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Is 2014 the worst year in recent gaming?

If you just like the standard AAA games then yeah I could see it being disappointed. But between the phenomenal year Nintendo had, great indies like Shovel Knight, Divinity and Transistor, not to mention Child of Light, and surprise hits like Shadow of Mordor, it's been a great year for me, and at least above average in general
 
This year has been fantastic. Dragon Age, Smash, Bayonetta, Infamous, Dark Souls 2 (not as good as the other Souls but still great), Shadow of Mordor, Bravely Default, Persona Q, Guilty Gear Xrd, Valkyria Chronicles PC, and many more. It just sucks if you care about EA/Ubi/Activision AAA games.
 
Yeah, I gotta say Nintendo killed it this year. Smash, Bayonetta 1&2, Hyrule Warriors, DKC: Tropical Freeze and Mario Kart 8 have all treated me very well this year!

Top it off, Captain Toad...
 
Smash, Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8, Mordor, Dragon Age, Shovel Knight, Child of Light and I continue to sink way too much time into Marvel Heroes...so nah, I'm good.
 
I've been wondering as well (I thought personally it's been an "ok" year, but a little meh tbh.

Is Bayonetta 2 (91 MC) the -only- new game scoring at or above 90 for the entire year at retail?

Not that Metacritic should be the gold standard mind you, but it would still be surprising if true.



PS: checked and I guess I should add Dark Souls 2 (91) which is from April 2014, and Super Smash Bros (92 - November 2014).

That's it for non ports/ remasters (and non mobile/ tablets).

Wow. Probably the lowest scoring year on record (2013 was until now lowest, and 2012 before it. Bad trend)
 
If you have a Wii U and a PC this year was pretty amazing. Lack of 3ds support was disappointing, and I'm not too impressed with the other two consoles at the moment, but next year looks like a good year for the ps4.
 
Yes. One of the worst on pretty much all of fronts. Don't give a shit about whatever came form indies, they can never replace fullfledged projects. The two best games I've played this year are old as hell localisations.

If you have a Wii U, it's one of the best years, so no.

Two worthwhile games released and a bunch of arrogant rehashes among droughts almost half a year long: Amazing year. Truly.
 
Is this just part of the growing pains of a new generation of hardware? I don't remember it being this bad with the PS3 / X360 and PS2 generations.

New IP Disappointments:

Watch_Dogs
Destiny

Buggy Messes:

Assassin's Creed Unity
Halo MCC
GTA Online
Driveclub

Remakes:

Last of Us
GTA V
Halo MCC

Meh Sequels:

COD Advanced Warfare
Dark Souls II
Infamous Second Son

Feel free to mention anything I forgot.

Bayonetta 2
Mario Kart 8
Infinity Wars Beta
Hearthstone
Hyrule Warriors
Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate
Dynasty Warriors 8 Complete
Samurai Warriors 4
Azure Striker Gunvolt
Mighty Gunvolt
Freedom Planet
SMASH BROS

These games all in the same year and most within a month or so apart? Yeah...I'm fine thanks. This is one of the BEST years in gaming I've ever had. Not the worst.
 
Hearthstone, Bayonetta, Mario Kart, South Park, Shovel Knight, Titanfall, Transistor, Child of Light, Plants vs Zombies, Wolfenstein, OlliOlli, Tropical Freeze, Smash Bros, Pokemon, Valiant Hearts, Far Cry 4, Towerfall, Evil Within, Shadow of Mordor, Velocity 2X, Dragon Age, Ground Zeroes, Danganronpa, The Walking Dead season 2, Sunset Overdrive, Forza Horizon, Binding of Isaac Rebirth, Outlast, Pix the Cat, PT, Rayman Legends, Sportsfriends, Alien Isolation.

InFamous, Watch Dogs, Advanced Warfare, AC Unity, Driveclub, Halo, Dark Souls 2, The Last of Us, GTA and Destiny are also all good titles and worthy of merit.

Gotta disagree OP.
 
If you are only interested in western AAA releases maybe.

Elsewhere it has been one of the best years in a long time. Indie developers and Nintendo in particular.
 
One of the best year's ever:

DriveClub
Smash Bros Wii U/3DS
DKC TF

One of the best driving games I've ever played (dat track design and handling), One of the best/enjoyable fighters I've played,THE best sidescroller platformer ever.

Even other great games that I haven't played this year but had a good reception Such as
Forza Horizon 2
Bayonetta 2 (not my thing but people love it)
Dark Souls II
Far Cry 4
Dragon Age Inquisition
Shadow of Modor
CoD AW
Evil Within

Plus other really good titles I've played this year like
Mario Kart Wii U
Infamous SS
Rayman Legends

And I'm missing a shit ton like Tomb Raider Definitive Edition, FIFA, Pro Evo 2015, PvZ GW, EA UFC, Transistor, Dead Nation, Super Time Force, Velocity 2X, Hearthstone, .

All great games depending on your taste. 2014 is arguably the best and most diverse in history
 
Not that bad of a year. There's a transition still occurring from last gen to this gen, so a slowdown was to be expected.
 
If you are only interested in western AAA releases maybe.

Elsewhere it has been one of the best years in a long time. Indie developers and Nintendo in particular.

Not even all Western AAA, just Ubisoft primarily. They are the only ones that really dropped the ball, AND EVEN THEN, Far Cry 4 is a good game. I personally think that AC Unity was the only true disaster (that I can think of right now) for this year.

Again, my opinion though. I also like Evil Within, a disputed opinion.
 
Is this just part of the growing pains of a new generation of hardware? I don't remember it being this bad with the PS3 / X360 and PS2 generations.

New IP Disappointments:

Watch_Dogs
Destiny

Buggy Messes:

Assassin's Creed Unity
Halo MCC
GTA Online
Driveclub

Remakes:

Last of Us
GTA V
Halo MCC

Meh Sequels:

COD Advanced Warfare
Dark Souls II
Infamous Second Son

Feel free to mention anything I forgot.


Hells no buddy!!! Sunset Overdrive, Smash, Killer Instinct, Resogun, Guacamelee championship Edition, Bayonetta 2, Transistor and a lot more.

Play a bigger variety of games man!
 
Not for me, MK8, Bayoneta 2, the new mario for wii u, Dark souls 2 was amazing IMO, far cry 4 is fun, smash bros is ultra fun, the wolf among us, the walking dead season 2, shadow of mordor, bravely deafult, shovel knight...etc, I can go on and on.
 
Wolfenstein: TNO
Tropical Freeze
Mario Kart 8
Smash 4
Bayonetta 2
Shadow of Mordor
Dark Souls II
Alien: Isolation
Dragon Age: Inquisition

+ shitton of good indies

So, no. Not even close. If all you play is overhyped western AAA, maybe.
 
I think it ended up being a bit better than I expected.

DKC:TF, Bayo 2, and DA:I exceeded expectations. Smash and MK8 nailed expectations. We also had some neat surprises like Wolfenstein and Shadow of Mordor. Bit of a rennaisance for RPG's too, what with Divinity: Original Sin hitting as well as some other solid titles.

Not the best year ever, but certainly not bad. You just had to know where to look. I hate to be that guy, but having a Wii U really helped. It wasn't the only system with great games, though
 
Smash, Bayo 2, Dragon Age, Mordor, Wolfenstein, Evil Within, Transistor, Shovel Knight...

A couple of shit games from companies that are known to make shit games does not make it a bad year
 
If by recent gaming, you mean the last 12 months or so, then yes, absolutely. But then it was also the best.

This gen has started pretty strong in my opinion. Not PS2 levels, but miles ahead of PS3.
 
Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Danganronpa 1 & 2
Dark Souls 2
Diablo 3: UEE
Fantasy Life
FFX: HD
Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus

Sorry, 2014 has been pretty fantastic so far.
 
2012 wasn't very good either.
Agreed. On one hand, there has been plenty to play. On the other, a bunch of games that could have been easy GOTY contenders were delayed. You could also make the point that some of the games that have come out since early October (Driveclub, MCC, AC Unity) were not at all ready for release. It seems like a lot of publishers scrambled to push stuff out the door due to poor planning.
 
Well it hasn't been amazing but I've had plenty of fun with Metro Redux, Destiny and Dark Souls 2 (infamous wasn't bad either), plus I can't wait to have the time to start with Dragon Age.

And I've yet to buy Shadows of Mordor, Wolfenstein and Far Cry 4 which I've heard are great.

And lets not even start with the WiiU...this year alone it gave me some of the best action, platforming and arcade racing games I've played


And then come smaller games like strider, binding of isaac rebirth, Original sin, shovelknight,etc and you have a fine year for gaming
 
I've been enjoying it...

bayonetta 2
dark souls 2
crimzon clover: world ignition
the dream machine chapter 5
broken age part 1
mario kart 8
pier solar hd

the evil within was alright.
 
Not in the slightest. In my opinion it has been one of the greatest years in a long time. For RPGs specifically it has been called a renaissance (or Incline). Other PC genres have had various degrees of resurgence as well. I couldn't be more happy about the recent change in the industry, largely from the fruits of crowd-funding, compared to where I thought it was going (a very dark place) a few years ago.
 
I think part of my disappointment comes from the games that showed the most promise back in 2013 didn't deliver. Haven't played Bayo 2 and all the new Wii offerings, though I did take a swing at Mario Kart 8 and it was great. Still, this is the year that we were kinda promised the next-gen revolution, yet nothing happened.

Yes titles like DA:I and Shadow of Mordor are good games in their own right, as well as the slew of compelling indie offerings. For the most part though, the hits seemed to be sleeper hits while most of the big sellers tended to be disappointments in one way or another.
 
*Looks on the shelf at my Wii U and my games for it*

Nope. A good Mario Kart game, a sequel to Bayonetta, packaged with the first, and an awesome 2d platformer staring Donkey Kong came out. That is enough to beat a lot of past gaming years for me.

I guess if you were heavily invested in day 1 AAA games for the PS4/XB1 it wasn't too great though.
 
Oh stop whining. The remasters are all great. The first year of a console is always a bit weak.


Yeah, there is some bugs but it is not like that is new . . . SimCity, Battlefield 4, GTA Online last year, etc.


I think reviewers wisely kept their rating scores tempered to leave room for improvement that will happen as the engines on the newer consoles are optimized.
 
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