X
Battlefield 4 (PC)
Dice, Electronic Arts
I’ve never really gotten into this series save brief stints with BF3 and BC2, and I honestly don’t get into multiplayer first person shooters all that much, but this game has had me lately. I love the maps. Huge, sprawling outdoor areas spotted with tight and detailed interiors. When I find myself playing the odd game of Domination I can’t help but be impressed at how well these maps work despite the entire match taking place in one tiny sliver of the Conquest map. And in Conquest I still feel like I’m noticing things about these maps after over 80 hours of playing. The building and terrain destruction is more satisfying than ever, especially combined with the larger map destruction events (which can actually come in handy in changing the pace of a match). The aerial vehicles have a surprisingly fun learning curve, too. It’s very satisfying to start winning helicopter and jet duels and to start successfully taking out anti-aircraft vehicles with the Warthog. The launch was buggy as hell, unfortunately, but it works well lately and I rarely go through a match without standout shoutworthy moments.
IX
Killer is Dead (PS3)
Grasshopper Manufacture, Xseed Games
Played on Hard using no Mika tickets. I figured I'd be getting a game that was stylish and weird-looking with Lollipop Chainsaw's lame combat, but it's a significantly better game than that. Fights are actually pretty fast, with a lot of guarding, parrying, dodging, and these super weird red dodge-attacks, and it's all pretty satisfying. The boss fights can be great and take you through all of the combat's options, with some enemies that can't be blocked, some that can't be dodged in certain directions, some you're best off guard-crushing, some you can't kill without stunning and using a meter-limited attack, and so on. If you decide to play without using Mika tickets (this game's form of Devil May Cry Yellow Orbs) you'll find that there are some pretty beefy and tense checkpoints to fight through. The cutscenes and stages are as nonsense as you'd expect, with some really out-there and awesome enemy designs. The downsides are long loading times, an inconsistent difficulty curve, a surprisingly dumb camera, a slow health-regen powerup, an inexplicable lack of vsync (engine-capped 30fps meaning you get tearing even when it's running 100%), and some general animation jank. It's not exactly a Platinum action game but it's a big step up for Grasshopper. Would really like a PC version to iron out tech issues.
VIII
DmC: Devil May Cry (PC)
Ninja Theory, Capcom
This turned out... really well. The combat is engaging throughout thanks to the huge amount of actions available to you at once (ignoring the lock-on in favor of giving players access to a ton of weapons at once was worthwhile trade-off I think), nice animations (especially at 60fps), a large cast of enemies (some of which have a surprisingly large number of behaviors), the occasional arena that imposes a twist on the fight (uppercutting enemies into a subway train, dodging moving hazards, etc), and the sometimes great but never awful bosses. The grapple "platforming" is pretty automatic but always cool-looking and never takes long enough to be a bore. The environments are gorgeous and changing wildly all the time. The difficulty levels seem well done. The secret missions are fun to hunt down. I heard this was easy going in, so I started on Nephilim difficulty and decided to never buy any life meter extensions and never use any items (including gold orbs). Glad I did! The game’s still too easy, but it helped. When this was announced I assumed it would blow, but here we are. DmC wound up being better than Ninja Gaiden 3 (easily) and honestly, I liked it more than DMC3. I'll have to think about where it ranks when compared to DMC4.
VII
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Wii U, 3DS)
Capcom
I have no idea how previous entries in this series were, but I enjoyed this enough to pour 120ish hours into it without regret. Assuming the earlier games were similar, this franchise is probably where the Souls games got their basics from, and the Souls games are probably the closest I can compare this to. Like Souls, this game does a great job of taking satisfying combat mechanics (strict controls, lots of nicely-sized movelists, stamina meter management, long missions where strict death penalties make your party give a shit) and spreading them out over tons of battles. There's also a ton of preparation (all those items and armor skills!) and a bit of aimlessness. The game has a good number of base monsters, many of which have variants that have basic but pretty clever differences (often one or two new moves to go along with changes in damage/speed/elements) to keep things interesting. And as a loot game? Man, I'm pretty sure nothing comes close. Even with all these hours in, I'm looking forward to seeing the G-rank stuff in Tanzia. The sea breeze beckons.
VI
Volgarr the Viking (PC)
Crazy Viking Studios, Adult Swim Games
The best action-platformer since Uprising. Very, very focused levels (at its toughest this game approaches Holy Diver levels of tricky stage design), nicely spaced checkpoints (save for the final stage, weirdly, where things get a little too bite-sized), and there's some really nasty enemy behavior. The bosses are a little on the easy side, but they'll still take a little bit of learning. The real meat of this game is likely in the Path of the Valkyrie, which I have yet to finish, but considering what I’ve seen of it so far and how good Path of the Crystal was I have pretty high expectations. The only downsides are some bland backgrounds and music, but there’s nothing ugly enough to really put me off. All in all, this is probably the best Western-made platformer I've played. The density of these stages combined with this slow pace remind me of The Super Shinobi, and it’s hard to think of higher praise than that.
V
Dead Rising 3 (One)
Capcom Vancouver, Microsoft Game Studios
This game is great and exactly what I was in the mood for. Nightmare mode is the only mode. Save points are still spaced out, making the trip back from a psychopath battle as important as the battle itself, but the city makes all the traversing even better. I really, really like the city in this. It's not as big as your typical free-roaming game, but there are tons of interiors to explore and blueprints/statues/speakers that I was actually compelled to go out of my way and find (after considering time remaining, of course). Vehicles control well and lead to some seriously awesome devastation (the game seems to focus that new gen horsepower on large piles of physics objects and seriously huge crowds, like the original), and the game does a good job of making you ditch vehicles often and walk certain stretches or find new wheels. There's now one big game timer instead of smaller individual timers for the story missions, but the side missions still have individual time limits. Survivors aren't escorted back home anymore and are instead just temporary battle partners as soon as you finish their associated mission. These things made the game a bit less tense overall, but it still kept me pressured and the city makes up for it. It took me one failed run before beating the game.
IV
Dodonpachi Saidaioujou (360)
Cave
Cave games are always so refreshing. The genre is one of the most thrilling and dense and Cave is peerless in it. While I liked Cave’s bullet-cancelling stint, I’m glad they’ve gone away from it and back to Daioujou-style pure dodging tension. The aesthetics are fantastic; the game is visually like a more refined version of Daifukkatsu with way cooler bosses and less tacky backgrounds. Even outside Expert mode the game wastes no time: I have to pay attention to the stage 1 boss, I can barely handle the stage 2 boss, and it gets SO MUCH NASTIER from there. Real trouble before stage 3 in the game’s default mode! And stage 3 is typically the first bumpy stage in a Cave game! Unheard of, and I love it. It’s a good port, too, as I’ve come to expect.
III
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (360, PC)
PlatinumGames, Konami
Platinum’s so good at this. Coming to grips with the weird parry/block system and the initial lack of a dodge made for an experience that wasn’t very similar to learning any other Platinum action game, but getting that first block, playing around with the blade mode, getting the first parry, landing the first zandatsu… it’s all so awesome to take in. And then there are those initial boss fights, where the game will make sure you understand the parry/block system and get you so excited when the vocals kick in. Eventually you get adjusted to the game’s unique flow and battles become a hectic mix of parrying, dodging, doing limb damage, and aiming in blade mode in hopes of getting some health back. You’ll occasionally get the chance to do some sneaking, sometimes assisted by items, and this can be a pretty cool change of pace from time to time (and blends well with the combat when you get caught). And at the end of the game you get the privilege of playing the single best boss fight in the genre. Zero hyperbole. There hasn’t been a better one. The game is mostly a little easy on Hard but Very Hard and Revengeance will keep you paying attention.
II
Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)
Nintendo
Oh my god, this game is great. It’s the ideal mix of Galaxy’s aesthetic variety and 3D Land’s denser and more focused stages, making for a way better game than either. It introduces new enemies and objects constantly without feeling like a gimmick showcase. Everything is clean without being sterile, well animated, and looks great all while performance rarely drops. Getting all the stars never feels like a chore. Things only get better after you see the credits and the game gets a bit more daring, and it all leads up to an awesome final challenge. Co-op is a let-down, though.
I
The Wonderful 101 (Wii U)
PlatinumGames, Nintendo
Normal, no continues. What a ridiculous game. It's easy to be lost at first, but once it clicks it's so great. This is the strongest of Kamiya's DMC-style games, mechanically. It just keeps layering on shit to manage in the form of new playable characters (which pretty much serve as weapons) and enemies. The enemies have all sorts of little weaknesses to figure out, too, encouraging you to make full use of all the weapons without being overly rigid about it. Blocking and dodging are tied to a meter this time, and since it's a meter shared with a lot of offensive abilities you can find yourself really sweating when you run out. I was unsure about how I’d feel about the tone of the game at first, but the extremely likable cast of characters and the constantly-escalating stakes won me over by the end. It's a pretty massive game, too, as far as this genre goes. The difficulty curve is a little goofy (the end game stuff should have been tougher) and some of the minigame chapters were lame (like Bayonetta but not as bad), but these aren't too big of a deal. I haven’t played through the harder difficulties yet, but I have no doubt that I’ll love returning to this.
Honorable Mentions
Carnage Heart EXA (PSP)
Artdink, Natsume
I’m planning on going back to this absolute beast of a game. There’s so much complexity here when it comes to programming robot behavior, and I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. The tutorial of this game will prove challenging enough for many, lol.
The Last of Us (PS3)
Naughty Dog, SCEA
All of the production values are on the level of Uncharted, so you get engaging cutscenes and gorgeous environments and all that, but everything else is better. Instead of the pseudo-platforming you're poking around dead areas for items and doing basic traversal puzzles (these are a little overdone but mostly okay). The battlefields are often pretty open for this kind of game, with some surprisingly believable building layouts. You'll usually start encounters by sneaking around, but when they break out into a fight there are a lot of options to re-enter stealth. The combat has a lot of cool options between the melee stuff, the item management, and the more interesting guns. The enemies often keep on their feet in a fight but certain types can get a little too dumb near the end of the game. Items are scarce enough and you'll die enough times to try all sorts of things. Played on Hard with no Listen mode.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies (3DS)
Capcom
Yeah, this is definitely the best since the original trilogy. Great new characters, some of the best cases in the series (even Case 3 is good this time), and the game is gorgeous. The character models are animated really well and I was even fooled into thinking some of the 3D environments were hand-drawn.
Grand Theft Auto V (360)
Rockstar North, Rockstar Games
A step up from IV. At day the city is bright and vibrant, and at night things are no longer bland and muted. You can climb just about every other building. Characters almost look decent, and animate way better (especially in fist fights). The car controls are now where they should be: more responsive than the swimmy IV controls (and drifts actually do more than 180 turns this time), but requiring more attention than those in the III series. Just about everything I missed from San Andreas (side missions, wilderness, customization, etc) is back. The on-foot firefights seem faster and you can now ditch the lock-on for free-aim, which I'd highly suggest. The cops are more aggressive than before, and the escape-the-circle stuff is gone and replaced with a more natural line-of-sight system. The missions are generally better, too. Sadly, it's also the easiest GTA yet. And that's a shame, because it'd be nice to have missions tough enough to encourage me to try all sorts of different approaches. You'll still run into some magic moments during the more free-form missions, times where the cops and your objectives and the driving and the shooting and the explosives and the character special abilities all come together, but it doesn't happen often enough and you'll go through one too many missions that are just a long stretch of danger-free driving followed by an isolated shootout. The character switching can also be a little pace-breaking during missions where you're pretty much forced to do a lot of it. I think I ultimately would have preferred playing as one character.
Saints Row IV (PC)
Volition Inc., Deep Silver
I couldn't get into Saints Row The Third. I think it was because the vehicles felt cheap and never slid around, the combat seemed like nothing special, and in SR3's case, the story missions were hella inconsistent in quality. SR4 fixes the vehicle problems by simply making them unnecessary thanks to the ridiculous super powers. Sprinting around, running up buildings, and gliding make getting around the city pretty fun. It's somewhere below Just Cause 2, for sure, but most games in this genre are when it comes to that. The combat is still sloppy but I was occasionally impressed at how well all the enemy types and objective types could come together in some of the larger, more open fights. And almost every main mission in this game is as good as what I saw of the better SR3 missions. Pretty surprised that this game's sense of humor didn't bug me all that much given how referential it is. I even like some of these characters! Pretty good.
Etrian Odyssey IV (3DS)
Atlus
I have yet to beat one of these, and I normally can’t get into traditional JRPGs, but I’ve always had a slight fondness for this series. The music combined with the pretty first-person forest is just so serene, the character designs are so adorable, and there are definitely some real decisions to make in these battles. I love the world map addition. Some day I’ll finish this.
Ys I Chronicles+ (PC)
Falcom, Xseed Games
This is a really weird game. It has nice art, excellent music, some visually cool bosses, and tearing through enemies kinda has its charms. The lack of a save structure (this game has literally no options but "save anywhere but boss fights") and the ability to regenerate health in most areas make the player alternate from breezing through dungeons to sloppily retrying a boss battle until they trip over a victory. It's not a bad game, just not at all what I was hoping for after the excellent Oath in Felghana.
Tomb Raider (PC)
Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix
It's a bit less polished than the Uncharted games (maybe the 60fps makes animation flaws clearer?), but the production values are still ridiculous and I think that the combat sequences work better in this than in Uncharted. Sure, the cover is automated, but the enemies are at least aggressive enough to keep you moving and you don't do a lot of waiting around. I didn't go too far out of my way to find extras, but the animal hunting and side tombs are a neat touch.
Fire Emblem Awakening (3DS)
Nintendo
I really don't know anything about this genre, so I'm the worst person to talk about how it stacks up to other games, mechanically. I can say that it's probably the prettiest tactics game that I've seen. The marriage thing is a cool idea, the support scenes are charming, the music is good, the fight scenes are well-done. Especially glad that the battles and UI move at a quick pace, unlike FFT. Normal mode is a complete cakewalk, even without going out of your way for sidequests or using Reeking Boxes to spawn fights with Risen. I hear that not all Fire Emblem games let you do grindy stuff like the latter... I also have no idea how good the other difficulty levels are.
Bioshock Infinite (PC)
Irrational Games, 2K Games
The weapons are mostly solid (hand cannon is awfully fun to use), the special enemies are cooler than in the last two games, and I at least prefer the dimensional tears in combat to the original game's hacking. Skylines are a nice addition if a bit simple, same with the clothing. 1999 mode works out decently. Way more visually engaging than the prior two games. I think that I ultimately don't like the amount of useless scattered pickups, but that also goes for the first two games.
For the tally:
1. The Wonderful 101 ; This is the strongest of Kamiya’s DMC-style games. I am very much looking forward to returning to this on harder difficulties.
2. Super Mario 3D World ;
3. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance ;
4. Dodonpachi Saidaioujou ;
5. Dead Rising 3 ;
6. Volgarr the Viking ;
7. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate ;
8. DmC: Devil May Cry ;
9. Killer is Dead ;
10. Battlefield 4 ;
x. Carnage Heart EXA ;
x. The Last of Us ;
x. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies ;
x. Grand Theft Auto V ;
x. Saints Row IV ;
x. Etrian Odyssey IV ;
x. Ys I Chronicles+ ;
x. Tomb Raider ;
x. Fire Emblem Awakening ;
x. Bioshock Infinite ;