Games of 2014 - July - December

July-August: Spec Ops: The Line. Average FPS on the surface: white male lead, tons of military jargon, enemy AI aren't particularly bright, 'action movie music,' and so-on. However, the story is what draws praise, but I wasn't really following. I have to go through again on hard mode, so I'll be able to shed more light in the coming weeks. The game goes along a moral path, but they give you some really shitty choices: choose if a comrade or an innocent dies, use chemical warfare to easily win a battle or fight more fairly. Your character isn't happy to do the things he does, and the context of everything is pretty dark.


Bravely Default is a game that I've been waiting for for a while. It plays like a final fantasy, complete with job classes that determine how much effort your battle takes. There are a million features to make the game easier--you can step and slow down battle speed, set your characters to auto-battle, even decide how often you want random encounters to happen!




The backgrounds in cities remind me of the layered paper art, and it definitely pops in the 3D mode. The music is quite awesome, and is the same composer of Attack on Titan. The developers left the Japanese audio in the game!! With all of the region-and-language locking that games from Japan still do, this is a nice treat!





Mario Golf: World Tour was almost free for me, and I can't say I expected much. No complaints, but it's definitely going to be a resell.

This summer, my closes friends and I gathered around a 60-inch tv and cursed each other out while playing Mario Kart 8 . This game RULES! My favorite thing about the game is the music, which you'll hear through all of your octane-burning, shell-throwing and opponent-cursing.

Red Pikmin are fire-resistant, and carry things quickly. Black pebble Pikmin break glass and do more damage when thrown.

Mario Kart 8 came with a promotion to download Pikmin 3 for free and I've been very happy with this. You are three captains that crash on a planet and have to solve puzzles, build, and collect resources during the day to survive at night. You have to make progress through sections of the levels within a certain time limit, unlocking more and more of each area.




September: Titanfall, Need for Speed: Rivals, Venetica, Destiny.

High-speed "pilots" running around shooting each other for a few minutes and then you hear a pop as a vehicle breaks the sound barrier. After a crash and some shaking, there it is: a giant customizable mech. You can either mount it, or have the AI do your dirty work. Titanfall is almost a perfect game. The graphics kick ass, the gameplay is fast, responsive, and lag is very minimized. This game is a rarity in that it is purely played online, in multiplayer mode. There is a campaign which is poorly narrated, which is 9 maps that play in constant rotation. As far as I know, the story was never promoted. It's a half-assed attempt anyway.

Need for Speed Rivals is a shame in that it's made by the same developers that did Burnout Revenge, which is the best game featuring cars ever made. Need for Speed, however, is boring. You play either the racer-criminals who....race, or the police who catch the racers and do all this cool shit with destructive car modifications. The story sucks, but dem graphics is tight! Too bad the studio doesn't make Burnout anymore.

Venetica is a buggy, bland, poorly-made game. You're the daughter of death, and the story starts with your love getting killed. You learn you have to go to Venice to catch the murderers. On your way there, you realize that there's a circle of villains who do their best to screw up your progress. Uhh...eventually you kill them. This game has repetitive combat, and some cool spell ideas, but between poor graphics, loading and saving errors, and bland voice acting, this game was simply an easy platinum trophy.

I didn't read a whole lot about Destiny before it came out. I was never a huge fan of Halo, so I didn't have my expectations higher than normal. After playing this game pretty much nonstop, my problem is that it's very repetitive, but the structure is amazing. The fps part of the gameplay is addicting, and the missions and bounties have been great for the month that I've been playing. The next major update is coming in December, and I'll be finding other games so that I'm ready again to spend countless hours playing at the end of this year.

dat draw distance...

October, November: Final Fantasy X HD, more Titanfall and Destiny,

Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

Wow wow wow! I was never an Xbox gamer. I had enough to keep up with PS2, Gamecube and the occasional Blizzard game. I missed the Halo franchise almost completely. I played the first 2 games' multiplayer for enough hours to learn my favorite weapons and the changes they made between games. I always thought the lack of music during multiplayer made the game way more boring than it should be. I guess the idea was to play your own music, but I respect game studios that consider music when they make games.

Sgt. Johnson is one of the best parts of all of these games. Ohh, and the graphics.

During November, my friend Zack and I played through Halo on Legendary mode, and Halo 2 on normal, after finding out that the hardest difficulty in the second game was harder than hell. I'm not a fan of 60hz in games, or that shitty 120hz refresh rate gimmick that all of the new tvs come with, but otherwise, the games are pretty. The only issues I have are the same with all of the Xbox One titles I've played: bugs bugs bugs bugs!

December: Sonic Generations.

casin' da scene...clearly some shit went down.

Murdered Soul Suspect . Published by Square Enix, this short story is about a detective who is killed trying to find out his murderer. You play the game as a ghost, and are able to walk through and manipulate a limited number of objects. The gameplay is rather slow and easy, and you could complete the game in one 7 hour sitting. However, the story and side stories are very engaging. The game is like the Last of Us in having a teenage girl who is well written enough and nuanced to make you care about as a partner.

The atmosphere is very well done, and I would heartily recommend this game for both casual gamers and trophy/achievement fiends. It's also a good girlfriend/boyfriend/younger brother game, because watching it is almost as fun as playing, despite it being a single player adventure.