Best of 2013
Lot of "Kill" this year.
List items
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Conviction broke something in me. For a long time, I considered Splinter Cell some of my favorite games. Then I fought a fucking helicopter. As far as I was concerned, the series had shot itself in the head.
Somehow, they pulled the good bits from that shitshow, and integrated them into the classic stealth formula of the original games. The result is the rare case where when a game claims to let you play however you want, you actually can, and none of the methods feel short changed. Sam is as sneaky as ever, and playing through this like I felt like I was playing a modern Chaos Theory. Spies VS Mercs was intelligently redone, though I was let down that the "Classic" option wasn't really classic at all. I hope that if they do this again, they stick to this formula, and approach the SvM more like the original format, as the objective setup was a bit weird.
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I was a small child when KI was in arcades. Hell, I was a kid when arcades still existed. I remember them fondly regardless. I'd get some quarters from my mom, go to the lower level of our mall, and play wildly inappropriate games. So my memory of KI was just "oh man that skeleton owned".
Despite this, KI was a system seller for me. Probably not smart, but at least it worked out, because holy shit KI rules. The season structure has been churning out content on a regular basis, and every fighter and stage clearly has plenty of care put into them. I bought my first stick because of this game.
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They do something in the first level of the campaign that is clearly meant to make you go "holy shit", and I felt like a chump for doing it, but holy shit.
Being able to approach most missions from very different playstyles is something that I appreciate and did not expect from Killzone.
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It's got a pseudo Bulletstorm-esque scoring system, the Katana stays relevant the whole game but doesn't render the weapons obsolete, and the controls are done in such a way that you can easily combine your guns, swordplay, and magic into ridiculous and lengthy combos that decimate swarms of demons.
The story is also genuinely engaging, with the main character experiencing growth (not intentional I swear) throughout.
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I didn't play this until the PC release, but I'm including it here as it was originally released in 2013.
So I guess Raiden is awesome now. That's cool. Platinum continues to have great music in their games, which is pretty much a rule of sorts by now. It's just in their nature.
I fucking hate myself.
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Turns out, Nick Santos is a pretty great protagonist. Most of the changes are for the better, and still apply when playing in the "hardcore" mode, which is just regular ass DR.
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Legitimately funny writing is hard to find in games. The demo of this game contains nothing from the actual product, and is worth playing even if you own the game, because it is almost a think-piece on the conundrum of selling you something while also exposing said product.
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You can play as a really smug elf.
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I get why people don't like it. It's flawed, and it isn't nearly as good as some of the other games in the series. The fact that Mercenary is better is kind of absurd. But as a showpiece for the new console you had, it was beautiful, and I dug the OWL.
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It's not really that great of a game, but something about it is undeniably charming and it scratched an itch that I had forgotten about since Streets of Rage. The soundtrack didn't hurt, either.
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