Day 17 - Czaros' Game of the Year Awards Part 1

It's the second half of December and it's time to conclude this gaming year with my personal Game of the Year list. 2014 was full of both amazing titles and major disappointments. It was also quite eventful for me, as I was at the Retro game fair and got into the world of Playstation with PS3 and PS Vita. Without further ado, let's start with the rules for these countdowns:

While most of the games have been released this year, I always do this list based on the games I've played this, so some of the entries are indeed released before 2014. Also, keep in mind what I just said... These are the games I've played. So except for a few categories, there won't be any titles I haven't played and let's face it... I'm a single person and couldn't possibly play all the games to come out this. Not to mention... I don't even have a PS4 or Xbone and seeing as there are still no games I want on them, this won't change for a while.

So... Let us begin with the first two categories...

Best Gaming Events
I gotta admit... I haven't really followed any non-Nintendo events. News on websites were good enough for me, and this list would probably stay the same regardless, as neither Sony or Microsoft impressed me with their news.

#5 The various Nintendo Directs
Another reason this category is almost Nintendo-exclusive is because Nintendo went into some sort of hyperdrive this year, bringing us some awesome Nintendo Directs. The first Super Smash Bros Direct hosted by Sakurai, The humoristic Mario Kart 8 Direct, the comedic Tomodachi Life Direct and more. In fact, the Nintendo Directs are in my opinion the best way to basically give us multiple E3s every year. Good job, big N.

#4 Super Smash Bros. Wii U 50 things Direct
So, I bought Super Smash Bros for 3DS, as expected, it was awesome and I loved it... Then the 50 things not in the 3DS version Direct came out and made the 3DS version look almost bad in comparison. And considering how good SSB3DS is, that's saying a lot!

#3 Majora's Mask 3D reveal

While the whole Direct was amazing, it is the way it started that pretty much shook the entire gaming world. The anticipated remake of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask has finally been revealed after a lot of teasing. The reveal trailer was perfect and the many reaction videos show that. "What's that? Wait, this looks familiar! No way, could it be? IT IS! IT'S MAJORA'S MASK 3D!"

#2 Nintendo at E3

This year, Nintendo shown us that no press conference at E3 can actually be something positive. With no unnecessary talk, better planning and those cool Robot Chicken animations, Nintendo really made the Digital Event the best thing to happen at this year's E3. And they also had events for the visitors, so they were actually present at E3. Heck, even the E3 announcment trailer by Mega 64 was freaking awesome. Reggie Fils-a-mech for Smash? Oh, yeah.. Let's not forget that awesome Reggie vs Iwata trailer.

#1 Retrospelsmässan Göteborg 2014

Yes, this is just a Swedish event, but heck, this is without any doubts the best event I've expererienced this year. Tons of awesome people, tons of games and console to test, Nintendo with all eight Mario Kart games, tons of merch, 100+ StreetPass hits and most of all, meeting Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario and Paarthurnax. Oh yeah, and Gothenburg is my favorite Swedish city as well. It was tons of fun and I'm already looking forward to RSMGBG 2015. Forget Comic Con Gamex, THIS is the best big gaming event in the country.


Biggest Disppointments
Hey... Not all GOTY categories have to be positive. This category gives Czaros' Seal of Disapproval instead. It is also this category that will mention games that I actually haven't played.

#6 Steam Machines
I really like Steam and initially I kinda liked the idea behind Steam Machines. But they done f*cked it up by planning countless varations of them with different prices, specs and even companies. You know what it reminds me of? Oh, yeah... regular PCs. If this was meant to bring new audiences to the PC gaming world... Valve failed.

#5 Pokken Fighters
This reveal was supposed to be some "shocking news" and shocking it trully was. A cool looking Pokemon x Tekken crossover in HD. Neat, right? Oh wait... It's arcade and Japan only. Okay then, thanks for getting me hyped for no reason.

#4 Destiny
I liked Halo (liked because in my opinion Halo 3 was a perfect ending) and this new game by Bungie actually kinda got my interest. Well, now I am glad that I didn't pre-order it. This $500 million dollar game is basically just a big build-up for the expansion pack. It maybe isn't as bad as the case of MGSV Ground Zeroes where they literally gave you a demo from 30 dollars, but with that game it was to be expected. With a budget like this, I expected a FULL game on release and more than just a questionable MMO-esque experience.

#3 Final Fantasy VII for PS4

Ok, so I personally didn't trully play FF7 until this year, and I actually find the game not as great as people say, but I really wanted to see a proper remake. What did we get? An HD version of the original... Yes, because I really wanted to look at those very low-poly models and pixelated pre-rendered environments again in Full HD. And since it's a port of the PC rerelease, it will probably keep the crappy 30 fps in field, 15 fps in battles too. Sqaure Enix... Start listening to your fans!!

#2 Sonic Boom

All the way until the game's release I've been actually looking forward to this game a lot. The fact ex-Naughty Dog people were working on it seemed like a good idea and it was shaping up to be something big. What we got was... Sonic 06 all over again. A good example of rushed to market: mediocre gameplay, bad graphics, big frame-rate issues, tons of glitches and overall not interesting game. Even the music is forgetable, which never happens in a Sonic game, no matter how bad...

#1 Conker in Project Spark

The JonTron video above sums up everyone's reaction very well. While we all know that Rare became crap after Microsoft bought them, we still wanted to see a new REAL Banjo-Kazooie and a new Conker game. And here we have this Project Spark trailer when suddenly, Conker appears and everyone is like: "OMG! Finally, he's back!". And then they just slap the fans not only by making him only a character in another game, they also made that "Guess we will have to make our own" line... This is a true example of a very bad atempt at fanservice. It's been almost 10 years since we last saw Conker and the fact he will only have a minor role in a non-Conker game itself is bad, but they also basically say "we won't do another Conker, do it yourself". Well, let's face it folks... Rare is dead. 

See you tomorrow with three new categories.