Reason # 1 – I’m what you’d call a “budget gamer”. I rarely have enough extra cash to throw down on a brand new $60 title, and because of this, I usually wait a month or two for the price to drop before I can justify the purchase. Another (unfortunate) reason for waiting on a title is to give the developers time to patch and fix any bugs that might have shipped with launch. (See Assassins Creed: Unity, Driveclub, and Halo: The Master Chief Collection as examples.)
Reason # 2 – I lack time. My real (paying) job kept me quite busy this year, and with that and volunteering at my church, my gaming time was severely limited in 2014.
Even with these setbacks, I was able to play a number of stellar titles this past year.
Here are my three favorite games for 2014
And then, Titanfall happened. To me, it looked like COD with mechs, and you know what? That was enough to pique my interest. Jumping in to the fray, I found myself loving the new mobility mechanics. Double jumping and wall running made it a blast just getting from point A to point B. Drop in titans half way through the match, that’s when things got awesome. Titans felt powerful, but not invincible, and the maps were designed so that, even in a titan, you never felt safe, and as a pilot, you were still able to dole out a good deal of damage to the big boys.
I believe Sledgehammer games had a solid hit on their hands with Titanfall. It may have lacked a single-player campaign, but I don’t feel it was really needed. I still find myself going back every now and then for another game. A lot of folks have stopped playing the game, but even so, I never have trouble finding a match.
Titanfall is available on PC and Xbox One.
Destiny seems to have polarized a lot of gamers out there. It was advertised as the next great space epic, yet when it was released, it’s most notable disappointment was the story. Mountains of funds were thrown into the development of this game (half a BILLION DOLLARS from Activison to be exact). Bungie plans to work on this franchise and ONLY this franchise for the next 10 years. It was a project that had never before been attempted by anyone in the game industry. All of this, however, was hype. One of Bungie’s greatest strengths is being able to build up hype for their games. Unfortunately, building hype is also their downfall. It was almost impossible for Destiny to live up to the standard that fans had built up in their heads.
Does this mean that the game itself is a failure? Certainly not. The combat mechanics are spot on, and the game is just downright fun to play. Every day there are new challenges and bounties to take on, and this makes it so that you never feel bored playing. Their first DLC came out just this month, and there will be a lot more where that came from. Destiny has eaten far too much of my time, and for that reason, it makes the list here.
If you haven’t picked up and played Destiny yet, I’m not sure what you’re waiting for. Destiny is available for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, and PS3.
Blizzard has crafted an absolutely superb game in Hearthstone. The best part about it is that they figured out a way to make sure that no matter how much you’ve spent on the game, you can still enjoy it. As of now, I haven’t spent a dime, (it’s kind of a rule of mine for free-to-play titles) and I’m still having a blast playing. They’ve offered a number of different modes for single-player and multiplayer, and they have a balanced reward system that ensures that you always feel rewarded, no matter how badly you feel you’re playing. Everything that can be purchased with real cash can also be acquired with in-game currency if you have the patience for it, and every character is free from the get go.
Hearthstone came out of nowhere this year, and set a new standard for the quality of a free-to-play game. It even merited a game of the year nomination at the Game Awards. It is currently available for free on PC, iOS, and Android tablets. Click here to go get it NOW. You have nothing to lose but time, and you’ll enjoy losing it.
Those are my picks for the year. The list was short, but man was it sweet. What games did I miss that you feel deserve an honorable mention?