This Old Neon Forum

Hi everyone! So, the purpose of this thread is for us to share our gaming memories from 2014. For me, this has been an outstanding year for gaming. I'll share my highlights here.

Okay, first for the big ones. I upgraded my portable gaming to the Vita. I also upgraded my home console to PS4 (while still being joyfully neck deep in a wonderful library of PS3 games). My first PS4 beat, Outlast, was a great experience in both a good and a bad way and the latter only as intended. It had a few control issues and the enemies are dumb enough that it took away some of the fear that the game otherwise would have delivered. But it surprised me. Twice. That's tough for a game to do as I think they're generally quite predictable.

My daughter, who just turned four, is now a gamer and is actually getting pretty good. She seriously does impress me on occassion. Her go-to's are Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD and Sonic 4: Episode 1 (she'll be delighted to learn there's a second episode once I get that last trophy...) She also plays shooters. It's fun for us to sit down together and work on them and it reminds me of what I had been doing at her age with the Atari 2600. Ya'll had made fun of me for my Resogun high scores not being mine. They weren't - they are now but I'm sure they are still not competitive I'm pretty awful at shooters but I like them anyway...

Finally, I had some great beats this year. I got platinum in Uncharted 2, which I think was a nearly perfect game in execution. I have nit picks but they are minimal. I beat the most difficult and complex Fighting Fantasy book I've ever been through in Creature of Havoc. It'll be a while before I go back to that one...sheesh. It was stressful yet engaging. I also played through Phantasy Star again for my third time (I later learned I did so right around its 27th birthday). I had a blast. It still holds up well to this day, in my opinion. And, last but certainly not least, I finally, finally beat Fatal Frame. That took me a good eight years or so and four starts. What a fantastic game, though. Oh my goodness.

I've also gotten a pretty epic short list of new games near the end of the year, including Samurai Warriors 4 (PS4), Dragon Age Inquisition (PS4), FFX / FFX-2 HD (Vita), Assassin's Creed Unity (PS4), Dark Souls (PS3), and Murdered: Soul Suspect (PS4). I hardly know what to play on any given day. Hehe. I'll get through them all and look forward to enjoying them for what little remains of this year and throughout next year.

I closed out last year with a Guacamelee! platinum trophy, and then I couldn't stop, so the beginning of 2014 was marked by me completing the game again on Steam.

In February, I moved on to the atrocious Final Fantasy XIII-2, which means enough time may have passed for me to take a stab at Lightning Returns in a couple months...

March was Dark Souls II month. It's a great game. Slightly less engaging than the original, but still has a lot of merit.

Just as I did last year with White Knight Chronicles, this year saw me marathon complete a game with a server drop-dead timeline (Gotham City Impostors), and it actually ended up being a lot of fun and perhaps a bit of a gateway back into the FPS genre for me.

The rest of the spring & summer was pretty much characterized by me putting my head down and cracking out a number of smaller and/or indie games (I completed Contrast, Fez, Journey, Sly Cooper, Castle of Illusion, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons—one of my favourite gaming memories of the year—, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, Stick It to the Man, Child of Light, To the Moon, and The Swapper).

Late summer to fall saw me Platinum Saints Row IV, Guacamelee! (again, this time for PS4), and after much pain and anguish and personal growth, Rogue Legacy (one of my prouder gaming achievements). If you know how hard some of those requirements are, you know why I'm patting myself on the back about that one.

I'm closing out the year on a strong note, having picked up Destiny: Digital Guardian Edition on PS4 during the black Friday sales and pretty much playing it exclusively since then in a trend that looks to continue. My brother-in-law and my brother have both since picked up copies of the game, as well as at least two people here, so we're just closing in on the requisite six people for a good Raiding party (one more volunteer?)!

Of the games I played this year, Destiny is my AAA game of the year, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is my indie game of the year. (Brothers came out in 2013, but I'm talking about 2014's experiences here.)

I'm a very on and off gamer so some weeks/months I go nuts with gaming and others I lose interest.

Early on I played a fair bit beating The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and Sly Cooper. Then things died completely. A part from a couple of purchass.

Rayman Origins and South Park the stick of truth got 100%'d in May

E3 came around and this was sonys year to sell me a PS4 they ended up failing completely and I ended up buying a Wii U.

The next few months were Mario Kart 8 based and I beat that.

Then the rest of the year was very nintendo based with me buying Wii U games and 3DS until I bought Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix and recently got into NFL so have Madden 25 coming in the mail. (PLEASE ARRIVE TOMORROW I DONT WANNA WAIT TIL THE 2ND)

2015 Games I've played
Mario Kart 8 - So much fun. Easy to learn hard to master. Battle Mode sucks.
South Park The Stick of Truth - Played through this twice was very fun.
NHL 15 - PS3 version. Last one I played was 12 so huge improvement from that but it's a copy of 14 which kinda sucks. PS4 version is missing tons.
Final Fantasy X HD - Been meaning to get back to this was really enjoying it.
Mega Man Battle Network (Virtual Console) - Found this really fun and pretty easy
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - Won't comment played 3 levels. Plays like Return though.
Pokemon Omega Ruby - POKEMANZ haven't reached first gym (Christmas present) like what I'm seeing though
Fantasy Life - Really really good. Still haven't gotten that far but it'll be battling against Pokemon for the place in my 3ds

2015 GOTY - (Excludes games I have not played)
Mario Kart 8
(Stick of Truth a close second)

>2014 Games I've played
NHL 12 - Fucking freezes all the time when you're signed into PSN drove me insane (Got 15 now anyway)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds - Really enjoyed this just the right difficulty.
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus - Easy but fun PS2 era FTW
Jak II - Maybe the controls are just dated by I really couldn't get into it. I missed the nice landscape of the original the collecting side of it.
Tales from Space: About a Blob - Was average I grinded it out from some extra achievements I liked the concept but the character felt bleh the control.
Rayman Origins - Would have challenged Mario Kart 8 for GOTY if it was released this year. The music and the difficulty being stupidly hard and the controls and everything was perfect. I gotta play Legends haha.
Sly 2: Band of Thieves - Same as 1 fun but easy.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD - Not very far in but really enjoying it.
Earthbound - Gah this is another game I should be playing more of played a ZSNES version before and enjoyed it still not as far in as I was before but still really fun and awesome humor.
Scribblenauts - Okay seriously fuck the levels that you need to use physics. The physics sucks and makes it really annoying. Sometimes you win by doing something stupid and I don't like that.
Magic the Gathering 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers - Bought it to learn the game and it worked perfect for that.
Plants vs Zombies - Was just achievement hunting and replaying it.

Nonetheless I think I achieved 0 of my New Years goals and I bought way to many games. Next year hopefully is different.