NGII is so epic! The music, the action, the story sequences... so ahead of it's time.

Might as well put that time to good use, right? I mean, it's either that, or read. >.>

Yup, I have the GOG version so it just worked. I imagine they used DOSbox but not really sure.

Thanks. You've got a pretty snazzy avatar yourself.

Max Payne 3 is set in Sao Paulo, though a fictional version. There's a football club whose name (Galatians) seems to be a reference to a real team, Corinthians. Settings range from high-rise opulence to favela slums.

From what I remember, Brood War's campaign was absolutely brutal at the end. I never used cheats, but I understand those that do.

Also, System Shock is a classic that inspired many after it... but it's not the most approachable of games.

Edit: On Heart of the Swarm, from what I understand, a lot less emphasis was put on the story campaign for the first expansion. I think Blizzard is taking a Call of Duty approach to the series - the campaign is there, but it's short because they know a lot of people are just there for the multiplayer.

Grats on the for the Super Shinobi. I mean.. it's not like I'm a fan or anything...

I'm actually a big fan of Yahtzee Crowshaw's other works and I'm a late comer to his indie games like 7 Days a Skeptic in the Chzo Mythos. It's well done for what it is, though I think there's inherent weaknesses in the graphic adventure model that are hard to get around.

Thanks! It's one of my favorites, too, and it's long been a dream of mine to have my work featured there. Between that and the interview with Good Games Writing, I feel like I'm starting to earn some real geek cred.

A piece of moldy toast is better than Bioshock Infinite.

It's certainly up there!

Just wanted to drop in and say that I'm a big fan of your top two games of 2014! Cheers.

I did the same thing before ACIII came out. Beat ACs 1, II, Brotherhood, and Revelations in the space of about a month. Then I never ended up getting III, partly out of laziness, partly because my brother got me Arkham City for Christmas and I found the game that Assassin's Creed was trying to be. Then I finally got ACIII this summer, and, well... let's just say it's one of the few games I couldn't even be bothered to give a mercy three-star rating to (I give most games at least a three-star rating on a "at least you tried" basis. My two-star ratings are reserved for "I can tell you weren't even trying". And one-star games are for games that actually wasted my time and money).

I do want to replay it to see if I misjudged it, though, since I enjoyed the hell out of IV, and aside from the Pirate bits I couldn't really see anything different from ACIII, except that I took my time to do all the side stuff in IV and I rushed through the story of III. I want to see if that makes a difference.

The AC2 trilogy and AC4 are the modern classics, AC1 was more of a proof-of-concept.

And... no more gaming this year. List of best games beaten in 2014 list is on. Happy holidays everyone!

My suggestion with GTAIV is to keep going. Niko gets more fleshed out as a character during the incredibly long story campaign.

Shotgun has pretty much covered all my issues with Infinite already but I'll just add one thing. I'd recommend playing on the easier difficulties. The harder difficulties only make things more bullet spongy (especially the non-basic enemies) and the gameplay more duck and cover shooting. Even the 1999 Mode only adds money loss on death which may lead to a game over but you get so much money it never really comes up.

I knew what you meant.

I began to recognize the game's simplicity around the time of the propaganda museum (incidentally, about the same time you're allowed to start playing with the tears). There's a moment later in the game where I had to fight a ghost where I just went "fuck it, they're not even trying anymore, and neither am I." I flipped the game onto Easy and just plowed through the rest of it because I just wanted it to be over. Minor complaints about the game themes, aside from the "twist" endings which are completely obvious to anybody who has spent any amount of time with science-fiction tropes, is the time travel rules make no sense, the Tears ability is never really utilized in the way they ultimately could be (Make rubble appear! Make ammo appear! EXCITING!), and basically the game reaches a nadir where "Quantum Mechanics did it" is used as at the asspull excuse to explain whatever they wanted to happen in the plot or gameplay.

And yes, while Bioshock 1 was still basically linear, most of the areas in the game did have small, optional sidepaths which you could explore to find new Salts and character Splices. While Infinite starts out with these too a limit extent, it's only a few levels in before it becomes "This level has one hidden key, and one hidden room, and you won't have to solve a puzzle to access either, just wander around until you find the corner we shoved them in."

EDIT Of course, the real reason I'm so hostile towards Infinite is the "Would You Kindly?" twist from the first game is legendary, deconstructing both narrative and the very act of playing a video game. Then I sit around and read people gushing about how amazing the twist in Infinite was, and I'm just like, "Really? You're impressed by these time travel and alternate dimension cliches? Go read a book. Go watch Star Trek. There is nothing impressive about this. The developers reached into the trope barrel and tacked the first thing they pulled out onto the end of the game."

Bioshock Infinite tends to elicit strong opinions, whether its positive or negative. I fall into the former category, thought I understand some complaints with it. Whatever else, I consider the world of Columbia to be very well realized - I simply loved the experience of being there.

Well, you're going to be disappointed in "exploring" too, then, because Infinite is completely linear.