Nice list, Slag! Glad to see Shovel Knight on there!

I almost included South Park: The Stick of Truth, but that game equally entertained and kind of bothered me. Which, well, is very South Park. ha. Still gave it a honorable mention at least. :)

Good list! I forgot Dreamfall Chapters was a thing. I ought to finish those first two games sometime.

Thanks TruthTellah!

Yeah I made sure to get to Shovel Knight before the list had to be done, in part because of your advocacy of it and in part because I really do like Jake Kaufman's music so much.

I totally get that feeling about South Park, eventhough I enjoy South Park I know it bothers a lot of people for very good reason. 2 was the absolute highest it could go on my list as a result, the source material is just too polarizing. That's the downside to the incredible fidelity Obsidian achieved..

I just hope somebody else is able to replicate this feat with maybe something more universally welcoming.

I hope you have a Happy New Year!

Oh man you really really should. I'm amazed you haven't knowing how you are about adventure games. I bet you'll really like them

I hope I'm not overselling them as I'm not sure how well they've aged, but the original Longest Journey has to be one of the very best Adventure Games ever made.

There's no $hitbot in them, but April Ryan is a fantastic protagonist. I hope future chapters of DC deal more with her

I never did get Blackwell finished in time, based on what you've said about it I suspect it might have made my list as well if I had gotten to it.

Thanks man and Happy new Year!

@slag: I got pretty far in the second game, but I think I got tripped up on a stealth element. I ought to come back to it.

Abyss Odyssey! That's the game I've forgotten to play. I keep hearing good things.

And hell yeah Banner Saga, it needs to get repped more.

Great list and great write-ups! I need to replay Longest Journey and Dreamfall before touching Chapters. It's just been too long for me to really remember the story. Regarding how they age, I'm tempted to say the original Longest Journey actually ages better because it's a fairly traditional point and click adventure game. Dreamfall has some gameplay elements that were kind of stiff and wonky even when it was initially released.

What's said above about South Park kind of represents what is so interesting about it in that I'm not sure any of it works at all if you put another IP into that framework. It's so intrinsically structured around South Park from start to finish. I mean, it's a 10-15 hour RPG, so right from the get go it's doing something that shouldn't work for a genre known for 100+ hour games.

@sparky_buzzsaw said:

Oh man I forgot about that part, Stealth sections ruin a the flow of a many great game if implemented poorly.

You might like the first one better Sparky, if memory serves it doesn't experiment mechanically like that.

Definitely man, Banner Saga had the great misfortune of being release real early this year, the deck is definitely stacked against games released in Q1 as people naturally forget about them. Although due to indie games I bet that doesn't happen as often as it used to.

Yeah Abyss Odyssey is a good time, not perfect and a little stiff in the controls in spots, but the general conceit is fantastic. And The main character is voice by the Major from Ghost in the Shell! Very fun game.

hey btw I noticed that the site defaults users to Shovel Knight (the character) instead of Shovel Knight (the Game) when I made my list. I think I've seen a few lists with the character listed instead of the game. Don't know if that affects your algorithm but figured I better mention that in case it does.

Thanks for doing this again!

Thank you!

I suspect you are right on both points.

Yeah I don't know if we'll ever see another South Park like game from anybody, most other IPs don't have creators like Matt and Trey who touch and control every aspect of the property. And there is probably even fewer that have creators that also understand video games as well as Matt and Trey do.

I sometimes wonder what a Star Trek game might be like if Gene Roddenberry was still alive and if were of a generation that "got" games.

South Park is Shakespeare in my eyes. The Stick of Truth is almost as good as the movie.

I'm itching to play it again. Man, I hope there's DLC at some point (although the DLC tab in the menu may be better off as a sly joke on the industry).

@slag: yeah that's been a problem in past years, the code checks for it and fixes it. But thanks for keeping an eye out, there have been a lot of user reported stuff like that that has helped me fix issues I didn't realize were there.

Great list! Even if the only two games on here that I had played I didn't particularly care for ;P Though in SSB's case that was with the 3DS version; had I played the Wii U version then that might have changed my tune a little! I also really want to one day play The Fall and Abyss Odyssey, just hafta hope they come to PS4 sometime.

Your point about how Final Fantasy continually reinvents itself with each release is a great way to be reminded why that series still deserves respect, even if the games themselves aren't as universally beloved anymore.

Man, I haven't even touched half the games here. I'd really like to try that new ff13 game, but my Ocd demands I finish the first and second before doing so. Each day the regret builds even higher that I didn't pick up a Wii U this past black friday. 2015 will be the year I can finally catch up on stuff like Bayonetta and Smash Bros.

I think it's honestly telling that I had a fun year with games and almost everything listed here passed me by for one reason or another. 2014 had plenty of great games, but was marred by technical messes and social eruptions. I know it'll be looked back on negatively, but in the end it was pretty all right. Great list Slag!

Nice list Slag! Dragon Age: Inquisition is one of the main games from the year that I haven't played, but would like to. I just haven't had time (and won't for a few months yet), and also have a few concerns about the game's use of filler as part of that length. Do you think the game justifies being as long as it is based on what you've played? Does it seem to hold up?

@thatfrood: no problem, I figured you might already know about it. Thanks again!

Yeah it really is one of their better works, I think the fact they've written so many episodes parodying game culture probably shows they understood what would work well in a game format. Personally I'm enjoying the game more than I did the movie, but the fact the game can even be talked about in that context is amazing in itself.

I don't think we'll be getting DLC, it's been nearly a year. Maybe a sequel someday at this point.

Thanks man!

Well I know how you feel about Dragon Age and you aren't wrong about the numerous flaws the game has, I'm just a sucker and a perhaps a bit of an apologist for sprawling RPGs. I really enjoy exploring and it at least in that aspect of the game Dragon Age still did better than most.

Oh I should have qualified, I was only including the SSB WiiU version. I really don't think they should be one wiki page on GB, but whatever. I totally agree with you about the 3DsSversion, I think Nintendo did what could possibly be done with a device like that, but Smash is so chaotic it really needs a large screen just so the player can even parse what is happening.

I'm surprised Abyss Odyssey isn't on PS4, I think they released on PS3 and 360. Really it should be ported, the game absolutely needs to be played on controller. Like a lot of things this year, it won't blow your mind but it's a decent little game.

Yeah that is what I've always loved about Final Fantasy, you just never know what you are going to see. In a way the type of praise Bravely Default often gets makes me a bit sad, while I can appreciate a good throwback, to see people talk about it being " the Real Final Fantasy" is disheartening because the series has always been about pushing limits, taking risks and drastic reinvention.

There's definitely a place in games for tradition, but doing things the traditional way is Dragon Quest's wheelhouse not Final Fantasy's.

Thank you!

It really was that kind of year, the fact there wasn't that clear AAA groundbreaking game means there isn't that consensus we've seen in past years in user lists. Kinda nice in a way, to see some diversity in the picks. I wonder if Thatfrood will be able to quantify that sort of thing.

Typically I'd say you could just jump right into a game without playing what came before it, but I think without at least some decent back knowledge of the story of the previous 2 FFXiii games, Lightning Returns would be nigh incomprehensible. The story is pretty out there as it is. So in this case your internal Ocd has a point.

I hear you on the WiiU, Once I've slogged through my steam sale purchases well enough I'm going to see if I Nintendo still has those reconditioned ones for about 200 or so or hopefully find a used one for cheaper yet.

Thank you Mitch!

DA:I isn't Kingdoms of Amalur bad with filler but it definitely has too much uninspired stuff and is flooded onto you from the start (which gives the impression you need to do it more than you should). However most of it doesn't really stop you from mainlining and that's probably actually a better way to play it, otherwise the combat becomes a bit of a joke. Definitely play on one of the 2 of the toughest difficulties otherwise the combat is mindless cool down mashing, if you play. Even then the challenge primarily comes from the Party members Ai, which isn't real great.

So I guess it's ok that it is that long, since its' length is really user driven decision. You could probably mainline the game in a 3-4 dozen hours or you could spend over a 100 picking up every shiny and fetching every quest if you wanted to (like I almost compulsively do).

Honestly I don't know if the game will be up your alley, it's more Skyrim-esque exploration focused than Dark Souls-esque (engrossing combat puzzles). If you like lore, exploration interacting with characters and that sort of thing (and I do which is why it's on my list) it's engrossing, but the combat is fairly unfulfilling.

I hadn't picked up on the "girl power" element of DA:I, though I also played a female. I simply didn't notice that it was technically out of the ordinary. Says something about me either being not particularly perceptive or pleasantly gender-blind. Not sure which. Great List Slag, Abyss Odyssey sounds interesting.

@mortuss_zero said:

Thank you Mortuss Zero!

I think what you described and also why you may have not noticed it is exactly why it was so powerful for me, because Bioware didn't make so big deal out of it, it just was ...ordinary.

There wasn't Eff yeah Grrrrrl Power try too hard moment, or NPCs making snide side conversation about it, or really any explicit mention of it at all. Cassandra, Leliana, Josephine just happened to be people who took charge when stuff went sideways because they were capable , the fact they just happened to be women was seemingly of secondary or no importance to the people of Thedas. The unsaid implication being that their gender had no impact upon their perceived value in the gameworld.

I didn't notice it myself until I went to the War Table for the first time and said to myself who is this Guy? Then I realized he was the only man there, and was kind of thunderstruck.

Thanks karkarov!

I know exactly how you feel, there were many primetime contenders I didn't get to at all this year (well last year now), Divinity, Dark Souls 2 and Mordor among them.

2014 was in actuality a pretty deep year for solid games despite maybe the lack of true standouts, I don't think I've ever had a harder time figuring out what should be on the list than this year.

Solid list. I'm currently working my way through the Final Fantasy XIII series so I'll hopefully be caught up by the time Lighting Returns hits Steam, I'm still pretty skeptical of the Doom Clock mechanic and sounds like that fear's not entirely unwarranted but looking forward to playing it nonetheless.

Also I agree about this year, I think it was the weakest in a while and there wasn't any game that I played and immediately thought "This is my #1!" but going through and ordering everything for my list made me realize there were still a bunch of good to pretty good games. Also makes looking at other people's lists more interesting, I think I have 1 game from your Top 10 in mine (Smash).

Thanks l1ghtn1n!

yeah I'm torn about the Doom Clock, I think I need to mess with it more. It definitely requires a different mindset than I typically use to approach open spaces.

Totally agree with you, this year has produced far more interesting lists than typical.