This is the shittiest upcoming Holiday Season in the history of gaming.

[Yegolev]

I haven't played any of those WiiU games but I understand they are mostly OK and somewhat popular, which is enough to trump most of the new things I've seen on PC and real consoles this year.  Even Shin Megami Tensei IV came out on an Nintendo console.

[Phildo]

I wonder if this is a rose-colored glasses kind of situation?  What was the last year you guys can remember when you said "omg, there are so many good games coming out" and weren't horribly disappointed by a bunch of them?

[schild]

I wonder if this is a rose-colored glasses kind of situation?  What was the last year you guys can remember when you said "omg, there are so many good games coming out" and weren't horribly disappointed by a bunch of them?

2005? 6? A while ago. But this year is notably shitty in that Nintendo had the best lineup. I can't remember a time post 1996 or 1997 where that happened.

[Margalis]

I wonder if this is a rose-colored glasses kind of situation?  What was the last year you guys can remember when you said "omg, there are so many good games coming out" and weren't horribly disappointed by a bunch of them?

This year was particularly bad, especially in what should be the big months. Not only were many of the games disappointing but a bunch of them didn't even work. Not a taste issue, just a basic functionality issue. The PS4 and XB1 still both desperately need exclusives worth a damn - Halo and Drive Club were supposed to be the biggest holiday exclusives and neither worked.

[Trippy]

That Wii U list is great, but it's pretty much all Nintendo has left. Mario Kart and Smash Bros are both one-per-system, and Bayonetta 2 is the one third party title anyone gave a shit about on the console. I'll be surprised if they release 3 more games on par with the above over the lifetime of the system.

There's a Zelda and a Star Fox coming out. For 3rd parties there's Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles X.

[Rendakor]

I haven't played any of those WiiU games but I understand they are mostly OK and somewhat popular, which is enough to trump most of the new things I've seen on PC and real consoles this year.  Even Shin Megami Tensei IV came out on an Nintendo console.

SMT IV came out in 2013.

[Velorath]

I wonder if this is a rose-colored glasses kind of situation?  What was the last year you guys can remember when you said "omg, there are so many good games coming out" and weren't horribly disappointed by a bunch of them?

For my personal tastes, 2010 was a pretty good year with Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Skate 3, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Red Dead Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Halo: Reach, and Fallout: New Vegas. There were some other notable releases like Gran Turismo 5, or Just Cause 2, that I'm not really into.

Alan Wake, Alpha Protocol, Heavy Rain, Civ V, and God of War 3 were disappointments that year, but not horrible games.

[Velorath]

That Wii U list is great, but it's pretty much all Nintendo has left. Mario Kart and Smash Bros are both one-per-system, and Bayonetta 2 is the one third party title anyone gave a shit about on the console. I'll be surprised if they release 3 more games on par with the above over the lifetime of the system.

There's a Zelda and a Star Fox coming out. For 3rd parties there's Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Splatoon also had some buzz around it at E3, and there is Mario Maker as well.

[rk47]

$20 dollar spent.
Still nothing sticks.
And my friend just trolled me by buying me Sakura Spirits.

[Falconeer]

I spent about a 100 euros, and I am very very happy with all my purchases.

- This War of Mine. 16€ / Outstanding. GOTY runner-up. Shut up.
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. 11€ / Haven't had enough time to play it so far but it seems great and has the arguably the best graphics I've ever seen on a PC.
- The Old City: Leviathan. 10€ / Exploration game & walking simulation at its best. Another win for us Dear Esther enthusiasts.
- Ether One. 7€ / 10 hours in, already a favourite. Has overshadowed everything else in the past few days.
- The Moon Sliver. 1.50€ / Another walking simulation, another hit home based on the first few minutes. Especially considering the price.
- Our Darker Purpose. 3.80€ / Spiritual successor to Binding of Isaac, which was great. This doesn't disappoint.
- Sunless Sea. 16€ / The "Early Access" tag is the only thing that keeps this out of the GOTY runner-up competition.


Plus some less memorable things, either because they are not that amazing, or because they aren't new at all.

- How to Survive. 1,40€ / 1 Euro, not even 2 with the DLC.
- Darkwood. 10€ / I am not regretting the purchase, but this one scares me too much so I am probably never gonna play it. Also Early Access and it shows.
- Dream. 6€ / Another Early Access that needs work, direction and polish. Might be the weakest of the lot.
- Valkyria Chronicles. 16€ / OMG! <3

Grand Total: 99€ (about 121$)

So, for 100 money I got 11 games and I am between very and extremely satisfied with at least 7 of them. Great holiday season for me.

[Venkman]

I'm not commenting on its quality directly.  Just that it was lambasted, yet seemed to have gotten the best games of the year.

Perhaps it's more sad than anything.

Yea, sad. The Wii U only matters for the first party stuff. I don't recall that not being the case for the original Wii either, though given its lifespan, I gotta imagine at least 1-2 third party titles were awesome?

Anyway, this year was marred not just by lack of awesome AAA titles, but that the ones which did make it were all jank on a scale between "coulda had another month of QA" to "wait, did we put the wrong year into the SKU plan?!". Seriously, broken AAA launch is becoming synonymous with "welp, Sony got hacked... again" as memes in the space.

However, I think the bigger point of this and last year is that "best of" lists are relying on old rules of ranking. Glad so many of you are including indie and mobile titles. The old style "top 10" lists are becoming about as relevant a bellwhether of "video games" as NPD retail sales only data 

I think I posted my own list here, so won't do it again. Especially because it'll probably change again before 1/1 

[KallDrexx]

I still think we have this conversation every year.

I don't have any comment on how good or bad this year has been, as I have finally reached the point where I realize buying games is stupid until I play the games I already have in my massive backlog.  So I haven't paid attention at all.

[Nija]

Falc, for what it's worth, out of that large list of games you just put together I've only heard of one of them.

[Paelos]

I'm at the point where I'm realizing that I'm probably 3-6 months out on games. Which means unless it's under $10, or it's amazingly awesome to move to the front of the line, forget it.

That's why this Steam sale has been meh to me. I could easily get something like the AC:Pirates! but why would I when it's going to the back of the line behind the AC3 I haven't finished yet? By the time I get to it in the summer it's cheaper.

[schild]

And my friend just trolled me by buying me Sakura Spirits.

By friend you mean your waifu, right?

[schild]

Trying to convince myself to buy Endless Legend. I haven't liked a 4x game since Alpha Centauri. Hmm.

[Phildo]

Easily worth it at sale price, IMO.

[Paelos]

That's on my $10 list too.

[Teleku]

$20 dollar spent.
Still nothing sticks.
And my friend just trolled me by buying me Sakura Spirits.

There's a game that might be right up your ally on today's sale.  Only 10 hours left!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/296470/

[Falconeer]

Age check? WTF (and how do I disable that)

[Teleku]

Err, you mean the basic prompt where you can enter in what ever age you want?  Or are you actually being blocked from viewing the games page somehow?

[Falconeer]

Blocked. "Sorry, you are not authorized to view this content."

[Teleku]

Weird.

Just search for "Mount Your Friends" in steam/Google.    

[Paelos]

That's the swinging dongs game Signe was amused by in some other thread.

[rk47]

I don't swing that way, gentlemen. *backs away slowly*

[Sky]

I don't swing that way, gentlemen. *backs away slowly*

Size doesn't matter.

[Falconeer]

Rock Paper Shotgun, a questionable website like all the others that also loves to feel original, posted their list of best games of 2014. I could post the list of PC Gamer, or IGN, or my son's, and it would be very different lists. equally questsionable, and none of them would be worth more than your own, so I am not posting this as evidence of anything. Just felt like dropping here what is -for the most part- a collection of games that has been vastly overlooked by the mainstream market because of we have been trained to not take too serioulsy anything that hasn't been hugely advertised or that had millions of dollars invested in the making. As stated multiple times in this thread, 2014 wsn't so bad if you could accept that this year fun came with downgraded graphics, especially considering that as an added bonus it was going to cost you less.

[brellium]

Rock Paper Shotgun, a questionable website like all the others that also loves to feel original, posted their list of best games of 2014. I could post the list of PC Gamer, or IGN, or my son's, and it would be very different lists. equally questsionable, and none of them would be worth more than your own, so I am not posting this as evidence of anything. Just felt like dropping here what is -for the most part- a collection of games that has been vastly overlooked by the mainstream market because of we have been trained to not take too serioulsy anything that hasn't been hugely advertised or that had millions of dollars invested in the making. As stated multiple times in this thread, 2014 wsn't so bad if you could accept that this year fun came with downgraded graphics, especially considering that as an added bonus it was going to cost you less.

It's a bad year, Endless Legend is a solid 4X and singularly beats the most recent incarnation of SMAC.

The best RPG is probably Divinity: Original Sin, a kick starter.

Bethesda didn't release any RPG's this year and all the FPS's are just stupid rehashes of too well worn series.

[Rendakor]

Despite it being a nonsense award, I feel obligated to point out that Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance came out in February 2013.

[Trippy]

It's a PC games list.

[Rendakor]

Aha.

[Yegolev]

PC Master Race has its own time zone and possibly its own measurement system.

[Phildo]

Probably why our airplanes keep disappearing.

[Azazel]

all the FPS's are just stupid rehashes of too well worn series.

Who gives a fuck? That doesn't mean shit in itself as a metric of whether something will be a good or bad game or fun.

[Rendakor]

Some people are tired of playing the same game over and over again; certainly tired of paying $60 every year for the privilege. YMMV.