Some say it was a bad year. But for someone on a journey of discovery, someone who doesn’t give much of a fuck because they don’t do this blogging thing professionally; someone like us? Oh hell no.
If you relied on the triple-A business to actually deliver this year, yeah, then we tend to agree. It was all a load of shit hitting the fan like Speedy Gonzales on coke. Triple-A has been rotting for years and this time, it seems to have finally rotten its way to oblivion. And we don’t care. Because would you just look at all the lovely, almost ‘old’ indie stuff we lifted the lid of off!
Divinity: Original Sin (Enhanced Edition)
Admittedly, returning to our 60th-or-so-hour in Divinity after a two-week break beyond the pond didn’t go all that well. Blame the game’s less than perfect quest tracking. However…
Loving it as much as we do, throughout our entire life in video game co-op, we’ve been blasting our way through somewhat disconnected maps crawling with pissed off stuff. Zombies, rats, insectoids, wizards, aliens… you get the idea. We never had a game serve us a proper narrative, take us through a proper story. Until Divinity: Original Sin.
And what a story it was! The two of us tackled murder, evil, magic, apocalypse. And it was all delivered seamlessly, without a single technical distraction or flaw that may come with a construct like this. It is this heart-warming experience we’ll cherish the massive, to an extent rather old-school, 2014’s RPG forever for.
Helldivers
Only quite recently, one of our dear brothers-in-arms in this twin-stick ammo-distribution simulator obtained an achievement. It’s called ‘Dancing Queen’ and is awarded to one for spinning his superhero-style cape around 25 times without moving. Yeah. We love video games.
And we love last year’s Helldivers quite especially. Marching in the tone of Starship Troopers, a film that take-me-seriously critics will blast and nerdy losers will proclaim ‘fucking awesome’, the fun seldom pauses. I don’t actually recall it doing that at all.
Your own ammo drop capable of killing you or any of your squadmates may sound like an express ticket to anger management. But it so isn’t. As our bullets make the atmosphere a hundred times heavier, supplies swish down from high orbit and land in clouds of dust, the enemy is only a fraction of life-threatening problems. What this friendly-fire mayhem – uncannily – does in Helldivers is put a huge smile on our faces.
Satellite Reign
What happens when Bullfrog’s genius Syndicate and Pyro’s no-less-genius Commandos snuggle up for a bedtime story of Gibson’s – yeah, genius, glad you asked – Neuromancer? Something cataclysmically awesome, that’s what.
What I should probably do at this point is leave it at that. The only debt we owe Satellite Reign is playing it in co-op, would-be making this list a 3-out-of-3 in that regard. Reason why we yet didn’t is the feature was in beta and all but stable at the time. But when we do, it’d be perfectly appropriate for it to become the game to have two consecutive WeekEndGame Specials, on top of the fact it’s thus far the only one to have it at all. Yep, Satellite Reign is that good.
Is it time to regret not getting these monumentally fun games in their respective release years? Absolutely not. They’re here, they’re now, and we unconditionally love them. Have yourselves a Merry Christmas folks and stay on this frequency, for the 2016’s big one is coming.
