The Year of Release Game

dylanfills

NOPE NOT DOING THAT ONE SCREW THAT

2015

I truthfully like the first one much better for its simplicity. The second added too many different gimmick characters that necessitated different play styles, which took away from the experience for me a bit. It does have an over the top story that contains the events of the first game within it.

I recently revisited the 2012 game of the year podcast where the first was somewhat dismissed, and I understand why. However, it was one of the first indie games I played and stood out to me as different than anything I’ve ever played (and just about anything since). It arrived to me via a roommate when my only game playing was a Nintendo 3DS with Pokémon and probably some other stuff

fridgeboy

Make sure to list the year you’re doing somewhere in your post!

You can use it as a header like this

2022

By writing, without the parentheses:

(2022)
(-)
(Your text here)

hammy

2014

After playing Supergiant’s first game Bastion, I was onboard for their next title Transistor when they announced it. It was initially a timed PS4 exclusive and I recall having my mind blown by how they implemented the controller speaker and the light bar as an extension of the Transistor itself.

I played through it again on Switch a year ago and think the music, art and overall feel still holds up. I hope they get around to porting Pyre onto Switch.

whatsarobot

2013

They released a game that ruled so hard, there didn’t really need to be any more games made afterward. They kept making more, but if they hadn’t, it would’ve been okay, because we got this one.

Video Game King

2012

Seeing as the tenth anniversary’s just recently passed, I thought I’d go with Katawa Shoujo.

sabertoothalex

2011

One of my top 10 favorite games ever, I played the entire thing in a single sitting. I was mesmerized. A real triumph. A sweet adventure. Missile’s magnum opus.

wickedcestus

2010

Deadly Premonition

Too much to say about this one. It completely changed the way I thought about video games when I first played it as a teenager. The moment when this game transformed in my mind from an object of mirthful ridicule to a beautiful work in its own right was a formative one. And I thought I was the only person who liked it until I found this forum.

fetus8

2009

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

I started college in the fall of 2009, and was living in an oncampus dorm. I made a friend (who’s a good friend of mine today) who had a PS3 while I had an Xbox 360. During our first semester we spent a lot time going back and forth from each other’s dorm rooms playing Left 4 Dead and Borderlands. Right before Christmas break, he had me come by his place after his roommate went home for the holidays to show me Uncharted 2.

We ended up marathoning the entire game over the course of a day or so. I had not played the first game outside of a demo kiosk at a Gamestop, and was absolutely blown away. The detail, level design, and story sucked me in real good. It may have been the most fun I had in a dorm room. (Wow there was a great typo here earlier…)

We went our seperate ways for the holiday break, and with my part time job at a Best Buy, I bought myself a PS3 Slim over the holiday break because of Uncharted 2. I was in love.

fridgeboy

2008

Metal Gear Solid 4

I don’t know if MGS4 was my first proper weird game - maybe Chrono Cross was that. It was definitely significantly weirder than almost every game I’d played before and changed my perspective on what video games could be. To this day I have a huge soft spot for weird, bizarre, emotionally honest games and at least some of that is thanks to MGS4. It was so unexpected after playing MGS1-3 religiously. Yes, those games had weird stuff in them, and MGS2 had properly boiled my brain years earlier but just not on this level.

the rocky connrrr picture show

2007

Lost Odyssey, Mistwalker

Gameplay that feels like a direct evolution of Final Fantasy X. It’s got an Uematsu prog rock score and Sakaguchi’s schmaltz, but also over thirty interactive kinetic typography shorts written by novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu. I played it quite recently because I never had a 360 back when it was current, and while it didn’t become my favourite FF I did have a cozy time with its characters. Comfort food for the starving FF fan.

connierad

the rocky connrrr picture show
Currently 75% off on the Microsoft store if you have Xbox Live Gold!

matt

2006

Dead Rising
This game sold me an Xbox 360. The amount of zombos on the screen at once, the stupid voice acting and slapstick attitude of the whole thing, perfect. Trying to save NPCs who scream “Fraaaaaaaaaaaank!!!” all the time was very special.
And of course the time limit and save system that many hated, but I loved. Initially it made the game real hard. But as you got to know the game more and more, subsequent play throughs were entirely different experiences. After many play throughs you could experience all the game had to offer, then challenge yourself to do everything possible in one sitting.

TheFragranceOfDarkCoffee

matt Damn I was typing this at the same time!

TheFragranceOfDarkCoffee

2006

Dead Rising is a funny sort of beast. It almost feels like a path not taken in AAA game design in its particular flavor of sandbox. “Here’s a weird place with some weird rules on a funky little timeline; go do something interesting” is an incredibly rich pitch for a game and one I wish we’d see come back into vogue. Dead Rising 2 probably represents the peak of this idea, but Dead Rising remains something fascinating and special. To me it’s the essential starting point of the Xbox 360 era.

fridgeboy

Whoa! That’s wild that you both chose the same game at the same time, and not exactly like the most 1000% mainstream obvious choice either (not that Dead Rising is obscure really, just not necessarily what I’d expect to see doubled.)

New addendum rule re: double posts for a year

Let ’em ride. If more than one person posts a single year close together, don’t feel the need to delete or anything. Some years can have two games, who cares.

Syzygy

2005

Easily the best Star Wars game; arguably the best creative work to come out of the franchise; painfully overlooked post Disney buyout for how ahead of its time it was a decade prior; historically telling for the relationship between Bioware and Obsidian, and thus for the relationship in general between ambitious game dev and market demands.

baftaboo

Syzygy It was not possible for me, although I did try!, to appreciate the light/dark revisionism of The Last Jedi, given how adroitly this game handled the same theme over a decade before.

fetus8

2004

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

2004 was a pretty crazy year for game releases. Half-Life 2 was my other choice but I figured why not highlight one of the weirder Zelda games instead.

I got sick and stayed home for a few days from school within a week or so of this releasing and spent a lot of time playing this. It’s burned into my memory in a way. I loved the art style and thought the shrinking mechanic was really cool. 2D Zelda games have always been my favorite Zelda games, but this one might still be my favorite to this day.

Jax

2003

pov: you looked up “adventure” in the dictionary

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

(Oh the last post was a Zelda game? TOO BAD!)

Ahem..

At some point (1998) The Legend of Zelda became a series about a boy on an adventure, often times accompanied by a horse. It should be about a boy on an adventure, who has a boat. Yes this game is big, yes it’s empty, yes it takes forever to get anywhere. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

TracyDMcGrath

2002

Rage of the Dragons

Evoga’s vaguely double dragon themed tag team fighter, with gorgeous art and a heck of a combo system. Deserves a lot more love than it gets (and may soon get it with a Switch port in the works). One of the better fighters on the Neo Geo

whatsarobot

TracyDMcGrath I am reeeeally looking forward to that Switch port.

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