2014 "Of The Year" Awards Part 1

2014's 2013 Game finished in 2014

XCOM: The Bureau/Enemy Within

 XCOM: The Bureau is slow slow burn but once the AI teammates have leveled up enough to stay alive it becomes a Mass Effect-esque romp through XCOM's past. If you can stave off the frustration of micromanaging the survival of your team The Bureau is a perfectly entertaining game.

XCOM: Enemy Within presents as a glorified expansion pack to Enemy Unknown but is so much more. Layering on new mechanics and new enemies over the original EU campaign improves on excellence and makes one wonder if this is the game they originally wanted to make.





2014 Worst Game I played

Evil Within

After I spent 10 minutes trying to get out of the first room and resorted to a video to tell me how, I sighed and carried on. Brutally gory and mechanically unforgiving, Evil Within shares the same die,rinse,repeat game play of Alien:Isolation but has none of the tension. As a person with limited and valuable time, I couldn't waste any more playing the same moment over and over again.

  

2014 Most Offensive Delight

South Park: The Stick of Truth

By the time my magically shrunken character was crushed by his father's balls during vigorous sex, I realized there would no lines uncrossed and nothing considered offlimits. Enemies like zombie aborted fetus and a trip through a gay man's bowels are highlights in a surprising solid RPG that is also unspeakably hilarious.

2014's Most Polished Turd

Metal gear Solid V: Ground Zeros 

Topping out at a single hour of gameplay, Ground Zero's should have been like crack and the first hit should have been free. Setting the open world stage for real game in 2015 this taste of MGS rewards stealth and combat equally but is too short and trifling. It is a gorgeous wonderful demo that you can buy for $40-$60.

2014's Best Missed Opportunity

Watchdogs vs Destiny

Watchdogs was revealed as the first truly next gen game. The promise of a hackable open urban world with stunning visuals never came to be, and the delivered game is unrelentingly boring. A charisma free main character rampages through a connected Chicago where the most fun is had causing mayhem by exploding underground pipes, raising bridges and changing street lights. Hopefully the sequel is a ground up rethink.

Destiny is Bungie  and Activision's 10 year vision for the future of online FPS and that future is an MMO. Light on content and heavy on repetitive grinding, Destiny plays like Halo set in a Borderlands world with none of the excitement charm or humor. Impenetrable fiction is glanced at and left behind mistaking obfuscation for mystery.

2014's Best Batman

Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor

Shadows of Mordor is a prequel to the LOTR movies in a sense, complete with a Gollum cameo, still searching for his precious. A solid story that weaves into the tale of the ten rings, Mordor uses the now refined Batman:Arkham Asylum combat mechanic combined with a better Assassin's Creed traversal system to create an open world action game that is mechanically near perfect and a blast to play. 

Part II