My Cart - Hey, you there, gamer-face. Ready to celebrate the start of 2015? Because you know what that means, right? It means an end to possibly one of the worst years for gaming since Capcom gave Chris Redfield a steroidal physique.
But despite the total waste of next-gen consoles, a sea of broken games and nightmarish glitches, there have certainly been a few gems hidden on the shelves of your local gaming store – or ready for download if that’s how you digitally roll. Here’s our pick for the best and worst games of 2014, starting with…
The Best
Alien: Isolation
For sheer terror, this is the game of the year. Yep, one of the few games inspired by a film which was actually, y’know, awesome. From the beautifully-crafted sets which look and feel precisely as they did in the original Alien movie, to the slow-burning tension of being hunted by the Xenomorph, this one had it all.
Bayonetta 2
The Wii U gets a lot of stick. Mostly from people who don’t own the Nintendo console. Which is pretty much everyone. But that does the console a serious disservice. The Nintendo exclusive Bayonetta 2 is a melee brawler with a strong feminine lead, easy-to-bash but tough-to-master controls and an awesomely fluid fight system.
Mario Kart 8
It’s been going since the days of the SNES, and it just keeps getting better. Mario Kart 8 has some fantastic tracks, seamless gameplay, and the DLC was – unlike almost every other piece of DLC ever released – actually worth buying. Just watch out for the blue tortoise shell…
Wolfenstein: The New Order
There’s something wicked-cool about killing Nazis, right? ‘Cause they’re Nazis, see. The granddaddy of first-person shooters offers a world where those damn fascists won the war. So guess whose job it is to bring down the entire structure of the Third Reich? Not only is the combat pure solid gold, but the narrative and characters are genuinely engaging.
Titanfall
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare may have been one of the best COD’s in recent memory, but for our money Titanfall was the superior multiplayer FPS. Fluid controls, a decent amount of maps – even without the extra DLC – and perfectly-balanced gameplay which makes playing as a pilot just as fun as stomping around as mega-mech titan.
…And the Worst
Assassin’s Creed Unity
Assassin’s Creed had such awesome potential. Seriously. A free-running time-travelling stealth-slaying actioner which could’ve changed the landscape of games. Instead, it’s become just another yearly outing, and Unity was probably the worst – uninspired, clunky, with more glitches than actual gameplay.
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric isn’t the game that killed Sonic the hedgehog – that award goes to Sonic 2006. But it’s the game that exhumed Sonic’s rotting corpse, kicked it around with some shoddy camera work and bad jokes, and then sold that pup to the people. Why? Those rings Sonic collects don’t just buy themselves, ya know?
Escape Dead Island
Fancy playing as one of the most vacuous and least likeable protagonists ever committed to a video game? Love clunky controls and tragic animation? Want to see how not to make an action-adventure? Then you need Escape Dead Island! This year the naughty kids didn’t get coal in their stockings, they got this game.
Watch Dogs
Open-world sandbox. Driving missions. Characters of dubious morality. Nope, not GTA – dear lord, we wish it was – but Watch Dogs. It’s not that it was a seriously bad game, it was just thoroughly average in every way. The story is sheer nonsense; the car handling is clunky. Even the graphics, which looked really impressive in the trailers, turned out to be lies.
Destiny
Wow. Destiny. That was gonna be great, right? Well… Developers Bungie – who masterminded the Halo series – weave together solid gunplay, repetitive landscapes, a bland sci-fi narrative, and achingly dull level-grinding. The result is Destiny. ‘Become legend’, says the game’s strapline. ‘Become interesting,’ all the gamers demand.
Whatever you’ve been playing this year, and look forward to playing in 2015, make sure you’ve got a great television to watch it on. Here at Electronic World we offer an incredible range of cheap TVs to get your game on! For more info about our stock, please contact us on 0121 327 3273 and our professional staff will be more than happy to help.
