Thanks to Mr Orange and JShackles, SteamGaf have finally voted for their GOTY2014…in mid March. Still we go there and here are my opinions on the results:
I haven’t played Alien Isolation yet, but did recently pick it up on sale. I’m expecting an “ok” experience, so a 10 spot is probably about right.
Fair enough.
Shadow of Mordor is your token “mediocre AAish” release that needs to be in the top 10. If there has to be one, and there does, it is a solid enough game to be #9. After all, it could have been some Assassins Creed or Batman garbage. At least it is Tolkien garbage.
Fair enough
Transistor deserves this spot mainly in relation to Bastion, which I found to be a really bad game. Full marks for improvement but it is a stretch to call it a top 10 game beyond a bit of style.
Just fair enough
The first game in the list that I “don’t get”. I just don’t find it fun or interesting to play and I don’t see how the improvements in this re-release really made much difference. There are just so many indie actiony/rogue like games which are so much better to play.
I know it is popular…but I don’t understand why.
I can understand South Park being here, it just isn’t a game I remotely want to play so I haven’t.
Fair enough for fans I suppose
This was my #1 overrated game of the year. 1001 Spikes was just so much better, but this is the game that gets loved. It wasn’t terrible, but I don’t think it belongs on a top 10 list.
Vastly overrated
It is really hard to think of this as a 2014 game…but given it is a valid choice you can’t really argue against it.
Solid choice
If Shadow of Mordor was your token mediocre action game, this is your token mediocre FPS. Lots of people still love FPS of course, but to me this is just a throw back to before FPS got interesting (System Shock) and there is little appealing about it.
Token boring shooter for FPS fans
People seem to be confused about Dark Souls 2. “Didn’t people hate it?” No, not at all. People whine about it, but people whine about everything and should generally be ignored…like me. Even with the downgrades, it was still a brilliant game, it just suffered in terms of quantity over quality. The DLC fixed this to a certain extent (2 out of 3 were great!) so it is a worth #2.
Great game
Divinity is both a worth winner… and a real disappointment. All I wanted from a game like this was NPCs with job schedules and a few other things that go back to the glory Ultima days. We didn’t get that… again… but we did get an extremely well put together RPG that was certainly on my list of top 5 games.
A strong winner
Summary:
Mediocre mass market
Shadow of Morder
Alien Isolation
Wolfenstein
Style over substance
Transistor
One for Fans
South Park
Overrated
Binding of Issac
Shovel Knight
Good
Dark Souls 2
Divinity
MGR
Overall? A fair enough list. It does kind of highlight how poor gaming was in 2014, with few stand out releases. However there is great diversity represented, which is even more important. Hopefully a few more amazing games get released on the platform in 2015.
The Toddhunter Report 