Game of The Year 2014 Users Choice

2014 will not be remembered as the strongest year in history for the games medium in my eyes. Sure, we saw a great deal of change happen within the industry with the launch of the new generation of consoles proper. Which I imagine has a hand in why this year felt like a transitional one instead of one of focus. Perhaps the biggest damning fact is that I struggled to finish many of the games I started, which is why games like Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Dreamfall Chapters and Divinity: Original Sin got left out when they likely could have made the list if they had engaged me 'till the end. I also had to be more picky in which games I bought, so I had to skip a fair amount I would have liked to play, such as Call of Duty: Post Modern Warfare and Divinity.

But enough dooming and glooming! We still had a handful of very good games, both big and small. 2014 was also the year I finally came to the realisation Counter-Strike actually is a brilliant game and deserving of recognition from a competitive design perspective, leaving me with some 600+ hours of playtime in this year alone.

Some honorable mentions:

Jazzpunk, for being insane.

Banished, for being charming, challenging and creative.

Threes, for being addictive, charming and having great music.

Transistor, for having innovative and well designed combat as well as having great music.

On to the list!

List items

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  1. South Park: The Stick of Truth

  It's like a super long episode of South Park!

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  2. Far Cry 4

  I firebombed an enemy encampment with molotovs from a helicopter and then landed on a cliff nearby and picked the survivors off with a sniper rifle. And then I rode an elephant straight through an enemy outpost. Also, I learned you shouldn't try to knife fight a bengal tiger. Let's shoot up with more drugs I mean syringes!

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  3. Dragon Age: Inquisition

  This game has scale, personality, and a plethora of really-minor-things-that-by-themselves-don't-matter-but-together-add-up. Some 130 hours of great gameplay elevates a game that has slightly too many feet in Dragon Age 2 for my liking, annoying controls, bugs, UI flaws, etc. In the end, it's a game that is impressively close to being flawless, but far away enough to be "merely" fantastic.

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  4. Titanfall

  Call of Duty but with extremely fluid traversal and huge mech suits. It could've been more, but what it is is a fantastic evolution of a type of that very much needed evolving. I sincerely hope a sequel will make its way to us consumers to put some proper meat on this otherwise brilliant concept.

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  5. Destiny

  Brilliant game in a woefully small package. I am one of those people that never liked the feel or gameplay of Halo, so when I say I loved the shooting, leveling, grenading, grinding of Destiny, it says something to me; That Bungie can make fantastic first person shooters of different types.

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  6. Broken Age

  I didn't back this game on Kickstarter, but I fully recognize the importance of the campaign and what it meant for the industry. The game itself turned out extremely well, with a gorgeous visual style, oodles of personality, fun puzzles, good characters and some very good performances. I am very much looking forward to the second half!

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  7. Dark Souls II

  Dark Souls II is more or less the shallower but more refined younger brother of its predecessor. Much less rough around the edges, but also not as ambitious and open for interpretation. One might argue whether there should have been a Dark Souls II, and in some ways I agree with this, though in the end I am glad they got to go through with it. Beautiful, challenging, exciting.

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  8. Valiant Hearts: The Great War

  Valiant Hearts is a surprisingly tight and engaging puzzle game with a setting that's rarely been explored by the medium. Its gameplay is light and straight forward enough to lead you along a narrative thread that intermingles with historical facts that end in a very strong and emotional finale.

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  9. Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

  I liked Diablo 3 when it came out. And then I didn't. And then they changed it for the better. And then they released Reaper of Souls, and I liked it again. Huge bonus points for having an antagonist - or any character, for that matter - that was actually.. Interesting. The narrative was just about as generic and dull as the original one, but the philosophical quandary presented by the bad angel dude really intrigued me. Also, click on things until they explode. Fun!

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  10. Thief

  Let me preface this by saying Thief is one of my absolute favorite game series of all time. They were years ahead of their time, and I would happily argue for hours why they are the only true shining beacons of the actual stealth genre, as opposed to the more popular stealth/action. With that overly long preamble done, Thief is not a particularly great game. Its narrative is dull, its characters are grating at best and they replaced Stephen Russel. The last one may actually be what ultimately saved the game for me, strangely enough. It's not a good Thief by the simple virtue of.. It not really being a Thief game in anything but name. As a stealth game, it however felt right enough, and its atmosphere held up. It also should be commended for how it allowed you to customise the difficulty down to the finest detail. Bad Thief, decent game, good stealth.