Well goddamn, I somehow was able to reach 10 games after thinking it would be a struggle to reach half that (although I have HD remasters).
1.
Bayonetta 2 ; Just like my #2 pick, this one is also a game that's a refinement of it's predecessor. The basic structure is the same as in the original, even if the stage aren't as claustrophobic and contained so you have a little more freedom to explore them. The story is just as crazy over the top, which doesn't bother me at all given that I tend to enjoy a Fantasia fest film festival which is held anually in my city (which will run a couple of crazy over the top movies). In fact, the craziness of the overall story and action by the lead character herself tend to amuse me or just make me laugh.
That's certainly not the main reason why I bought these games to begin with and most fans of the franchise will say the same things. It's all about the superb combat mechanics, which are partly similar to a fighting game which is my favorite genre. :] I love the combo system of this action game like no others, since there is plenty of variety and you can mix and match your favorite ones depending on the situation (depending on the type of monster you face or if you need to juggle). Not content with plenty of offensive options as far as combo goes, you also have a plethora of weapon to experiment with. The responsiveness and fluidity is also second to none, which are all important factor that add up in making the Bayonetta franchise the pinnacle of it's genre. For this sequel, Platinum Game mostly focused on trimming the fat or mostly eliminating what wasn't appreciated in the original (so less insta fail QTE or minigames), and focused on providing the goodness which is and will always be it's combat system. Yes, the boss battle aren't as "epic" since you mostly fight human sized ones and I don't see anything wrong with that. It's just a matter of perception and I guess that for some gamers, fighting less oversized freaks lessen the grand spectacle. It is recommended to play in 3rd climax to fully appreciate the game and I'm definitively going to make a go at it once I have more time to dedicate to this happy (starting next week), since it is true that 2nd climax hasn't been too troublesome thus far.
2.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze ; Growing up, platformers were my favorite kind of game and we had a significant quantity of them to pick from (2 or 3D). I had a slight preference for 2D ones as they had a tendency to be harder and required precise jumping. Of course, some of those are also considered as all-time classics now suck as DKC 2 or the Mario brothers. It remain to be seen where this one will eventually be placed on such a future list, but it's a modern classic imo. Just the fact that Retro is dedicated to making AAA 2D platformers blow my mind given that it's a genre relegated to niche status and thus mostly receiving love from indies (the big budget platformers from Nintendo EAD are in 3D nowadays, when you look at the cheap production values of the new super mario bros. series). Tropical Freeze is an improvement over Returns which was already a very good platformer, in part because it's not bogged down by the motion play controls. Finally, you can master the rolling technique which is crucial for speed run or getting 100% completion. And the stages are absolutely loaded with hidden secrets and bonus puzzles pieces that you collect by jumping and figuring out all the layouts for hard to reach items. It's just loaded with creativity, from the stage layout to the various themes of each world and how they affect them (dynamites blowing up the ground you stand on, lava tides, crumbling platforms, etc). Even the underwater section are incredibly well designed, which can sometime be a weakness in a platformer. Personally, I enjoy the boss battle and Retro decision to make them longer than usual. In most Nintendo games, you only need to stomp them 3 times by tradition and in Tropical Freeze you need several hit to defeat them which make them drawn out (and they sport plenty of patterns). I think it's a very nice touch, since it make them more memorable instead of being a mere annoyance like they usually are in a Mario Bros. outside of Bowser.
In a nutshell, this is Tropical Freeze and it's not very surprising to see that it's been cruelly underrated in 2014. It doesn't reinvent the wheels of gaming or platforming, but the inspiration and execution is second to none and I believe that great design is ultimately timeless. The industry always try to favor a game which try to "push the genre forward", but gaming will always first and foremost be about the interactivity and Tropical freeze excel at it (and in Nintendo good ole tradition, has basically no story which the gaming press love to focus on). The soundtrack, art direction and vibrant colors are also another noteworthy and they all combine in making this one of the all tie great. I'm glad that I fell for the GAF hype for this one as 2D platformers with AAA level of production values are incredibly rare these days.
3.
Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall ; The last time I participated in a GOTY thread, I picked Xcom as my #1. I always had a soft spot for tactical rpgs or games and enemy unknown delivered excellent tactical combat in spade. Dragonfall feature the same kind of tactical combat where you take turn and give orders, along with hit or success% when you are about to fire a shot or use a spell. It's dumbed down since it's not the main focus of the game unlike Xcom (there's no extra layer of depth by trying to gain higher ground, environment isn't destroyable and there aren't as many skills which affect tactical combat). Instead, this is an rpg which strike an excellent balance between solid dialogues / writing, roleplaying, C & C and a simple form of tactical combat. It's an improvement over what I played of Dead Man's switch campaign since you get a more involved story, less linearity and an actual team dynamic. The game isn't without it's faults (the rpg and combat mechanics don't have that much depth) and the UI isn't the greatest since it was designed for PC and tablets, but nothing crippling. It's unfortunate that I couldn't find the time for Divinity as it does seems like the stronger crpg, but Dragonfall is a quality title and rather short and to the point which was perfect for me given my crazy 2014 schedule.
This is a quality rpg, which was supposedly made better with the director's cut which I didn't even install yet. It does showcase the potential of the developer, which is still small and lacking in money as most working in the indie field are. Worthy of a kickstarter push for the upcoming Shadowrun HK in my book. :]
4.
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls ; Blizzard actually salvaged Diablo III, which was never the garbage game that most people though it was imo. A deeply flawed game for sure, but that could actually deliver on it's promise with proper effort put into fixing it's most glaring problems. The new creative team actually delivered on most account, fleshing out was was deeply lacking about it which is an actual endgame. The fifth act is much better than the vanilla campaign thanks to new enemies which keep the fighting interesting and improved boss battles. Adventure mode is the big game changer for DIII, as it allow you to focus on the biggest strength of the game which is the frenetic fighting and experimenting with builds to take on more challenging battles to get the best possible loot. It got really stale and boring when all you had was replaying the campaign over and over, but adventure mode just let you have silly fun by tasking you with simple objectives over an act which eventually lead you to collect rift keystones which will be used to access nephalem rifts and eventually greater ones. It also brought back more randomized tiles thanks to these nephalem rifts, options to change the properties or value of items and ladders. Perhaps Warlords of Draenor is the superior expansion, but Reaper didn't make me regret my decision to purchase that year long pass for WoW which gave me my digital copy of DIII anymore. This is now an excellent arpg which will probably be improved further with another expansion down the line since Blizzard changed their business model (possibly bring back an interesting pvp mode?).
5.
Wolfenstein: The New Order ; Man, I can actually understand why some who enjoyed the game on GAF tried to compare it to HL2. There are similarities when you look at both campaign, since they both have vehicles sections (and water is involved) and they have their trademark weapon. The legendary gravity gun in HL2 and the LKS in Wolfenstein which can actually be upgraded. Sure, the campaign itself doesn't bring anything new to the genre and Machinegun game didn't re-invent FPS mechanics. Instead, they just focused on making the best possible game and they executed. The writing is surprisingly decent and the story is certainly bearable, which is already better than near 99% of FPS campaign out there. Level design is very gun, as it's both constrained and allow some room for exploration since there are collectable to find or alternate path to get better angle to gain the advantage in a shootout. The stealth section aren't great, but I appreciate that they decided to include them since I actually this method of approach in my FPS. It does cut down on needless wave of enemies and the throwing knifes are fun to use. Even the universe is engaging as you fight freakish nazi super soldiers, robodogs and mechs. Not to mention the locales which are varied, much more so than another game which is somewhat similar in it's aesthetic such as Killzone. It's not surprising that a couple of gaffers said that Machine gun game should be hired by Sony to take charge of the Killzone franchise once you play Wolfenstein.
6.
Guilty Gear Xrd ; I think Arc System Work did a sequel to their most famous IP the "right" way with Xrd. First of all, the art style is similar to the established look of the earlier titles while using very good tech. The anime look of the series using the unreal 3 engine is just awesome imo (while being a 2.5D game), which is something that Capcom could of done as well. Outside of retaining the look and sound, it's mostly the gameplay that's very similar to X and XX which is important for old fans of the series. Capcom has always struggled to keep the consistency between each SF (deliberitely or not) since each new SF game is very different from the preceding one, but Xrd remain close to it's predecessor. They made it more accessible, but in a smart and calculated way. The biggest barrier of entry in the X2 era (XX, Reload, Slash, Accent core + R) was mastering the false roman cancel (cancelling a move during it's active frame) which had a massive impact on competitive play (and required way too much time for most). It's been removed in Xrd, but instead it's been replaced with 3 levels of roman cancel (yellow, red and purple) which activate in different circumstance (yellow cost 25% of your tension bar if you cancel a move early and it doesn't connect with your opponent, purple cost 50% and will activate if you cancel a move late and it doesn't connect or isn't blocked by your opponent and red also cost 50% and allow you to cancel a move at any time if you connect or if it's blocked). It's much simpler than the old roman cancel system, while nearly everything else is brought back from X2 outside of the roster. The pace is slightly slower, but nothing like the contrast between SFIV vs II turbo or III for example.
So the game is more accessible than before, it retain the aggressive style of play and characters which have plenty of options as to what they can do along with an interesting take on how to make a story mode work within the FG genre. Instead of having cutscenes or voiced dialogues intertwined with 1 vs 1 battle (which some would say are meaningless), it's purely a 4-5+ hours movie using the 3D models while the fighting is relegated to the arcade mode which has the leftover of the story. I don't know if it will prove to become the de facto way to make story mode in the future, but it's an interesting approach that should be mentioned. Online multiplayer is good, especially after they improved the netcode with the latest patch. In 2015, it's crucial for a FG to have solid netcode these days since it's a genre that strive on competitive play and the genre isn't at the peak of it's popularity so local communities can be hard to access depending where you live.
7.
Mario Kart 8 ; Possibly the best multiplayer experience of the year, although you will have people vouching for Smash Bros. Wii U as well. MK 8 isn't anything new, outside of the anti-gravity gimmick which doesn't really impact the established tried and true gameplay of the franchise. Although, I played the game recently just to refresh my memory and anti-gravity sections are interesting because they enable spin boost techniques. Yes, the single player content isn't very in depth and that's been the case for numerous game now. The battle mode is a severe regression since they scrapped specially made arenas for the standard courses. Still, MK is first and foremost about being a fantastic multi experience and 8 doesn't disappoint. The game look fantastic in HD and I love the attention to details and look of every course (art direction isn't too shabby as well). The selection of course is great and there are very few dud in the selection. I appreciate that Nintendo made several shortcut in the courses which test the skill of the player as is the risk of bumping into another kart which can give them a boost of speed so you have to gauge the risk / reward factor, although it's somewhat mitigated by the items which does come down to having sheer luck in winning a race occasionally (but hey, it's part of the fun
). The DLC model should also be commended since it's a great value for what you get which is plenty of extra courses for a cheap price if you look at the industry standard (which will make MK8 the most content rich of the series). So all in all, I can't really find too much fault with the game outside the fact that it's more of the same MK which isn't a bad thing.
I think this one has been received with more enthusiasm than usual because of the solid online play, HD graphics, good amount of content and solid control signifying that it's a great package as far as a MK game has offered if you look at the past titles since Double Dash.
8.
Heartstone: Heroes of Warcraft ; This has got to be one of the best free to play game on the market so far right? First of all, it bear the trademark of a Blizzard game which mean that it's superbly polished. Second of all, it follow the mentality of being a game which is easy to play, hard to master. It's very intuitive and you quickly learn how the cards can affect each others and how each character class operate. Now, hard to master probably doesn't apply to Heartstone as luck is a factor given that it's a trading card game. You need both skill and luck to win, but that's what can make the game so addictive. I love the distinctive Warcraft touch all over it, which give it it's own personality ranging from the sound effects to the actual cards and special effects that they can generate which is lifted from WoW. Incredibly well done and the best part is that micropayments aren't rage inducing since you can use the ingame currency (gold) to buy everything (although you will grind for a much larger amount of time). You can even disenchant spare cards and craft what you actually want given enough arcane dust. So the base game is very solid and Blizzard gradually add cards and content to it, which mean that it should have a long life ahead of it (if you look at a real TCG like Magic the gathering). There's just so much that is offered here and it's the perfect casual game which you can play 10 minutes a day on your PC or smartphone.
9.
GTA V (PS4) ; The last of Us has better writing, characterization and story hooks, but it's the inferior remaster. For me, GTA V was easily the best remaster of 2014. The game was too ambitious for the last gen consoles, so I feel it's right at home on the PS4 / XB1 and soon PC. It simply look incredible for an open world game and the addition of the first person mode is a nice bonus. The level of polish is second to none, but I wouldn't expect any less from Rockstar given the amount of money invested in making this ridiculously popular game. So I never got to play my Xbox 360 copy since I wanted to fund my PS4 so I quickly sold it back, thinking that I would play it on my new console. I'm happy that they took the backlash from IV seriously and made V more video gamey if I may say so. It's a fun game to play given all the side activities (flight school, gun practice, sport minigames, underwater exploration, exploiting the stock market, etc) and also because each character can activate a special power. Kudos for the heists, which are the highlight of the campaign since it involve switching between characters and accomplishing different tasks in the same mission. So you've got an open world with lot's of stuff to do, but also plenty of option to burn the money you amass on car or gun customizations (or new clothes / haircut). You can also purchase properties, so Rockstar took elements from previous efforts (Vice city, San Andreas and IV) to make sure that their newest opus could keep you occupied and entertained for hours on end. If there's still a weakness in the series, it's the controls which simply aren't good enough imo. Not so much the shooting which isn't great, but just how your character move around which is still stiff as fuck. Taking cover is not a gracious affair and I still can't believe how crappy the jumping animations are (and sloppy lol). If I remember right, I never had much difficulty driving and shooting at the same time in Sleeping Dogs, but in GTA V it's an absolute chore. XD So while I understand why each new title is praised and popular because of the insane production values and the polish that they tend to have, it blow my mind that so many gamers still put up with shit tier controls when you're on foot. Still, got to commend Rockstar on delivering a great open world game despite the flaws that come with the genre and the GTA quirks.
10.
The Last of Us: Remastered ; I didn't participate in last year GOTY thread, but it was hard to miss the fact that it would eventually win by a comfortable margin. I was intrigued to play it since ND apparently nailed both the story and mechanic aspect of their newest opus. I wanted to see for myself and I bought the game at the very end of 2013, but never got the chance to actually play it lol. I sold the PS3 version back and here I am with the remastered version which contain most of the DLC. Yes, the game is indeed very good, if not excellent and among the best of the last generation. The graphics are excellent and the set pieces are even better, possible the best ND has done yet. The production values are incredible and the tech is very solid, but I expected that from ND. The story and characterization are the greatest strength of the game and the writing is well above average for a high profile AAA game. I like the post apocalyptic world that they crafted since it remind me of The road novel. The gameplay isn't as strong however, so I'm not sure if I would call this a "timeless masterpiece". While shooting or melee combat is very responsive and thought out, the problem mostly concern the enemies that you encounter. There's a lack of variety in enemy type and you quickly know what to expect from infected or human opponents. Boss battles are also nothing to write home about from a mechanic standpoint, so I can see how people could view the game as becoming repetitive. I think it's the story that ultimately hook the player in finishing the game and not it's gameplay which isn't as fun or interesting as it could be. MGS V ground zeroes may be demo, but I had more fun with the playing part because of superior mechanics implementation (and Phantom Pain should have satisfying boss battles). Anyway, I'll give the game the credit it's due in making a cohesive experience where the story, gameplay and world have synergy (can't accuse the protagonist of being a mass murderer given the context). The online multiplayer is surprisingly good, since it preserve the mechanics of the game which are quite good and don't subject you to the AI or predictable patterns as you fight actual human opponents.
Honorable mention:
x.
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes ; I have no idea how the full game will end up from a storyline standpoint, but I'm willing to put up with Kojima weirdness / craziness in order to experience a lengthy game with such solid mechanics. The new standard from a gameplay standpoint concerning the MGS series. I already love the possibilities offered from an open world approach (the game structure + "sub quests" design will give it more content thus interactivity and possibly drop the over reliance on cinematic cutscenes that Kojima fell in love with). I anticipate that Phantom pain will deliver one of the best balance of open world and solid gameplay mechanics / level design (great boss battles, stealth possibilities and replay value which should inspire western developers to improve upon their mechanics).
x.
Alien isolation ; I haven't been keeping up with horror games which are experiencing a resurgence. In the last few years, I've played the Dead Space trilogy and that's pretty much it. This game has revived the interest, along with the P.T. demo which is intriguing given the implication of Kojima and Guillormo Del Toro. :] I can't believe how good it look, especially from an art direction standpoint. They truly nailed the look of the first movie along with the atmosphere. The biggest accomplishment is the great sound design, which make the game work. It goes without saying that the game isn't for everyone given it's well documented flaws (the padded length, uneven pacing or savepoint system) and because it's not a power fantasy adventure where you kill hundred of aliens, but I actually like that you are nearly powerless vs the xenomorph. It is quite possibly the best way to make a great alien game since the franchise was born out of a sci-fi / horror hybrid movie. The later parts of the game and androids / survivors can be considered the weakest part, but they nailed the core aspect of the game which is the xenomorph being a deadly threat.