Worst of 2013

[Stoney Mason]

Two words.

Peter Molyneux

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm just teasing. I have no idea how the game is. I mean it looked crappy early on but who knows how it will end up.

[close]

[Great Rumbler]

It's not bad, a little slow to start but it starts to pick up after about an hour or so. There's is a TON of clicking required, though, fast and repetitive clicking, such that playing for two hours actually started to make my wrist hurt a little bit. And a lot of it really shouldn't even be required. Oh well.

And I only spent about $8 on it, since I had some card money saved up.

[thisismyusername]

2D Pixel games when really it should be indie games in general. Journalists and indie fans hype them up as the second coming when they're all mostly clones.

[Himu]

2D Pixel games when really it should be indie games in general. Journalists and indie fans hype them up as the second coming when they're all mostly clones.

The alternative are copy pasta shooters and games trying to gun for dat Uncharted/GTA money.

Why is this a bad thing? Also, you'd be dead pressed to say Rogue Legacy, Guacamelee, Papers Please, Spelunky HD, Gone Home, and others look the same. In fact, it makes anyone arguing that indies are all the same look silly.

[Yulwei]

Rogue Legacy was just shit

[Positive Touch]

indie games continue to get better but i hate the way theyre posed as "saviors" instead of just good games or whatever

[Stoney Mason]

Indie games are fine. They are good things. There have always been indie games. The great games of the past that I grew up on were almost all "indie" games in a sense of very small groups of people making labours of love. What I object to is the over-worship. The lack of critical review of them. And the indulgent culture that some of the worst of the designers and the worst of the critics have created. Indie games are still "games". They are not above games the way some people present them. Same as any other with the same flaws, the same weaknesses, etc. What I've noticed is that if you criticize some big Triple A titles you get lots of pats on the back as if you are sticking it to the man. If you criticize the latest indie sensation, you'll get the pitchforks instead. All people have done is replace one over-idealized group of games with another. There should be just as much disagreement about what constitutes a great AAA game as an indie game but I'm not currently seeing it.

I just think everybody needs to back it up about 10 steps with the indie fever that seems to be prevalent. It reminds me of how when Nirvana hit everybody became an insufferable alternative music snob for about 5 or 6 years. Which is not to say there is/was anything wrong with Alternative music or indie games in and of themselves. It was how people over-did the whole thing. Let's just calm it down a tad.

[Human Snorenado]

Rogue Legacy was just shit

indie games continue to get better but i hate the way theyre posed as "saviors" instead of just good games or whatever

Yeah, I can absolutely agree with that. It again goes back to gaming media... these game devs spend their time fluffing the media, making them feel important and validated, and the results are sloppy public blow jobs for games that are good at what they do and fun and shit but aren't reinventing the wheel. And that's the BEST case scenario... then you have shit like Gone Home and the Stanley Parable which are just TALKY TALKY LET ME TALKY AT YOU non-games (suck it, esch, I'm ashamed of you) that get praised as "next level gaming" or some shit. If I have to choose between that horseshit and BioShock Infinite, I'll take BioShock Infinite, because fuck you pretentious ass spergfucks.

[Himu]

Indie games are best treated as ALTERNATIVES rather than saviors.

Indie games are fine. They are good things. There have always been indie games. The great games of the past that I grew up on were almost all "indie" games in a sense of very small groups of people making labours of love. What I object to is the over-worship. The lack of critical review of them. And the indulgent culture that some of the worst of the designers and the worst of the critics have created. Indie games are still "games". They are not above games the way some people present them. Same as any other with the same flaws, the same weaknesses, etc. What I've noticed is that if you criticize some big Triple A titles you get lots of pats on the back as if you are sticking it to the man. If you criticize the latest indie sensation, you'll get the pitchforks instead. All people have done is replace one over-idealized group of games with another. There should be just as much disagreement about what constitutes a great AAA game as an indie game but I'm not currently seeing it.

I just think everybody needs to back it up about 10 steps with the indie fever that seems to be prevalent. It reminds me of how when Nirvana hit everybody became an insufferable alternative music snob for about 5 or 6 years. Which is not to say there is/was anything wrong with Alternative music or indie games in and of themselves. It was how people over-did the whole thing. Let's just calm it down a tad.

if your problem is indie game fans, then just play the games and ignore the fans. I don't like Nintendo fans and I like their portable hardware and software. The two aren't the same things.

[Human Snorenado]

Not by everybody.

I mean, ultimately, it's whatever. People like what people like. I just think there should be a more active difference drawn between what I'd call "actual games" and "interactive entertainment" along the lines of Gone Home, Stanley Parable, and the Tell Tale Games stuff.

[Himu]

who gives a shit

[Stoney Mason]

if your problem is indie game fans, then just play the games and ignore the fans. I don't like Nintendo fans and I like their portable hardware and software. The two aren't the same things.

I also have a problem with some of the games. I think many of them are over-hyped, over-praised pieces of fluff. Which is not to say they are awful or bad things. I don't like to get into that though because like I said some people get really mad when you criticize their favorite indie game in a way they never would if you were to criticize say Tomb Raider.

[Himu]

Esch. Get your brown ass on steam so I can bitch to you that Dr. Pulaski shits on Dr Crusher.

[Positive Touch]

so since we're all shitting on games journalism (deservedly so), does anyone got any GOOD sites/blogs/tumblrs/whatever that they can recommend? I miss reading over-indulgent game musings and would like that back in my life

[Stoney Mason]

Journalism regarding games is so bad there is no place I go anymore. I just find it useless. At most I might go to a game thread on here or neogaf or reddit and see what people are saying. Sometimes they might link an article or a youtube video that I find interesting but I never go out of my way searching for that stuff anymore because 90% of it is so bad. I don't even really follow Giant Bomb anymore which was the last vestige of me visiting a gaming website. Something about when Ryan Davis died, sort of took the charm and whimsy of the site away from me. I just feel like everybody nowadays has such individualized taste (the general public I mean)  that those sort of websites and such serve no purpose. Not to mention I feel like I can predict what they will say about something 99% of the time just based on what it is. Very few insightful unique interesting opinions anymore.

For what its worth I tend to watch this guy's videos. He satiates my increasingly rare appetite for game discussion wankery and navel gazing.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Campster?feature=watch

Not that I always agree with him but I do like his ability to go beyond just this game has a story therefore it must be GOTY!

[Sho Nuff]

I'd like to get a bit more granular with Wii U as the worst of 2013 and state that Miiverse is CLEARLY the worst thing about it

[Rahxephon91]

I guess the thing that's annoyed me the most this year the element of game fandom that seems to cry every time anyone makes a comment about females in games. Yes this is a hot topic issue and yes it has been talked about too much, but it isn't a bad thing to talk about and I'm glad it is. It's a growing medium and it should go through some growing pains. I like tna even, but sometimes it as a bit much and embarrassing.  Yet every time this comes up(especially with Japanese games) there is this segment that yells and shouts about how their stuff is being given all this flax and it's really only about how they fear people are going to take away their sexy video game girls. It really has nothing to do with sex, because these games don't really deal with sex. It's just been really annoying, the whole Dima thing with Mighty Number 9 being the perfect example.

So I voted for NeoGaf.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

The only game journalism thing I check out anymore is the Giant Bombcast.  Patrick Klepek leaving it really improved the podcast but it took a big hit when Ryan Davis died.  It's good but not like what is was.  Even Brad Shoemaker is starting to become tolerable now.

Giant Bomb is my favorite because it gives off the impression of some people who just like games and like playing them.  They're not a bunch of pseudointellectuals stroking their chins about the social impact of gaming and why we all need to suck off the creators of Gone Home or contrarians who write a bunch of stupid and shitty opinions for the sole purpose of generating buzz/pageviews.  All of that bullshit is transparent, good thing their target market is emotionally stunted enough to not see how obvious it is most of the time.

Thanks to Youtube and the advancements of the internet in general, developers/publishers have more avenues of reaching consumers without having to go through game journalists.  Thanks to streaming and uploading on new consoles, I can see game clips that gamers are uploading without hearing some stupid snarky opinion from some dipshit who makes elementary level grammatical mistakes.  Game journalism is almost entirely unnecessary now and I think they know it.  Also I can either read the thoughts of people here, who I generally trust, or wait until the game gets so cheap that I buy it myself and if I get burned on a purchase, at least I only spent a few dollars on it.

[tiesto]

so since we're all shitting on games journalism (deservedly so), does anyone got any GOOD sites/blogs/tumblrs/whatever that they can recommend? I miss reading over-indulgent game musings and would like that back in my life

http://www.gamespite.net/ aka Toastyfrog's site. Nice ramblings on the level design of oldskool NES classics, and some discussion about modern games. Probably the only game journalist I 'follow' for lack of a better term.

[Great Rumbler]

so since we're all shitting on games journalism (deservedly so), does anyone got any GOOD sites/blogs/tumblrs/whatever that they can recommend? I miss reading over-indulgent game musings and would like that back in my life

http://www.thegia.com/

[pickle]

Can't I just tick all of them?

[Your Stalker]

so basically the worst thing about last year was people liking things i don't like

[Himu]

YouTube vids have made game journalism irrelevant. Who cares when I can watch the first hour or two of a game and see if I want it?

[Yulwei]

so basically the worst thing about last year was people liking things i don't like

it's always that, isn't it?

[Sho Nuff]

YouTube vids have made game journalism irrelevant. Who cares when I can watch the first hour or two of a game and see if I want it?

Plus you get the added benefit of people yelling at the screen