End of the Year 2014 – Gaming Mistress’ Favorites of the Year

As I began to write down my favorites of the year, I realized that I actually hadn’t played that many new games, games that had come out this year. There were a ton of re-releases and remakes and I ate those up, but actually looking at this year’s releases, there were many I wanted to play, but didn’t get to. The few I did get to, definitely get them.

The Wolf Among Us

Image owned by Telltale Games, linked from Wikipedia's The Wolf Among Us page

While the first episode of The Wolf Among Us came out in 2013, all the rest finished up in 2014, so it makes my cut, and with high marks. Based off of Bill Willingham’s Fables comic book series, The Wolf Among Us followed Bigby Wolf, the “sheriff” of Fabletown, a small section of New York City where all the known and usually loved fable characters have taken refuge after being forced from their homelands, no longer allowed to live out their fairy tale life, and now forced to live amongst the humans. You meet anyone and everyone, obvious characters such as Snow White and Beauty to obscure ones such as Bloody Mary and Bluebeard and more. Bigby was once the Big Bad Wolf of the Red Riding Hood story, and now in human form, he does his best to keep the Fables from killing each other when things get rough and dirty. When a call to break up a fight throws Bigby into the middle of something much more sinister, it seems everyone has their hand in it.

Telltale Games did an amazing job taking the world of the graphic novels and created an amazing noire-like world that, despite the lack of constant action, the story drives it all, leaving you wanting more at the end of each episode. If I had the chance, and now that all the episodes are out, I would forget what the game was about and just play all the episodes back to back just to get all the tasty bits all at once.

 inFamous: Second Son

If I had to pick my favorite game of the year, new or old, it has to go to inFamous: Second Son. Following the good (canon) ending of inFamous 2, years later, conduits start emerging, including the main character Delsin Rowe. Open world rampaging in the massive city of Seattle, you take on new challenges, new enemies, new powers, and the oh so tasty choices that make you a hero or an infamous son of a bitch.

Switching to a new main character is always hard, especially after dumping about 60 hours of gameplay of inFamous 1 and 2. I was surprised that I ended up like Delsin real quick, within the first few minutes of the game. Even as I lead him down the road of good or evil, the game always made me believe in what Delsin stood for, peace or anarchy, for everyone or for only himself. If you’ve got a PS4, grab it and enjoy.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call

curtaincall

Holy mother of titles, Batman! But it’s completely worth it, I swear. Curtain Call takes everything about the first Theatrhythm and puts it on steroids. All of the songs that were in the first game are in the new one, in full force, along with new ones too, including from some of the newer games like Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Adding in new ways to actually play the game (buttons and directional, buttons and stylist, and more), new game modes, a metric butt ton of characters, and still amazing as if it was the first time ever playing a Theatrhythm game.

I’m a big fan of music, studied it whenever I could sneak it in between my other classes, played an instrument from the age of 8, and pretty much will buy a collector’s edition of a game if it comes with a soundtrack. I’m a lifelong fan of Final Fantasy, have an incredible respect for Nobuo Uematsu, and can only hope to meet him one day to thank him for all the good he’s done for video game music. To have a game that is comprised of 95% of his work makes me squeal like a little child, clap my hands repeatedly in excitement, and treat like unwrapping a game like this like it was Christmas.

—————

Now, I do have a small handful of games that I wish I had gotten ahold of and they’ll be on my “Soon” list, and I know that I’ll have a field day with them.

LittleBigPlanet 3

I have no idea how I missed its release date and feel horrible that I did. I absolutely love the LBP series, be it with my niece or with a bunch of drunken friends, and can easily spend hours just messing around without actually making progress. It’s a great game to pick up no matter what age you are, or whatever age your co-players are. Play the story, build your own levels, do whatever you want. It’s one of those games where you’re free to do pretty much what you want without becoming overwhelmed with choices. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it and I suspect that I’ll fall in love with the game just like I did the others.

The Evil Within

4-evil-within-cover-art

I’m a complete wuss when it comes to horror games, but I love them. I also like paranormal games, and I also like cop dramas (like L.A. Noire and Sleeping Dogs). The Evil Within stars a detective that gets thrown into a world of fucking weird real quick. I’ve seen some, and while some of the writing is a bit odd or a little off, can’t really seem to figure out which it is, I’m excited to sit in the dark at 2am, half hiding under my blanket as I play. Now if I can only get over the fact that the chainsaw guy is right at the beginning…

 Murdered: Soul Suspect

Murdered-soul-suspect-logo

Sticking along with the whole paranormal and cop drama theme, Murdered: Soul Suspect is just that: You’re a cop named Ronan killed in the line of duty and now your final case is your own. The clues all point to a killer who posses out of this world strength and speed, but just why was Ronan pulled into the middle of it all is unclear. A combination of detective skills and paranormal abilities are used to unfold the mystery of who did it and why with the help of the only person who can see him, an unwilling medium. This is going to be one of those games I know I’m going to love only because it’s apparently story heavy.

————

So I was going to talk about Five Nights at Freddy’s 1 and 2, but Jimizzle covered it all in his post, and to be honest, I’m going to be sick of the game (in a good way) in the coming weeks due to the fact that I was gifted FNaF2 by a friend after I said that I would play and record it if anyone sent me a copy. I went and bought the first game and cried a little, knowing that I don’t like to back down from challenges. Ugh…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *