2014 - Best Video Game You Played This Year!

[Damm64]

Well i think it is still a bit too soon for me to nominate some of my games but im ready for the extras.

Most dissapointing game:
Alice Madness Returns; this one is my own fault i over hyped this game myself since it took so much time to get it and the game looks amazing, the PS3 port not so good but still pretty, and the special levels, the 2D or the one where you're a doll head, levels are overused since they throw them in there 3 times each it kinda feels like paddin the game to just make it longer. Also the checkpoint system was the worst since i like to explore and try to get 100% on the levels and since in some sections the game won't tell that they will block your way to backtrack and save it only leaves with two choices restart the level or keep going. All of these flaws shouldn't be that bad but since i was expecting something greater, again my own fault, it leaves me with a average experience. I'll give it another go next year or other time, probably i will enjoy it more.

Best over the top/amazing game/nanomachines son:
Metal Gear Rising Revengence; holy damn this game was great i don't know why the metal gear fans hate it so much, i know it dosen't follow the way of the rest of the series but is a spin off!, this game itself got me interested in MGS and now that i got the legacy collection i will give it a go maybe this year or next.

The most older game i have in my shelf but i keep telling myself that one day when i have more time i will beat it:
Valkyria Chronicles; well like the title says this one just stays there year after year until i finally decide i should play it, probably i will play X-COM before this one knowing me.

Most dick jokes/sexual jokes in a videogame:
Shadows of the Danmed; your gun is called Jhonson... also is calle the boner... there's a upgrade to make it the big bones... they just keep apearing in the game the more you play it.

I think that's it, ill post the "more serious" list later this month since in not done playing games.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Wii) - the introduction of some cutesy human(?) characters.

Ripple was a fairy and Adeleine (the painter girl) actually first appeared as a boss in Dream Land 3 under the name of Ado. Dream Land 3 also had some other human characters as part of it's sidequests, as well as lots of Nintendo cameos.

Well okay then!

I also played Kirby 3 this year and can't remember much about it. Wasn't a huge fan, to be honest.

@Exhuminator
Yeah I'd like to try those other Popful Mail ports eventually. Unfortunately the PC Engine CD version is quite pricey. Not as bad as North American Sega CD, but still pretty rough.

[Sload Soap]

I'm still working on a few games that might contend for my best of the year list but in the meantime I have my top ten worst games and some other miscellaneous awards.

Worst Games

1: Assassin's Creed III - A painful experience. Awful story, awful characters, buggy, restrictive, extremely badly paced and a total waste of its setting. Assassin's Creed 3's only redeeming feature is being the rancid manure the infinitely better ACIV grew out of.

2: Sonic Advance 3 - Full of the bizarre design choices that crept into Sonic Team's games around the time, Advance 3 is short but highly irritating experience. Grr.

3: Rogue Warrior - Plays, looks and sounds like a shovelware PS2 game. No style, nor substance it also offends with a mean and racist core. The only good bit is when it ends.

4: Soul Calibur V - Such a disappointment. Soul games used to be big, rich packages full of modes and extras but nowadays they feel undercooked. Add in some horrible new characters it's a pretty lousy mix. Light years away from the class of Virtua Fighter 5.

5: Panzer Dragoon Mini - Pissweak even for a handheld port. There's a good reason this never made its way west.

6: Viewtiful Joe - This is a good game maybe even a great game for a lot of people. However, I just don't get it. VJ action is very choppy to me and it just didn't feel good to play.

7: Golvellius - I was hoping for more from this but I found it very cynically designed and boring. No way near the SMS Zelda killer some had put forward.

8: Game Dev Story - If it's supposed to be a sim then it does a poor job of expressing its win conditions. If it's supposed to be satire then it's not funny. Bad either way.

9: 9.03m - A walk'em up but such a twee and dull one. It might be for charity but that doesn't mean I have to excuse its lack of...everything.

10: Destiny - (Possibly) appears on the best of list as well but I'd be remiss not to have it here considering just how much moaning I've done both on and offline about the game. Destiny obviously isn't the game that was advertised but on top of that it has a litany of small but baffling choices that add up to make the game occasionally brilliant and occasionally infuriating. On top of that you have Activision charging half the RRP for an underwhelming add-on three months after launch, so you also have a rather grasping one as well (though I don't blame Bungie for that). The best and worst of modern videogames in one fascinating package.

Other awards

Most genuinely beautiful: Child of Eden

Best OST: F1 Challenge

Best worst game: Duke Nukem Forever

Most overrated: Bioshock

Most underrated: Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Best comeback: Pro Evolution Soccer 2015

Best game that's not as bad as the internet says it is: Batman: Arkham Origins

Best character who isn't from Mass Effect: Emile (Valiant Hearts)

Worst character who is in Mass Effect: Diane Allers

Most distasteful context sensitive button prompt: Homefront with Press A to jump in mass grave.

Most pointless celebrity voiceovers: Brian Cox, Rosario Dawson in Syndicate

Best intentional metaphor: Curtain

Best unitentional metaphor: Outrun 2019

Best games that would be easily in the top ten if I hadn't beaten the bulk of them last year: X-Com: Enemy Unknown and Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed

Best psuedo-game: Metal Gear Soild V: Ground Zeroes

Harold Saxon Award for game that is simultaneously amazing/awful: Sonic R

[BoneSnapDeez]

7: Golvellius - I was hoping for more from this but I found it very cynically designed and boring. No way near the SMS Zelda killer some had put forward.

Try Golden Axe Warrior.

[Sload Soap]

7: Golvellius - I was hoping for more from this but I found it very cynically designed and boring. No way near the SMS Zelda killer some had put forward.

Try Golden Axe Warrior.

I do keep meaning to. Maybe I'll slap it on next summers game challenge list.

[MrEco]

Oh boy, another best game of the year discussion that I can't partake in because I play so few games during the actual year they're released...

You can nominate games regardless of release date, and you can nominate any game you played this year regardless of whether you "beat" it![/size]

...Oh. Nevermind then. I don't have the time right this moment to think up my list, but I'll be sure to get around to it sometime tonight. Or possibly tomorrow morning.

[Sano]

CoD: Advanced Warfare. Kevin Spacey's part in this game alone makes it my #1.

[dsheinem]

CoD: Advanced Warfare. Kevin Spacey's part in this game alone makes it my #1.

FYI, if we are just talking about 2014 games: http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 44&t=48003

[Erik_Twice]

Best Video Game
Thief II: The Metal Age (Steve Pearsall, 2000 PC)

Thief II is an amazing game with some uneven levels clearly caused by its rushed initial release. I was a bit critical of it at first for that reason but its gameplay is very powerful, there are few games that are this tense.

Biggest Surprise
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (Shouzou Kaga, 1996 SNES)

While I've yet to beat it, I think Genealogy of the Holy War is not just much better than the other Fire Emblem games I've played*, but that it's so well-done that it stands shoulder to shoulder with other 16-Bit classics like Contra: Hard Corps and is probably better than most of those classics. Every new chapter has something in its gameplay that amazes me and while the writing is weak, the medieval metanarrative is inmensely enjoyable.

*Blazing Sword and Shadow Dragon

Most dissapointing game
Magical Drop V (Anthony De Sa Ferreira, Alex Kameda based on S. Katagiri's design, 2012 PC)

It's extremely hard to screw up Magical Drop and Magical Drop V's production values are high but it's so clearly rushed and so sopply at parts it only manages to be more dissapointing than if it were simply terrible. The online component is broken and the patch that was supposed to fix it was never released. The designers said on the Steam forums that their publisher simply refused to greenlight it, probably because they were fed up with designers that couldn't fix a game after one year and another five patches.

Worst Video Game
Grand Theft Auto V (Designed by Comittee, 2014 PS4)

I guess it's still controversial but I really hated Grand Theft Auto V. It's gameplay is dull enough for me to say it's a bad game to but the constant anal rape jokes and awful, dumb "satire" really pushed it into a whole new category.

Most Challenging Video Game
Contra: Hard Corps (Nobuya Nakazato, 1994 Mega Drive)

I'm not going to beat it anytime soon, much less the American version. Guess I'm not Bro enough

Closest attempt at a 1 Credit Clear
Gradius II (Hiroyasu Machiguchi, 1988 Arcade)

I left it right at the end because I had exams. I could easily reach the last "boss", now I can't make it to the fourth stage.

Game I didn't play as often as I thought
Xenonauts (Chris England based on Julian Gollop's design, 2014 PC)

Xenonauts is hard, harder than the original UFO: Enemy Unknown and I was too keen on getting my soldiers killed on Veteran instead of playing on Normal. I still want to beat it, but I'll shelve it for now.

[SamuraiMegas]

Probably Red Dead Redemption.