2014 Video Games Thread
 

Time to start the new years video game thread!

Here is last years thread...

NBA 2k14

5000 free VC for down servers, posted Jan. 1st 2014

NBA 2K14 Free VC Codes: Grab 5,000 Virtual Points For PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 & Xbox One | sidhtech

Enter the dashes.

What's everyone looking forward to?

The game I want to get most is Smash Bros.

More later this year, but these should be released in the first quarter of this year:

Perfect Parallel - hopefully the first good golf game since Links
Banished - A great looking city-building sim

A rough top 10 most anticipated, as I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting here.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
2. Bayonetta 2
3. Broken Age
4. Transistor
5. Wasteland 2
6. Pillars of Eternity
7. Bravely Default
8. The Division
9. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
10. South Park: The Stick of Truth

A few other games I'm looking forward to that don't quite count and new releases.

Kentucky Route Zero, The Walking Dead: Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us - Three episodic games that still have most of their episodes to go in 2014.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and GTAV - Have been waiting for the PC port to play these two.

So it's not new, but new to me. Been playing a bunch of Radiant Historia on my 3DS (it's a regular DS game). Thoughts so far:

Solid RPG with a time travel mechanic. Has a lot of similarities to Chrono Trigger - enemies are visible on the map, and as long as they don't touch you, they don't fight you. When in battle, enemies are on a 3x3 grid, and you have techniques that can knock them around the battlefield. Consecutive attacks on an enemy that has been knocked into another enemy hit both enemies. You can also swap your turn in battle for someone further down the list for turn order (including enemies), so you can plan ahead to get large combos.

The time travel mechanic (super slight spoiler alert - this is all stuff you figure out in the first thirty minutes of game play) comes in the form of a book called the White Chronicle - decisions that you have to make as a character (so far all binary decisions) create "nodes," and as the game progresses, you can go back in time to these nodes and explore what the other possibility would have yielded. While this sounds awesome, in practice the game swings around the first major decision you make, creating two separate timelines that form the entirety of the game. So while this COULD be a super robust, interesting mechanic with a huge sprawling story, in reality it's rather limited. That being said, it makes for a fun romp so far. There are 230-something nodes (not all are decision-making nodes, some are simple plot points and others are side quests), and after 10 hours of gameplay I've completed 55 of them.

The story so far is an interesting one of political intrigue...but it's hamstrung a bit by being completely and totally devoid of subtlety. As an example, you'll get a great line that hints subtelely at some devious scheme...and in the next line the character actually says "well, let me spell it out for you" and then explains exactly what they mean. And in case you miss that heavy handed approach, the NPC'a around the event will hammer the idea home with more heavy handed exposition. It definitely doesn't ruin the story, but it does detract from it in my mind.

Biggest con so far for me is that when you travel back in time, you have to sit through all the dialogue again. They have a nice "fast forward" button that speeds it up considerably, but I'm not sure why they didn't add a "skip this conversation?" type of script. The major nodes are very dialogue heavy, so you will be sitting there for a minute or two holding the fast forward button to get through it.

Overall, very glad I purchased, enjoying it a lot, though I feel like with a few tweaks this could have been a truly great game.

Concern Now Heightened Over Universal Currency System in MLB 14: The Show | pastapadre.com

Ugh, I really hate this trend in sports games. I wish it would die quickly, but it seems to be a cash cow for publishers so that doesn't look likely.

Depends on how it's done. If you pay money to accelerate development / buy boosts, I'm fine with that. If you pay money to simply advance (or basically play the game at all), I'm against it.

For example, if I can pay money to become a superstar in a single season in NBA 2k14, or I can play for free and go through a more typical 2-4 season development period, that's cool. But if I stay a bench / role-player unless I pay money, I'm not buying that game.

Or if it's a football sim and I can pay money to get more scouting time in the draft, that's fine. But if I have to pay money to start a season or get ANY draft picks, that's not cool.

I would like to propose this thread get the same title as the previous one:
Gen 4 Console (PS4/X1) Discussion - Minus sales data and grand standing - Front Office Football Central

It's no big deal if someone wants to say "Hey! Game X broke 1M" or "Wow! That's the biggest day of any game ever". Those are facts and they're somewhat important to the discussion. But the dickish XBone/PS4 back and forth and concern trolling just makes these threads unreadable.

SI

Sounds like I'll need to take that off my shelf and play it at some point. It was rare right off the bat and the price on the secondary market jumped as high as $100 at one point. I happily found a copy at the $35 retail price at a little media shop that didn't know what they had and I kept it wrapped up because of the premium it was going for.

Fortunately, Atlus reprinted it maybe a year or so ago so it's fairly readily available.

SI

I still dislike this sort of system where spending this sort of currency earned in game replaces just having a normal player progression simulation. Plus there's the issues with NBA2K14 where players who simmed were left without enough magic development points for their players to get better n

Looking forward to a game out of nowhere like The Last of Us this year... that game was not on my radar, and became suddenly my favorite game of all-time.

Still need to play that one.

Do it -- I just finished it a few days ago while snowed in -- it's a gem.

Elder Scrolls Online invites sent for beta game - Technology & Science - CBC News

So Elder Scrolls Online is going for $59.99 cost out of the box and $14.99 monthly subscription. Then add on the cash shop on top of that. It's certainly a brave move. That's certainly a brave move from Zenimax.

Free to play after 9 months?

Due to the NDA, I can't tell you if I played in the beta.

I can tell you I uninstalled it and refused any further participation in the beta.

I won't be playing it with those kind of prices, but enough will to get all the money they can from us, then they will go free to play. 9 months is probably too short, but would not surprise 1-2 years from now

Up to 18 or so hours and 99/236 nodes complete. The game has gone from laughably easy to :banghead: difficult on a dime. Not really sure what happened, or if I'm just missing something...but where I'm at in the story, random enemies can one-shot my party members, and the boss of the area just completely wrecks my face. The boss of the previous area was literally the first time I had to do anything resembling strategizing in combat, but it still wasn't difficult. This area is just ridiculously hard. I took a break and ground out some levels for a bit to see if that will help, but...yeah, sort of frustrating. We'll see what happens when I get a chance to go back to the story, but I seem to be up to date on equipment and such, so I don't know what else I can do.

Super frustrating, because I was really enjoying the story.

Edit: Going back, the boss was a very nice challenge with some strategic changes on my part. The random enemies before him were still brutal, even after grinding a handful of levels. I'm not a very big fan of the huge, arbitrary swings in difficulty that the game seems to be displaying, but they're not game breaking.

Finally started playing Persona 4: Golden last week during the deep freeze out here when it was -50 wind chills outside.

36 hours in. Help.

I'm looking forward to this one. Has anyone played the demo?

Impressions: Neo Scavenger | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I got a PS Vita for a (very) surprising birthday present. I'm looking forward to the PS4/Vita interactivity, but outside of that, anyone got suggestions for "must have" titles?

Can't wait for Watch Dogs.

I played the demo a couple of years ago now. It must have been an early demo. It was interesting. I never lasted long.

Got an invite to be on the alpha team for Titanfall. Can't say much due to the NDA, but it looks like it is gonna be a good one.

:D

I've always wanted to put together a personal list of my most anticipated 2014 games, this seems like a good place. I'm a little partial to indie games, but let me know what you think. This includes games in early access.

1. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
2. Star Citizen
3. DayZ (Though full release probably in 2015)
4. Banished
5. MewGenics (Seems super weird. Right up my alley.)
6. Watch Dogs
7. Rimworld
8. Nuclear Throne
9. Rust
10. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

I'm probably omitting a game or two, but that's what I've got.

Depends on what genres you like. The Show is fantastic for sports. Long list of RPG's in the Vita thread if that's more of your style. Be sure to pick up all the free PS+ games as well because there's some great stuff available at no cost as well.

I think the only games that would qualify as must haves on the Vita are Persona 4 Golden and Tearaway. Gravity Rush and the Vita Uncharted game are two that might come close to that list and those 2 have been in the PS+ "Free Games" section for quite some time now.

Thanks guys. Tearaway is one I was reading about that sounds interesting. I guess I'm most interested in how the PS4 stuff works in practice.

Oh yeah!

I'm a bit surprised that they didn't mix up Titanfall a bit more. It'll make the CoD fans happy no doubt, but it's not breaking any new ground by any means judging from all the Alpha videos. Here's a couple of them.......


Titanfall Alpha Gameplay by Fran78888


Titanfall Alpha Gameplay by Fran78888

I can't say much due to the NDA, but I can assure you that Titanfall will revolutionize the way in which MBBF doesn't like the Microsoft platforms.

It's easier to flame I guess than enter a meaningful conversation on the merits of what we see in the video.

Looks like someone is back into 'sanctimonious' mode.

I think we all knew this was happening at some level, but someone has leaked the EA program that pays consumers to create positive propaganda in the social media arena. I'm guessing the 'create a BF4 video that doesn't focus on glitches' must have been a Herculean task.....

Titanfall looks amazing. No quick-scoping will be awesome.

Bad day for people who pay for positive publicity. ArsTechnica reporting on similar pay for positive press by MS during Xbox One launch window.

Stealth marketing: Microsoft paying YouTubers for Xbox One mentions [updated] | Ars Technica


Blog from the person who leaked the agreements. Pushing for an open disclosure on videos that are part of a paid ad campaign.

ReconXBL: Why I Leaked the XB1M13 Agreement

I wonder if Sony just gets people to relentlessly hype up their products on blogs and message boards, with particular emphasis on posting content slamming one of the competitors.

Though I suspect they use YouTube, too.

SI

I'm just surprised that MBBF managed to miss this story on his tireless searching of the internet for news of the new consoles.

UPDATE: PS4 error ‘ce-34878-0′ sees saves corrupted as more gamers lodge complaints | VG247

Of course, I'm sure I'm missing some angle about how this is obviously good news for the PS4 or ignoring the fact that gamers who lost saved games are probably just feeling relief that Sony isn't advertising on YouTube.

There's nothing inherently wrong with doing any of that.......as long as it's disclosed. Per the FTC, since the payment wasn't disclosed, Microsoft, EA, and anyone else involved in the pay for feedback scheme has violated the law. The FTC even has a clear example in the law that covers this situation. This same law dictates that anyone who is paid in any way to post on the internet must disclose that in all posts, blogs, or videos.




Edit: Just to clearly illustrate the difference between Machinima and MS fine print, see below. Machinima clearly stated in their deal that the participants were required to disclose their participation, while the MS contract clearly states that the user cannot disclose in any way that they were involved.

I'm amused that you think I have time to look all of that stuff.

Sony clearly states in the article that they're looking into it. Sounds like a good idea to me. I've personally not experienced it, though you have to think there's a big software update coming soon to clear up the occasional other errors I've seen in some situations while goofing around in some of the media.

Thank god you guys kept this shit out of the "non-grandstanding" thread. Also, my 94 year old grandmother appreciates the inclusion of some content she can read. It's been tough since the cataracts.

Sweet, another useful thread ruined

Please start a "my console is better than your console" thread and leave these debates in there.

:)

fwiw, the Machinima et al controversy was pretty huge stuff best I can tell, dominating the conversation for the past day or two with at least one of the very very few gaming oriented commentators I follow.

That's about as legit a bit of "video game" news as I can think of, at least as long as the topic covers stuff from the industry rather than just "OMGZ game X just came out"

Not sure how much of the subsequent bitching was aimed at that versus the introduction of the PS4 error stuff but both seem like legit topics to me.

{shrug}

Well, you did seem to have time to call stores about how many consoles they had in stock that you had zero intention of buying.

Candy Crush Saga maker King trademarks word 'candy' - chicagotribune.com


Say whaaaaaa ?

Hello?

They're also going after anyone using the word Saga in titles, starting with Stoic's recently released The Banner Saga.

King.com also going after The Banner Saga - NeoGAF

Agreed. It's a huge topic within the industry and it won't be going away any time soon.

The fascinating part about all of this is whether we see anything from Sony or other major publishers. If they've been involved as well, they might as well come out sooner rather than later because it's likely to get leaked in the coming days. I think the real shock is going to come if/when we find out that some major companies AREN'T involved.

Either way, we're likely to see a major shake-up in the video game industry.