Goty 2014

[Peanut]

Well, gang, we're closing in on the end of another year, so let's all get together and throw our 2014 GOTY lists out!

My personal list this year was very hard to nail down. It's been a really weird year for me when it comes to my gaming habits. I played a lot more old games this year than normal and I notice myself becoming more and more disinterested with current games as a whole. This list was actually surprisingly difficult for me to narrow down in the end, although my initial list of the 20 games I played through was actually way smaller than usual.

Anyways, here's my list! I've been trying to keep myself awake for the past two hours, so I spent waaay too much time on this sh*t. I wasn't trying to make super cohesive images or anything, either. Just kind of f*cking around for fun!


Although it's low on my list I truly believe this is the best Kirby ever made. I think Kirby games have always been cute, full of great music and simple fun, but they've never been terribly engaging. Kirby Triple Deluxe mixes the standard Kirby platforming fare with some great puzzle solving and addicting collectibles to create what was easily one of my favourite games of the year. Fine Field has somehow risen up to dethrone DeDeDe's Theme as some of the best Kirby music ever.


Ground Zeroes is almost barely a game. It's a glorified demo that Konami had the gall to charge $40 upon release, but god damn if it didn't catch me. The odd thing is that while I think Ground Zeroes is a decent little game on it's own, the game itself was not the reason it made the list. It was the potential it showed for MGSV proper and the excitement it caused for me. MGS games have never played great - let's get that out of the way. MGS4 made strides in the right direction, but didn't quite make it. Ground Zeroes showed that Kojima and co finally nailed the controls, which is what makes MGSV so potentially exciting.


Wolfenstein is probably my surprise game of the year. It was the absolute most refreshing shooter of the year and, somehow, managed to have one of the most engaging stories of any game this year. How? How did this happen? It's f*cking Wolfenstein! Solid core mechanics, fun scenarios and just enough exploration around an incredibly realized world and setting made Wolfenstein the best FPS I've played in years.


Fantasy Life became my life for a short period there. In the midst of some of my biggest projects of the year, when my time to play games was limited to lunch, bed and the sh*tter, I played Fantasy Life. I played the ever-loving sh*t out of Fantasy Life. There's something incredibly comforting about it that I can't quite put my finger on. It's very grindy, very MMO-ish in a lot of ways. It's a bit too chatty and the story is...well, it exists. It's also either far too straightforward and limiting or far too open and daunting, depending on who you ask, but I somehow found the balance between the two and loved every moment of it.


Captain Toad is what I love about video games and what's missing from video games today. It's quirky, it's bright and it knows what it wants to be. It isn't full of convoluted half-features, or worried about detailing every single moment-to-moment action to you. It just wants you to have fun playing it and I sure as hell did.


Child of Light is perhaps the most surprising game on my list. As I went back and thought about all the stuff I played this year it kept popping into my mind. It's a beautiful game, but it's also an incredibly rewarding RPG with a great battle system. The story also has some great twists and turns through out. It's a strangely endearing world and one I'd love to see revisited in a bigger way.


What is there to be said about Mario Kart 8 that we haven't already said here? It's polished, it's incredibly fun, has great music and killed it with DLC later in the year. It's vintage Nintendo and the first MK game I've really cared about since the DS. It's also one of those suuuuuuper rare games my fiance will actually play with me, which is a huge bonus.


I don't want to say I was surprised by how much I loved Sunset Overdrive, but I kinda was. I always expected it would be a pretty decent game, but I was afraid of the tone more than anything. Turns out it's actually legitimately funny and almost never delves into the kind of vile Internet level humor that makes my skin crawl. It takes awhile to get going, but when the traversal really clicks, it all falls into place in a way that's incredibly satisfying. It's also one of the rare instances where I got way attached to my created character, because the story and characters were so fun. Sunset City by The Bronx is also my song of the year.


Persona Q is more from my favourite game of all-time. Kanji gets all cuddly with a dog. Chie kicks monsters. This is all I need. <3


Well, this is a surprise to no one. I was hyped for Smash all year, but on 3DS and Wii U. The game is incredible. It looks amazing, it's tons of fun and it has a soundtrack to end all soundtracks. If they never put out another Smash, I think I'd be alright.

Games that didn't quite make the list include Hyrule Warriors, One Piece: Unlimited World Red, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, South Park and a few others and I'm probably missing something! Surprisingly hard to pull this list off in the end.

And I have a tie this year for "2014's Best Game Not Released in 2014" between Chibi Robo and Pirate Warriors 2. Loved them both.

Come on, gang! I want to see everyone elses list, too!