1: I finished the Forza Horizon 2 Finale race last night. I’ve apparently still got more to do, as the credits didn’t roll, but that was the big one. If I were still keeping track of Achievements, and if I still had a category for “Favorite Achievement of the Year”, I suspect the 50 points I picked up for winning that 20-minute gauntlet would rank right up there with anything else I did this year. After soaking in that victory for a bit, I then headed over to race in Storm Island, and WHOA, that shit is crazy. Extreme weather, terrain, lighting and visibility – total madness, a complete 180 from the relatively calm and serene mainland campaign. I’m not sure what the rest of the island is like, but that first race makes one hell of a first impression, and it shakes up the already-excellent formula enough to make it worth spending some more time in.
2: I hemmed and hawed about whether or not I should buy it; I’d already sunk in a fair amount of time, and felt like I’d seen what I needed to see even if I only got halfway through…. but I also felt like I needed to finish it for real. And so, in the end, Alien Isolation was on sale for $30 on PSN, and I picked it up, and it remembered my last save point from October. So that’s something to look forward to.
3: I want to join the chorus in wishing Patrick Klepek the best of luck in his future endeavors. His is a necessary, vital voice in this business, and I can’t wait to see what he does next. On a purely personal level, he’s also single-handedly responsible for the biggest spike in traffic this site’s ever gotten (scroll down to #3), and so if nothing else I’m indebted to him for keeping this site visible, however marginally that visibility may be.
Pop Culture Consumption Resolutions for 2015:
No more pre-ordering. As you’ll see below, my “must-have” list of games for 2015 is relatively small, and given what we’ve been through in 2014 with nearly every significant AAA release bogged down by serious issues on release day, I don’t necessarily have any faith that these future releases will be released in an acceptable shape. I can wait; I can rent.
Along those lines, I’m going to try and beef up my commentary skills this year. Maybe I’m being overly hard on myself, but most of my analysis is pretty superficial, and doesn’t necessarily get to the core of what’s actually going on. Even this Cameron Kunzelman piece about how he doesn’t know how to describe Super Time Force Ultra still explains more about his experience playing it than I do on an average day. I’m always aiming to be a better writer, but now I think I have a better idea of what “being a better writer” actually means (for the purposes of this blog, at least).
The backlogs are getting dealt with. And if it means that I’m going to start keeping widgets on the sidebar to further shame myself into finishing stuff that needs finishing, then that’s what it means.
As far as my PC goes, I’m rapidly approaching the point where it’s not really capable of performing on par with my PS4 and XB1, but I still have a frighteningly large backlog to address on Steam that it can handle, and I’m gonna have to deal with that at some point.
And I still have a bunch of games on my PS4 that I haven’t finished – Shadow of Mordor and Far Cry 4 perhaps being the largest omissions, though there’s also Transistor, Valiant Hearts, and Oddworld New & Tasty. (And also Sunset Overdrive on the XB1.)
Regarding my Kindle backlog – I’m cutting myself off and not buying any more books until I finish my to-read pile, which at this point is probably 20+ titles deep. (I did end up buying the Your Face Tomorrow trilogy, but that’s it.)
I also further resolve to SPEAK UP and SPEAK OUT when stupid bullshit is happening out there in the world. I can’t call myself an ally if I’m not doing anything to back that up. I sincerely hope that 2015 provides less opportunities for shouting, but if it doesn’t, then I aim to shout as purposefully and effectively as I can.
Game Anticipations for 2015: (with special assistance from this handy Game Informer page)
* denotes a game that I’m not 100% convinced will be coming out in 2015
THE MUST-HAVES
Batman: Arkham Knight
No Man’s Sky
Witcher 3
Uncharted 4 *
Rise of the Tomb Raider *
Firewatch *
Superhot
Below
THE RENTALS, AT THE VERY LEAST
PGA Tour Golf (EA’s first without Tiger, after a year-long hiatus)
Crackdown 3 *
Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture
Final Fantasy XV *
Mad Max *
Inside (from the makers of Limbo)
THE CURIOSITIES
The Order 1886
Bloodborne
Halo 5
Star Wars Battlefront
Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain
Silent Hills *
Here’s hoping we all have a safe and happy New Year’s, and may 2015 be everything that 2014 wasn’t. Cheers.
Say what you will about e-books versus the real thing; I acquired a Kindle out of necessity because my wife and I simply ran out of apartment space. Much as the iPod replaced my CD collection, the Kindle replaced my hardcover collection; I still read/listen as much as I ever did, and my apartment is a lot less claustrophobic as a result.
It took me a long time to allow myself to mark up the pages of a book, to underline, to highlight. Dog-earing a page was as rough as I’d allow myself to be; I’d always prefer to leave scraps of napkins as placeholders. And this sort of thing, even though it’s one of my favorite things on the internet, would be absolute blasphemy.
Anyway: I don’t know to what extent other e-readers do this, but Kindle’s highlighting feature is awesome, and I use it all the time, and even though it doesn’t do a terrific job of syncing highlights across my various Kindle-enabled devices*, it does collect everything online, and so I figured this would be as good a reason as any to share my favorite sentences from what I read this year.
In no particular order (although this is roughly in the order in which I read them):
from Lexicon, by Max Barry:
He’d basically fallen in love with her on the spot. Well, no, that wasn’t accurate; that implied a binary state, a shifting from not-love to love, remaining static thereafter, and what he’d done with Brontë was fall and fall, increasingly faster the closer they drew, like planets drawn to each other’s gravitational force. Doomed, he guessed, the same way.
from The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch:
“I know that the only woman with the key to that peculiar heart of yours is a thousand miles away. And I know you’d rather be miserable over her than happy with anyone else.”
– – –
“…the more we do this, the more I learn about what I think Chains was really training us for. And this is it. He wasn’t training us for a calm and orderly world where we could pick and choose when we needed to be clever. He was training us for a situation that was fucked up on all sides. Well, we’re in it, and I say we’re equal to it. I don’t need to be reminded that we’re up to our heads in dark water. I just want you boys to remember that we’re the gods-damned sharks.”
from The Secret Place, by Tana French:
“…People are complicated. When you’re a little kid, you don’t realize, you think people are just one thing; but then you get older, and you realize it’s not that simple. Chris wasn’t that simple. He was cruel and he was kind. And he didn’t like realizing that. It bothered him, that he wasn’t just one thing. I think it made him feel . . .” She drifted for long enough that I wondered if she’d left the sentence behind, but Conway kept waiting. In the end, Selena said, “It made him feel fragile. Like he could break into pieces any time, because he didn’t know how to hold himself together. That was why he did that with those other girls, went with them and kept it secret: so he could try out being different things and see how it felt, and he’d be safe. He could be as lovely as he wanted or as horrible as he wanted, and it wouldn’t count, because no one else would ever know. I thought, at first, maybe I could show him how to hold the different bits together; how he could be OK. But it didn’t work out that way.”
from Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, by David Shafer:
There is a club for these people, the people who have waited outside the burning houses knowing that they will not go back in and knowing that the not-going-back-in will ruin them.
– – –
How long do you think a weak-minded addict will stay on the shelf? Because that day you walked in? That day I saw you? I swear, my heart slowed and my breath came easier. All that rabbiting I do—it just stopped. Not stopped by like magic, but stopped with reason. You are as strange and amazing as anything my stupid little brain has ever come up with, and you are from outside of it. You have no idea what great news that is. And I’m going to lift some copy here, but there is a time for everything, that day and night here you were the still point of the turning world, and I knew for sure that I had a place in it. That place is next to you.
…
I really am quite sure that there is something we’re supposed to do together, that there is more that is supposed to go on between us. Aren’t you? Isn’t there a held breath in your life right now? I’ve missed a few boats already, and I really don’t want to miss this one too. I realize that in that metaphor or analogy or whatever, you are a boat. That doesn’t really quite get what I mean, because I am also a boat. We are both boats and we are both passengers. We should not miss each other.
from Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle:
Grandma stayed on alone in the giant house where my dad and his brothers had grown up. When, eventually, the climb up the stairs got to be too much, she moved downstairs, and the second floor became an accidental museum commemorating the last day anybody’d lived there.
from The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell (almost too many to count, really):
I consider how you don’t get to choose whom you’re attracted to, you only get to wonder about it, retrospectively.
– – –
She walks as if distrustful of floors, and sits down as if she’s had some bad experiences with chairs, too.
from Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer:
He wasn’t sure he knew the difference anymore between what he was meant to find and what he’d dug up on his own.
from Acceptance, by Jeff VanderMeer:
But, in truth, standing there with Lowry, looking out across his domain through a long plate of tinted glass, you feel more as if you’re staring at a movie set: a collection of objects that without the animation of Lowry’s paranoia and fear, his projection of a story upon them, are inert and pathetic. No, not even a movie set, you realize. More like a seaside carnival in the winter, in the off-season, when even the beach is a poem about loneliness.
– – –
Over time your memory of your mother faded, in the way of not knowing if an image or moment was something you’d experienced or seen going through the photographs your dad kept in a shoe box in the closet.
– – –
Writing, for me, is like trying to restart an engine that has rested for years, silent and rusting, in an empty lot—choked with water and dirt, infiltrated by ants and spiders and cockroaches. Vines and weeds shoved into it and sprouting out of it. A kind of coughing splutter, an eruption of leaves and dust, a voice that sounds a little like mine but is not the same as it was before; I use my actual voice rarely enough.
from The Confabulist, by Steven Galloway:
It’s inexplicable what causes a person to love someone. It is a feeling so irrational that it allows you to believe that the person you love has qualities they don’t actually possess. And when someone loves you back, it’s nearly impossible not to feel you must never let them see what you are really like, because you know deep inside that you are not worthy of their love.
– – –
We talked in a roundabout way about nothing in particular: school, people we knew, things we liked and didn’t like. It was the sort of conversation people who haven’t known each other long but understand they will have many more conversations have, uncomplicated and almost lazy but also anticipatory.
– – –
Being a parent is a monumental thing. You shape reality for another person. You cannot be an illusion. You cannot be paralyzed by the fear that you are an illusion. If you have done a bad job, or no job at all, what remains of you is proof that the world is an unfeeling place. If you have done a good job, what remains is the part of you that was magical.
from Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel:
No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.
– – –
He found he was a man who repented almost everything, regrets crowding in around him like moths to a light.
from The Book of Strange New Things, by Michel Faber:
There was a red button on the wall labeled EMERGENCY, but no button labeled BEWILDERMENT.
– – –
He walked with increasing pace, turned corners with increasing resolution, and was met each time with the same rectangular passageways and rows of identical doors. In a place like this, you couldn’t even be sure if you were lost.
* I hate to sound like an Amazon infomercial, but: I just picked up the new Kindle Voyage, and it’s pretty fabulous. But it didn’t save the highlights I’d saved on my Paperwhite, and the Paperwhite didn’t save anything that I’d featured on my 2nd-gen Kindle, and none of them save anything I might’ve noted on my iPhone or iPad.
It’s all over. At just over 50 hours, and with still tons more side-stuff to do, I have finished the Dragon Age Inquisition campaign.
If you want the short version: it’s very good. It’s the best BioWare console experience I’ve had since Mass Effect 2, that’s for sure. Is it my Game of the Year? That’s a tougher question. I stand by its inclusion in my top 5, but I don’t know that it was the “best thing I played all year.”
For one thing, even though it ran pretty smoothly for me, there were a handful of times when the game locked up and crashed on me – including the literal moment before the final battle started, which meant I had to re-load the game and go through the opening cutscenes again, wondering if I’d lost any progress (since I hadn’t done a hard save before I started the mission).
And honestly? I’m kinda glad it’s over, because holy shit it’s been a while since I sunk that much time into a game; even if, at the same time, it’s been a long time since I played a game that I enjoyed for that long without getting bored. Sure, some things are tedious; I read the subtitles quicker than the voice actors say their lines; towards the end I opted to fast-travel instead of walk, because I don’t particularly care to inspect every single goddamned inch and harvest every single goddamned herb and mineral; but what would an RPG be if not slightly tedious at times? The overall experience was far more enjoyable than any moment-to-moment tedium.
What to do now? There’s something freeing about finishing a massive game like DAI; it’s like finally finishing a huge book, where you’re kinda sad to see it go, but also glad that you can move on to something new – or just take a little break altogether, now that you’re not shackled to anything in particular.
I may go back and finish some of DAI’s side-stuff – there are still a large number of small quests I never finished, and plenty of places I never fully explored, and that stuff can be dealt with in short bursts.
I may go back to Forza Horizon 2 (henceforth, “Forizon 2”) and might even get that new DLC island.
I may dip my toes back into Far Cry 4, or also Shadow of Mordor, and if Sony puts Alien Isolation on sale, I might buy it and try to finish it.
One thing I’m not going to do, though, is finish Assassin’s Creed Unity. I gave it a quick go yesterday afternoon, once the latest patch was installed, and the simple fact that it took me almost 3 minutes of staring at the map to figure out where the hell the next story mission was located was all I needed to say, “I don’t have time for this shit.”
Speaking of which, one of the categories in my GOTY post that I didn’t get to this year was “A Once-Favorite Franchise That I’m More Or Less Ready To Give Up On”, and it should go without saying that the winner of that particular category would be Assassin’s Creed. I’m done. I don’t care about next year’s installment; I don’t believe it will fix the things that need fixing, nor do I have faith that it will be shipped in a working state. And considering the current state of Ubisoft game design, why should I bother playing an Assassins Creed game when I could play Far Cry 5, or Watch Dogs 2, or whatever else they decide to rush out the door?
And speaking of the GOTY post, three other notable omissions:
1. In the “Did Not Get To” pile, the biggest name on that list is Kentucky Route Zero. I’ve been meaning to sit down and give KRZ a serious go for basically the whole year, and for whatever reason I never found myself in the right frame of mind and with enough time to give each episode a proper go. (“Right frame of mind” doesn’t necessarily imply a state of sobriety, mind you; it simply means being open and un-distracted for a different sort of pace.) I’ve heard nothing about raves about both Episode 3 and a Side Story thing, and I need to get on this soon.
2. Also in the “Did Not Get To” pile, but with the caveat that I simply hadn’t bought it yet, is Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris. I was a big fan of the first game, and this appears to be more of the same; I just haven’t gotten around to pulling the trigger yet.
3. I did end up playing the first 10 minutes of Danganronpa over the weekend, which is (obviously) not nearly enough time to figure out just what the hell is going on. I would like to give it at least an hour or so to figure it out, and then decide whether I should push on with it or send it back. I don’t necessarily regret buying the Vita, but I never have a proper opportunity to play it, and, so, there it is.
For the first time in a long time, I find myself unable to fill out a top 10 list. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there weren’t 10 games worthy of consideration – we’ll get to what I didn’t play in a bit – but it means that, of the approximately 60 games I did play this year, I only really genuinely liked a small handful, and it feels weird to round out a list with stuff I didn’t care for.
And even if I still felt compelled to get to the magic number 10, then I’d have to get over my weird feelings about including games that I already played last year, but with more pixels per inch or whatever. For example: I think the PS4 versions of both The Last of Us and Diablo 3 are the definitive editions of both games, and my experience with both of them radically changed the way I’d previously viewed them, but… I’ve always tried to keep these posts focused on new games, and I can’t rightly call either of those two games “new”.
And this isn’t even taking into account stuff like P.T., which I don’t even know how to classify. It’s a teaser for a new Silent Hill game, but it’s also an unsettling and thoroughly creepy experience in its own right, but as a game in and of itself, it’s awfully clumsy… I didn’t play anything like it all year, but does it belong in a Top 10 list?
All this navel-gazing is a bit meaningless, though. Because when I look back on 2014 in a few years, I’m not going to remember any of this stuff. I’m going to look at this year and think of two things: (1) overhyped, broken blockbusters, and (2) Gamergate.
Regarding (1): I’m not a developer, but I get it. I get that 2014 was a transitional year in terms of new hardware and developers were trying to develop for two different console generations, which means four different systems (five if you count the Wii U, and most developers didn’t), and getting shit to work is tough. But I am a consumer, and I spent a lot of money on games (and game systems) this year, and most of what I played required rather sizable day one patches before I could start playing, and even then some of the games still didn’t work. As of 12/18, Assassin’s Creed Unity’s fourth significant patch has been released, weighing in at 6.7GB – although due to an error, the Xbox One version makes you re-download the entire 40+GB game; the multiplayer component of Halo Master Chief Collection, arguably the primary reason for this thing to exist in the first place is apparently still broken; and the PS+ edition of Driveclubmay not ever come out.
Regarding (2): I can’t even. Nor will I pretend to be a good enough writer to articulate just how thoroughly disgusted and embarrassed I am to be a member of a community that allows this sort of thing to happen. I am ashamed of myself that I didn’t do more to stop it. I attempt to justify my inaction by saying that I’m not a good enough writer, that I have a very small audience at my blog, and less than 200 followers on Twitter: I scream into a gaping void. These “shouts from the couch” are just a miniscule part of the collective, deafening noise. But that’s no excuse. In this era of hashtag activism, I need to do more than simply RT someone else’s hard work. I’m putting it upon myself to be more aware of these issues, to be more proactive in speaking out against it, and to be more supportive of the people whose lives are being turned upside down because of it.
Let me switch gears here for a moment, because this is all going to fall apart pretty quickly if I don’t. Despite all the ugliness above, 2014 was a significantly positive year for me as a writer. I got a piece featured in Unwinnable, which totally made my day; I put in some time at Gamemoir and hit the biggest traffic numbers I’ve ever gotten in my life; and I got a piece in Videodame, which subsequently got featured on Critical Distance – not a Blogs of the Round Table, but an actual honest-to-goodness weekly roundup.
I may still be a long ways off from being as good of a writer as I want to be, and considering the current state of the game journo industry it is probably very unlikely that I will ever be able to do it full-time, but I’m still here, and I’m trying to get better, and considering how many times over the last 2-3 years that I’ve considered folding up shop and walking away from the scene entirely, I guess that’s a good thing.
As far as actual gaming is concerned:
Last year I was something of a PC hermit, but this year I officially joined the new console generation. I filled up my PS4’s hard drive; I bought a PS Vita during a moment of weakness and ended up loving the hell out of it (even if I don’t play it as much as I’d like); I went from being an Xbox One skeptic to a rather happy Xbox One owner.
My PS3 is currently in my bedroom where it ostensibly functions as a blu-ray player and a backup in case that TV’s Roku stops working, and my 360 is, sadly, no longer with us.
Regarding Nintendo: my 3DS has been collecting dust all year, and I still have no desire to get a Wii U, Bayonetta 2 notwithstanding.
THE RAW DATA:
My spreadsheet is a bit of a mess compared to past years, but it looks like I played 62 games between console, PC and handheld (Vita/3DS), and I finished 15 of them. (I should’ve kept better track of what I played on my iPhone, but, alas, I didn’t.)
“Finishing” is, as always, a nebulous term; the only game I can claim to have finished to 100% completion is Infamous Second Son, and even then I didn’t play the DLC. So let’s say I saw the credits roll 15 times. I’ve put 40+ hours into Dragon Age Inquisition but haven’t yet finished it (as of 12/18), and I’d sunk 10-20 hours into Forza Horizon 2 before I got sucked into DAI. That’s a significant amount of time to develop opinions on games I haven’t finished, all things considered.
I’ve often thought that games are weird, in that I can have these sorts of statistics to throw around. When it comes to books, I finish at least 90% of what I start, and the remaining 10% is usually put down at the very beginning – I know pretty much right away if I’m going to remain engaged with something. But with games? I put a solid 10-12 hours into Alien Isolation before sending it back; I loved a lot about that game, but it would appear that I hit my final rage-quit moment at about the halfway point, which means there’s still at least 10 more hours to go.
More significantly, though, there are also 28 games that I’d consider “notable” that I did not play, at all; and I’d also say that of the 62 games I did play, there’s quite a few that I simply did not spend enough time with, either because I got distracted by something else, or because I bought a whole bunch of games during a Steam Sale without getting a chance to play any of them, or simply that the game in question just wasn’t clicking for me. (Speaking of which – as I type these words, the latest holiday Steam Sale has gone live. Goddammit.)
In the final analysis, I’m not sure I felt engaged with anything this year. I got sucked into a fair share of games, and I was pleasantly surprised more than a few times, and I probably spent more money on games and hardware this year than in any other… but I can’t say I fell in love with anything.
I guess I should start this thing already.
The Year In Achievements: After obsessively tracking my Achievement progress for the last 6 years or so, I’ve decided to formally retire this category for several reasons. Firstly, there was an 8-9 month gap between finishing South Park on the 360 and starting Sunset Overdrive and Forza Horizon 2 on the XBO, so the number is pitifully small. Secondly, spending 8-9 months with the PS4’s Trophy system pretty much rendered the entire purpose irrelevant; as much as I’ve enjoyed my PS4 experience, Trophies remain meaningless. Finally, the PS4 is probably going to remain my primary console for the foreseeable future, so tracking my Achievement progress kinda feels like a waste of time. All this being said, I have to admit that unlocking Achievements on the Xbox One is still a cool sensation, and the XBO’s Achievement tracking panel is really well done. It’s not important enough any more for me to play multi-platform games on the XBO, but it’s still a pleasant feeling.
Kickstarters Funded:
Unwinnable Magazine
Treachery in Beatdown City
Superhot
Sunset
Epanalepsis
Elegy for a Dead World
Favorite Weekly Features: In a year filled with mean-spirited misery at every turn, there were two always-reliable (and very different) features that put a smile on my face every time:
Watch Dogs: There’s a tremendous amount of stuff to dislike and/or actively hate in Watch Dogs, but using the phone hacking device to eliminate a gang hideout without ever firing a bullet is the best thing that game has going for it.
Desert Golfing: getting a hole-in-one after shanking a +20.
Alien Isolation: any time I can get from point A to point B without being killed by the Alien is a win for me, basically. And yet maybe my favorite / most empowering moment came when I was backed into a corner, the Alien charging at me, and then I suddenly whipped out the flamethrower and startled it far enough away for me to successfully escape.
Games Where I Saw The Credits Roll:
Broken Age Part 1
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
Jazzpunk
South Park: Stick of Truth
MGS: Ground Zeroes
Infamous Second Son
Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea Ep. 2
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
Wolfenstein
Watch Dogs
Murdered: Soul Suspect
The Lego Movie Videogame
A Story About My Uncle
The Last of Us Remastered
Destiny (original campaign, up to level 20)
Did Not Finish, Would Like To Finish Someday:
Dragon Age Inquisition (because I’m still playing it)
Forza Horizon 2
Sunset Overdrive
Elegy for a Dead World
Final Fantasy X (Vita)
Transistor
Valiant Hearts
Oddworld New & Tasty
Will Probably Never Finish But Would At Least Like To Give Another Go:
Olli Olli
Lufttrausers
Mind: Path to Thalamus
The Talos Principle
Did Not Finish, Still Unsure About:
Far Cry 4
Assassin’s Creed Unity (I’m so close to the end, might as well try, but ugh)
Shadow of Mordor
Child of Light
Alien Isolation (debating whether to go back to it now that there’s a difficulty slider)
Did Not Finish, Will Never Finish:
Trials Fusion
Mario Golf: World Tour
Thief
Dark Souls II
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Vanishing of Ethan Carter (I was really looking forward to this one and finally bought it, and then found out that the main dev is a GamerGate supporter. It shouldn’t matter – the game has nothing to do with it – and yet it makes my teeth itch.)
Not My Bag:
Hearthstone (never made it out of the tutorial, I don’t think. CCGs just aren’t my thing.)
Games Played for 10 Minutes or Less:
Rune Factory 4 (3DS)
Sniper Elite III
Notable Games I Didn’t Play: As noted above, this is a rather sizable list. I’m only one man, a man with a day job and a small child to take care of. These things happen; please don’t think less of me.
Nidhogg
Shovel Knight (I think I heard there’s a Vita version coming? That’ll get fixed right away, then.)
Octodad
FF14
Professor Layton and Azran Legacy (first Layton game I’ve missed.)
Titanfall (didn’t own an XB1 until way too late for me to be any good at this.)
Elder Scrolls Online (dare I admit I’m still kinda curious about the console version?)
MLB 14: the Show
Super Time Force
Mario Kart 8
Forza 5
Divinity: Original Sin (might pick this up in the Steam Holiday Sale.)
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood
Plants v Zombies Garden Warfare (I did download the PS4 version for free a few weeks ago…)
Danganronpa (1, 2) (D1 is in my Vita as I write this, where it’s been for the last 2 weeks, and I still haven’t turned it on)
Hatoful Boyfriend
Disney Infinity Marvel
3DS Super Smash Bros.
Bayonetta 2
The Evil Within
Civilization: Beyond Earth (again, might pick this up in the Steam Holiday Sale)
Lords of the Fallen
D4
Assassin’s Creed Rogue
Little Big Planet 3
Captain Toad
Five Nights at Freddy’s
Never Alone (Definitely on my to-get-to list at some point.)
Best HD Remake: a category that we’re going to be seeing a bit more of, at least for the next few years. It’s not necesssarily the worst thing in the world; the developer gets to practice on the new console, and meanwhile the consumer gets to play a better version of something they might’ve missed the last time around. To that end, I really enjoyed The Last of Us on PS4, far more than I did on the PS3. The PS4 controller is such a better thing to hold in one’s hands, which made the gameplay far less frustrating to deal with; the photo mode was a ton of fun to play with; and the Left Behind DLC was absolutely gorgeous and beautiful and moving and important. (Carolyn Petit wrote about it quite fantastically in her 2014 GOTY post.)
For the record, I also considered:
Tomb Raider (worth it)
Diablo III (so much more enjoyable than on the PC, for some reason)
Final Fantasy X (only gave this a few hours)
Oddworld: New & Tasty (still need to finish this, but this is a pretty remarkable remake)
GTA V
Halo Anniversary
While we’re talking HD remakes…
A List of Possible HD Remasters I’d Be Interested In Checking Out, as long as this is a thing:
we already know about Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle
maybe we find out about Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus HD? has Oddworld released sales figures from New & Tasty, the results of which would determine such a thing?
I bet we see a Bioshock HD bundle as TakeTwo figures out what they want to do with the IP in the wake of Irrational’s closure
Mass Effect 1-3?
I still desperately want a Rockstar “Orange Box” with Red Dead, Max Payne 3 and L.A. Noire (and/or one of the Midnight Clubs)
now that Disney controls Lucasarts IP, might we see older, classic Star Wars games get HD’d, in the leadup to Episode 7?
God, how I’d love to get an HD Burnout Paradise
Most Notable Voice Performance: I don’t know that I can pinpoint a truly great voice performance this year, but I’m sure we can all agree that Peter Dinklage’s dialed-in, dead-eyed monotone for Destiny is certainly the most memorable, for all the wrong reasons. I still maintain, though, that it isn’t totally his fault.
Most Disappointing: In a year filled with one disappointment after another, it’s hard to even pick just one. I could probably round out a Top 10 of Biggest Disappointments far easier and quicker than I can my actual Top 10 Favorite Games of the Year. I had high hopes for Trials Fusion, the HD sequel to one of my favorite Xbox Live games, but it never quite felt as right in my hands as I wanted it to. I had especially high hopes for Mario Golf: World Tour, as I’m a huge fan of arcade golf games and would’ve loved any excuse to keep my 3DS with me at all times, but there was literally nothing to that game at all. But in the end, I have to hand this award to Watch Dogs, a game that not only failed to live up to its own excessive hype machine, but which was also profoundly stupid, terribly written, featured dumb characters in a lifeless city, and focused on all the wrong things. The phone hacking – while absurd – is the only thing that’s worth holding onto for the inevitable sequel, and even then I’m setting my expectations very, very low indeed.
Best Podcast: Hard to choose between them, so let me cop out:
Scoops and the Wolf
Idle Thumbs
Quality Control
Favorite Articles: I didn’t stay on top of this as much as I’d like, as especially towards the end of the year everything turned into responses to Gamergate and I couldn’t take it anymore. That said, nearly everything in this GoogleDoc is worth checking out. Some highlights would include:
I haven’t yet had a chance to play Simogo’s “Sailor’s Dream”. That’s a notable omission on my part. I kinda want to play it on iPad, but I hardly use my iPad these days.
Games Of The Year: We’re already just about at the 3000 word mark and I’m just not feeling it. This is sad. It’s been a sad year. I enjoyed these five games a lot, even if I haven’t yet finished 2 of them. I don’t know that I can rank one over the other.
Wolfenstein: Without question, the biggest and most welcome surprise of the year. a big-budget game that wasn’t broken, didn’t have an obligatory multiplayer mode, had a well-written supporting case of characters, and remained faithful to the source material while also having you shoot up Nazis on the goddamned moon? Yes, yes, and yes. I had an absolute blast with this one.
South Park: Stick of Truth: What this game had to go through just to get released is a pretty remarkable achievement in and of itself; that it turned out to be a really, really funny South Park experience is even better. The RPG side of it is serviceable, if tedious, but the game’s aware of that, too. It also features the single best argument against the tired trope of voice recorders as exposition dumps of all time.
Dragon Age Inquisition: I’m still in the middle of this one – well, does 45 hours count as “the middle”? It’s a remarkable return to form for BioWare considering their recent stumbles, and I’m very much looking forward to finish this one.
Forza Horizon 2: At some point earlier this year I might have called this my new favorite driving game of all time. I’ll need to get back to this once I’m done with DAI, and I’ll probably want to give Burnout Paradise another go to make sure, but I could live with this being my favorite driving game of all time. It’s what sold me on the Xbox One, even if I bought the Sunset Overdrive bundle.
Jazzpunk: This is a wild, extremely surreal and very funny indie adventure game, and I enjoyed nearly every minute of it. Highly worth checking out.
Is that enough? Can we go now? Let’s go now. Let’s hope that 2014’s miseries are quickly put to bed, and that 2015 comes in and obliterates any lingering memory of this god-forsaken year. Cheers.
Ordinarily this is my favorite time of year, where I spend most of my free time preparing my Game of the Year post. I compile thousands of words devoted to dozens of categories, in an attempt to single-handedly out-write all the GOTY posts from all the major sites, while also attempting to justify and rationalize the hundreds of dollars I spend on games (and the hundreds of hours I spend playing them). SFTC is a one-man operation, after all, and since I’m operating in a vacuum, I try to be as comprehensive as I possibly can. It’s a labor of love that I’ve always looked forward to.
Until this year.
This year sucked.
Between the increasingly toxic nature of the gaming community’s worst elements, and the fact that quite a lot of this year’s AAA blockbusters were either HD remasters of games I played last year or games that were straight-up broken, I’m looking at my Google spreadsheets and categories and I’m mostly just shaking my head. I’m not even 100% sure that I can compile a rock-solid Top 10; I don’t know that there were 10 games that I enjoyed that much. I have a pretty solid top 3, and after that it’s mostly just clutter.
So look forward to reading a few thousand words about sadness, coming maybe next week?
I’m 35 hours into Dragon Age Inquisition. I’m around level 14 and kinda just biding my time, leveling up and grinding until I’m ready to take on the next main story mission. I have successfully romanced Sera, so there’s that.
I still wish the game was clearer as to what the recommended level was for each area you enter; I’ve been spending the last few hours traipsing around the Emerald Graves, and for the most part I’ve been handling myself quite well although there are a few Fade Rifts that are straight up impossible, and I also stumbled across a gigantic dragon that happened to be looking the other way, and there were also some giants that were chasing me around for a bit.
You know what game it reminds me of, more than anything else? I mean, besides other BioWare games? Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the ill-fated action RPG from a few years back. The writing in DAI is much better, of course, but the general vibe of the experience feels very much the same; the environments are similarly varied, the sidequests are stumbled upon in similar ways. I liked KoA:R, too, even if it was beyond massive and I never came close to finishing it; indeed, I think I liked KoA’s combat system more than I do DAI.
Getting back to the GOTY post – I feel like I can’t start writing it in earnest until I finish a few more things, or at least spend some more time with them. I’ve had Danganronpa in my Vita for a week and a half and I haven’t had a chance to even turn the thing on, let alone play it. Meanwhile, now that there’s this new patch for Alien Isolation that tweaks the difficulty a bit, I’m wondering if I should go back to it and try to finish it. I still want to give Shadow of Mordor the benefit of the doubt, though I suspect I’ve been away from it for too long; I also want to give Sunset Overdrive another go before I totally forget how to play it. And I also want to go back and revisit some games from earlier this year, just to make sure I still feel as strongly about them now as I did then (i.e., Wolfenstein). Will you notice the difference if I don’t? Does anything matter?
Sometimes, we get so focused on our lists and defining ourselves that we forget to take a moment and think about what all of these pieces of pop culture mean to us and to others. TV shows, films, video games, and books aren’t something to be categorized like manila envelopes at an insurance firm. They’re art; and art, at its best, is an experience, and it’s best shared with others.
I was wondering why I didn’t write a year-end recap of the books I read last year, and then I remembered: oh yeah, I had a baby, and you don’t read books when you have a brand-new baby. How can you read when you don’t sleep, you barely eat, and any free time you do manage to carve out is usually at work? And reading on the subway is super difficult for me, given that the subway engineer on my evening commute makes a habit of loudly narrating pretty much every single inch of track with inane Subway 101 tips and tricks, making it impossible to concentrate on anything else unless I have headphones on.
That being said, I still kept track of what I read last year in a GoogleDoc spreadsheet because this is what I do, and, well, yeah: I only finished 6 books last year – 7 if you include my quasi-annual re-read of Infinite Jest (my 8th or 9th time through, but 1st time in e-book format, which is far preferable when you’re on the go). It was an embarrassingly low number for me, even if I had a pretty good excuse.
Still, in the interest of maintaining the historical record, these are the books that I read in 2013, in rough chronological order:
The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive 1), Brandon Sanderson
I’m not a big fantasy reader, but this had been recommended by enough people over the years that I felt compelled to give it a shot, and what do you know – I was immediately taken with it. Sanderson is absurdly prolific, as you’ll see below.
Tenth of December, George Saunders
I’m also not necessarily a reader of short stories; I generally prefer gigantic novels. But, again, Saunders had been recommended and highly reviewed, and this New York Times profile was an incredible read in and of itself, and I picked this up and quickly devoured it…
Pastoralia, George Saunders
…and then devoured this as well. I would’ve continued down the Saunders rabbit hole but I didn’t want to burn out on him, and so I stopped myself from buying his other books, but they’re most certainly on my to-do list.
The Mistborn Trilogy, Brandon Sanderson
Like I said above, Sanderson is ridiculously prolific. This is but one of many gigantic trilogies he’s written, and part of what’s so astounding about him is that while these books are literally humongous, he’s still quite marvelous at world building and character work and making sure you never feel lost.
NOS4A2, Joe Hill
I’d read a few of the stories in 20th Century Ghosts and decided I wanted to read him in a longer format, and this happened to come out right when this urge was reaching a fevered pitch. I think the first 2 thirds of this book are quite stunning, and certainly reminiscent of his father’s work; unfortunately, it fell apart for me a little bit at the end.
Night Film, Marisha Pessl
I was a huge fan of her first book, Strange Topics in Calamity Physics, and had very high hopes for this one; perhaps my expectations were too high, though, because this one never came together for me, and I found the ending quite bland.
Bleeding Edge, Thomas Pynchon
Curiously, I didn’t give this a grade in my spreadsheet. I’m not sure I enjoyed it very much, though I was certainly surprised at how super-aware and knowledgeable he is about popular culture. In any event, books about 9/11 are still tough for me to read, and I’m not sure that’s ever going to change.
I picked up the slack big-time in 2014, I’m happy to say; I finished 22 books, and I feel certain that I’m going to finish my 23rd by the end of next week.
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
Normally I read rather quickly, but not so here; this took me forever to get through. I started it in mid-December of ’13, and if Goodreads is to be believed, I didn’t finish it until March of ’14. That’s absurd. As for the book itself; there’s no denying that Tartt is astonishingly talented, and that her characters are memorable and real, but I found the pacing very slow and I feel a little bit like the main character got let off the hook at the end – even though I also felt that he’d suffered through some very bad luck.
Words of Radiance: Stormlight Archive 2, Brandon Sanderson
Another huge book, but I finished this in a matter of weeks, and I’m sure I’ll read the first two volumes again to get caught up for volume 3 (even though he does a terrific job of getting you up to speed).
Lexicon, Max Barry
I read this over the course of our first family vacation, and found it intoxicating. A sci-fi concept where language can be used as weaponry, and “poets” are trained by a highly secretive organization. Two converging narratives with an absolutely stunning and moving reveal.
Pioneer Detectives, Konstantin Kakaes
Spoiler alert: “one of the greatest scientific mysteries of our time” is not, in fact, all that mysterious after all. An entertaining read, to be sure, but also a bit of a let down.
Niceville The Homecoming (Niceville 2), Carsten Stroud
I was in the mood for a pulpy supernatural thriller, and these two fit the bill quite well. Part 3 is slated to come out next summer; I’m not sure it’ll be on my list, but these were interesting.
Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill
Boy oh boy, this was absolutely one of the creepiest ghost stories I’ve ever read.
Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentlemen Bastards 1) Red Seas under Red Skies (Gentlemen Bastards 2) Republic of Thieves (Gentlemen Bastards 3), Scott Lynch
I wish I could remember who it was on Twitter that first brought these to my attention – whoever you are, you have my eternal thanks. The easiest way to explain these books is as Ocean’s Eleven set in a vaguely steampunk world, except where everything turns to shit pretty much all the time, and where “success” doesn’t always mean “a big score”, but rather “not dying horribly.”
Declare, Tim Powers
I am and have always been fascinated with secret societies and hidden, occult-ish mysteries, and putting that sort of ethos inside of a Cold War spy novel is pretty much a win-win.
The Secret Place, Tana French
I’ve been a fan of the Dublin Murder Squad since the very first one, though each subsequent novel has been a little more disappointing than the previous one. I’m happy to say, then, that this one was a lot more enjoyable than the last few, and I’m curious to know where she goes in further volumes now that she’s introduced a subtle element of the supernatural into the proceedings. The earlier books never had it, and instead their hook was really just about how hard the ending could punch you in the stomach. This was not a gut-puncher to that sort of degree, but it was still a good read.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, David Shafer
Having just finished watching all six episodes of Black Mirror, I feel very much like this book could exist in that sort of universe, a universe where one private corporation is attempting to become the uber-Facebook with serious sinister implications and an underground resistance is attempting to hack their way into destroying it.
Wolf in White Van, John Darnielle
I’m not at all familiar with Darnielle’s band, Mountain Goats, but I’d certainly read a volume of his collected lyrics; the man clearly has a way with words. This is a deeply beautiful meditation on loneliness, with an ending that left me speechless.
The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell
This is my book of the year, without question. I wrote up a thing about it here. I want to read it again, but I also want to read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet first.
Annihilation (Southern Reach Trilogy 1) Authority (Southern Reach Trilogy 2) Acceptance (Southern Reach Trilogy 3), Jeff VanderMeer
The first book is a knockout; the second is somewhat of a letdown, though it expands on the first book’s backstory in rather significant ways; the third book is an attempt to reconcile the first two, answering certain questions while raising even more. I’m not entirely sure that the trilogy is a successful one, but the first book is so incredibly good that you might as well give it a go.
Slow Regard of Silent Things, Patrick Rothfuss
This is a small side-story to the larger Kingkiller Chronicles trilogy, and it feels very much like an experiment in tone and structure and character development, but it’s also a rather beautiful read. Rothfuss himself warns you that you might not like it in the preface, and I suppose that’s true if this is your first introduction to his work; but if you’ve read the first two proper books and are eager for anything more, this is more or less mandatory.
The Confabulist, Steven Galloway
A historical mystery novel that is somewhat reminiscent of Carter Beats the Devil, though not nearly as much fun as that book. Still, it’s an intriguing premise – the memoirs of the man who killed Houdini (twice), and the ending is surprisingly affecting.
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
I feel bad that I didn’t enjoy this as much as everyone else seems to be; perhaps I’d just had my fill of post-apocalypse dystopia (especially since the final chapter of Bone Clocks is so shockingly devastating on that particular front). It’s very well written, and the various threads in both present and past are woven quite delicately; I’m just not sure they worked for me.
Teatro Grottesco, Thomas Ligotti
I’m still in the middle of this one, and I’m enjoying it quite thoroughly. Ligotti’s reputation is that of a modern-day Lovecraft or Poe; all of his stories take place in the fog in desolate towns, and which are shadowed by unsettling… things, and there’s a philosophical weariness and uneasiness in his narrators that creates a powerful and quite nerve-rattling sense of dread. I’ll be looking forward to reading more of him, though I’ll definitely need a palate cleanser before I do.
A bunch of sites have been putting up “Best Games of the Half-Year” posts this week, and I was tempted to follow suit, but after looking at my Games Played spreadsheet I found myself wondering how I could spin Wolfenstein: The New Order and South Park: The Stick of Truth into 800 words; it’s just not happening. Those are two surprisingly terrific games, and they’ll most likely end up in my year-end list, and you should play them if you haven’t already. Beyond that, it’s a bit of a reach.
I don’t know if it’s fair to call the first half of 2014 a disappointment; I expected this transition period between last-gen and current-gen to be a little weird and underwhelming. That being said, a lot of the year’s biggest-hyped games fell relatively flat for me. I was certainly impressed with the tech in Infamous: Second Son, but I hardly gave it a second thought after easily getting to 100% completion. Similarly, there are certainly quite a few things to like about Watch Dogs, but if I think about that game for more than 5 seconds I get irrationally angry. And Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is what it is, I guess, though I haven’t felt compelled to pick it back up since I finished it the first time.
I could continue on in this vein – there’s plenty of bummers on my Games Played spreadsheet (*cough* Thief *cough* Mario Golf World Tour *cough*) – but I’d prefer to keep the rest of this somewhat positive.
Jazzpunk! That’s a spicy meatball if there ever was one.
I enjoyed playing Tomb Raider again on the PS4 and my HDTV, although I suppose its retail success is partially to blame for the HD double-dips that are in our immediate future as we wait for the real next-gen stuff to appear, i.e., The Last of Us, GTA V, Diablo III, to name a few off the top of my head. And I’m planning on at least renting all of those games, too, so I suppose I’m partially to blame as well.
Speaking of Diablo III, I suppose I should heap a little bit of praise on its Reaper of Souls DLC and the additional patching that game’s received in the year since I last turned it on; the DLC managed to suck another dozen hours of my life after I’d sworn I was finished with it forever, and the daily missions and objectives are an intriguing carrot that I still consider chasing after.
I really enjoyed Bravely Default right up until I realized that I was going to have to play the entire game a second time; and then I read some walkthroughs that revealed that I’d actually have to play the whole thing 3-4 times before getting to the final ending. This will not do.
What else, what else… I’ve not yet had that much time to actually play anything in depth on my PS Vita, and yet I keep downloading free games on it. I’m very happy to finally own it, though. The port of Fez is great – I just love having it in portable form – and Luftrausers is excellent and I need to get back to it, and Olli Olli hurts my brain but is also really good.
I was also going to include my favorite bits of gaming journalism and criticism, but it’s a gigantic list so far, and it’s also full of rather depressing stories of how toxic this industry is. Still, if you’d like to check it out, I’ve made it publicly available as a Google Doc.
This weekend I’ll be away with the family, so I’m not sure what gaming there’ll be. I’m currently playing A Story About My Uncle, which is both exhilarating and frustrating, sometimes simultaneously; I’d like to try and finish it tonight, since I’m not taking my PC with me. I picked up Civ Rev 2 for my iPhone this morning; it’s not quite as graphically interesting as the 360 version from a few years back, but it’s leaps and bounds better-looking than the previous iOS version, and the touch controls are a lot more intuitive. I’m still way over my head most of the time, but such is life. And I guess I’ll bring the Vita along, too, and maybe keep plugging away at Tearaway and also perhaps one of the 6 Final Fantasy games I’ve got on there. (The voting was inconclusive. I might go with 8 or 9, since I’ve never touched those before.)
2013 was a year of great change and transition, and as you might expect it was both very good and incredibly surreal. On a personal level, I became a father; I released a solo album; I moved into a new apartment; I got over my fear of brain pills and started taking anti-anxiety medications (and they appear to be working); and I became a contributing member to the New York Videogame Critics Circle, which is a pretty nice break for a nobody like me. These are all significant and happy milestones.
As a gamer, well:
Let me say this right up front: this right here is a videogame blog, so when I say things like “Being a new father means that I don’t have as much time to play games”, I am very much NOT wanting to sound like a callous, privileged asshole whose newborn child is an inconvenience. Please understand that the non-gamer part of me literally cringes when I say stuff like that, and also understand that I hate that I’m not a good enough writer to find a better way of putting it. I love my kid, and I love the time I spend with him more than anything else in the world. He’s changed my life for the better in more ways that I’m probably even aware of.
THAT BEING SAID, yes, of course, having a kid has completely changed my gaming habits. How could it not? I used to have all-day marathon gaming sessions, but I obviously can no longer binge the way I used to; more to the point, I don’t game at all when the kid is awake, and I’m very self-conscious about loud TV noises when he’s asleep in the next room. (Which is why I still remain absolutely shocked that I was somehow able to find 50 hours in which to finish GTA V earlier this year.) Because of all this, I ended up moving my gaming setup from the living room to the office, and so nearly everything I played of any significance was played on the PC, in my comfy office chair and my kick-ass headphones.
I know I’m prone to excessive hyperbole here, but it cannot be overstated enough: moving to the PC changed everything for me. It’s why I’m not necessarily foaming at the mouth for a PS4 or an XBO, and why I’m instead contemplating a new graphics card or (more likely) a Steam Machine. It’s why I’m no longer shackled to the crippling addiction of Achievement hunting. It’s why I’m now a lot more excited about the indie game scene than the next AAA blockbuster.
[It’s also why I feel a little bit lonelier, I suppose. I have a few good friends on Steam, but nothing compared to the dozens of people I’d see on Xbox Live every day. Of course, I’ve never been all that big on multiplayer (and neither are most of those XBL friends, come to think of it), so it’s not like I was missing out on epic online battles (at least, not that I’m aware of). Still, there’s just a large segment of friends that I’m now kinda cut off from, and it’s weird.]
The other big thing about having a kid and the resulting loss of free time is that, as you’ll soon see, my ratio of games finished to games played is so completely out of whack that I clearly have no business buying a next-gen console any time soon.
II.
Here’s the question that ended last year’s introduction: “When was the last time you played a game and experienced joy?”
It wasn’t necessarily a rhetorical question; at the time that I was working on that piece, I was still half-heartedly dicking around in Far Cry 3 (a game that tried (and failed) to be subversive about violence in videogames) while still reeling from the Newtown school shooting (which was actual violence, and which was actually horrifying). I was in a sort of weird crisis, to be honest; I was starting to feel sickened from all the virtual killing I’d been doing, and it was making me feel disconnected from something I’d loved since my childhood. I was genuinely interested in knowing if there was more to this medium than guns; if it was possible to achieve a win state without having to wallow in bloodlust; if one could go from point A to point B without having to kill anything. I wanted to know if games could make me feel something beyond the simple satisfaction of killing enough things to get to the next checkpoint; hell, I just wanted to feel something. I was seriously contemplating going through 2013 without playing any game that involved the pulling of a trigger, even if it meant missing out on games that I’d genuinely been looking forward to.
In the end, I bailed on that challenge. But because I had to switch up my living room couch for my computer chair, I ended up playing a far wider variety of games this year than I ever expected, and I also ended up feeling some pretty powerful feels, when all is said and done.
III.
Speaking of feels, normally I avoid talking about game industry news in these year-end posts, but 2013 featured two game-related stories that I feel should be brought up, being that they affected me and people I know personally.
(1) I couldn’t continue with this post without mentioning the passing of the late, great Ryan Davis. It’s weird to talk about being a fan of a gaming journalist, but I was a Ryan Davis fan, ever since his early Gamespot days. Even though we’d never met or corresponded in any way, I still felt like we would’ve hit it off if we’d somehow been introduced; his gregariousness would certainly have made me feel welcome. It is still weird to not hear his voice introducing the Bombcast; indeed, the Bombcast has not been the same without him.
(2) I also couldn’t talk about 2013 without mentioning the internet; specifically, how awful it is, and how, despite my desire to become a professional gaming journalist, I kinda sorta want nothing to do with it. This craziness has been around for a long while, of course, but this was the first time that I started to take it personally, even if none of it was ever directed my way. This was the year in which noted game developer and notorious troll-feeder Phil Fish not only ragequit Twitter entirely, but took Fez 2 with him. This was the year in which a Call of Duty engineer made a small mathematical adjustment to the damage of a gun and received death threats in return. This was the year in which a Gamespot review that gave GTA V a 9 out of 10 resulted in over 20,000 vile, hateful, evil comments. (That the review was written by a good friend of mine only made it feel worse.) This was the year in which there were so many instances of rape and death threats directed at female journalists and game developers for no reason other than their gender that it eventually somehow became a non-story, which is unbelievably distressing. I don’t have an answer for this, and I don’t know how the victims of this incessant abuse are able to deal with it. It makes me unbearably sad. It reflects poorly on us all.
*sigh*
And that’s why I don’t talk about news in these posts! Let’s get on with the show.
THE YEAR IN ACHIEVEMENTS: As of 1/1/2013, my score was 86295, when I finished the Leviathan DLC for ME3. As of 12/23/13, it’s 87915, and it’s highly unlikely that number will change any time soon, considering that I’m barely playing my 360 these days and that I’m all but certain I’m getting a PS4 first. In any event, this is by far the lowest yearly increase since I bought the 360 in the first place, and this is probably the last year that I pay attention to it or include it in these posts.
BEST MECHANIC: There’s no runaway winner in this category like there was last year with Dishonored and “Blink”. But I suppose it should be noted that the control scheme in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is perhaps the only control scheme I’ve ever played that, because of narrative events, caused me to cry (in a good way).
GAMES FINISHED: I said in the introduction that this year’s ratio of games finished to games played was absurd. According to my Google spreadsheet, I played 71 games this year, but only finished 15. This is embarrassing, but there are several reasons for this. Firstly, the baby’s arrival meant that my game time was limited, and so I wasn’t going to waste my time with stuff that wasn’t grabbing me right off the bat – there were lots of Gamefly titles that came and went often on the same day. Secondly, quite a few of the games on my spreadsheet are 3DS games, but I’m starting to realize that I never have a good time to play them; I don’t like bringing the 3DS out on the subway, and playing it at work is a terrible idea for obvious reasons, and if I play it at bedtime my hands cramp up and my eyes start freaking out, and so I’m not sure I ended up making any significant progress on any of the 3DS games in my library this year. But if I’m being totally honest, I’m going to assign most of the blame on Steam Sales, which make games on my wishlist appear far more appetizing than they should, and which is an affliction that obviously affects us all. I’m already prone to poor impulse control anyway; Steam Sales mean that I’m continually biting off far more than I can be expected to chew.
The Cave (one playthrough, at least – you need to play 3 times to see everything, and even though the game is pretty short, I didn’t like it enough to play it that much)
Devil May Cry
Tomb Raider (twice)
Bioshock Infinite
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
The Last of Us
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Gone Home
Saints Row 4
GTA V
Rain
Beyond: Two Souls
Assassin’s Creed 4
The Stanley Parable (I think I finished it, at least)
Did Not Finish, Would Like to Finish Someday:
Antichamber (came pretty close, I think, but my hard drive crashed and I lost that save forever)
BIT TRIP Runner 2 (which I’d like to go back to, definitely – it’s certainly my favorite soundtrack of 2013)
Etrian Odyssey 4 (currently stuck in a weird spot and I don’t know how to advance; it’s been months since I picked it up, though, and I’m not sure I’d know where to go if I started again)
Ni No Kuni (which I recall enjoying, but then the baby came and I got a bit distracted)
The Swapper (to be finished in 2014)
Shadowrun Returns (to be finished in 2014)
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Dishonored DLC
Shadow Warrior (to be finished in 2014)
Rayman Legends (to be finished in 2014)
LEGO Marvel (to be finished in 2014)
Zelda: Link Between Worlds (to be finished in 2014?)
Papers Please (to be finished in 2014)
Mario & Luigi Dream Team
Barely Started:
Amnesia: Home for Pigs
Civ V: Brave New World DLC
Kentucky Route Zero
XCOM: Enemy Within
Fire Emblem Awakening
Gunpoint
Eldritch
The Wolf Among Us
Did Not Finish, Couldn’t Get Into (But Still Respect):
Remember Me
Animal Crossing: A New Leaf
Did Not Finish, Do Not Want to Finish:
Splinter Cell Blacklist (pretty sure this franchise is dead to me now, too)
Castlevania 3DS (I’d spend more time typing out the full title than I did playing the game)
Metro Last Light (meh, personified)
Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate (the 3DS game is tedious, confusing, and kinda ugly)
Notable Games I Did Not Play:
Dead Space 3
Metal Gear Revengeance
SimCity
God of War: Ascension
Starcraft 2: HoS
Gears of War: Judgment
Crysis 3
Grid 2
Spelunky (PC)
Pokemon X/Y
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
Battlefield 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts 2
Tearaway (though it makes me think about getting a Vita)
any of the PS4/XONE exclusives
Best voice performance
Gone Home – Sarah Grayson as “Sam”. There is no game here without Sam’s story, and Ms. Grayson’s performance is true and genuine and heartbreaking. She’s given a great script, to be sure, but without an effective actor the game would never hit the same emotional peaks. (As I said in my review for the NYVCC, “Indeed, the success of Sam as a character is making me rethink my position on the tired trope of audio diaries as exposition.”)
Best soundtrack:
BitTrip Runner 2, and I say this even though I haven’t finished the game – the soundtrack is on Spotify and it’s excellent. It’d clearly make for a great exercise soundtrack, I think, and if I ever get around to exercising on a regular basis I might have to try that out. And as far as runner-ups are concerned, there was a Disasterpeace remix album of Fez songs that was quite nice, although it’s not exactly a 2013 game.
Most Disappointing:
I didn’t play it, but it sounds like Dead Space 3 was pretty terrible; it also seems to have killed the franchise, which is a real shame.
As for games I did play, The Cave was charming and quirky, but not nearly as awesome as I’d hoped, and the idea that I’d have to play it three times to see everything was very quickly tossed out before I’d finished it once. On the flip side, Bioshock Infinite and GTA V were both incredible experiences and staggering technological achievements, and I finished them both and don’t regret the time I spent with them, but they also had some very significant and glaring flaws, and I haven’t felt compelled to revisit them the way I thought I would. (Side note: I quite liked the Burial at Sea DLC for Bioshock Infinite, even if it was similarly flawed.)
A Once-Favorite Franchise I’m More or Less Ready to Give Up On:
It’s hard for me to come to terms with the fact that the last Splinter Cell game that I genuinely enjoyed was Chaos Theory, on the original Xbox. I did my best to give this year’s edition a fair shake, but I was completely disengaged with it halfway through the 2nd mission.
Best Gaming Podcast:
Bombin’ the AM with Scoops and The Wolf. Two smart, funny dudes (and the occasional terrific guest) who actually talk about shit I care about, twice a week, in a reasonable amount of time. (If I can get real here for a second, I’m finding the regular Giant Bombcast to be damn-near impossible to listen to these days. It’s rare that I have 3 hours in a given week to listen to it, and I don’t find myself ever needing to hear Jeff and Vinny riff for 45 minutes about sandwiches or plumbing supplies or go-bags or wrestling or early 90s hip-hop. Indeed, the cult of personality that has lately enveloped Giant Bomb has made it a site that I’m just not spending that much time with anymore, with the notable exception of PK’s “Worth Reading” columns.)
What I’m Hoping to See Announced in 2014 (even if it doesn’t come out in 2014) (and even though this list can only be based on existing IP because I can’t get excited for brand-new IP that I don’t yet know about):
Fallout 4, built with the Rage engine (the game’s been confirmed, even if the engine hasn’t)
Uncharted 4 (confirmed by a teaser trailer)
new Batman game built by Rocksteady (rumored)
or something else built by Rocksteady, I’ll buy it anyway
iOS GAMES OF THE YEAR: I really ought to just make a separate category for PikPok and Adult Swim, as pretty much everything they put out is terrific; there were a ton of great games for iOS this year, and here are the best of the best:
XCOM
The Room Two
Flick Kick Football Legends
Giant Boulder of Death
Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol
Infinity Blade III
Angry Birds Star Wars 2
Puzzle and Dragon
Spirit Stones
Device 6
Year Walk
Ridiculous Fishing
Rayman Fiesta Run
Colassatron
TOP 10 (with profound apologies everything in my “Did Not Finish But Would Like To Someday” list, and especially to The Last of Us, which is certainly a good game but not an experience I can claim that I enjoyed, and also The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, which everyone else acknowledges is amazing and which I’ve already acknowledged I can’t quite get into):
10. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. The Call of Juarez name does not inspire much confidence, and I certainly didn’t expect very much (even if I’d heard some good things). An absurdly low Steam Sale price got me to pick this up, though, and I’m really glad I did; it’s a fun little Western with great shooting mechanics and which has a lot of fun with narrative structure and the idea of the “tall tale.” And the boss duels were pretty terrific, too. My pick for most underrated / overlooked game of the year.
9. Saints Row IV. Considering what happened to THQ, and considering that this was originally supposed to be a DLC mission pack for Saints Row 3, it’s amazing that this turned out as well as it did. If nothing else, it somehow managed to out-crazy the already crazy SR3, and frankly I have literally no idea how they’ll top it in the next one.
8. The Stanley Parable. Speaking of games having fun with narrative structure, this is also the funniest game since Portal 2, and also one that has moments of startling beauty and emotional resonance. Perhaps this is more “art game” than “game”, but it’s still an experience that shouldn’t be missed.
7. Bioshock Infinite. Perhaps it’s my own fault; perhaps my expectations were too high, and so this game was never going to be good enough. Or perhaps its just that the great and insightful critical responses to the first game made me hyper-aware of this game’s logical flaws and fallacies. Or maybe it’s just that I’m tired of shooters, and there was so much shooting in this game. Whatever the case, I didn’t enjoy this as much as I wanted to. But I can’t deny that there’s a tremendous amount to love and appreciate in this game, too – the graphics, the sound design, the art direction, the world, the music, the characters, the ending…
6. GTA V. I’ve written far too many words about this game already. The short version is that even though the game’s story is silly (to put it kindly), and the three main characters are morally and ethically reprehensible, and the game’s treatment of women is profoundly sad – despite all of that, the world that Rockstar has created here is truly remarkable, and it’s about goddamned time that the gameplay has finally caught up with the rest of the industry. While I wonder if I’m getting too old for this series – which is a thought that feels thoroughly depressing – I still hold out hope that Rockstar will get the narrative stuff straightened out for GTA VI.
5. Devil May Cry. I’m not a fan of the earlier games in the franchise, but I am a fan of Ninja Theory, and what they’ve done with this reboot is pretty incredible. This was a visually stunning game, and it felt great to play – this might be my 2nd favorite melee combat system behind Batman, frankly. Can’t wait to see what they do next.
4. Tomb Raider. Apparently I wasn’t so keen on this the first time I played it, but for some reason I felt compelled to replay it later on and then I fell in love with it. Sure, the grotesque death sequences are a little much (as are the constant grunts and howls of pain), and maybe the ending was a little hokey, but I thought this was a fantastic reboot of an important franchise; it made Lara a real person instead of a hyper-sexualized automaton, and it made the violence matter. Killing a person (or even an animal) shouldn’t be easy, and you can feel how it chews her up as the game progresses, even as she learns to harden herself from it. Speaking of which, the gameplay was quite good – this might’ve been the first Lara Croft game with genuinely fun combat, frankly. I hope that for the next one, they put back some of the tombs and the puzzles – that’s what I really play these games for, and I’m hoping that now that they’ve better established who Lara is, they can now put her in some interesting situations.
3. Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. I’ve written too much about this (and too recently) to recap it effectively here, so I’ll keep it short – I was all but ready to give up on Assassin’s Creed, but then this came out and now I’m fully engaged again. Hell, I still want to go back and finish all the stuff I hadn’t yet gotten to. A very welcome return to a much beleaguered franchise.
2. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. This sorta came out of nowhere; I don’t recall hearing that much about it before I picked it up, although I must’ve heard something that compelled me to check it out. In any event, I’m forever grateful that I did; I had an absolutely delightful time with it. And then, of course, there’s that ending… Like I said earlier, I’m not sure that a control scheme has ever moved me to tears, but there you have it.
1. Gone Home. Here’s that question again, the one I asked at the beginning of last year’s GOTY post, and the one that I brought up again earlier in this one: “When was the last time you played a game and experienced joy?” There are so many things to say about this game, and there are a lot of people who’ve said it a lot better than me – go back and read those links I posted earlier. It’s rare to see a game affect people so deeply and profoundly; indeed, it’s rare that gamers let themselves be moved. We generally play games knowing that, for the most part, we’re not playing it for the story – and games are, for better or worse, generally built with that philosophy in mind. All I knew about this game going into it was that it was kind of spooky, and that it was a game of pure exploration – no combat, no enemies, no ticking clock. And for the first third of it, I thought I was playing in a haunted house – there’s one particular jump scare that still spooks me when I think about it. Of course, the game turned into a deep and moving love story, and my tears at the ending were genuine tears of joy. A truly special experience and a game that I’ll always remember.
It began in late December of 2005, and it began – as these things often do – by responding to a Craigslist ad, and then meeting a complete stranger in a Burger King parking lot in Astoria, Queens.
And it ended with me out 700 bucks, but with a new Xbox 360.
Rather than trying to recall what that experience might’ve been like all these years later, it just so happens that I documented the unboxing on my blog. And so what follows is an excerpt from my December 21, 2005 Livejournal post, which appears to be the day after I bought my first 360. Please excuse the slack-jawed hyperbole that follows. As I read it again now, at the other side of the era, I’m literally shocked at the sorts of things that apparently dropped my jaw back then:
…I bit the bullet, scoured Craigslist and paid too much (but not THAT much) for an Xbox 360. I know that I had said that I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it, and that I could wait until it wasn’t such a pain in the ass to get one, but – this guy was selling it for pretty cheap, AND he lived in Queens, AND he drove it to my house. I don’t have an HDTV, but I do have a nice 27″ TV, and the games STILL look phenomenal. Not only that, but the user interface is fan-fucking-tastic, PLUS I can connect my iPod up to it with a USB cable, PLUS I can download all these awesome old-school arcade games for $5. The wireless controller (!!!) can shut down the console all by itself. The PS3 may end up being a more powerful machine, but for my money the Xbox360 is where it’s at, in terms of the online experience, the ease of use, and the elegance and simplicity of the user interface. The games, also, will play a part. I bought Kameo (beautiful platform-y action-y adventure-y), Perfect Dark Zero (beautiful sci-fi first person shooter/stealth), Project Gotham Racing 3 (insanely beautiful driving game), and Call of Duty 2 (World War 2 shooter, which is the only one I haven’t spent any time with). I also downloaded Geometry Wars, which is completely insane and trippy and ridiculous.
Isn’t that adorable? Being in love with the original “Blades” 360 interface? Being gobsmacked by a wireless controller that (i) comes standard in the box, and (ii) can power up and power down the console? Being impressed that I could connect my iPod via USB? Being knocked out by Perfect Dark Zero?
Oh man. What a long way we’ve come since then.
* * *
I never really thought about it all that much; I guess I’d always just assumed that I was a one-console dude. I’d always been one, ever since my early days rocking an Atari 2600. Being a “fanboy” sounded like an adolescent waste of time, but in retrospect it’s clear to me now that I’d always been one (because, since I had the Atari, I never got to own a Nintendo). I’d pick (or, really, be given) a console and then I’d stick with it with a fierce devotion, most likely so that I could feel justified in my purchase and not get too bent out of shape if a different console had an exclusive game that I couldn’t, in my current state, play. (In the case of the Xbox, the one time I really got bent out of shape was for the GTA games – and as it turned out, those games got really great Xbox ports, so it all turned out OK.)
The point is, this sort of juvenile, “one console or bust” thinking continued well into my 30s, and I only broke out of that mindset by accident. I was a die-hard 360 owner and proud of it, but it turned out that I’d backed the wrong HD format for movies. HD-DVD had gotten its ass kicked pretty thoroughly, and because I’m just as big a film nerd as I am a game nerd, I knew I had to buy a Blu-Ray player… and if it happened to play games, then, well, that was an added bonus. That the PS3’s library of exclusive games happened to be, for the most part, fantastic was an even better added bonus. (Side note: my HD-DVD drive still works, and I still have a few HD-DVDs that I haven’t yet upgraded.)
I’ll get to the question of who “won” this console generation in a little bit, but if I can be corny for a second here, it turns out that the real answer to that question is: me. I finally broke out of my fanboy mindset and embraced pretty much all this generation had to offer (even the Wii, too, if only for a limited time). And in my opinion, this generation was pretty goddamned terrific. Each console had some fantastic exclusive games on offer, and the strength of the multi-platform titles were well beyond what I’d been accustomed to.
So, then: I’m now enlightened, and finally free of the fanboy mindset. Maybe I spent a little too much money along the way in doing so, but what are you gonna do? The hilarious irony in all this, though, is that now that I’m a father, and now that I literally can’t afford to be so fiscally irresponsible when it comes to gaming, I’m most likely going to have to go back to being a one-console dude; there’s just no way I can afford both a PS4 and an Xbox One and expect to play everything that comes out (especially if I’m also going to keep gaming on the PC). Not as long as I remain an un-professional videogame journalist, that is.
And so I’m going to have to choose.
That choice, it should go without saying, will be well documented here in the coming months, as I hem and haw and scrimp and save and whine and bitch and moan. Oh, I’m sure it will make for delightful reading, especially for those of you who already made up your mind.
But in the meantime, I want to embrace this opportunity to say goodbye to a lot of the best games I ever played – at least, before I have to box them up and tuck them away.
* * *
I should hold up a second here and let you know that while this post is focused on the 360 and the PS3, I have not forgotten about the Wii. I certainly did covet the Wii for a long time, and I did ultimately buy one, and I did have some fun with it for a time – Wii Sports was fun at parties for a little while, and Super Mario Galaxy is without question a very special game (although I should admit that I never finished it). The thing is, the Wii experience fell apart for me not long after I bought it. For one thing, there was literally nothing to play on it – not even SMG – that resonated with me in any meaningful way. But the other issue – and I actually forgot about this until I started going through these blog archives – was that shortly after getting the Wii, I developed some day-job-related carpal tunnel issues in my hands that made shaking the remote a very painful experience, and which ultimately rendered the entire Wii experience more or less impossible. My hands have since recovered, but I ended up giving the Wii to my in-laws, who, last I heard, were using it to stream Netflix.
I should also mention that I’m also not going to talk about the DS or the 3DS, or the PSP, or the Vita, or the iPhone or iPad. (And even though I’m now primarily a PC gamer, I’ll refrain from talking about PC-only games, too.) For one thing, there’s more than enough to talk about between the 360 and the PS3; for another, I’m not as familiar with those systems. Fundamentally, though, this post is very much about celebrating the console experience. These consoles were why I bought an HDTV, and why I paid more money for higher speed internet; these were transformative innovations that have forever changed what I expect out of a console experience.
Finally, it should go without saying that even though the new machines are now upon us, this current console generation is not yet over, and this “farewell” post is certainly at least a few months premature. As I said about 1000 words ago, I’m not planning on buying a new console until early 2014, and even then I’m only buying one; and this also means that I’ll still have at least one console from this generation that will be alive and kicking, and there are still a few notable current-gen games yet to arrive (South Park, the FFX remasters, FF13-3 and Dark Souls 2 come to mind).
I think that’s more than enough table-setting – let’s jump in and get to it.
BEST CONSOLE OF THE GENERATION, and therefore UNDISPUTED WINNER OF THE CONSOLE WAR:
Ha ha ha! No, but seriously, the Xbox 360 was my preferred console, so much so that I ended up buying 4 of them (after each previous one would red-ring, of course). A very strong case can be made (and I’m happy to make it, frankly) that the PS3 ended up with a much stronger lineup of exclusive games – certainly within the last few years, at least – but the 360 almost always got the better-performing version of a multi-platform game, and its lineup of exclusives wasn’t exactly shabby, either. Not to mention that the 360 had a far better user interface – even that aforementioned Blade design was better than the PS3’s XMB – and probably the best controller ever made.
Most importantly, though, Microsoft bet big on Xbox Live, and that’s what ultimately gives them the win. A few hiccups aside, the service was far more stable and more capable than PSN, to be sure, but it would also win if for no other reason than that the 360 was where my friends were playing, too, and if I wanted to play with them, the 360 version of a multi-platform game was the only logical choice.
Some might argue that PSN is better because it’s free (and I might argue that you get more value with Playstation Plus, what with all those free games), but I maintain that you get what you pay for, and Xbox Live is, for the most part, rock solid. And this goes beyond maintaining stability in team deathmatches; downloading and installing a PS3 game update is still a slow nightmare, and “syncing trophy data” is a phrase that I never want to see or hear ever again.
Speaking of which, here’s the understatement of the year: ACHIEVEMENTS > TROPHIES. I could spend 1000 words on Achievements alone, and how they changed not only how I played games, but how games themselves were designed. In fact, let’s just spend a moment here to reflect: was there ever a more satisfying sound than the sweet little chirp of an unlocked Achievement?
Let me put this “winner of the console generation” another way:
I won’t miss my PS3 when I upgrade. Despite the excellent games I played on it, I still – even now – primarily use it as a Blu-Ray player and a streaming media device, and my gaming time on it has always been minimal; which is just as well, because as much as I loved the 360 controller, I actively loathed the Dualshock 3. In fact, here’s some excessive hyperbole for you – I nearly gave up on almost every PS3 game I ever played because of that goddamned controller. Just think how much more pleasurable Uncharted 2 would’ve been with a 360 controller. Right? The mind reels.
I will miss the 360, though. Up until this year, it’s where I did at least 90% of my gaming; it’s where my friends were; the pull of Achievements were strong enough to make it my platform of choice for multi-console, single-player releases; and as I said before, the 360 controller is the best controller I’ve ever used, and I continue to use it as my PC controller now.
BEST YEAR: 2007. I know I covered this in my GAMES OF THE 00s post, but it bears repeating that this very well might go down as the best year for new IP of all time. Consider: Mass Effect 1, Bioshock 1, Portal 1 (and the Orange Box, which is still probably the best bang for one’s buck of all time), Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1, Super Mario Galaxy 1, Assassin’s Creed 1, Rock Band 1. Then consider Halo 3 and God of War 2. THEN consider other minor classics like Crackdown and The Darkness. Nothing else even comes close. If the PS4/XONE era gives us a year even half as great as 2007, we’ll be in for a real treat.
BEST OPEN WORLDS: I suppose if I had to choose my favorite genre, it would be the open-world / sandbox-style game (closely followed by the 3rd-person action-adventure-platformer – and if next-gen consoles can figure out how to combine the two, I will probably be unable to leave the house). This sort of game can take many different shapes – the gunplay that takes place on the islands of Far Cry 3 is a much different beast than what transpires in GTA V’s Los Santos – but ultimately the appeal for me of the genre isn’t necessarily the gameplay, but rather the nonlinear exploration, where there aren’t any enemies after me and where I’m free to take in the sights and check out all the nooks and crannies. (Again, this is why a synthesis of something like Uncharted with something like GTA would be amazing. And it suddenly occurs to me that this particular synthesis is partly why the Batman: Arkham games are so personally appealing.) While it’s true that open-world games have been around at least since the PS2, it’s been this generation where they really came into their own, and where the available technology could start catching up to the art direction – and so those aforementioned nooks and crannies could become a lot more interesting as we go forward.
Side note – this was one of the first categories I came up with when I started working on this post, and yet it’s become one of the most difficult to get a handle on. Three examples: (1) Borderlands 2 was on this list for a long time, but when I thought about it, the world itself wasn’t particularly all that interesting – it’s just that the art style was so incredibly unique, and that the game itself was a ton of fun. (2) There is no Saints Row on this list. I’ve played and loved all four games, but the truth is that none of the actual cities are what make those games so great. Indeed, the introduction of superpowers in SR4 made the city itself irrelevant, for the most part, as one could traverse from one side of town to the other in about 30 seconds. (3) I haven’t played enough Just Cause 2 to give it serious consideration, but my impressions of what I have played are that, while the world itself is impressive, it’s everything else around it that makes that game hum. At the end of the day, this category is specifically about celebrating the world, not the quality of the game that surrounds it.
GTA IV
Red Dead Redemption
L.A. Noire
GTA V – It should come as no surprise that Rockstar has 4 nominees in this category; they do open worlds better than anyone, because they understand that there’s more to building a city than simply having lots of stuff. All of their worlds are built and crafted – each city block has a distinct personality; each tree is placed with care. And while each of Rockstar’s worlds on this list are extraordinary in their own right, it is GTA V’s re-imagining of San Andreas that is, without question, one of the greatest technical and artistic accomplishments of this generation. Furthermore, it’s raised the bar for what we should expect on the PS4 and Xbox One.
Sleeping Dogs – A radical departure for the open world gangland genre, if only because the city itself was so different from what most Western gamers are used to. The city is very big, well designed, and looks absolutely gorgeous at night in the rain.
Batman Arkham City – While I’m of the opinion that Asylum is the better game (partially because the smaller environment helps to keep the pace moving), I think City is the more interesting world, and there’s certainly no shortage of things to do or places to explore. (Even if 400 Riddler statues is a bit too many.) Bonus points for the game’s verticality, which is something that not a lot of these games tend to explore – and also for Batman’s traversal mechanic, which makes zooming around the city quite enjoyable.
Assassin’s Creed IV – I’m still playing this, actually, but what I’ve seen so far (and it’s quite a lot) is simply astonishing. The world itself is immense, and there’s not a lot of obvious cutting-and-pasting as far as each individual island is concerned, which means that you’ll never know what to expect when you arrive somewhere new. With each passing hour I find myself more and more convinced that AC4 represents the best of what the series has been trying to achieve ever since the first installment.
Far Cry 3 – I’ve never been the world’s biggest Far Cry fan, but I was stunned by the islands of FC3, and I found myself far more interested in exploring every cave than I was in advancing the story. (Still haven’t finished the game, actually; I’m a few missions behind the end.) The designers of AC4 took a lot of good cues from FC3, and it shows.
Fallout 3 – The only knocks I feel comfortable giving to Fallout 3’s world are that the dark and dreary color palette became oppressively depressing after a few dozen hours, and that the engine itself was not all that pretty. That being said, MAN. I’m sure I put almost 100 hours into FO3 and I’m also sure I’ve seen less than half of what that game has to offer.
Skyrim – While I have certain reservations about my game experience, that’s definitely not the fault of the world. The world of Skyrim is mind-bogglingly massive; I recall being dumbstruck when I came across an entire city built underneath another city on the surface.
Brutal Legend – my disappointment in this game is tough to get over, but the world itself is a thing of beauty and wonder. If I were 13 years old and more inclined towards real-time strategy, I might’ve loved this game with every fiber of my being. Alas, the game fell apart on me – but man, it’s worth playing just to see that world.
BEST GRAPHICS (TECHNICAL): This is kind of a bullshit category, I admit, because (a) I know nothing about graphics beyond being a knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing graphics whore, and (b) if you just glance at the titles below it’s clear that what I’m specifically talking about are AAA games with big budgets and premium pixel placement. My intention here, it should be clear, is to NOT slight the indie scene in any way; it’s simply to appreciate the work of those big-ticket items that went above and beyond, and that pushed the consoles to their limits, and to work in as much hyperbole as I possibly can to distract you from the fact that I have nothing of any insight to offer as far as this category goes.
Uncharted 2/3 – It’s hard to separate the latter two Uncharted games in my mind from a graphical standpoint (though, in my opinion, 2 is absolutely a better game than 3). Normally that would be a bad thing, I guess, in this category, but it’s only because both games look so spectacular that it’s basically splitting hairs. (I get that The Last of Us is built on the same engine, and it’s also just as gorgeous, but by design it’s also not nearly as vibrant and colorful, and therefore not something I feel drawn to revisit.)
Rage – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if Fallout 4 doesn’t use this engine, something terrible has happened. The game wasn’t all that great, but it looked absolutely stunning. (And the iPad games that came out alongside this were not too shabby looking, either.)
Bioshock Infinite – Even as I remain flummoxed by this game, I am simply agog at the art direction. And I’m especially impressed by Burial At Sea; I spent too much time taking screenshots instead of paying attention to the game itself.
Red Dead Redemption – Speaking of screenshots, pretty much every single frame of this game could be an award-winner. I never really thought of Rockstar as a graphical powerhouse until this game. And the animation is pretty spectacular, too – it was always breathtaking to pick a rider off his horse.
GTA V – It wasn’t until RDR that I ever thought of Rockstar games as being a graphics powerhouse, and Max Payne 3 upped the ante considerably in that regard. GTA V, though, is simply incredible. The city of Los Santos is astonishing, and then the back country up north is just as astonishing, and then there’s the coral reefs surrounding the entire island, which most players won’t ever see?!
Skyrim – The faces are still a little creepy, but the world itself is stunning to behold.
BEST FACIAL ANIMATION TECH: As long as we’re talking about graphics, I feel pretty strongly that facial animation should get its own category. As games get more mature in their storytelling, it becomes vitally important that the digital acting is convincing. The “uncanny valley” was a big buzzword this generation, and with good reason; nobody wants their AAA game to be unintentionally creepy. Not every big game cared to get this right, but the games that went for it really went for it.
Enslaved – I suppose this could be viewed as an underdog/sympathy pick, but I did just just play the PC re-release, and the facial animation is still astonishing – the relationship between Monkey and Trip is incredibly powerful and potent, and a lot of that is done simply through eye movement and subtle facial gestures. A knock that I have against L.A. Noire is that, while the tech is impressive, the acting is so over-the-top that the interrogation scenes became somewhat ridiculous. Enslaved is proof positive that less is definitely more.
Beyond: Two Souls
Heavy Rain
L.A. Noire
The Last of Us
Uncharted (2/3)
TOP 10 FAVORITE/NOTABLE NEW FRANCHISES(in no particular order) (must have at least 2 significant/great games to be included)
Mass Effect(1,2,3) – say what you will about the ending, but this was a remarkable and memorable journey, with a fantastic cast of characters. The games were not without their faults, but I enjoyed nearly every minute I spent with these games – and I played them all at least twice.
Assassin’s Creed (1,2,Bro, 4) – I worry about this franchise, only because it started with such promise, and Brotherhood is one of my favorite games of the generation, and then Revelations and AC3 completely soured me. I’m very, very happy to say, then, that even though I’ve not yet finished AC4, I’ve put in more than 40 hours into it already, and it could very well end up being my favorite of the entire franchise.
Portal (1, 2) – The first game was a perfect gem, and the second game was (in my opinion) even better, and that’s not even taking into account the glorious co-op.
Saints Row (1,2,3,4) – One of the great feel-good stories of this generation; what started as an obvious GTA clone turned into something totally batshit crazy and gloriously stupid – and with genuinely good innovations that GTA would do well to steal.
Uncharted (1,2,3) – The first game was a pretty good Tomb Raider clone with some great platforming and some tedious and frustrating combat (featuring some of the most tenacious bullet sponges in game history), but 2 was an astonishing breakthrough – so good, in fact, that it maybe set the bar a little too high for 3. I have very high hopes for the inevitable sequels on the PS4.
Batman (Arkham Asylum, Arkham City) – The first game came out of nowhere to become, most likely, the finest licensed game ever made. That the second game didn’t quite hit the same highs is mitigated by the scope of its ambition, especially as it came so quickly after the first – and let’s be honest here, Arkham City is still really, really good. Rocksteady has clearly established itself as a developer to be watched. (As of this writing, I have not yet played Arkham Origins, and my understanding is that it’s a bit of a disappointment. Still, the category only requires “2 significant/great games” in order to be included, and these two games are phenomenal.
Borderlands (1,2) – Even if the first game’s narrative left a lot to be desired (and the ending was, to put it kindly, anticlimactic), it was a remarkably fun shooter with a totally unique art style. The second game fixed everything that was wrong with the first game and then multiplied everything by a thousand. When all is said and done, B2 is one of my all-time favorite first-person shooters, and is indeed one of the only FPS franchises that I actually still care about.
Rock Band (1,2,3,Beatles) – It’s a shame that this franchise appears to be dead, although it’s unclear just how they could’ve improved on it. Great setlists, fantastic gameplay; the ultimate party game. And the Beatles edition was as good as a hard-core Beatle fan could hope for.
Gears of War (1,2,3) – The hard-core bro attitude might’ve gotten a bit much after a while, but there’s no question that this was one of the most important and influential shooters of this era. Certainly it established what could be accomplished with the now-ubiquitous Unreal engine (even as it single-handedly destroyed every game designer’s color palette); the cover mechanic was unmatched; the active reload system made sure you paid attention. I didn’t necessarily get into the competitive multiplayer side of things, but I had a lot of fun with the campaigns (especially in online co-op).
Left 4 Dead (1,2)? – I didn’t play nearly enough of 2, which is a shame; not enough of my 360 friends played it, and by the time I got a PC copy, everyone had moved on. But man, these games were an absolute blast.
Honorable mentions:
Bioshock (1, 2, Infinite) – My intense love of the first game ultimately lost out to my dislike of the 2nd and my weird, possibly irrational (ha!) disdain towards Infinite. I thought about where to rank this for a very long time; this was not an easy decision. But the key to being in this category was having at least two (2) great games, and I can’t call Infinite a great game.
Dead Space (1,2) – Still haven’t finished 1, which is stupid of me. 2 wasn’t as scary, but it was still rock solid and fun. Never played 3, which apparently is just as well.
Little Big Planet (1,2) – Despite the gawd-awful jumping physics, these games were amazing and charming as all get-out.
LEGO games (LOTR, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, Batman, etc.) – Oh how I wish these games didn’t feel broken at times – in every other respect they are some of the best fan service money can buy. I can’t wait to play these with my kid.
Darksiders (1,2) – Overlooked and undersold, these games were the mature-themed Zelda games I never knew I wanted. Here’s hoping the franchise isn’t dead after the THQ debacle.
TOP 10 FAVORITE CONTINUATIONS OF OLD FRANCHISES: (in no particular order)
Grand Theft Auto (4,5) – After San Andreas, it was hard to imagine (for me, at least) what a next-gen GTA game could look like. But then I saw that first GTA IV trailer and lost my mind a little bit. And – again – my problems with the narrative aside, it’s hard to argue with GTA V’s world and improvements to its gameplay
Forza (3,4,Horizon) – It’s hard to imagine that the first 4 Forza games all came out in between Gran Turismo 4 and 5. Harder still to imagine that Horizon, which smelled of cheap cash-in from miles away, turned out to be one of my favorite driving games of the entire generation. That being said, it’s no Burnout Paradise. Speaking of which…
Burnout (4, Paradise) – 4 was a solid (if undistinguished) follow-up to 3, which is still possibly my favorite driving game of all time. Paradise, though, was something else. It truly felt next-gen; it did things no other driving games were even thinking about, let alone implement so staggeringly well. It’s a shame that Criterion is shackled to the Need for Speed franchise; their NFS games are fun enough, but they don’t feel as gleefully unrestrained as Paradise was.
Elder Scrolls (Oblivion,Skyrim) – Skyrim is the better-looking and better-playing game, but Oblivion is the one I sunk over 100 hours into.
Red Dead Redemption – this is, technically, a sequel to the previous generation’s Red Dead Revolver. Did anyone ever play that first game? Does anyone even remember it? I seem to recall that first game coming out along with a bunch of other Western-themed titles like Gun and Dead Man’s Hand. No matter; we’ll be talking about this game a little later on.
Fallout (3, New Vegas, lots of DLC) – I never played the original games. Come to think of it, I didn’t play very much of New Vegas, either. But I played a TON of 3, and I’d very much like to see Fallout 4 on the new consoles with some idTech graphics.
Halo (3, ODST, Reach, 4) – I’m not the guy to talk about Halo. (And I won’t be the guy to talk about Call of Duty.) But these games were clearly labors of love, and you gotta respect that.
Tomb Raider (three times, actually – the Legend/Anniversary/Underworld trilogy, and then the isometric Guardians of Light, and then the 2013 reboot). I’m lucky, I suppose, that I never played the original games – I started right with the first Xbox 360 game and remain a big fan today. I’ve seen screenshots of those original games, and they just look dreadful. I’m really curious to see where this year’s reboot sends the franchise in the coming years.
Rayman (Origins, Legends, the iOS games) Rayman 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and as such there will always be a soft spot in my heart for that little limbless dude. The Rabbids games kinda sidetracked what made that franchise so special for me, though I can’t blame them for chasing their audience (and for giving Wii owners something to do). But the recent releases of Origins and Legends are nothing short of breathtaking – they are absolutely gorgeous, and have made 2D platformers worth looking forward to again.
Max Payne 3 – I feel like this game has gotten a bad rap; I think it’s a very worthy successor to the first 2 games, even if it’s got its head stuck up its own ass a little.
Honorable Mentions:
Fable (2,3?) – Sad to say that I’ve lost interest in these games, especially as all I seem to remember about them are the terrific art direction and the clunky [everything else]. 2 was quite good, but 3 had some issues, and I’ve all but stopped paying attention.
God of War 3 – As I never owned a PS2, I didn’t get a chance to play God of War 1 and/or 2 until their (excellent) HD remakes on the PS3, and 3 seemed like a worthy follow-up. It was gorgeous, to be sure, though I’m not sure I remember it all that well (beyond killing a god by sticking my thumbs in his eyes).
Civilization Revolutions – In the grand scheme of things, CivRev might not be a “great” game, but it’s what got me into the franchise. I bought Civ4 shortly after getting hooked on Rev, and I’m still very much in awe of V (even if I’m still intimidated by it).
XCOM: Enemy Unknown – I never played the original, and I still haven’t finished this new one (even if I’ve purchased it on PS3, PC and iPad); it’s very fun but also very, very stressful.
Diablo 3 – I suppose this sneaks in on a technicality (as far as I’m personally concerned), given that I’ve only played the PC version – the console versions appear to be pretty good. I played the hell out of the PC version and burned myself out on it in the process – and I also dropped a fair amount of real money in the auction house, which I’m not sure if I’m ashamed to admit.
Street Fighter 4 and Mortal Kombat – I’m including these two games in my attempt to cover all my bases, even if I’m not much of a fighting game fan, and even though I only played these on the easiest difficulty settings. SF4 looked fantastic and still felt familiar; MK (specifically the 2011 game) was fun as hell and featured an absurd amount of content.
Super Mario Galaxy (1/2) – My disinterest for the Wii aside, these two were glorious platformers and absolutely worth buying a Wii for.
DiRT (1, 2, 3 – picking up from Colin McRae) – even the menu screens are gorgeous. Very much looking forward to the next-gen editions.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution – my friend says it’s his favorite game of all time; I can’t quite go that far, but this game had no business being as great as it turned out to be (even in spite of the boss battle calamities and the terrible, terrible endings).
DmC – I never cared for the original games, but the 2013 reboot is fantastic; if we never see another Enslaved game from Ninja Theory, hopefully we’ll see them make more of these.
Metal Gear Solid 4 – this is tough for me to include, given that I consider the Metal Gear franchise to be the most overrated franchise of all time. And my problems with this game are still pretty serious – I still think Act 3 features the most unintentionally ridiculous dialogue I’ve ever heard (see https://shoutsfromthecouch.com/2008/06/25/a-discussion-of-mgs4-act-3/ for my commentary). But this was the first true PS3 blockbuster, and it did things that the 360 simply couldn’t do, and I did have more fun with it than I care to admit. (That active camo system was pretty great.)
THE 12 BEST GAMES THAT DID NOT BECOME FRANCHISES (disc-based): The “disc-based” thing is significant because most downloadable games were brand-new IP anyway. These were big-budget AAA games that never had a sequel because: (1) they were built only to be a one-off, (2) they were released too late in this console cycle to have a sequel ready; (3) they simply didn’t sell well, or (4) disaster struck before a sequel could be finished.
Sleeping Dogs – This fits squarely into category (2) above, and a next-gen sequel is supposedly in the works.
Dishonored – see above.
Mirror’s Edge – A next-gen sequel is supposedly in the works, too, but I worry about that game. And I admit that my concern might appear strange, seeing as I never finished the original game; despite the incredible visuals and the exhilarating first-person action, the story was nonsensical and anything that involved enemies was a bit of a drag. And yet it had perhaps the most distinctive art style of any game this generation, and it was genuinely thrilling to pull off some of those trickier parkour moves. I vaguely recall there being some extra modes (or possibly DLC?) which were strictly focused on the parkour aspect, and those were incredibly fun (and competitive – I think there was a leaderboard aspect to them). If the sequel is indeed happening, I want more of that. (The iOS versions weren’t too shabby, if I recall.)
Bulletstorm – I played this again not that long ago, and it still holds up remarkably well. The graphics are still fantastic – one forgets that the Unreal Engine is capable of vibrant colors – and the game’s ‘bro ‘tude gets pleasantly subverted by an unexpectedly engaging story. Plus the scoring mechanics always kept the action fresh.
Lost Odyssey – There’s a part of me that kinda wants to find a used copy of this game and play it over again, even though I know that I’d never be able to finish it a second time. My memories of this game are a bit hazy now, unfortunately, but I remember loving it despite some tedious grinding toward the end. (But aren’t all JRPGs about tedious grinding, ultimately?)
Split/Second – As far as shallow arcade racers go, man, this game was a blast. An absolutely gorgeous racer with environments that could destruct and transform in spectacular fashion and at a moment’s notice. It’s a shame this never caught on with a larger audience – I had a really fun time with this online.
Enslaved – Shame this didn’t sell better, as I’d still like to see where the next game was going. A great-looking, great-playing adventure with a memorable cast of characters; indeed, it’s rare to think of digital characters as having “chemistry”, but that’s the only way to describe the relationship between Trip and Monkey.
The Last of Us – Seems this would fit into category 1; this is not really built for a sequel, and I’d be very surprised to see it return on the PS4 aside from an up-rezzed version.
Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning – Category 4 disaster. It remains to be seen what will happen to this IP – at the time of this writing, the IP has not yet been sold at auction. Anyway, despite my utter loathing of anything involving Curt Schilling, I really enjoyed this game – and even though I sunk a substantial amount of time into finishing the story, there was almost too much still to be done.
L.A. Noire – Not sure if this is a Category 4 disaster or a Category 1 one-off; a friend of mine from college was a casting director and intimated to me that there would be a sequel, but considering the sordid mess of the game’s development history, the lack of a sequel shouldn’t come as a surprise. That aside, it’s not necessarily built for a sequel, either, though I wouldn’t put anything past Rockstar.
Spec Ops: The Line – Probably falls into Category 1; you wouldn’t think of Coppola making Apocalypse Now 2, either. This game starts off as a standard third-person military shooter (with the ubiquitous Nolan North as the lead voice actor) and ends up becoming something else entirely. I’m not sure it’s something I’d want to play again, but I was very pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the experience.
Alan Wake – The hype that followed this game during development was so big that it was inevitable that the the finished product would feel like a let down. Still, I enjoyed it, and it did get “American Nightmare”, which was a sort-of expansion… but it kinda fizzled out rather quietly. For more on what’s up with this franchise and Remedy at large, check this Polygon interview.
FAVORITE GAMES OF THE GENERATION(AAA category): (Yes, I am aware there are no Nintendo titles on this list.)
Portal 1/2 – Unlike other sequels on this list, I can’t pull these two games apart. They feel very much connected to each other in ways that other sequels aren’t. Indeed, the things that were changed from Portal 1 to Portal 2 are, for the most part, small and subtle things (unlike the big gameplay overhaul from ME1 to ME2 (and ME2 to ME3), and AssBro’s approach of throwing the entire kitchen sink into the game). Glados… the Companion Cube… the cake… Wheatley… Cave Johnson… so many memorable moments, so many quotable lines… and, of course, the most unique gameplay mechanic of the entire generation. And all without firing a single bullet. Most importantly, as Greg says: it’s hard to conceive of how they could be better. Maybe if there wasn’t a loading break after every puzzle?
Red Dead Redemption – I did not see this one coming. Nor did I think I’d be all that interested; Westerns were never my cup of tea. And for all that I loved about GTA IV, the gameplay left a lot to be desired – especially when compared to Saints Row, which was making noticeable and much-appreciated changes to the formula.
Grand Theft Auto IV – I liked Niko, even if he was a hard man to like. I felt for him, even as he struggled to remain empathetic. But the true star of the show was always Liberty City. I’ve lived in NYC for almost 20 years, and I’ve played a lot of games that are set there, but this was the first game that really captured the feel of this place. The gameplay is incredibly dated now, but it’s hard to hold that against it – at the time of its release, it was a staggering achievement of storytelling and technology.
Bioshock – So what if you gained health from eating years-old potato chips out of a garbage can? I’m not sure there was a more arresting atmosphere in this entire console generation. And the big plot twist was a true jaw-dropper.
Mass Effect 2 – The gameplay was improved from ME1, the pacing felt better than ME3, and the story arc was the most satisfying.
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood – my personal high point for the franchise. I never lacked for something to do, but more importantly, all the side stuff felt justified in the larger context of Ezio’s journey. (As I’ve said earlier and elsewhere, though, I’m currently 40+ hours deep into AC4, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s maybe a better overall game than this one. It will be certainly be worth revisiting AC4 when we get to the end of the PS4/XBO era, for sure.)
Batman: Arkham Asylum – What an absolute delight this game is. I recognize that “delight” is a peculiar word for a game that takes place in a comic book insane asylum filled with Gotham’s looniest baddies, but it’s also the most appropriate – it was the first time that I’d ever played a superhero game where I really, truly felt like a superhero. The thrill of turning on Batvision and stealthily clearing out a room of bad guys? Nothing like it.
Uncharted 2 – The enemies are bullet sponges and there are too many of them, and I don’t like using the Dualshock 3 to control action games. Those are the only real demerits I can offer; everything else is spectacular.
Oblivion – Skyrim is the better-playing game, sure, but Oblivion is the one that, for whatever reason, sucked me in and never let me go. And I’m happy to say that I never bothered with horse armor. (Who rides horses in TES games, anyway?)
Rock Band 3 – It’s hard for me to pick just one (between RB2, RB3 and Beatles), especially as each subsequent game would let you import the previous game’s setlist – and as a hard-core Beatle fan, I was absolutely thrilled to see that the Beatles game wasn’t just a cheap cash-in, but rather an incredibly well-designed tribute (and with spectacular sound design, too – it was a real treat to hear individual audio tracks). It’s kind of a shame that the plastic-instrument era is, for all intents and purposes, over – these games were always crowd pleasers at parties.
Honorable Mentions:
Saints Row the Third
Skyrim (despite serious glitches)
Burnout Paradise
Batman Arkham City
Dirt 2
FAVORITE “INDIE” / ARCADE TITLES (i.e., non “AAA”)
Fez – I don’t care what you think about Phil Fish the Twitter user; the Phil Fish that created this game is a gentle, beautiful genius. I still get chills when I think of that first reveal trailer; the full game is just as magical and yet a thousand times more devious.
Journey – This was my 2012 game of the year. I wrote that 2012 column shortly after the Newtown shootings and my emotions were running pretty high, and it’s possible that I was putting this one at the top because it wasn’ta shooter, and had nothing at all to do with violence in any form. That being said, I stand by my decision and specifically by what I said about this game; it’s a rare thing these days for a game to fill you with pure joy, and this one had joy to spare.
Braid – It’s hard to overstate this game’s importance in the grand scheme of things; this was the first “art” game to really break through to a wide audience on a console, and as such it completely changed the idea of what an XBLA game – or, indeed, what an “indie” game – could be. And I’ll say right now that “The Witness” being a PS4 title is a very, very big reason why I’m leaning in that console’s direction.
Bastion – I don’t know what to say about this one other than I think about it a lot, and I need to play it again. (The iPad version is serviceable.)
Walking Dead (Telltale) – My pop-culture appetite for zombies is wearing very thin, and I have no interest in the Walking Dead show. But my wife is a big fan of the show, and we played this game together – she made the decisions, I drove the controller. And, well, you know the rest. That this game rates as high as it does on my own personal list despite the aforementioned zombie fatigue should indicate just how great this game is.
Shadow Complex – Man, whatever happened to this game? Why is there no Shadow Complex 2, 3 or 4 by now? I had an absolute blast with this one – even if this was right around the time when Nolan North was starting to become a little too ubiquitous.
Pinball FX2– Maybe it’s not the most accurate pinball simulator, but I’ve played pretty much every table they’ve ever released, and they’re all really fun – and they keep getting better, too, which is nice. The recent Star Wars tables are quite good.
Mark of the Ninja– Just when I’d written off the stealth genre, this one comes along and totally changes the rules. I cannot wait for a sequel.
Trials HD/Evolution– Not all “indie” games have to be “arty”. Goddamn, these games are super-fun and really, really difficult. And I can’t say enough about the leaderboard integration – it’s brilliant.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons– I’ll have more to say about this in my 2013 GOTY column. Suffice it to say, it’s rare that a control scheme can cause me to well up with tears.
FAVORITE 360 GAME: Gears 3? Halo Reach? Fable 2? Why is it that only now, at the end, am I realizing that the 360’s exclusive games never really resonated with me the way that the PS3’s did? Is this why I’m kinda leaning towards the PS4, because their exclusive games are generally more aligned with my personal tastes? I honestly don’t know how to answer this question. Maybe I’ll say Forza 4?
Favorite Innovations / Trends:
Achievements
The boom in indie games / XBLA/PSN
Autolog / the leaderboard system in Trials
Online co-op (especially drop-in / drop-out)
Hybrid game design (putting RPG elements into shooters, puzzlers, etc.)
HD remakes – if backwards compatibility is a thing of the past, then this is the next best thing (although I kinda resent having to pay for something twice, which is probably the idea)
DoubleFine transitioning from a big-game studio to a smaller indie studio. Best possible situation for those guys, plus we get to play more stuff from that team.
Outstanding art direction focusing on little details, especially w/r/t post-apocalyptic places
Worst Trends:
Paid DLC for stuff already on the disc
the grey/brown sludge of the Unreal engine
Minecraft graphics in non-Minecraft games / 8 and 16-bit “retro” graphics in lieu of something interesting to say
Games that get all meta and comment on how stupid the current mission is instead of doing something about it (Saints Row 4 takes this to the extreme)
The relative lack of compelling female protagonists, or at least female characters that aren’t (a) overtly sexualized, or (b) helpless and need a man’s help.
Zombies. I’m done with zombies. Stop with the zombies.
Biggest Duds:
the HD-DVD format
Motion control (Move, Kinect)
Too Human
Spore
Playstation Home
Favorite Moments:
Portal: the first time you go “behind the scenes.” The Companion Cube. “Still Alive.”
Oblivion: Emerging from the tutorial dungeon and seeing, well, everything.
Mass Effect 1-3: My first exploratory cruise of the Normandy.
Mass Effect 3 – Going to the temple with Liara and the Prothean (absolutely crucial to have the Prothean in your party for this sequence – he presents a perspective on what you see there that nobody else has, and it’s utterly jaw-dropping)
Burnout Paradise – endless crash modes; screwing around online with friends
Left 4 Dead – pretty much any time all 4 players survived a level
Crackdown – finding the last agility orb
Brutal Legend – pretty much everything except the stage battles, but especially just cruising around that environment.
The Last of Us – opening sequence
Gone Home – the ending
Rock Band 2 – finishing The Endless Setlist with my wife – 7 hours on drums (!)
Geometry Wars 2 – The “Wax Off” Achievement
Biggest Disappointments
Duke Nukem Forever
Crackdown 2
Mercenaries 2
No PC port of Red Dead Redemption
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Brutal Legend
Best HD Revivals: since backwards compatibility seems to be something that nobody’s interested in, the only way we’re ever going to play our old favorites is if (a) we hold on to our old consoles or (b) they remake those games and make ‘em all nice and purty. I’m OK with this, even if I’m a little cynical about it – at least I finally got a chance to play a number of classic games that I’d never gotten to play otherwise.
Ico / Shadow of the Colossus
God of War 1 and 2
Beyond Good & Evil
Tony Hawk Pro Skater (a little underwhelming, at the end of the day, but it was fun while it lasted)
Resident Evil 4 (I’m including this for the sake of completeness; I didn’t play it, nor did I want to. I know.)
R.I.P.:
Tony Hawk
Rock Band (?)
Guitar Hero
Viva Pinata (serious bummer)
Amped (and snowboarding games in general)
Prince of Persia
Condemned
Skate
Tiger Woods PGA Golf (well, at least TW’s involvement)
Forgotten Gems:
Beautiful Katamari
Banjo Kazooie – Nuts and Bolts
Stuntman: Ignition
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Civilization Revolution
Deathspank
Viva Pinata
Rockstar Presents: Table Tennis
BEST GAMES I NEVER FINISHED / “PILE OF SHAME”
Dead Space 1
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
The Witcher 2
Dragon Age: Origins (PC version – the 360 version was shite)
Super Mario Galaxy
MOST UNDERRATED / OVERLOOKED / UNFAIRLY DERIDED
Resident Evil 5 – With the exception of a few hours spent trying to play RE2 a million years ago, and some time with the Dreamcast’s Code Veronica, I’ve never been all that big into the RE franchise. Indeed, I am well aware that I’m one of the only people on the planet that could not get into RE4, a game often called one of the best ever made. So color me very surprised that I found myself getting very, very deep into RE5; I played through it multiple times – certainly long enough to unlock the unlimited ammo perk for the Magnum, which basically one-shot-kills everything in the game.
Max Payne 3 – My only real beef with MP3 is the unskippable cutscenes, especially since the cutscenes can be a bit tedious and overwrought. That said, I thought this was a great reinvention of one of my favorite franchises, and it’s one of the best looking games Rockstar’s ever made.
Lost Odyssey– the Xbox 360 did not get many JRPGs, but this one was really, really good.
Deathspank 1 – I don’t know, I had a lot of fun with it. Great, goofy art style; satisfying action; a relentlessly juvenile sense of humor that was somehow still endearing.
Prey – (1) If I recall correctly, this was one of the only shooters that didn’t use the Unreal engine, and instead used the Doom 3 engine – and I think it looked pretty great. (2) It also did the Portal thing before Portal (sorta). (3) it’s one of the only shooters where I didn’t totally suck in online deathmatch. No idea why, but I was more often than not on top of the leaderboard in any given match.
GAMES I SPENT THE MOST TIME PLAYING – I don’t have accurate records of this, so I’m sorta doing this by estimate. For one thing, Raptr wasn’t around when this generation got started, and even now it’s not always accurate (two examples: (a) it doesn’t track any of my PS3 time, and (b) I definitely have not spent over 90 hours playing Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (there was some sort of bug where the game didn’t close all the way, and I’d accidentally left it running for at least a few days in between sessions)). There also are more than a few instances where I played the same game on multiple platforms. So I have no idea if this is accurate or not.
Oblivion – taking note of the disclaimer above, this is almost certainly the winner of this category, as I’m nearly positive I haven’t sunk over 150 hours on anything else.
Skyrim
Fallout 3
Red Dead Redemption
GTA IV (360 / PC)
Mass Effect 1/2 – I played both of these twice, as both paragon and renegade, doing every side mission I could find each time. I have not yet done the same with ME3 – in fact, I still haven’t played The Citadel DLC, now that I think of it.
L. A. Noire
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Assassin’s Creed IV (as of 12/5, I’m at 50+ hours and counting!
Borderlands 2
Portal 2 (even though it’s a short game, I beat it multiple times on every platform, as well as finishing the co-op on both 360 and PC – PC, Mac, 360, PS3)
NOTABLE GAMES I DID NOT PLAY / COULD NOT GET INTO
every Call of Duty game after MW2 (and MW2 is where the series jumped the shark, as far as I’m concerned)
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Resistance 1/2 (though I did finish and enjoy 3)
Killzone (any)
Bayonetta (made it to Chapter 5)
Dark Souls / Demon Souls
BEST PERFORMANCE – I had trouble coming up with nominees for this category, strangely enough, because I knew who the winner was before I’d even finished typing the words “Best Performance.” To my mind, there has never been a greater synergy between script writing, vocal performance, and character design and animation than Stephen Merchant as “Wheatley” in Portal 2. (To that end, this award also goes to Erik Wolpaw’s script and Karen Prell’s character design.)
I just finished a great book last night – “The Way of Kings”, by Brandon Sanderson.* And it occurs to me that I’ve read a lot of good stuff of late, and this is as good a time as any to cover what I read last year.
First: the stuff I didn’t finish.
Elizabeth Kostova, “The Historian.” I tried my best; it just seemed to take forever to get where it was going, and I think I just grew impatient.
Tom Bissell, “Magic Hours.” Tom’s one of my favorite writers – I’ve linked to him extensively here in the past – and I picked this up specifically because a short piece he wrote about David Foster Wallace. The book itself is a collection of non-fiction pieces, and I’ve read about half of them so far – the one about “The Room” is terrific.
Sergio de la Pava, “A Naked Singularity.” I’m normally a huge fan of dense, difficult avant-garde-ish fiction, but this one was a particularly tough nut to crack. I’d like to get back into it; at the time, though, I was too easily frustrated and was content to pick up something easier instead.
Umberto Eco, “The Prague Cemetery”. Second year in a row I’ve tried and failed to get into this one. I’m hit or miss with Eco; I adore Foucault’s Pendulum and The Name of the Rose, but couldn’t get into Baudolino and a few others that I’m forgetting the titles of. Will probably abandon.
Ariel Winter, “The Twenty Year Death.” I picked this up on some relatively decent word-of-mouth, and also because I was thinking about writing some sort of pulp mystery thing and thought this might make for a worthwhile read for research purposes. I made it through the first third but couldn’t keep myself interested.
Gillian Flynn, “Gone Girl.” Sometimes I’ll be reading a book, and at some point I’ll have to put it down because of something else. I usually only have a one or two-week window in which to get back into the book before I lose the thread completely. My biggest regret of the year was putting this down (I don’t even know why, at this point) and being away from it long enough to be totally disengaged from it, and so it’s on my must-read list for 2013.
David Foster Wallace, “Both Flesh And Not.” I’d already read some of the pieces in here, for one thing; for another, D.T. Max’s biography (which I’ll get to in a bit) re-broke my heart a little bit, and so I found re-reading DFW a bit more uncomfortable than I’d like. Will definitely get to in 2013; this is a no-brainer.
George Saunders, “Pastoralia.” There was a point this summer where I bought, like, 5 or 6 books all at once, and I couldn’t decide which one to start. I’m actually about to start his new book, “Tenth of December”, which just came out today, and assuming that goes well I’ll be diving back into this one again.
And as for the stuff I did read, here it is, listed in the order in which I read them.
Alan Lightman, “Einstein’s Dreams”. Don’t quite remember why I picked this up; I’d heard about it for a long time, and I guess I was finally in the mood to give it a go. Each chapter is, essentially, a re-imagining of linear time. As someone who was obsessed with the concept of linear/nonlinear/relative time back in college, this is very interesting subject matter, and it’s written well enough to get the points across. But it also feels a bit slight and ethereal, and not in a good way. Still, an interesting read if you’re into that sort of thinking. 7/10
Stephen King, “11/22/1963”. He’s still got it, man. And while he still has certain mannerisms and tics that are incredibly distracting, which is odd considering that they’re in every single goddamned book he’s ever written, and I’ve read most of them and so I should be used to them by now – like how every town in every city has vaguely racist, misspelled signage along its main street – he’s still knows how to tell a great story. This was a ton of fun to read. 8/10
Hugh Howey, “Wool (Omnibus Edition)”. My wife got hooked on these books and finally convinced me to jump on board, and I’m glad I did; they’re remarkably well written and relentless in their tension and pacing. He is the golden boy of DIY publishing, and with good reason; he’s a naturally gifted storyteller. We had the pleasure of meeting him at an author meet-up earlier this year, and he couldn’t have been a nicer guy. 9/10
John Sullivan, “Pulphead”. I’m having a bit of trouble remembering this one at the moment. But here’s my quick reminder to myself after I finished it: “pretty well done, although some essays are better than others. 8/10” That’s a high grade for what seems like a lukewarm review, but I meant it at the time, so it stays.
Rich Walls, “Standby Chicago”. One of the cool things about that Hugh Howey author meet-up I mentioned is that, in addition to Hugh being a super-nice guy, every one of the fans who showed up was also super cool. I’m friends with a few of them on Xbox Live and Steam now, and while Rich isn’t a gamer, he is a rather accomplished author in his own right. This is a very sweet, delicate, sincere novella, and I found it engaging. (Also found it hard to relate to, if only because I’ve never had so many strangers talk to me ever in my life.) 7/10
Hugh Howey, “Wool 6”. A prequel to the Omnibus Edition; this actually raises a few more questions than it answers. Required reading if you’re at all invested in the Wool series; it won’t mean as much to you if you come to it fresh. 8/10
Chad Harbach, “The Art of Fielding”. Beautiful, heartbreaking. Takes a startling turn at a certain point; I thought it was going to be the origin story of a mythic baseball prodigy, and it turned out to be something else entirely. Well worth the journey. 8/10
China Meveille, “The City & The City”. I tried to read another one of his books a few years ago – “Perdido Street Station” – and found it impenetrable and, for lack of a better word, un-fun. This was a lot more my speed – a multi-dimensional murder mystery. I still find his writing style a bit annoying, but he’s unquestionably one of the most imaginative authors out there. 8/10
Patrick Somerville, “The Universe in Miniature in Miniature”. A marvelous collection of short stories that are all sort-of interwoven. Inspiring and brilliantly written. Very much looking forward to reading more of this guy. 9/10
Erik Larson, “The Devil in the White City”. My GoogleDoc comments: “thrilling, gripping, depressing.” It’s an interesting read, even if the two stories that he attempts to tie together aren’t quite as evenly balanced as I’d anticipated. 8/10
Tana French, “Broken Harbor”. The fourth in the Dublin Murder Squad series; this one was not quite as good as the previous three. Still bleak and depressing as all hell, of course. GoogleDoc comment: “might be the first time that the lack of a proper ending was a good thing.” 7/10
D.T. Max, “Every Love Story is a Ghost Story”. After DFW’s death, D.T. Max wrote a beautiful celebration of his life and work in the New Yorker, and it seemed logical for him to follow that piece up with a full biography. I’m not sure how this book would read to someone who isn’t a hard-core Infinite Jest fan; but I am a hard-core Infinite Jest fan, and so this book revealed a lot of interesting information about the creation and inspiration behind that particular work. The ending is a bit sudden, but then, it was in real life, too. 8/10
Iain M. Banks, “The Hydrogen Sonata”. I’m a big big fan of the Culture novels – I’ve been wanting a videogame adaptation of that universe for a long time. As far as those books go, though, this is a minor entry at best, and made for a disappointing read. 6/10
Robin Sloan, “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore”. I flew through this one in about 3 or 4 hours, which is why I’m not rating it higher; it feels too slim and it winds up too quickly. But I loved everything else about it; it was fun and smart and did a lot of the things that I’d hoped “Ready Player One” would do, but didn’t. 7/10
Justin Cronin, “The Passage”. I re-read this to prepare for The Twelve, and it was even better the second time around. An absolute gem. 9/10
Justin Cronin, “The Twelve”. I’m glad that I read these two back-to-back; I felt very much on top of things when the second book got started. It must be said, however, that Cronin is not nearly as good at action scenes as he is with everything else, and there’s a lot of action in this book that just kinda falls flat. This is the middle book in a trilogy, and I must say that I have absolutely no idea where the third book can possibly go; the ending of this one ties up about 90% of the loose ends. 7/10
* No, I haven’t read any of the Wheel of Time stuff, and I’m not planning to, either – this particular book came recommended specifically on its own merits, and since it’s the first volume of a projected 10-volume project, I’ll be more than happy to stick with this for the foreseeable future.
Shouts From The Couch 