Ya know you want to do more than stare: 2013 in review

As with last year, this is a set of mini reviews summarizing my recollections of games I played over the course of 2013. Unlike last year, I'm going to be really frank about something: I don't necessarily recall, with perfect accuracy, how I felt about the games while I was playing. This is more or less a summary of how I feel about them a week, a month or almost a full year afterwards. This is after digestion, these are the lasting impressions.

I divide this into four categories, which work in the following somewhat conflicting ways. Category A is the games I think, regardless of your tastes, you should give a serious look at and try because I really enjoyed them. Category B, inversely, are game I think you should try only if you like the genre they're in, but otherwise I felt pretty highly about them. Category C are games I liked or sort of like, but I'm not really recommending unless you're already inclined towards them, or I had problems with getting them running. Category D lastly are games I just stopped playing and/or can't really see personally ever telling anyone to play.

You may notice this review system is entirely subjective. While I do my best to be impartial about things that aren't objective in nature, the truth of the matter is, you're going to have to look at my reviews and decide if you agree with me or don't. If you do, then my opinion is worthwhile, but if you don't maybe you like the games I don't like, and vice versa. As an aside, where I put my experiences does not interrelate with where you put yours. If you really liked a game and I didn't, it doesn't matter, it just means we disagree and you can probably look at the review to figure out why. I get hung up on stuff that doesn't matter to most people, but I do tend to talk about why.

To me, that's the idea, to talk about flaws and facets, and then maybe other people can figure out from my subjective opinions how they'd mesh with their subjective opinions. Because ultimately we're not all that objective, except I will say I'm a fanboy of absolutely goddamn nothing and that's my thing.

Also these reviews are not, as with last year, of games entirely from MY 2013. Many of them are older, but some are more recent, but I feel like hey - how often do you get to read a review of complete games years later, or compared to modern titles? The point here is to discuss if this $5 title is still worth your money four years after its release, and how shit ages, and if we have time how many donkeys power uPlay.
 

apparently I like hot pink

Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed - Basically my game of the year, this game has it all. It's a visual delight, mostly awesome level design, tons of variety and tons of neat little touches. Also listening to Shadow the Hedgehog's ridiculous taunts made me laugh out loud repeatedly. Generations was a good Gotta Go Fast but this is better.

Saint's Row 3 - Not much is necessary to say about this game; it's silly, over the top and generally very dedicated to just being fun. I've read it's worse than, or better, or whatever to other games but it was super cheap and lots of fun. It's also an interesting bit of discussion about player agency and inclusiveness, buried under gunholes and tits and exploding broads and other comic book-y nonsense.

Path of Exile - In many ways this should be more of a Category B game, but it's a fully fleshed out ARPG that is f2p without being punishing about its f2p in any manner, so there's really no reason not to give this game a shot. If it cost money, it would be in the other category, but since it's doesn't  and it's really good for being an ARPG. There's some server issues and other annoying problems, but the first run through the game is well balanced enough that any casual ARPG fan can enjoy it then go from there.

Also I've seen a bunch of people ramble on about how you need to be some sperglord mathomancer to even dare play Path of Exile. This is untrue and dumb. Maybe to play the very end game, but by then you've played it for fifty plus hours.

Defense Grid - Although the last DLC was kinda samey and meh, DG is the best Td game ever made, at least as far as I'm concerned. It's subtle, it's got a reason to pay attention but it also allows you to relax, a fair amount of variety and a good sense of fairness with lots of extra modes, unlocks, etc. It's good. I hope the sequel is more like the base game than the last DLC, but I feel like it isn't going to be and my hopes aren't high.

Mark of the Ninja - A genuine ninja game in an era where people have forgotten the meaning of a largely fabricated concept. While I have some minor quibbles with the pretentiousness of some of the story elements, MoTN is still a really fantastic game. It also does stealth in ways that 3d games have yet to master, though I suppose it's possible.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon - This one is really, really tough to place. It's a janky and at times outright bizarre shooter that I'm not entirely certain about. On the other hand, the engine is excellent and the art style while claiming nostalgia is really very much its own thing. The audio is excellent and the setting is uniquely charming. The story, on the other hand, is outright insanity - A jammed dripfeed of 80s gone mad pumped into your brain, and there's elements that feel like someone also watched just a little Videodrome. It's the parts that made me think of Videodrome that made me push it to A, if you're wondering. Maybe? Maybe not.



Simcity 2000 - Game was made in like, the 80s or something, but the gog copy was still hours of fun. The pixel art still looks great, the game still has all its loopy bugs and oddities and it still has that dude screaming I'll regret things. Funny thing is, as much of a classic as it is, it's still pretty buggy and over simplified in places it shouldn't, which actually took away from the game for me when I re-played it recently.

Witcher 2 - I was kinda disappointed in this one and it may negatively impact my perception of the game. It's gorgeous and well written, but it feels somehow reduced from the previous game and while I've heard the combat is massively better I didn't really notice it being better. I did notice really struggling at the start of the game with the combat system then the game suddenly getting easy, though, which didn't impress me. It's still a fantastic game though with incredible music and the same lovely witcher style of storytelling.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger - Though this game is short and not really a mold breaker, the slick narration, down to earth setting and solid gameplay produce a budget title well worth picking up. It's essentially a triple AAA game only it's six hours long which ... Wait, how long are triple A shooters anyway? Great game, pick it up if you want to play a manshooter and duel a man with your shooter.

Doom 3 - This game is weird to me, since I didn't really enjoy the horror elements at all but the medium age shooter mechanics are such a delight after a couple years of modern manshooters. The engine, when modded as discussed in the review, still looks fantastic and the levels look neat. It would have been a better game if they'd mixed in more - The horror elements are overplayed and the forced into melee gunfighting robs the game of its Doom feeling, even though most of those elements are ready to be used. It's a really mixed bag, but I feel like if you like shooters and you've never played Doom 3 you should seek out a $2 copy and give it a run.



Hard Reset - There's some massive boss fights in this game that really stand out, but the story is a confusing mess that feels like I skipped a level by accident and many of the fights turn into low visibility slog festivals against bullet sponging enemies. The engine and visuals are excellent and the guns feel good, but goo all over my screen in a cramped alley does not a good "old school" shooter make. Though again, I think that's a misnomer, since this game is fundamentally very close to playing Doom 3.

Darksiders & Darksiders 2 - Though there's some total high points in these two, DS1 has some mediocre design decisions and DS2 has this drifting dull feeling to it that kept me from finishing it all that quickly. I like the storylines of both and found their writing better than expected. DS1 also crashed like crazy on my earlier PC and I don't quite remember how I fixed it. Again they're both pretty solid titles but nothing really stands out except how long it took me to finish them.

Fallout 3 - Game is buggy and required some fixes to get running at all but was largely fine. The gamebryo engine is rather awful and I didn't find anything unique about this game. I'd put it up to category B but having to spend time in ini files and disabling cores and shit just ... I don't know if everyone is going to want to do that, you know? I did really like the main story - it's so fantastically grounded, if a bit trite at parts, with a focus on concepts more interesting than just 'the world is ending' because the world has ended-  though this video kind highlights what I found weird about the game and the setting. I'm going to play New Vegas in a couple months.

(As an aside, Morrowind and possibly Oblivion actually pass the test that Fallout 3 is commented on to fail in that video, so it may not be quite as accurate as he presents it as. But it's still a legitimate point.)

Retrovirus - I liked Retrovirus a fair bit, but it's just not that solid a stab in the genre. Aiming feels very imprecise on a controller, and honestly if I'm just supposed to KBM on a game with pitch and yaw just what's the point ... Anyway it's a fine little game with great visuals but it's hard to recommend unless you're really hungry for it. It should, as I said in my full review, have been more of a metroidvania or roguelike or just something to give it a sense of variety beyond pew pew. (The full review will be up in a day or two and won't count towards 2014)

King's Bounty: Warriors of the North - Bad plateauing and mediocre grindy padding coupled with ease of sticking to a particular unit base and a dull story with no sense of discovery created a King's Bounty game I played for hours upon hours and got to like, I don't, maybe two thirds through? Also apparently this series has gone f2p, so this is ... kinda bitter to write about. I want to say this is a category D game, given I did give up on it, but I did play it for sixty hours so...

Splinter Cell: Conviction - You know, in retrospect, I don't really remember much about this game and I played it more recently than other games I have more of an opinion on. I remember it being ... Ok? Really enjoyed the gun battle in the little sandwich shop. But apparently they got rid of the sweet voice actor after this so I'm less than eager to get into Blacklist, which my friend did give me, so I'll be playing that in 2014 anyway.

Fear 2 - A competently made, decent shooter that is hard to recommend when there's better shooters out there. It's not as scary or visceral as Doom 3 or its predecessor, the shooting isn't better than Rage or a Crysis game and it's certainly just less fun than Gunslinger or Bulletstorm. And the story is an amazing vortex in which each further consideration further condenses the shittiness into a new level of hyper shittiness. Also it ends with you being raped by a ghost during a QTE laden boss battle. That's one sentence humanity should, as a whole, never have had to write to describe something.

Ring Runners: Flight of Sages - This game struck me as cool, but too murky to really get into, and more something the younger, more patient version of myself would have enjoyed. I also just really didn't overly like the writing. The thing about jokes is, the more jokes you make in an hour, the less funny each successive joke is.


Magic 2014 - There's absolutely nothing wrong with the Magic 2014 product (other than the usual mix of wacky bugs I'm sure exist that I didn't encounter) but it's hard to recommend a product that relies so heavily on DLCing you nonstop, has a bunch of dumb micro-transactions and is essentially just Magic, again. Well the OST is really good, I actually still listen to a couple songs off it. Also this product doesn't really add much each year, it's just a random mix of existing assets.

I really don't understand their attitude towards this product at all. It's totally fine to charge a fee for a deck pack, but it's very in your face about deck keys and foil unlocks, which are both almost entirely useless or outright detrimental, and the whole sealed deck slots thing is ridiculously greed. WoTC's continuously strange behavior in regards to their online assets, when they're practically the first successful f2p game on the market (I haven't put money into my MTGO account since 2005 and they haven't harassed me one iota) remains baffling. How you can produce a product for twenty years and still treat it like you're so ashamed you have to nickel and dime every step I have no idea. Get some ego where it counts, guys. There's a reason smug and confident are different words.

They Bleed Pixels - What's ironic about demeaning this game is that while I ended up hating the experience I think if I was better at torture platformers or if WoW hadn't burnt the "get back up and re-attempt the boss" organ out of my body I'd probably give it a glowing recommendation. It's a very charming and stylish game but I think you have to like the genre to like it.

Sacred Citadel - Sort of an average brawler I got for less than a dollar. I really dug the art style and music, but I feel like you'd be better served getting a less repetitive, less stun-locky brawler. Still, the game is fine, especially if you have friends to play it in big picture mode. But then you can buy the acclaimed Capcom ports for about the same, so ...



Risen - I keep hearing this game is decent, and better than the next game in the series, but even thinking about it just gives me this dull headache and sense of overwhelming boredom. I may or may not give Risen 2 an attempt, which I've heard is much worse, which probably means better since apparently I have weird tastes as RPGs go when it comes to western RPGs.

Ether Vapor Remaster - Like I said in the review, I don't necessarily think I know a thing about shmups. But I have liked other shmups, but this one was just unfun and drab. Such grey. Wow. So drab.


Gravi - I played a good hour in Gravi, and it was a good hour, but it's something of a conceptual mess and it could have used a bit of polish in a couple areas. The real puzzle is who this game is actually for, which is why it is in this category.

Special mention!

I actually spent a ton of gaming hours in the middle of this year (where there's a strange void of reviews) playing a couple different games from GoG or DRM free or whatever. First off, SimCity 4 is .... an amazingly buggy mess. I mean it's amazing, but it's also amazingly buggy. Someone should just remake that one with better code. It's the SimCity game will all want. Curse your agent system.

I also bought the Baldur's Gate complete collection. The game, like, geez has really not aged well at all for me but I still had fun getting up to about the Underdark then just got kinda tired of the messiness of the hamfisted in 'we need to visit every race in the Underdark' thing. That collection goes on sale all the time though, so if you just remember you haven't played BG this decade, go buy it and remember with me all dat lovely save or die. I'll probably finish this in 2014 and then try to enjoy Planescape Torment, which I won't, because reasons.

Master of Orion and Master of Orion 2 are still amazing games. On the other hand, I wrote up a discussion of all the massive flaws in MoO2 (and man does it ever take on a ton of flaws especially when you contrast with MoO1 which is actually way more streamlined) but I'm not sure anyone wants to read that. Maybe I should make a youtube video or something about the value of streamlining versus complexity as demonstrated by two games not hampered by modern design considerations.

Extra Special mention!

Here's a list of games I will definitely be playing next year and writing surly, well meaning reviews about that no one reads (well except you): Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age, Kingdoms of Amalur, Splinter Cell: Black List, Divinity 2, Spec Ops the Line, Binary Domain, The Last Remnant, La-Mulana, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes and probably I'll try to actually finish Dark Souls on PC. And a bunch of other crap. I may even try to stomach playing FF7 on PC. I will craft an entire meteor of bile, I'm sure.

Here's a list of games I will definitely not be playing since I'm restricting myself from buying any non-bundles next year: Bioshock Infinite, Skyrim and Dishonored. What's special about these games? They're all games I wanted to buy but feel a bit sketchy about vis-a-vis their DLC, which I'll talk about next week. So I'll just wait til 2015.

I'd say six.