2014: year in review (gaming)

   Let's start with the most (over)hyped game of the year; Destiny. Plenty of people love Halo to a ludicrous extent, so when Bungie announced they were handing over the reigns of Halo to go and pursue their own new ideas, people were buzzing with anticipation. Finally it's coming to PS4, it's an MMO, it's an... FPS. Shocker. All jokes aside though people were amped because we all knew Bungie were good at them, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately it wasn't all that exciting. It didn't really have a story and was all about doing an array of side missions to level up to get to the later added 'raids' which you could only do with 5 friends online anyway. I suppose that is the idea of an MMO really but I was hopeful that there would be more to it (for more go: http://andy8472.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/games-season-destiny.html )It could have been worse though, because as it turned out i would be one of few AAA late year releases that wasn't plagued with bugs. Driveclub embarrassingly didn't work for months, NBA2K15's create a player faces melted, EA servers crashed, Call of duty had it problems connecting, but of course the best one was

   No faces on Assassin's creed Unity. Now, as someone who didn't play it, I found it hilarious but for the guys at Ubisoft who had done so much to get a beautiful looking world on the next gen systems, they must have been well miffed to say the least.
   It wasn't all bad for Ubisoft though, as they released the much anticipated (by me) South Park: The stick of truth, the JRPG style comedy game that was incredible and is on my list for game of the year (so I won't talk much about it here). They also cranked out 2 good smaller games in Valiant Hearts and Child of Light that were fun little adventures and both worth a play. Also not forgetting the second most (over)hyped game of the year in Watchdogs, which I thought was alright despite what some others may say. Not forgetting Far Cry 4 (which incidentally came out in that late 2014 period but didn't have any horrific bugs (seem like that and Destiny book ended the 'problem period')) and a few more, so I'd say it was good for them in 2014 (ACU aside).
   Who remembers Titanfall? The big online only shooter on Xbox one. That game was marketed like crazy and pushed down out throats with all it's armoured mechs and Parkour. It was fun for a while, but as I find with anything if I'm playing a team online game by myself (which I'm always forced to now) then I quickly lose interest. Seems like most of the rest of the world did too and Call of Duty came in and stripped it for parts.
  While on multiplayer games lets talk Nintendo with Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros. As I have mentioned a billion times before I was a Sega kid so none of these franchises meant anything to me before the Wii (the only Nintendo console I'd had before that was a Gameboy ('cause, Pokemon)) so when I jumped in to both on the Wii after I was told how great they would be although my inner child wouldn't let me believe a game about a bunch (shudder) Nintendo characters could come together and have a good game. Of course it tuned out they could and they were great. Fast forward 8 years. I'm not at university anymore and now there aren't a bunch of people with nothing better to do several days a week, nor does the Wii U have an Ethernet port. This led me to playing both of these games briefly very briefly and moving on because they're just not something you play alone and the time of my life for gathering people together to drink and play videogames for hours has long gone (unfortunately, still sounds like an awesome night to me)).
   Speaking of multiplayer being ruined it looks like I wasted £40 on FIFA. After my perhaps harsh review of  this years instalment ( http://andy8472.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/games-season-fifa-15.html ) I played it some more and got more used to it to where I was ready to go back in and change the score  (not that anyone would've noticed), but then I couldn't play online. I'd connect to the EA servers, but when trying to get in to a match after about 20 failed attempts and eventully joining one I'd get kicked off the EA servers. I've tried several times since but only one time did it work. It looks like I'm not the only one experiencing this problem, but it is a small minority of people so EA probably don't care (after all they don't seem to be doing anything about it) but I'd probably lower my score now as that's the only real reason I play it. Oh well, Looks like it's back to pro Evo for me this year (a Small joke there for you but you have to work for it).
   Ports, what's all that about? I know really, money, yeah. It just annoys me that so many games are getting ported over from the last consoles to the new ones, especially Tomb Raider and The Last of Us which only came out last year anyway. I've heard arguments that it lets developers get used to the new consoles, but I'm sure they could do that while making a new game. Come on guys.
   There was definitely some games that snuck up on me last year, especially Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. Here was me not caring about anything Lord of the Ringsy since 2003, and here this came. Anyway, that's in my game of the year nominees so no more on that. The same can be said for the aforementioned Child of light though, which despite scepticism from me going in turned out to be pretty damned good. It's another small JRPG style game, like South Park, but more heartwarming than funny and definitely worth a go. Super Time Force was pretty great too if you like 2D platformers (which I do), because it looked like there was too much going on to me as I went in but it turned out to be awesome. As did Lego Marvel Superheroes. I'd got sick of Lego games a long time ago, and even though the main story missions were of a similar ilk to the stuff I'd played many years ago on Lego Star wars there was just so much to do in the open world and it was bulging with collectibles/ unlockables and it made it more than it had the right be.
   Sneaking wasn't all great this year, 'cause you know who else sneaked? Snake. A very much glorified demo tat you had the privilege to pay for, that was a tiny chunk of what the main game will be, and frankly I didn't like it either. As I spoke about before.
( http://andy8472.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/week-6.html ) The AI seems ridiculously good and they could spot you from miles away, even in the pitch black. I don't think this is criticism that I found it too hard, it was just ridiculous. Plus, Kiefer Sutherland replaced David Hayter? I was Just hearing Jack Bauer the whole time and repeating the joke 'huh, what was that noise' in my own head every time he spoke. It makes me Long for PS 1 demo disc that had the first couple of levels from the original on MGS on it (and Total soccer!).

   Frankly, It's been a disappointing year after a great 2013 with devs squeezing the last they could out of the PS3/ 360 an now they're getting used to the new ones and frankly with so many standout games that year, 2014 was always going to have a hard time keeping up the pace. Still, I'll always try to look on the bright side and look forward to next year and the games coming out, like the Witcher 3, Batman Arkham Knight, Tomb Raider (2?), No Mans Sky and many more. And BTW, my other GOTY (Game of the year) nominee from me is Forza Horizion 2. More to come on that in the coming days.