wastedyears
Member
Yep, better game in every respect than Skyrim. Best action RPG in years.
Better than Skyrim? Absolutely. Better than Demon's/Dark Souls? Nope, not even close.
Yep, better game in every respect than Skyrim. Best action RPG in years.
Please do. These sorts of obscurities need more of attention, even if they tend to be rather flawed at times.I can keep going!
... what? Was this really worth sharing?My take on the OP's list:
No Vita, no go. Though if I did have any interest in buying a Vita, this would be at the top of my list of games to buy for it.
No PS3, no interest.
Yet again, no Vita.
No 3DS, and I haven't been interested in a Final Fantasy game since Final Fantasy 6 (3) on the SNES.
Same comment as above (minus the Final fantasy comments)
No Wii, not heavily interested in this one.
Pass. Yet again, I don't have a Vita.
Better than Skyrim? Absolutely. Better than Demon's/Dark Souls? Nope, not even close.
What... 50% of your comments were "I don't have this console", the rest were "I'm somewhat interested" and XCOM is going to be GOTY in a couple of sites for sure, not really a sleeper hit...My take on the OP's list:
Does XCom qualify for this thread? It was definitely one of my games of the year for 2012.
Dark Souls is a much better game overall, but I did enjoy the combat more in DD, except that DS has way more variety of bosses, the leveling was also crap in Dragon's Dogma, hope hardmode will fixes some of those issues.
There are a lot of things I didn't like about DD, Dark Souls was a more polished game/experience.
... what? Was this really worth sharing?
What... 50% of your comments were "I don't have this console", the rest were "I'm somewhat interested" and XCOM is going to be GOTY in a couple of sites for sure, not really a sleeper hit...
Huge posts with barely any content... Why?
It's been an awful year no doubt about that, I'd say TWD, Dishonored and Xcom are the only decent games I've played.
I think Binary Command was one of the worst games I've played all year.
Binary Domain
Metacritics: 68, 74, 72 Gamerankings: 74, 74, 63
The third person shooter formula is so well established that every new game in the entry is judged really harsh, Binary Domain bet is just for fun with an interesting system of commands based on voice or buttons players can give orders to the squad and being judged by their performance, and yes it isn’t a game for everyone so people can just shake their heads in grief or laugh at it. It was also one of the worst selling games in NA with just 20k in its debut
Better than Skyrim? Absolutely. Better than Demon's/Dark Souls? Nope, not even close.
The developers took a literal shit on fans of the first game and didn't add a classic MNC mode, no one asked for the game to be more like DOTA, noone wanted the rules to be changed. We had to beg the fuck out of Uber to add the mode in and by the time they did the community was dead as a dodo. Also the 2 gig weekly patches decimated the community and again it took far too long to get a improved client of the game. I almost forgot about the no server browser and matchmaking taking anywhere between 10minutes to 2 hours.
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, if the sales numbers are anything to go by.
Not sure what sort of numbers it's sold but I've always felt Awesomenauts has been under-appreciated despite being a really fun game.
Silent Hill Downpour.
I'm not going to make any excuses for its bugs or other technical drawbacks. The game could have performed a lot better and the visuals could have been improved. I'm not even a graphics whore at all, but Silent Hill games should always look terrific in my opinion because the presentation and atmosphere is so key in these games.
That being said, I felt like there were still so many things about this game that were very solid. For one, it fucking sickens me that we're getting articles about how good the story and storytelling is in Black Ops 2, when the story, dialogue, voice acting, and revelations in Downpour run circles around that junk, and frankly, every other game I've played this year. Its characters were supremely well defined and written and the storytelling was absolutely exceptional for a videogame.
While many feel that the atmosphere has been lost since "Team Silent" left, I completely disagree. It may not be the same, but it still had its own defined theme and I thought they did an excellent job with the direction they picked for this game. It had a very damp, dreary atmosphere that I thought fit very well with the franchise and it made it feel very unique. The otherworld sections, while mostly linear and some of them having a stupid urgency to push you forward, were still highly creative and sometimes very disturbing.
The soundtrack by Daniel Licht was also very good and he didn't make me miss Akira Yamaoka at all. The gameplay itself, well, it's standard survival horror fare more or less. If you don't like that sort of thing in general, I wouldn't recommend it, but I actually liked that the gameplay was very basic and "barebones" as I don't really need some great combat system or amazing gameplay in this kind of game (see: every other survival horror game including the older SH's).
It's by no means a perfect game, it could have used a lot of technical work, could have used better graphics, and its gameplay is merely serviceable to the type of game it is, but Downpour's atmosphere, music, story, and characters were outstanding, and the game had its fair share of spookiness especially if you actually finished it and did all the sidequests. We're still a bit of a way from having that "ideal" Silent Hill experience on newer consoles as I feel there's still loads of untapped potential both graphically and atmospherically, but with a higher budget and the same kind of strong creative talent that was involved with Downpour, I feel pretty good about the future of the series, even while so many others may not.
So yes. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this game to graphics lovers or any "mainstream" gamers, but to fans of the niche horror gaming genre that actually has good storytelling/writing unlike some of these "AAA" games like Mass Effect or Assassin's Creed I would implore them to at least give it a shot.
Nobody mentioned Chivalry Medieval Warfare in this thread? I'm surprised. It got more attention after the most recent Steam sale.
I've played Downpour start to finish twice and the writing and plot in it is absolutely terrible. The people holding it up to the Team Silent days must have finally let the low expectations get to them. It's an improvement on homecoming, to be sure, but that's not saying much. It's also a really, really tame and un-scary horror game.
Syndicate.
Better Co-op shooter than anything else I've played this gen.
The gunplay is basically perfect.
Imagine left 4 dead in a cyber punk world without awful zombies, and garbage source engine shooting.
Also Dragon'a Dogma/Kingdoms of Amalur are both complete ass no matter how much you hate skyrim.
Dragon's Dogma has:Lots of people mentioning Dragon's Dogma. I really didn't dig Skyrim after playing for a while. What makes Dragon's Dogma such a good game? I like the demo well enough, but I also REALLY liked the Kingdoms of Amalur demo and both got very middling reviews. Help me out here.
Dragon's Dogma has:
- The best combat of any action RPG in years. Yes, I AM including the -Souls series in there (it just wasn't for me). Being able to actually climb on top of a hydra's neck and slice it off, without ever losing direct control of your character, is an unmatched experience.
- Excellent character customization. Choose between a large array of attacks and passive abilities - passives can even be used across all 9 classes! So you can, for example, level up the assassin class to gain the passive abilities that increase your damage and defense when you're traveling alone if you want to play the lone wolf, and those passives will take effect regardless of which class you choose. Even beyond that, the physical character customization is ace - you can change facial features, height, body mass, musculature, and more. Also, there is a good variety in armor appearances, and multiple visible armor slots (head, arm, chest armor, chest clothing, leg clothing, leg armor). Oh, and by the way, player weight and height actually has an effect on gameplay.
- Night time is pitch-black, and requires the use of torches to see most anything at all. This makes playing during the night an intense, possibly terrifying experience.
- Great monsters, especially all of the big ones. Though you will eventually get to the point where you kill chimeras in the space of a few seconds, before you reach that point, they will give you a huge challenge. They have some of the best animation I've ever seen in a video game, too. Many of them have unique quirks that you will learn to take full advantage of (wisps will try to possess player characters, and can only be hit by physical weapons once they do; saurians will parry your attacks, but cutting off their tail leaves them vulnerable; and so on).
- The story blows your mind in the last third. Admittedly, the story takes a back-seat otherwise, but I loved the direction it went in once you.finally off the dragon
Those were my highlights. I really think the game deserves more success than it got. The sequel is going to be amazing if it's on next-gen systems!
Man, this type of game is what I miss from PC gaming. I'll file it away though for when I do re-enter the scene.Nobody mentioned Chivalry Medieval Warfare in this thread? I'm surprised. It got more attention after the most recent Steam sale. It was a complete surprise for me. The combat feels great, there is depth but at the same time it's very accessible. It comes down to mind games with your opponent. Catch them off guard with feints and intentional misses that screw with their parry timing. At the same time, it is one of the funniest games I've ever played. I think it may be the best use of voice acting in a game this year. The war cries and taunts and death screams and gargles, it just cracks me up whenever I play. The game is just straight, pure, uncut fun.
Wargame: European Escalation. So good. So very good.
Also Dragon'a Dogma/Kingdoms of Amalur are both complete ass no matter how much you hate skyrim.
True. I really wanted to like DD, but HUD, camera and frame rate made everything so confusing. Game is simply unreadable. Shame because it has a few amazing things.
Botanicula
1) If you have ~3 minutes, listen to this music and try not to smile
2) If you have ~40 minutes, watch this delightful Quick Look
From the makers of Machinarium and many other games, Botanicula oozes charm and personality more than anything else released this year. The sound design is consistently excellent and the scenarios you run into are really bizarre and creative. You get to play volleyball at one point, for example.
Know what you're getting into, though; Botanicula is a fairly simple point and click adventure game that's more about poking around and exploring than challenge. It provides a nice change of pace from, say, an FPS campaign, but it might not be for everybody.
Oh, and the art design. This game is gorgeous.