Eighth Coint and Plick - The 80 best games of 2014, as chosen by ILX

Finally, it is time.

Thanks to everyone who voted and wrote blurbs on the games -- I should be able to post about 20 a day 'til Friday (I hope).

It seems like this is a fractured year. Not a lot of buy-in on the next-gen consoles yet, stronger-than-normal showing from PC/OSX and the continually surging mobile market meant a staggering number of one-vote-games. What is the future of C&P? The number one game will be the one game that two of us played?!

Enough commentary. Enjoy the rollout!

#74 - Don't Starve: Reign of Giants
http://i.imgur.com/kK8Uda6.png
Points: 6
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

I mentioned elsewhere that this game satisfied the part of me that was sad when Glitch shut down. I played a LOT of the base game until I started getting mad that I was surviving so successfully. Fortunately this DLC adds a bunch of new challenges and closes some of the loopholes I had been exploiting (RIP storing 75 live rabbits in a wooden chest to eat all winter long).
- Reddening

(does anyone want to tell me what a good rollout speed is for these things)

Not doing the five pointers, huh?

Love the layout.

I'll post the five-pointers at the end, had to cut SOMETHING so nobody will know what is coming in number one!

Is this intentionally on ILE instead of ILG? I don't have a problem with it, just checking.

Because I am histrionic and I WANT EVERYONE TO LOOK

It's on ILE every year

It is???? Shows how much attention I've been paying

#74 - The Dream Machine: Chapter 5
http://i.imgur.com/xOr0gOF.png
Points: 6
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

An adventure game series done in claymation with real sets. The aesthetic is very arresting, especially in this chapter where one of the dreams takes place in an overgrown forest crammed with model-railroad-style detail.
- Reddening

Is there a difference between the white background Win and the black background OSX?

woohoo! looking forward to the rollout! this is always the most expensive thread of the year for me because i usually end up purchasing several games.

those are jsut the colors i picked for those platforms based on their websites, haha

xbox is green, playstation is blue, winsdows is white, mac is black etc

#74 - Elsa Frozen Brain Surgery
http://i.imgur.com/xGfDpeT.png
Points: 6
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

I could totally construct a feminist reading that says it's good for little girls to see the medical profession normalized and made accessible while they're playing shitty off-brand flash games. But I think I'll dig around in my own brain with a magical fucking carrot and erase that impulse because WHAT THE FUCK.
- Reddening

haha what is that game!

http://i.imgur.com/9FNLA0n.png
all highlighted, all greyed out for reference

this is off to a great start so far.

Yeah, and I love the little color-coded bar.

(apologies in advance if some of these images are from the wrong games. a lot of them have generic names.)
(not elsa frozen brain surgery tho, that's the only game called that i think)

#74 - Helix
http://i.imgur.com/mL5tkBV.png
Points: 6
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

My iOS gaming centered on games that I could play for short bursts. I love the strange, unexplained iconography of Michael Brough's games. But where 868-Hack was a contemplative exercise (that I was probably too high to figure out), this is a simple physical task: draw circles around enemies until you die.
- polyphonic

i wish i had known you were starting w/ 6 pts and not 5 so i could give all my 5 pt noms 1 extra point

i didn't know i was starting at 6 until i saw how many 5s there were tbh

gotta game the game poll i guess (see: reddening) (who you will see A LOT OF today)

#74 - The Last Door: Season One
http://i.imgur.com/r9fkAbE.png
Points: 6
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

A pixellated horror game made by an indie company in Spain. The first chapter was a simple "explore the creepy mansion" deal, but the other three chapters branched out to other locales in an effective way. The plot gets kind of convoluted as it goes on, but the draw here is less the plot and more the macabre set pieces.
- Reddening

okay I may lose an hour or so to Elsa Frozen Brain Surgery based on that screenshot alone

i didn't even pick one of the screenshots where her head is open

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8654/16086864863_97a5d6df95.jpg

what the fuck

#74 - Retry
http://i.imgur.com/txnk5z8.png
Points: 6
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

just played through Elsa, it's only about 60 seconds long. it's a thing.

it's a hilarious, insane thing

#74 - Transmission
http://i.imgur.com/WSNtTrS.png
Points: 6
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

A puzzle game by the Science Museum with such nice sound design that I'll doggedly try to beat the harder levels even though I'm terrible at them.
- Reddening

that game looks really pretty

retry is free, btw

lol i guess it paid off to cut a few games so i could affix stray points to my lower ballot!

i'm not going to search for examples on my work computer, but that website with the elsa frozen game has a tag specifically for games where the frozen characters are pregnant and need your help to give birth. they're not graphic but i'm still pretty sure i'm on an FBI watch list for opening them.

#74 - With Those We Love Alive
http://i.imgur.com/uh0I4JI.png
Points: 6
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

I've found Porpentine's games hard to settle into in the past, but this one hooked me unexpectedly. Striking and unexpected imagery is one of her hallmarks, but this was the first time I didn't feel any resistance to it and was just like "hell yeah, the Empress was mantled with fleshrags and wearing a diadem of heretic bone."
- Reddening

i really could not find compelling images for this that didn't involve people drawing on their arms. which kinda makes me want to play it because why the fuck are ppl drawing on their arms?

These image cards with all of the game info and points on them look great. Well done!

admittedly i didn't follow the instructions to draw on my arms, i thought she was being metaphorical until i looked up ppl's reviews afterward and saw literal arm-drawings.

#72 - Flappy Golf
http://i.imgur.com/DUP82m9.png
Points: 7
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

this is definitely the weirdest early crop of games yet

#72 - Nidhogg
http://i.imgur.com/irVwn8H.png
Points: 7
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

A bit like if Éric Chahi made a jousting sim. Great fun, although it didn't have a lasting appeal for me.
- Polyphonic

that's a PS4 game?

Flappy Golf and Retry were mine. I liked them both for similar reasons. Just the right about of difficult to keep you playing over and over and over and over without making you think that it is impossible. You get just the slimmest glimmer of hope.

nidhogg looks the same on all systems and is very intentionally intellivision retro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODmqS5C7jIQ

whoa, soundtrack by Daedelus!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nidhogg_(video_game)#Development

nice work so far, will!

#71 - Metal Slug Defense
http://i.imgur.com/hO8rrxY.png
Points: 8
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap boom tap tap boom.
- Sterling Clover

oh man, i hate that game

btw, next year for revenge i'm gonna give all my low picks numbers like 8, 11, 13, 6 pts

metal slug tower defense ugh whyyyyyy

at least all these dumb freemium apps are splitting votes so they can't win (oh wait lol last year)

#60 - 80 Days
http://i.imgur.com/V4iLIv5.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

I liked the idea better than the execution tbh.
- forksclovetofu

^glowing praise itt

my wife's game of the year ^

what the - i never even got to a matching game in that... are you sure that's an accurate screengrab?

lol i was wondering about that

i am completely non-confident that it's accurate

lol i guessi need to redo that one

heh, i see what you did there. That's a different thing entirely. You're looking fro this
http://www.inklestudios.com/80days/

#60 - 80 Days

http://i.imgur.com/h0DHTa8.png

Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

I liked the idea better than the execution tbh.
- forksclovetofu

SERVICE

thank god for gimp templates

that other game is called "around the world in 80 days" and it is on some bonzo buddy looking website

I liked the idea better than the execution tbh.

same here. it was on my ballot but i dropped it off at the last moment. i played through once, was tempted to play again just to go to a different region and/or try to get a better score, but i haven't opened it again since. but then again, i'm not really a fan of interactive fiction games so the fact that it held my attention for an hour or whatever is probably a good sign?

I liked the demo/free chapter of Dream Machine back when it was first released. The Last Door also worth a play through if you don't mind pixel art and like horror-adventure. Found most of the gameplay of With Those We Love Alive tedious clicking with no change, but did really like the arm drawing thing - and yes, you have to do it.

#60 - Anno: Build An Empire
http://i.imgur.com/l8xIYFk.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

I'm cool with f2p city builders I guess? plus it sounds like Anus
- Euler

more or less covers my opinion
but you know what you just reminded me was that i DID play a good interactive fiction game and didn't list it in my ballot: Heavy Metal Thunder
it's great though, try it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXRCZmMrNAg

#60 - Campus Life: Fashion Girl
http://i.imgur.com/j3xamRi.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

I just wanna party
- Euler

I got 8 more today, will try to do them a bit more quickly

#60 - Gridland
http://i.imgur.com/q3B1Yi9.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

it's no Marvel Puzzle Quest but then what is
- euler

#60 - Hohokum
http://i.imgur.com/AHp3Upl.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

#60 - Infinity Wars
http://i.imgur.com/KHTPsj2.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

post-apocolyptic collectible card game that i spent way too much time playing last year. like a grittier and more mechanically crunchy hearthstone (which was too cartoony for me to rep for in a poll).
- mordy

#60 - Might & Magic X
http://i.imgur.com/HgoAEvn.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

not sure how i fucked that up -- that game came out on win/osx

ooh i like hohokum's art style! this poll always makes me sad that i can't afford a newer console.

i never did manage to kill the last monster in gridland, i got soft by constantly using that "skip from night to day" mechanic

#60 - OlliOlli
http://i.imgur.com/2pzaXxM.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

Really liked this, it's very close to old Tony Hawk style gameplay but successfully transplanted into a 2d scrolling indie game. Took a couple of hours to click but great fun once it did.
- JimD

^my favourite screenshot so far btw.

huh i literally forgot all about infinity wars, that was a fun game

#60 - Sunless Sea
http://i.imgur.com/ON4YB9c.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

wasn't a finished product in 2014 but was still good enough to earn a vote. from the guys who did fallen london. great writing, melancholic + slow moving ludic elements, dark noirish aesthetic, riding yr zubmarine thru the dark underearth waters.
- mordy

#60 - This War of Mine
http://i.imgur.com/Sot0zTj.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

Nothing else made me so immediately (a) become a shitty person and also (b) immediately feel shitty about it.
- Will M

^ i will have to expand on that later

tbh I'm most excited (or "hype") for jjj's disappointments of the year

trying to figure out when i will sprinkle those in... probably start tomorrow

#60 - Tomb Raider
http://i.imgur.com/emiPs18.png
Points: 10
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

I played this because it was free on PS+. For an explorer, she sure kills a metric ton of evil fuckers. I wish it was more exploration and less shooting. Can someone make that please? A puzzle/exploration game would be cool.
- EZ Snappin

https://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/drudge-siren.gif

WARNING: GAME PLAYED ON A CONSOLE UPON WHICH IT DID NOT COME OUT IN 2014
TOMB RAIDER 2014 FALSE FLAG
TEAR THIS WHOLE THING DOWN

i was kinda enjoying Tomb Raider until my girlfriend told me she couldn't handle the constant orgasmic screams and moans from Lara everytime she moved around and she didn't want me to play if she was around. Go figure.

(that's it for today... up to 40ish tomorrow, up to 20ish Thursday, up to numero uno on Friday!)

xp lol i didn't notice that too much when i played, but i am single

Oh no. The world is ending. Since I couldn't vote for only two games my ballot is totally padded out with random crap that came out on PS+

nobody cares unless it's marvel puzzle quest tbph

Really want to play This War of Mine.

^^ me too, it looks great, but also looks like it'll be in a humble bundle sometime in 2015

kind of surprised it only got the one vote, though tbf its not like i've bothered yet-- i feel like i've seen it on steam sale at least once already tho

would totally have voted for helix and nidhogg, oh dear

Ballot box sorely lacked thompness and lampness and ifness :(

Coint and plick is poorer for it

ifness?

if was always a good voice on this poll

as ever i've played like five new games and only one of them an AAAAAAAAAAAA title; my ballot would probably have just been five nights at freddys in every slot but with a different number of points to represent every thought i have had about it

nidhogg is a fantastic little thing tho! its like -- well, bushido blade is probably GOAT fighting game for me. nidhogg is like a demake of that, but also it's a sort of itchy and scratchy version of that. getting hit by a sword is always fatal. you reincarnate in seconds. it has sword position and parry and disarm and things, and it is on the brilliant knife edge between always thinking, "shit, i am in the zone here and my keyboard skills translate to making my little dude a brilliant sword fighter" and "we are basically playing slapsies here"

http://cdn.destructoid.com//ul/268321-header.jpg

ifness?

― Nhex, Tuesday, March 3, 2015 9:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ilx poster "if"

fyi i will start posting the next 16 shortly

pls do

#59 - Super Glyph Quest
http://i.imgur.com/mN7eDnB.png
Points: 12
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

#57 - Five Nights At Freddy's
http://i.imgur.com/VAxtGJz.png
Points: 12
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.5

My sister and her friend dressed up as the Chica and Foxy animatronics for Halloween, and I was like "lol you nerds no one's going to get it." And then every fourth kid they passed on the street knew exactly who they were. This game is HUGE. Compositionally it's so slight: you sit in a room opening and closing doors, looking at pre-rendered screenshots of rooms, and if you lose you get a jumpscare animation that lasts all of two seconds. But it manages to ratchet up the player's dread and anticipation so effectively that those two-second jumpscares make me shriek every time.
reddening

so weird

someone please tell me if it's fun to play freddy's on an iphone or if i should def play it on an ipad

#57 - Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok
http://i.imgur.com/cbgbReT.png
Points: 12
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.5

This game is lovingly built on the skeleton of the Quest For Glory series. The VGA art style, the combat system, the humor--these people REALLY LIKE Quest for Glory. And so do I, so I really like this game! It feels more like a sequel to the fourth game than the actual, legit fifth game did: the art style of QG3/QG4 is maintained, but they've added little improvements to the game mechanics, like giving NPCs the ability to stroll around town and visit different locations throughout the day, and making them offer up different dialogue based on which other characters are in the room with them. Plus there are lots of little easter eggs for adventure game nerds.
- reddening

I still need to get that, sounds awesome.

#56 - Transistor
http://i.imgur.com/tr5kz3j.png
Points: 13
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

Marred by a fragile plot, the mechanics, music and artwork nonetheless are some of the most elegant of any game I've seen.
- Sterling Clover

#53 - A Dark Room
http://i.imgur.com/NXTADtF.png
Points: 15
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

Surprisingly, the progressive discovery trick even works on a second and third playthough.
Sterling Clover

i played that for the first time this week! had never heard of it. lost three hours to it.

i want to defend 5naf against the charges of shoddy construction a bit -- I think it's pretty well fine tuned in a way that bizarrely works on a meta level - also I just like games you can show people

#53 - D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die
http://i.imgur.com/iXE6XHq.png
Points: 15
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

Am I giving it this many points because I feel bad about playing Deadly Premonition too late to vote for it on any platform? Maybe a bit, but D4 is cool in its own right. D4 is weird. It's also ridiculously fun. Imagine taking a Telltale game, adding some actual mechanics, and making it actually pretty funny (TT's humour is getting a little one-note). You need to have access to an Xbox One so virtually nobody will play it. But, if for some reason you find you have a day to kill near an Xone, play this!
- Will M

why did i write in my write-up that the game is "actually pretty funny" and then use that screenshot

also: that game was my number one game until the last possible minute. It's really neat and bizarre. And it has the return of Deadly Premonition's fattest dude, Forrest Kaysen (for some reason).

A Dark Room was on browser last year.

https://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/drudge-siren.gif

#53 - Paranautical Activity
http://i.imgur.com/j8lExgk.png
Points: 15
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

i think the designer dude said some controversial shit during gamergate or something and got his game kicked off steam? i don't know the details but i got this in a humble bundle pack a while back and it was a very satisfying play. FPS roguelike that was just really enjoyable to jump in and blow some weird lovecraftian ocean beasts away.
- mordy

Steam pulls game after its developer tweets Gabe Newell death threat

#50 - Child of Light
http://i.imgur.com/iwMV1vs.png
Points: 15
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.33

More hardcore RPG fans would probably find this a bit limp and easy, but I like a good RPG-lite, especially one with pretty music and graphics. The biggest downside to this, which almost put me off playing it, is that the story and dialogue is all in rhyme. Bad, out of tempo rhyme.
- salsa shark

Child of Light is a beautiful game

#50 - Costume Quest 2
http://i.imgur.com/yJtAL7C.png
Points: 15
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.33

This game revisits the characters from the previous installment and sends them on a timey-wimey adventure to stop a little boy from growing up into an evil dentist. The mechanics are the same as before, but there's no need to tinker with something that doesn't need fixing. There's a cameo from a Broken Age character and the usual Double Fine humour throughout.
-salsa shark

wow, Transistor really flew under the radar compared to Bastion, huh?
waiting for inevitable sale/Humble Bundle on Costume Quest 2

the story and dialogue is all in rhyme. Bad, out of tempo rhyme

i only played the demo of this, checked it out as a possible couch coop option for which it was not really suitable, but in the short time i did play it i can agree this got v old v quickly. i did enjoy the game tho, seems cool.

#50 - Valiant Hearts: The Great War
http://i.imgur.com/KROH4ds.png
Points: 15
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.33

Ubisoft was on a roll this year: first Child of Light in April, and then Valiant Hearts in June, coinciding with the centenary of WWI, during which the game takes place. Just like for Child of Light, Ubisoft created a pretty soundtrack and captivating art style. The gameplay in Valiant Hearts is straightforward with a mix of easy to medium difficulty puzzles. The game also takes a neat approach to collectibles, which are based on real items from the war. They're scattered throughout each level, and for each one you collect, you get a story of that item's history. And then there's the storyline itself, which packs in quite a lot of emotion. I think if there's one game on my list this year that I'd have to recommend above all others, it would be this one.
- salsa shark

#47 - Battleheart Legacy
http://i.imgur.com/BxWPjuw.png
Points: 15
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0

Loads of fun until it ran out of steam in the endgame.
- forksclovetofu

#47 - Divinity: Original Sin
http://i.imgur.com/J2jXWNT.png
Points: 15
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0

i feel like a dropped a ton of time into MMX and D:OS this year without being wowed by either. on reflection MMX stayed with me more and of the two my recollection is that i had the most fun playing it. the gameplay and mechanics had a kind of fundamental terribleness but in practice were quirkier and more engaging. also i do think Divinity being diy/crowdsourced led to it getting a pass on a lot of things that other titles wouldn't get away wite e.g. interface clunkiness, vague story, bugs and bits missing on launch.
B Spirals

this one is okay - like crunchy classic RPG style where you can mix ice + fire + oil drums + shit to execute hot strats on the battlefield. kinda a holdover for me until project eternity comes out (soon!)
- mordy

our first two-vote games!

finally, "consensus!"

tbh I'm most excited (or "hype") for jjj's disappointments of the year

― stately, plump buck angel (silby), Tuesday, March 3, 2015 4:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jjj didn't send one!

ok salsa's blurb decided me on checking out valiant hearts

#47 - Smash Bros for 3DS and WiiU
http://i.imgur.com/2izsypV.png
Points: 15
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0

Haven't really got my teeth into this Smash Bros yet, there's a lot of depth to it and I'e barely scratched the surface, but there's not much that can provide five-players-around-one-tv fun these days and this does that really well.
- JimD

Wow, pretty low for Smash Bros

#45 - South Park: The Stick of Truth
http://i.imgur.com/4HSi2vE.png
Points: 18
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0

ssb placement imo speaks less about the game's quality and more about the ilx install rate of nintendo consoles tbh

(that and it's like the 20th smash bros game)

yeah, very true. It's been a long time since I've had a nintendo console.

#45 - The Wolf Among Us
http://i.imgur.com/YpehJLj.png
Points: 18
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0

The first chapter didn't quite hook me but this game does a fantastic job of presenting and raising stakes over the course of its five chapters. As with Walking Dead, I like it better than the source material.
- Will M.

#44 - Two Dots
http://i.imgur.com/IbG05fq.png
Points: 19
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0

Candy Crush with foggy window effects. Eh, good enough - the slogan for mobile games.
- nhex

that's the last one for day 2!

Tomorrow: 39-22
Friday: 21-1 (I like 21 and 20 back to back so much that it will kick off the day 4 extravaganza)

some disappointments coming now too.

The story so far:

#44 - Two Dots
#45 - South Park: The Stick of Truth
#45 - The Wolf Among Us
#47 - Battleheart Legacy
#47 - Divinity: Original Sin
#47 - Smash Bros for 3DS and WiiU
#50 - Child of Light
#50 - Costume Quest 2
#50 - Valiant Hearts: The Great War
#53 - A Dark Room
#53 - D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die
#53 - Paranautical Activity
#56 - Transistor
#57 - Five Nights At Freddy's
#57 - Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok
#59 - Super Glyph Quest

#60 - 80 Days
#60 - Anno: Build an Empire
#60 - Campus Life: Fashion Girl
#60 - Gridland
#60 - Hohokum
#60 - Infinity Wars
#60 - Might and Magic X
#60 - Sunless Sea
#60 - This War of Mine
#60 - Tomb Raider
#60 - OlliOlli
#71 - Metal Slug Defense
#72 - Flappy Golf
#72 - Nidhogg
#74 - Don't Starve: Reign of Giants
#74 - Elsa Frozen Brain Surgery
#74 - Helix
#74 - Retry
#74 - The Dream Machine: Chapter 5
#74 - The Last Door: Season One
#74 - Transmission
#74 - With Those We Love Alive

sweet

ssb placement imo speaks less about the game's quality and more about the ilx install rate of nintendo consoles tbh

(that and it's like the 20th smash bros game)

gonna post two disappointments today since they're not game-specific, will post some game-specific ones tomorrow that relate to stuff that placed.

forksclovetofu's disappointment: Next Generation Gaming

So here I am, all grows up and I have the money and the interest and your big new plinths are of zero interest to me. Stop trying to colonize my living room and make some goddamn games you heathens.

Also, quite frankly, games this year in general were not so good. Used to get real high, now I'm just catching a buzz.

I've played very little from 2014 (and what I have played was mostly toe-dipping) because 2014 was the year I bought a PS3 and played through a glut of awesome and mostly older stuff, so it was an amazing gaming year for me in a way that had almost nothing to do with the fact that it was 2014 (except that I bought a lot of that awesome and mostly older stuff waaaaay cheap).

That said, playing through South Park: The Stick Of Truth (to the limited extent that I have thus far) was...exactly like playing a super-long episode of South Park. Which is just about the highest compliment I could pay to a video game adaptation of a property I enjoy.

Will M.'s disappointment: AAA Video Game Development

Far Cry 4: same shit, different amount of snow.
Destiny: skinner box with guns in it.
Sunset Overdrive: The annoying little brother of AAA titles. If it were possible to punch a video game, I would punch this video game.
Watch_Dogs: a) assassin's creed future; b) sloppy mess.
Assassin's Creed: a) watch_dogs in history; b) sloppy mess.
Titanfall: i can't make myself care.
Dragon Age Inquisition: I'm just starting this now, but... man. i am not interested so far.
And then there's all of the "remasters" of games I JUST FINISHED PLAYING: GTA V, Last of Us, etc.

It wasn't all bad in 2014. I think Mordor was interesting. FC4 is risk-averse but enjoyable enough at points. Ground Zeroes was an exciting teaser and worth the money (fuck the haters) (i did get it on sale tho). But AAA game development, goddamn it. This is going to go down as one of your most creatively bankrupt years in a long time. The original games that built these studios & IPs didn't launch them into the stratosphere because they were EFFICIENT AT MONEY-TAKING. They did it by being cool and capturing people's imaginations and making them want to talk. I'm hoping that it's just that "year 2-ish of the console cycle" blip and we start seeing more geniunely interesting shit (and some new IPs worth caring about for fucks sake) because the AAA space still has the opportunity to do stuff the smaller spaces absolutely cannot -- and if these dinosaurs completely bite the dust, we'll all be stuck playing nothing but MPQ and 8-Bit de-makes of TV sitcoms by the year 2020. That's a future I'm not ready to face.

Dear Ubi: remember when you made the Prince of Persia reboot? Farcry? Farcry TWO? Beyond Good and Evil? Rayman? Splinter Cell? Rainbow6? Notice how the most recent game in that list was seven years ago? You dominated the creative AAA space. You can do it again! Just once!
Dear EA: I know you're disinvesting, but you need to put the pressure on Bioware to get back to what they're good at. And dear Bioware... remember how blown away we were when DA:Origins came out? Or Mass Effect? remember how you were everyone's darling for a minute? Please repeat!
Dear Activision Blizzard: I'm not gonna bother. You are just gonna keep doing you, so keep that up, I guess.

There's very little that I've felt I was missing out on from being a generation behind the curve (the announcement of a next-gen exclusive Just Cause 3 is the first thing to induce a twinge of longing) and very few new big games that I've felt I needed to play anytime soon. So that's OTM from my limited perspective.

i feel like it's kinda always this way at the beginning of the console lifestyle (re no games)

pretty much, yes

never this bad though! the ps4 is coming up on a year and a half old and the closest thing they have to a system exclusive console seller is infamous... even driveclub came apart and the order is something of a joke.
i'm annoyed cuz i'm likely gonna get it for bloodbourne but WHY

It's tough to compare to the last cycle because the 360 beat the PS3 to market so much -- almost a year.

But, it has now been about 15 months since the 4&One generation began. Here are some games that had come out within ~15 months of the X360:
- Elder Scrolls IV
- Dead Rising
- Gears of War
- Rainbow Six Vegas
- Crackdown (@15 months)

And within ~12 months of the PS3:
- COD 4: Modern Warfare
- Uncharted
- Assassin's Creed

Granted, it seemed like Sony and Microsoft, ESPECIALLY Microsoft, were desperate to get install base back then so they were throwing money at huge exclusives. Also, the difference in graphics -- particularly with the trend towards HD outputs & televisions -- maybe made the jump feel more dramatic than it was. Maybe I'd be talking about Crackdown then the same way I'm talking about Destiny now if it didn't feel like A WHOLE NEW WORLD at the time.

xpost haha yup. said what i said except with less words.

AAA dev times are more brutal than ever?
that said - not it negates the lack of originality at all - i'm very hyped for next gen editions of Mortal Kombat and Batman over the next couple months

I dunno if it's the dev times. PS3 was magnificently awful for that. Remember how nobody could figure out how to make games work well on that architecture for, like, 5 years? The new consoles are very similar to each other and the middleware hasn't changed much. Honestly I think it's just a combination of (a) disinvestment in the AAA space across the board (most of the dinosaurs are making their money in other markets now) and (b) a huge move towards "tentpole" games, so no more years where we get two games from the same publisher (let alone studio). Kind of the superhero movie problem but for games.

and per usual i will recuse myself re: mk & dc discussions

on the other hand has there ever been a better time for non-AAA gaming?

Maybe, but a it's a pretty bad time for developers, though.

But isn't part of that bc the indie market is super saturated?

Maybe but it's mostly because it's hard to get anyone to pay for anything.

otoh kickstarter is the ultimate preorder scheme

click click click click = gaming in 2014/15

i do kinda wonder if this whole humble bundle/steam sale/ps plus/games for gold scheme is biting smaller devs on the ass long-term because people think "i'll buy it when it's on ____"

Maybe but it's mostly because it's hard to get anyone to pay for anything.

really? it seems like games are the only thing people will still pay for (all those indie game Kickstarters in the tens of thousands, and also there isn't really a good way to pirate console games, right?).

i do kinda wonder if this whole humble bundle/steam sale/ps plus/games for gold scheme is biting smaller devs on the ass long-term because people think "i'll buy it when it's on

Oh yeah, definitely.

The superhero movie problem is different though - it's that DC and Marvel are both putting out 3 movies a year forever and sooner or later one of them will tank (clue: Baffleck)

and also there isn't really a good way to pirate console games, right?).

well you can pirate the pc versions pretty easily, i think.

but also developing aaa titles is very expensive these days, and if your title doesn't do well enough (LA Noire, Bioshock Infinite, Dummy Curt Schilling RPG, Sim City, etc.) you're out of business.

The superhero movie problem is different though - it's that DC and Marvel are both putting out 3 movies a year forever and sooner or later one of them will tank (clue: Baffleck)
will one of them tank though? i feel like the fact that they've stopped releasing like 4 'blockbusters' a summer per studio means that nothing bombs anymore because there's nothing else to watch!

@poly
did bioshock infinite do that poorly?

my pov on indie: yeah, there are die-hard cheap skates who will buy games at their cheapest *raises hand* but the sheer availability/diversity/awareness of indie is sooooo much better now than it's ever been IMO. To this day I'm surprised the market hasn't completely crashed and obliterated these developers, but I think the secret sauce is mobile which draws in the cash for these guys

did bioshock infinite do that poorly?

It did okay but they spent so much extra time developing it that only a blockbuster response could have saved it. But that's the other side of the same coin.

but I think the secret sauce is mobile which draws in the cash for these guys

Good luck developing for mobile unless you're doing freemium though.

Or if you develop an original game, hopefully your clones won't outperform you (threes v 2048).

Or if you develop a great game, hopefully you won't include a basic english word that King thinks they own, or ui that someone thinks they patented.

even w/ the industry [possibly] facing serious problems, from a creative pov as a gamer i've never been happier. in the last month i got the entire wargame collection + the paradox collection (eu4, ck2 + hoi3 all mac compatible) for like $20 each. also the best time for mac as gaming platform ever.

(that and it's like the 20th smash bros game)

Haha you know it's actually only the 4th smash bros ever, right? And only the second I've played, which tbf probably increases my enjoyment of it. But 4 games over 16 years is hardly CoD level saturation.

This thread is always my favourite of the year and it's totally living up to expectations so far, lovely job Will.

I was disappointed with Costume Quest 2. The writing was the best part of CQ1, and the writing in CQ2 wasn't entertaining. Also, the card cooldown system meant that the optimal way of playing involved fiddling around in the inventory after every single battle.

Hey all, bad news--had to call in sick today, and all of my files/writeups are at work :( it'll have to be a day til the next drop--should I do 40 tomorrow or 20 tmrw + 20 sat (or mon)?

All 40! Bring it home.

I just read an interview with an independent developer a few weeks ago who thought this was a sort of golden age for them -- he absolutely loved how easy Steam made distribution + collecting payment. He talked a bit about what a pain in the ass it was to do shareware, and later to figure out how to take payment online etc etc. Wish I could remember his name, but I'd never heard of him or his games, which apparently are fairly popular with, uh, RPG types, I think?
Of course, first time developers probably have a harder time of it. I know the _Strafe 1996_ developers have talked about that -- how they released a super-pre-alpha demo despite not *really* wanting to, just because they felt they had to sorta prove it to people that they were trustworthy. (Their kickstarter succeeded fwiw.)

I've only been a Mac owner for a couple of years, but I was really impressed with the selection once I started getting back into gaming a couple of months ago (after well over a decade of very little gaming interest.) Although I'm mostly playing indie (i think?) titles, my big favorite game these days is XCOM. Sooo happy I get to play that on my mac. XCOM r00lz.

Found the interview! It was with Jeff Vogel: http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/17/the-original-indie-dev-how-one-man-made-22-games-in-22-years-mostly-from-his-basement/
I guess I was somewhat misremembering, because he does say stuff like "now there’s just a terrifying, soul-deadening number of indie games."

Here's the part I was thinking of.

When I started, the World Wide Web was not a thing. It existed, but nobody had heard of it. I got most of my early sales off [America Online], for the love of God. You got your shareware at a kiosk in the mall.

When I think about my days starting out, when I was just scrambling for individual sales on CompuServe and Prodigy [two dial-up online communities], and now young developers have Steam. Steam is a miracle wrapped in magic riding on the backs of unicorns.

The things that Steam does for you as a developer are astonishing. When I started out in the business, I needed the ability to take credit cards. I struggled for months to get someone to help me take credit cards, because nobody I talked to believed you could run a business on the Internet.

I had to hustle for months to get the ability to take credit cards. Not to mention maintaining our website, maintaining our servers, maintaining the infrastructure to distribute demos, marketing and sales and stuff like that on my own lonely website, running my own store — now Steam will just lift all of that off of you. God, it’s good.

40 tomorrow too much imo

I think 40 is fine. If each one was generating hundreds of reaction posts I'd think differently.

Hah, I was going to guess Jeff Vogel from the first post - and the 22-games-in-22-years is a significant part of his angle: he knows there are X people who will pay Y money for his product.

i vote 20 / 20. maybe as the games get more 'consensusy' (3 votes each? 3 players each even? more? dare i dream?) then the discussion can pick up.

20/20 vote here, give some breathin' room to talk (and to poor Will0

is jeff vogel the exile, avernus, etc guy

yes! haha, that was my guess too. he looks a lot like my friend matt. weird.

so the seventy-fourth place game, 'helix', had the best graphics/sound of the year: anyone want to disagree?

as the only person to vote for it i can say that i don't agree lol

http://youtu.be/VJ3Ulh8tIzg

warning: gameplay spoilers. also, doesn't show off the sound design v well.

did i cock up that embed or do i have youtube turned off

you messed it up but the link works

the other day i TIED my high score arrrrrrrgh

im still sad i dropped off the top ten for 868-hack, that was like my biggest achievement of last year

uploading screenshots & scraping comments for day 3

gutted i won't finish today :( should i prep it for saturday or wait til monday? I wanna say monday b/c who wants to be at their pc on a saturday

I'm at my computer on Saturday. Don't hate.

#39 - Wolfenstein: The New Order
http://i.imgur.com/bJZRi6Z.png
Points: 20
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

The New Order was the most pleasant surprise of 2014 for me. When I started playing, I was expecting a mindless, knowingly ridiculous shooter. I got that, and I really enjoyed it, but I also got an engaging story with great characters in a really well-designed world, with an impressively grown-up approach to sex.

Plus, I FOUGHT SPACE NAZIS ON THE MOON.
- bizzarro gazzara

#39 - The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
http://i.imgur.com/SfIOZSl.png
Points: 20
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

This and Dear Esther together define my new favourite gaming genre I think - the going-for-a-nice-walk-in-the-countryside simulator. Ethan Carter's a gorgeous game, the environments and visuals and atmosphere are all pitched perfectly, it's

just a really nice place to be. The bits of actual game and story slotted in there are very average Myst-style puzzle adventure fare but that's fine, it's the sense of place that makes it great.
- JimD

haha, glad to see i'm the only ilxor who enjoyed fighting space nazis on the moon

highly doubt you were the only one! just the only one who voted for it. (i've yet to play it.)

#39 - Shovel Knight
http://i.imgur.com/aUJFSdq.png
Points: 20
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

^ will it place higher in 2015 with ps4/xone releases + battletoads + kratos? taking bets now! (lol no, unless they release on ios and make deadpool a playable character)

i've played shovel knight since i put my ballot in - it definitely would have found a place if i'd played it before. it's really, really good.

#39 - Hitman Go
http://i.imgur.com/X5nQg30.png
Points: 20
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

#39 - Guilty Gear Xrd
http://i.imgur.com/81AlAdr.png
Points: 20
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0

#38 - Fibbage
http://i.imgur.com/t0G4A67.png
Points: 20
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.33

This is a ridiculously fun party game, kind of a "fill in the blanks" gloss on Cards Against Humanity. It was a huge hit among my family over the holidays (and everyone can play since it utilizes mobile devices as controllers). Half the fun is in trying to figure out who's responsible for the filthiest response on the screen. I'd recommend buying it as part of the Jackbox Party Pack, even if the only other game in the pack that I'm really crazy about is Drawful (Pictionary with occasionally insane clues).
- Old Lunch

^ i hadn't heard of this and it has now shot up to #1 on my list of games i want to play with ilxors

It's a lot of fun and really hilarious. And it's a total "just passin' through the room, oh hey what's this you're playing it looks intersting, hey can I play the next round, oh it's four hours later and this is still awesome" kind of game. Pretty sure even my mom loved it and she doesn't play any kind of game ever (well, except Just Dance with my sister on occasion).

I probably should've voted for the Party Pack. Even though a couple of the games are lame, this and Drawful totally make up for it.

ok, now i'm curious about Wolfenstein's grown-up approach to sex.

#37 - The Banner Saga
http://i.imgur.com/EQXFCKq.png
Points: 20
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.5

delightful. beautiful design. surprisingly strong story/character elements for a tactical rpg, nicely woven in with some of the game mechanics.
- Roberto Spiralli

Jackbox Party Pack appears to be US only, boooooo.

here's a counterpoint.

polyphonic's disappointment: Banner Saga
Looks incredible, but as a game it didn't grab me.

I think if you had, like, a direct video feed or a webcam trained on the TV of someone playing Jackbox, it would be technically possible to make it a region-independent online multiplayer game (you just punch an onscreen code into their website from your mobile device, and I'm pretty sure you can play from anywhere).

ok fess up, who voted for guilty gear xrd??? i must hunt all secret ILX fighting fans

i also couldn't get with banner saga's gameplay. and i love tactical rpgs. just felt opaque.

ok, now i'm curious about Wolfenstein's grown-up approach to sex.

― lil urbane (Jordan), Friday, March 6, 2015 5:29 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

characters have sex and it's presented as a normal thing that adult humans do in which both parties have agency. kinda pathetic that's an achievement in 2015, granted, but given that i played wolfenstein at the inception of gamergate it was nice to be reminded that #notallAAAdevelopers take the god of war approach to sexuality

forks you are wrong, polyp is wrong, i will kick your asses

okay.

i couldn't figure out how to play it well. and it moves so slow? makes battle chess seem dynamic by comparison

surprised so far at so many console games showing! I barely turned on my 360 last year. in the end Will can you list how many games per console there were (counting multiplatform games)?

also I think I bought Banner Saga FOR IPAD last year (but obv haven't played it yet). not just Win then?

yeah it was a 2014 ios release

ok fess up, who voted for guilty gear xrd??? i must hunt all secret ILX fighting fans

I am a fan but I didn't get this one; too busy changing diapers

surprised so far at so many console games showing! I barely turned on my 360 last year. in the end Will can you list how many games per console there were (counting multiplatform games)?

― droit au butt (Euler), Friday, March 6, 2015 12:55 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sure! i'll do some fun calcs on tuesday after they're all done

#36 - Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
http://i.imgur.com/bx3sN0x.png
Points: 20
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 1

A last-minute first place because this year was weird. I picked this up blind because some stranger on the Internet said it was good. I didn't expect what I got, which was a horrifying, compelling Phoenix-Wright-meets-Hunger-Games title where all of the cutesy stupid anime bullshit is presented and then fully subverted by some of the saddest/darkest shit ever. Absolutely worth a play. I immediately went and bought the sequel blind after completing this, which I am working on now, but it seems less compelling so far.
- Will M

also I think I bought Banner Saga FOR IPAD last year (but obv haven't played it yet). not just Win then?

― droit au butt (Euler), Friday, March 6, 2015 12:55 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my bad... some of the games i looked up but some i just went with what people said on the noms thread

also wondering if eagle-eyed viewers will notice the small change i made to the img template from 40 to 39 out of necessity (should make itself clear today)

also: danganronpa is the highest scoring vita exclusive, because of course it is

#34 - The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo
http://i.imgur.com/oC8yk3G.png
Points: 20
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0

I just played this now after seeing it in the list and it's pretty cute.
- Jordan

trying The Uncle now, and it has my age-11 best friend's name, and he also had a way nicer house/tv than me so this is otm so far

#34 - Grand Theft Auto V
http://i.imgur.com/WkQJcMZ.png
Points: 20
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0

RIYL GTA IV
- Karl Malone

Like most GTA games, I love exploring and fucking around and driving motorcycles off of mountains but have kinda come to hate the actual game (n.b.: I've only really played GTA Online thus far, so the thirteen-year-olds who repeatedly snipe me and call me a fag might be coloring my experience somewhat).
- Old Lunch

if anyone would like to permalink to their favourite pplains GTA online stories, I would greatly appreciate it!

whoa, really? 2 votes? sheesh.

tbf it got plenty 'o' votes last year...

'o' is of course short for fof

plenty fof votes

Not sure I'd call 'Uncle' cute so much. It's pretty creepy.

I don't remember my ballot really but based on the rollout so far a bunch of the weirdo games I voted for are gonna land in the "actual consensus" section of this poll so hooray for the tastes of Ilxors.

I had a lot of fun playing GTA Online with my brother for a while but the combination of GTA's penchant for control-smashing missions with a razor-thin margin of error and the stress induced by having "real" people hunting you down (this is my first online gaming experience, fyi) made me step it back. I'll probably get back onboard when the heists go live.

#33 - Endless Legend
http://i.imgur.com/tK9U08N.png
Points: 25
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.25

Hit the 4X spot for me this year. Nice change from stacking trebuchets and swordsmen etc.

I didn't have the time to get totally lost in it, but dug a lot of what it was doing - it's an enthusiastically imaginative world they've made,
lots of interesting little quests, feels like there's real rewards for exploring, and because it's not-just-civ, you're figuring out new mechanics at the same time. Also, it's really pretty in a slightly tacky continental sci-fi way. The tiny little monsters having fights are cool.

I can't do the mandatory Civ: Beyond Earth comparison because I didn't play BE, but it was really refreshing not to be inside the Civ sensibility for this burst of 4X, both mechanically and imaginatively.

As I say, didn't spend enough time in there – didn't play around with the different factions, didn't get deep into combat – but it was a lot of fun and I look forward to wasting my next block of laptop gaming time on it.

- woof

xpost Hunting and being hunted is actually a lot fun, though, if the other party isn't hundreds of levels above you and being a dick just to be a dick (e.g. killing you over and over as you respawn).

endless legend right on the edge of my radar for a while. nice write up, makes me more inclined to check it out.

#30 - The Last of Us: Remastered / Left Behind DLC
http://i.imgur.com/rzvxgyS.png
Points: 25
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.33

Gushed about this throughout the ILG thread, embrassingly so.
Might as well look for other comments there too...
- nhex

not to get too corny here, but i love that we're in a time where this super high-budget project can come out with this extra story, which is for the most part an affecting, low-key coming of age teen drama

yeah... this game is best-in-generation, no doubt

the spectrum of voices and tones is so generally narrow in video games, it's a tragic waste of the medium; not seeing a downside here, especially with such a high-quality product in this instance

lest you worry, there's still plenty of psycho stealth murder-'em-up action. i'm telling you though, the dichotomy works very well in Left Behind

I'm just realizing that, unless a bunch of amazing PSN games are released in 2015, I likely won't have much to contribute to next year's poll since it looks like the PS3 is finally on the cusp of the developmental phase-out (pretty bummed about the last-gen cancellations for Mad Max but, hey, maybe it'll be garbage).

i only started playing Last of Us a week ago, or else i would have voted for it.

#30 - Puzzle and Dragons
http://i.imgur.com/yeUrnK9.png
Points: 25
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.33

Just by play time and personal obsession, I had to put this on my list yet again. As I would MPQ if it were on the list!
- nhex

#30 - Hexcells Infinite
http://i.imgur.com/hLI8Fnm.png
Points: 25
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 0.33

Basically an expansion/part C of the original game, but I loved this.
- nhex

#29 - Titans of Space
http://i.imgur.com/vGinUWE.png
Points: 25
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 1

Oculus Rift was the most exciting gaming related thing I played with in 2014, and this may have changed already, but at the time there was still nothing very gamey available for it, it was mostly just rollercoaster demos and Enterprise bridge simulators. Titans of Space stood out as a proper polished experience. It's hugely passive, it's really more like a 20 minute school science documentary than anything else, but it was the first thing to really say "look at the incredible stuff we're going to be able to do with this hardware now that it exists". Great sense of scale, great sense of immersion, best 20 minutes of the gaming year for me.
- JimD

^ the change i had to make: "WinP" to "Rift" which i thought i did in the first place but apparently not :/

also TOP SCORING OCULUS RIFT GAME because duh

#28 - FTL: Advanced Edition
http://i.imgur.com/SjwtrcS.png
Points: 25
Votes: 3
1st Place Votes: 0

find FTL quite boring but at least it is a game that i played this year. Fuck, this list is brutally modern. Me and my graphics card are at at least 3 years behind.
- thomasintrouble

RIYL FTL
- Karl Malone

Hexcells Infinte's actual (near-) infiniteness caused me some trouble for a while.

#27 - Flappy Bird
http://i.imgur.com/lLA2GKb.png
Points: 25
Votes: 5
1st Place Votes: 0

I was disappointed to see the game continued after clearing the first set of Mario tubes. I felt like I had accomplished something and had received all I needed from the game at that point. That there were more tubes only diminished my sense of accomplishment and I decided this was to much of a bummer to stay on my phone.
- EZ Snappin

Frustration: the new in mechanic.
- Sterling Clover

More of a provocation than a game, but a great one. Is a Sisyphean task more fun if you get a high score for it?
- polyphonic

another bag of shit that my kids got me into for 5 minutes and I spent the next week trying to beat their scores. with added zeitgeist in the following week.
- thomasintrouble

no other game this year received multiple votes, all of which were the minimum 5 points allowable. this game has 5.

this is more telling about flappy bird than virtually anything anyone can say.

Amazing

#26 - Towerfall Ascension
http://i.imgur.com/ZDmYfrL.png
Points: 28
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0.25

The pinnacle of the local multiplayer renaissance. Super Smash Bros. Melee stripped of asymmetry, blended into a refreshing smoothie, poured into a daiquiri glass with an umbrella on top, and drunk with a crazy straw.
- silby

Smash Bros in a Meat Boy style, I guess? One of the best multiplayer games out there.
- polyphonic

that looks absolutely like something i wanna play

#25 - The Swapper
http://i.imgur.com/4DY4zfz.png
Points: 28
Votes: 3
1st Place Votes: 0

Looks great, has a fantastically well-thought-out central mechanic, fills you with existential dread as you murder countless copies of yourself. Who could ask for more?
- bizarro gazzara

Haven't gotten too deeply into it, but it's been an enjoyably low-rent take on Portal thus far.
- Old Lunch

xp You really must play Towerfall if you have even one friend who likes video games. One more content update coming out this year that will add 3 more levels (one with procedural level generation), a new co-op mode, and a tribute character to Anita Sarkeesian. I've generally managed to get my DualShock 3s working okay with my Mac to play this but if it stops working at some point I would buy a PS4 and 4 controllers for it just to play Towerfall. I don't get to play enough.

also started playing The Swapper post-poll, it's great so far.

#23 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
http://i.imgur.com/ZJtvgJl.png
Points: 30
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 1

Geez, this game. What a ridiculous storyline.
- salsa shark

OMG there is new FTL out! I don't play many games but loved the last one.

oh, it's not a new new one. it's the last one but with significant enhancements - new ships, aliens, ship modules, etc

xpost re: Phoenix Wright, that comment was for the prof layton/ace attorney crossover - did I accidentally put 30 points on the wrong game?

(nb I would not have intended to put 30 points on the layton/wright crossover, that would be ridic)

lol! shit.

no. someone else voted that game at 30 and left no comment. you voted layton at 5 and left that comment.

EVERYONE IGNORE SALSA'S "COMMENT" THIS IS A PHOENIX WRIGHT PHOELSE PHOLAG

xxxp
Oh ok, will still check it out. I can recall playing The Swapper a couple of years ago as well, that is a great game as well and particularly one that doesn't require a shit hot graphics card. When start getting into the time slowing shit it is really good fun.

further controversy: i decided to honor all write-in votes, mostly because some really interesting games got votes that weren't on the ballot. but since i made that a rule, i had to honor the following game as well.

#23 - Marvel Puzzle Quest
http://i.imgur.com/Gq6km1m.png
Points: 30
Votes: 1
1st Place Votes: 1

fuiud
- euler

lol k

speak of the devil

Sterling Clover's disappointment: Marvel Puzzle Quest

I was disappointed in myself for getting so hooked for so long, and now I am disappointed on hearing how much fun others continue to have. I had to let it go. It was for the best.

note to self: check out Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

^ YES!

#22 - Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
http://i.imgur.com/OI83m56.png
Points: 30
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0.5

the best framework to date for this kind of timing combat/arkham gameplay. very fun openish world, tons to do without ever feeling burdensome.
- Roberto Spiralli

maybe it's stockholm syndrome but i threw this a few points. it cribs fairly heavily from ass'creed and batman, but i think it does traversal and cqc combat better than those series do. also, the nemesis system is great and makes for fun post-play memories. oh and if you're wondering why i said stockholm syndrome now you know.
- Will M.

Booooooo MPQ.

That's it for day 3! Day 4 is on Monday. Only 21 games to go!

Gonna save the rest of the disappointments until I finish the thread.

I'm only in this thread right now bc I'm waiting in MPQ 4 more minutes when my tourney ends and I'm about to lose a battle so if I switch to this I can wait it out and not lose those points and if you don't know, now you know

fp

I get it, click click click

ha, wtg Will. my two irl friends who play a lot of games were obsessed with Mordor.

no joke i expected MPQ to win again

shit, did i forget to vote for shadow of mordor? it's fucking great

everyone forgot to vote for mordor apparently

Did anyone play Mordor on PS3? And, if so, is it as complete a piece of garbage as I've heard?

so like at least 5 of the top 20 games are on phones

Did anyone play Mordor on PS3?

And, if so, is it as complete a piece of garbage as I've heard?

so like at least 5 of the top 20 games are on phones

― stately, plump buck angel (silby)

you think only 5?

No, but I don't know how much further up my confidence interval extends. I'm excited.

Looking at a desert golfing win imo

xposts: my uh, other half, who doesn't participate in these polls despite playing more games than me each year (and tbh I don't even know what he posts as on ilx these days, we lead separate ilx lives), also enjoyed Shadow of Mordor.

^ Pina colada situation waiting to happen.

I played Dual Destinies this year, and salsa shark's comment is perfectly appropriate.

What's 'cqc combat'?

I think I was the one who voted for GG Xrd, Hitman Go and Phoenix Wright DD.

'cqc combat' is a redundant way of saying close quarters combat.

Uploading the last batch of images now!

#21 - Threes
http://i.imgur.com/fv6kUxD.png
Points: 30
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 1.25

Perfect.
- silby

..this really was a bad year, wasn't it

it was not great

my #1 game by far was a remake

#20 - 2048
http://i.imgur.com/XGVwDtB.png
Points: 31
Votes: 3
1st Place Votes: 0

Both a great game, that feels like it should have been invented years ago, and also a great meta-game, spawning variants across the 'net. "Fork on GitHub" never felt so fun.
- Sterling Clover
I played this constantly for a year before I upgraded my phone and was able to download Threes. Threes is weird! You have to add up 2 and 1 all the time! You can't fall into the meditative rhythm of shunting your largest number into one of the corners, until all the values add up snake-like to 2048! I do feel bad that it cut into Threes's revenue stream, though.
- reddening

^ msot telling back-to-back placement of 2014

Threes is so much better than 2048.

what's messed up is that the clone got more votes!

2048 is by far the game I've seen most frequently played by random people on the subway in the last year. These people have gotten pretty good at it too. I'm pretty sure I've seen a 4096 twice in the last few days.

I got bored with this pretty quick once I figured out the basic strategy.

#19 - Watchdogs
http://i.imgur.com/Bw4tqU9.png
Points: 32
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0

"There's a lot to dislike about Watchdogs, not least the character of Aiden Pierce, one of videogaming's most charmless and grating protagonists.

But unexpectedly, its online component turned out to be a lot of fun. I usually ignore multiplayer options, but running around downtown Chicago, hiding behind low walls and waiting for the counter to run out while frantic opponents raced up and down just feet away from my hiding position was tense and hilarious in a way I'd never experienced before. "
- bizarro gazzara

I went to download Threes and it wasn't free so I said "eh"

#18 - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
http://i.imgur.com/ld5g6qf.png
Points: 35
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0.25

ace card game but too grindy 'cos it's free
- thomasintrouble
Hearthstone pretty completely scratches the itch in the back of my head that's been trying to get me to play Magic: the Gathering by solving all the problems I would have trying to play Magic: the Gathering. I don't have to accumulate an increasingly large physical pile of cards, spend more than 10 minutes at a time playing, go out to a game store and interact with teenagers to get a game, or even allow people to chat with me in-game. Just match another game, forever and ever. Blind buy booster packs only benefit the manufacturer to the detriment of the game, but this is the best-implemented TCG-esque thing on the internet that I know of, so I'll stick with it.
- silby

hmm, forgot to mark that one free

I went to download Threes and it wasn't free so I said "eh"

😣

shoot, I forgot about Hearthstone but I should have thrown it a vote. I'm really bad at Magic and CCGs in general so I just quit because of self-esteem issues. Anyone who has an interest or talent in games like Magic should definitely check it out, like top 3 game of the year potential for those people

silby's comment on hearthstone otm

hearthstone is okay but no infinity wars

#17 - Monument Valley
http://i.imgur.com/nwkm7ox.png
Points: 36
Votes: 4
1st Place Votes: 0

A great and expensive demo.
- forksclovetofu
I'm really happy that these guys did well. This game is beautiful and pensive and fun. Not the longest, but does it need to be?
- Will M

xp totally agree. maybe it changes if you get more into them but for as much as i played either i really thought IW was the more fun, better game

i should just try monument valley. something about the way it looks suggests that i'm just going to be solving boring puzzles while i'm supposed to be marveling at all the pleasant flatshaded architecture.

It's not boring. Each discovery is delightful.

#16 - Clicker Heroes
http://i.imgur.com/ZiTzIWo.png
Points: 37
Votes: 5
1st Place Votes: 0

An evil non-idle game that you should not play.
- abanana
i mean, fuck this really, but credit where it's due.
- forksclovetofu
I need to stop playing this game, but I've got enough Hero Souls that I can blast straight through to Frostleaf in five minutes, and then it's really easy to start leveling everyone up to 1000 while the enemies zip by in an endless procession of death, and it's so satisfying and POINTLESS.
- reddening
tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap... tap?
- Sterling Clover

hey ilx

are you ok?

like... are you OK???

clicker heroes is a terrible game

Seems to be an inordinate amount of ambivalence and even antipathy fueling many of the votes for the very best games of 2014.

#15 - Fez
http://i.imgur.com/OvsWDCO.png
Points: 40
Votes: 3
1st Place Votes: 0.33

I finally got to play the game everyone was so hot for a year or two ago thanks to it hitting PS3. It's a nice platformer, but fuck that map. Fuck it fuck it fuck it. Shame that long before the end I decided it wasn't worth it because FUCK THAT MAP SYSTEM.
- EZ Snappin
I'm far too late to Fez but the Vita turned out to be the perfect format for it (after it'd failed to grab me on both PC and 360). The soundtrack's still my favourite thing about it though.
- JimD

#4 in 2013, XBLA
#67 in 2014, PC/OSX/Lin

clicker heroes and swarm simulator, making me hate myself, video games, and everything in 2015

fuck that map system.

oh god clicker heroes flashback

aaaarrrrrghhhhh

I think the Fez map "works" better if you imagine that the baffling frustration it induces is not unlike what the main character must be feeling after gaining a perceptual dimension.

But, yeah, it sucks. Everything else about the game is sublime, though, so I let it slide.

i admit the Fez map totally sucks, but I love it, because it's cool as hell dammit

i've started fez on pc, ps4 and vita and not got any further than like 45 minutes in. i like the way it plays, i like the aesthetic, i like the music but something about it just doesn't compel me to go back once i stop playing.

Push forward. For me, the biggest rewards were when things suddenly get weird, which mostly happens later in the game.

yeah, i know i should - my pile of shame is so huge thanks to steam sales and ps plus that it'll be a while before i can get around to it tho

#14 - Destiny
http://i.imgur.com/7rSrI4O.png
Points: 43
Votes: 3
1st Place Votes: 0

A beautiful empty grind, which isn't such a bad thing. Lots of comments from me on this game in the Destiny thread.
- polyphonic
i am still enjoying this a little ways after the soft level cap. the leveling/progression elements in this game were kind of garbage anyway. the core gameplay is fun enough to carry it. having said that, i doubt i would have enjoyed it anything as much if i wasn't playing with a friend.
- B. SPIRALS
I don't know what I think of Destiny, I kind of hate it, I'm still playing it, I still enjoy playing it, I still don't fully understand it. Not understanding it might even be what extends the appeal actually, there are still materials and currencies I don't quite get, so that initial period when you're figuring out the systems of a new game (and which is often my favourite part) is getting stretched out by the complexity of those systems coupled with the fact they keep evolving. Random drops SUCK, story was a complete red herring, the basic running and shooting gameplay is perfect, it's a real curate's egg but it's the one triple A game that really got its claws me this year.
- JimD

jimd are you me?

#13 - Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
http://i.imgur.com/lLgnGww.png
Points: 45
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 0.33

Did not actually play this either, but it makes for some very entertaining Youtube videos, and I look forward to playing it in 2015.
- Jordan
I got more out of this "demo" than I have out of AAA full releases in the past so no complaints from me there. I loved getting a chance to play some new MGS, and it got me really excited for TPP in 2015, and it feels really good, and I played it on PS3 -- imagine what it'll be like on the PS4! So stoked. No matter how bad this series get, it keeps getting better.
- Will M.

while it was a bad year for new games, it was a great year for access to older games. all those free games on archive.org, all the remastered versions of old classics, or games that went cross-platform after years of exclusivity, steam sales, etc. etc.

#12 - Rogue Legacy
http://i.imgur.com/y56HnBb.png
Points: 45
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 1

Fucking hell. Finally a game on this list that I played lots of. It's good.
- thomasintrouble
RIYL Binding of Isaac
- Karl Malone

whoops! I meant to post BG's disappointment two entries ago.

bizzarro gazzara's disappointment: Destiny
It combines elegantly-refined combat mechanics with a stupefyingly tedious story and endless repetition of its few scraps of content. It's shit. It's amazing. I hate it. I love it. Fuck Destiny.

and i spelled his name wrong again

cheers will!

just got Ground Zeroes and even after just a day's play would def have voted for it. I like getting to know a small space, and I like being patient, and quietly moving around, and it's a hoot when it all goes wrong and you just bomb around shooting and getting shot and then you die. Looks cool, fair checkpointing and it's good to be back with Snake.

(Last time I tried an MGS – guns of the patriots? wikicheck, yes - I fell off after… the first paragraph of the wikipedia plot summary? I went in knowing about the traditional cutscene/lectures problem – I never minded them back in the PS1 MGS day – but they still beat me. It seemed to want to install a lot of data too; I got bored. No problems this time.)

#11 - Mario Kart 8
http://i.imgur.com/bi6LrPs.png
Points: 45
Votes: 4
1st Place Votes: 1

Mario Kart 8 is a breath of fresh air compared to the endless slog offered by so many other blue chip titles. Very little of this is new or innovative, but why mess with a great thing? Take what worked before and make it even more fun.
- polyphonic
Pff, it's Mariokart, it's a good mariokart and a gorgeous mariokart but there's nothing else to say about mariokart is there? I bought it, it's fun, and I'm running out of things to vote for, because 90% of the good stuff I played over the last year was from pre-2014 and came via PS Plus or Games with Gold or Humble Bundles, and paying full price for anything at launch is increasingly daft these days given how far and fast prices on games fall. Does make me wonder whether I'll have anything at all to vote for in P+C 9 though.
- JimD

#10 - Alien: Isolation
http://i.imgur.com/sJJa4p1.png
Points: 47
Votes: 2
1st Place Votes: 1

There are things wrong with this game. It's too long. The character models look like waxworks. The save system can occasionally be frustrating.

Those minor objections are more than made up for by its incredible attention to detail in level and sound design, which really do make you feel like you've stepped onto the set of an Alien movie. It's terrifying and exhausting and everything I've ever wanted from an Alien game.
- bizarro gazzara

top 10!

was Mario Kart 8 the top-ranked Wii U 'sclusie?

I mean if it was and you didn't mention it you can say so, if it wasn't it'd be a spoiler to answer so I'll just hang tight I guess

there's a big one remaining, but i'll be really surprised if it shows up in the top 10

Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade?

it is! I'm going to break down all of the exclusives/etc at the end.

#9 - Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls
http://i.imgur.com/ENJ22kW.png
Points: 52
Votes: 4
1st Place Votes: 0.33

I've only played 2 hours of this iteration so far but it's a Diablo game which means it rules by definition. Extra points for the witch doctor's firebat skill, which is hilarious to me (POTBELLY NAPALM BLAST!)
- DJP
They fixed the game! I played it twice since then and it's totally way better if still a bit whatever.
- EZ Snappin
Good fun if you want to smash and destroy things, and smash and destroy more things, and fill up your inventory with many useless weapons/armour. The difficulty levels probably need to be shifted up a notch -- we kept bumping the difficulty up but still rarely struggled to defeat enemy hordes and bosses. But hey, the smashing and destroying is pretty satisfying.
- salsa shark

I am waiting until my games plate has been cleared a bit before I tackle Alien: Isolation, because I really want to dedicate my time to just that. I got the two Ripley DLC packs (any comments on those?) and the season pass, as well, so I'm looking forward to going all in.

not going out to lunch until my #1 places

yeah, i like the look of Alien:I but I've got DSII and MGS:GZ taking up my console time.

Also it isn't cheap yet, sorry to squeeze you Alien game studio

I keep my eye on the sales. I've managed to get Alien, Wolfenstein, and Diablo III for around $20 each.

oh, it's not too much for PS3 now. Maybe if I'm sick of sneaking round guantanamo/"YOU DIED" by payday.

#8 - Hoplite
http://i.imgur.com/DuyeEhE.png
Points: 60
Votes: 3
1st Place Votes: 1.25

a minute to learn...a lifetime to master!!
- Karl Malone
Only iOS game I've enjoyed for a long time, not much to it really, it's just a nicely connected set of systems but it sticks to the "when you fail it's always your own fault" template, which is the secret sauce of addictiveness really.
- JimD

I bought that and I need to play it but I don't have all the Crossy Road animals yet #C&P

one of my votes. The most enjoyable commute/phone fun I had this year; I don't think is has the depth or... icy aesthetic certainty of 868-Hack, but hits the same spot – simple rules, complex decisions, staring at your screen for ages before taking your turn.

Really like the fact you can just go home and be a hero when you get the fleece. I stare at that completion message & think 'yes, he's lauded across Hellas, but little Hoplite me is haunted by the sense that he should have gone further, down into the 20s'.

&

it sticks to the "when you fail it's always your own fault" template, which is the secret sauce of addictiveness really.

JimD otm

did somebody say...

#7 - Crossy Road
http://i.imgur.com/hGbEZ2t.png
Points: 63
Votes: 8
1st Place Votes: 0

Another use of drip-feed mechanics for good and not evil.
- Sterling Clover
bag of shit that my kids got into for 5 minutes and I spent the next week trying to beat their scores
- thomasintrouble
I keep coming back to this one. Frogger as an endless runner, with a great boxy pixel presentation style.
- polyphonic
I like collecting dumb things
- Euler
RIYL pooping
- Karl Malone
Stupid but charming enough
- nhex

(sorry they're coming slow, real life... should be able to keep up now though)

I am waiting until my games plate has been cleared a bit before I tackle Alien: Isolation, because I really want to dedicate my time to just that. I got the two Ripley DLC packs (any comments on those?) and the season pass, as well, so I'm looking forward to going all in.

― Lipsmacking Sardine Pierogies (Old Lunch), Monday, 9 March 2015 17:00 (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

both dlc packs are worthwhile for sure - the one which is basically the last 10 minutes of alien is every bit as terrifying as it should be.

Crossy Road did $10MM in revenue

xpost Fantastic to hear. There are so many amazing sequences from movies that would make for really great games if game adaptations of movies didn't suck as a rule.

#6 - Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
http://i.imgur.com/yI3aIWW.png
Points: 69
Votes: 4
1st Place Votes: 1

A disgusting, disturbing take on Zelda dungeons.
- polyphonic
like the original binding of isaac but even better + harder
- Mordy
RIYL Rogue Legacy
- Karl Malone

^ my #1 didn't play anything harder than finishing up all the bosses w/ The Lost character (no health)

Really wonderful game -- I didn't really like it at first, but it just got more and more enjoyable as I "got" it. (Remapping the keys helped a lot too. Wtf is with right-handed FPS dudes making "wasd" standard movement buttons -- gah!)

#5 - Lego Marvel Super Heroes
http://i.imgur.com/xYssrnb.png
Points: 73
Votes: 6
1st Place Votes: 0.33

A great way to kill twenty minutes.
- forksclovetofu
I am only voting for this game to acknowledge/admit that I spent something like three hours as Iron Man flying around NYC ignoring the missions and shouting "WHEEEEEEE I'M IRON MAN". That feels like it merits at least 10 points.
- DJP
I found the controls a little annoying, as sometimes I tried to target something and as I went to throw an object the target switched on some whim of the game. However, since there is basically no real punishment for ineptitude on wither your part or the games, it's fine. Would be much cooler with online co-op. Or if I had any real life friends to do couch co-op. *sigh*
- EZ Snappin
I honestly think this might be the best superhero game I've ever played. And I've historically been pretty dubious about Lego games, but this one sold me.
- Old Lunch
these lego games are all super cute tbf
- Mordy

I can't type. My god.

#4 - Desert Golfing
http://i.imgur.com/ClCE6f9.png
Points: 85
Votes: 6
1st Place Votes: 1.5

I'm at par 3.05 after 1200 rounds.
- forksclovetofu
Pure meditative excellence. Not merely a gag but a visceral, stripped-down experience with the sort of physics that makes your kegels clench in frustration and sympathy.
- silby
PURITY OF ESSENCE
- woof
RIYL pooping
- Karl Malone
You can never go back, and it doesn't stop. You can't lose, but you can regret. Mistakes you made are with you forever, though soon enough you forget when and why. Occasionally, something changes, but not for long. And then one day, you look at the gamecenter rankings, and realize they don't explain how far you got or how fast, but just how much work you did.

Also, the physics are exquisite.
- Sterling Clover

i'm sorry i have to ask - RIYL?

recommended if you like

Desert golfing and Crossy road were the pooping games of the year

a visceral, stripped-down experience with the sort of physics that makes your kegels clench in frustration and sympathy.

I identify with this a lot

2014 in gaming: idling, clicking, kvetching and butt muscles

oh geez i'm almost out of things to post here

#3 - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!
http://i.imgur.com/tjbyqp5.png
Points: 87
Votes: 3
1st Place Votes: 2.33

More fun shooting psychos in the face, with extra added "watch Jack devolve into madness" pathos. I had more fun with this game than any other this year but chunks of it were kind of terrible (DOWN WITH VEHICLES). The Baroness character in the DLC is super OP and amazing.
- DJP
The only game I played more this year was Borderlands 2. This isn't as good, despite floaty double jump action. However, it was good enough to play multiple times a week with my buddies and that's enough for me. Plus, Claptrap.
- EZ Snappin

I wonder who the three voters could possibly be?

I am stuck on a really onerous desert golfing board just now. 46 strokes me counting

I still haven't finished the last DLC pack for the first Borderlands (which I promised myself I'd do before moving on to the second) but it's been a blast. Looking forward to playing the pre-sequel in 2018 or so.

An FYI aside: apparently the online multiplayer is back up for the first Borderlands. For anyone who cares.

I want to give an honorable mention to Pinball Arcade's release of the Addams Family table, one of the best pinball machines of all time:

http://youtu.be/rqG9iqtq91c

HERE IT COMES YOU NERDS

ARE YOU READY

#2 - Candy Crush Soda Saga
http://i.imgur.com/Cpnmdpp.png
Points: 177
Votes: 17
1st Place Votes: 0.77

Just enough like Candy Crush to be familiar and intuitive, but with new mechanics that shake things up a bit. Fuck those endlessly spawning chocolate squares, though.
- reddening
It's no MPQ
- 3ul3r
#oppucycointandplick
- LookBlueMatchPurple
I agree with 3ul3r
- Deadpool

#1 - Tiny Tower Vegas
http://i.imgur.com/1u4X365.png
Points: 277
Votes: 27
1st Place Votes: 0.77

I liked the original Tiny Tower, but after a while the wait times to build new floors became too onerous. This adds some gambling mini-games, which gives me something to do while I wait. I also like the new NPCs and the absurd little missions they send you on.
- reddening
Just wanted to let you guys know how much I like MPQ
- 3ul3r
#match3gate
- LookBlueMatchPurple
3ul3r bringing the truth bombs again
- Deadpool

sorry ilx i feel like i don't even know you

i was looking forward to making that post all weekend

lol

Fucking a, man, nobody voted for Dragon Age?

heh.

OK HERE IT COMES FOR REAL THIS TIME YOU NERDS

ARE YOU READY

I REPEAT, THESE TWO ARE FOR REAL

#2 - Goat Simulator
http://i.imgur.com/KAXC8dm.png
Points: 135
Votes: 6
1st Place Votes: 0.67

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (about 150 A's removed to keep your broswer happy- WM.) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *flings web browser across screen*
- DJP
For five, maybe 10 minutes, this game is the shit. But in truth, it's more a steaming pile than a game. Still, what an awesome 10 minutes.
- EZ Snappin
huh huh it was cool
when we licked that truck

it won't drive again
- Euler
Watching videos with my girlfriend of people playing Goat Simulator was probably my greatest pleasure related to a 2014 video game.
- Jordan

#1 - Dark Souls II
http://i.imgur.com/Tg0hh6X.png
Points: 135
Votes: 6
1st Place Votes: 1.58

It's my least favorite Souls game by far, but it's still a Souls game.
- Jordan
It's not as good as Dark Souls. But it's fucking great all the same.
- bizarro gazzara
Obviously, the game of the year in a weak weak year. Nearly as much fun as its predecessor but more fiddly and clever in some meaningful ways. Better multiplayer by a damn sight. I look forward to trying the DLC someday.
- forksclovetofu
RIYL Dark Souls
- Karl Malone
very good of course but a big step behind the earlier titles in the series
- B. SPIRALS

Congrats to the number one "not as good as" game of the year!!

makes sense

lol what an indictment

1.58 firsts?

also big lol at fake out, i was extremely confused

1.58 weird, i must have fucked up somewhere. should be 1.67

also: reddening's quotes on candy/tiny are real fyi. he gave them 5pts

here are the rest of the disappointments.

Euler's disappointment: Bitcoin Billionaire
WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE
-----------------------------------------
abanana's disappointment: Godus
Freemium.
-----------------------------------------
Jordan's disappointment: Dark Souls II
I enjoyed the single-player story (especially the experience of discovering it at the same time as everyone else), but it just doesn't have the magic of the original, and a lot of that comes down to the engine for me. It feels "floaty" where Dark Souls feels weighty, immersive, and hyper-real. When I finished, I made a half-hearted attempt at NG+ and PVP, but it really just made me want to play Dark Souls and Demon's Souls.
-----------------------------------------
thomasintrouble's disappointment: Elite Dangerous
elite dangerous looks great and I really want to play it, but I don't have enough free time to justify spending £40 on it. ah well. sucks being a grownup.
-----------------------------------------
DJP's disappointment: Tiny Tower Vegas
MINIGAMES ARE A POX SPEWED DIRECTLY FROM SATAN'S ASSHOLE
-----------------------------------------
JimD's disappointment: Octodad - Dadliest Catch
The opening level of this was properly laugh out loud funny for me (which is still really rare in games) so the speed at which the novelty wore off and the frustration kicked in was a massive disappointment. It was an example of a developer completely failing to realise what was special about the game they'd made - the comedy came from the fact that it was incredibly hard to get this octopus to do simple mundane things like opening doors and pouring out cups of coffee, and seeing him flail around while attempting those trivial tasks was great fun. Within a couple of stages though it moved away from the domestic setting and had you navigating platforms to collect objects, or throwing things to knock down targets. That's just normal videogame stuff, so having that be absurdly difficult isn't funny at all, it's just annoying. Could've been great though.

Thanks for running the poll, Will! Good job, good effort.

#1 - Dark Souls II
#2 - Goat Simulator
#3 - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!
#4 - Desert Golfing
#5 - Lego Marvel Super Heroes
#6 - Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
#7 - Crossy Road
#8 - Hoplite
#9 - Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls
#10 - Alien: Isolation
#11 - Mario Kart 8
#12 - Rogue Legacy
#13 - Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
#14 - Destiny
#15 - Fez
#16 - Clicker Heroes
#17 - Monument Valley
#18 - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
#19 - Watchdogs
#20 - 2048
#21 - Threes
#22 - Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
#23 - Marvel Puzzle Quest
#23 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
#25 - The Swapper
#26 - Towerfall Ascension
#27 - Flappy Bird
#28 - FTL: Advanced Edition
#29 - Titans of Space
#30 - Hexcells Infinite
#30 - Puzzle and Dragons
#30 - The Last of Us: Remastered / Left Behind DLC
#33 - Endless Legend
#34 - Grand Theft Auto V
#34 - The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo
#36 - Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
#37 - The Banner Saga
#38 - Fibbage
#39 - Guilty Gear Xrd
#39 - Hitman Go
#39 - Shovel Knight
#39 - The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
#39 - Wolfenstein: The New Order
#44 - Two Dots
#45 - South Park: The Stick of Truth
#45 - The Wolf Among Us
#47 - Battleheart Legacy
#47 - Divinity: Original Sin
#47 - Smash Bros for 3DS and WiiU
#50 - Child of Light
#50 - Costume Quest 2
#50 - Valiant Hearts: The Great War
#53 - A Dark Room
#53 - D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die
#53 - Paranautical Activity
#56 - Transistor
#57 - Five Nights At Freddy's
#57 - Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok
#59 - Super Glyph Quest
#60 - 80 Days
#60 - Anno: Build an Empire
#60 - Campus Life: Fashion Girl
#60 - Gridland
#60 - Hohokum
#60 - Infinity Wars
#60 - Might and Magic X
#60 - Sunless Sea
#60 - This War of Mine
#60 - Tomb Raider
#60 - OlliOlli
#71 - Metal Slug Defense
#72 - Flappy Golf
#72 - Nidhogg
#74 - Don't Starve: Reign of Giants
#74 - Elsa Frozen Brain Surgery
#74 - Helix
#74 - Retry
#74 - The Dream Machine: Chapter 5
#74 - The Last Door: Season One
#74 - Transmission
#74 - With Those We Love Alive
#82 - Broken Age
#82 - Candy Crush Soda Saga
#82 - Disco Zoo
#82 - Dragon Age: Inquisition
#82 - Gems of War
#82 - Kim Kardashian: Hollywood
#82 - Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris
#82 - Lego Batman 3
#82 - Phoenix Wright vs. Professor Layton
#82 - Pixel Boat Rush
#82 - Soccer Physics
#82 - Sportsball
#82 - Teslagrad
#82 - Tiny Tower Vegas
#82 - TxK

(incl. 5pt/1vote games)

great job will, thank you

Thank you for your hard work, Will.

Fucking a, man, nobody voted for Dragon Age?

― polyphonic, Monday, March 9, 2015 2:43 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No votes, no points.

Other notable shutouts: Sunset Overdrive (wasn't even nominated lol), Far Cry 4, any Assassin Creed's game, the Evil Within, Bayonetta 2, Forza Horizon 2, latest Street Fighter, infamous, Little Big Planet 3, Talos Principle, Bravely Default

lol, i actually bought the fakeout for a precious two seconds! also i am girl btw

thank you guys! it was fun, even if the results were... uhh... unique. hopefully people have kinder things to say about the games they vote for in 2015.

xp if anyone was going to buy the fakeout it would have been you! (because it had your quotes in it and i don't think you put points on the other 2). also i should prob spend more time on boards-other-than-ILG so i don't make mistakes like that, sorry :X

If I ever fold and get a phone that is >5 years old, and then also fold and opt to play games on said phone instead of reading on my commute, I know which thread to consult.

xp oh no worries at all, thanks so much for helming this!

Bayonetta was the major Wii release I was thinking of, guess nobody on (Nintendo-less) ILG played it

Thanks again Will

Top phone excl.: Desert Golfing (4)
Top Wii U excl.: Mario Kart 8 (11)
Top (only) Oculus Rift excl.: Titans of Space (29)
Top Vita excl.: Danganronpa (36)
Top Xone excl.: D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die (53)
Top PS4 excl.: Last of Us (incl. DLC for PS3 in votes, 30)

Most intensely loved, min. 2 votes:

Borderlands Pre-Sequel (3 votes, avg. 29 pts each) (and even then it's only because I proportionally decayed jjj's votes so they equaled 100 -- otherwise this would be 3 by 30)
Alien: Isolation (2 votes, avg. 23.5 pts each) (same thing iirc)
Dark Souls 2 (6 votes, 22.5 pts each)
Rogue Legacy and MGSV:GZ (2 votes, 22.5pts each)

Least intensely loved, min. 2 votes:

Flappy Bird (5 votes, 5 pts each)
Clicker Heroes (5 votes, 7.4 pts each)
Smash Bros & Divinity & Battleheart Legacy (2 votes, 7.5 pts each)
Crossy Road (8 votes, 7.9 pts each)

I don't know why everyone seemed so down on this year, I was super enthusiastic about all my votes! Did you guys all buy PS4s or something?

great job with the poll.

desert golfing wuz robbed for 1st.

By my standards I took the year off of gaming, and the games I did play were those that I felt I could play in short bursts without getting too sucked in. Which also means that they were the sorts of games that didn't suck me in too much.

Hah! I bought a PS4 but it wasn't until I'd added up all of the scores. My roommate had an Xbox One which helped me out greatly.

also i seem to have deleted a spreadsheet (or made a copy and saved it somewhere stupid) so it might take a while for me to find my ballot.

enjoyed this weirdo poll, thank you Will.

As I mentioned upthread, I finally bought a PS3 in early '14, so this has been an amazing year for me. But mostly because I've been playing Skyrim, Portal 1 & 2, Just Cause 2, etc. for the first time. I've had very little room for 2014 releases, myself.

Oh! I just solved the Dark Souls II "1.58 1st place votes" issue

1 + 0.33 + 0.25

(i found the spreadsheet, i renamed it asdasdasd.xls because that's useful)

My ballot:

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 20
D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die - 15
The Wolf Among Us - 15
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - 15
Monument Valley - 10
This War of Mine - 10
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - 10
WWE Supercard - 5

Additional comments on the 5pt/1vote games that were cut...

TxK - Can't really blurb this because I barely remember playing it, but I'm pretty sure I had a fun time with it.
- JimD

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris - Good multiplayer fun. Similar dungeon crawling vibe to Diablo III but with much-needed puzzles strewn in among the smashing and destroying stuff side of things.
- salsa shark

Lego Batman 3 - It's a Lego game, it does what Lego games do, except they've finally added an option for inverted flying controls. Also, Batman is a total dick in this game. Full of snark. Hilarious.
- salsa shark

Broken Age - It's difficult to review what is effectively half of a video game (second half should be out this year). It took me a while to get into this but it builds up fairly well and leaves you with a decent cliffhanger for the next installment. The setup and puzzles are in the vein of Monkey Island/Day of the Tentacle/etc, as expected, although perhaps a bit less daft. The voice acting is also good, as expected, considering the big names involved.
- salsa shark

Phoenix Wright vs. Professor Layton - Geez, this game. What a ridiculous storyline.
- salsa shark

Teslagrad - Interesting little platform game based on electricity and magnetism as means of manipulating the environment to progress. There's no dialogue, just movement and learning by trial and error. I was unable to finish this game because it suffers from the same issue as many platformers... the bosses are just too difficult for me. But what I played was pretty good, and I want to include it on my list because I think it deserves wider recognition and I hope someone with more patience and platform boss skill will give it a go.
- salsa shark

Disco Zoo - Can a game get by on whimsy and generosity alone? The answer is yes.
- Sterling Clover

Pixel Boat Rush - 2014 -- the year we realized throwbacks to Nintendo-era videogames didn't go far enough. C64 or bust.
- Sterling Clover

Candy Crush Soda Saga - Just enough like Candy Crush to be familiar and intuitive, but with new mechanics that shake things up a bit. Fuck those endlessly spawning chocolate squares, though.
- reddening

Soccer Physics - So dumb and funny, perfect for casual multiplayer. Sometimes the only way to win is to remain perfectly still while your hapless opponent own-goals himself four times in a row.
- reddening

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood - This game knows people are going to sneer at it and just turns into the skid. The outfits are hilariously tacky. It costs more to take a bus to Calabasas than it does to fly to Miami. You want to be famous? Get ready to pose for a lot of pictures at vodka launch parties! It was way more fun than I thought it would be, especially that two-week period during the summer when everyone on social media was united in their hatred of Willow Pape.
- reddening

Tiny Tower Vegas - I liked the original Tiny Tower, but after a while the wait times to build new floors became too onerous. This adds some gambling mini-games, which gives me something to do while I wait. I also like the new NPCs and the absurd little missions they send you on.
- reddening

Gems of War - My match three for this year.
- forksclovetofu

I must protest the editing of my Goat Simulator comment

Great job Will. Thanks.

This was awesome and super enjoyable even with the cruel censorship

Something I've been thinking about lately (with respect to year-end polls in general): I'd love to see any major adjustments people might make today to their older C+P ballots, were anyone at all interested in revisiting their older ballots, just to see how opinions hold up or change over time. Particularly since there's so much stuff we don't get around to until some time has passed.

I would have also voted for Marvel Puzzle Quest out of spite

xp oh, of course. that happens to me more or less every single year!
also because i'm a miserly hoarder that rarely buys games at launch but collects endless piles of games i will almost never play
if i could have voted honestly, MPQ would've gotten a tied #1 vote this year again from me

well i'm glad you didn't because it may have come in number one again and nobody wants that

The more you guys talk about Marvel Puzzle Quest, the more I'm convinced that it's something I should never ever touch (particularly given the obsessive way I went about unlocking characters in Lego Marvel Superheroes).

I play games a lot and talk about them a lot but my taste is so different with ilxor hivemind I haven't participated here this year. I really don't like the mobile games charting here.

abcfsk what were yr fave games of the year? i'd be interested in seeing ur unofficial ballot

other than flappy bird (lol) I don't think anything I voted for had more than 2 votes. ilg isn't really a hivemind but it seems more like one if people with different tastes don't vote!

mobile games probably appeal to broadest pbase (even hardcore strategy or twitch gamers still need something to play in the bathroom) so it's not a surprise they'd do so well every year. and #1 game overall was probably the most "hardcore" game of the year too (or among them) so it's not like they're not being represented. (unless i misunderstand abc's dichotomy mobile V more trad experiences?) idk i feel like the list is very varied.

the biggest glaring omissions to me seem to be big budget AAA titles (titan fall, assassin's creed, farcry) and i think it's nice that they're underrepresented here, and also tbh only one voter for those games could've placed them

It's not so much an ILX hivemind as much that most of us are older and don't have the time to invest a hardcore amount of time in more than a couple of games per year anymore, leading to us playing lots of (largely dispassionate) mobile/f2p/quick burst/toilet/subway games. I'm part of the problem, I fully admit. Still, that doesn't make it less disappointing - i often rely on this list to tell me which games are worth the trouble to pick up the following year

Titanfall came out early in the year, so maybe it was forgotten. Also, ILX seems pretty sided with the PS4 vs. X1
AC...5? and Far Cry 4 did surprise me but the response outside of ILX hasn't been that thrilling either.
Not surprised at all that Goat Simulator placed high, weirdly enough.

Thanks for doing this, Will!

I got back into games a few months ago, and last year's poll was a really good source for titles to pick up. Alas, not much that looks tempting for me this year, but I did finally start playing FTL this weekend. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I keep wanting to go back and do it some more. ("ilxors inadvertently summing up their posting history")

Oh wait, salsa shark's description does make me want to try Teslagrad!

i wouldn't consider any of the following mobile/f2p/quick burst games:
#1 Dark Souls II, #3 borderlands, #6 binding of isaac #9 Diablo 3 #10 Alien: Isolation #12 Rogue Legacy #13 Metal Gear Solid V #14 Destiny, #19 watchdogs

abcfsk you should play along next year! to me this poll is less about consensus and more about a bunch of people who played totally different things recommending them to each other (and then seeing fun screenshots of ~80 of them)

i just found the .txt file where i saved my new display name which i said i would not use until the poll was over, hooray

I already have a few games I really love this year so I will participate next time. I'm just being dumb not voting.

abcfsk what were yr fave games of the year? i'd be interested in seeing ur unofficial ballot

― Mordy, Monday, March 9, 2015 9:31 PM (57 minutes ago)

I'm in a transitional sort of phase and haven't been in a place to own consoles, except for portables, and consoles is mainly how I game, so my '14 list is a bit off. I played a lot of Bayonetta 2 and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze at a friends, and Donkey Kong is probably my game of last year. The two Retro-made DKs represent 2d platforming's absolute peak. Other than that Rusty's Real Deal Baseball on the 3DS and in the port/re-release corner: Ikaruga and Microsoft Flight Simulator Steam Edition.

thanks for doing this.
It was a shitty year for gaming. Gotta be better in 2015!

p yeah but:

#1 Dark Souls II (6 votes, ok that's fair)
#3 borderlands (3 votes and it's the same people who played Borderlands 1/2 pretty much)
#6 binding of isaac (remake of not even that old game)
#9 Diablo 3 (port of recent game)
#10 Alien: Isolation (merely 2 votes)
#12 Rogue Legacy (port of recent game)
#13 Metal Gear Solid V (merely 2 votes, largely criticized as a paid demo for the real MGSV by and large)
#14 Destiny (3 votes, ok)
#19 watchdogs (2 votes, disappointment compared to hype)

the malaise is there. in previous years there seems to have been much more of a hivemind, did we have #1s that got less than 10 votes?

There's definitely a malaise from the standpoint that most AAA games are ASS but the other way to consider this is that there are a gigantic number of titles across more gaming platforms than you can shake a stick at; if we were all able to agree on the best game of the year, either that game would have to be super amazing or we would all be boring people in an echo chamber.

yeah, lacking a console or a fast computer, my stomping grounds are mostly mobile, browser, and indie PC games. even though i think 2014 was only so-so, i still had WAY more interesting games available to me than i could reasonably play. i really wanted to get through ethan carter, valiant hearts, and the new tex murphy before voting but i ran out of time.

btw in the new tex murphy your handheld computer is voiced by kevin murphy of mst3k, was tempted to throw it 5 points for that alone.

Crossy Road and Desert Golfing the tru #1s tbh

As poop games they should be #2s.

ZING

lolling with my daughter as we play the doge in crossy road is enough to make it goty (mod MPQ of course)

the other day i listened to an insert credit podcast (i know, shut up) where they were ranking the games of 1996 and ... shit, videogames were way better in 1996 than they were in 2014, i guess

thanks for running this will! next year i'll vote, honest injun

and yet i kind of think a year with helix, five nights at freddy's, nidhogg, hoplite is in some ways a pretty good year to be in games, or into games

and a couple of the AAA games -- isolation, watch underscore dogs -- seem to point interestingly at the ways mainstream videogame aesthetics are opening up again, a little, or at least could possibly be doing so

1996 was total new territory though - like the number of games like Tomb Raider before Tomb Raider is zero. I would still, in 2015, rather play the reboot, because it's not 1996 any more (also because I played the shit out of the original and the reboot has been hanging around on Steam since I picked it up in a sale a year after release, which is both a change in how we play games and a change in how I play games 20 years on).

yeah, 1996 was basically the year polygons broke and 3d games started springing up everywhere - mainstream gaming has essentially been iterating on that revolution endlessly since then. i think the year that virtual reality, whether it's oculus, morpheus, valve's version or something we haven't yet seen, finally makes its breakthrough we'll have another magnitude-1996 event.

Oh man I completely forgot about Hearthstone, that should've had at least 10 points from me. Also I feel a bit bad that in a year with 2 perfectly good Lego games (The game of the movie, and the hobbit) and 1 great Lego game (batman 3), the only thing that placed was the one from 2013.

So much stuff in here that I've got sitting in my backlog though. This poll is basically going to be my todo list for 2015.

the 2012 poll is my todo list for 2015 prolly

word

I'm slowly working my way towards 2012.

i jsut went back and looked at my ballot for the 2012 games...

(01) Walking Dead: 25
(02) XCOM: Enemy Unknown: 20
(03) Triple Town: 15
(04) Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator: 10
(05-10) MLB 12: The Show, Fez, Hotline Miami, Mass Effect 3, Day Z, Frog Fractions: 5

I would probably drop the baseball game for sleeping dogs, and it'd be tough to leave out far cry 3 & tokyo jungle, and i came around on spelunky... but shockingly i wouldn't change much.

SO MANY games i played after 2012 though because (A) steam sales (B) PS+... its no wonder our placements are always out of whack

Looking back at the older Coint & Plicks (because I haven't bought a non-Nintendo machine since the PS2, and this may be the year to fix that), the thing that stands out is how many games labelled PS3/360 made their way over to PC about a year later.

xp Yes Octodad is really difficult and very funny.

the other day i listened to an insert credit podcast (i know, shut up)

I listen to all their stuff, it rules.

every couple of weeks the octodad theme pops up in my head and drives me nuts for a while

octo-daaaaaa-aaa-aaa-aaaaaad / nobody suspects a thing

i haven't listened to an insert credit podcast in a couple of months... did they stop or is my feed out-of-date?

damn, Hearthstone

What's yr battletag

Grinz

any plans for another one of these?

i'm out on this one this year as far as organizing but i would absolutely vote.

I probably have enough games to make up a small ballot this year if anyone does do one.

Will M, are you into doing it again this year? if not, i would be willing to run it. i mean, SOMEONE has to. it's the best poll of the year imo

I don't mind running it again!

We usually wait a couple of months though don't we? To allow for playing of xmas presents etc (I got fallout 4 for Christmas and it's not even made it into the disc slot yet).

can I vote for Red Dead Redemption this year? I'm finally getting around to it and it rules. next: Assassin's Creed 2 and then Fallout 3. I guess I'll be ready for Coint and Plick 2009, finally, in 2016.

although it "means something" that games that came out 7 years ago are still pretty much up to date wrt gaming mechanics, whereas compare e.g. Combat on the 2600 to SMB 1.

That's always my problem with year-end polls. I only have maybe three 2015 games and I don't think I've played a one. I have some very strong opinions about 2012, though.

Year-end polls should always be polls of what was released five years prior, imo.

otm

... i don't see why coint and plick shouldn't extend to games made between 2000 and 2015 but played in the past year? Just that much harder to make a consensus.

i don't see that working very well. besides, it's nice to have the poll as a time capsule of that particular year, even if like everyone else here I won't get to the best of 2015 until probably 2019.

Yeah, I wouldn't seriously promote the inclusion of pre-2015 games. Year end polls just always make me think a) there's no way anyone had time to really get through enough games/music/movies/tv shows to have a clear idea of what really stood out and b) there's no way anyone had time to really sit with any individual game/album/movie/tv show long enough to get a sense of how much they really like it or how it's going to hold up. How many year-end list-topping cultural products are justly forgotten just a few years later?

What if we did a Coint & Plick -5 where we polled 2010? And then next year we could do 2011? I dunno, I'd be into it

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gZEdDMQZaCU/hqdefault.jpg

lol

What is the new FTL? I could do with it for my shit old slow pc.

Not sure what "the new FTL" means. If you mean game along its lines, the two games I've read about are _Renowned Explorers_ and _Convoy_. Explorers is the one I'm most tempted by, fwiw, but I don't know much about it.

The big hype of the moment seems to be _Undertale_, which at least LOOKS like it shouldn't require a powerful computer. I've bought into the hype and picked it up now, despite having no history with the NES sort of RPG that it seems to be based on, but hopefully I'll "get it" nonetheless. I have the impression that it's sort of a self-reflexive metagame, done in a funny, unpretentious manner.

I guess "metagame" is a poor word. I gather people use that term for when they make up their own goals in a game to make it more challenging. E.g. play FTL without ever pausing it or without buying anything in the stores.

"there are no good video games in 2015 c u next year"

i just dl'd Undertale but haven't play it yet.

good games in 2015 that readily come to mind: witcher 3, MGSV, Bloodbourne

Actually, looking through the stuff that came out in 2015, I'm realizing that pretty much all I've bought and played are reissues of super old games (RE, Duke Nukem). Plus I only own a PS3 (and a Vita for all of five days). Despite some releases I've heard good things about but haven't gotten around to yet (MGSV, Life Is Strange, Lego Dimensions), 2015 wasn't exactly catering to me.

The Jackbox Party Pack 2 came out in 2015 and got good mileage with my family yet again so I might wind up just voting for basically the same thing I did last year.

Marvel Puzzle Quest wins again

Uuugggggggh

I'll add Nuclear Throne, Invisible Inc, and Crypt of the Necrodancer.
My favorite is Afterbirth, the DLC for the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.

Ones I want to play: Undertale, Prison Architect. Curious about, but don't have the computer for it, I think: Cities Skylines.

I only played Bloodborne and some non-2015 games (Demon's Souls, The Swapper). Would really love to play Undertale and Talos Principle though.

recommend flywrench if you like extremely difficult twitchy geometric things

2015 games for me were Mortal Kombat X and Batman: Arkham Knight, neither of which really knocked it out of the park. Other than that, mostly mobile and older games as usual. I need to start keeping a game journal

There's never enough time to play all of the games of the year, but considering people didn't have enough time to play all of the NES games for that poll we can't exactly just say adding a couple years' lead time will "solve" anything. Maybe I'll set up something like a bonus question where you can put the best 1-3 games not from 2015 that you played in 2015 and they can get shouted out after the poll or something?

plz don't include pre-current year games, i don't participate in these but i like the general sort of desperation that makes up everyone's ballots and results in bizarre lists of games i've never heard of

not kidding at all C+P is great every year

Maybe I'll set up something like a bonus question where you can put the best 1-3 games not from 2015 that you played in 2015 and they can get shouted out after the poll or something?

that seems like a good compromise. Can't wait!

I will probably start setting up the nominations list next week, which can run into feb, then voting into start of march, and the rollout early march... i know it's late but games take a long time to play! i still have 5ish in steam that may place but i need to play

also it's early but everyone play life is strange, i want that game to place well

Oh, I looked at getting that. Might see how much that and Her Story are on Steam in a bit.

My top pick is probably going to be Sunless Sea, a slow-paced exploration game from the same universe as Fallen London/Echo Bazaar. A little of the old steampunk tendency (in case you're against that sort of thing) but great narrative work and tbh I really needed something of that relaxing pace.

Other things will probably be bits of IF... and Neko Atsume.

otm about sunless sea I kept thinking about how it's "slow play" in the best way (I love the brooding meditative silence). I got the merchant cruiser recently after three captain deaths and I feel like I still have 90% of the storylines to see

Oh, Life is Strange is PC only, no mac version. Bah.

Life Is Strange is getting a PS4 disc relase in January - I will probably pick it up then, bar some crazy PSN flash sale.

I definitely support using the inevitable nomination thread to needle each other into playing titles for the first three months of 2016 btw

Ninth Coint & Plick: Best Games of 2015 NOMINATION THREAD