hippochippies – Page 35

HippoChippies’ Favorite Games of E3 2014

While there may not have been as many mind-blowing surprises as last year, the sheer amount of quality games shown at this year’s E3 more than makes up for that. Each huge conference this year was filled with great games, and the worst thing I can say about them is that Sony wasted about 30 minutes of an otherwise excellent showing. Here are my picks of what I’m most excited to play in the coming year or so:

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse

This one really came out of nowhere. I’ve been a huge proponent of Kirby Canvas Curse since it launched back in 2005. It was a creative new take on the Kirby formula, and was filled with tons of secrets and unlockables. It’s been one of my favorite DS games since, which is a bold claim considering how many incredible DS games there are. Rainbow Curse looks really great so far, and the colorful claymation art style makes me want it even more. Nintendo has a penchant for inventing more wonderful, colorful worlds to play around in, and Rainbow Curse looks like another step in the right direction.

No Man’s Sky

Every time I see this game, I hope that one day it’ll actually come out. If you aren’t blown away by each new trailer of this, I’m curious what you’re wanting from video games. No Man’s Sky is one of the most ambitious games I’ve ever seen, and I hope that ambition eventually leads into a working product. It seems too good to be true, and we still don’t even know what you’ll actually be doing in the game. For now, the concept of flying seamlessly through an infinitely spanning space is enough to keep me excited, and hopeful.

Zelda Wii U

So Aonuma has learned to say all the right things, but will it actually be as refreshing as he describes it? Prior to A Link Between Worlds, I probably wouldn’t have believed him. A huge open world where you can go wherever you want in any order, without limits? No Zelda game has felt that open in over a decade, but A Link Between Worlds was able to recapture some of that feeling just last year. If the lessons learned from the 3DS game (no lengthy tutorial, no annoying sidekicks, actual freedom and rewards for exploration) carry into a 3D space, we may be looking at something incredible.

Bloodborne

New Dark Souls, huh? As little as we’ve been able to see so far, I’m still incredibly excited that it exists. After Miyazaki’s departure after the Dark Souls 1 DLC, he’s been working on a secret project, and it has finally come to light. Dark Souls is one of my favorite games ever, so of course I’m going to be excited about the next game from it’s mastermind. With new weaponry and a heavier emphasis on darkness and close quarter combat, I’ll be the first in line when it (hopefully) launches next year.

Titan Souls

I was so happy to see this at the Sony press conference. One of my favorite games from last year and a winner of Ludum Dare 28, it’s a tiny game that combines what makes my favorite games great. It’s a boss battle fest about discovering huge creatures in a large lonely world. The new version will be hitting as a much larger package than it’s original release (around 20 bosses!!!!!), and it’s a tiny game that’s more interesting than most games a hundred times its size.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

Super Mario 3D World was great for a lot of reasons. The Captain Toad levels were the icing on the cake. Can Nintendo turn that icing into a full course meal? The short levels from 3D World were a highlight of that game. You steer a Toad through an isometric puzzle environment to discover hidden paths and items. The first trailer for this game makes it already look like they’re heading in the right direction, with bigger levels and huge boss encounters. For now, I’m very happy to see more of Captain Toad by the end of this year.

Far Cry 4

You can steal a car while you are driving another car and ramp that car off a hill and fly off a mountain in a wingsuit and have your friend fly a tiny helicopter over a bunch of exploding elephants.

Mario Maker

Imagine if LittleBigPlanet were better than a cool idea, and actually a really fun thing to play? I’ve never found the controls in LBP very satisfying, but the idea of millions of people creating and sharing playable ideas is fascinating. What if that idea was paired with the best platforming mechanics of all time? Out of all of the new surprises from E3, this is one I want my hands on right now.

SUPER SMASH BROS FOR WII U

CAN YOU FEEL IT. IT’S HAPPENING. PAC-MAN. PUNCHING. JUMPING. MIIS. CHARIZARD. IT’S ALMOST HERE AND I CAN TASTE IT. Smash is gonna be good, and I don’t know what they could do at this point to not make me buy it on day one. There wasn’t even a ton of E3 stuff to say about Smash other than a few new characters, but I’m just so excited to see people playing and enjoying it as much as I plan to as soon as I can throw that disk into my Wii U.

A few sequels, a few brand new ideas, and hopefully a lot of fun to come in the next year or so. I had a ton of fun watching E3 and discussing it with everyone, and this E3 seemed to spawn less hate than usual. Each system has a ton of games coming, both exclusively and multiplatform, and I can’t imagine someone not having at least a few things to be looking forward to. There are lots of other games that I didn’t pay much attention to that were being shown at E3, because I already am sure I’ll enjoy them. Games like Axiom Verge, Shovel Knight, Below, Danganronpa 2, Sunset Overdrive, Cuphead, The Binding of Isaac Rebirth, and more are heading our way, and we’ll be playing them soon enough. Here’s to another excellent E3, let’s hope we play these games sooner rather than later.

June 17, 2014
Just One More Round With One Tap Quest

Click this link.

Did you do it? You could have already played the game several times by now.

One Tap Quest is a very simple RPG where you have no control aside from the first move you make. You’ve got a board filled with powerups and creatures, and all you can do is place your character and watch them run into a field of obstacles towards the finish line. (more…)

June 7, 2014
Games of the Month – April 2014

Yeah, so this one’s a little late. With the amount of games releasing lately, it’s hard to find the time to play everything that’s on my plate, and fairly judge them comparatively in these “best of” posts. The plus side of this taking so long is, well, there’s a ton of awesome games out right now. Between April and May, I’ve had just as much to play as almost any other time this year. There have been some incredibly surprising games that came essentially from out of nowhere, and ended up taking up a ton of my time. And of course there’s still Hearthstone, which I think I’ve played almost every day for the last few months, but I digress.

Mibibli’s Quest

Take everything you love about Mega Man, make it a whole lot weirder, and you’ll have Mibibli’s Quest. The tight platforming through varied stages rivals anything we’ve seen in the genre in the last few years, and the huge amount creativity carries you through a dozen or more hours of excellence. I love the original Mega Man games, and this comes almost as close as MegaMan Unlimited to bringing back that feel, and then adds its own madness on top.

The Wolf Among Us: Episode 3

Everything is picking up steam, and we’re finally starting to see some of the real players behind this story. Scene after scene, I was being bombarded with action, character development, and more twists and turns. After the excellent reveal of the second episode, this episode starts and barely ever lets up. By the last hour, I was literally on the edge of my seat, awaiting the next choice I was going to be forced into. I love this series so far, and the relationships between each character feel realer than ever in this one; I can’t wait to see how they grow after this.

Trials Fusion

In what feels like a mix between BADLAND and Donkey Kong Country Returns, the newest Trials game is the best in the series I’ve played yet. Each level is brilliantly designed around setpieces, and has the pacing to make you want to binge the whole thing in one sitting. The level designs are varied throughout, and there’s always a punchline at the end, whether you’re abducted by aliens out of nowhere or a giant sand monster drags you to its depths. The creativity on display here is matched by few other frantic platformers, and it’s a shame that the last couple hours shed the high speed races for slower, physics based puzzles that the series (for some reason) seems to pride itself on. It’s a blast for those first several hours though, and I’d gladly play through them again.

Honorable Mentions:

Monument Valley

In case you missed the first time I talked this game up, it’s a beautiful, brief experience that builds a better world and characters in an hour than many games do in twenty.

Hearthstone

Hearthstone makes one of these lists again because it’s on iPad now, and I’m still playing it every day since like five months ago. Help.

June 1, 2014
Hubol’s 2 is Metroid and Much More

2 is a brightly colored, endlessly creative game with influence from 2D Metroid, but it’s also much more than that. It seems unassuming in its opening moments; you walk across a couple of rooms, use some keys to unlock doors, and get some health. And then slowly, things start to open up, and you see what kind of game you’re really in for. (more…)

May 12, 2014
Mibibli’s Quest is the Best Weird Mega Man Game

I just stumbled into this one a few days ago, and it feels like it was made just for me. Take the best parts of Mega Man (lots of well designed stages, cool boss fights) and mix it with a really unplaceable sense of humor (jokes about the futility of existence, a strange man who loses more articles of clothing every time you defeat him) and you’ll have Mibibli’s Quest. First off, just say “Mibibli” a few times to yourself out loud, because it’s a really funny name. Next, play this game immediately because it’s probably the best new game you could be playing, and I’m going to talk about it forever. (more…)

April 24, 2014
Games of the Month – March 2014

If you know anything about me, it probably won’t be too hard to guess what my favorite game this month was. I’ll try not to spend the whole page talking about Dark Souls, because there were actually a few other good games that came out in March (but Dark Souls was my favorite). This one’s late due in part to a busy past couple of months with plenty of stuff to dig through, and due to the fact that I’ve become hopelessly addicted to Hearthstone and replaying the original Dark Souls. (more…)

April 21, 2014