Posts Tagged ‘Videogame’
22
Dec
Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2015, Console, Games, Lists. Tagged: 10, 2015, 5, announcements, Best, five, Gaming, kickstarter, online, thing, top, trend, Videogame, Year. Leave a comment
Time for a brand-new list. As much as I’ve enjoyed writing the list that has been in this slot for the last three years, my Top 10 Game Cases, I found that I had to come up with a smaller list this time around to make up for the forced expansion of another list later on. And on that intentionally vague note, let’s talk about some of my favourite trends that defined 2015 in videogames.
No real qualifying conditions to mention here – These are just some of the patterns that I noticed forming in and amongst all the announcements, news and actual content that found its way onto gaming machines all around the world this past year.
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VR BEST OF 2015 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s weird. Cool, but definitely weird. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.
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5. Games Actually Worked
2015 wasn’t just a massive improvement over 2014 in the videogame sphere because of the sheer volume of great releases. It was also a gigantic improvement in the way said games performed. Perhaps it was a product of all the big-name delays out of last year, but the titles to which gamers were treated this year actually ran fairly smoothly with very little catastrophic bugs to speak of. Sure, there was the odd exception, but they were just that – exceptions. Compared to the veritable parade of dead-set unfinished late 2014 games, 2015 was a breath of fresh air, and as much as it sucks that this is worth talking about at all, credit where credit is due.
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1
Jan
Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2014, Games, Lists. Tagged: 10, 2014, 5, Best, five, Gaming, greatest, overall, play, top, Videogame, Year. Leave a comment
And so it is, on the first day of an impossibly exciting new year, that we arrive at the ‘big two’ to round off the year that was 2014. This is my top ten favourite videogames released in Australia in 2014. For a game to qualify for this list I need to have either finished it or played at least five hours – whichever comes first (yes, that does eliminate a lot of really good games – we aren’t all superhumans). For clarification’s sake, significant game remakes count – “remasters” do not. So no, Final Fantasy X HD doesn’t count, because it’s a beat-for-beat upscaled port of a decade-old game.
I tend to define myself nowadays by playing as many games as possible, even if that means I only get to play a small slice of each title, just so I can have some sort of opinion on them and be part of a wide gaming conversation. Because I live for that stuff. But these are the games I actually played, and I mean really played, in 2014. When your free time dries up and you need to be more selective with where you put it, as mine did in 2014, your tastes as a gamer tend to boil down to a more easily definable quantity. And when I look at this list of ten games, there is an overwhelming pattern that shows up.
With maybe one or two exceptions, every game on this list falls into one of two categories: heavily story-driven playable narratives, and games where multiplayer interaction is the single defining trait. I hadn’t realised it until I wrote up this list, but it seems I am looking for experiences that bring people together above all else these days, and when that can’t happen, I’m drawn to well-written stories. We’ll see if the glorious slate of huge-name 2015 releases changes that. But for now, please enjoy. The platform on which I played each entry is in parentheses.
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VR BEST OF 2014 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s spooky. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.
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10. Pokemon Omega Ruby (3DS)
Among other things, 2014 was the year that I finally attempted to quantify my appreciation for Nintendo’s many wonderful franchises, and when the main series Pokemon games ended up on the top of that list, being forced to look at that “number 1” next to its name gave me pause. My lifestyle and priorities have changed recently, as they tend to in, you know, life, leaving me with very little time to devote to the competitive battling scene that has defined the last decade of my Pokemon playing existence. Thus I feared that I would begin Pokemon Omega Ruby and get next to nothing out of the experience, and yet its almost as if Game Freak saw this coming, because the game is amazing, boasting some of the best use of the 3DS’ StreetPass feature I’ve ever seen, giving new playthroughs fresh life with the DexNav and adding just enough extra subtlety to an already half-decent narrative to keep it engaging right up until its genuinely stellar post-game content begins. And of course, it’s still an absolute ball to play with and alongside friends.
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29
Dec
Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2014, Games, Lists. Tagged: 10, Best, friends, Gaming, moments, scenes, story, top, Videogame, Year. Leave a comment
Videogames are built on moments, whether those moments be built right into the fabric of the game or simply emerge from the experience of discovery and/or sharing gameplay with others. They are the difference between games you simply play and games you remember. 2014 was positively packed with instances that made gamers start conversations with “How good was it when…” These are the ten that stick out the most in my mind.
MASSIVE SPOILERS FOLLOW for a number of story-focused games, so be warned.
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VR BEST OF 2014 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s spooky. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.
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10. Final World – Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Throughout the majority of my time with Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, I wasn’t exactly paying attention to the story set-up that gave DK and his friends the motivation to traverse the game’s gorgeous and tough levels – I was simply enjoying the challenging gameplay flow, the sweet level design and the satisfying boss fights. That was until the final world, when I realised I had been island hopping rather than just exploring different parts of the same island like in the first DK Country Returns on Wii. I realised this because, after spending most of the game waiting for the “Freeze” part of Tropical Freeze to show up, it suddenly appeared in the form of the entire original DK Island. Each of the 8 worlds from the Wii game appears as a single level in this world, complete with returning music and signature design elements mixed with ice level tropes. A really *cool* touch from Retro Studios.
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25
Dec
Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2014, Console, Games, Lists. Tagged: 10, 2014, 5, Best, consoles, five, Gaming, top, Videogame, Year. Leave a comment
A very merry Christmas to all! I’m celebrating with the return of another list that debuted last year – my personal opinion on how the seven major videogame consoles stacked up against one another in 2014, with sales successes taken out of the equation. I like to think I played a decent amount of everything relevant to this list in 2014, so hopefully I’m qualified for a balanced opinion. It is still an opinion, though.
Once again, the two biggest factors that go into ordering this list are overall user experience and quality of 2014 games released on the console. Exclusive games are given priority over platform-agnostic ones unless there is a significant difference in functionality and playability between versions of a game. Also, because a PC doesn’t really count as a console, I may mention certain games as “exclusives” even if they also appear on Steam.
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VR BEST OF 2014 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s spooky. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.
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5. Playstation Vita
(LAST YEAR: 3rd)
The short-lived era of Western-developed “Triple A” games for the Playstation Vita appears to be over after just two years in the wild. However, it’s still my favourite console on which to play games. Portable, sleek, very pretty and supported by a near-constant stream of high quality smaller titles and big Japanese games, I spent an awful lot of time with my Vita in 2014. Sony actually released two new models of the Vita hardware this year – the even more convenient if slightly less visually capable PS Vita Slim in June, and then the rather odd but quite cool Playstation TV last month (which I reviewed on this site). It may have been completely missing a universally eye-catching new exclusive game, and its operating system may look near-identical to the 2012 launch version, but there were plenty of reasons to love the Playstation Vita in 2014 and it easily slides into my console Top 5 this time around.
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23
Dec
Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2014, Games, Lists. Tagged: 10, 2014, aesthetic, Best, Box, Case, Cover, eye, Gaming, look, top, Videogame, Year. Leave a comment
Let’s kick the negativity and move on to explore the best of the best that 2014 could offer in the realm of entertainment media, at least in my opinion. We begin with that highly subjective topic – what looks good on a videogame box. Here I put forward my specific 2014 view on the simple joys of appreciating the aesthetics of packaging, whether it be with plastic, cardboard or something else. I spent a lot of time looking at videogame cases this year, and these are my top ten favourites. Front cover art is naturally the most crucial part of weighing these up against each other in my eyes, but the rest of the case is important as well. Happy viewing!
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VR BEST OF 2014 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s spooky. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.
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10. LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham brings together a ridiculous amount of comic book characters from the DC Universe, sending them into space via the conceit of the various superpowered Lantern Corps. And what better way to showcase this fantastical set-up than with a suite of colour-soaked space action shots blending seamlessly with the titular hero’s billowing cape? I dig the hell out of this visual design choice, as it also affords the artists the ability to line up some of the more well-known DC characters in a more grounded fashion on the case’s lower half. Nice.
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29
May
Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists. Tagged: beat, complete, effort, finish, Game, long, satisfying, time, Videogame. Leave a comment
Perhaps fittingly, this article took me a long time to complete.
Some games take a bit longer to finish than others. Occasionally, a lot longer. A game you might enjoy isn’t necessarily compelling all the time, so sometimes you may need to take a long break. When you add the many distractions that life brings onto an already long game completion time, you might just find that several months pass you by before you have the chance to go back and finish what you left hanging long ago. On the other hand, sometimes you’ll try pretty consistently to finish something, but your skill level just isn’t up to the task. Only plenty of practice and determination will see you over the finish line (as in life). And then there are the games that just won’t end. Either way, finishing a game you started a long time ago is nearly always immensely satisfying.
This list is dedicated to those games that have taken me real effort to complete throughout my own personal gaming history.
Three clarifications:
One, this list does not take into account how long it took me to “get to 100% completion” in a particular game, but rather how long it took to reach the end credits of its story mode/campaign/etc.
Two, a game needs to have taken me at least 3 months to complete to be eligible for this list.
Three, this list is ranked by effort rather than length. Though I have included approximations of how long each game took to finish, this time figure does not determine the order of the list. Less quantifiable factors went into deciding how much of an effort each game represented to me.
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10. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (Gamecube ~6 months)
Any fan of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle will tell you that the game has a ton of content, the most appealing of which comprises what is quite possibly the most in-depth Tamagotchi-style pet simulator systems ever put into a videogame. The Chao Garden was a notoriously addictive time sink for most players of the Dreamcast/Gamecube favourite and it was the primary reason that it took me so long to reach the end of the actual story. Sure, the release of Super Smash Bros Melee a mere two weeks after the Gamecube version launched certainly got in the way, as did my skill level and some confusing late level design (Crazy Gadget, anyone?). But above all, it was those damn adorable Chao that kept me from making a serious push to finish both of the game’s parallel storylines. When the game’s “epilogue campaign” then appeared, it came as a genuine surprise and a formidable challenge, so my satisfaction at the end credits only increased.
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10
Feb
Posted by vagrantesque in Games. Tagged: brothers, Game, gone, home, parable, pc, stanley, Steam, Videogame. Leave a comment
When it comes to videogames, I’ve always been a console guy. In terms of priorities when choosing how I want to play games, it has always been handhelds first, then home consoles. PC games have rarely, if ever, featured at all. That’s just the way it is. Real Time Strategy titles and MOBAs aren’t my thing and just about every other worthwhile title that comes to PC also hits the home console market in due time. Less hassle. Increasingly often, they also come to the Playstation Vita, which is an even better place to play them if you ask me. And yet late last year, I finally got a Steam account and bought a game on PC.
Why, you may ask? The short answer is Samurai Gunn, a four-player pixelated brawler I knew would eventually come to PS4 in the long run but just looked so good that I downloaded it through Steam anyway. Countless hours of ridiculous fun with friends followed, but Samurai Gunn just isn’t all that great to play solo and my Steam account was looking a little bare. So I picked up a $50 retail Steam voucher and decided to dive into some of the low-tech PC games I had seen on the big-name Game of the Year lists last year. That $50 bought me the following three games, with precisely three cents to spare. Here are my brief thoughts on them:
The Stanley Parable
The Stanley Parable is the kind of game that could probably only work on PC. A first person experience that both is and isn’t a game, The Stanley Parable digs its self-aware tendrils into every crevice of the gamer’s specifically-trained brain and dances around gleefully. Its designers evidently anticipated just about every possible way the average player would attempt to outsmart it, up to and including editing bits of the game’s code, which just shows another level of attention to detail. To say any more would be to ruin some of the game’s appeal, but I will mention that no game has ever made me feel so foolish for being so dedicated to the endless chase of Trophies /Achievements etc.
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31
Dec
Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2013, Games, Lists. Tagged: 10, 2013, Best, Game, ten, top, Videogame, Year. Leave a comment
Man, this list was difficult to put together.
I played a lot of games in 2013 and dare I say finished a higher percentage of them than I ever have in a single year. In fact, unlike last year’s list, I have completed all ten of the games I finally decided on as my top ten. To be eligible for the list and/or the unavoidably lengthy honorable mentions section, however, I needed to have played a game for at least five hours, unless a) the game in question takes less time than that to finish and I finished it, or b) the game can’t really be “finished” because it’s actually neverending and/or is multiplayer-only. With that said, 2013 was an absolutely killer year for games. Excitement is back in the industry thanks to new consoles, thriving blockbuster releases and better indie titles than ever. Without further ado, I present my second-last list of the year, with the platform on which I played each game presented in parentheses:
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VR BEST OF 2013 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome.
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10. Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine (360)
2013 actually turned out to be a pretty good year for local multiplayer games, particularly co-operative experiences. I was even able to write a post entirely focusing on the juicy co-op offerings in August alone. But the best of the bunch came along a little earlier in the year – Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine. The colourful stealth game – wait, I mean panic game absolutely deserves to be played with four players. Picking the perfect combination of abilities and heading into a new top-down sneaking challenge stays consistently exciting, because you know what’s going to happen – someone is going to mess up and raise an alarm and things will get hectic very quickly, but come hell or high water, you WILL get through to the end by any means necessary.
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28
Dec
Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2013, Games, Lists. Tagged: 10, 2013, Best, Game, ten, top, Videogame, Year. Leave a comment
2013 gave gamers the world over a host of memorable moments to celebrate, lament and ponder over, whether with narrative twists, epic set pieces or tight gameplay sections. Yet as always, some videogame-related moments are entirely of the player’s making. A memorable gaming moment is made up of many elements and factors, from game design itself to who the player experiences it with, what frame of mind he or she is in, prior experience and so on and so forth. They can come from something as universally discussable as a shocking ending, or as seemingly innocuous as overcoming a tiny challenge tucked away within a game. With these personal factors in mind, here are my top ten most memorable gaming moments of 2013. SPOILERS DEFINITELY FOLLOW, so read at your own risk.
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VR BEST OF 2013 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome.
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10. Gloo Gloo – Rayman Legends
Of all Rayman Legends’ many amazing ideas and level mechanics, the all-too-few music stages surely have to rank among the best. They certainly are the highlight of the game for me, as they mix traditional twitch reflex platforming with an almost Guitar Hero or Rock Band-esque reliance on rhythm and timing. Each music level is a zany tribute to a well-known piece of music (with the exception of a wonderful original orchestral piece) drawing inspiration from sources as varied as Anthrax, Survivor and Ram Jam. But my favourite has to be Gloo Gloo, a delightfully silly interpretation of Woohoo by the 5.6.7.8’s. It’s hectic, tense and above all tons of fun, much like the game in general. You can watch the whole level on YouTube here.
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26
Dec
Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2013, Console, Games, Lists. Tagged: 10, 2013, 5, Best, consoles, five, Gaming, top, Videogame, Year. Leave a comment
Merry Christmas everyone! Here’s a new kind of list that I can see myself coming back to next year. It’s a smaller list to counteract the length of the last one.
There were many videogame platforms vying for the attention of consumers in 2013, which was overall a pretty spectacular year for memorable gaming experiences. Some of these consoles struggled on the sales charts more than others, but most of them enjoyed at least a few worthwhile game releases. So what if someone were to rank them with sales factors out of the equation, based on user experience and, above all, the quality of their game releases throughout the year? An answer to that question, albeit a subjective one, is coming at you right now.
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VR BEST OF 2013 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s scary. Respectful disagreement is welcome.
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5. Xbox One
Of the two exciting “next-gen” consoles released worldwide at the end of the year, the Xbox One probably had the slight edge in terms of early game library. The excellent visual showcase Ryse impressed many right from day one, despite its repetitive combat mechanics, while Dead Rising 3 by all accounts fixed many of the problems the series has suffered from since its inception and Forza 5 leveraged the power of the console to great effect with its hyper-realistic car models and innovative “Drivatar” AI augmenting system. Peggle 2 followed soon after launch and received great critical acclaim, with Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare and Titanfall to follow early next year. Its current position is remarkable given the hate thrown its way in the middle of the year, when it was looking like quite a different beast.
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Vagrant Rant 