclosure on Skyrim's inclusion on my list: I have put 150+ hours into Skyrim, but have not yet completed the main quest. I don't know why I've been so reluctant to do it, especially since I'm more than happy to spend 2 hours ferrying all the shit I've acquired from my (first) home in Whiterun to my new place outside of Falkreath, then spend even more time decorating mannequins with complete armor sets (Dwarven armor looks the coolest; shame it's only mid-level) and then even more time min-maxing the alchemy-enchanting-smithing trees to get the best stuff. So once this DLC concludes, I will finally finish the main quest, then move on. I also played Hotline Miami to completion within the last week. Seriously, fuck that game's "boss battles." Everything else about that game is great, though. That fucking soundtrack, man, is a wonder to behold. As Ryan said at some point just after the game's release (and I'm paraphrasing), it's music you want playing while you're getting down to some ill shit.

Alright, buckle up, because this is a long-ass list. Context for this found HERE. Any suggestions for some kind of name for this project would be appreciated.

So anyway, in no particular order, here we go:

Xbox 360

• Vanquish
• The Witcher 2
• Fez
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Halo: Anniversary
• Alan Wake's American Nightmare
• Saints Row: the Third
• Skyrim
• Beyond Good and Evil HD
• Oblivion
• Shadows of the Damned
• Crysis
• Iron Brigade
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
• Outland
• Clash of Heroes
• Dragon Age 2
• Bionic Commando Rearmed 2
• Ilomilo
• Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
• Fallout 3
• Bayonetta
• Penny Arcade Episode 2

Late additions to the list:

• Assassin's Creed 3
• Far Cry 3
• Hitman Absolution

PC

• Starcraft II
• Civilization V
• Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
• Binary Domain
• Max Payne 3
• Metro 2033
• The Walking Dead

TV Shows

• Sons of Anarchy
• Breaking Bad
• Justified
• Game of Thrones
• The Wire
• Luther
• Sherlock
• Deep Space Nine
• The Walking Dead
• Archer
• South Park
• 30 Rock
• Castle
• Futurama
• Dexter
• And more, but none that matter too much. That, or ones that I should watch, but haven't gotten around to yet.

I'm still deciding on what kind of format I'm going to use; that is, how often I'll be writing and whether they'll be review-like or more just a listing of impressions. I may even delve into why I stopped playing/watching/reading, unless it's boring or irrelevant. I also haven't decided how I'm going to determine the order in which these get finished; I'll probably just start with the most recent stuff and work backwards. I think. Maybe.

There's just so much stuff on this list. I may go back to some of these and decide they're not worth my time (Dragon Age 2, I'm looking SQUARELY in your direction), but I really would like to get through all of these. The problem with our digital lifestyle is finding enough hours in the day to consume it all, you know?

I had an idea at the end of 2011, then completely failed to even give the barest hint of trying to do it last year. So I'm committing to doing it this year. The idea was to write about all the games that I've started but haven't finished, and there are a lot. I'm also trying to incorporate an idea I had early (early) this morning, and that was to try get something written every day this year. I've long wanted to get into the industry, but aside from a brief stint doing volunteer writing for a lackluster fansite, I have been awful at ever writing anything, even though I have a freaking English degree. If nothing else, I'll get some exercise for my brain, which has been sorely lacking as of late. So anyway, I've put a list together of all the games I've started, but for whatever reason never got around to finishing. I will also include TV show write-ups for all the series that I've started. Maybe. That list will get posted tomorrow, but for now, this is my commitment to get off my figurative ass and makes steps to be a better writer. Wish me luck, duders.

Uncharted 3 was one of my most anticipated titles this year. I fell in love with the characters (especially Elena) back in the first game, and have wanted to see the conclusion to their story ever since. So when I popped the disc in last week, I was expecting a wonderful adventure, full of exotic locales, hair-raising action set-pieces, and loving characterization.

What I didn't expect was to hate almost every second of the game's combat.

Looking back, I can honestly say that there were only two or three scenarios, at most, that I didn't absolutely loathe. Now, Uncharted has never been a series known for its tight combat controls or excellent combat encounters. The bad guys in the first game could take inhuman amounts of bullets while wearing no armor and we all remember the blue guys from the second game. But at least the enemy encounters were set up in such a way that they were manageable. You hardly ever got overwhelmed by the sheer volume of enemies and you usually had plenty of cover (although the dash through the village in U2 while dodging tank fire was kind of broken). In this game, though every encounter feels that cheap. Guys take multiple point-blank shotgun rounds TO THE FACE, you get rushed by multiple dudes in heavy armor with shotguns of their own, and to top it all off, your controls aren't precise enough to track guys as they move or keep a good bead on them.

This would be (somewhat) forgivable if it only happened a few times throughout the game. For example, I beat Warhammer 40K: Space Marine last week. That game is pretty good, but holy shit I wanted to break something after the last boss battle. It was the worst kind of cheap bullshit. Now, that said, it didn't really sully my overall experience with the game, although it did leave things on a sour note. But I'm not going to score a game lower (14 chicken hearts) just because it has one really poorly done battle. But when almost every single combat encounter feels that way, it's going to affect your opinion of a game.

I've heard from a few places that Naughty Dog never played through the entire game until just prior to certification; that blows my mind. I understand that you're busy, but come on. Some of the combat scenarios are straight-up broken. I died over 70 times while playing Uncharted 3; that's more than I died while playing Gears 3 by a large margin, and I was playing Gears on Hardcore and Uncharted on Normal. There's something wrong with that. Now, I understand that Naughty Dog is also in the process of developing a patch that will (hopefully) address a lot of these issues. To be honest, a large part of my complaint is with the controls. The game doesn't control anywhere near as precisely as Gears of War or other games of its ilk, but the combat is designed as if it does. I think a developer should know its strong suits. I'm convinced that combat isn't one of Naughty Dog's.

Now, all that said, I still enjoyed my time with the game quite a bit, and it will probably rank in my top ten, but I was left with such a bad taste in my mouth that I can't comfortably put it in my top 5. Uncharted 3 has you spend the least amount of time doing actual exploring and puzzle solving of the three games, and I think that's a mistake. A lot of the series' charm comes from Nate's wisecracks as he's trying to navigate some crazy environment or solve some ridiculous puzzle. That happens a mere handful of times here and is often interrupted (rudely) by a bunch of assholes with guns. The characters are just as charming as ever and I think I might actually be in love with Elena now, so I guess the game was a success. It just wasn't the unqualified success that I so badly wanted it to be.

Yesterday I put up my Top Ten list for the year. I used that to talk at length about each game, so I won't redo that here. I also wanted to talk about some other things that have been on my mind lately about other games that came out this year, and I guess give out some awards (or more appropriately, shout-outs). Not that my awards have any cachet to them whatsoever, but hey, it's my blog, so deal with it. So anyway, just for context, here are the names of my top ten, then I'll jump in to my other ramblings, musings, and nonplussments. Trivia Alert! How many games that I list here have colons in their names? Seriously, it's kind of ridiculous.

Top Ten for 2010

Just Missed the Cut

Best Games I didn’t actually finish

Best Downloadable Games

Biggest Disappointments

Best Example of a Game I Don’t Actually Like That Much But Still Play a Lot

Games That Would Be On My Top Ten If I'd Actually Had Time To Play Them

Gaming Regrets

Not Playing More DS

Not Paying Enough Attention to Awesome PC Games

Not Enough PS3 Games

In Closing

So today was about the shittiest day I've had at work in quite some time, and it made me realize that, boy, I better get a life. I need to stop settling for my piddly-ass job and find a job that I actually like doing. Granted, much easier said than done, but you have to have a goal, right? I figure stretching my writing legs, so to speak, will at least help me get back on track. It's been my dream for years to end up working in the video game industry, and I look at the Giant Bomb guys as a huge source of inspiration for that. I have a gorram English degree and I haven't done shit with it since I graduated 4 1/2 years ago. So this is my first step in getting something--ANYTHING--written, and I figure if I have it in a public place, among like-minded individuals, I can get things rolling.

In the last day or so, a lot of people have been weighing in on this debate, mostly due to the latest Penny Arcade comic and its attendant news post. I thought I'd throw in my two cents as well. 

It seems like everyone is saying that they have no problem buying games digitally, but kind of hit a wall when it comes to buying physical games at full price. Some might say that there’s a discrepancy there, but I think it actually speaks to the value of buying games digitally. Usually buying games digitally is cheaper, and you can be sure that the money is going straight to the developer, instead of the middleman (like Gamestop). Not to mention the fact that most digital download services (Steam, mostly) have crazy sales all the time that make it totally worth your while to do your games buying there. I personally don’t like buying used games mainly because I don’t approve of Gamestop’s policies, but if someone else feels differently, that’s totally up to them and also totally okay. As a lot of people have mentioned recently—mostly in reference to the price/value ratio—it’s up to the individual consumer to make his own choices, and those choices need to be right for him, what’s financially responsible for him. If I have enough disposable income that I can buy new games at full price and not be hurting, then that’s awesome. If some working-class dad has to worry more about providing for his family than getting Halo on launch day, then it’s better for him to buy it used a month or two down the line. He’s not a bad person just because he’s worrying about his own financial well-being before the company’s whose game he’s buying.
 
ADDENDUM: It seems like a lot of people commenting here think I'm railing against used game sales in all forms. Some have said, "But what about (insert game)? It's 10 years old. How else am I supposed to get it?" I think the debate here has more to do with recent games, as opposed to older games. Obviously, the only way to get that copy of Radiant Silvergun or Chrono Trigger is to find it used somewhere, which as I noted above, is fine.

Certainly no other game has pissed me off as much as Prototype did. Part of the problem was that I had just finished playing InFamous, which was so well done in every way, and Prototype was just half-finished mess of a game. Which I suppose is fitting for a game called PROTOTYPE. I know a lot of people really liked it, including the guys here on Giant Bomb, but damn, I seethe with rage whenever I think about this game. Terrible TERRIBLE graphics, especially for a game coming out in 2009; pretty unresponsive controls, which made fighting multiple enemies a huge pain in the ass; and stupid, half-assed COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT side missions. Hey, let's go basejumping off a skyscraper while this plague ravages the entire city. Seriously, this game was awful.