We're a little past the middle of the year, and I love "Top 10" lists, so I think now is a good time to give a quick rundown of my favourite games of 2014 so far. Let's get right to it.
10: Earth Defense Force 2025 - I'm a little disappointed with Earth Defense Force 2025 because in a few ways they've improved the experience, but then they've dampened it in a few ways as well. They've improved classes like the Diver (jet pack), and they have some neat other classes, but I feel like one of them is broken and the other wouldn't be any fun unless you're with someone. Still, it's the same Earth Defense Force that I know and love, so it has to be on there because it's just mindless fun.
9: Jazzpunk - Jazzpunk is a parody/homage/satire of the spy genre, and it's one of the funniest games I've played in the past ten years... and it's one of the funniest of the year. It's a joy to see how silly everything is in this game.
8: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - Even though I've always enjoyed Donkey Kong Country, it's not a series that I get excited for when a new game is announced, especially when I feel like the developer should have made a new IP or just done another Metroid. But despite all that, Donkey Kong Country follows a familiar formula but it's an awesome platformer.
7: South Park: The Stick of Truth - It'd be easy for South Park to just rip on the role-playing genre, and it certainly does that, but it embraces the genre at the same time. It's a solid, though pretty linear (as if a linear game is bad), and has solid game mechanics. If you don't like South Park you won't like it as much, but I love the show, and I feel like that should go without saying. Obviously the humour of South Park is the main draw, but even if you took it away there'd be a pretty decent RPG here.
6: The Floor is Jelly - The Floor is Jelly uses a bunch of different tricks to keep the platforming fresh, and it has a beautiful soundtrack by Disasterpeace, who should be indie video game music royalty by now. The ending also caught me off-guard in the best way possible.
5: Charge! - At the beginning of the year I was disappointed by a Jake Clover game, but then I played this later on and it reminded me why I love the game. It isn't much, but it's a lot of fun. It's essentially just a repetitive run-and-gun shooter but it's surreal and uses an excellent song by Jack King-Spooner really well.
4: Mario Kart 8 - I have a few beefs with the way they handle online and the Battle Mode is ass, but it has a good amount of re-worked old tracks and brand new ones. The driving is Mario Kart at its best, especially when you consider how nuts some of the tracks are.
3: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - If this was The Phantom Pain, I have no doubt that this would be number one -- I can already call my game of 2015. Since this is so short and is more of a teaser than anything, I dropped it down a point and only gave it a 9. The gameplay is awesome and dynamic, and I can tell from the limited experience that The Phantom Pain will be awesome... but it's hard to shake the feeling that this is an overpriced demo.
2: Sluggish Morss: Ad Infinitum - Jack King-Spooner released the third game in the Sluggish Morss trilogy -- a series full of surreal and odd social commentary -- and it's a doozy. It's easily the best entry in the trilogy, and while I still feel like it would do him well to add some real gameplay (not just walking around), it's one of the best games of the year due to the style, visuals and the story.
1: Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls - I'm considering an expansion a game, especially since this, and the update before it was released, re-works the Diablo 3 experience drastically. Diablo 3 was a good, even great, game with a bunch of flaws, but Reaper of Souls fixes pretty much all of them but one. The only flaw I think the game still has is the level system, but they'd have to do a complete overhaul to fix that anyway. The new act that they added was incredible, the music actually sticks out and is one of the best soundtracks of the year, and the new Adventure Mode adds a lot of replay value. Reaper of Souls made me go back to a game that I already put over a hundred hours into.
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