Gaming 2013: Your Year In Review

[RedsandRoyals]

There were a lot of big releases this year, and I was wondering what people's thoughts on their gaming experience this year was. It doesn't matter if it's console or PC, released this year or twenty years ago, or if you're beast at it or utter rubbish! I'm curious how your gaming year went!

But first, I'll share my thoughts.

Best Game/Most Played Game: Wargame: Airland Battle.

I love this game so, so very much. I've bought six or seven copies for friends, and browbeat a couple of you on the board into getting it, too. I loved it so much, I even learned parts of a foreign language just so I could use the mod tools for the game. Can't wait for the third game in the series next year.

Most Disappointing Game: Rome II, with Dark Souls running a strong second.

Rome II felt more and more like a let down as I continued to play it. Aside from screwing with the UI and some mechanics that they got perfect in Shogun II, it was so unbalanced, buggy, and poorly optimized that they had to release about half a dozen huge patches for it to fix the game. Also wins the Stupidest Hats award. I know I risk incurring Paimon's wrath by listing Dark Souls here, but I just... failed to enjoy it. In fairness, it had been hyped up considerably by my friends, and I was not used to the 360 controller (so it felt a bit clunky), but it just failed to draw me in. Not saying it's bad, just saying it's not for me.

Old Game I Will Continue To Play Forever: Dragon Age: Origins/Rainbow Six Vegas 2

DA:O was the first real RPG I played, and it will continue to be my favorite. I usually play through it 2-3 times a year. Likewise, Vegas 2 is my absolute favorite tactical shooter, bar none. Been playing it since it came out in 2008, and will continue to play it until I can't.

Epic Failure I Enjoyed The Most: Sim City 5

I always enjoy watching EA get castigated, and watching them screw this up so horribly even the normal news media picked up on it was deeply satisfying.

Most WTF Packed Game: Saints Row IV

It was gloriously batsh*t, and I loved every minute of it.

Best Expansion: XCOM: Enemy Within

If you liked XCOM, get Enemy Within. The late game is still a bit stale, but the early game is much, much improved, and hearing soldiers speak in their native tongue really adds a lot to the game. Also, Mechs rock, because FAAAAAAALCON PAAAAAAWNCH!

Best Deal: Company of Heroes 2 for $12.00

Steam Sale + Coupon from Kommissar Orren = Win




So, that's it for me, what about you all? Feel free to use my categories or make up your own!

[Julian Sharps]

Best Game/Most Played Game: Kerbal Space Program

I think that it is safe to say that it is the computer game that I have been waiting for my entire life. I mean, it combines the best features of LEGOs, rocketry, and flight simulation, with a whole star system to explore. I can build space stations, moonbases; just about anything I want, and rockets need not even be involved if I'm working with rovers or aircraft. Obviously, I could go on for pages about this game, but I won't out of consideration to everyone else on the IGMB.

Most Disappointing Game: FreeCiv

FreeCiv is a freeware version of Civilization/Civilization II, and after hearing good things about the game from a number of people, I figured that I'd take it out for a spin. Well, I can't say that I'm particularly impressed with it, especially with the sheer number of things that need to be done that the game doesn't tell me that I need to do and refuses to give me the information I need to figure it out myself. Personally, I'll stick with Age of Empires.

Old Game I Will Continue To Play Forever: Pokemon Fire Red Version or Star Fox 64

While strictly speaking, Pokemon Fire Red is a remake of the original Red Version, Red Version is the one that I grew up with, and I'm pleased to see that the GBA update managed to keep it mostly the same, but with the tweaks it sorely needed. With Star Fox 64, the first thing that attracted me to it was the shape of the bomb explosions (seriously, look it up; they are freaking awesome), and even today it remains quite challenging. I predict that I will continue to play that game until either the cartridge or my N64 die of old age.

Epic Failure I Enjoyed The Most: Xbox One

So, it's basically a classic Xbox that's been polished up a bit, given Kinect support, and needs to be connected to the internet in order to be useful at all? You dropped the ball on this one, Microsoft, you dropped the freaking ball.

Most WTF Packed Game: Papers, Please

You're a customs inspector for a border checkpoint, and few of the people trying to get into the country have their papers in order. They keep forgetting that a passport is required (one of the characters, Jorji Costava, even tries to pass off a fake passport from the fictitious country of Cobrastan (seriously, it looked like it had been made with crayons on colored construction paper) as a real one), they keep messing up on a whole lot of other things, too, and there's this one guy who accidentally gives you two passports from different countries, with different names, and then says that it was all a mistake and then demands that you give him his papers back. Seriously, watch Scott Manley's playthrough videos of the game; he does a whole in-character train-of-thought rambling thing in a bad Russian accent.
Kerbal Space Program

Sometimes, the game's physics engine takes a turn for the bizarre. Case in point:


Best Expansion: StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

Some nice tweaks for StarCraft II, but ultimately it's the Zerg campaign that takes the cake here. Watching Kerrigan undo just about everything you did in Wings of Liberty was just astounding, especially given her reasons, and the execution was great. I'm pumped for the Protoss campaign.

Best Deal: Rebuild 2

It's quite the zombie survival flash game, and it's completely free to play.

[Adkenpachi]

Best Game/Most Played Game: GTA5 aside from connection issues this game is pretty much the perfect game! However it's been outplayed by payday2 which I started off hating now can't put down as it's co-op heaven and so gratifying when you do a silent heist as a team.

Most Disappointing Game: Borderlands 2, it was an expansion of 1 with nothing new and a crap storyline.

Old Game I Will Continue To Play Forever: Mount and blade, though I have given in and bought warband.

Epic Failure I Enjoyed The Most: PS4, what a load of guff! Even their model they sent to ign didn't work.

Most WTF Packed Game: Payday2, you put a mask on infront of a single civilian and 60 seconds later the fbi and entire swat are shooting at you. .. wtffffff!

Best Expansion: I dont do expansions often so I'll go for the new decks for mtg.

Best Deal: gta5 for £32 on release was pretty sweet

[Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four]

I've been hitting X-Wing hard since being exposed to it in the late spring/early summer. I now have complete squadrons of TIE Fighters, TIE Interceptors, a flight group of TIE Bombers, and two TIE Advanced minis. On the Rebel side I've got flight groups for the A-, B-, X-, and Y-Wings. I also picked up the Falcon, Slave I, Lambda Shuttle, and the "Moldy Crow." I've got the Imperial Aces expansion set on pre-order (where you get two more Interceptors with one branded with 181st Squadron stripes and the other sporting a red paint scheme of a Royal Guard pilot), and am avidly following the pending releases of the "big" ships (Blockade Runner and Rebel Transport). Great, great game; similar to Aeronautica Imperialis, but the minis are so awesome because they're pre-painted amazingly well and faithfully detailed and you can get playing as soon as you unbox everything.

I also picked up Star Trek Attack Wing early in the fall semester, which uses the same X-Wing mechanics licensed by FFG to WizKids, but the minis for it are typical WizKids Heroclix failcrap--paint jobs are horrendous, injection port/sprue attachment points are either mangled or not clipped down far enough, and the scale of the ships isn't even propper. It looks like it will be fun to play (Tribble bomb!), but I'm going to have to strip, clean up, and re-paint the minis before I'd feel comfortable actually putting them down on the gaming table.

Oh, and of course Kerbal...

[Kommissar Orren]

Best Game/Most Played Game: I'd have to agree with Reds, and say Wargame: Airland Battle
I don't know how many hours I've played this game with Reds, before and after modding. The modding made the game even better.

Most Disappointing Game: I'd have to say Borderlands 2 followed by Rome II. Borderlands 2 just felt the same to me. Rome II felt like a new experience, and it was super fun for me... at the start. The more I played and further I got the more I realized that the game was horribly unbalanced, and it's system of happiness and such didn't really make any sense at all, and was faaar from realistic.

Best MMO: War Thunder. If you haven't heard of it before, it is sort of like World of Tanks, but this will involve land, air, and sea units. Right now they finished the air portion, and are about to go into closed beta for land units. Right now they have US, UK, Germany, Soviet Union, and Japan with aircraft, with Italian mixed in with the German, and French mixed in with the Brits. I'd recommend trying out the game. It's Free to Play, but you can put money into it to make things a bit faster like WoT.

Old Game I Will Continue to Play Forever: I'd have to go with Fallout 3, Mount and Blade:Warband or Hearts of Iron III just for their replayability, and funness.

Recommended Global Strategy Games: Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV. Both are made by Paradox, and with the release of EUIV, you can continue your game from CKII into EUIV with the DLC converter. They are pretty complicated games to master, and take a lot of time but are endless fun once you learns the ropes.


I have a love/hate relationship with Paradox. They are just so stupid sometimes. That's about it for me though~

[dougeye]

Best Game/Most Played Game: GTA 5, no other game released this year has held my attention. I cannot think of another with a 2013 release date. Other games of note, Metro Last Light,the walking dead season 1, X-com (need to play the expantion still)

Most Disappointing Game: Shogun 2 (controversial ) just didn't click with me like other total war games and I love samurai etc. I think its because I came late to the party and only bought it in the summer sales on steam.

Old Game I Will Continue To Play Forever: Funnily enough ive just re-installed Dragon age origins (ultimate edition) which should keep me occupied for a few weeks. (needs to finish thunderhawk tommorow lol)

Epic Failure I Enjoyed The Most: Has to be X Rebirth (not x-Com releated) a space sim series which is one of my favourite franchises X3 was epic, huge galaxy and the ability to own an empire of stations and ships that had no limits apart from your fps dropping so low your cpu exploded lol I enjoyed X Reborth and im sure in 12 months after patches and expanded content it will be a lot better and I definetly will revisit it at some point.

Most WTF Packed Game: 2 words "Trevor Philips"

Best Expansion: Hmmm don't think I have any expansions this year so ill go for an old one and say DOW 2 - Retribution

Best Deal: The Walking dead season 1 complete for under £5 on steam sales.

[Julian Sharps]

EDIT: Papers, Please beats KSP in the WTF moments department.

[RedsandRoyals]

dougeye: Try Fall of the Samurai. It's less clunky, more visually rewarding, and has Gatling guns.

[Rolling Thunder]

Best? Wargame Airland Battle, because I'm an addict and a griefer. Despite the terrible implementation of several nations (DDR, FRG, UK, Poland), it is tremendous fun to load up an MP map with three friends and then stomp the crap out of tryhards with their pathetic little cookie-cutter decks

[treadiculous]

Best game - AirLand Battle: because it offers the scale, the variety and the tactics I have wanted from an RTS for a very long time.

(It also helps that there a lot friendly people with whom to play cooperatively making meta, macro and micro team dynamic and development a nice bonus.)


Most Disappointing: Company of Heroes 2... probably because I'm used to playing AirLand Batttle, and it seemed more like an expansion rather than anything new, shame as I loved CoH1.

I might add here that Total War Empire was great until it updated, initially I could build massive naval fleets in skirmish mode and enjoy much piratical action, then it updated and all I can field now is 6 ships. boo. (I have no idea how the rest of the game plays as I've only played naval war).

Old Game - Space Marine: I like shooting orks ... multiplayer is a bit sparse and filled with experts so that's not much fun anymore, but hacking through the campaign is still loads of fun.

Best MMO: World of Tanks... I love it. I have 6 tanks most of which are stars from CoH1, most have crews with enough experience to be working through skills and the tanks are kitted out with some good additional gear. I love the fact in some games you'll be king of the crew and in others the same tank will be lowest ranking on the field meaning that even your best tank with best crew can still struggle hard. I also love the attention to physics making real tank tactics viable. Whats lovely is playing with a few people who know how to work in a team (but that goes for any MMO / co-op play).


to be honest, all I've played this year has been WoT and ALB with a tiny smattering of ork blood