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I thoroughly enjoyed Bioshock Infinite, but most of all I love that crazy ending and the two peas in a pod you encounter throughout all the chaos. Alternate worlds plays a significant part in the game from the early goings, but the ending turns it all to 11 and unleashes a metaphysical rollercoaster up and down yo face. It's one of those endings that adds context to everything that came before, changing everything. You might not think that's enough for it to take Game of the Year, and if the rest of the game was shit you'd probably be right.
The combat can be tedious at times--the handyman fights in particular drag on for far too long--but for the most part it's fast-paced and exciting. Switching up weapons and powers is still as fun as it was in the first game, and using the skyhook to zip around arenas or get a better view of the battle enhances that. The writing and voice-acting is well-done, and stylistically everything looks fantastic. Wide eyed denizens and the colourful surface of Columbia is contrasted nicely with brutal violence and sinister industrial and socially unjust undercurrents.
I do wish the game had used the long journey of Booker and Elizabeth to dig a little deeper into those parts of Columbia. Most of it's peripheral to the main beat of the game, which really boils down to combat arena after combat arena with the occasional main story moment. Pretty traditional video game stuff, even with constant Elizabeth interactions. Nevertheless, the main narrative hooked me in real good.
A big part of it is the 'Lutece twins'; easily the two most interesting characters I've encountered in a game this year. Your interactions with them and their interactions with each other are handled damn near perfectly, and the more you learn about the enigmatic duo the more insane and interesting everything gets.
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Borderlands 2 is just tons of goddamn fun. I tried maybe 4 times to get into the first Borderlands, but something about it all just felt wrong. Maybe it's because I was playing a bad PC port, maybe it was those particular classes and their restrictions. In any case, Borderlands 2 I immediately got into.
It runs better, the aiming is snappier, I can use whatever weapons I want, the music is great, Zer0 has an interesting skill tree, and the cell-shaded visuals are nice and crisp. The game likes to toss around the word "badass" a bunch, but running around as a robot ninja slashing dudes between fanning your revolver into crows of psychotic bandits before disappearing, zipping to an elevated enemy and raining death on everything below with cluster grenades, finally jumping down and finishing off all that remains with mid-air headshots... really does make you feel like a badass. So good on them for walking the talk at least in that regard.
The writing is fine, Tiny Tina is fine, Handsome Jack is fine. None of it is unbearably terrible. Some of the challenge text is cringe-worth, absolutely. But that gunplay never falters. Oh and about the guns themselves, there's a ton. It's still a loot game after-all. But whatever, Jakobs revolvers 4 lyfe.
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This game is just so fuckin cool. Everything about it is cool. Knockin guys out of windows is cool, not-knockin guys out of windows is cool, the writing is sharp, it's got the best game soundtrack this year, it's nice and short. It's great. IT'S GREAT. Go play it.
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Oh Assassin's Creed. You nailed it the first time, nailed it in a different way the second time, and then cashed in on that second time twice more, the first time nailing everything but the ending and the second time wasting everybody's time. Then it was time for change. Time for a new place, a new time, a new hero. Aaaaaaaaaaand everybody hated it. Annoying characters, shitty ending, barren cities, buggy as hell, less features than previous games.
I was ready for a real shit-show when I loaded up AC3, and was immediately annoyed. Holy moetherfuckin shitballs they changed the combat controls. Staring at the control screen thinking of how I can make it like the old games I decided to just roll with it; give this E to counter madness a shot. Now, I can't imagine going back to the clunky old limb system. Things would basically go on like that, up until the abysmal ending.
But everything before (and after) is why it's my number 4! It's damn near the best time I've had with an Assassin's Creed game. The combat is refined and more interesting, having your options chain rather than be tied to separate keys. So you'll counter, then decide if you want to throw, disarm, or attack. It does wonders to the flow of the combat. The assassin's guild is refined, with unique assassins to interact with and recruit, each unlocking particular skills to call upon. Sharpshooting a target , setting up an ambush point, or skills previously tied to faction hirelings (thieves, mercenaries, and courtesans/romani).
The free-running is refined, making it a lot easier to go where you want rather than get caught dropping or climbing when you don't want to. Modifiers that allow you to vault/slide over fences and tables make chases and running away much smoother than before, and distractions like worrying about having to shove people away is handled automatically now. Also new is the ability to climb trees, because while Assassins if the past could stick to anything sticking out a few inches, trees made their head spin. It's surprisingly intuitive and blends together with the regular old building free-running well. Also, it's really fuckin fast.
It's not just the mechanical changes that won me over. Conner's life as a boy changed by tragedy, growing up in an increasingly hostile world, and naively clinging to the ideals of the people and organizations older than him is a relatable starting point. It's when these elements all twist together that the story becomes compelling. The portrayal of the Templars as an organization with similar ideals to the Assassin's but different methodologies is a central to Conner's crisis of conscience, his father being the catalyst. They're far from the one-dimensional villains of Ezio's time, and coupled with the betrayal of Conner's faith in George Washington, you get some serious depth that the series hasn't seen in a while, maybe ever.
Assassin's Creed 3 is maybe the bleakest Assassin's Creed yet. By the epilogue, the rebels and British are less distinct than idealistic Conner initially thought, especially when it comes to the plight of the natives; the Templar plot is ended but their conviction and reach is made clear; and the Assassins are a tired few desperately trying to do what they see as right. It's a real fuckin downer.
Unfortunately before the epilogue, the game throws away practically everything that it had built up in the game. Even more so with the Desmond stuff, which was built up over the entire franchise. It's completely fucking baffling how everything falls apart as it does. It's like someone locked the writer's room and announced "FUCK IT THEY JUST FIGHT AND THEN YOU KILL THE OTHER GUY TOO AND THEN YOU GO AND KEEP THE FRANCHISE GOING".
Speaking of the Desmond stuff, all the more frustrating is how the game actually delivered on the modern day missions! Scaling a skyscraper, infiltrating an arena, and storming Abstergo are all very satisfying. Especially when you get to enemies that straight up use guns instead of the goofy extendos from Assassin's Creed 2. It gives you a lot of what you wanted from a fully modern Assassin's game, while showing you why a fully modern Assassin's game probably wouldn't work anyways.
Ugh. They didn't just drop the ball at the end, they shot it and shocked it and burned it and scattered its ashes to the sea. Thankfully that doesn't take away from the parts I did like (everything else), despite what that analogy suggests. Oh hey, and fuckin BOATS. That shit was totally fuckin rad.
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OK, so running around, jumping around, that's all good and fun. It's also very funny, really well written, all that. I expected as much. But what I didn't expect was that they would manage to make me genuinely care about these crazy assholes. There are arcs! Compelling arcs! Pathos! Peeling back another layer of the onion that is Saints Row. Can't wait to see what they do next!
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This game is fucking gorgeous. It's also a world I don't want to know more about. It's weird, but I like it more as a small window into a strange whale-blubber driven world of mystical assassins and ancient forces, kind of like the Outsider is a small window into the strange ancient forces in the game. It's already so entertaining and all the more intriguing with its mystique intact.
The Deus Ex-style choose your own gameplay doesn't hurt it either. Also did I mention it's really fuckin gorgeous? It reminds me of Bioshock Infinite, but more of a grim eastern european cartoon instead of Disney.
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Cyberpunk RPG XCOM. No further elucidation required.
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Dota 2 is an interesting beast. It's not as immediately satisfying like a Battlefield or other multiplayer game, but doesn't require a huge time investment like in an MMO to reap from your progression. Each match you start at level 1, levelling and gearing up on the way. While you can get that rewarding rush from putting the work in, it also means that if that match goes to shit because someone leaves, you've wasted a good 30 minutes. But that's just MOBAs in general.
Dota 2 is the one particular MOBA I got into, and boy did I. I'm sure 200+ hours is pennies in the genre, but that a lot of time for me. The things that kept me coming back were the interesting heroes and their dynamic with each other and that oh so satisfying end game and the times that shit pops off immediately. I guess that's all MOBAs in general too.
Anyways, at some point it plateaud for me. The highs were never so high that I just had to keep playing despite the occasional shit-show, nor was the journey so exciting to counteract that feeling that I was wasting time when shit did go bad.
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You don't just shoot dudes and blow shit up, you shoot LOTS of duders and blow all manner of vehicles up. It's really somethin else when dumb shit happens in this game though. There's a special kind of ridiculous when you see a chopper barrel roll into a building when it all looks super realistic and gritty. And it's hard to top when the stupid shit you do inadvertently turns into crazy kill streaks or squad wipes and such.
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Holy hell, I ain't just pulling a last year game, I'm going 3 years back! Sure, it wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but it's a great time period I can't quite get enough of. Good characters, a few interesting plot turns, decent gunplay and driving, a good ending. All around a good game. There's a complete lack of side-activities, but in a genre that's filled with races and other such bullshit side-activities, I don't mind.
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