Johnorable Mention: Horizon: Zero Dawn

My affection for Horizon: Zero Dawn primarily stems from the love I once had for the CW’s excellent sci-fi young adult series The 100, a show which trafficks in the same kind of post-post-apocalyptic creole that at once relaxes me and grabs my imagination. It’s a reverse-fantasy situation, transforming advanced technology into a new kind of magic. The worldbuilding becomes a game where the player tries to guess which piece of fantastical terminology will map onto a recognizable piece of tech and what that could mean for the state of the world. Horizon’s depiction of 31st century Western America is well realized, and even a chance to spend more time in that world is worth any weaknesses this game might possess – but to be fair, those weaknesses are few.

10. Destiny 2

Destiny 2 brought games culture to an absolute standstill earlier this year in a way I had occasionally seen but rarely been able to participate in. This year, this time, I got to be a part of the zeitgeist. I got to be in on the joke, and I loved it. I understood the memes. I devoured every Destiny-centric news story and planned my weekend around the first Xur. I consumed. And sometimes that feels good for a while, only for you to remember how we all got into this hyper-capitalist mess in the first place and eventually you snap out, but for those couple weeks it feels so good.

It still does, not in the same ways, but in all the ways that count. The game plays like a dream and the loot is meted out in a way that feels like a legitimate loot game rather than an incomplete title. Almost every problem I had with the first Destiny has been fixed, which is really all you can ask from a game where the sum total of its appeal is watching some numbers tick up.

9. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

2017’s most delightful surprise, Resident Evil VII: Biohazard is both moderate reinvention and statement of purpose. The series needed to find its way home in order to start a new chapter. Back to the familiar sense of dread, to the more restrained location, to grossing out players with all the gore and violence a videogame-ass-videogame could muster. Biohazard’s dedication to its own mechanics and systems almost feels retro, with no desire to obscure the man behind the curtain. There’s an inventory-ass inventory. There’s a drink-based health system. There are over-the-top boss fights. There’s a chainsaw. You’ve seen this all before, but rarely executed quite like this. Resident Evil VII is all craft.

8. Emily Is Away Too

There’s an important distinction between people who grew up with the internet and people who grew up on it – I’m absolutely in the latter category. I didn’t go to a traditional high school, and I wasn’t exactly prone to making friends in a hyper-masculine sports-focused part of New York State, so I found that all-too-essential human connection online instead. I remember so much about my first online relationship: visiting her high school in Ohio, talking with my friends about my relationship troubles over the same program I used to chat with my girlfriend, and ending the relationship over the phone. I literally couldn’t do it in person, so my only recourse was the ultimate coward move. I know plenty of other people who have been through something similar. Even if we took different paths, there are just certain things you understand about your first online love.

Emily Is Away Too is built on that shared emotional language. These people and their lives feel recognizable, because how could you ever forget them? You lived those lives and met those people – at the very least you should be able to recognize the broad strokes. The scene where you’re trying to keep two very important chat windows going at the same time felt so authentic that I could believe I was replaying a scene from my own life. Emily Is Away Too’s sharp writing makes this game worth a look, but I suspect a fair number of my fellow millennials will find meaning in the game’s pitch-perfect mimicry.

7. Puyo Puyo Tetris

I’ve been playing Tetris for about as long as I can remember. For me, Puyo Puyo Tetris was a way to hone my block-stacking skills in front of my friends, who traditionally have been on the receiving end of a good thrashing. The campaign is a really fun way to explore both Tetris and Puyo Puyo, and the plethora of inventive arcade and multiplayer modes were enough to keep me coming back to Puyo Puyo Tetris in the months since release. But that core – that sweet, sweet Tetris – is a perfect realization of arguably the most iconic video game ever made.

6. Night in the Woods

This was a good year for games that spoke very specifically to Mike Cosimano. I guess if you’re going to release a video game about a self-loathing college dropout returning to their dead-end hometown, all the while dealing with unspoken parental disappointment and the very real specter of mental illness, you could pick worse years for said release than 2017. I don’t need to recap everything that bummed people out this year, especially when everyone has a completely disparate list of 2017’s worst moments.

Night in the Woods feels like a (capital g capital n) Graphic Novel, in that it has all the hard drinking, cursing, and existential dread of a first novel but with the extremely clean anthropomorphic animal aesthetic of an experimental modern-day Disney cartoon. One way or another, these creatures are gonna work though their emotional stagnancy via snark and band practice! If you’re in the mood for Night in the Woods’ particular brand of bittersweet, there’s a good chance this game will speak to you as well.

5. Heat Signature

Heat Signature feels like a really good sophomore album. It’s an artist coming into their own; synthesizing the pros and cons of their debut into a sort of road map for the future. Designed by Tom Francis, the man behind Gunpoint, Heat Signature is a strong follow-up to 2013’s best game, with the same emphasis on improvisation and failure state recovery that first captured my imagination when those tenets were stapled onto a man with super jumpy pants.

Although the transition from Gunpoint means Heat Signature loses my all-time favorite setting (sci-fi neo-noir), it still benefits from my all-time second favorite setting (grungy space), crafting a world so deeply lived-in that your very presence feels like a trespass. Finally, a game where I can truly become the scheme-ruining goblin I was born to be.

4. Persona 5

It’s a shame that 2018 has already been officially christened as The Year of Corky, because 2017 brought the video game stuff I do like. Games like Heat Signature or Zelda brought the open-ended improvisation, while games like Night in the Woods or Persona 5 fused genre trappings with larger thematic content in the most obvious way possible. I love a subtle message as much as the next person, but there’s something I truly adore about a work completely defined by its ideology.

From every angle, Persona 5 is about co-operative rebellion. In some way, it feels like a Japanese Watch Dogs 2 – this game taps into the unspoken fears, hopes, and beliefs that come hand-in-hand with growing up in the 2010s. Your weird friends will be the only hope and solace you have in the coming days. You don’t have to suffer institutionalized abuse. Take that hope and that solace and use it to shove your brilliance down your foes’ respective throats.

Aesthetically, Persona 5 is a curious hybrid of in-your-face punk and improvisational jazz, but like every other game in the series, it’s really about the scope of human connection, both on a macro and micro level. It may not be as fresh nor magnetizing as Persona 4, but it’s still one of the best games you can buy on a PlayStation.

3. PUBG

I have an anecdote from playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds that perfectly summarizes why I love this game so much.

I was moving towards one of my favorite hiding spots (a house on the right side of the map) when I heard gunshots behind me. The dirt exploded around my feet as I made a break for the house, only just barely making it inside. With several minutes left before the map was set to shrink, I figured I could regroup inside and come up with some plan of attack. I poked my head out quickly to get a grasp of where my rival had set up shop…but I didn’t count on another player in a nearby car spotting me.

I had only one choice. I hid inside the house. The car had managed to spot me, but not the sniper hiding in the grass with a rifle trained on my house’s front door. Of course the player in the car wasn’t going to get out when they had a rolling death machine at their disposal. Of course the other player hunting me wasn’t going to reveal their spot when there was a rolling death machine kicking around. Of course I was going to sit inside that house grinding my teeth.

The person in the car began to taunt me, driving in circles around the house and revving the car’s engine as a sort of Warriors-esque “come out and pla-ay”-style taunt. Eventually I had to get out of the house, or I would’ve been trapped outside the blue circle. I zigzagged it out the front door while the car was on the other side of the house, in the hopes that I could get some distance before my opponents had time to react.

My plan actually worked. The car rounded the house and made a beeline towards my future corpse, accidentally running over the prone sniper along the way. I popped two shots through the windshield, killing the driver. In my panic, I left the car abandoned and booked it over a nearby hill. PUBG rules.

2. Super Mario Odyssey

I could play Super Mario Odyssey pretty much every day of my life. Everything about this game is so finely crafted that I feel confident putting it at the very top of any sort of Mario ranking. The worlds in Odyssey are brilliant, constantly rewarding the player for experimentation and exploration at every skill level. If you’re just poking at Odyssey while you’re on the toilet, you’ll be entertained. If you’re sitting down for a multi-hour session, you’ll be entertained. I found Power Moons to be one of the most addicting collectibles in recent memory. I agonized over each hidden Moon and delighted in the Moons that I just kinda tripped over.

Games like Mario Odyssey are the reason why we still buy Nintendo consoles, no matter how wild the pitch. No other game company could make a game like this, because there’s an implied quality to major first-party Nintendo titles. You expect games from the people who gave us the unqualified classic Super Mario Sunshine to be good. Super Mario Odyssey is better than good. It’s great.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

A lot of people don’t understand exactly why we as a culture still talk about Citizen Kane. That’s fine! Not everybody should have to suffer through film school. If all you know about Citizen Kane is that it’s considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time, then you’ve at least nailed the broad strokes. What made Citizen Kane important – what made it formative – was its technique. It expanded American cinematography on the eve of the noir boom, popularizing and expanding a filmic visual language that people still use to this day. It’s not that Citizen Kane hit some objective checklist to become the Best Movie or even that it got people to take American cinema seriously.

Citizen Kane is Citizen Kane because its crew found new ways to use the tools they had been given.

We as an industry talk a lot about the Citizen Kane of videogames. At first some of us did it sincerely, now all of us do it ironically. I’m here to make an illegal u-turn and whip this discourse back into the sincerity lane. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the Citizen Kane of video games.

Breath of the Wild isn’t a literal 1:1 to Citizen Kane because it expanded game cinematography or something like that. Yes, the game looks gorgeous, but visual direction is not the primary language of video games. Interactivity is how games communicate with their players; Zelda redefines that interaction by creating a world where every aspect of post-apocalyptic Hyrule interacts with everything else. If you have enough patience and a solid understanding of the game’s mechanics, there is no limit to what your imagination can accomplish.

By giving players a box of easily accessible tools and a physics ruleset that feels recognizable and logical, the game actively encourages you to sequence break, hairbrained problem solving becomes the norm. There’s no more glitching around mountains trying to avoid another long trek like in Skyrim. Now you can just climb over that mountain, all the while looking for places where Link could rest when his stamina gets weak. That’s noteworthy because it feels real. It’s human. Breath of the Wild is the greatest fantasy simulation ever created because Link as a physical object starts with all the limitations and skills of your average person.

Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule feels like a real place, not because it’s populated with a horde of NPCs following a set path or because it’s got the best god rays, but because I can get those apples by chopping down that tree. Yeah, it’s still a beautiful game filled with whimsy and thrilling adventure, but its willingness to experiment with things we take for granted is what makes Breath of the Wild so magnificent. Zelda redefines the basics in order to elevate its ephemera, so obviously it’s gotta be my Game of the Year.

Congratulations to Kentucky Route Zero, 2018’s Game of the Year.

The post Mike Cosimano’s Top 10 Games of 2017 appeared first on Gamesline.

Wait, hold on. Look at the footage! There’s a…very tall glitch*…in the Matrix…

*that entire Max segment was just for that one bit with him crying

The post The John Michonski Experience Two Thousand and Sixteen AD appeared first on Gamesline.

This is a video of John Michonski eating food during the E3 2015 period. Andi Clare and Myles Cox are here. Will Westwater cameos.

The post The John Michonski Experience 2k15 appeared first on Gamesline.

I look at my involvement with this site — and my “career” as a whole — as the biggest con I will ever be a part of. I spent my two years here waiting for somebody to notice that I was making off with the big score, but nobody ever called me out. And now it’s gone even further, because an established outlet has decided they want an effervescent grifter as a regular contributor. The take continues to grow.

As a result, I’m leaving Choo-Choo in the capable hands of John Michonski. This site deserves better, anyway. It started as a way to keep doing something I really enjoyed, and it became more than that, evolving far beyond its means.

In the course of Video Game Choo Choo’s two years of existence, we’ve expanded in ways I never could’ve imagined. We made it to E3 (on the backs of more successful enterprises), we hired an extremely clever and unconventional editor and brought on the most jacked gamesm’n I’ve ever had the express pleasure of calling my friend, we did guest podcasts with some of the most interesting people in games, and the site’s numbers doubled in spite of my exceptionally poor attempts at self-promotion. What started as a dollar-store Giant Bomb knockoff became a Giant Bomb knockoff on clearance at Wal-Mart. Also, John Michonski was there.

John, you motherfucker. I couldn’t have done this without you, and we both know it, so I don’t want to hear a goddamn peep. You took my hand and let me lead you into the unknown, more often than once — more often than anybody should have, frankly. If the measure of a good partner is how often they let their compatriot drag you on a dumb adventure, then John Michonski has no equal. We nailed that 50th episode special, and we did it together.

For as much as our E3 adventure was fraught with sudden onset debt, bongs, and hotel mailrooms, I wouldn’t have done it with anybody else. Remember Max flipping you off when we grabbed those pizzas? Remember you telling me it was okay to eat my waffle dog off the Los Angeles sidewalk? Remember how we both met Will Powers? How about the j/o crystal? What about me inspecting your nose outside the MBMBaM live show? If the unstoppable E3 trio of Cosimano, Michonski, and Westwater doesn’t reunite next year, it just won’t be the same.

Lauren, there’s literally no good reason for you to have picked this site as your foray into games journalism, but I truly appreciate your leap of faith. We brought you on in the hopes of getting a new perspective, and holy shit did you deliver. You’ll go far, kid.

Will, you know how much I love and appreciate you. It’s not often I meet somebody who I click with almost immediately, but it’s always a blast when I do. Here’s to many more years of me dragging you out of your comfort zone. (We still have to watch The Thing!) Let’s get an apartment next year so we don’t have to sit in a parking spot all night after an In-n-Out run.

Thanks to space babe Rose for naming the site. Thanks to Earth babe Desi for all her stellar work as Choo-Choo’s Unintentional Artist in Residence. (you should pay both of those ladies for some art) And thank you to everyone who drew a piece of fan art, listened to a podcast, read an article, helped me terrorize John, or did anything to support this weird passion project. You’re the real heroes.

This industry has seen a decent amount of farewells in 2014, hell, there’s been three major shakeups in this past month alone. For one reason or another, they’re often set to a tune. During momentous occasions, people like to believe they live in a movie, and proper musical backing helps with that. We’ll Meet Again seems to be a fairly popular one, on account of Stephen Colbert’s star-studded grand finale. And I like to believe it’s pretty applicable here. I’m riding off into the sunset, you guys! I’m retiring from Chooch while I’m still on top.

But this isn’t the last of me. There’s always Guest Month (hint, hint, Jonathan), and I guess I still technically “own” the site, but I need to let this crew stand on their own. I would recommend keeping tabs on my Twitter, I’ll have some exciting news there real soon. This train has finally reached my stop, but I think I’ll hold onto my ticket. Just in case.

See you around!

P.S: Here’s that farewell music I was talking about. I’m too excited about the future, and too in love with this dumb train motif to pick anything else. If I had to pick a sad song, it would be this, but to hell with that. Let’s go out in style.

The post Well, that sunset isn’t gonna ride off into itself! appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s also been a weird year personally. I went to my first E3, got hired and laid off in under a month, and I’m leaving Choo-Choo. I’m going to seriously miss this place, but what better way to leave than with a list of 10 awesome videogames?

10. Transistor

It’s hard to not think about Bastion when you think about Transistor. Supergiant Games’ second full release feels like the next episode in a video game anthology series. Both games play with the idea of literal world building and deconstruction, all from an isometric perspective, featuring the smooth voice of Logan Cunningham and the rad tunes of Darren Korb. And even though I’m not sure if I want this motif to continue into the next Supergiant release, it’s done extremely well in Transistor.

Between its visuals, its writing, and its music, Transistor is an uncommonly beautiful game, but its combat mechanics catapult it into a whole new strata. The idea of Turn() is not a new concept by any means, but adding special powers mapped to certain buttons adds an engaging wrinkle. The game also encourages players to experiment with different Functions by providing character-based flavor text, depending on how you use the Function. This marriage of gameplay and writing is emblematic of what Transistor does so well, and why it more than earns a spot on this list.

9. Threes

Look, I haven’t stopped playing Threes since I reviewed it back in the spring. I don’t know that I can say that about any other game on this list. But few other games have the level of endless replayability that you can find in Threes. It’s just a brilliantly designed little puzzler, and for some, that’s not enough. But I’ve dumped several dozen hours into what is arguably the cleverest game released this year. That alone is worth a solid mention.

8. Valiant Hearts

I played Valiant Hearts over the course of two major sittings. That’s what happens when you’ve finished all your finals early and your friends are off cramming for a ridiculous gauntlet of tests; you end up with a lot of time on your hands. So perhaps my affinity for this game comes from having ingested all the Valiant Hearts there was to ingest as quickly as possible. Moment-to-moment, it doesn’t hit particularly hard. You spend a lot of your time swapping between characters pushing through various parts of a gorgeously rendered Europe, solving clever puzzles and hunting for many historically accurate collectibles.

But this is all part of Valiant Hearts’ master plan. When the game hits the brakes and forces a particularly unpleasant sequence down your throat, it pushes the darker aspects of war to the forefront. Valiant Hearts, at its core, is a deconstruction of the popular perception of war. Some of the broader aspects, like the mustache-twirling Baron, exist to craft a false sense of complacency. But once the Baron is out of the picture, the game keeps on trudging. Civilians are mustard gassed to death, and soldiers are sent like pigs to the slaughter. Valiant Hearts knows how to properly utilize juxtaposition better than just about any other game on the market.

7. Murdered: Soul Suspect

Minutes after I finished Murdered: Soul Suspect, I knew two things for certain: this game would easily make an appearance on my Top 10 at the end of the year, and I would be utterly alone in this decision. I’ve joked for months about this esoteric Ghost adptation being one of the best games of the year, so let me finally put a pin in this. Murdered: Soul Suspect is maybe not one of the best games of 2014, but it was certainly one of the most personally resonant. Yes, the stealth isn’t particularly exciting, and it’s easy to mess with once you figure out how the vision cones work. The mechanic that comprises a sizable amount of the “game” part of this video game could use some work.

But what it lacks in basic mechanical conflict, Murdered easily makes up for in rock-solid atmosphere. Finding other ghosts who either refuse to head towards the light — or simply can’t — never got old for me, and I would actively explore some of the puzzle-heavy environments so I wouldn’t miss anything. The smaller cases were fun, and the overarching story pays off in a major way at the end, with a boss fight comprised of the game’s previous adventure game mechanics. It was fun and helped to highlight the insanity of Murdered’s final reveal. Plus, the game’s version of Salem feels just as dour and historically rich as you would hope. Murdered: Soul Suspect is a tourism ad for Salem, MA that just happens to have a super fun story. I can dig that.

6. The Last Door: Season One

In my book, The Last Door is scarier than P.T. It’s also clever, unique, and a fantastic example of a brilliantly realized supernatural universe. The rules of The Last Door are clear, but the uncertainties in between really sell the scope of the Eldritch horrors influencing the events of this pixelated horror-adventure title. For all the perfectly executed jump scares, there was a moment of deep, bone-chilling unease. For all the tension, there were moments of brain-tickling intrigue. There may have been frustrating moments in The Last Door — it is an adventure game, after all — but they cannot hold a candle to what makes that game special. It’s easily one of the most compelling titles I’ve played all year.

5. Forza Horizon 2

Consider this a sort of mea culpa — I didn’t play the original Forza Horizon in time for 2012’s Game of the Year awards, back when I was running Velocity Gamer. It’s the source of my deepest shame, considering my deep love for that particular title. So, yeah, this spot kind of goes to a game that was released two years ago. But let me be frank: Forza Horizon 2, although not as fun as its predecessor, is still a blast. The mix of rip-roaring car culture and Cochella-esque musical adoration is nothing short of intoxicating. When you’re speeding through Italian vineyards, Chromeo blasting through your speakers, looking for the next race full of future losers, you can’t help but get swept up in Forza Horizon 2’s world. It speaks to the game’s 100% genuine adoration of the culture it seeks to idolize; a single moment of insincerity and the whole thing comes tumbling down.

But that moment never comes, much to Horizon 2’s benefit. It seems odd that a spin-off racing franchise would be one of the best examples of immersive atmosphere done right, but I’m certainly not complaining. Take note, Driveclub.

4. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

There was a good chunk of time where I saw Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc as yet another vein in the John Michonski Goof Mine. A murder mystery visual novel exclusive to PS Vita? C’mon, son. But, if you’ll pardon this clichéd anecdote, I was more than pleasantly surprised. Danganronpa’s series of crazy mysteries were a real pleasure to solve, with an overarching story that held my attention until long after the credits rolled. It certainly helps that it subverted its own genre almost immediately, taking apart the idea of the childhood friend turned love interest that we saw in so many visual novels. And it doesn’t stop there, but I’ll leave those surprises for you to discover.

I even enjoyed the ‘game’ part of this video game. The trials perfectly summed up what it’s like to be in a rapid-fire argument, and the almost mandatory final boss subversion of its mechanics (both in-world and in the context of the game) was sublime. Yeah, Danganronpa 2 is probably a better whole, but I appreciate Danganronpa for its uniqueness.

3. Sunset Overdrive

Sunset Overdrive lives on the edge. And I’m not referring to its sense of style or humor. I’m talking about the very slim edge between ‘Stanley Parable self-awareness’ and ‘Duke Nukem Forever self-awareness’. The former makes for an enjoyable, if occasionally eye-rolling experience; the latter would be a black hole of quality from which no light can escape.

I cannot begin to express how thankful I am that Sunset Overdrive is not only genuinely entertaining, but also has an extremely robust and enjoyable movement system. It’s so much fun that an objective marker on the other side of the map elicited a positive reaction. That usually never happens in open-world games without cars, you know? I only used the fast-travel when I was under real-world time pressure. Plus, the game looks great and the weapons are exceptionally satisfying to use. Sunset Overdrive is one hell of a ride from start to finish.

2. Danganronpa 2

Like I said earlier, Danganronpa 2 is a better whole than its predecessor. It’s not quite as unique, especially when both games hit American shores within months of each other, but it’s clearly a refinement of the concept. The individual mysteries are, for the most part, a massive step up — especially the fifth trial, which you’ve assuredly heard about in our Game of the Year podcasts. Even though I didn’t find the last trial as compelling as the Danganronpa finale, there’s no denying it goes hard. Danganronpa 2 aims high, and nails the bullseye right in the goddamn center every single time. I couldn’t put it down from the second I started playing. It’s the best full game released in 2014…

1. Kentucky Route Zero: Act III

…but it’s not the best experience I had in 2014. That honor belongs to the (site-wide GOTY ineligible) stellar third act of Kentucky Route Zero. At the pace these episodes are released, it’ll be 2016 by the time this game is up for proper award consideration. I am an impatient man, so let me just put this out there: the first three acts of Kentucky Route Zero are individually better than just about anything released in their respective years. Of course, this includes Act III; another slice of The Phantom Tollbooth filtered through the deep amber of Kentucky bourbon that Kentucky Route Zero has become known for.

It’s beautifully crafted from start to finish, with the boundless imagination, world building, and haunting unease you would expect from a child trapped in the decaying body of his nursing-home ridden grandfather. Kentucky Route Zero grabs you like quicksand mixed with molasses, burrowing down into your brain and claiming a spot for itself. If you can stop thinking about Kentucky Route Zero after you’ve played it, yours is the iron will, for I have been unable to forget the best game of 2014 ever since I first played it. And that’s no bad thing. I hope I’m thinking about the Zero and its endlessly memorable inhabitants for many years to come.

The post Mike’s Top 10 Games of 2014 appeared first on Gamesline.

But it wasn’t all bad, right? We’ll be spending the next couple days highlighting some of the most notable games from 2014, as well as the games we loved, but we can’t send off a year like that without a bona-fide ‘Worst Of’ list!

5. Gods Will Be Watching

I almost want to apologize for putting this game on the list, but I can’t think of another game this year that let me down so quickly. Gods Will Be Watching is a series of turn-based resource management scenarios, each one more frustrating than the last. This isn’t even a case of a game requiring patience, or using design to emphasize the inevitability of failure. You can be as patient as you want, but patience results in failure.

In notoriously difficult games like Spelunky, the rules are laid bare. Your decision to follow them or not dictates your future. In Gods Will Be Watching, apart from the very broad strokes, there’s no consistency between scenarios. Each one presents a complex Jenga-esque list of win conditions and fail states. There’s initial tension, but it quickly gives way to irritation. If the smallest thing slips through the cracks, you have to start all over. There’s something to be said for juggling different kinds of resource management, but not when it’s this unforgiving. You can’t expect both patience and speed. I will say this — Gods Will Be Watching has a killer look & soundtrack, but when your only recourse is to drop the difficulty all the way to the bottom just so you can see the next level, there might be something wrong.

4. Destiny 

Don’t you really want to know exactly what caused Destiny to turn out this way? The combat systems are debatably Bungie’s greatest achievement to date, but they’re stuck in an MMO world, with enemies and fights that would fit best with a keyboard and mouse. It’s the Borderlands problem taken to the extreme; your shooting skills don’t actually matter.

There’s also just not enough content to make slogging through the gameplay worth it. Do you want to run through the same tedious boss fights ad infinitum just so you can get a green sniper rifle? Because once you’re done with all those exceptionally dull boss fights, that’s all you’ve got. The story blows chunks as well, but I can’t even remember enough about it to give it the lashing it deserves.

3. The Evil Within

Man, how did Shinji Mikami go from Resident Evil 4 to this steaming turd? I didn’t even finish The Evil Within, because another bloody hair monster showed up and I didn’t have a lick of fun battling the last one. The Evil Within can’t decide whether it wants to be A) the scary Resident Evil 1; B) the tense Resident Evil 4; or C) the action-packed Resident Evil 5. Instead, it splits the difference, with different sequences devoted to each style.

This would not be a poor decision on its own, but the game’s movement and combat is technically suited for a Resident Evil 4-style game. So you’re too powerful to be scared, but you’re too weak to engage in a full-on action sequence. Of the 5-odd hours I played, there was a single mission that made me tense up; the rest were frustrating or simply dull. It also looks and runs like garbage; the final Agony Crossbow Bolt in the enormous novelty coffin.

2. DriveClub

I am sick to death of writing about how much DriveClub sucks. The driving sucks, the tracks suck, the AI sucks, the online is boring, and it doesn’t look as good as we were lead to believe. This game blows so much that the free version is still unavailable. Even the sweet price of literally no money is too much, apparently.

1. 2048 

Look, 2048 is not technically the worst game on this list. But it’s certainly the game I hate the most, out of everything I played in 2014. It’s a clone of a superior game that utterly stole the spotlight by virtue of being free and easier (the iOS version is a clone of a clone) — there is nothing to it aside from causing another talented indie team to reconsider mobile as a viable platform. Yeah, it’s a crappy game on its own. But it symbolizes more than that. Call it capitalism, call it the realities of the market, call it whatever you like. It sucks. 2048 sucks.

Lazy and unethical, 2048 is my pick for the most insulting — if not the worst — game of 2014.

The post Mike’s Bottom 5 Games of 2014 appeared first on Gamesline.

You can get the episode from iTunes, Hipcast, or direct download. Also, here’s an RSS? Please download the episode if you can! It’s a big help.

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You can get the episode from iTunes, Hipcast, or direct download. Also, here’s an RSS? Please download the episode if you can! It’s a big help.

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You can get the episode from iTunes, Hipcast, or direct download. Also, here’s an RSS? Please download the episode if you can! It’s a big help.

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The event, simply titled ‘The Game Awards 2014’, will take place in Las Vegas and be simulcast on December 5th across various platforms including Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Steam. The respective heads of the major console platforms — Reggie Fils-Amie, Shawn Layden, and Phil Spencer of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, respectively — will serve on the show’s advisory board, among others.

“Gaming has never been stronger, and this year we will celebrate the fastest-selling launch year ever for new game consoles, the dramatic rise of eSports and mobile gaming around the globe, and preview the games that will make 2015 the biggest year yet,” said Keighley in a statement released today.

When I first heard about this project a couple months ago, it was a new VGX to be shown on GameTrailers. I wonder what changed.

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