Gaming Picks 2014 Recap

Time to look back and try to recap my gaming year. As usual, my gaming time was divided between new games and games from my (too big) backlog. It has been the first complete “New Generation of Consoles” year, but still didn’t see big changes, mainly because:

• There still are more cross-gen games than what I was expecting
• Some big titles were delayed to 2015 (Batman Arkham Knight, The Order: 1886, Evolve, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt…)
• Others had serious launch problems (DRIVECLUB, HALO: MCC, Assassin’s Creed Unity).

Statistics

• 69 Videos Published in YouTube Channel / More than 47.000 views
• 54 Blog Entries (including this one) / More than 500 views / More than 290 visitors (Thank you!)
• 102 Games Played (to be honest, some of them I played them for a very little time or to make captures)
• 23 Games Finished 😦

Most Played Game

Sports and driving usually make my top played games, but this year this has changed a bit. My most played game this year have been inFamous: Second Son (even more I take into consideration its standalone DLC First Light), followed by Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag (I started the game past year, but finished during this one) and DRIVECLUB. So, this year was more open world adventure focused.

2014 also has a big change, I’m back playing Pro Evolution Soccer instead of FIFA. If it had been released on September, certainly will be my most played game of the year.

Biggest (positive) surprise

Rogue Legacy, no question. Incredible addictive, even with my little gaming time, I put 10 hours on it just the first week (combining PS4 and Vita, loved cross-buy / cross-save with this game). I haven’t played it for some time now, but it remains as one of the biggest surprises of the year. I would like also to make a mention Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. I was reading some good impressiones about the game, but you never know until you actually play it (I don’t believe media, only players).

Still have to play games like Wolfenstein: The New Order or Alien: Isolation, about which I have read great impressions. Maybe next year.

Best Game Played

This is a difficult one to pick, I played (and finished) all the games I can, properly, with some dedication and diversity, trying to cover different genres and not necesarly released during the year. I enjoyed new inFamous entry, but story wasn’t as good as previous ones. Destiny was a bit disappointing, great to play but I missed more story or character development and often feel a bit empty.

During 2014 I finished my second The Last of Us walkthrough (still on PS3) and get touched by the story DLC released: Left Behind. I don’t know if it’s the best ot the year, but certainly it’s a great game and a great addition to which probably is the game of the generation.

I also finished the second season of The Walking Dead, but didn’t impress me as much as the first one. Still have to finish Watch_Dogs, not a bad game, but far from which it could have been with a better script. And contrary to most of the people, I really liked BioShock Infinite, a game will certainly appear on the blog next year, there are some aspects I would like to share.

If I have to choose, I would choose these two as the best titles I’ve played during this year:

• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
• DRIVECLUB

Apart from big titles, as I noticed before, I’m starting to enjoy more and more those little titles that carry memories of old time classics. During this year it has been great being able to play games like the already mentioned Rogue Legacy, TxK, OlliOlli, Race the Sun, Spelunky, Steamworld Dig, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth or Velocity 2X.

And I’m still playing (and it’s a bit early to make conclusions) two other great games: Far Cry 4 (more than 10 hours in and loving it) and Dragon Age Inquisition.

Most Viewed Video of the Channel

This year I’ve seen fulfilled some landmarks of my little YouTube Channel. More than 100.000 views, more than 100 subscribers… Compared to other ones, this numbers can seem ridiculous, but for me, they’re great and the Channel isn’t monetized, it’s just a hobby. Sometimes it’s a bit sad that a video you make with some efforts (like the features about Pang or MotorStorm) has little to none views, but it’s understandable in a context where thousands of videos are uploaded every hour.

Curiously, some of the most viewed videos are the ones that were very easy to capture and upload. And I think people trends to see videos of recent titles, but I still will maintain the approach of combining all kind of content, old or new.

The most viewed this year has been “KillZone: Shadow Fall – Ending Credits”, a really controversial game, with a campaign that I enjoyed, but that it has some ups and downs. The ending credits, in the other hand, were great, taking back a song already used to promote KillZone (“Ballet of the Death” trailer released with KillZone 2):

A special mention to “flower’s Ending Credits” video, featured in Kotaku and that made my channel skyrocket to 1.400 views in a day (that’s a lot for me).

Historically, “Naughty Dog Historical Logos Montage” remains as the most viewed video of the channel, which is great because I love their games and a lot of people liked the video.

2015 Expectations

I think that 2015 is going to be a great year for gaming, start to finish. We’re speaking about big titles like Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Batman Arkham Knight, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, EVOLVE, HALO 5, Quantum Break, Bloodborne, Rise of the Tomb Raider… and some titles we still have to see. But I’m also expecting other little games that will take (or have already taken) us by surprise, like No Man’s Sky (I hope), Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Axiom Verge, RIME, The Tomorrow Children, SOMA …

I certainly won’t play all of them, I’ve little time and I don’t have an Xbox One (personal choice), but I still hope to maintain the regular updates of the blog with content you like, covering new releases but also older titles that I find interesting. You can also make suggestions of what you would like to see (thanks in advance).

And of course, as at all the posts published today,

Happy New Year!