The Evil Within
I didnt know "going back to my horror roots" meant "put out the same game Ive been putting out for 10 years". I fell for it hook, line, and sinker Shinji Mikami and I hope you are proud of yourself. I had a shiny new system and a ravenous need for more horror games. Trailers were promising, game play looked fun, atmosphere seemed right. Wasted no time getting my pre-order of that one ready to go.
Unfortunately for me, I was met with an incomprehensibly poor story, graphics that seemed last gen, and a difficulty curve that faintly resembled a brick wall. I managed to see it through to the end, but when people asked me if it was fun? "Yes" was never the straight answer, there always had to be some validation to explain it. The game was functional but it wasnt challenging, it was cheap. The game got me to scream but not from horror, from anger and frustration. Worst of all, despite being new it felt like Ive played it before. For all the excitement I had for the game, The Evil Within grossly fell short of my expectations.
Anyone who knows me knows that
Final Fantasy is basically the corner stone that laid the foundation of my entire gaming career. I made a very hardened effort to collect each one as they came out to have a full collection of them. Obviously over time, that became impossible because so many would keep coming out, and gradually started getting worse after a while. It was hard to keep up with, because after
FF6 and
FFX, I felt it was hard to match that level of perfection.
Some people at SquareEnix remember though, as shown in the surprise success
Bravely Default. While not a
Final Fantasy in title, this game follows its successful predecessors step for step and provided an absolutely wonderful JRPG experience with some new features, good story, and wonderfully traditional JRPG combat. Aside from a little grind tedium,
Bravely Default was nearly perfect in every aspect, and it motivated me to buy my first Nintendo console in 8 years just so I could play it.
7. The
"I seriously couldnt give less of a shit about the British Royal Family, or that Lebron put his arm around the Princess. They are just people, get the fuck out of the news" award for "Most Overhyped game" this year goes to.....
Man oh man oh man, did Ubisoft ever drop the ball on this one. Yeah, pushing the game back to not get crushed by the monster that was
Grand Theft Auto V was probably smart, but youd figure in the extra time you took, you could have made the game better.. Or you know, even good.
Watch Dogs is an example of taking a really good idea, and then doing absolutely nothing with it. They came out of their first E3 with a 10 minute unedited game play video showing all the cool ways hack the environment. Over time it regressed to a sandbox style shooter that had hacking elements. Eventually falling short by not looking great, having incredibly poor controls, and tired story that is basically just a game about Batman, without having Batman in it.
It was at the very least a playable experience so it escapes being my worst of the year, but the sheer amount of excitement and hype this game generated before its release, followed by a much shallower experience than advertised gives this my Overhyped award. No question.
6. The
"Robert Griffin the 3rd" award for "Flash in the Pan" game of the year.
You can argue that other games in this genre came first, but Outlast was a really solid entry in the first person, defenseless survival breed of games you are seeing today. While I wouldnt say the game is as scary as it could have been, its built on some solid mechanics has some very genuinely fucked up moments of gore that made me cringe. Specifically getting your fingers scissored off while a deranged, deformed, and naked Doctor waxes intellectual while he does it.
But more so than that, the game actually weaves a better sub-narrative than the actual story provides. Sure, things are kind messed up and it has a very indie movie feel about how it ends, but finding the notes around the asylum, or reading the main characters notebook end up painting a much more interesting story than Im actually being told. Its not often a game actually makes want to do its stupid collectible missions, but for the added story elements its absolutely welcome here.
5. The "West Florissant Ave. Fire Sale" award for "Worst Value" goes to....
Infamous: Second Son (PS4)
Dont get me wrong on this one:
Infamous: Second Son was an absolutely fantastic game. Of course it is,
Infamous games almost always are. Fun superhero sandbox where you fly around and trash fools with cool powers. Oh, and the voice of Troy Baker *Swoon*.
However, fun as it is, the fact that I can rip through the story and collect nearly everything in less than 4-6 hours? That is a pretty disappointing game length. Sure, for the work a day nine to fiver that might be all we have time for, but I prefer a long, meaty experience in my game that doesnt involve me playing it twice to see all the content (IE: the slightly different tone that Delsin speaks with if you are good or bad). Awesome game, but seems short for 60 bucks. Sorry
Second Son, great game but you get worst value.
4. The
"Dr. Topper 100% Happy Guarantee" award for "Best Value" goes to....
P.T - Playable Teaser (PS4)This really had to be in the running for my biggest surprise, but when looking at it in concept it might have been one of the best values I had all year. As we all know by now, the mysteriously placed "Playable Teaser" ended up being a trailer for the new Silent Hills game. A game that only had one level, one hallway, basically one button. But what should have been a spooky romp for a few hours ended up setting the Internet on fire.
This single hallway showed me again that some people do still know how to make horror right and its just indie devs, but major players too. Sure, it didnt feel like a Silent Hill game, but it contained a very interesting narrative, had bone chillingly exceptional use of light and sound for fear, a legitimately terrifying antagonist, and a puzzle so difficult it took the collective Internet WEEKS to find the solution (if they even have yet). This short demo ended up being maybe the scariest game Ive played since Fatal Frame 2 and that says a lot. Kojima and Del Toro maybe be taking the Silent Hill franchise a different way, but they have me genuinely excited for it and that is something Silent Hill hasnt done for me as a franchise in a long long time.
Ive played this "teaser" for longer than Ive played some retail games, which hands down makes this game the Best Value winner.
3. The
"50 bucks found on the Ground" Honorable mention goes to....
Bayonetta 2 (Wii U)
What do you know, Nintendo? Looks like you can still put out a video game that is awesome without it being so far up Marios fucking ass it can pick the back of his teeth. Which ultimately is what I wanted out of you. Sure, the game came out on the actual systems first, but when they snubbed it, you picked up the pieces and allowed it to really become something special.
Bayonetta 2 is the only Wii or WiiU game I own. It was the only one I felt I needed to have. It smashed all of my expectations, and masterfully fixed any complaints I had with the first one. Only a slight bit easier, but ultimately another insanely fun over the top spectacle fighter with a much more coherent story line. The game gave me VERY serious considerations for game of the year, and the only reason its not is because once I put it down I hadnt gone to pick it back up. But if I owned a Wii U and still had ready access I would be. Mark my words {again}, Bayonetta 2 is the best thing to happen to Nintendo, and is an incredibly close runner up to my game of the year.
2. The "#GamerGate Controversy" award for "Worst Game of the Year" goes to.....
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (PS3)
2014 was actually a pretty good year for games. When its a good year for games I dont really get to rage all that much, and all the releases I played this year pretty much left me with fairly minimal complaints. Sure there were disappointments, but no real bad games. So to find a bad game, I had to go to one of the freebies I downloaded.
I always kind of smirked at the concept of "Super Sony Brothers Brawl" when I heard about it, but it wasnt till I actually played it to realize how bad it was. Slow clunky control and movement, incredibly poor visual design, uninspired story modes, generally bad play style. It was rough to just sit through the game twice.
But even worse, is when I tried to play it with a friend for my Extra Life marathon. We did so as a gag, but hes a hardcore Super Smash player. Inside of 2 games, he turned to me and said "this is the worst game Ive ever played." I am hard pressed to disagree with him. It may not have come out this year, but it certainly earns my worst of the year honors.
1. The "El Palenque Steak Super Burro" Award for "Best game of the year" goes to...
Dark Souls II (PS3/360)
Nobody should really be surprised by this but I have to tell you, I really agonized over the decision. I had it locked as my number 1 until I played Bayonetta 2. To be completely honest, if I went from a stand of fun factor, Bayonetta 2 might have taken game of the year. But what it ended up coming down to is what games I played longer, and still look to play. From that stance, there is no question.
The debate rages on if Dark Souls 2 was as good as the first game. It certainly didnt seem as polished as it could be, and I think some of the levels were designed to just be cheap and frustrating rather than cleverly difficult. But even considering that, I have like 4 character types built all tallying 60-100 hours a piece, and I still have yet to make it all the way through new game+. It might be a little bit of a bias pick to be sure, but I find it hard for anyone who actually commits to playing a souls game to not absolutely love it.
With a PS4 edition on the horizon with all the included DLC, and the upcoming Bloodborne before that, looks like From Software is set to just slay the games market for another year. But for this one? Dark Souls 2 takes my game of the year.
So its usually around here where I thank the small collection of you that join me in my little corner of the web, but this blog hit a bit of milestone as this very post you are reading makes my 100th post for Rage Quitter, and nearly 70,000 views since its advent. So to do something a little special for it, I would like to present you with something a little spoilery. Please enjoy my Top 10 moments in games since I started writing this blog. Enjoy and See you Next Year!
