This year, I don’t have a clear game to champion as my game of the year yet. That isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed anything- it’s quite the opposite- I’ve enjoyed a certain few games so much that I have yet to choose one above the others. I’ve got a pretty specific top three games that I keep flip-flopping between, but I enjoyed all of them so much it’s tough to choose a favorite. When you get down to my favorite three, you can basically put them in any order, they’re all that good. Last year I was able to hold Journey high and above everything (until The Walking Dead) with little competition to speak of. 2013 has been pretty great so far, with some surprises, disappointments, and a whole lot of incredible games. Here’s a rough estimate of my favorites of this year, and all of these can and will probably be changed before the end of 2013, who knows what could happen?. Let’s get started with… (more…)
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Best Games of June 2013
June has been an embarrassment of riches for me. E3 happened (Yeah, that was less than a month ago) and was the most exciting E3 ever, and I’ve enjoyed just as many games this month than I have any other time this year. When I haven’t been obsessed with Animal Crossing, I’ve had the chance to pick up more than a few exceptional games in the past 30 days. The Last of Us was probably my most anticipated title I expected from 2013, and I’m supremely impressed with how it turned out. I can only hope the rest of the year remains as exciting.
1. The Last of Us
My favorite Naughty Dog game by a longshot, The Last of Us finally proves to me what the company is capable of. The performances and storytelling all come together to create one of the most believable worlds this year, and the gameplay manages to hold up its end of the bargain as well. It’s a beautiful story well told, and is just as entertaining to play through as it is to watch.
2. Animal Crossing: New Leaf
The fourth game in the series doesn’t revolutionize the game by any means, but it does improve upon nearly every aspect of the formula. Nearly every day I’ve played in the past month I’ve been able to discover something new, and even now I’m stumbling into completely new avenues that I hadn’t touched before. This week, I’ve decided to completely redesign my house from the basement up. New stores continue to open, new villagers keep dropping by, and friends still have new stories to tell about what’s going on in their town. While it’s much of the same we’ve seen before, it’s a great foundation that I’m happy to keep coming back to again and again. And the hourly music makes me happy every time I turn the thing on.
3. Kentucky Route Zero: Act 2
This weird series has been one of the most interesting things to come out of 2013 so far. With dream-like logic and heaps of creativity, Kentucky Route Zero is consistently the most surprising game I enjoy returning to every few months. The strange world is so well crafted, the weirdness feels right at home. If the quality stays as high as it’s been with the first two episodes, Kentucky Route Zero will be one of the most easily recommendable hits of the year.
Honorable Mentions
SpyParty (Open beta): SpyParty has been around for years, but this month is the first time it’s been available for purchase, so I’m cheating and putting it here. It is one of my favorite games of the year, and demands an incredible amount of patience, attention to detail, and a little luck. I can’t stop playing round after round.
Room of 1000 Snakes: There are no words. Click the link, spend your 90 seconds, enjoy your day.
New Super Luigi U: While it doesn’t have that new game smell, it’s an excuse to return to one of the Wii U’s best games, and plow through some pretty tough platforming.
(Also, if for some reason you haven’t played Hotline Miami, it just came out on Vita and PS3 this month. It was one of the best games of last year, and plays excellently with either new system. Get it now, ask questions later.)
– Zach
Image Sources: edge-online.com polygon.com rockpapershotgun.com
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Soundodger – Sounds Fun
Adult Swim games have been picking up some pretty great stuff lately, and their newest offering is one of the best yet. Soundodger is a bullet-hell game in which, and I promise you didn’t see this coming, you dodge sounds.Your tiny playable icon is trapped inside a much larger circle, and the bullets are tossed in by the beat of the music. You’re tasked with not getting hit while listening to some sweet tunes.
A game so focused around music wouldn’t be anything without it’s soundtrack, and luckily there’s some pretty great talent on hand for this one. Disasterpeace (composer of Fez) and other great musicians are on display here, each taking on the theme of a level.
There are a surprisingly large number of levels here, especially for a free game, and I kept coming back for more every time I finished one. If you’re ready to meet your new addiction, check out Soundodger right here, and let the music take you away. Just don’t hit the arrows.
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The Last of Us – Brutal and Beautiful
In case you haven’t heard by now, The Last of Us is pretty good.Much praise has been heaped upon the Uncharted series over the years, and they’re respectable games for a number of reasons. The characters and set-pieces are best in class. They have some of the most beautiful animation and most lifelike environments in the business. They’re stunning to me in many ways, expect a pretty glaring one, the gameplay.
I’ve always enjoyed watching the Uncharted games, and I get a jolt of excitement whenever a cutscene triggers because I can almost be certain it’s going to be excellent to watch. The gunplay, however, consistently turns me off from wanting to play through them. I finished the three main entries in the series, and I was left with the same impression each time, “they could be so much better.”
The Last of Us is Naughty Dog’s evolution, and is that “better” game. For me, at least.
I was off to a rocky start with The Last of Us, but after a few hours in (about 4) and it won me over for good. After I’d gotten used to the rules of the fights, and the pacing began to pick up, it was hard to tear myself away from seeing what would come next. If you’re finding your interest on shaky footing, I have to recommend sticking with it.
The combat is totally revamped, doing away with hordes of a dozen machine-gun toting baddies. Here, a common scenario will involve you and three enemies trapped in an entire floor of a building together, playing a murderous game of hide and seek. Combat can and will turn into shooting at each other, but it still feels miles ahead of any sequence in Uncharted. Hiding just behind a bookcase and popping out to fire a single bullet is thrilling, and I enjoyed it far more than I ever expected to.
It feels true to the setting, and just feels better to play than anything Naughty Dog has made before. Dying wasn’t a cause for frustration, it was a chance that allowed me to come at a situation from a different angle, and enjoy experimenting with the ways I could succeed. The combat with the “infected” enemies was quite not as enjoyable, but led to some tense sequences that held up their parts when they needed to.
As I mentioned before, Naughty Dog’s narratives have always been top-notch, and they’ve done it once again in an expectedly excellent fashion. Main characters Joel and Ellie travel across post-apocalyptic America in order to…do something. To say too much more would be a disservice to everyone. The story isn’t about the destination anyway, it’s about the events that take place along the journey. The pair meet plenty of other survivors along the way, and by the end have gone through more than either of them ever wanted. The environmental storytelling is extremely well executed as well, some of the best story vignettes are told without anyone uttering a word, and are completely missable if you aren’t examining the environments. The dark tale ends on a near perfect note that I guarantee will spark debates for the foreseeable future.
This is the first game from Naughty Dog this generation I can recommend without adding “but…” at the end. It’s an excellent game worthy of being praised. It isn’t without it’s faults, however. I ran into multiple glitches, some with weird AI movements, and some distracting audio cues. The worst was when the sound cut out during an important cutscene, leaving me with no option but to turn the subtitles on and wait it out. Other than glitches, there are more than a few questionable design choices that present themselves as “puzzles”. The fourth time you grab the exact same wooden palette to use as a raft from point A to point B, let me know how exciting it is.
Even with a few complaints, it’s still my favorite big budget adventure this year, and is one of the most emotionally exhausting games I’ve played in a long time.
Between The Last of Us and BioShock Infinite, we’re able to send our current consoles off with a bang, and I couldn’t be happier.
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They Warned You: Room of 1000 Snakes
Room of 1000 Snakes won’t take you long to finish, and it won’t leave you pondering the meaning of your existence days after it’s over. It does, however, contain a great 30 seconds or so of suspense. (more…) -
E3 2013 Press Conference Wrap-up
E3 is the biggest gaming event of the year, and it’s near impossible to find out everything that’s going on in the few days the expo lasts. If you didn’t have time to watch every announcement flowing from E3 last week, here’s your chance to catch back up with everything your friends already know. Here are the highlights:
Microsoft
Microsoft started relatively well, presenting multiple exclusives for the Xbox One, and showing us what to expect in the upcoming generation from their side of the fence.
Dead Rising 3 was announced as an exclusive for Xbox One, and looked a little drearier than I would have liked for a sequel to such a silly franchise. Everything was dark, and the humor didn’t find it’s way into the demo that was shown onstage. The game still looks nice, and there are tons of zombies roaming the streets, waiting to be destroyed with the customizable weapons.
The teased announcement from the Rare catalog ended up being a new Killer Instinct for the Xbox One. Was anybody really looking forward to this? With Rare’s catalog of creative titles, I was hoping to see a new Viva Pinata or Banjo-Kazooie. Better yet, why not something brand new for a new generation? In lieu of a new IP, I’ll dream of Viva Pinata 3 until it sees the light of day. The reboot of Killer Instinct isn’t even being headed by Rare, so hopefully they’re off crafting something special.
Quantum Break made a gameplay debut on stage, and is looking positively excellent. Remedy, the developer behind Max Payne and Alan Wake has always been able to tell a good story, and this doesn’t seem like an exception. Side note – Remedy really enjoys slow motion, don’t they?
Capy Games showed off Below, which was a highlight of Microsoft’s conference. After Swords and Sworcery, I’ll eat up anything they’ll give me. Along with a beautifully minimalistic art style, it’s being described as a rogue-like with atmospheric adventure. Jim Guthrie is also back for the soundtrack. I’ll take two.
Swery 65’s newly announced title D4 got a small amount of screen time, but still was one of the more interesting things in the show. It’s an episodic drama from the developer of Deadly Premonition, so it’s guaranteed to be really, really, weird. It’s another one of the several exclusive Xbox One titles shown off.
Respawn Entertainment, the newly formed developer who split Activision after making Modern Warfare 2, showed off their Xbox One exclusive Titanfall. It’s a first person shooter (really, what else would it be?) that involved a little bit of everything. Giant mechs? Yeah. Small bits of parkour? We got some of that. Jetpacks? Why not? There’s also some shooting, if you hadn’t guessed. It actually looks pretty interesting, and seems to be doing more to mix up the FPS formula than most, so I’m excited to eventually get my hands on it and see if it’s more than a beefed up Call of Duty.
The show ended with the announcement of a November release date and a $499 price for the console (which comes with the new Kinect).
EA
EA’s conference followed, showing off a few more unannounced titles.
The show began with Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. It’s a co-op first person shooter based in the PvZ universe, and everyone runs around as plants killing zombies. I’m not sure why it exists, but it does. After this was shown, a man walked onto the stage and screamed “PEGGLE 2” and ran away. So Peggle 2 was announced.
Star Wars: Battlefront was teased, a long-awaited reboot of the franchise.
The show ended with the surprise reveal of Mirror’s Edge 2. It looks like Mirror’s Edge, and that’s a good thing. It’s one of EA’s most requested sequels, and I’m glad they’re finally giving it a chance. The trailer ended with a release date of “when it’s ready”, so expect it on the Xbox One and PS4 sometime in the future.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft’s conference included a couple surprises, the first of which was Trials Fusion, a new Trials game for Xbox One and PS4.
The show ended with a pretty huge surprise, the first announcement of The Division, a next-gen third person tactical shooter that seems to be doing some pretty interesting things.
Sony
Sony took the floor at the end of the night, ending with what was probably the best conference I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing at E3. Let’s start with the beginning.
After a bit of a rough start and a little over a half-hour into the show, Sony finally starts talking about the purpose of the show – the PS4.
First off, they showed the box. It looks a lot like an Xbox One.
The Order 1886, is a sci-fi tale set in the past, looks really neat, and will be exclusive to the PS4.
SuperGiant games’ Transistor was shown, and was excellent as always. After making Bastion, that team can show off whatever they want. It will be bought. Transistor will be a timed exclusive on the PS4, following the trend of Sony getting indies to release on the PS4 first.
Square Enix brought some of the heaviest hitters of E3, finally showing off Final Fantasy Versus 13, which actually turned out to be Final Fantasy 15, coming to PS4 and Xbox One. And it’s an action game with no sign of JRPG. Yes it was really weird, but that’s still not the craziest part.
After that, another trailer came up with a Disney logo. Kingdom Hearts 3. Total surprise, and after asking about the game for years, fans were finally satiated. Who knows how far off it is, but plenty of folks are just appeased with Square acknowledging the game’s existence. KH3 is coming to PS4 and Xbox One.
They also announced that Final Fantasy 14 (yes, the MMO one) is coming exclusively to the PS4. Not a single person cared. Not one.
Everything pales in comparison to what happened next.
Jack Tretton takes the stage, seemingly about to end the show. He proceeds to announce that, unlike the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 will support used games. The crowd loses their minds. He continues, says that the console will never check to see if you’re online, and you can trade games with whoever you want, anytime, be offline, whatever. Babies had to have been conceived as the crowd went into an uproar, chanting “Sony, Sony, Sony.” This was released before the show even ended.
Does Sony deserve as much praise for doing literally nothing different than what they’ve been doing for years? Maybe, maybe not. Microsoft was changing the status quo, and Sony could have easily followed suite. They didn’t. That’s great for everyone, and Microsoft’s console is going to be a tough sell when compared to how laid back the PS4 policies are.
While attendees were planning their post-show Sony themed orgies, a small slide appeared onscreen that hinted that PS Plus would be required to play games online with the PS4. Since then, that’s been confirmed, but Sony garnered enough positivity in those previous moments to sneak that detail in with little backlash.
To add insult to injury, Sony also announced that the PlayStation 4 would launch at $399, a full $100 less than the price of an Xbox One. Twitter erupted with “That’s the ballgame” and “Goodnight sweet Xbox” and other quips referring to what was deemed by some as a “finishing blow” to Microsoft. Microsoft has yet to respond with any changes in plan for the Xbox One, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that price fall, or the console requirements to become significantly more relaxed in the next few months. In the meantime, Microsoft has not been doing much to ease people’s minds about the future of the Xbox One. No matter what happens, consumers are going to buy both consoles.
Nintendo
The next morning, instead of holding a press conference, Nintendo held another of their online Nintendo Directs and discussed some new announcements for E3.
A new Fairy type was announced for Pokemon X and Y, along with the ability to pet and feed your creatures.
Super Mario 3D World was announced as a Wii U exclusive, bringing 4-player co-op to a brand new 3D Mario. The game brings the character selection from Super Mario Bros. 2 (Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad) along with the characters respective abilities from the 2D classic. A new cat costume was also shown off, allowing you to run around, pounce on enemies, climb walls, and generally be a cute kitty forever, starting this December.
Mario Kart 8 was also shown off, now with anti-gravity segments where you can ride along walls and ceilings, along with everything else from other Mario Karts.
The new 1080p The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD was shown off, and it’s not going to be a simple remake of an old title. New improvements are being made to the game, such as the ability to increase the speed of sailing while in the ocean. I’m incredibly excited to see what changes are in store for my favorite game, and really anticipating seeing what Nintendo decides to change/improve/ruin.
A new Wii U title from Retro was announced, and it wasn’t a new game, a wild variation of Zelda, or anything else that Retro should probably be experimenting with. It was, of course, Donkey Kong Country Topical Freeze! I’m a fan of the first game, but Retro is one of the most talented game studios out there. I don’t want them tied to a franchise and playing it safe. But I guess I’ll take what I can get.
Bayonetta 2 was shown. It was just a trailer for a game I already knew about, but it’s Bayonetta 2. Bayonetta 2 is a good thing.
The Xenoblade Chronicles dev, Monolith, is working on a new Wii U game known only as X. It’s got plenty of mechs, flying, and is coming sometime in 2014.
Finally, Nintendo closed down the show by showing the new Smash Bros. games. These are two separate games, one for Wii U and one for 3DS. So far, three new characters have been announced. Villager from Animal Crossing, Mega Man, and the Wii Fit Trainer. All three of these are fantastic choices, and any other opinion is invalid. Also Bowser stands upright now for some reason.
Bear in mind that all of these events happened in around 24 hours. That’s a lot of stuff hitting at once, but it’s pretty much the coolest overload to have. So much game news, and that was only the first day and half of E3. There’s plenty of more news afoot, and you’ll be able to find the best of it right here on HippoChippies. Thanks! Let’s do all this again next year.
– Zach
Image Sources: rocketchainsaw.com.au edge-online.com gamespot.com pressedgames.com nerdreactor.com pcgamer.com capsulecomputers.com.au theverge.com pokedit.com worldsfactory.net vg247.com
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