We’re just about at the end of the year here, how was your year for gaming?

This year, I finally got around to wrapping up my first long running game, which was pretty awesome. A few other attempts have been made at another game, but so far nothing’s clicked like that first group. I’ve got a new game (that has been put on hold until next year) now that looks like it’ll last. Time will tell soon, I hope.

Other things gaming related this year: I wasted decent amounts of money on games that didn’t work out. Diablo 3 being the biggest sinner of the bunch, with Mists of Pandaria hot on it’s heels. Diablo 3 was a cluster fuck of terrible design and shit storytelling, while Mists of Pandaria is the bleach you mistakenly used to get the bad taste out of your mouth that Diablo 3 left. In both cases, money was wasted, and time better spent on going to sleep was instead used on midnight releases for games  that we couldn’t even play when they got released (Diablo 3’s wonderful requirement of an always on internet connection, even for single player, means that until 4 AM PST, you couldn’t even PLAY the fucking game after installing it if it was too early; The MoP starting quests didn’t trigger until 4 AM PST as well IIRC), so that was pointless. In fact, Diablo 3 was so bad that I think it killed the Action RPG genre for me.

Its not all bad, though. I finally got to play Fallout 3 years after it came out. While I felt that the game was pretty awesome overall, I didn’t like a few story choices (like not being able to step in during one particular key scene) and the ending overall (for the base game anyway, I never got to play the DLC stuff). It’s the first Fallout game I’ve played all the way through (Fallout 1 always ended after getting the water chip for me).  I’ve been wanting to get Fallout: New Vegas for awhile now, but I keep missing every sale on the game somehow.

I finally found a fighter to replace my old Super Smash Brothers Melee obsession this year as well; Persona 4 Arena scratched that itch that had be there ever since Smash Brawl ended up being shit and helped split the smash community. Persona 4 Arena does what Smash Brawl failed to do: Create a game that is accessible to both hardcore fighting game enthusiasts and casual/entry level players. The game has an Auto Combo button that you can mash, and it’ll do a predetermined combo that will end in a super move. The combo is a little flashy, but certainly not worth your time once you get used to the game. The game also offers a Visual Novel like Story Mode and a pretty decent training mode that teaches you the basics and some of the more advanced techniques as well. P4A is worth every bit of money you’ll pay for it.

Outside of Diablo 3 and Mists of Pandaria, I’d say this year was pretty good for me and games. Next year’s looking pretty good as well, with Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, Bioshock Infinite, and Grand Theft Auto 5 all coming out, and hopefully Dark Souls Two along with it, which would be awesome. I’m hoping we see some more from Nintendo for the Wii U, at least some details on the next Zelda game (though I am really getting tired of the formula, so I’m hoping they go back to the way things were in Link to the Past or Minish Cap this time around).

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