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2014 - A Year in Review

Bagels

You got Moxie, kid!
LXVi2BE.jpg

I know that looks a bit like 2074, but it says 2014.

2014 was a year defined by new technology, impassioned discussion of social issues, billion dollar expenditures, and bold new frontiers in how badly a huge organization can fuck something up. It was a lot like the 1960s, only with Ubisoft instead of ‘Nam.

We entered 2014 with an entirely new generation of video game consoles. The latest and greatest machines feature the most advanced hardware, an increasing move toward digital delivery of gaming and other entertainment content, and a new focus on sharing video gaming experiences over social media. Gamers now have access to truly next generation hardware, and also the WiiU.

I’m just teasing the WiiU! I love Nintendo and you cannot argue with the value of the experiences they delivered on their console in 2014.


It’s unfortunate that they are simply a smaller company than their competitors. Sony and Microsoft have the resources and connections to fill their latest offerings, the PS4 and Xbox One, respectively, with hardware so cutting edge that it is only matched by the most mid-range of PCs from 3 years ago. Truly stunning technical achievements.

All that being said, let's look at some of the biggest news in gaming in 2014!


Sony announces Playstation Now, a new way to play games you probably already own, but at greatly increased cost. After a January announcement, the service went into open beta Playstation Later, and will be worth subscribing to Playstation Maybe Next Year.

In the first of many high profile acquisitions, Microsoft buys the Gears of War franchise from a Bleszinski-less Epic Games. In a statement, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer assured gamers that Microsoft was hard at work destroying this beloved franchise: “I wanted to make sure I had a great internal team, similar to what we did when Bungie moved out and Halo moved to 343 [Industries].” Look for the inevitable Gears of War Collection from wherever fine video games are sold and, more importantly, wherever multiple fine video game patches are downloaded from!

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Tomb Raider Definitive Edition lands on PS4 and XBO. I played Tomb Raider Indefinite Edition on PC, so I can’t be for sure, but I think there was a tie-in with Digital Foundry offering free pre-spun console war talking points with the rerelease:
For its part, performance on Xbox One is palpably lower - massively so judged by the numbers alone, but the experience itself is more consistent overall.
I’m not sure how “It’s worse, but it’s at least consistent in achieving that worse performance” is a reasonable thing to say, but there you go.

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Having set the kickstarter world on fire, Broken Age and The Banner Saga finally arrive to set the gaming world on medium-low heat.

The sublime Nidhogg, previously only available for play at gaming conferences, arrives. Reviews, while praising the fast-paced nature of the game and its ability to deliver an endless string of memorable moments, fail to label Nidhogg as “Joust meets Bushido Blade.” What is this - amateur hour?


Celebrated developer Irrational Games shuts down, possibly because of my personal disappointment with Bioshock Infinite, or maybe because of all the reports that kept appearing about what a butthole Ken Levine is. Whatever the case, fans of the series have been left adrift, waiting for another developer to deliver an FPS combining all the pretension of a high schooler with a library card with some of the most tedious shooter mechanics outside of Call of Duty. Hopefully someone will step up to the plate!

Hit iOS game template, Threes, launches. The game is named after the number of knockoffs of itself it lost out to on the appstore bestseller list in the first week of its launch.

Bravely Default lands on 3DS, calling back to a time when Squaresoft had a more experimental attitude towards both their games and their use of the English language. “This guy are Bravely Default!” indeed.

In other Square-Enix news (there will be a lot!), Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is released. This is a sequel to Final Fantasy XIII-2, but now with a subtitle placed before its main name. Innovation! Square deserves some credit for bucking the industry trend of dropping the numbers and subtitles from later games in popular series (e.g. “Tomb Raider”), as well as for only taking three iterations of the the same Final Fantasy to make one that remotely resembles anything people actually want to play.

Speaking of reboots, another Square-published sequel arrives - Thief. It is garbage and the series should be re-rebooted right away. Go ahead and call this one Thief again - I don’t really care and you’ve shown you REALLY don’t care. I will say that Thief is interesting for its cold open, which finds you in a room with an unknown drunk man passed out across the bed. The question I asked myself is, “Wait…am I gay? Did I just have sex with this man?” And frankly, I had the same questions about my character in the game, too.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze arrives. Nintendo fans will be livid if I don’t say more about his game.



March turns out to be a big month for virtual reality, with Sony officially announcing their VR solution, Project Morpheus, and Facebook acquiring VR frontrunners Oculus VR for a cool 4/5 the-cost-of-the-rights-to-Minecraft dollars. The news that Facebook, the popular site for making your personal information available at no cost to advertisers, has acquired Oculus VR is met with palpable relief from the gaming community. Thank God this exciting technology won’t be left to small, independent, impassioned companies to develop!

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South Park: The Stick of Truth, developed by Obsidian Games and published by “it’s a long story…” finally hits store shelves. Despite being an RPG with snappy writing, the game is barely recognizable as an Obsidian product due to the lack of egregious software bugs and cut content. Makers of unofficial game patches have their fingers crossed that Obsidian will return to form with Project Eternity.

In a rare case of Square-Enix re-releasing one of their games on a new platform, Final Fantasy X and X-2 HD Remaster(s) are launched for PS3 (fixed) and Vita. Gamers beg SE to consider bringing more of their classic games to just a few carefully chosen new platforms. But according to SE CEO Yosuke Matsuda, “The thought of remaking our old games on the cheap and selling them at exorbitant markups on fucking cell phones or some shit makes me physically ill. We would never do that.”

WoW CCG spinoff Hearthstone is officially released on PC, giving gamers an entirely new way to become addicted to a WarCraft product. Curiously, the three original RTS Warcrafts - the actual Warcraft Warcrafts, have proven to be the least popular entries in the franchise.

Titanfall, the new game by the people responsible for the Call of Duty series before it *completely* devolved to the level of self parody (to their credit, it was well on its way when they left), launches “exclusively” on Microsoft’s system. The word “exclusive” is increasingly used in the sense of its Latin root, excludere, meaning “and also on PC.” Titanfall is a hit with both critics and gamers alike, praised for its blend of parkour, gunplay, and hot mech-on-mech action. The game’s longevity is evident in the fact that, 9 months later, there are literally tens of people still playing it (at peak hours).

Dark Souls II
comes out and surprisingly does not entirely crush the incredibly high hopes of fans of the notoriously difficult fantasy series. Unfortunately, some small concessions had to be made during development to make the game run on last gen hardware, including a teeny-tiny tweak to the impressive lighting system seen in the initial reveal trailers. The minor changes include scrapping all of it and trying again next time. Fortunately, few gamers even noticed.
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Highly anticipated PS4 title Infamous Second Son sees a worldwide release. I admit to being vaguely mystified by this game, in particular the decision to set an open world game in Seattle, of all places. It’s not that Seattle isn’t a wonderful, vibrant place, with, among other charms, its own Space Needle. It’s just that, as American cities go, Seattle is among the most Canadian. If you tell me a game is set in Miami, NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, I think, well sure, someone needs to get in there and clean up those mean streets. If you tell me the game is set in the mean streets of Seattle, on the other hand, my first thought is, what, were the mean streets of Minneapolis - St. Paul too hard to model?


Goat simulator
and The Elder Scrolls Online both launch. The former is a joke idea turned into a good game, while the latter is a good game idea turned into a joke. Comedy.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
launches. We’re only up to April and I’m already wondering if SE does anything but remake and attempt to fix their own games any more. FFXIV is supposed to be a delightful new version of a game, the original version of which was developed during a period in Square history famous for the story about how long some poor soul had to work on designing a rock. But with Square-Enix, second time’s the charm! Or maybe third time. Either way, you’ll also get that same charm ported to more or less every platform in existence from now until the end of time.

Trials Frontier brings the popular motorcycle-y series to the mobile and handheld market, destroying gamer goodwill for developer RedLynx with its aggressive and pervasive freemium model. Fortunately, my own goodwill slowly refills over several years, or can be instantly recharged every hour with a $2.99 purchase from a RedLynx corporate credit card.

Child of Light, a new, smaller title from mega-publisher Ubisoft, arrives to great fanfare. The title is built on the UbiArt Framework, which has “art” right there in the title so what more do you want, for christsakes?? I have yet to play this game, but I know it has many fans. The wikipedia article includes this amazing line: “IGN describes the game's multiplayer experience as being co-operative…” I love that because it suggests to me that IGN cannot be trusted to not screw up even this simple thing. This is the website that famously declared that a squid is not an animal, so maybe their definition of “co-operative multiplayer” actually means “dynamic lighting.” I can’t say I’d be surprised.

Nintendo, sticking to their established position on the (lack of) future of online gaming, discontinues the WiFi connection service for Wii and 3DS. A bug in the WiiU system software that allows users to play online under a simple account system, without the hassle of exchanging individual “friend codes” on a per-game basis, is expected to be patched out shortly. “It’s a slippery slope, “ Nintendo president Satoru Iwata is reported as saying, “what’s next? People not having to repurchase their eshop titles on each new system? Who wants that?”

FPS throwback Wolfenstein: The New Order is released. This single-player-only shooter features an excellent blend of stealth-based and run-n-gun gameplay, a better story than anyone expected and, crucially, “the most tasteful use of a concentration camp level” in all of gaming. It’s odd how few games compete in that category.

Supergiant games releases Transistor, the followup to 2011 indie darling, Bastion. The game is once again an excellent simulator of a man with a wonderful, deep voice telling you about a game as you play it.

Thrilling new IP Watch_Dogs sets the pace for a year defined by Ubisoft just completely overdelivering in every possible way on their AAA titles. Kudos, Ubi!

Mario Kart 8 is…wait. There are really 8 of these? Jesus Christ I’m old. Anyway, the 8th edition in the kart racing franchise par excellence is both great and single-handedly responsible for changing my perception of Luigi from “harmless, forgettable buffoon” to “psychopathic boiling cauldron of road rage.” You’ve come a long way from being a Mario palette swap, baby. Oh God is he glaring at me? He is, isn’t he? I don’t want to look.


In other exciting “the future is online gaming!” news, beloved publisher EA shuts down more than 50 multiplayer games. “But trust us,” a company press release is quoted as saying, “there’s no way that will ever happen again, unless there is literally any possibility on earth it will save us even a tiny bit of money.”

Another UbiArt title appears! Valiant Heart, a gorgeous WWI adventure-ish game, appears on the first of the dozen or so platforms such smaller releases now appear across. There’s a scene in which you battle a Nazi zeppelin using a piano, so I’m not sure why you aren’t playing this right now.

Old school indie platfomer Shovel Knight launches following its successful kickstarter. The game attempts to recapture the magic of NES gaming with an 8-bit aesthetic and a chip tune soundtrack. In order to enhance the nostalgia magic, you should have started begging your parents to get you this game for Christmas two months ago.

Divinity: Original Sin solidifies 2014 as both a great year for kickstarter games and a great year for RPGs. This is a weird new type of release where, while the game is technically finished, they’re still making all sorts of huge mechanistic changes. My repeated requests for developer Larian Studios to one-up Bioware by letting my character have graphic sex with an actual dragon have gone sadly unanswered. Tweet with hashtag #dragonboner to join my campaign.


Acclaimed PS3 game The Last of Us is remastered in HD. Okay, I struggled coming up with a dumb joke here, so I crowdsourced it. My friend, MikeDip, told me, “(Tiffany’s) I think we're alone now = last of us, a cover can be like an HD thing. do your job and put it together man I dunno.” This is why I work alone. If you’ve hated this so far, trust me - it could be way worse.

In other thrilling remake news, fan favorite Falcom RPG (FFFRPG) The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky comes to PC. In thanks for their hard work on this game, developers of the excellent port, XSeed, have received many messages from fans of the series expressing the heartfelt sentiment, “Now give us the next one or we’ll murder you.”
 

Bagels

You got Moxie, kid!

Publisher Activision revives the Sierra entertainment label. Old school gamers are cautiously optimis…who am I kidding? Is there any chance we won’t be hugely disappointed and hate everything about this? EA brought back fabled development studio Origin Systems as the name for a shittier version of Steam. We didn’t want that then, we don’t want it now, and we won’t want it in the future. I look forward to Activision one-upping them by using Sierra as the name for a new system to pay for microtransactions. Fuck me, has there been some depressing news this year…

In yet another sign of both the increasing scope and changing nature of the video game industry, Amazon purchases streaming service twitch.tv for $970M. Amazon pledges a hands-off approach to the incredibly successful service, aside from one minor policy change, “to more closely align with Amazon’s standard of only allowing ‘tastefully gratuitous’ cleavage.”
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Nintendo announces the “New 3DS LL.” Some analysts speculate that this represents a new strategy in which Nintendo iterates on its hardware with new colors, larger screens, new form factors, and slight performance boosts. I don’t see it happening.

A teaser for the Hideo Kojima/Silent Hill crossover, simply titled PT Demo, appears on PS4. I watched a youtube video of someone playing this and I almost had a heart attack. That’s all the convincing I need to never play any part of this in any way, shape, or form ever.

Madden NFL 15
proves that if you reinvent the wheel 15 times, you still won’t have a wheel that isn’t rubbish. We don’t need a new one every fucking year, guys!

The hashtag #gamergate is started by actor, conservative blogger, and guy with twitter account, Adam Baldwin. Gamergate grows into a highly effective movement, measured, as all serious social movements are, in units of kotaku hatred per thousand tweets. Baldwin remains active within the shambling corpse of the gamergate movement, which frankly seems beneath the dignity of the winner of a coveted SyFy genre award for best supporting actor. And that’s saying something.


In perhaps the most shocking news of the year, Microsoft buys Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5B. The biggest victim here, aside from our hopes and dreams for a better future, is obviously Markus “Notch” Piersson. News is, he was so distraught over the deal, he had to move into an entirely new house. I haven’t seen the house, but I know downsizing like that must be painful. Hang in there, Markus!

Blizzard cancels development of their next-gen MMO Titan. This was a long in development MMO in which you had to work an actual day job in order to get to the “fun” stuff. This is different than other MMOs for reasons that are not immediately clear to me.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter sets a new standard in visual achievement in walking simulators. The adventure involves a murder mystery, strong supernatural and occult elements, time rifts, a man getting run over by a train, and a brief trip to a graveyard. I’ve never played a game that reminded me more of my honeymoon.

Bungie’s long-awaited, incredibly hyped new title, Destiny, arrives (according to the advertising) exclusively on the PS4. With its adequate graphics, decent gameplay, and sort of enough content?, the game sets a bold new standard in being mildly disappointing.

Another kickstarter success, Wasteland 2, officially leaves beta status. Like so many other titles I financially backed and closely followed throughout development, the instant it was available, I rushed to add it to my backlog and immediately forget about it.

Monolith’s Shadow of Mordor proves to me that there is something redeeming about the godawful Lord of the Rings franchise. If you strip out the elven poetry, the glacial pacing, and basically every other part of it, and replace it with a nice Batman Arkham game/Assassin’s Creed mashup, with the innovative NEMESIS system, I’m in. Great game. I skipped literally every piece of lore I could. I can’t stand LoTR.


The Xbox One gets the latest entry in the zillion selling Forza series - Forza Horizons 2. The biggest question asked with the launch of any new hardware is, of course, “can it show me a car?” We’ll finish the year with console warriors comparing the PS4’s Driveclub to the Xbox One’s Forza Horizons 2 in a battle of whose cars are the most car. In reality, it’s a win for fans of either system, as, with next-gen hardware, cars have never been car-ier.

EA, not content with simply disappointing American audiences, launches both NHL15 and FIFA 15 from its “need to meet our yearly profit estimates” department. The removal of key features from NHL15 leads to an outraged response from Canadian gamers - “Excuse us. We’re very sorry, but could you possibly make the next one a bit better? Thank you and, again, sorry for our rudeness.”

The Sims 4 comes out. I guess? I can’t say I care, but your 13 year old cousin almost certainly does.


Final Fantasy XIII comes to PC, giving pcRPG fans a chance to reaffirm their hatred for jRPGs. Fans of jRPGs have mounted an impassioned defense of the game, involving it becoming “not nearly as bad after you plow through the first 40 hours!” They are allowed to market this as an entertainment product for unknown reasons.

Driveclub comes to PS4! Sort of! Driveclub was announced as a new digital title, delivered free to subscribers of Sony’s online-content-delivery/make-you-pay-for-multiplayer system, PSN. This being a supremely modern title, it was of course delivered late, busted, missing tons of content and basic features, and with inconsistent messaging about what the heck people who were getting it as part of their PSN subscription were actually getting. Fans who stuck with the game were eventually rewarded with a game update adding rain. And man, people are fucking pumped for this rain! I totally get it, but I will never be able to explain this to my parents. How can you explain to non-gamers this level of excitement over virtual precipitation?

Civilization: Beyond Earth
arrives with pre-release hype about being a new take on absolute classic strategy game Alpha Centauri. What we got is decidedly not that and I am so upset I swear to God I could make a snarky joke about it in an end of year review on a message board. Don’t test me, Firaxis.

Freedom Wars arrives. I apologize as there seems to be some kind of mistake in my notes. It says “An original title for PSVita,” but that seems really improbably in 2014.

Bayonetta 2 is released as a WiiU exclusive, giving angry gamers a new focus for their 100% serious, not made up, concerns about journalistic ethics: people not liking Bayonetta 2 enough. Truly some Jayson Blair-level shit right there. For shame, games journalists. For shame. Is nothing sacred?

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Insomniac-developed Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive hits store shelves. Are store shelves still a thing? If they are, this game hit them. If not, then they hit the digital equivalent of that. The game is not a sequel to 1998’s Spyro the Dragon, to which I can only say, “and why the fuck not, Insomniac???” Love that guy.

Resident Evil spiritual successor The Evil Within delivers next-gen pants pooping scares to gamers. True story: I have a friend who was playing this when I texted him. The phone unexpectedly going off scared him so badly he physically leapt out of his chair and hit his head. Now that’s a horror game. Apparently the game has inspired a large amount of incest fanfic, which I advise them not to put on the box cover.

In other scary horror news, Alien:Isolation is a thing. Playing it truly captures the abject horror of being a development studio releasing another Alien franchise title so close to the execrable Aliens: Colonial Marine. Well, okay, it can’t be THAT scary, but still.

The launch of The Legend of Grimrock 2 is hugely exciting to people like me who liked gaming back when Reagan was still in office. Great games, greater president, greatest fashion. Bring all of it back. Zombie Reagan/me in LA Gear sneakers and a hypercolor tshirt 2016!

Nintendo delivers a sequel to either Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart, or Smash Bros, probably. It seems like I haven’t listed one in a bit. Checking my notes for October…it’s Smash Bros! Very exciting! This is the 3DS version, released to prime the pump for intense discussion of whether or not Smash Bros. is a “real” fighting game. Expectations that the later arrival of the WiiU version in November would finally settle the debate were hopefully nonexistent. Is anyone that clueless about how entrenched gamers get in their opinions about stupid stuff?


Ubisoft gives us Far Cry 4. It doesn't say so anywhere on the box, but I'm pretty sure this is just a remaster of Far Cry 3. It certainly looks like the exact same game, plus elephants. Remember - you can't spell "Innovation" without "Ubisoft," but you can come damn close!

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare launc…oh fuck me. How many of these do we need? Oh, it has Kevin Spacey this time? Great. Go to hell.

Assassin’s Creed: Unity is…well…let’s call it a really serviceable approximation of a working video game. Featuring a detailed recreation of revolutionary Paris, next-gen levels of simultaneous French people on screen (who can even recall the previous record holder?), a revamped parkour system, detailed building interiors to explore…despite all that, it is apparently still a pile of shit. Goddammit, Ubisoft. The fuck is the matter with you?

Because why not, we also got a second new Assassin’s Creed in 2014 - AC:Rogue. Is the idea that if they make enough of them, a few of them will be great purely by chance? But actually, this sequel to last years’s excellent Assassin’s Creed 4 delivers more of the virtual whaling I’ve been craving literally my entire life. Rogue launched exclusively on last-gen consoles in 2014, but PC players will get the chance to fuck up some more whales early next year.

Halo Master Chief Collection sort of happened? The buggy launch and buggy, well, continued existence of this game collection stands as the second greatest disappointment in the history of this storied franchise. Unfortunately, 343 scored a double whammy by also keeping the absolute greatest disappointment alive by releasing any product in the Halo universe that does not include a cat-size Master Chief helmet. My cats were huge fans of Halo 3 and they keep buying all this Halo merchandise in hopes of scoring another sweet helmet, only to be continually let down. The credit card bills are piling up and they’re just more and more miserable. Come on, 343!


In a bold move, Square-Enix laughs directly in the faces of fans who have been asking for years for the privilege of paying them money to play a remake of FFVII. And by “bold move,” I mean “total dick move.” I’m decidedly not an expert in Japanese culture, so maybe this was actually some kind of sign of respect that flew over the heads of Western audiences?

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Grand Theft Auto V comes out again! The game now looks and runs better than ever, and hits new levels of grass coverage-ness, although to a variable degree that people are literally willing to fight each other over. Man, totally unrelated point here, but why do gamers have such reputations for being total assholes?

Ubisoft, tired of being raked over the coals for the shortcomings of their AAA titles, finally figures out what their problem is - the press. Specifically, the press actually attempting to play their shitty games and then - and granted, this is unfair to Ubi - telling people about them. For once, I’m on Ubisoft’s side in this one. Pointing out that a game is busted and filled with odious micro transactions on top of its $60 (plus season pass/collector’s edition!) price tag is hardly sporting to Ubi’s shareholders. People always forget the poor shareholders. To counteract the bully press, The Crew goes out the door with no review embargo, but also with no review copies. If reviewers can’t actually play the games ahead of their release, they won’t be able to be jerks and warn consumers about how janky they are. Everyone wins!

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Nintendo’s Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is apparently a wonderful, joyous, childlike video game experience. I don’t think it would be that for me, as all I can think of when I see Toad is how my older brother sat beside me when I played Super Mario 2 and punched me every time I lost a life. He called it “the incentive system.” He is now a successful lawyer, which seems fitting somehow.

Suikoden II is finally finally FINALLY released on PSN! This classic PS1 RPG has long been a pricey acquisition from resellers. Fans of the game became even more excited when the game appeared on PSN for only $5.99, instead of the announced price of $9.99. This proved to be a pricing error which was quickly corrected. News that the game would now be released for the the massively increased price of “exactly what they had said all along” actually leads some outraged gamers to cancel their planned purchases. This is when I completely gave up all hope for the future of our hobby.

The Talos Principle is a narrative-driven philosophical puzzle game from developers Croteam. Their previous game was about hundreds of headless people charging you with explosives, so this seems like a natural followup. Hopefully their next game will show us they aren’t just one trick ponies.

---------------------------------

I look forward to your criticisms of the poor quality of the jokes and the fact that I left off your favorite game of 2014!

I worry that this all sounds really negative, when I actually had a blast playing games in 2014. Unfortunately, genuine enthusiasm does not easily translate to a long series of zippy little jokes, so I hope you take my gentle (and not so gentle) jabs in the spirit of fun they are meant in. I realize that including this disclaimer makes me a total wienie, but hardcore Nintendo fans, despite the kiddy image of their favorite platform-holder, are complete psychopaths and I'd rather not be murdered this close to the new year.

 

BY2K

Membero Americo
2015 is gonna be nuts, assuming we get no more delays or broken games.

Like, let me level this with you guys.

We're getting a new Uncharted, Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, Witcher, Star Wars Battlefront, Persona, and others I forget to mention, all in the same year.

GOTY discussion is gonna be a nightmare.
 
The things that stick out to me most this year was the FF7 troll and the re-emergence of FFXV. Everything else is a blur.

Oh and Broken Age happened. 2015 looks insane though. Zelda/MGS/Bloodborne/Persona are basically some of my favourite series of all time all getting a new game in one year.
 

Stat!

Member
I'm surprised you didn't include any of our many many gaming conversations Bagels. Hopefully, we have way more in 2015! You the best Bagels. You the best.
 

Bagels

You got Moxie, kid!
I'm surprised you didn't include any of our many many gaming conversations Bagels. Hopefully, we have way more in 2015! You the best Bagels. You the best.

I thought of making fun of you specifically in the NHL 2015 and AC:Unity entries, but I restrained myself. ;)

I see you, Bagels.
Showing off your pens and paper.
I'm onto you.

You must have me confused with someone else. Microsoft Word for life, yo.
 

Stat!

Member
I thought of making fun of you specifically in the NHL 2015 and AC:Unity entries, but I restrained myself. ;)



You must have me confused with someone else. Microsoft Word for life, yo.

I thought you would when I looked at it. I still feel during the Game GOTY Votes, I might bethe only AC:U GOTY vote :(
 

Wensih

Member
2014: the year where everyone thought, "All the games got delayed to 2015," and so they rioted on the internet against women. #ThanksObama.
 

jb1234

Member
Final Fantasy XII comes to PC, giving pcRPG fans a chance to reaffirm their hatred for jRPGs. Fans of jRPGs have mounted an impassioned defense of the game, involving it becoming “not nearly as bad after you plow through the first 40 hours!” They are allowed to market this as an entertainment product for unknown reasons.

Everyone hates those people who comes in and corrects posts but in this case, if FFXII had actually come out for the PC, I'm pretty sure most people would be rejoicing. ;)

Edit: Or not. Come to think of it, XII is pretty divisive too. Hrm...
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
This thread

I fucking love you
 
In terms of video games, 2014 fucking sucked
I've seen this sentiment repeated ad nauseam. I heartily disagree. Especially if you picked up some of the really great stuff that came out on PC, there was tons of new and awesome stuff. AAA console stuff had a mediocre to terrible year, but everything else was fairly solid.
 

BPoole

Member
This is great. I'm definitely bookmarking this for when I lose track of what happened during this year.

Are there any of these for other years?
 

Bagels

You got Moxie, kid!
This is great. I'm definitely bookmarking this for when I lose track of what happened during this year.

Are there any of these for other years?

This is my first attempt at a big silly year in review. I'm not sure what has been done in past years. I can't remember if there's usually a more serious review of things or not.
 
In terms of video games, 2014 fucking sucked

you should broaden your horizons outside of the AAA console bubble

2014 is one of the best years in recent memory if you play nintendo/indie/vita

2014 is a year that gave us not one, but two games that are contenders for best in their genres. That is incredible!
 

BPoole

Member
This is my first attempt at a big silly year in review. I'm not sure what has been done in past years. I can't remember if there's usually a more serious review of things or not.

You did an awesome job for your first time. We should have a Google doc or something to track major happenings throughout the year
 

Miker

Member
Came for the calligraphy, stayed for the jokes. Kinda. I skimmed :(

But I'm a proud owner of a Lamy Safari thanks to you, so there's that.
 

MikeDip

God bless all my old friends/And god bless me too, why pretend?
My The Last of Us joke advice was gold though. Also, great read! (although you should have outsourced more jokes to me)
 

213372bu

Banned
Great OP.

Loved this year and it seems like next year will only get better.

What a shame that a couple of failures ruined a couple of people's year.
 

Bagels

You got Moxie, kid!
I laughed at some of these jokes.

But a few others I didn't laugh. I cringed.

I applaud your effort.

That's the thing about writing this kind of post that makes an interesting exercise - you need a joke with every single entry and you really want to make sure you cover tons of things. Just getting the volume of quips is a challenge, even if you're not worried about getting some big laughs. There are a few jokes in there I really like, and some I'm not terribly crazy about. The funny thing is, there are jokes I think are amazing that no one will find funny. And something that I'm almost ashamed of including because it seems too easy will get huge laughs. So it all ends up in there and I just hope people enjoy the parts they enjoy enough to ride out the intervening bits they don't care for.
 

Hydrus

Member
Great write up, but you forgot three major things:

*The last guardian/ ign fiasco right before E3
*The Tomb Raider 2 xbone exclusive
* And of course one of the biggest troll moments ever in gaming. The FF7 reveal at PSX. Ouch!
 

Toxi

Banned
Nintendo’s Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is apparently a wonderful, joyous, childlike video game experience. I don’t think it would be that for me, as all I can think of when I see Toad is how my older brother sat beside me when I played Super Mario 2 and punched me every time I lost a life. He called it “the incentive system.” He is now a successful lawyer, which seems fitting somehow.
Hehehehe

Glad to see a review of this (rather shitty) year.
 
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