Having said that, here's a bunch of text on a bunch of stuff that I played this year, and I'm making all of this up as I go which may potentially force me to recall memories of games I didn't actually play. You've been warned.
GAMES THAT I ACTUALLY DID BUY AND PLAYED A LOT OF AND REALLY SORT OF LIKE (Or my Top 5 of 2013 if you're boring and lame and don't put sugar on your Shredded Wheat)
The Last of Us - If you're a regular reader (and please get in touch if you are because I would LOVE to have regular readers) then you know I have a lot of problems with this game...or rather, the reaction to this game. This is one of those games that has the worst kind of fanboy, the ART fanboy, who claim to love it because it's too wonderful and perfect not to as opposed to say, Sonic the Hedgehog fanboys, who love it because they're mentally and/or biologically 12 years old and get weird confused feelings whenever they watch Space Jam and that creepy girl bunny shows up. People who love The Last of Us are the sort of people who get snippy and correct you if you refer to it as a "zombie game" because it's THE INFECTED, IDIOT because they're actually convinced that it makes a remote difference and is more ART that way.
Drooling fanboys and the frankly embarrassing "The Last of Us is perfect interactive entertainment/made me cry etc." articles gush parade aside, there's no taking away from the fact that The Last of Us is one of the best games of the year, that's basically not debatable. Maybe I do have to concede that such a story and strong writing heavy video game being such a smash hit is good for the industry in general even if I do think it didn't mix that with the gameplay as well and it ought to.
I have an unpublished second (maybe it's a third? I don't even remember anymore) review of this game sitting on my harddrive, I might put it up in the New Year sometime or I might just let Naughty Dog have their victory for their hard work and let it go. Also, I played the multiplayer for the first time recently and I unironically think that that's really good.
Metal Gear Rising - Platinum Games really are the internet darlings of the mainstream gaming scene, their games aren't necessarily lacking in quality as such but....eh, their products still have a long way to go. Bayonetta, Vanquish and Metal Gear Rising are three games that could (and perhaps should) circle on the borders of perfection but all have really stupid flaws that almost knock them out of the echelon of "good" entirely.
As far as Rising is concerned, the dreadful story, pointless talky sections, repetitive boss battles, limited level design and bizarrely out of place and flat out dumb stealth mechanics all hold back what is otherwise an excellent (if really short (No! This is the praise part of the paragraph shut up (man, it's comfy inside these brackets))) production built around a satisfying and strong central mechanic of parrying and swordplay. If you love this game then great, I had a lot of fun with it too, but don't get bitchy when people point out it could have been a lot better and Platinum Games aren't fallen angels of game design, because it could have been a lot better.
As far as Rising is concerned, the dreadful story, pointless talky sections, repetitive boss battles, limited level design and bizarrely out of place and flat out dumb stealth mechanics all hold back what is otherwise an excellent (if really short (No! This is the praise part of the paragraph shut up (man, it's comfy inside these brackets))) production built around a satisfying and strong central mechanic of parrying and swordplay. If you love this game then great, I had a lot of fun with it too, but don't get bitchy when people point out it could have been a lot better and Platinum Games aren't fallen angels of game design, because it could have been a lot better.
Completely off topic: Thinking about Platinum Games out of control reputation, the same sort of thing happened with Rare in the 90s. Is this just a result of companies getting great feedback on early mediocre titles and then stagnating or something? By the way, if you haven't caught on yet, I'm saying (most) Rare games suck. Come at me bro.
Mighty Switch Force 2 -
The game is pretty good too.
Grand Theft Auto V - Rockstar games are always a pain to review because on the one hand they're usually a mess of tutorials and unpolished gameplay mechanics wrapped in a tightly written immersion bubble. It wasn't even that well written this time, the story is pretty much a mess too all things considered, but the series got a bit more colourful again after the depression parade of the fourth game and fun was once again possible.
I don't even know what I liked about GTAV that much, all I know is it stole about 2 weeks of my life and refused to give them back, games just don't do that me my non-existent attention span fights off that constantly in my adulthood, but still the last week of September and first week of October are but a blur.
This would have had a shot at being my Game of the Year if the online had a proper matchmaking system that didn't eat its own farts and actually ALLOWED ME TO PLAY THE GAME WITH OTHER PEOPLE. There's still time to fix that Rockstar, I'd jump back on that tomorrow if you announced you were changing that, maybe I'll even retroactively give you the GOTY Award. Actually, screw that, because there's no way I'm taking it away from...
The Stanley Parable - These five aren't in any particular order, but THIS is absolutely my Game of the Year. I'll keep things brief because I already did a full review of the game on this site, but long story short I adore this game for expressing and making me laugh at all my frustrations with modern video game narratives. One of the reasons why I feel less bitter towards The Last Of Us and was mature enough to put it on this list like it rightfully deserves is because The Stanley Parable flushed the bitterness out of me towards that game. Anyone who finds themselves rolling their eyes at current videogame "storytelling" HAS to play this game.
RAMBLINGS ON OTHER GAMES I PLAYED THIS YEAR
Sonic Lost Worlds - Played two levels of it at a con, was slow as hell, didn't control that great, didn't really have any fun with it. Got a lot of dirty looks from Nintendo employees when I started sniggering at the guy playing the demo before me jumped at the wrong time into a setpiece section of a level, which screwed the game up and the setpiece ended up shooting Sonic backwards through a series of springs and whatever was going on, forcing the guy to run into it again and watch the exact same thing happen in reverse. Probably isn't terrible, but certainly doesn't look any good either. Won't be buying this any time soon (ever).
Sonic Lost Worlds - Played two levels of it at a con, was slow as hell, didn't control that great, didn't really have any fun with it. Got a lot of dirty looks from Nintendo employees when I started sniggering at the guy playing the demo before me jumped at the wrong time into a setpiece section of a level, which screwed the game up and the setpiece ended up shooting Sonic backwards through a series of springs and whatever was going on, forcing the guy to run into it again and watch the exact same thing happen in reverse. Probably isn't terrible, but certainly doesn't look any good either. Won't be buying this any time soon (ever).
Ace Attorney Dual Destinies - Also did a review of this one on this very site, but I can't be bothered to get the link this time. You're a big boy go find it yourself. I'm a fan of the series so I had fun with it, it's just severely lacking in legitimate character and it makes up for that with lame, LAME fan service. I could write a "Why Sonic Sucks" length essay on why Phoenix Wright shouldn't have been the main character of this game.
The fifth case especially suffers for the decision, it's basically revealed that two characters are strongly linked together but there's no drama to it, there's no development or tension, it's just "oh this happened and X and Y were strongly affected", and then for some reason Phoenix Wright is THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SOLVE THIS even though he's only tangentially related to anything going on and it's...it's just weak. I understand why they brought Phoenix Wright back from a franchise/business point of view, but this story does not work with him in the lead role as well as it could of, needed a rewrite/DIFFERENT F'N STORY.
Beyond: Two Souls - This "game" is awful. It's awful. It's hilariously awful. Almost too awful to be hilarious, and in some ways it is, but you have to laugh at it, it's the only way to survive it. Some twats have claimed that "oh yea, the gameplay sucks but the story is AMAZING", they're lying. The story jumps around to try and convince you that ART is happening, but in all honesty it's probably just there to distract you from the amount of near rape scenes/boredom/flat out nothing/randomness going on. It sucks, and its ending that implies a possible sequel and strange moral of "if you miss your family, kill yourself an go hang out with them in the Infraworld!" (seriously what?) can piss off. Worst game of the year.
Bioshock Infinite - I HAVEN'T PLAYED IT. The exact same thing has happened with the first Bioshock, it hit, a million people claimed it was the best game ever. A month later, a million other people countered those million people and claimed it to be the worst game ever. Now my general perception of it is "meh" and I can't be bothered with it. It's probably okay.
Super Mario 3D World - I haven't played much of this yet, but I've played one level of it in four player mode and that's enough to tell you that the four player mode is garbage. Maybe it would potentially be fun if you were playing with four people of equal skill...which would never happen, but as stands all that ever happens is either you'll fall behind and get teleported through the level, or run ahead barely able to see what you're doing and teleport other people to you. Nintendo need to stop putting focus on local multiplayer for Mario games, all that happens is it turns into a big troll off which might be fun for a bit but gets real old real fast. Play it alone, like I do everything.
Dragon's Crown - Listen to me nostalgia blinded 90s kids and games industry, the traditional side scrolling beat-em up genre died because it's monotonous and stupid, it's not some tragically lost genre. Games like Castle Crashers do well because they add stuff to ignite the formula and make it interesting, any game that comes out playing like a pretty looking Golden Axe is still going to suck as much as Golden Axe does and possibly always did. Maybe this is fun with friends, but it's basically a button bashing monotonous side scroller like MOST OF THEM but as an added bonus you get to sit through boring Flash Dating Simesque story segments, micro manage all your equipment and pretend it's an RPG! It is pretty though, and about 10 billion times better than Double Dragon: Neon so I'll give it a pass for weirdos who like this sort of thing.
There's probably some other stuff that came out this year that I played enough to talk about, but I'm hungry. So...ermm....until next year!...eh...
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