I didn’t think I’d play enough good games to form a top 10 this year. Part of it was due to me being cheap and waiting for games to drop to the price point I was willing to pay. The other being the fact that I chose some less than stellar titles earlier this year. However, with a bit of luck, some sales and good decisions, I found ten titles that worth listing.
But first some other awards!
The 2014 Game I Wish I Bought & Played in 2014
Winner: Wolfenstein: The New Order
I saw it for $30 but decided to wait and it never fell in price. I’m a fan of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and a fan of many of the ex-Starbreeze members who founded MachineGames. Those guys made the excellent Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. I heard nothing but positive impressions about it and if I weren’t such a cheap ass, it may have made it onto my top 10. But alas, it’ll have to settle for this consolation prize.
DRIVECLUB, Halo: Master Chief Collection and Assassin’s Creed: Unity are still suffering from technical issues. They have networking issues, graphical glitches, performance drops and sometimes a combination of all the above. And these are just the high profile titles that have severe issues. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has its own controversy over dedicated servers but it’s being overshadowed.
Instead of dwelling on what is happening, I want to know why this is happening. The easy answer is to blame aggressive publishers that want to make holidays. But we’ve seen plenty of publishers make those timelines in the past.
What’s changed for this year?
Although we’re technically a year into the newest generation of consoles, we’re still not out of the woods yet with regards to console transition issues. Seven years ago, the first Assassin’s Creed debuted to horrible framerate issues and bugs as well.
In the case of DRIVECLUB, you can chalk this up to inexperience with networking. For the folks at 343 Industries, I can’t imagine it’s easy to get four titles humming along nicely (even if they’re remasters).
These are just excuses that I’m making up for these developers. They’re not going to tell us why these games are broken but they’ll continue to ask for forgiveness and patience while you wait.
Consumers are paying money for working products and if they can’t deliver a working product within the launch window, they should be eligible for refunds. It might be tough to convince a retailer to take back an opened game, but those who’ve purchased titles from Sony or Microsoft’s digital stores should receive a refund if they so desire.
Also, thank goodness for built-in recording and screenshot functionality.
Mario Kart 8 DLC Pack #1
Over at Nintendo’s little island of fun awaits Mario Kart 8’s first DLC pack. I bought it the dual pack and look forward to trying the new content. I just don’t know if it’s going to be sooner or later.
Call of Duty: Ghosts was a low point for the franchise. Questions concerning the franchise’s longevity were raised. Did Infinity Ward poison the Call of Duty well with their lack of effort? It may very well have for the general public but I’m too curious not to check out what the newest member of the Call of Duty rotation had in store for this long running franchise.
Sledgehammer Games’ first crack at this multi-million dollar franchise was a success on the campaign front. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s campaign easily ranks among the franchise’s best.
As someone who follows gaming deals, it pleases me greatly to see previously U.S exclusive deals make their way north.
Target’s Canadian presence brought aggressive promotions like the recent “buy 2, get 1 free” video game sale. The only downsides to this deal are the limited store locations and the limited stock. It’s why I’m not a fan of posting retail deals like this; I don’t want to waste people’s time.
But Target’s efforts were not for naught. Big box stores like Target and Walmart make waves with their sales — so much so that Amazon.ca will likely match or mimic.
I say mimic because Amazon.ca’s take on these deals have either been slightly better or slightly worse. They also fail to clearly establish the terms and conditions from the get go and thus the sale will warp and confuse during the first couple of days.
The $69.99 MSRP sucks but regular sales like this helps dampen the sting of that price increase. It also highlights the fact that a little patience (emphasis on little) will pay off.
