Gaming Highlights of 2014

As we move into the new year, I thought it would be a great time to reflect on some of the games I played this year that stuck with me, and maybe made me think differently about design or games in general.

A note - I'm talking about games I played this year - they may be older and have come out earlier. Also, just because I'm bringing up a game here doesn't mean I think it's perfect, just that it stuck with me in some way and made me think.

• Threes - This is a remarkable game in its own right, very polished, with a creative and intuitive (maybe even arguably educational?) core mechanic. But what stuck out to me more than that was how 2048, a pretty clearly inferior clone, so quickly stole its thunder. More than anything, that killed any dreams I might have had of going into mobile dev at any point in the near future. I know this has been obvious to a lot of people for a while, but the race to the bottom in the appstore market essentially demands mass adoption for profitability, and mass adoption tends to rely on viral success - which is as much chance as anything to do with quality.
  
  I also believe this is why studios that have had massive success in the app market tend to have difficulty sustaining and following up on a massive hit - viral success is ephemeral and difficult if not impossible to replicate.
  
  It's kind of disappointing, because on Apple's side, at least, they seem like the natural fit for some sort of "premium" app store. The current app store feels really un-Apple - more like the old 50 game CD-ROM discount racks in a CompUSA than the polished elegance and refined palate of the brick and mortar Apple stores.

• Bravely Default - This was a great return to form for JRPGs. Also, a really good example of how to introduce a single innovation to an old system (banking turns in turn based RPG combat) and fully leveraging it to make many of the aspects of the base system better and richer. For example - ressing is always a massive pain in old JRPGs because typically you have to pray that your just-ressed guy doesn't get one-shot on the turn he gets ressed. In Bravely Default, you just bank an extra turn, and then res and heal on the same turn. There's a clear strategic cost (you lose a turn) and an interesting decision to make whereas before you just had to cross your fingers and hope. Just one example, and not one of the most interesting (actually, some of the most interesting involve how it changes timing, vulnerable periods, etc. on boss fights, and how it helps deal with random encounters taking forever).

• Wonderful 101 - Homage isn't something that many games do, and when they are done, they aren't always done that well.
  
  Platinum Games are masters of homage in games, and Wonderful 101 is by far the best example of their mastery. It features at least 3 - maybe 4 - loving, faithful, and honestly funny parodies of other games, and executes them well enough to be genuinely fun outside of the context of parody.

• Destiny - Destiny refined a few warts of the MMO genre in some really clever ways - Light, for instance, is a really clever and clear way of communicating and delivering end-game gear progression.
  
  Additionally, more than any other PvE MMO-style content I've played, Vault of Glass felt like delving into and exploring a hostile environment. It is not matchmaking friendly, but it IS really fun and satisfying to move through with a small group of people.
  
  Also, was surprised how much I enjoyed automatic voice-chat in an MMO. My experiences in Destiny have made me way more willing to go onto Vent/Mumble/TS in WoW Group Finder pugs, because I genuinely had mostly positive experiences in Destiny. I've pretty much had the same experience in WoW - so far.

• Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag - I loved Sid Meier's Pirates! (the classic 2D versions) growing up. I loved Wind Waker. Black Flag nailed the pirate fantasy even better than those did. Also, the technical wizardry involved in getting two ships, on an ocean that is at least somewhat dynamic, to properly line up, and then having AI path/move from one ship to another blew my mind - especially given the experience that I've had setting up much simpler things in games I've worked on. That was something I've legitimately never seen before in a video game.

• Papers, Please - Something that other people have written a lot about is how the narrative content in Bioshock conflicts completely with the gameplay. Papers, Please is the anti-Bioshock. The narrative, what the game is about and what it is trying to communicate, is experienced almost entirely through the gameplay. The drudgery and boredom punctuated by terror, the frustration of constantly changing rules, the pressure between doing something ethical and trying to feed your family, are things that the mechanics of the game are making you feel, not little conversations or cutscenes in between the gameplay itself.
  
  Papers, Please is probably the best example of "games as art" I've played - because the mechanics themselves, not the assets or the words in-between the gameplay sections, are communicating the themes and ideas.

• Divinity: Original Sin - Usually, RPGs are not very confident in procedural systems. Designers like to feel special and our feelings get hurt when players figure out ways to shortcut things we make. Even games like Skyrim/Oblivion/Fallout, which purport to have fancy dynamic AI running things, has a ton of plot-locked doors, unkillable NPCs, and honestly pretty static interactions with characters during actual gameplay (i.e. combat). But Divinity pretty much lets the player get away with using the game's mechanics, with breaking the order of quests, with playing with the environment, etc. The freedom encourages player creativity, and I end up trying to figure out my own solution to problems rather than trying to figure out the designer's solution. Spending 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get past a trap to a chest, and then having an Indiana-Jones-vs.-Sword-Guy moment and just using my teleport spell on the chest to teleport it over the lava and back to me, and then having that ACTUALLY WORK was one of my favorite gaming moments of the year.
  
  It says a lot that I don't think I've EVER played an RPG where fire spells all actually cause things/the environment to catch fire, which can then be doused by casting a water spell.