Games I Liked 2014

Games I liked 2014

This year, I have fewer games to recommend in my annual installment of games I liked that I first played this year (they could have come out at any time).

Gone Home

Gone Home is a non-combat exploration game. You are a college student that comes home late one stormy night to an empty house. Obviously, you have to tear the house apart and snoop through your family's personal items to figure out where everyone is. Gone Home, while short, is a well crafted exploration game that really leaves the player feeling good at the end.

Shadow Warrior

This remake of the late '90's Shadow Warrior is the second game developed by Flying Wild Hog, and I loved it. It's a perfect meeting of new and old, pairing hordes of enemies and groan-worthy jokes with powerful abilities, an out-of-the-box plot, and some of the best controls for a PC game that I have ever played. Also, great job on an in-house engine. Until I looked it up, I assumed this was running on Unreal tech.

Sanctum 2

I liked Sanctum, even if all of my friends didn't really care for it. I like Sanctum 2 even more, even if some of my friends still don't get it. Sanctum 2 has a better learning curve, different character classes, and more tower types. Ideally played with friends.

Noteable Mentions

Payday: The Heist

Payday is a 4-player coop game where you play the part of masked criminals that must work together to take hostages, break into vaults, and kill police. While I'm not thrilled about killing policemen, the gameplay itself is a nice alternatvie to standards like Left 4 Dead. The biggest downside of Payday is that only the first two levels can be played on easy, after that you better know what you're doing.

GUN

How about a game set in the West for a change? I wrote a review for this one recently, so I'm not going to go into details in this article. Not a groundbreaking game but something a little different.

Far Cry 3

It's a big open-world game with lots of sidequests that'll give you many hours of gametime. Some action segments are pretty great, but I'm leaving this on as an Noteable Mention because the endings really soured the whole thing for me.

Wolfenstein (2009) Review

Game: Wolfenstein
Year (s): 2009
Company: dev. Raven Software, Endrant (multiplayer portion only)
pub. Activision
Engine: modified id Tech 4 with Havok physics
Type: Shooter
Viewpoint: First-Person
Metacritic Score: 74
My Score: 70! Do I hear 65? 65! Do I hear...


Price (as of November 8, 2014)


Regular list price on Steam: Not available
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping): $21


My Game Time: 18 hours


Obligatory Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujycthb4B8E






Plot
B.J. Blazkowicz returns in a follow-up to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. This time the nazis are using energy from the black sun dimension to create monsters and super weapons. Stop 'em, B.J.!


I got this on a $5 Steam sale, but it's no longer available. Speculation on the Steam forums is that Wolfenstein publishing rights may have been bought back from Activision by Bethesda for Wolfenstein: The New Order.


Save System


Manual Save? Yes
Quick Save? No
Area Load Save? Yes
Checkpoint Save? Yes




Combat and Gameplay
Basic shoot-and-crouch gameplay, because health regenerates if you take cover. It's not a mechanic I love, but it's bolstered with a variety of guns (you're not limited to just two or three at a time) and a few abilities. Abilities include a bullet shield, damage amplification, crappy slow motion, and good slow motion. Energy for ailities runs out fast, and can only be recharged at certain spots. So while you have the illusion of being a badass, you're mostly going to be crouching a lot and taking headshots of enemies with really easy A.I.


The exception for this is boss fights, which are generally a pain in the ass compared to the rest of the game. Also annoying are flying enemies that fire a volley of rockets at a time (= you're dead!).


Completing main and side missions earns gold. You can also find gold and intel hidden all over the place. Gold buys upgrades for weapons and abilities.




Expansions / DLC / Sequels
2014 saw the release of Wolfenstein: The New Order. Set in an alternate history, it is not a direct sequel to the 2009 game. Developers of the most recent installment liked Wolfenstein 3D but thought the 2009 game, “was crap.”




Final Thoughts
Return to Castle Wolfenstein was good at the time, and as a sequel, this one feels rather uninspired. The stealth element of Return is gone. Silenced weapons will alert every enemy in the neighborhood. Collecting intel is fine, but looking behind a garbage can to find a bag of gold is pretty comical in 2009. I liked the variety of weapons and the upgrade system, but felt hampered by crappy abilities, easy A.I., and a frequent need to find cover.


If you want a fun new Wolfenstein game, I've heard good things about The New Order. If you want a shooter with cool abilities, I'd opt for Crysis or F.E.A.R. Or even Raven's 2010 game, Singularity. All good games. Pass on Wolfenstein 2009.

GUN review (video game)

Game: GUN
Year (s): 2005
Company: dev. Neversoft
pub. Activision
Engine: unknown
Type: Shooter with minor RPG elements
Viewpoint: Third-Person
Metacritic Score: 76
My Score: 88


Price (as of November 1, 2014)


Regular list price on Steam: $19.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping): $31


My Game Time: 10 hours, 90% completion


Obligatory Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tJjouDWMZU






Plot


You go on a steamboatt with your father. Indians attack and your father dies. You set out to find out why the boat was attacked, and wind up on seeking to stop an evil man's bloodthirsty path to the lost city of gold.


Engine
I couldn't find out what engine this game uses. It's not on Wikipedia, and the generic title of the game makes it impossible to find anything online. As far as 2005 games go, graphics are pretty similar to Unreal Engine 2. I didn't run into any noticeable bugs.




Save System


Manual Save? Yes, usually
Quick Save? No
Area Load Save? No
Checkpoint Save? Totally




Combat and Gameplay
Ride horses! Shoot horse thieves! Throw dynamite! If you're hurt, drink some whiskey! I'm surprised there aren't more shooters set in the Wild West (the only others I can think of are Red Dead Redemption and Call of Juarez). Aside from the main mission, the player can collect bounties, hunt trophy game, play poker, and do some odd jobs for the locals. Doing these things give you money, which you can you use to upgrade weapons, horses, equipment, et cetera.


With the exception of a few tricky boss fights, combat stays on the easy side. This is largely due to the, “quick draw,” slow-motion mechanic. Slow motion is always fun, but in the game they include auto-aim with it.




Final Thoughts
I don't know where I heard about this game, but I'm glad I did. While it's not a long game, the action is almost nonstop. The West is a welcome change of scenery from the usual zombies, aliens, demons, nazis, and so on. It even won some awards from gaming magazines. I'm not saying this is the best game ever, but if you can pick it up on sale on Steam it's a fun romp that has aged pretty well.