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[jambo]

 

[Kritz]

way to totally overshadow me, jerk

 

[jambo]

way to totally overshadow me, jerk

Just get your game out before June 2015.

Oh shit, thought you meant your game. Congrats on graduating!

 

[Fredescu]

Shit yeah, congrats jambo.

Edit: also, congrats Kritz for your thing too!

 

[Jintor]

Jambolations!

It's like jubilations, but jambo

 

[Gazunta]

I was gonna say Gratz Kritz BUT WHO FUCKING CARES ANYMORE SUPER GRATZ JAMBO!

Spoiler

grats kritz

The best game that came out this year is Elite Dangerous

Spoiler

I have played it for a total of twelve minutes

 

[Box of Bunnies]

Congratulations all around~

What's the best game you've played this year, that came out this year?

Top 5:

Bayonetta 2
OlliOlli
Danganronpa/Danganronpa 2
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call
Smash Bros. 4

Bayonetta 2 featured P*'s unmatched combat prowess, made the rest of the game leaner where it could be compared to the original, and was just a joy to play over and over.

OlliOlli was perfect "just one more go" simplicity.

The Danganronpa duology were concentrated Japanese craziness.

Theatrhythm Curtain Call was way more featured than the first mode-wise and absolutely packed with songs to tap along too. Boo at no Real Emotion, though.

Smash Bros. 4 is more Smash Bros. Tanooki Pac-man is adorable and the Duck Hunt Duo are an amazing inclusion. Nice to see a company still caring about Mega Man, too, even though I don't enjoy playing as him that much.

 

[Deeku]

congrats guys!!

i didn't play shit this year

 

[Dryk]

I'm not ready to talk about best yet. But this is the entire list of games I've played this year that released this year (counting remakes & expansion packs but not ports):

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
The Banner Saga
Broken Age: Act 1
Octodad: Dadliest Catch
The Wolf Among Us: Episode 2-5
The Walking Dead: Season 2: Episode 2-5
Bioshock: Burial at Sea: Part 2
Awesomenauts: Starstorm
Transistor
Mario Kart 8
Shovel Knight
Defense Grid 2
Super Smash Bros for 3DS
Hyrule Warriors
Picross e4
Picross e5
Pokemon: Alpha Sapphire
Super Smash Bros for Wii U

 

[Fusebox]

Congrats Jambo!!

 

[Kritz]

Hrm, if we're listing all games from this year...

GOTY
Sportsfriends
Nidhogg
Sunset Overdrive
The Banner Saga
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Transistor
Jazzpunk
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Broken Age Act 1
Divinity: Original Sin

Gud Gamez - Close, but no cigar
The Talos Principle
Titanfall
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Threes

Could do worse - Not the End of the World, But I Can See It from Here
Infamous: Second Son
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Far Cry 4
This War of Mine
Screencheat
Luftrausers
The Wolf Among Us
Sir, You Are Being Hunted
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Poo Town - Population: These Games
Destiny
Watch Dogs
Dragon Age: Inquisition
The Walking Dead: Season Two
Gauntlet
Banished
Gods Will Be Watching

 

[Fredescu]

DA:I in poo town? Interesting. What was poo about it?

 

[reptilescorpio]

Game/media I didn't get this year?
Desert Golfing
MCU (aside from GotG and to a lesser extent Captain America 2)
The Walking Dead (tv series)
Boyhood
Smash Bros WiiU

What's the best game you've played this year, that came out this year? Mines Forza Horizon 2.

Best game? Probably Second Son or Driveclub to be honest, both games were fantastic at what they set out to do.

Game of the year was Destiny by a mile. Game was huge, tons of people played it, had a great time playing with everyone even if the game itself had a ton of issues.

GTA5 and TLoU remasters were fantastic, the 2 best games of last year (Black Flag 3rd) with higher resolution assets and features have made for a great revisit.

Danganronpa was really really great, scratched that Hotel Dusk itch and then some.

Watch Dogs was a ton of fun, way better than people said. Hyped for a sequel. Oh also Far Cry 4. One of the very very best games of the year! Still to finish it though.

Stick it to the Man was my biggest surprise of the year. Such a delightful game!

Congrats dude, wish I went down that path.

Congrats! Hit the 3 month mark now obv.

 

[senahorse]

Granted I haven't finished Dragon Age, so it might change (about 50 hours in), but I think it's a fantastic game.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Sportsfriends, by a wide margin.

Then Sunset Overdrive.

Edit:



close enough

That's your name?

I never knew.

 

[senahorse]

Alien.

Fantastic game and maybe the most underrated game of the year, late December and it's still tied with Divinity for GOTY for me.

 

[reptilescorpio]

Fantastic game and maybe the most underrated game of the year, late December and it's still tied with Divinity for GOTY for me.

Alien got awesome reviews at launch and seems to have had great word of mouth so I'm not sure it'd fall under underrated, maybe best surprise since it's been so long since a decent Alien game!

 

[Shaneus]

Driveclub
TxK
OlliOlli

Probably some others, but I can't remember anything specific.

 

[HolyCheck]

King Dedede and Shulk are sold out now too :/

and jb dont even offer them online anymore outside of mario pikachu and peach.


I'm going to have to go to a store next week and see what I can manage pre order wise

 

[DarthHomer]

Game of the Year huh? Well, sure. Top 10 list go go go:

Wolfenstein: The New Order
Bayonetta 2
Alien Isolation
Shovel Knight
P.T
Hearthstone
Smash Bros For Wii U
South Park: The Stick of Truth
Monument Valley
Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare

Floating around the runners up are Danganronpa 2, Tales from the Borderlands Ep1, Mario Kart 8, Forza Horizon 2, Driveclub & P4AU.

 

[Gazunta]

Played a ton of stuff, new and old, this year, but the only games I remember actually CARING about:

TxK
Zelda ALBW
Pinball FX 2
Street Fighter (mainly Alpha 2 and SSF4)
Photoshop

 

[Poimandres]

Dendy Cinemas have a deal going where you can see Exodus, Nightcrawler or The Captive for $6 any sessions for the next week.

 

[shanshan310]

Best game of the year?

Spoiler

dota

Honestly though probably dragon age... or smash bros.

WOW. Congratulations!!!!

way to totally overshadow me, jerk

okay, now the temptation is just too great.

BOOM. TWO IN ONE.

Seriously though congrats What's the plan for next year?

 

[bodyboarder]

Pffft as if a diploma counts.

 

[Poimandres]

Pffft as if a diploma counts.

Probably more than the Arts Degree!

Spoiler

Says the guy with a Arts Degree from UQ

 

[Gazunta]

Pfft you people with your fancy book learnin's

Now I DRIVE the school bus!

 

[Deeku]

more congrats!

man you guys with your fancy frames....mines in like a plastic slip folder lol

 

[Jintor]

You got two pieces of paper? Lame, my combined degree meant I got one combined piece of paper

 

[senahorse]

Alien got awesome reviews at launch and seems to have had great word of mouth so I'm not sure it'd fall under underrated, maybe best surprise since it's been so long since a decent Alien game!

But it's so much better than it's 81% suggests imo, so yeah I would call it underrated and most underrated game I have played this year.

edit: congrats jambi

 

[ClivePwned]

congrats to all of youse.

back to Games

Have yet to play Dragon Age, Far Cry 4, Captain Toad, LBP3, Lego Batman 3, SSB or MCC
Won't be playing Driveclub, Bayonetta 2, The Crew, TLOU rem, GTAV rem,

so MyGOATY is Titanfall. Played this death on PC at launch and will probably pick it up cheap on X1 now that I have all three systems. It played flawlessly. My main criticism is that Respawn have no idea how to optimize this game (demonstrated by how well the 360 version holds up according to many).

Rest of my top 10 looks like this:

-Sunset Overdrive. Infamous SS but fun. It was, by far, my favourite system exclusive of the year. Still playing it now but it's silly and goofy as all fuck and more importantly, well written. It uses colour really well, runs smoothly without pop-in.

-Assassin's Creed Unity- frame rate in mid 20's and some weird design stuff that didn't impact me too much. I'd probably place this way above AC1 and ACIII but below ACII and ACIV/ Basically a middling but fun game despite its comical jank.

-Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. Best single player FPS in a while. Multi was good but there's just so much wrong with the netcode underneath the game that ruins it pretty quickly.

-Mario Kart 8 (and I don't like racing games). So hard not to have a giant smile on your face while playing this.

-Donkey Kong Country Returns Tropical Freeze. So hard.

-Forza Horizon 2 (and yet I don't like racing games) Was a lot of fun to tool around in different cars.

-Infamous SS (relatively mute on this since inFamous 2 was a hell of a lot more fun than SS) but it's still the best

Spoiler

and only

PS4 exclusive title I've played so far.

-Professor Layton and the Azran legacy. My first layton game and it only came out for US 3DSs this year. Just loved it. I have the Ace Attorney/ Layton crossover ready to go as well as the digital Ace attorney games ready to go on the 3DS as well.

-Borderlands TPS: Apart from the endless last levels and the final fucking boss battle that was never done, this was a really surprisingly good game. I got to within about 60 seconds of beating it. If the end wasn't such a pain, I would have rated this higher. If you like BL, you need to play this.

-Destiny: I liked a lot of it. And I didn't like the fact it was terrible if you liked to play on your own. I did do some stuff with others but the grindy filler shit was just that, pure filler shit. In a lot of other games, they might havea mission, thena side mission set in the same area that was maybe just an extended battle. Destiny just makes you replay the same missions over and over if you don't go on strikes. And the Crucible was just seven shades of shit.

Not feeling it:
-Watch_Dogs. It was okay but it just felt all over the place.
-Wolfenstein TNO- my feelings are all over the places. I liked it and I didn't.
Shadow of Mordor; Meh-dle Earth. Was fine for a bit but no desire to finish.
-MGS Ground Zeroes. Was good to play but I think I have lost all patience for Kojima's insane bullshit. That and

Spoiler

anachronistic headphones with sockets in the chest

-PS+ "fee games" mostly just drivel that I can't bring myself to play for more than 5 mins. Hoping Infamous First Light breaks that curse for me. Don't know if games for gold is any better since I don't have XBL ATM.

Worst new game I played: Jazzpunk. Fucking awful.
It sums up my experience with so many indie games, an intriguing idea, sense of humor or art style let down by the execution. PS+

Overall- last year was better with SM3D World, ACIV, TLOU, GTAV, Windwaker HD, Lego City. Hopefully 2015 will bring us a not-disappointing The Order, Halo 5 and Zeulda U.

 

[Jables Swan]

Huge congrats man.

My boy is turning 4 on Sunday. Time really does go so fast. I've got a Ninja Turtle party to finish getting ready.

Video gamewise, I'm more into movies, but I enjoyed:

Alien Isolation
South Park: The Stick of Truth
The Wolf Among Us
The Walking Dead: Season Two
OlliOlli

 

[Jintor]

I feel like I didn't play enough this year to really have a good opinion on GOTY, which is a first.

I guess by default it's either Bayo 2 or Smash. lol.

I liked the DanganRonpas (wait, were both of them this year?) but they're not really great complete packages.

 

[Lucian Cat]

Holy shit. Congrats dude! A wedding, house, puppy and now a baby. You've had a massive year

 

[hidys]

This is good to hear. I actually really like Fear of a Brown Planet.

Spoiler

LOL

 

[codswallop]

Oh yeah, Screencheat. If only it were a bit more polished. Damn fun, my brain hurts after playing for an hour straight.

If you have people to play it with, definitely get it.

 

[Dryk]

Wait? Nidhogg was THIS YEAR? <hurriedly adds near top of list>

I feel like I didn't play enough this year to really have a good opinion on GOTY, which is a first.

I get that every year. I don't play most AAA on PC and half the AAA on Wii U until at least the year after it comes out.

 

[Kritz]

DA:I in poo town? Interesting. What was poo about it?

I think it's a pretty unpopular opinion, but in my 2-3 hours of playing the game, I've just been so incredibly disappointed. To some people, my complaints may actually be positive - one of the main reasons I dislike DA:I is because bioware has almost entirely thrown out the conversations that made me love the series in the first place, and even the Mass Effect style wheel that was ported over for DA2 barely makes an appearance, as all plot has seemingly vanished from the game (or spread so thin it's impossible to see). The only times I've talked with companions have been in the home base, which is such an insignificant and compartmentalised area of the game. The scope of the game, from the 3 or so zones I played, were technically larger than anything found within Dragon Age: Origins, but there's absolutely no connective tissue justifying why you're jumping between these areas. I never encountered any towns or cities, there's no npcs with dialogue and there's nothing that made the first (or even second) game interesting.

But, I wouldn't entirely mind that if the game had any other redeeming value. The combat system is a complete joke - it's so immediately telling when you hold down the trigger on your controller, your character just enters an autoattack mode. It feels like an MMO, which is the biggest sin I could think of for a game trying to emulate hack and slash RPGs. To make comparisons, Dragon Age: Inquisition's combat has less depth and less feedback than Kingdoms of Amalur, which was another mindless grinding MMO wannabe.

After playing the brilliant Divinity this year, and a range of other top down, tactical RPGs, I just can't adapt to Dragon Age throwing away its short lineage in favour of appealing to the Skyrim crowd with busted, boring, unengaged, mindless, repetitious combat. It's unacceptable for a game to stretch its content so thin that the game is 80 hours in length, while having no substance to its mechanics or its lore to make it remotely worth playing. Dragon Age: Inquisition is a homogenised mess of designs (to that point I've only documented the most serious flaws). I've never felt so distanced from public opinion, and I can't even begin to understand why it's going to become NeoGAF's game of the year.

On a lighter note,

okay, now the temptation is just too great.

BOOM. TWO IN ONE.

Seriously though congrats What's the plan for next year?

Probably gonna make a video game or something!
(before someone tempts me further to throw another 3 years of my life attaining more cool pieces of paper)

 

[Dead Man]

Sportsfriends, by a wide margin.

Then Sunset Overdrive.

Edit:

close enough

Congrats!

Well that's fucking awesome, congrats to you too! It's not often a man gets pregnant.

Best game of the year?

Spoiler

dota

Honestly though probably dragon age... or smash bros.

WOW. Congratulations!!!!



okay, now the temptation is just too great.

BOOM. TWO IN ONE.

Seriously though congrats What's the plan for next year?

Damn it, stop being awesome AusGAF! Congrats though

 

[Rahk]

The best game that came out this year is Elite Dangerous

Spoiler

I have played it for a total of twelve minutes

I played for an hour or two and all I did was shoot down a criminal, jump between a couple of systems, and dock at a space station to refuel.

GOTY.

 

[Bernbaum]

Played a ton of stuff, new and old, this year, but the only games I remember actually CARING about:

TxK
Zelda ALBW
Pinball FX 2
Street Fighter (mainly Alpha 2 and SSF4)
Photoshop

Gaz what platform are you playing Pinball on? I don't see your highscores on Steam.

 

[BananaArnie]

steam sales
LOOK AT THE RAINBOW STAR

At these prices you cant afford not to buy

 

[Quasar]

Well look at that, iView for PS4 the same day as Plex for PS3/4.

 

[senahorse]

I've never felt so distanced from public opinion, and I can't even begin to understand why it's going to become NeoGAF's game of the year.

I think you answered your dilemma right here:

but in my 2-3 hours of playing the game

Most of your complaints are addressed if you stick with it, it's a long RPG (I am 50+ hours in and still have a ways to go) and is a slow burn to begin with. I will say though, the only major design flaw I see is the Hinterlands, that was a big mistake putting that at the start of the game, you can easily over level yourself in that boring zone and ruin the rest of the game. That's why everyone keeps saying LEAVE THE HINTERLANDS.

 

[Fredescu]

Most of your complaints are addressed if you stick with it

Including the one about fewer conversations? Dialog is the best thing about Bioware games. If you really have to slog through hours to get to it, it seems like another case of Bioware not playing to their strengths.

 

[senahorse]

Including the one about fewer conversations? Dialog is the best thing about Bioware games. If you really have to slog through hours to get to it, it seems like another case of Bioware not playing to their strengths.

Dialog becomes a chore later in the game, there are plenty of people to talk to, maybe not as much as mass effect but plenty enough imo. Sure if you're playing this game ONLY to get to lots of dialog, well yeah you are going to have to 'slog' through it for a few hours.

edit: I just asked this question of my gf (showing the thread for context)

talking about dragon age
would you agree there isn't enough people to talk to?

her response:

LOL there's too many people to talk to

She's a bigger bioware fan than me, shrug.

 

[Fredescu]

Dialog becomes a chore later in the game

So not only is there less of it, but what's there is unenjoyable? Damn.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I think it's a pretty unpopular opinion, but in my 2-3 hours of playing the game, I've just been so incredibly disappointed. To some people, my complaints may actually be positive - one of the main reasons I dislike DA:I is because bioware has almost entirely thrown out the conversations that made me love the series in the first place, and even the Mass Effect style wheel that was ported over for DA2 barely makes an appearance, as all plot has seemingly vanished from the game (or spread so thin it's impossible to see). The only times I've talked with companions have been in the home base, which is such an insignificant and compartmentalised area of the game. The scope of the game, from the 3 or so zones I played, were technically larger than anything found within Dragon Age: Origins, but there's absolutely no connective tissue justifying why you're jumping between these areas. I never encountered any towns or cities, there's no npcs with dialogue and there's nothing that made the first (or even second) game interesting.

But, I wouldn't entirely mind that if the game had any other redeeming value. The combat system is a complete joke - it's so immediately telling when you hold down the trigger on your controller, your character just enters an autoattack mode. It feels like an MMO, which is the biggest sin I could think of for a game trying to emulate hack and slash RPGs. To make comparisons, Dragon Age: Inquisition's combat has less depth and less feedback than Kingdoms of Amalur, which was another mindless grinding MMO wannabe.

After playig

The worst part for me is the endless vapid sidequests that are literally something out of an MMO. Collect six wolf pelts style bullshit. People are actually praising the "exploration" but the game seems to give you quest markers for all the sidequests as you come within 500 million miles of it. Questgivers marked on map.

People said there was no level scaling in the prerelease, but actually levels scale in a range, usually a range of 3-4 levels. And leveling is relatively infrequent from the mid-game onwards, so you basically always fall within those ranges unless you leave something till the end of the game that you got at the start of the game, so it basically always scales.

 

[senahorse]

So not only is there less of it, but what's there is unenjoyable? Damn.

I guess I need to elaborate for you to understand. There is so much (less I don't know, it's been a long time since I played Mass Effect hence maybe, it means not 100% sure) that for me it becomes a chore as I just want to get back to the game playing. My gf loves all the dialog, me I prefer to play with bit and pieces of dialog in between.

 

[Fredescu]

would you agree there isn't enough people to talk to?

I can't speak for Kritz, but I don't think number of people to talk to is what he's referring to. Fewer conversation trees with more depth and more branches would be preferable to many shallow ones.

Anyway, I will definitely play it at some point. If I had more free time I'd be playing it now probably.

 

[senahorse]

Do that, don't listen to me, kritz etc. Play it for yourself and see what you think. There are definitely lots of branching conversations with consequences.

edit: before you do that, play Divinity, I am sure you will like that one, best played in co-op but I am sure it would play fine in single player.