Gaming 2014: The Year In Review

Hey all, hope you had a good holiday season.

So 2014 is almost over! That year went by fast but then again once you hit your middle 20s the years just start zipping by like the pages in one of those animated flip books.

Since it's year-end I'm going to do one of those year-end review type pieces.

Check it:


So there were a lot of video games that came out this year and of those I think I managed to play three! Those three games were Wolfenstein: The New Order, Alien: Isolation and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.

2014: The year of the colon!

Of those three games I have articles written on each except for Metal Gear Solid V. Metal Gear is a great game I just never got around to writing about it.

I spent most of this year playing older games on my PS3 while everyone else moved ahead with all the new consoles. I might join that club next year if I play my cards right but now that I've got a good library of quality gaming on my PS3 there's no danger of me turning my back on it now for the foreseeable future.

So what else happened with gaming this year? Let's do a monthly blow-by-blow:

January:

In January Metal Gear Rising: Revengengeance, The Banner Saga and Broken Age: Act I all came out and were received well by just about everyone. Sony announced a cloud-streaming game service called PlayStation Now that offers digital rentals and Microsoft bought the Gears of War franchise from developer Epic Games.

February:

Notable releases in February were Bravely Default on Nintendo's 3DS, an old school style Square Enix JRPG, and Earth Defense Force 2025, a game about blasting waves of giants insects and robots running amok in fully destructible city levels. Ignoble mentions go out to Thief, a remake of a late '90s/early aughts classic, and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, a God of War clone with Castlevania branding.

On the business end of things amazon.com bought Double Helix Games, a company founded out of mergers from three mid-tier developers and the company that made the BioShock games, Irrational Games, closed its doors.

March:

March saw the release of a lot of games, stand-outs including South Park: The Stick of Truth, Dark Souls II, Hearthstone, Titanfall, Luftrausers, MGS V: Ground Zeroes, Infamous: Second Son, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls and Shover Knight.

In the news Sony Computer Entertainment announced Project Morpheus, a virtual reality initiative for the PlayStation 4 just days before Facebook announced their $2 billion purchase of Oculus VR, the company that pulled John Carmack away from id to work on the VR technology for their own Oculus Rift.

April:

In April we got The Elder Scrolls Online, Lego The Hobbit, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as well as an Xbox 360 version of Titanfall and a PC version of Dark Souls II and Child of Light.

Not much happened in April other than the PAX East convention in Boston and the Midwest Gaming Classic 2014 in Brookfield, Wisconsin.

May:

May saw the release of Kirby Triple Deluxe and Mario Golf World Tour on 3DS, Peggle 2 for 360, Drakengaard 3, Transistor, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Tropico 5, Watch Dogs and Mario Kart 8.

About the only thing newsworthy from this month, according to Wikipedia at least, is Nintendo discontinuing their wifi servers for Wii and DS games.

June:

June notables included Abban Hawkins and the 1001 Spikes, Murdered: Soul Suspect, Tomodachi Life, Enemy Front, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, Another World, Contrast, Valiant Hearts, Sniper Elite 3 and Divinity: Original Sin.

The big gaming news for June was the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles and Electronic Arts shutting down multiplayer servers for about 50 of their games. There were also more studio closures in the form of Crytek UK and Crytek USA. Also THQ's publishing label was bought by Nordic Games.

July:

With July came Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn, Crimsonland, Oddworld: Abe's Odysee New 'n' Tasty, Gods Will Be Watching, Firefall, Pure Pool, Rogue Legacy and Pinball FX 2.

In the news there was Neversoft of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater fame being folded into Infinity Ward by Activision, the annual QuakeCon in Dallas, Texas and Airtight Games, who made Murdered: Soul Suspect, shuttered their doors just one month after the release of the game.

August:

August brought us Sacred 3, Risen 3: Titan Lords, Counterspy, The Last Tinker, Tales of Xillia 2, Shadowgate, Lichdom: Battlemage, Madden NFL 15 and Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright.

New-wise Activision brought back the brand of Sierra Entertainment, Amazon bought Twitch for $970 million, Gamescon was held in Cologne, Germany, PAX Prime was held in Washington State and Nintendo announced a new version of the 3DS.

There was also a harassment campaign which targeted a select few female voices and developers in the games industry that cloaked itself in a debate over games journalism that was already had a decade ago and generally provided a new outlet for the reactionary politics of the culture wars between the forces of progress and the entrenched status quo.

September:

In September we saw The Sims 4, Stronghold Crusader 2, Warframe, Dead Rising 3, Destiny, NHL 15, Fable Anniversary, Cooking Mama 5: Bon Appetit!, Wasteland 2, FIFA 15, Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Forza Horizon 2, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Natural Doctrine and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments.

Naughty Dog celebrated their 30th anniversary and Tokyo Games Show was held in Tokyo but the big news this month was Microsoft buying Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion.

October:

With October came Super Smash Bros., Alien: Isolation, Driveclub, NBA 2k15, Project Spark, Styx: Master of Shadows, Vib-Ribbon, Ryse, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, The Evil Within, Legend of Grimrock 2, The Legend of Korra, Shadow Warrior, Shantae and the Pirates Curse, Bayonetta 2, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Fantasy Life, Lords of the Fallen, Sunset Overdrive and WWE 2k15.

October had a lot of conventions. There was GIGACON in Norway, EGS in Mexico City, Play Expo in Manchester and Firstlook in the Netherlands, not to mention the 32nd Golden Joysticks Awards and the 2014 League of Legends World Championship at the Seoul World Cup Stadium.

November:

November brought Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Football Manager 2015, Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, The Wolf Among Us, Assassin's Creeds Rogue and Unity, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4 and Geometry Wars 3.

This month we had PAX Australia in Melbourne and Blizzcon 2014 in Anaheim, California. There was also the E-Sports World Championship in Baku, Azerbaijan.

December:

Which brings us finally to the month of December where we saw Chivalry: Midieval Warfare, The Crew, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, Scrolls, Elite Dangerous, Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, Loadout and the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta.

Not much happened this month. 2K games announced a new subsidiary, Hanger 13, and PlayStation Experience and The Game Awards 2014 were both held in Las Vegas. Ralph H. Baer, the creator of the first ever video games console the Magnavox Odyssey which was released in 1972, died at the age of 92.

So there you have it, folks! That was the year in video games. If I neglected any important games or stories from the year please let me know.

Thanks for reading.