Games I Liked In 2014
These are the games I liked the most in 2014. It is incomplete and in no particular order.
List items
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The worst thing about Transistor for me was that there wasn't more of it. I wish the world had been expanded upon a bit more and the narration wasn't as good as Bastion, but the world, visuals, combat, and music all worked together to make a game that I felt was pretty special.
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I love Mario Kart, but only enough to play every third game or so in the series. MK8 doesn't do anything extraordinarily new, but the new tracks are fantastic, it looks incredible, and the 12-player online races are virtually flawless. With the addition of Zelda, Excitebike, and F-Zero themed tracks and characters in the first DLC pack, it got even better. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best game in the series.
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The Wii U version, to be specific. Like Mario Kart 8, it's just another iteration on a formula that's worked for a long time, but it's exceptionally well-produced and still so damn fun. The Final Destination versions of each stage are brilliant and Little Mac rules. Plus, the online play works more often than not.
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I have a complicated relationship with Destiny. I played several dozen hours of it and fully immersed myself in its confusing, grindy endgame, often enjoying myself despite all of its problems. However, at the time of this writing, I sort of never want to play Destiny again, even with the DLC. I can still see the great potential in Destiny, but it'll be a while before it's fully realized.
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Child of Light isn't an especially deep turn-based RPG, but it has an amazing look and I hope Ubisoft continues to experiment with smaller games like this. Just as long as they don't have dialogue written entirely in awkward rhyme.
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Another one of Ubisoft's small-team efforts, Valiant Hearts tells the story of World War I using a gorgeous and charming cartoon style. Its depiction of certain people and events could be better, and the nurse's quick-time event minigame is awful, but Valiant Hearts ended up being a pleasant surprise for me. The ending, in particular, was a high note.
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I actually haven't played very much of Hohokum yet, and I don't really know what's going on when I do, but it's whimsical, colorful, and lowkey enough to be really enjoyable.
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The side content was disappointingly bare, but it was another Infamous game and those are pretty fun. It's also nice for a AAA game to have a non-stereotypical Native American protagonist, though the merits of other aspects of his depiction (such as belonging to a fictional tribe) are debatable.
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Not actually a 2014 release but I didn't play it until this year. This game is flat-out awesome and smartly combines roguelike elements with RPG persistence. I put in 30+ hours and unlocked everything, which I rarely do.
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I've spent more hours than I'm willing to admit speedrunning Mega Man games and watching Mega Man speedruns. Those games hold up so much better than most from that era and the good ones are among the best games ever. Shovel Knight panders to nostalgia without being insufferable about it, has an excellent soundtrack, and modernizes the Mega Man/Ducktales/Castlevania formula in some great ways.
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This was a really good winter break game. There was a period of 5-6 days where I had nothing else to do, so I just played Dragon Age nonstop. In the end, I put in about 60 hours and greatly enjoyed most of that. The main story is pretty generic, and the lore isn't nearly as interesting as Mass Effect, but it's really hard to put down once you pick it up. It gets point for having a trans character, too, even though he should've been fleshed out more.
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A game that really had no right to be any good. It does stealth exceptionally well despite having no see-through-walls superpowers, the shooting is solid, and the story miraculously manages to humanize BJ. It's not an amazing game by any means, but it's well worth playing.
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If this list was ordered in any way, this would probably be at the top. Whether you think it's feminist or not (I see both arguments there), the mechanics are excellent, the spectacle is unmatched, and its style can only be described as fabulous. Nintendo should just throw money at Platinum Games from now on.
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I'm not a Call of Duty guy by any means. I liked a couple of the games when I was younger, but I got older and got burned out on shooters. Advanced Warfare has a lot of the same thematic issues as any other game in the series, but the campaign is at least a nice-looking rollercoaster ride and the multiplayer is a great deal of fun. The added mobility completely changes the game in ways that I really enjoy.
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This is an old-ass game at this point, but I've never played a Diablo game until the PS4 version of III. I definitely see the appeal now. It's a sharply refined endorphin releasing mechanism that's giving you new stuff every minute or two and absolutely nothing about it is inconvenient in any way. There might not be much artistic merit to a game that is little more than a vehicle for constantly rewarding the player for insignificant actions, but god damn if it isn't enjoyable.
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