Twothousandandsixteen is shaping up to be the best year in videogames, literally ever for me. If it delivers that is. It just so happens that four of my all-time favorite games or game series are getting sequels. I'm not talking 'Oh, the previous one was great, so I can't wait for the next one', no. I'm talking 'I have offered my soul to the devil to play the previous installment, didn't regret it and now there is a new one coming'. Not one. Not two. Not even three. Four of those titles are coming in 2016. At least, supposedly. I'm sure they could be delayed, especially one of them. Still, it is a bright year ahead.

Besides soul-selling games, there is also a good amount of 'regular' fantastic games coming up. People say 2015 was one of the best years in games, but for me, 2016 will surpass it easily if they don't mess everything up.

Let me list these off. I'll start with the games I'll sell my soul for. These are in no particular order.

Dark Souls III

My Story: 18 playthroughs of Dark Souls. 38 playthroughs of Dark Souls II. 6 Playthroughs of Bloodborne.
Exciting features: I don't know. I don't want to know.

The game was announced. Miyazaki is on it with a second director that also worked on DSII and Bloodborne. That's all I know, really. And I'd like to keep it that way. I was unable to play Dark Souls completely blind. I saw Vinny playing it up to episode 3 of Load Our Last Souls. I played the parts before it blind, then moved through those parts, then I caught up to him. Played Dark Souls II completely blind and it was a great experience. Bloodborne blind and it was okay. Better than most games, but for a Souls game not that amazing.

I recently went back to Dark Souls and here's the thing: I came really close to putting the controller down and saying 'this is a bad game' a couple of times. I didn't feel this way at the time, but playing DSII for so long, it seemed I had taken some things for granted. DSII plays so much better. From the free-form rolling, to stat distribution, dual wielding and less forgiving blocking and stamina system. While I'm glad Miyazaki is back on it, I hope he is mostly in control of art-direction, world building, lore and so on. I hope the gameplay will be fine-tuned by the second director (forget his name) who worked on DSII and Bloodborne. For all its faults, Bloodborne did play very smoothly.

You see the thing here? Not only is there a new game coming to one of my favorite series of all time, it has all the ingredients and experience to be a perfect mix of Dark Souls and Dark Souls II. World building, lore, art, progression from DS and the gameplay, variety and polish of DSII. If that happens... oh man.

XCOM 2

My Story: Played Enemy Unknown for 400+ hours. Finished Impossible, but sweet spot was Classic. Same for Enemy Within, nearing 500 hours of play.
Exciting Features: Procedural generated maps, 5 soldier classes, more soldier customization, no more enemy pods, adaptive alien reinforcement, stealth and ambushes are more legitimate options, overhauled and deeper strategy layer

When Enemy Unknown hit, I had no idea I liked upgrading shit, to deploy soldiers with better shit, so they were better at messing shit up, which allowed me to upgrade my shit. I liked it so much, I literally had gaming sessions where I probably should have died. It wasn't just that there was a fantastic strategic layer to all the tactical gameplay, that boiled down to numbers going up. It was such that the numbers had to go up in order to remain effective. You could be the best tactical player in the world, but if you messed up the strategic side, you were screwed. The two were so tightly intertwined. This many days for this research, this many days for this soldier to be deployable again... there is definitely a hidden factor of enjoyment here. Because I've since seeked out many games that had similar systems, but none of them connected with me as much as XCOM did. They felt more added on in other games, whereas they truly belonged in XCOM; if that makes any sense.

Enemy Within released and the cycle continued. Goddamnit genetically modified soldiers are awesome. Yes, MEC's are good too, but they are mostly very effective. Not so much extremely awesome. You know what's awesome? Having to be on a roof with no ladder in sight, then just jumping onto the roof, then having more chance to hit because you shoot down. Then on the next turn have a Commander try and mind-control you to the point where your soldier auto-counters with a mental spike, dealing 10 damage to the Commander in question and him getting killed. Then proccing adrenaline in the form of feromones that makes your other soldiers spiked up so they have increased movement and crit chance for the next couple of turns. Goddamnit it's awesome. Too bad Adaptive Bone Marrow only healed up to the max without armor. I get the restriction, but going up to 8 health from 2 still doesn't matter that late in the game. Everything still one-shots you.

Either way, so yeah. I love this game and the expansion. Instead of saying why I am psyched for XCOM 2, how about I just show you this?

Mirror's Edge: Catalyst

My Story: Finished the first game countless times. Lost track at 30+. First clear took 6 hours. Today, I can finish the entire game in 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Exciting Features: Open world, no loading screens, much improved combat

When Mirror's Edge first launched, I was still actively doing parkour outside. While I stopped doing that as a sport in the meantime, I continued playing Mirror's Edge occasionally. There is something very relaxing about figuring the game out and being able to clear it quickly and smoothly, whenever you want. I had no idea I could appreciate such a game, but there it was. The first ever.

The timing was perfect too. I did parkour because I hated social protocol of moving around. Kids can run, adults can't. Screw that limiting mentality. We move slow because we are expected to move slow. We move along barriers and borders because we are expected to. It started to nag at me. I started to run, I started to vault over barriers. It felt great and Mirror's Edge came right at the time I was into it. The first (good) one.

It nailed it. Unfortunately for it, critics didn't like it as much. They didn't fully understand it, from what I gathered. I remember conversations from 1Up at the time as well as GiantBomb saying first person platforming doesn't work because you can't see your feet. Ha. Amateurs.

It's about getting in the flow. You don't need to see where you land, because you can feel it. You learn the game and the way it moves, much like you learn your body and how it moves. If you look where you land in real life, you're doing something wrong (unless training for a precision jump of some kind) why expect a game to show your feet all the time? What was never truly understood was that using the camera changes direction and velocity. I distinctively remember 1Up saying the concept was great, but was executed on poorly, because he had to jump to a beam, then shimmy across, breaking flow, to get ready for the next jump. In truth, you jump, then turn so you land exactly at the right spot to jump immediately off again.

This was how the game created flow and Time Trials became a thing. Shaving off seconds, even milliseconds, was a thing because of how the system of flow worked. Unfortunately, most time trials were soon ridden with exploits and glitches to get to the world record. But this was interesting in its own way. I remember this one exploit where the gold medal was set at 6 minutes, yet I could complete it in 2,5. That's crazy, but it was eye-opening and amazing at the same time.

I sense another disconnect coming for Mirror's Edge Catalyst as many critiqued the original for having forced combat scenes. It seems they are doubling down on that in Catalyst. But fear not, I'm sure the open world will allow you to not engage with it outside of main story purposes if you do not want to. And truth be told, I think much improving the combat was a better move than scrapping it entirely. Like it or not, combat can make up the flow of the game and in the sections in Mirror's Edge where it worked, it felt really, really good. If they improved that, then that sounds good to me.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

My Story: I am commander Shepard and this is my favorite shop on the Citadel. (Multiple playthroughs of entire trilogy. Never Renegade, it felt wrong. Everything around 2 was great, 3 had the best gameplay. Multiplayer was incredibly underrated. Also, Vanguards for life).
Exciting Features: [Speculation] We might get a canon ending for 3, Mako is back

Yeah, this is the one that might not make the 2016 release window. Currently listed for December 2016. I honestly could see it in February or March 2017. But still, you never know.

Mass Effect really is one of those series that just sticks with me. The memories I have of that game are so great. They often aren't necessarily about playing it, moreso about experiencing it. The universe is so fantastic I can't help but love it.

A lot has leaked about Andromeda, but nothing seems substantial enough to discuss at this point. Nevertheless, the original trilogy (that's right, screw Star Wars, it's not important) was fantastic. The first is a little hard to go back to, but the other two are great. In terms of pure gameplay, it definitely reached its high point in 3. The cooldowns were reduced such that combo's were a lot more effective and important. It was the moment where Mass Effect transcended into a fantastic playing game for me. It felt tight playing on that highest difficulty setting. Whereas it mostly felt punishing in the previous ones unless you did it in NG+. Of course, the pull was the story and the universe. It may not have delivered on that story in the end, but truth be told, I never thought it was as bad as people make it out to be. What's left was still an infinitely interesting universe, which we will be able to explore further relatively soon.

I hope the gameplay trend continues. No game really did was Mass Effect 3 did for me. And certainly no game ever came close to realizing such an interesting universe. Mass Effect is the series that made me truly sad that we'll never see true space travel in my life time. I would love to live in a time like that.

Just look at this official Andromeda trailer. It's short, sweet, it says absolutely nothing... but damn it if it still isn't getting me pumped.

The Others

So, those were my four most anticipated titles of 2016. Screw sequel fatigue, each of them are very promising sequels to my favorite games of all time. All in one year. That's actually crazy. And if that wasn't enough, there are still other fantastic games on the horizon for this year. Listing them off:

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

My Story: Finished Human Revolution on highest difficulty killing no one (except the dudes in the prologue/tutorial so achievement never procced. Whoops.

Let's face it... we all asked for it. And we're going to get it in 2016. I remember liking Human Revolution a lot for its visual style and what I thought were very good dialogues. I felt and saw emotion. The gameplay was pretty great. I loved the multiple-options-of-approach style of the game. Discovering all-new possibilities to tackle situations when taking another look at an encounter. The atmosphere, the backstory, the lore... I liked pretty much everything about Human Revolution and I'm ready for more.

Dishonored 2

My Story: Finished Dishonored 5+ times. Most were personal speedruns (not trying to set a record).

Teleporting is so good! I love movement in videogames. Teleporting and stealth... brilliant. Even though it was hard to pull things off from the get go, after a couple of retries, combat had a flow to it that I really liked. I got into the habbit of replaying the game and already knowing the encounters, basically teleporting through the game. It made the game extremely short, finished in a relatively short session. But not any less fun. It might have made it even more fun to be honest. I'm not a big fan of trial and error in stealth games, mostly because a lot of time is spent waiting. Having to redo a waiting section always felt super dumb to me. Re-waiting. No, thanks. Dishonored made that less of a problem by making combat a viable choice and by being able to teleport away if spotted. Or, teleport to the target to make things easier. Being able to teleport led to hilarious discoveries of how entire sections of the game could be skipped easily, without glitching, just exploiting the mechanic. I wish I could say it didn't ding my opinion of the game, but it did. It was a bit too easy to cheese. Still, I appreciated it a lot and that first playthrough is still a great thing. I hope they touch up stealth a bit more in the sequel and try to iron out exploits where possible. Whatever the case, Dishonored 2 will undoubtedly be great.

Hitman

My Story: Great memories playing Hitman: Agent 47. Played some Hitman 2, fell off after that. Got into Hitman: Absolution for a bit.

What I liked about Hitman was always the very slow and deliberate approach. You were one with the crowd, no one suspected you. I did hate timed missions for the same reason. I loved just walking around, inspecting the area for possible ways to assassinate the target. Looking for vantage points for your sniper or perhaps analyzing the patrol of your target to take him out quickly and silently around the corner. No other game was doing it like this. I really liked Absolution, as I felt it perfected the formula to an extend. It made me feel like I really missed out on the other Hitman games. I'm really eager to get back in there and explore. Explore the ways to kill. I like the feeling of being a professional. Approaching the situation with precision and care. From what I heard, this new game is scaling back some things Absolution did like Instinct, yet opening the world up more, having more options to assassinate, more interaction with NPC's and no checkpoints. No checkpoints. Sounds scary, but also a great move. Make me think about what I'm doing. Let's do this.

Destiny 2

My Story: Unspeakable amount of playtime. Played pretty much all the time with short (4-10 weeks) breaks in between DLC's. Currently on break number 4, which might last a lot longer.

Obviously, nothing has officially been announced. Rumors enough. It will be subscription based. It will be subtitled The Shattered Suns. Updates are free for subscribers. Yada, yada, yada. No one knows. No one cares. Those who don't like Destiny will probably not like Destiny 2. Those who love Destiny, will get Destiny 2 almost no matter what. I'm almost glad it will only come out in September so I have a chance to play all these other fantastic games before my life will be drained from my body again. This time, I'll make a plan for playing time though. Played way too much of Vanilla, The Dark Below and Taken King. This is my World of Warcraft. On crack.

Ending Thoughts

There is even more stuff coming, but it's mostly stuff I'm not sure about. The titles listed above, I'm sure I'll find amazing. The titles above that, have the potential to surpass my favorite games of all time. The purpose of this list was to showcase why 2016 has the potential to be the best year in videogames for me. I honestly won't have the time to play all these games as much as I'd want to play them, and then there are still other games coming that might be fantastic. Such as Far Cry: Primal. Or Final Fantasy XV. Or Darkest Dungeon. Heck, I still don't own an Xbox One (Halo 5 is the only game currently that I want to play on that) so Rise of the Tomb Raider is actually this year for me also. I have a short week to finish that until XCOM 2 comes out. This is going to be one crazy year.

Point Break is a remake of a film released in 1991 with the same name. The original film's purpose was to have an adrenaline filled movie with some big names (Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze) and a relatively simple plot to push it all forward. At the time it felt like a great movie to me, in hindsight it seems more B-ish in quality, but the core and soul of the film is still there. The remake has some things to live up to, and to put it bluntly, it doesn't. At all.

It's not an easy thing to recreate the original Point Break. The movie had soul. Reeves and Swayze played their roles really well and they were likable characters. The atmosphere of the movie was great and it had some cool moments that became signatures of the movie. But, one would not expect it to recreate it to the letter. It's an impossible thing to do. You'd expect the film to just take the same themes, the same basic storyline and concept and create something visually stunning in their own way. It just doesn't.

There are some cool moments in Point Break (2015), but they never truly feel unique and they don't really leave a signature. It doesn't help that shots are broken up when they really shouldn't be. The two divers in the above image 'liberated' money from a cargo plane, then proceeded to drop into a hole in the earth and only then activating their parachutes. That sounds like an insane thrill that just isn't captured. It shows a regular skydive with money flying everywhere, then it cuts to poor people seeing money fly, then it cuts to the next scene at the FBI. Only later is the final part of the dive shown where they fall into the crater. Broken up, it meant nothing. If it was one shot, it could've felt like a real rush. That's one of the problems with the film, it just doesn't really feel like the rush it should. Instead it feels rushed.

That's a bad thing. Because that was the one part I expected this movie to get right. The characters look good for their roles, but they honestly just lose in a comparison to the original in terms of likability. The story is 'meh', it's not terrible. It had some interesting ideas. Definitely not executed well, however. It's also missing a lot of the atmosphere. Why does it feel more like an underground party, back ally scene than a bunch of extreme athletes looking for the ultimate rush?

There is some good stuff in here though, the talk of the 'perfect line' is something that is relatable to the types of activities they do for instance, but for every good thing, there are so many bad ideas to wipe them. The film ultimately just doesn't have a signature at all. It feels forgettable, yet tries too hard to be like the original. Signature moments from the 1991 film are just shoved in here for no reason whatsoever. Look at this scene from the 1991 movie:

That moment made it into parodies and spoofs. It's iconic. Now, they put the same moment in this new film, but it just doesn't make any sense. Johnny just doesn't seem to have attached to Bohdi in the newer film like the way he did in the original. There is no reason for him to not pull the trigger. Also, why is he lying down? As you van see, Johnny hurt his leg in the original. There was a reason he was lying down. New Johnny just lies down while he could've gotten up. He's not injured at all, he is completely fine. He could've gotten up, and walked over to Bodhi to take him in. Instead he lies there, lets Bodhi escape, then shoots into the air. Again, for no reason, because he doesn't seem attached to Bodhi and he isn't injured so he can continue the chase.

It's just bad. The movie just has so little to offer of itself and all the winks to the original are out of place. They should have taken the concept and made something new, not trying to recreate it. It feels rushed and there is a lack of adrenaline. The movie is not what it should be. I will say that they did a decent job of mixing up the scenery. It does feel like they went all over the world, sort off. That with some other things made me not regret watching the movie, but once was enough. And even then it wasn't good. I guess the best thing I can say it that it made me want to watch Point Break (1991) again.

2 / 5

Fun fact, I went to the movies by myself for the first time in my life. Reason being everyone that could potentially go with me were all not able to for several weeks. I wanted to see it on opening day, at least week, so that wasn't going to work.

Either way, since I'm completely avoiding any spoilers, this will be very brief and ridiculously controversial if you take general opinion as wide known fact; I don't dig the original trilogy as much as most people do. I don't necessarily think the prequels are much better, but I do think parts of them are better, as parts of the original trilogy is better. But in all honesty, I never thought any of the Star Wars movies were particularly great. They all have issues, every single one of them. Even 'your' precious Empire Strikes Back is not without serious flaws.

That is, until The Force Awakens. I genuinely believe this to be the first actually great Star Wars film. No doubt it has flaws, but of the couple things I could mention, they are all nitpicky and didn't squander my enjoyment of the film. Heck, I can't even remember the parts I didn't like except for one minor thing. Whereas whenever someone brings up some Star Wars any other movie I'm instantly reminded about the stuff I don't like about it.

What makes it so much better in my eyes, is that it addresses all the complaints I have with the other films. First, I just don't think the Star Wars universe is that interesting. I can't tell you any other species apart from humans. If we're talking Mass Effect, all that stuff is tremendously interesting and I could name every single one of the top of my hat. In short, I hated it when the movies focused on the stuff that didn't interest me. This one does not, pretty much ever. It is constantly interesting, which is a feat given its long runtime.

Secondly, I think most of the Star Wars movies are either poorly acted/cast or directed. I don't think I found a single line of A New Hope convincing, much less the physical acting that was going on. In the prequels it is very clear who is acting well/casted appropriately and who isn't. Some just feel out of place. In The Force Awakens I thought every cast was spot on. I especially liked the performance of 'the bad guy'. I could see strong emotions and his voice was perfect for the part.

Lastly, while I'm sure something will turn up in the future, there is nothing about the plot that is nonsensical. Everything seems to happen for a reason and it feels coherent. Can't say as much about any of the other movies. Especially the original trilogy was dropping it hard for me here. 'Because this scene consists of characters that can't die yet, the opposition will now have 0% chance to hit for no in-universe reason'. The mark of any old Star Wars movie. It's luckily mostly absent here. Things feel powerful. Even Stormtroopers seem less like fodder and actually capable soldiers, dare I say for the first time ever.

So far, I have said why the movie isn't bad, rather than why it's good. I'm doing that on purpose because perhaps there is someone out there like me that liked Star Wars, but didn't feel like any of the movies were that amazing. Well, here is one that just might be. There is one reason why I thought it was great instead of mind blowingly awesome. It isn't a story spoiler of any kind, but it might spoil some so I put in in tags. To define the type of spoiler, in Empire there are a lot of starship and walker dogfights. If you consider that a spoiler for Empire, then the following is a spoiler for The Force Awakens: there aren't any impressive light saber fights in the entire film, which was very disappointing because it felt so powerful when there was some action there.

Either way, go see this movie. It is great, emotional and has a healthy amount of genuine humor. You won't waste your money or time seeing this.

5 / 5

Let's cut to the chase, Fast & Furious 7 is a fantastic movie, but it's not just that. It's a tribute to Paul Walker in a way that I appreciated immensely after I've been watching several clips of Vin Diesel talking about the movie and his brother. I wasn't too sure what to expect going into this movie. I thought the last two movies were the best in the series (Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6). Fast & Furious 7 is completely in the same vain as those two, and might just be the best of all three. It is over the top in a non-serious way. It out-Expendabled The Expendables. Pure action nonsense with characters that I loved, and a lot of famous names. The fact that Tony Jaa was in it was a cool surprise for me, although I thought they underused him a bit. But it's hard not to with such a rich cast. The insane action is something you need to be okay with, but as someone that actively loves that stuff, it was amazing to watch. Surreal isn't even close to describing how unrealistic it is, yet it is totally awesome, spectacular and cool. You can't be an embittered adult watching this. You still need to have that inner child in you that can appreciate fun. But if you have that, oh man is this a fantastic movie to watch.

Vin Diesel emotionally introducing the first screening of the movie to fans.

But here is where it went from 'just' fantastic, to one of the best movies I've ever seen; I knew going in that there were still some scenes left to shoot for Paul Walker after his death, and they were going to shoot those in a clever way without him. I stayed away from details as I knew I was going to see the movie. Turned out I picked up on some scenes where the camera seemed to actively avoid filming O'Connors face, whereas they usually focus on that so much. Realizing what was happening, I had a lot of respect for the way it was shot. Prior to these scenes we saw a scene where O'Connor is talking to Mia over the phone. As he knew what was coming up, it felt like he was saying goodbye to her, as she picked up on. This scene held so much significance in two ways. Firstly, because it felt like they were setting up to kill off O'Connor in some way, to justify him not appearing in any subsequent movies. But secondly, even moreso, it became obvious at the end of the movie, that this was actually not the case, and they instead used it as a set up for O'Connor to get out of this life and spend the rest of his time with his family, Mia, his son and upcoming daughter. Justifying him not being in any more movies after this, because he has moved on with his life away from the crew. Living on forever in the franchise. The act of setting up to kill someone off only to twist it, is nothing new, but since we knew what happened to Walker in reality, this was a very powerful moment nevertheless.

Vin accepting Best Onscreen Duo Award on Walker's behalf.

Especially in conjunction with the final scene of the movie. I don't think I can express how much I appreciated it. I knew I was watching CGI, and they were breaking the fourth wall pretty hard. It was apparent Dom wasn't talking about O'Connor at all, but about Walker. But it totally worked. The symbolism of the two cars, Dom and O'Connor parting ways was amazing, effective and emotional. There are no good men alive that won't get a sore throat or a tear in their eye when they watch that.

Visual Spoilers! Ending theme to the movie.

All that together, Fast & Furious 7 was more than a fantastic movie. It was a movie for my soul. It is one of the best movies I've ever seen in several ways. Even if I were to never see it again, I'd never forget it. That's the type of movie it is. To be clear though, I'm going to watch it at least 50 more times.

Rating: 5 / 5

I thought the movie was a pretty good watch. I thought the pace was pretty good, though a little more scenes at home in between each tour would have probably helped. However, I have a feeling that I'll look back on this movie in a pretty sour way. I'm not the type of person that often dislikes movies. I've never walked out a theater and I'm pretty much always entertained. I'm a fan of repetition as long as it's good, so whenever I need to put my feelings about the movie into words, I try to judge it on if I would see it again. This always gives me more insight into what I actually thought of the movie. In the case of American Sniper, while being entertained watching it, it's an immediate and clear 'no' to that question.

Whenever a movie makes me decide to never see it again while I'm still watching it for the first time, it messed up too much, basically. There are parts of the movie I liked, like the trauma taking effect. But everything like that becomes majorly flawed in some form or another, later on. I felt like I was watching a more nuanced version of the old WWII movies that tried to showcase the American effort in the war as heroic, good versus bad, instead of the tragic light grey versus dark grey that war always becomes. I don't recall seeing 'the bad guys' ever take casualties among innocents, unless inflicted by themselves. Reality is far from the showings of the movie in this regard. I would not call it propaganda as some have claimed it to be, but it is definitely a very pro-American made movie, including the hard miss attempt of invoking emotion with the ending title scene, which I did not appreciate very much. I guess I am not the target audience for such a film as I have no brotherly love for one country over another. But it's far from my biggest criticism of the film. It's just flat out dumb in some scenes. Blade is a cool movie because it is clearly a fantasy film. Cool looks and bad-assery are part of the course and they work because of the premise. Even if it is, I was never led to believe that American Sniper was trying to be anything but a realistic film adaptation of real events. As such, the ridiculous attempts at looking 'bad-ass' were just making me cringe.

An example of this (minor spoiler): The flashback showing how the two brothers grew up and were taught by their father about protecting people was the dumbest, most surreal thing I've seen all year. It blasted me out of the movie, picturing the director instructing the kid to remain emotionless while he nods his head, because of some misconceived idea of that being bad-ass.

I did not regret going to see this movie, but I'll never see it again and probably never talk about it again either. If you have 2 hours to kill you won't be bored out of your mind watching this, but they are better spend watching something else.

Rating: 2 / 5

It took a while to finalize this list as I was still playing some of the games on here to completion throughout the new year. I feel confident about this list now though. Overall, I can say I thought 2014 was a pretty stale year for games. It's one of those years where I put games on the last couple of spots on the list, while I do not necessarily feel that strongly about them. There were some absolutely fantastic games that reached the top of this list though. Here we go.

10. Threes!

I rarely get invested in a mobile game. Truth be told, I didn't get that invested in Threes! to the point of playing it non-stop all the time. But whenever I needed to wait for a minute or two, I found myself booting up a quick game of Threes! and it still remained a great game to play. It's simple, but very solid. It almost feels like a classic card game someone should have invented 100 years ago. It feels logical, plays well and has charm. It's not a game that holds your attention that long, but it doesn't need to. It will wait for you to return to it whenever you have another couple of minutes to kill.

9. FarCry 4

FarCry 3 was so good. It was sooo good. It was mostly good because it felt new. It created RPG-reward systems across playing the game in a regular way, set in the vast open world. FarCry 4 does everything that FarCry 3 did, but better. The systems are improved, the HUD and several other visual aids are cleaned up to make more sense and be more useful, the story is greatly improved and the hunting is as fun as ever. Unfortunately, it does everything FarCry 3 did. If you've played 3, you know everything there is to know about 4. It is great, yet depressing at the same time. Some might argue that Ubisoft can totally do this, so long as they make major changes to FarCry 5. I'm not too sure I agree with that, as FarCry 3 was in the top 3 of my list when it came out. FarCry 4 being at number 9 makes it a great game, but it could've reached the top again if it really tried.

8. Watch_Dogs

Widely known as disappointing, I enjoyed my time with Watch_Dogs. I expected more of it, but what I got to play was still very fun to go through. The main character isn't very interesting and I wanted a bit more hacking rather than pressing square, but other than that I found Watch_Dogs to be a very well made open world game. It had fun side-content that I actually wanted to play. Something that doesn't often happen in open world games, where I think the side activities in GTA are often trash; roaming the city in a giant spider-tank crawling on the walls of giant buildings was a ton of fun. I thought the ways Watch_Dogs uses its setting to alter reality to make room for silly nonsense like spider-tanks or invading aliens was rather clever, and fun. It's not without problems, but it has a solid core that I enjoyed playing.

7. South Park The Stick of Truth

I love South Park. I still watch the series faithfully whenever a new episode comes out. This makes me a bit biased towards the game, which doesn't really have any reason to be up here if it was anything other than South Park. The actual game part is fine, but nothing about playing it is amazing. It's all very simplistic systems designed well enough to make you able to play them in order to advance the story. Make no mistake, this game is about the world and the stories it tells, not the gameplay. But those stories and throwbacks are executed to well that they just made me laugh throughout. This game would've probably been higher on this list is the gameplay was more than surfaceable, and if they didn't awkwardly censor parts of the game. Something they apparently did because some countries in Europe have laws against those parts, so they decided to censor it for everyone in Europe instead of just those countries. I'm a bit offended by that choice, but I suppose that's what pirating is for. I paid my money for the game anyway, so I doubt anyone minds if I played it as intended. Just weird that I had to go through hoops to actually get it.

6. Wolfenstein: The New Order

Who expected this? I didn't. I loved Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but I haven't cared about a game in the series since then. Realistically, I think The New Order might be the best Wolfenstein game I have ever played. The story and characters are far more interesting than you'd expect. The voice acting is much better than I thought it would be as well. Most notably, the gameplay is really good. A throwback to the good old shooter style, with some of the new concessions mixed in. What I might like most about The New Order, is the progression. I'm a sucker for good, well paced, stages of progression, and Wolfenstein handles it superbly. I don't know whether it is just really hard to create a game where guns sound, feel, and look powerful, but fact remains that very few games do so; whatever the reason may be. For example, Call of Duty's guns sound like toys and feel like paper. The only game I remember to do it well was Rage. That's how guns are supposed to feel, supposed to sound. The New Order can now be added to that list, which is something I appreciate and respect.

5. Jazzpunk

Oh boy is it hard to describe Jazzpunk. Let's put it this way, I love South Park and think the humor in that game is the best part of it. Yet Jazzpunk is higher on my list. How about that? I like dry humor and Jazzpunk is filled with it. Except that it has such a wonderfully weird setting that it makes dry humor have a certain class. If someone walks by and sees you playing Jazzpunk, no matter if they are experienced gamers, or people who've never played one in their life, the response is always the same: 'dude... what the hell is that'? That pretty much sums up Jazzpunk. It surprises you, even when you've figured out what type of game it is. It's an experience, not something you'd play more than once (except maybe after a long time has passed), but that makes it even more impressive it made it this far on my list as I generally prefer games that have interesting, gamey mechanics.

4. This War of Mine

Probably the biggest surprise of them all as I didn't even know this game existed until it was available for purchase. I like survival games (when done interesting and right), I like permanent-death systems, I like a sim-aspect to my games and I like nice aesthetics. This War of Mine was groomed to succeed for me. Though it isn't perfect in any of the mentioned aspects, it does have them all, and it has a good intertwine between them. I guess the only thing I don't really like about it, is that it is a bit on the short side for this type of game. That said, it is one of the few games that actually punishes stealing, combat and killing. Some games try to do this by inflicting a money penalty for doing these types of things, but since most game economies are suckered to make you the richest person alive, this ends up not mattering regardless. This War of Mine actually makes it affect your people. Affecting their feelings. As you'll come to realize, it is hard to keep their feelings in check to prevent bad shit from happening. There are various status effects for your characters, all in stages of 3. Light, moderate and worst. At worst, they will make your characters incapable of doing anything. Keeping all the effects in check can be challenging since you require resources to do so. But getting those resources can be tricky. Going for the easy way will result in negative modifiers towards those status effects which will require you to deal with it by often getting more resources and... yeah. It's a great circle of pain and pleasure. The part where this all becomes great is that it totally works. You can accurately predict these effects 99,9% of the time. It is a mechanic heavy game, doing certain actions will yield certain consequences all layered on top of other mechanics and systems. In conclusion, if something goes bad, it is really your fault. The good thing is that the game communicates clearly why it was your fault, what you could have done to prevent it and how you can absolve it if possible. The odd thing is that the game doesn't seem to promote subsequent play, while a game like this is suited for that so perfectly.

3. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

The first free to play game ever to hook me. The thing is, I played this game without paying for 3 months straight. And when I say straight, I mean straight. I have missed some days, even weeks, but not that many. After looking at my 200 hour playtime, I didn't feel so bad about putting in some money. This made me have more options for decks which resulted in me playing the game even more. I guess that is their business model, hook you in to play until you start spending. But I don't really feel like the fool here. In terms of money to time ratio, Hearthstone is still cheaper than most games I've played all year. If I needed to pay the amount I paid for it in order to be able to play it, I totally would. In fact, that would be a steal. I predict I will play this game for years upon years to come. It moves so well, it is so simple, yet it has such insane depth. I like pretty much everything about it. In fact, I'm playing it right now as I'm writing this.

2. Destiny

Here's a funny story. I didn't like Destiny at first. I remember when I was Level 5, going to the Bungie forums to complain about the game. The missions are boring beyond hell and where is the good loot? I didn't like firing most of the weapons I had that much. Also, why do I need to go back to orbit and then come down for another mission in literally the exact same area? That's mark number one: some serious design flaws. Then, at around Level 13 or so, I stopped playing Destiny for two weeks. It didn't get more interesting, I didn't get any better gear and since there are only 7 more levels to go, how much better can it get and is that even worth it? Screw it, I don't need to see the last 30% of this game. It's all the same nonsense. That's mark number two: the story is mind numbingly tedious and boring.

To this day, I still don't remember what it was exactly that got me to pick up the controller and decide to finish Destiny. It could be that there was just nothing else out, or that I wanted to get it done for GOTY anyway and might as well do it now. Though I can't say for sure. However, when I finished the game I received the Pulse Rifle everyone gets for finishing it. I thought 'why give me a weapon when I beat the game? Why would I use it?' Then, I unlocked some things. The Weekly Heroic? Daily Heroic? What's that? Queen's Event? What's this? Just what is going on? Turns out Destiny has an endgame. I wanted to see that new weapon for a bit anyway, so started doing some of this stuff. Turned out, I really liked firing this weapon I got. For some odd reason, the combat got a lot more fun, even against low level enemies because I enjoyed using this gun more. I quickly unlocked some better armor and obtained even more rare weapons as rewards. They felt so much better than the stuff that came before it. The Strikes were still fun to play online, and I liked using these new weapons. Then, people started talking about the Raid that was coming up. You needed to be Level 26 to do it. I could do that, I thought. This game is kinda fun now. Two of my online friends helped me obtain a Legendary helmet through the Queen's Event. It was a ridiculously hard mission of which I was way under leveled, but these two were eager to help me out. We played for hours. It was 0400 when we finally beat the mission (interestingly because one of my friends discovered he could just snipe the boss in 10 seconds; played hours before he discovered this). I got my helmet and quickly rose in level. Soon thereafter I was able to straight up buy Legendary gear for doing all the Bounties I did. It wasn't long until I was Level 26, ready for the Raid. I was hooked before I did the Raid.

By this time, Destiny was the game I enjoyed playing the most. I remember being out and about with a friend doing bounties, waiting for a public event, when we heard a very distinctive high pitch shot fired. 'Dude, what is that'? we said. Running up to the guy from which the sound originated, we took a look at his gear. Ice Breaker. Exotic Sniper Rifle. Victims spontaneously combust, damaging others around them. Regenerates ammo over time. 'Man, that's awesome. I want that thing'. A month later I finally got it (as of this writing I actually have 5 of them now) and you know what? I still really enjoy using it. I don't know why, but for whatever reason they decided to keep all the good stuff way back until you've long finished the game. The missions still suck, but you don't really play those. The Weekly events are tons of fun, the Legendary and especially Exotic weapons feel so great to use (added to the Rage and Wolfenstein list).

Then I played the Raid, Vault of Glass, for the first time. I can honestly say it was the best, most fun and rewarding experience I had with online gaming all year. I was hooked before playing the Raid, but hooked even more afterwards. I just enjoyed playing this game so much. As of this writing I have 3 characters. A Level 32 Titan, level 30 Warlock and 31 Hunter. Ready for the Hard version of Crota's End to be released. Eager for more DLC after that. And after that. And after that.

Starting new characters made me realize though, how much the base game sucks. Level 1-20 is not even a little bit fun, so I eventually just leveled by playing PvP since that is actually fun. I think I still do not officially have Mars unlocked on one of my characters since I didn't bother playing the story that much. And even once you reach 20, You need to be 22 to get to do some decent Weekly stuff and you need Legendary or Exotic weapons because they are more fun to fire. I had the luxury of already having an arsenal on my Titan that I could share with my other characters once they reached 20. Otherwise, I would've never even considered starting a new character to begin with. I'm okay with grinding, so long as that grinding is fun. But the base game of Destiny is nothing but grinding without being that fun.

The thing is, what's there once you reach the place of goodness is so good... probably the best playing game all year. But Zevvion, I hear you ask, why put this game on number 2 of your 2014 GOTY list if you say the base game basically sucks? A fair question. A tough one to answer. Let's put it this way, if I were to do a Game of the Generation type thing with, let's say, 20 slots, Destiny probably wouldn't be on there. If Destiny was what it needed to be, it wouldn't just be on there, it would be on there near the, if not the actual, top. Right now, it's just on my 2014 GOTY list and not even the number one spot. There is no denying Destiny isn't what it should be. But if you ask me, there is also no denying that Destiny is a great game regardless of that fact.

I think I read it best on Kotaku, or perhaps it was Polygon, a quote that sums Destiny up quite well: 'Destiny isn't a great game but man, Destiny is a great game'.

1. Dark Souls II

Dark Souls just might be my favorite game of all time. When I first started playing Dark Souls II, I thought: 'Oh hell yeah! This is so much better than Dark Souls!' A little later I thought 'Hm, it might actually not be as good as Dark Souls'. Still a bit later I thought 'Okay, this is definitely worse than Dark Souls'. Yet later I thought: 'Well, this might actually be slightly better than Dark Souls'. A while later: 'I think this might be somewhat up par with Dark Souls'. Later: 'No, this is definitely a lot better than Dark Souls'. Even later: 'No, Dark Souls is definitely better'.

Fast forward 11 playthroughs, I have come to a very sensible conclusion: Dark Souls II is a great game that surpasses its predecessor in several ways, but also loses some of what made Dark Souls so great. It is surprisingly good in some area's, yet disappointing in others. I can practically distill the elements I like about these games so much and simply say which one is better at that particular element. Let's do that for arguments sake:

Gameplay - Dark Souls II

Accessibility - Dark Souls II

Challenge - Dark Souls II

Story/lore - Dark Souls

World - Dark Souls

Online - Dark Souls II

Overall design - Dark Souls

Performance/Interface - Dark Souls II

Let's give some more context to that list though. Some of them speak for themselves. I really enjoyed how Dark Souls II made me question my tactics and soft forced me to change it up a bit. I only realized by the time I finished it, that I didn't even have a shield equipped on my character in DSII. I checked to be sure, but I had a shield on every single character I ever created in DS. Sure, I rolled when it made sense, but I always also used a shield. In DSII, shielding sometimes just doesn't work. To this day it is probably the biggest complaint I have about Dark Souls: everything works. It makes the game too easy. If someone tells you Dark Souls is a hard game, I think you are legally obligated to slap them in the face. It is the biggest misconception about the game there is. It doesn't hold your hand, no. But that doesn't mean it's hard. All of the Great Bosses in that game can be defeated using the exact same tactic: putting on heavy armor, strafing and hitting the attack button. That's it. Literally. I'm not even leaving slight details out. You outdamage the boss, you win. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that is bad, but if you finished the game 17+ times, you would like to still have to make an effort. Dark Souls II doesn't always allow for this strategy. Or any strategy. Each boss can be defeated multiple ways to be sure, but you can't use the exact same one on all of them. Regular enemies are also more aggressive and sometimes in greater number. This lead to me ditching the shield. You can't just take stamina hits your days, because you have to absorb so many attacks that your guard will break, whereas in DS you could block practically forever because the aggression was low enough for you to regain all your lost stamina, ready to block again. You can definitely still use the shield, it's just not effective all the time anymore. I liked this change. Just like how I liked most gameplay changes to DSII. I felt rolling was more necessary, but they also changed rolling to not actually be unpredictable. It works much more fluently now, as opposed to Dark Souls. It led to some spectacularly fun boss fights, that I don't think are met by any of the Dark Souls bosses. All I remember from those is putting on heavy armor and whacking them in the face until they die. Velstadt in Dark Souls II... what a fun, epic fight. I died on him a few times, but I was never frustrated fighting him. I was learning from him. That's not to say Dark Souls II doesn't have easy bosses. Oh yeah, it totally does. But it also has challenging ones, which I found to be a great change since Dark Souls lacked them pretty much completely.

On the other hand, the world and creature design was a lot better in Dark Souls. I liked the inter-connectivity of all the area's a lot. I always thought it was too bad the second half of the game basically ditched that philosophy and became more or less linear. Dark Souls II completely lacks it though, and I found I wasn't as engaged with the world as a result. That's not to say Dark Souls II world is bad, far from it. It's better than most. But it is being compared with one of the best out there and in that it sorely loses. For that matter, that's not to say the gameplay in Dark Souls was bad. In fact, I think the changes in Dark Souls II are only slight, yet very effective, to improve it.

If we are talking online purely, then Dark Souls II wins without any question whatsoever. The mere fact that someone lag-stabbing you in DSII means they were beside you and suddenly popped up in a backstabbing animation, makes it already lightyears better than in Dark Souls when someone can be yards away in front of you and still winds up backstabbing you somehow.

Besides that, I had more fun with being summoned in Dark Souls II. It led to some amazing moments. The most amazing one not even related to a fight, but the act of making something clear with the ingame gestures. Let me paint the picture: I was summoned in front of a boss door. I see poison in the pool in front of me. I look at my summoner, he bows. I use the 'hell no' gesture. I turn around and point forward. He just looks at me. I run through the poison, away from the boss door. He looks at me. I make the 'come over here' gesture, then turn around and point forward. He finally follows me. We backtrack through the area until we get to the bonfire. I point forward at the bonfire. He just looks at me. I point to the bonfire again. He just looks at me. I light my torch at the bonfire, then point forward to the bonfire again. He finally lights his torch. I walk over to the ledge at the mill and point forward. He walks out there, lights the mill on fire and the poison disappears. He spend a full minute alternating between bowing and performing the 'pumped up' gesture. We eventually went into the boss room and killed her.

That's an experience that made quite the impression on me, while I had no such thing happen in Dark Souls. I found it more fun to be summoned in DSII than in Dark Souls. Not in small part due to the fact that you get summoned more often. Some bosses are summon heavy, because a lot of people never quite learn to deal with them. Stuck in their ways of how they think they should play Dark Souls, refusing to adjust their playing style. Ruin Sentinels and Smelter Demon are good examples of this. They are both instances where blocking doesn't work as well and dodging does. To this day, you'll still see people going in there trying to block attacks and whatnot. It makes it fun helping them out, though at the same time it makes me sad reading how 'Dark Souls II is worse than Dark Souls' because people refuse to adapt. I'm not saying summoning is a thing you shouldn't do. But when you found yourself getting frustrated and summoning instead, you missed a learning process, and that process is one of the reasons that makes me like Dark Souls II so much. It is neat that the game allows you to bypass this learning process if you don't feel like engaging with it.

Let's get it clear forever though, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II... they aren't hard games. They never were. They merely expect you to learn and if you do not wish to do so, you can summon. Anyone can play and finish it. Finishing it doesn't make you master the game, but it does give you a great sense of accomplishment regardless. If you were ever hesitant about playing these games because of their reputation for being hard, trust me and go play them. Right now.

All in all, if I were to make a Game of the Generation list, Dark Souls II would probably end up a spot lower than Dark Souls. Yeah, the gameplay is better, but not by that much. Meanwhile, the world is a lot more interesting in Dark Souls, and as a sequel, you should be held to higher standards. If Dark Souls II would've come out before Dark Souls, then who knows. But it didn't. And we can't pretend that it did.

It took a while to finalize this list as I was still playing some of the games on here to completion throughout the new year. I feel confident about this list now though. Overall, I can say I thought 2014 was a pretty stale year for games. It's one of those years where I put games on the last couple of spots on the list, while I do not necessarily feel that strongly about them. There were some absolutely fantastic games that reached the top of this list though. Here we go.

10. Threes!

I rarely get invested in a mobile game. Truth be told, I didn't get that invested in Threes! to the point of playing it non-stop all the time. But whenever I needed to wait for a minute or two, I found myself booting up a quick game of Threes! and it still remained a great game to play. It's simple, but very solid. It almost feels like a classic card game someone should have invented 100 years ago. It feels logical, plays well and has charm. It's not a game that holds your attention that long, but it doesn't need to. It will wait for you to return to it whenever you have another couple of minutes to kill.

9. FarCry 4

FarCry 3 was so good. It was sooo good. It was mostly good because it felt new. It created RPG-reward systems across playing the game in a regular way, set in the vast open world. FarCry 4 does everything that FarCry 3 did, but better. The systems are improved, the HUD and several other visual aids are cleaned up to make more sense and be more useful, the story is greatly improved and the hunting is as fun as ever. Unfortunately, it does everything FarCry 3 did. If you've played 3, you know everything there is to know about 4. It is great, yet depressing at the same time. Some might argue that Ubisoft can totally do this, so long as they make major changes to FarCry 5. I'm not too sure I agree with that, as FarCry 3 was in the top 3 of my list when it came out. FarCry 4 being at number 9 makes it a great game, but it could've reached the top again if it really tried.

8. Watch_Dogs

Widely known as disappointing, I enjoyed my time with Watch_Dogs. I expected more of it, but what I got to play was still very fun to go through. The main character isn't very interesting and I wanted a bit more hacking rather than pressing square, but other than that I found Watch_Dogs to be a very well made open world game. It had fun side-content that I actually wanted to play. Something that doesn't often happen in open world games, where I think the side activities in GTA are often trash; roaming the city in a giant spider-tank crawling on the walls of giant buildings was a ton of fun. I thought the ways Watch_Dogs uses its setting to alter reality to make room for silly nonsense like spider-tanks or invading aliens was rather clever, and fun. It's not without problems, but it has a solid core that I enjoyed playing.

7. South Park The Stick of Truth

I love South Park. I still watch the series faithfully whenever a new episode comes out. This makes me a bit biased towards the game, which doesn't really have any reason to be up here if it was anything other than South Park. The actual game part is fine, but nothing about playing it is amazing. It's all very simplistic systems designed well enough to make you able to play them in order to advance the story. Make no mistake, this game is about the world and the stories it tells, not the gameplay. But those stories and throwbacks are executed to well that they just made me laugh throughout. This game would've probably been higher on this list is the gameplay was more than surfaceable, and if they didn't awkwardly censor parts of the game. Something they apparently did because some countries in Europe have laws against those parts, so they decided to censor it for everyone in Europe instead of just those countries. I'm a bit offended by that choice, but I suppose that's what pirating is for. I paid my money for the game anyway, so I doubt anyone minds if I played it as intended. Just weird that I had to go through hoops to actually get it.

6. Wolfenstein: The New Order

Who expected this? I didn't. I loved Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but I haven't cared about a game in the series since then. Realistically, I think The New Order might be the best Wolfenstein game I have ever played. The story and characters are far more interesting than you'd expect. The voice acting is much better than I thought it would be as well. Most notably, the gameplay is really good. A throwback to the good old shooter style, with some of the new concessions mixed in. What I might like most about The New Order, is the progression. I'm a sucker for good, well paced, stages of progression, and Wolfenstein handles it superbly. I don't know whether it is just really hard to create a game where guns sound, feel, and look powerful, but fact remains that very few games do so; whatever the reason may be. For example, Call of Duty's guns sound like toys and feel like paper. The only game I remember to do it well was Rage. That's how guns are supposed to feel, supposed to sound. The New Order can now be added to that list, which is something I appreciate and respect.

5. Jazzpunk

Oh boy is it hard to describe Jazzpunk. Let's put it this way, I love South Park and think the humor in that game is the best part of it. Yet Jazzpunk is higher on my list. How about that? I like dry humor and Jazzpunk is filled with it. Except that it has such a wonderfully weird setting that it makes dry humor have a certain class. If someone walks by and sees you playing Jazzpunk, no matter if they are experienced gamers, or people who've never played one in their life, the response is always the same: 'dude... what the hell is that'? That pretty much sums up Jazzpunk. It surprises you, even when you've figured out what type of game it is. It's an experience, not something you'd play more than once (except maybe after a long time has passed), but that makes it even more impressive it made it this far on my list as I generally prefer games that have interesting, gamey mechanics.

4. This War of Mine

Probably the biggest surprise of them all as I didn't even know this game existed until it was available for purchase. I like survival games (when done interesting and right), I like permanent-death systems, I like a sim-aspect to my games and I like nice aesthetics. This War of Mine was groomed to succeed for me. Though it isn't perfect in any of the mentioned aspects, it does have them all, and it has a good intertwine between them. I guess the only thing I don't really like about it, is that it is a bit on the short side for this type of game. That said, it is one of the few games that actually punishes stealing, combat and killing. Some games try to do this by inflicting a money penalty for doing these types of things, but since most game economies are suckered to make you the richest person alive, this ends up not mattering regardless. This War of Mine actually makes it affect your people. Affecting their feelings. As you'll come to realize, it is hard to keep their feelings in check to prevent bad shit from happening. There are various status effects for your characters, all in stages of 3. Light, moderate and worst. At worst, they will make your characters incapable of doing anything. Keeping all the effects in check can be challenging since you require resources to do so. But getting those resources can be tricky. Going for the easy way will result in negative modifiers towards those status effects which will require you to deal with it by often getting more resources and... yeah. It's a great circle of pain and pleasure. The part where this all becomes great is that it totally works. You can accurately predict these effects 99,9% of the time. It is a mechanic heavy game, doing certain actions will yield certain consequences all layered on top of other mechanics and systems. In conclusion, if something goes bad, it is really your fault. The good thing is that the game communicates clearly why it was your fault, what you could have done to prevent it and how you can absolve it if possible. The odd thing is that the game doesn't seem to promote subsequent play, while a game like this is suited for that so perfectly.

3. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

The first free to play game ever to hook me. The thing is, I played this game without paying for 3 months straight. And when I say straight, I mean straight. I have missed some days, even weeks, but not that many. After looking at my 200 hour playtime, I didn't feel so bad about putting in some money. This made me have more options for decks which resulted in me playing the game even more. I guess that is their business model, hook you in to play until you start spending. But I don't really feel like the fool here. In terms of money to time ratio, Hearthstone is still cheaper than most games I've played all year. If I needed to pay the amount I paid for it in order to be able to play it, I totally would. In fact, that would be a steal. I predict I will play this game for years upon years to come. It moves so well, it is so simple, yet it has such insane depth. I like pretty much everything about it. In fact, I'm playing it right now as I'm writing this.

2. Destiny

Here's a funny story. I didn't like Destiny at first. I remember when I was Level 5, going to the Bungie forums to complain about the game. The missions are boring beyond hell and where is the good loot? I didn't like firing most of the weapons I had that much. Also, why do I need to go back to orbit and then come down for another mission in literally the exact same area? That's mark number one: some serious design flaws. Then, at around Level 13 or so, I stopped playing Destiny for two weeks. It didn't get more interesting, I didn't get any better gear and since there are only 7 more levels to go, how much better can it get and is that even worth it? Screw it, I don't need to see the last 30% of this game. It's all the same nonsense. That's mark number two: the story is mind numbingly tedious and boring.

To this day, I still don't remember what it was exactly that got me to pick up the controller and decide to finish Destiny. It could be that there was just nothing else out, or that I wanted to get it done for GOTY anyway and might as well do it now. Though I can't say for sure. However, when I finished the game I received the Pulse Rifle everyone gets for finishing it. I thought 'why give me a weapon when I beat the game? Why would I use it?' Then, I unlocked some things. The Weekly Heroic? Daily Heroic? What's that? Queen's Event? What's this? Just what is going on? Turns out Destiny has an endgame. I wanted to see that new weapon for a bit anyway, so started doing some of this stuff. Turned out, I really liked firing this weapon I got. For some odd reason, the combat got a lot more fun, even against low level enemies because I enjoyed using this gun more. I quickly unlocked some better armor and obtained even more rare weapons as rewards. They felt so much better than the stuff that came before it. The Strikes were still fun to play online, and I liked using these new weapons. Then, people started talking about the Raid that was coming up. You needed to be Level 26 to do it. I could do that, I thought. This game is kinda fun now. Two of my online friends helped me obtain a Legendary helmet through the Queen's Event. It was a ridiculously hard mission of which I was way under leveled, but these two were eager to help me out. We played for hours. It was 0400 when we finally beat the mission (interestingly because one of my friends discovered he could just snipe the boss in 10 seconds; played hours before he discovered this). I got my helmet and quickly rose in level. Soon thereafter I was able to straight up buy Legendary gear for doing all the Bounties I did. It wasn't long until I was Level 26, ready for the Raid. I was hooked before I did the Raid.

By this time, Destiny was the game I enjoyed playing the most. I remember being out and about with a friend doing bounties, waiting for a public event, when we heard a very distinctive high pitch shot fired. 'Dude, what is that'? we said. Running up to the guy from which the sound originated, we took a look at his gear. Ice Breaker. Exotic Sniper Rifle. Victims spontaneously combust, damaging others around them. Regenerates ammo over time. 'Man, that's awesome. I want that thing'. A month later I finally got it (as of this writing I actually have 5 of them now) and you know what? I still really enjoy using it. I don't know why, but for whatever reason they decided to keep all the good stuff way back until you've long finished the game. The missions still suck, but you don't really play those. The Weekly events are tons of fun, the Legendary and especially Exotic weapons feel so great to use (added to the Rage and Wolfenstein list).

Then I played the Raid, Vault of Glass, for the first time. I can honestly say it was the best, most fun and rewarding experience I had with online gaming all year. I was hooked before playing the Raid, but hooked even more afterwards. I just enjoyed playing this game so much. As of this writing I have 3 characters. A Level 32 Titan, level 30 Warlock and 31 Hunter. Ready for the Hard version of Crota's End to be released. Eager for more DLC after that. And after that. And after that.

Starting new characters made me realize though, how much the base game sucks. Level 1-20 is not even a little bit fun, so I eventually just leveled by playing PvP since that is actually fun. I think I still do not officially have Mars unlocked on one of my characters since I didn't bother playing the story that much. And even once you reach 20, You need to be 22 to get to do some decent Weekly stuff and you need Legendary or Exotic weapons because they are more fun to fire. I had the luxury of already having an arsenal on my Titan that I could share with my other characters once they reached 20. Otherwise, I would've never even considered starting a new character to begin with. I'm okay with grinding, so long as that grinding is fun. But the base game of Destiny is nothing but grinding without being that fun.

The thing is, what's there once you reach the place of goodness is so good... probably the best playing game all year. But Zevvion, I hear you ask, why put this game on number 2 of your 2014 GOTY list if you say the base game basically sucks? A fair question. A tough one to answer. Let's put it this way, if I were to do a Game of the Generation type thing with, let's say, 20 slots, Destiny probably wouldn't be on there. If Destiny was what it needed to be, it wouldn't just be on there, it would be on there near the, if not the actual, top. Right now, it's just on my 2014 GOTY list and not even the number one spot. There is no denying Destiny isn't what it should be. But if you ask me, there is also no denying that Destiny is a great game regardless of that fact.

I think I read it best on Kotaku, or perhaps it was Polygon, a quote that sums Destiny up quite well: 'Destiny isn't a great game but man, Destiny is a great game'.

1. Dark Souls II

Dark Souls just might be my favorite game of all time. When I first started playing Dark Souls II, I thought: 'Oh hell yeah! This is so much better than Dark Souls!' A little later I thought 'Hm, it might actually not be as good as Dark Souls'. Still a bit later I thought 'Okay, this is definitely worse than Dark Souls'. Yet later I thought: 'Well, this might actually be slightly better than Dark Souls'. A while later: 'I think this might be somewhat up par with Dark Souls'. Later: 'No, this is definitely a lot better than Dark Souls'. Even later: 'No, Dark Souls is definitely better'.

Fast forward 11 playthroughs, I have come to a very sensible conclusion: Dark Souls II is a great game that surpasses its predecessor in several ways, but also loses some of what made Dark Souls so great. It is surprisingly good in some area's, yet disappointing in others. I can practically distill the elements I like about these games so much and simply say which one is better at that particular element. Let's do that for arguments sake:

Gameplay - Dark Souls II
Accessibility - Dark Souls II
Challenge - Dark Souls II
Story/lore - Dark Souls
World - Dark Souls
Online - Dark Souls II
Overall design - Dark Souls
Performance/Interface - Dark Souls II

Let's give some more context to that list though. Some of them speak for themselves. I really enjoyed how Dark Souls II made me question my tactics and soft forced me to change it up a bit. I only realized by the time I finished it, that I didn't even have a shield equipped on my character in DSII. I checked to be sure, but I had a shield on every single character I ever created in DS. Sure, I rolled when it made sense, but I always also used a shield. In DSII, shielding sometimes just doesn't work. To this day it is probably the biggest complaint I have about Dark Souls: everything works. It makes the game too easy. If someone tells you Dark Souls is a hard game, I think you are legally obligated to slap them in the face. It is the biggest misconception about the game there is. It doesn't hold your hand, no. But that doesn't mean it's hard. All of the Great Bosses in that game can be defeated using the exact same tactic: putting on heavy armor, strafing and hitting the attack button. That's it. Literally. I'm not even leaving slight details out. You outdamage the boss, you win. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that is bad, but if you finished the game 17+ times, you would like to still have to make an effort. Dark Souls II doesn't always allow for this strategy. Or any strategy. Each boss can be defeated multiple ways to be sure, but you can't use the exact same one on all of them. Regular enemies are also more aggressive and sometimes in greater number. This lead to me ditching the shield. You can't just take stamina hits your days, because you have to absorb so many attacks that your guard will break, whereas in DS you could block practically forever because the aggression was low enough for you to regain all your lost stamina, ready to block again. You can definitely still use the shield, it's just not effective all the time anymore. I liked this change. Just like how I liked most gameplay changes to DSII. I felt rolling was more necessary, but they also changed rolling to not actually be unpredictable. It works much more fluently now, as opposed to Dark Souls. It led to some spectacularly fun boss fights, that I don't think are met by any of the Dark Souls bosses. All I remember from those is putting on heavy armor and whacking them in the face until they die. Velstadt in Dark Souls II... what a fun, epic fight. I died on him a few times, but I was never frustrated fighting him. I was learning from him. That's not to say Dark Souls II doesn't have easy bosses. Oh yeah, it totally does. But it also has challenging ones, which I found to be a great change since Dark Souls lacked them pretty much completely.

On the other hand, the world and creature design was a lot better in Dark Souls. I liked the inter-connectivity of all the area's a lot. I always thought it was too bad the second half of the game basically ditched that philosophy and became more or less linear. Dark Souls II completely lacks it though, and I found I wasn't as engaged with the world as a result. That's not to say Dark Souls II world is bad, far from it. It's better than most. But it is being compared with one of the best out there and in that it sorely loses. For that matter, that's not to say the gameplay in Dark Souls was bad. In fact, I think the changes in Dark Souls II are only slight, yet very effective, to improve it.

If we are talking online purely, then Dark Souls II wins without any question whatsoever. The mere fact that someone lag-stabbing you in DSII means they were beside you and suddenly popped up in a backstabbing animation, makes it already lightyears better than in Dark Souls when someone can be yards away in front of you and still winds up backstabbing you somehow.

Besides that, I had more fun with being summoned in Dark Souls II. It led to some amazing moments. The most amazing one not even related to a fight, but the act of making something clear with the ingame gestures. Let me paint the picture: I was summoned in front of a boss door. I see poison in the pool in front of me. I look at my summoner, he bows. I use the 'hell no' gesture. I turn around and point forward. He just looks at me. I run through the poison, away from the boss door. He looks at me. I make the 'come over here' gesture, then turn around and point forward. He finally follows me. We backtrack through the area until we get to the bonfire. I point forward at the bonfire. He just looks at me. I point to the bonfire again. He just looks at me. I light my torch at the bonfire, then point forward to the bonfire again. He finally lights his torch. I walk over to the ledge at the mill and point forward. He walks out there, lights the mill on fire and the poison disappears. He spend a full minute alternating between bowing and performing the 'pumped up' gesture. We eventually went into the boss room and killed her.

That's an experience that made quite the impression on me, while I had no such thing happen in Dark Souls. I found it more fun to be summoned in DSII than in Dark Souls. Not in small part due to the fact that you get summoned more often. Some bosses are summon heavy, because a lot of people never quite learn to deal with them. Stuck in their ways of how they think they should play Dark Souls, refusing to adjust their playing style. Ruin Sentinels and Smelter Demon are good examples of this. They are both instances where blocking doesn't work as well and dodging does. To this day, you'll still see people going in there trying to block attacks and whatnot. It makes it fun helping them out, though at the same time it makes me sad reading how 'Dark Souls II is worse than Dark Souls' because people refuse to adapt. I'm not saying summoning is a thing you shouldn't do. But when you found yourself getting frustrated and summoning instead, you missed a learning process, and that process is one of the reasons that makes me like Dark Souls II so much. It is neat that the game allows you to bypass this learning process if you don't feel like engaging with it.

Let's get it clear forever though, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II... they aren't hard games. They never were. They merely expect you to learn and if you do not wish to do so, you can summon. Anyone can play and finish it. Finishing it doesn't make you master the game, but it does give you a great sense of accomplishment regardless. If you were ever hesitant about playing these games because of their reputation for being hard, trust me and go play them. Right now.

All in all, if I were to make a Game of the Generation list, Dark Souls II would probably end up a spot lower than Dark Souls. Yeah, the gameplay is better, but not by that much. Meanwhile, the world is a lot more interesting in Dark Souls, and as a sequel, you should be held to higher standards. If Dark Souls II would've come out before Dark Souls, then who knows. But it didn't. And we can't pretend that it did.

Yeah, so... Gametrailers is going through all sorts of shit lately and I just want to be sure I have a cool place to put all my blogs. This isn't really the type of 'outward-blog' most people write. The blogs I write aren't really meant to inform others, they are mostly there to keep track of my gaming stats for me personally; while I'm at it others can check it if they want. That's kind of cool.

I'll use the same format as I did on Gametrailers and post all my blogs here (as well) from now on. That is, if I buy a game, clear a game or whatever, I'll blog it. I keep track of how long I've played them, how I liked them, how many times I've cleared them and so forth.

So should you read this just know I blog regularly for tracking purposes. Not really for allot of other things.