Gaming Forums => General Gaming => Topic started by: Ymeegod on September 13, 2014, 05:47:51 AM
Title: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Ymeegod on September 13, 2014, 05:47:51 AM
Pretty damn weak year in gaming IMO.
Looking at my GOTY contenders and it's a pretty damn bleak list, hopefully fall/winter titles add some sweats but this year's best titles are a few remakes (the last of us for example).
My list of games that fell short of the hype: Watchdogs Bravely Default TitanFall Dark Souls 2 Destiny
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Right now it looks like GOTY might go to an indie game (Shovel Knight).
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Shaymin on September 13, 2014, 08:05:20 AM
If the year ended today, Layton v Wright would be in my top 5. In other words, it's a short bench.
Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart, Danganronpa: Goodbye Despair, Shovel Knight and Layton v Wright in some order would be the list as it stands, and I'd second Bravely Default on the disappointment list. I'm playing DR2 right now and it might annoy me out of the top 5.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Adrock on September 13, 2014, 09:30:41 AM
Looking at gaming as a whole, it's probably a subpar year so far. The first year of new consoles is typically not great and Wii U is mainly first party. Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze and Mario Kart 8 were solid installments. As someone who doesn't play too many games a year, I've had enough to keep me busy and I've generally liked my purchases.
My Game of the Year pick will most likely be really predictable and boring when all is said and done. I'm thinking it will be Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: broodwars on September 13, 2014, 10:10:28 AM
I dunno...it's been a weak year in terms of AAA releases since most of them were delayed into 2015, but I feel like the smaller publishers have been bringing it this year with games like Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Shaymin) and various indie titles (i.e. Rogue Legacy, etc.). I also enjoyed my time with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 and Wolfenstein. Until Destiny came out, I really hadn't seen a game that massively disappointed me like Bioshock Infinite did last year. Everything else's just been kind of "OK" or underwhelming, but not really disappointing.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: UncleBob on September 13, 2014, 11:36:22 AM
I'd bet Destiny will still win several GotYs. You don't spend that much money in advertising and not. :D
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: BranDonk Kong on September 13, 2014, 12:32:10 PM
GTAV and The Last of Us Remastered will win all the Game of the Year awards. Mario Kart 8 should get some too.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Soren on September 13, 2014, 02:26:10 PM
Mario Kart 8 will win most of the Nintendo categories.
My GOTY contenders include Shovel Knight, MK8 and a game released on December 19, 2013 (Knytt Underground)
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: NWR_insanolord on September 13, 2014, 05:59:51 PM
You really think Mario Kart will beat Smash Bros.? The only way I see that happening is if it gets delayed out of this year, which I think is nearly impossible. As it stands right now I'd give it to Donkey Kong Country, but I get why that's not a popular choice.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Mop it up on September 13, 2014, 07:12:17 PM
Right now, I have to say Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze by default, and at the end of the year I'll probably be saying Smash Brothers Wii U by default.
Mario Kart and Smash Brothers were released in the same year on the Wii and I don't recall Mario Kart getting any awards. I doubt MK8 will either, especially since Smash will be fresh in everyone's memory.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: NWR_insanolord on September 13, 2014, 07:54:43 PM
And Smash came out before Mario Kart on Wii and still dominated in that respect. With Smash being the only major Wii U game in the second half of the year, unless it's somehow awful, I don't see how it doesn't win.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Mop it up on September 13, 2014, 07:56:51 PM
SSBBrawl was awful and it still won.
ZING!
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Adrock on September 13, 2014, 08:51:04 PM
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Luigi Dude on September 13, 2014, 10:14:07 PM
Smash Bros Wii U alone is going to be worth more then 1 billion AAA games, which by its very presence will make 2014 the greatest year of gaming in the history of the universe.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Shaymin on September 14, 2014, 01:01:50 AM
Watchdogs Bravely Default TitanFall Dark Souls 2 Destiny
See the similarities?.. Even beside the platform, i am absolutely baffled how anyone was hyped about any of these games to begin with.
Watchdogs was looking sorta cool at first, but as they kept showing more and more it became obvious it's an inferior GTA.
Titanfall looked sorta interesting with Unreal Tournament-like movement but as they kept showing it turned out to be Call of Duty clone. That's beside the fact that combination of words "FPS on a console" is an incredibly hilarious joke to me.
Destiny always looked confusing to me both in how it is actually played and why people think it looks any good.
My top 3 from last year (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=43255.msg817573#msg817573) was all games on Wii U (despite my PC preference). This might as well be the same this year, only list will be shorter (because i am skipping most of thi year's Wii U lineup, like Tropical Freeze and Mario Kart and Smash too, most likely).
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: NWR_insanolord on September 14, 2014, 10:02:52 AM
In terms of non-Nintendo games, the runaway favorite to be my game of the year is Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth, a game I think they made just to get me to stop bugging them on Twitter for a new Alpha Centauri game.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Manthony Chopkins on September 14, 2014, 12:31:08 PM
No Hyrule Warriors love?.....................C'mon guys it's a shoe-in! ::)
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: ShyGuy on September 15, 2014, 12:30:28 AM
Lesse... Stick it to the Man, Kentucky Router Zero Act III, Mario Kart 8, probably Wolfenstein.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Shaymin on September 15, 2014, 01:09:38 AM
No Hyrule Warriors love?.....................C'mon guys it's a shoe-in! ::)
It has an extreme outside shot at my top 5, depending on whether or not my lightsaber still functions.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: azeke on September 15, 2014, 03:07:37 AM
As big third-party publishers keep getting bigger and bigger, their budgets explode correspondingly. That kind of money you just can't risk on something new and unproved. It just won't fly against investors.
That's why all the most expensive New IP projects now are nothing but "X meets Y", where "X" is the latest fad, while "Y" is the most popular game right now.
WatchDogs = "Hacking meets GTA" Titanfall = "Pacific Rim meets CoD" Destiny = "Halo meets WoW" (i guess)
This calculated approach apparently DOES work (see WD sales) but it creates generic, hollow products.
As these big guys (EA, WB, Activision) keep destroying smaller competition, gaming lineup dries up from a stream of games to several big hyped-up releases where all videogame sales are now concentrated.
And all these big releases are gonna be either yearly rehashes or "new", "X plus Y" IPs.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Ceric on September 15, 2014, 05:20:09 PM
Maybe WoW Vanilla Beta. With the money and names behind it I think it has a chance to be pressured cooked to WoW BC possibly.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: shingi_70 on September 15, 2014, 07:35:49 PM
Pretty boring year thus far despite saying that about last year as well. Right now maybe Watch_dogs or Azure Striker Gunvolt would be my game of the year.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: broodwars on September 18, 2014, 03:06:04 AM
That's why all the most expensive New IP projects now are nothing but "X meets Y", where "X" is the latest fad, while "Y" is the most popular game right now.
WatchDogs = "Hacking meets GTA" Titanfall = "Pacific Rim meets CoD" Destiny = "Halo meets WoW" (i guess)
This calculated approach apparently DOES work (see WD sales) but it creates generic, hollow products. ... And all these big releases are gonna be either yearly rehashes or "new", "X plus Y" IPs.
And I can label this exact same complaint against the Indie scene. Good lord, how many "Metroid + X", "Dark Souls + Y", or "Mega Man + Z" Indie games have we seen already at this point? How many Indie games do we see developed as just generic, hollow products created just to cash in on the 8-bit nostalgia craze of our generation? Combining old ideas into new ones is just the way the creative process works when you've had an industry that's run as long as ours has. Laying our industry's problems solely at the feet of the larger publishers is short-sighted in my opinion. Our industry has always been drawn to trends, for better or worse. It was just easier in the past to gloss over the worst because the economy was good enough to prevent the untalented companies of that era from bankrupting on one game.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: ObbyDent on September 18, 2014, 05:15:39 AM
Pacific Rim + CoD isn't even Titanfall. If it was, it would be a far better game than it is. Its more like "Mech thing from Avatar + CoD".
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: lolmonade on September 18, 2014, 12:25:55 PM
That's why all the most expensive New IP projects now are nothing but "X meets Y", where "X" is the latest fad, while "Y" is the most popular game right now.
WatchDogs = "Hacking meets GTA" Titanfall = "Pacific Rim meets CoD" Destiny = "Halo meets WoW" (i guess)
This calculated approach apparently DOES work (see WD sales) but it creates generic, hollow products. ... And all these big releases are gonna be either yearly rehashes or "new", "X plus Y" IPs.
And I can label this exact same complaint against the Indie scene. Good lord, how many "Metroid + X", "Dark Souls + Y", or "Mega Man + Z" Indie games have we seen already at this point? How many Indie games do we see developed as just generic, hollow products created just to cash in on the 8-bit nostalgia craze of our generation? Combining old ideas into new ones is just the way the creative process works when you've had an industry that's run as long as ours has. Laying our industry's problems solely at the feet of the larger publishers is short-sighted in my opinion. Our industry has always been drawn to trends, for better or worse. It was just easier in the past to gloss over the worst because the economy was good enough to prevent the untalented companies of that era from bankrupting on one game.
THANK YOU. Derivitave work is just simply going to happen, just like how movie & TV stories are going to be derivitave. The important consideration is not whether or not a game concept is novel, as much as it should be "does the developer create a game that produces a novel gaming experience?".
It may be arguable whether or not the aforementioned games do so, but Azeke's comment dumbs down the games he derides in a way that can be parodied, just like you did.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: lolmonade on September 18, 2014, 12:27:07 PM
Regarding the actual subject in question:
My problem with GOTY discussions is that half of my gaming dollars are usually spent on games from the prior year. My personal "game of the year" would be Fire Emblem: Awakening.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: azeke on September 18, 2014, 03:18:52 PM
The important consideration is not whether or not a game concept is novel, as much as it should be "does the developer create a game that produces a novel gaming experience?"
That's what i am talking about too. All these AAA games feature the same cut and paste gameplay: "gunplay exactly like in Halo!", "loot like in Borderlands!", "open world gameplay, like in GTA".
My problem with GOTY discussions is that half of my gaming dollars are usually spent on games from the prior year. My personal "game of the year" would be Fire Emblem: Awakening.
Same. 95% of my gaming time is games released years and decades ago. I can count current releases i bought in 2013 on one hand. I am pretty sure the only 2014 game i bought this year is Crimsonland and that barely qualifies being remake of a decade old game...With October/December releases (Bayo, Korra, Lara Croft) i should fill my quota though.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: shingi_70 on September 23, 2014, 01:17:48 PM
So far The Walking Dead Season 2 and the recently released D4: Dark Dreams don't Die from swery. Both are very similar being sort of point and click patterned off of TV shows
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: ShyGuy on September 23, 2014, 07:00:13 PM
My problem with GOTY discussions is that half of my gaming dollars are usually spent on games from the prior year. My personal "game of the year" would be Fire Emblem: Awakening.
This is very true. My game of the year would be Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: Mop it up on September 23, 2014, 07:14:44 PM
Yeah, I have the same "problem," most games drop in price so quickly, and all games drop in price eventually, that I can't really justify buying games when they come out at full price. So I don't play much current stuff and buy a lot of "older" stuff. Smash Bros U may be the first time I pay $60 for a game, unless I find a pre-order deal or something.
I don't think we've had a particularly great year in gaming since 2010, though.
Title: Re: Substandard year in gaming--2014--GotY contenders?
Post by: MagicCow64 on September 23, 2014, 11:53:11 PM
Yeah, I have the same "problem," most games drop in price so quickly, and all games drop in price eventually, that I can't really justify buying games when they come out at full price. So I don't play much current stuff and buy a lot of "older" stuff. Smash Bros U may be the first time I pay $60 for a game, unless I find a pre-order deal or something.
I don't think we've had a particularly great year in gaming since 2010, though.
Agreed, I try to play as wide an array of stuff as possible, and have done a lot of catch up this year after having access to a PS3 for six months and getting a strong laptop, and very little has stood out. Nothing "big dog" has particularly impressed me since Red Dead Redemption in 2010 and Arkham Asylum in 2009. Nintendo has had some great stuff, and I would probably go with Tropical Freeze as my favorite 2014 game, but their release schedule is famously anemic. Indie-wise, my stand-outs are still Braid, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy, and Limbo, and those were 2008, 2008, 2010, and 2010. Honorable mention for Knytt Underground in 2012.
