ZUT ALORS (original) (raw)

Okay, okay, I haven't played very many new games this year, but the ones I did play, well, they were all pretty good. Hell, I think the worst thing I've played this year was BioShock Infinite and my fanboy death grip won't allow me to rate that anything less than average. But out of those games I did play? Why, since there were at least 6 (a total of 9, I think), there has to be a top 5. So, here, let's take a look at them.

FIVE: Rogue Legacy

"Randomly-generated" is not really the most inspiring phrase when to comes to video games. Well, given the success of The Binding of Isaac and Spelunky, maybe that's wrong. Either way, Rogue Legacy is a very tough randomly-generated action-platformer that blends the basics of the genre with roguelike elements, including randomly-generated character traits and classes. Some of the attributes can really change your play style a lot, such as "savant" (which causes your special attack to change every time you use it), while others, such as being gay, don't do a damn thing to you. So yes, not only is Rogue Legacy well ahead of the curve in terms of games, but it's a pretty fun game that, while occasionally frustratingly hard, is a pretty rewarding experience, especially for being a $15 indie game. It's also graphically pretty good compared to a lot of indies I've played.

FOUR: Pokemon X/Y

It wouldn't be a list of games of the year without the new Pokemon game. Okay, maybe it might, to some people, but a lot of them hate any Pokemon game not on the Game Boy Color or older, and most of the people who hate newer Pokemon games are just cynics anyway who think that things were better when your games could be completely destroyed because you flew to a specific place. Let's face it, the first Pokemon games were janky as hell in the coding department, but this generation is, thus far, pretty immaculate in that area. It also plays very well, and a lot of the newly-introduced species -- even though I find it insane that they took this long to have a sword, a jack-o-lantern, and a T. rex -- are pretty cool. Yes, even the key ring. It doesn't get any higher on the list, though, because seriously, there's no dark-type gym yet?!

THREE: Shadowrun Returns

Shadowrun Returns arrived fully-formed, in a way that I could never have expected. What I thought there would be would be a simple strategy-RPG using the setting and some of the basics of the system. On top of this, though, Shadowrun Returns comes with the ability to make your own campaigns, giving this _X-COM_-like game pretty much infinite playability. The creators have pledged to bring in more content of their own, too -- basically, very impressive. The inbuilt game, too, is pretty fun. Of course, there's a bit of imbalance in terms of what skills are good, both in-engine (free reloads for handguns is just amazing, and taking a little extra cooldown for your spells to use smartlinks is almost too useful) and in the game itself. Still, the sheer potential in this game means it's well worth your twenty bucks.

TWO: The Stanley Parable

To some, The Stanley Parable is a pretentious piece of shit, questionably-written, and barely a game. Yes, it's true, The Stanley Parable is one of the two extremes of the "strong writing vs. strong gameplay" argument that there seems to be in gaming nowadays. There isn't much gameplay to The Stanley Parable, yes, but it is written very strongly -- you might not call it good, but you have to admit it is so important to the product itself that it just can't be ignored. Thankfully, Stanley is well-written, skewering popular gaming at large. Plus, it's humorous very often, if only for how strange it is. If you don't laugh at least once playing the game, be it for the odd plot or for the fact that trying to get off the rails forces you into very basic button prompts... well, fine, I guess. But I still like it.

THE BIG'UN: Saints Row IV

Plot: Gangster becomes President of the United States, gets abducted by aliens, forced into a simulation of the town from the last game, spends the whole game butting heads with alien overlords. Weapons: Giant purple dildo bat, miniature black hole launcher, psychedelic laser pinball rifle, weaponized dubstep. Big new feature: superpowers. Yep, sounds like it's written by Gaia Online users, huh? To Volition Deep Silver's credit, though, they manage to make this good. The storyline, for as questionable as it seems, is actually very well-written. Humorous most of the time, yes, but with enough drama to give it enough weight to have more appeal to more people. The characters are explored in-depth, and are well-written, with even Kinzie, the worst character from the last Saints Row game, becoming more interesting. Plus, hey, there's a lot of fun to be had just playing the game. If your machine's up to the task of running the game, it plays very smoothly, with only a few glitches ever causing any problems. However, VDS are a good game company, so they know to fix those on the PC edition. In your face, Bethesda! Next time someone tries to tell me Skyrim is good, I'm gonna club them like a baby seal with SRIV's change log.

And honestly, that kind of bravado is what marks Saints Row IV in general. But hey, I wrote a whole article about that.