2014 Gaming Highlights

[Claytone]

I'm a little late on this, but I did this thread a year ago on VC-F, and I thought it was nice, so here we are again.

What were your favorite gaming moments in 2014? I'm not looking for your GOTY (necessarily). I'm talking about gaming milestones or achievements you were proud of. That game you can finally say you finished 100%. Alternatively, maybe you were just introduced to the delights of Galaga or some other classic that passed you by and want to share stories of your new addiction. To speak most generally, just tell us all about anything you did in the gaming sphere that particularly delighted you last year. What in 2014 reminded you why you love video games as a pastime?

For me, I actually had a pretty high quality year in consuming video and electronic games last year. I'll see if I can detail it in some sort of chronological order...

At the beginning of March of last year, I purchased a PS3. Having skipped the PS2, this finally gave me a chance to play lots of its games that I missed in HD remasters, such as Ratchet & Clank and Sly Cooper. I also had fun with Tokyo Jungle, a curious PSN exclusive. I look forward to lots of more time with this console late in its life, including its late hosting of the upcoming Persona 5, which brings me to my next point...

In February, I bought Persona 4: Golden for my new Vita, but I didn't get around to finishing it until late June (due in part to early disinterest and in part to its great length). By the end of it, I was enraptured by its charms. I found myself not just tolerating its goofy anime moments, but delighting in them. I loved the demons and arcana, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before I played its predecessor Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3: FES. And it was! I bought the game on a PSN sale, and I finished it in under a month in November, and I possibly loved it even more than 3. I'm in the process of consuming all of the games' spinoff media, and I look forward to being further entertained by the series in the years to come.

Sometime last summer, I went to an event called Atlanta's Own Southern Friend Gameroom Expo. It was a celebration of pinball and arcade games, and it gave me my first opportunity to play non-digital versions of classics like Medieval Madness, Bride of Pinbot, and Addams Family, the arcade version of Punch-Out!!, and countless other great games. It was the first in what the organizers hope becomes an annual event. I will be an annual supporter if it does!

Also last summer, I finally managed to beat all of the cups of F-Zero X on Master difficulty. F-Zero is a series I've always touted as one of my top favorites, but until last year, I'd never cleared any of them on their most white-knuckle difficulty. Glad to have one under my belt.

Lastly, 2014 in general was my first serious foray into competitive Super Smash Bros., where I focused most of my attention on Project M. Competing at tournaments such as Tipped Off X was really enriching, gave me a chance to meet some good (and bad) people, and actually helped me grow as a person in some ways (it's a community that discourages complacency, and I've tried to apply that to my life at large). I hope competitive Smash (or competitive gaming in general) can remain a part of my life for some time to come.

SO, now that I've completely over-indulged in myself, I look forward to hearing everyone else's stories!

[Kong Wen]

I closed out 2013 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 in 2013 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 (I've since spent some time with Team Fortress 2 and now Destiny).

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 closed 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, and along with TONe's very own Drauks, we manage to put together a full team for shenanigans fairly often.

Of the games I played in 2014 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.)

[Claytone]

...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 closed 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, and along with TONe's very own Drauks, we manage to put together a full team for shenanigans fairly often.

Of the games I played in 2014 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.)

Yeah, Rogue Legacy is a bastard, and it's quite the accomplishment to have done everything in that game. Not sure I've got the grit!

Interesting to see such high praise for Destiny. It's a game that doesn't interest me terribly, but you tend to have pretty decent opinions. Care to share what keeps you playing it/what you love about it?

[Kong Wen]

Yeah, Rogue Legacy is a bastard, and it's quite the accomplishment to have done everything in that game. Not sure I've got the grit!

The same spirit that drove me to complete Super Meat Boy encouraged me through those super-boss fights. And luck.

Interesting to see such high praise for Destiny. It's a game that doesn't interest me terribly, but you tend to have pretty decent opinions. Care to share what keeps you playing it/what you love about it?

If you're not interested, then it probably won't interest you regardless of my testimonial. Destiny is (apparently) a polarizing game—it has strengths and weaknesses, but the things it does well just happen to coincide with the things I think are important in a first-person shooter.

The actual mechanics of the gunplay are perfect. The PvP mode is well-tuned and aligned with my obviously subjective preferences (it has smaller maps compared to e.g. Call of Duty's massive battlefields, which makes it easy to get back into battle after dying but still allows for multiple fronts/points & styles of engagement like Team Fortress 2; it's harder to camp without being punished, which encourages sniping on the fly). The three classes are different enough that it's interesting to strategize and play different builds, but they're all fairly equally balanced in PvP. I have friends who also enjoy playing it, which obviously makes playing the game more fun.

On the other hand, the story is negligible and mostly couched in off-screen lore, which is fine, because I don't really need a gripping narrative to shoot the dudes. There's also an MMO-lite grind and loot-cycle that drives some people nuts (some perhaps literally), but I also don't care about that.

As an aside, I'm just going to leave this here: some more 2014 gaming reflections, just to make sure they don't get missed.