2015 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Salads]

I posted a mid-year list of games I had been playing about six months ago so here is my list for since then. No commentary included - I've only played one game that was released in 2015 so that would be my goty by default.

 

flOw
Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale
Towerfall Ascension
Toki Tori
XII Stag
Donkey Kong Country Returns
Contact
Mega Man X4
Bioshock
Soul Calibur II
Power Stone
Salamander
Anno: Dawn of Discovery
F-Zero GX
Blazblue: Calamity Trigger
Life Force
Savage Reign
Super Mario Maker
Street Fighter III 2nd Impact Giant Attack
Katamari Damacy
Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
Mario Kart 7
DJ Hero 2
Golden Axe
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
Ecco the Dolphin
Real Bout Fatal Fury
Edge
Bayonetta
Raycrisis
Madworld
Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
R-Type II
Virtua Tennis 2
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racconus

Metal Slug 5
After Burner: Black Falcon    

Xenoblade Chronicles 
Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box

 

Actually Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box is fantastic as long as you a] mute it and b] ignore every tip, task, goal or comment the game gives you. Drive around and do what you want. The title may be a reference to the ancient christmas tradition of being given a finely tuned high tech toy and having a lot more fun simply playing with the box.

[Cliff Hanger]

A company that bought the rights to the Coleco brand is bringing the system and it's games back next year:

 

http://toyland.gizmodo.com/old-school-video-game-maker-coleco-is-making-a-new-cart-1748546892

Too bad basically everything published for the Colecovision was licensed (either adaptations of arcade games or slapping movie and TV licenses on generic games), thus preventing re-issue. Making new retraux games on cartridge to sell for it seems like a really big risk.  Still, if it comes out and works without glitches I'll probably buy one and see if I can track down a few CV games I always wanted.

[Jenalysis]

My top 3 for the year:

 

Sorcerer King - Basically a pretty good cross between a Civ game and a roguelike, with some nice humor splashed in

 

Freedom Planet- This is the true sequel to Sonic, with elements of Rocket Knight thrown in.   Great soundtrack, cringeworthy story mode is the only knock you can put on the game.  Also loads of cute.

 

Trails in the Sky SC- best JRPG of the MId-2000's, now in English on PC.  Play the original first (released 2 years ago), but this game is super awesome.  Falcom generally has been the best JRPG company for the past 10+ years, they just don't get the press.  They're the NXT to Square's WWE.

 

Honorable Mentions: Nuclear Throne, One Way Heroics Plus

[dogwelder]

A company that bought the rights to the Coleco brand is bringing the system and it's games back next year:

 

http://toyland.gizmodo.com/old-school-video-game-maker-coleco-is-making-a-new-cart-1748546892

 

Reading up some more about the Chameleon and the failed first attempt (the Retro VGS) makes me skeptical that the thing will actually come out.

[The Man Known as Dan]

I find it incredibly interesting someone listed MK on a game of the year list because of story, when the biggest fault in the game to me was that the story was so much worse then the one from MK 9

[stro]

I find it incredibly interesting someone listed MK on a game of the year list because of story, when the biggest fault in the game to me was that the story was so much worse then the one from MK 9

MK 10's story was dumb as shit. I mean, MK 9's was too, but in a fun way. 10 had better gameplay, but a significantly worse story.

 

 

Is Arkham Knight playable on PC yet?

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

I wrote an enormous thing on the MKX story earlier in this thread, and I can repost it here. The basic gist is that the storyline feels like it is foreshadowing how game designers are going to age- largely, denial and mythologizing of their own time, and only being able to frame their children's successes through their own past successes. It's not a new idea for western media, but seeing the ways it manifests in a video game are fucking insane. The actual plot is dumb dogshit who cares, the implications of what they're trying to tell took up a lot of real estate in my head.

 

The longer version

...it sure seems like whoever wrote this game’s story is very worried about their children. I imagine the writer is Calvin’s dad.

 

Every bit of dialogue reads like people writing young characters as though they were vessels for older character reflection and not as though they were actually alive. When they get pushed into the background in the story (like when Kotal Kahn takes them prisoner) they get pushed there all at once, so their parents can do the real dramatic heroics. The kids only major story beats are bonding with each other over the idea of having parents, and protecting each other while they wait for their parents to take action against the evil, until the VERY LAST FIGHT (which is only possible because the power that lets Cassie punch an elder god unconscious “runs in the family”). After it’s conclusion it’s right back to the culture of parents. They have barely any personality outside of their speaking styles and being reflections of their family. Their biggest bonding moment is basically “oh yeah well MY dad” while they sit in jail cells. At some point two of them feel a bond that is lightly flirty, because that had to happen. It is not earned through anything but like “oh hey we’re here, together, maybe that’s alright.”

 

They get some credit for Kung Jin, who is either the most subtle gay character in the history of video games or victim of some really overwrought writing that has portrayed him as such, and they did not rush out to say “NO NO HE’S NOT GAY” which means it’s just as good. He’s just… a guy. He was a thief who was acting out because he thought his clan couldn’t accept him how he is, and now that they did, he fights people and he has a moral code that isn’t just his parent’s or his families. He has past experiences, that aren’t just “I want to fight and have parents,” and they inform how he behaves. None of the other new characters, good or evil, get anything like that. Maybe they get that in the comic. Maybe they should have put the comic in the game.

 

But the way the game treats adulthood is concerning. All of the old fighters live out complete parent power fantasy. They have aged without losing any physical strength. Their children are all making them proud in service of the power structure they are already invested in. The kids trust them inherently, even when they get put into constructed situations only to test them, and they always grow from it without resentment. One parent goes absent and returns after they’ve been raised, and the reasoning is accepted immediately. Ultimately they have yelled at their millennials enough that they are now successful in exactly they way they’re envisioned. And also, none of their friends really had to die. They reversed death through how good they are at their jobs, and then one of their friends who came back ended up having a kid and the life they were meant to. Everything is working out fine. The last word on the moment of supreme victor is not Cassie Cage owning her accomplishment, it’s her father telling her mother that if her mother was there, she would’ve been proud too. Victory is for parents, not children. This is the new power fantasy. It’s grotesque, but for the moment it’s utterly fascinating.

 

I also happen to think playing it is a grand ol' time.

[stro]

I can not believe the creators of MKX put that much thought into the story. It was very similar to Star Wars/Jurassic World soft-reboot to hang your hat on nostalgia while introducing the next generation. I think that's all there was to it.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Oh, it's almost guaranteed to be on accident. It doesn't change how much I enjoyed it compared to the rest of the year's games.

[assfax]

The Mortal Kombat mythology always stunk and was always derivative and was always commandeered by those wimpy fuckers that steered 90's comics into the ground.

[Death From Above]

Seriously I think a lot of people have forgotten that Mortal Kombat III sucked, damaged the franchise despite selling well, then they followed it up with basically "bullshit nobody cared about" for like 10-15 years until whenever it is Mortal Kombat IX happened.

 

I still haven't played IX or X. IX looks like a pretty decent Best Of. X looks radically different but that doesn't mean bad, of course.

 

The mythology was always basically the Dungeon of Doom angle without crazy old Curtis Iaukea to scare the fuck out of people by looking like a movie monster.

 

HHH pretty clearly cosplayed as Shao Khan at that one Wrestlemania though.

[stro]

Seriously I think a lot of people have forgotten that Mortal Kombat III sucked, damaged the franchise despite selling well, then they followed it up with basically "bullshit nobody cared about" for like 10-15 years until whenever it is Mortal Kombat IX happened.

 

I still haven't played IX or X. IX looks like a pretty decent Best Of. X looks radically different but that doesn't mean bad, of course.

 

The mythology was always basically the Dungeon of Doom angle without crazy old Curtis Iaukea to scare the fuck out of people by looking like a movie monster.

 

HHH pretty clearly cosplayed as Shao Khan at that one Wrestlemania though.

 

9 was straight up a remake of 1-3, AKA "The games people give a shit about". X is a continuation of that, so it's basically like the 4 that you gave a shit about. 9 is a return to basics and is dope. X has a less engaging story, but great gameplay. You should play both if you like MK games.

[Jiji]

What was so wrong with 3? I played the shit out of it, as I didn't have II but loved the first one and it was still basically the same game.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

If I remember right the contention around 3 is around the Run Button and the art in general. which made the run stuff coming back in MKX really funny to me, like "Finally we have their trust back! RESUME THE CIVIL WAR."

[BurningBeard]

a lot of backlash on MK3 at the time was down to the rise of combo-gasms, lack of buttons on 16 bit controllers, and other fighting games moving to 3D such as Killer Instinct, Virtue Fighter and Tekken.

 

... Goddamn was that first Killer Instinct game awesome back in the day

[Jenalysis]

MK3 sucked, but UMK3 had a real following.  

 

MKX gets a bad rep because of the "Warn a Brother" PC port, and standards for gameplay are higher now in general and NRS didn't catch up on the technical side of things.  That doesn't bother many people who play it for the story.

 

The late 90s was the death of arcades in America, and that combined with the death of SNK really hurt the fighting game genre as a whole.  The current revival of fighting games has been pretty well planned- the only thing that has suffered has been the 3D fighters.   Tekken has really declined outside of Asian arcades due to long delays and obtuse mechanics that haven't changed much in 15 years.

[The Man Known as Dan]

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was the best game of the series, in it's original form.

 

Also, another thing to note is that Mortal Kombat X's online has gone through major problems at various points to the point it was unplayable regardless of system for stretches. Also, once more, the story was significantly worse then MK 9's.

 

Also, MK: Deception was actually pretty damn fun, but nobody ever really gave it a chance due to lack of classic characters.

[JLSigman]

 

Is Arkham Knight playable on PC yet?

 

Nope, and according to Warner Brothers, it'll never be fixed.

[stro]

 

 

Is Arkham Knight playable on PC yet?

 

Nope, and according to Warner Brothers, it'll never be fixed.

 

Well that sucks. I built my PC 2 years ago somewhat on the basis of being able to play MGSV and Arkham Knight when they came out. I guess I'll never play it then. 

 

Also, I had zero issues with MKX on PC. All the horror stories never happened to me.

[Salads]

The current revival of fighting games has been pretty well planned

The plan was Street Fighter IV happened. 3D fighters and Smash have been having their own fortunes, but the release of SFIV really gave the Street Fighter Clone genre a shot in the arm.

[Jenalysis]

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was the best game of the series, in it's original form.

 

Also, another thing to note is that Mortal Kombat X's online has gone through major problems at various points to the point it was unplayable regardless of system for stretches. Also, once more, the story was significantly worse then MK 9's.

 

Also, MK: Deception was actually pretty damn fun, but nobody ever really gave it a chance due to lack of classic characters.

 

MK online has always been the worst of the major fighting franchises.  It's the only one that has never even been decent.

 

And MKX PC was complete garbage for me.  SFV PC has worked like a charm in the betas for the most part (minus some crappy load times)

[BurningBeard]

I asked in the wrestling forum but it pretty much went unnoticed - are there any promoter sims along the lines of EWR available for mobile phone?

[SirFozzie]

80's Mat Mania is the only one I can think of.

[JLSigman]

Dad gave me the gift card his work gives him for Xmas, so now my Steam library has had Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Final Fantasy III (the port of the DS version) added to it.

[Cliff Hanger]

Aside from the absence of A-liters like Bowie, Amplitude is exactly what I wanted to be. No regrets on Kickstarting it at all.