Janine's Top Five Favorite Games of 2014

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

2014 was a difficult year to love games. If you didn't already know as much, you've probably gathered it from the fact that just about every Game of the Year list is mentioning it. 2014 was a rough year all around in fact, but for those of us who use our hobby as a coping mechanism, a place to retreat to when things are getting a bit too dire elsewhere -- well, we were reminded again and again that our sanctuary is just as fragile as everything else around us.

2014 gave us a lot of baggage to deal with, and we won't be able to just drop it all at 2015's doorstep. But in spite of it all, 2014 also gave us some valuable gaming experiences, and some absolutely priceless escapes.

5. 80 Days

I went into 80 Days a skeptic. Friends were raving, and that was hard to ignore. However, as much as I like the vast majority of interactive fiction and text-based games in theory, in practice I often find it hard to stick with them, especially when I'm not in a mood to really focus. I've had some phenomenal experiences with these kinds of games (particularly thanks to the popularization of Twine) but I know that I've missed out on many, many more because of this. 

But 80 Days is everything that I needed it to be. It's ambitious and deep, lushly written and vividly illustrated, and its core structure broke all of that up into digestible pieces that could be swallowed whole in a marathon sitting or nibbled on piecemeal during breaks or right before bed. It's impossible to come out of a playthrough of this mobile game without tremendous admiration for every single person responsible for its creation. 

4. Octodad: Dadliest Catch

I wasn't terribly invested in Octodad: Dadliest Catch before it came out. I was curious, (how could anyone not be?)  but I thought it would be a fun few hours at best. I certainly never expected that it would be as endearing as it is, nor that it would become one of my favorite games of the year.

The ridiculous premise and deliberately clumsy controls make it entertaining (in a very slapstick way) the instant you pick it up, but it's the fluffy and uplifting storyline that gives Octodad a lasting appeal that's lacking in similarly spastic games. All said, Octodad one of the most well-rounded experiences in the "goofy" gaming genre, and its recent free DLC update only sweetens the pot.

3. Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times

Let me be clear: Magician's Quest was released for the original Nintendo DS (not the 3DS) in early 2009. That's nearly 6 years ago. It's an old-ish game for an obsolete system that probably shouldn't be on anyone's Game of the Year list in 2014. But any personal GOTY list is going to be affected by the experiences that the player had, and one of my most positive and significant gaming experiences this year was with Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times -- to the point that it felt nearly criminal to omit it, no matter how old the game itself is.

I streamed this title (which is something like Animal Crossing by way of Harry Potter) every single day in October, sharing this underappreciated gem with dozens of people who tuned in to follow fledgling witch Streusel and her various classmates. There were spells to learn, sick dragons to save, rooms to decorate, and impromptu jam bands to form.  "Charm" doesn't even begin to describe this game's earnest appeal. I'll never get over how unfair it is that the other games in this series were never localized, but I absolutely treasure the time I've spent with it. 

2. Fantasy Life

In his GOTY list on Giantbomb, my friend Austin Walker framed the appeal of Fantasy Life more eloquently than anyone else (including myself) had before. In his words:

[Fantasy Life] came after months of seeing online harassment and death threats coming from GamerGate, a group that, whatever the interests of its individual members, was structurally and ideologically built in a way that would ensure more harassment and more death threats. And Fantasy Life came after months of watching folks march in the streets hoping to get some degree of justice for the unjust use of state sanctioned violence. And Fantasy Life did address these issues. It was committed to diversity in its cast of characters, and the writers (and/or localizers) went out of their way to critique stereotypical depictions of characters of color and women. And it offered peaceful play, and it imagined for us nations that are imperfect, but which hold the possibility of real improvement.

And it’s clever.

And there are songs, good songs.

And it’s warm.

And there’s been so little warmth this year.

And more than any other game on this list, in 2014, I needed Fantasy Life.

Cosigned. 

1. Dragon Age: Inquisition

November was positively loaded with AAA disappointments (I'm talking about you, Ubisoft) but Dragon Age: Inquisition wasn't one of them.

I have to confess that I haven't finished Inquisition yet, but frankly if I didn't put it at the top of my list I'd be lying to myself and to you. Even though I'm still working on my first playthrough, I've put well over 130 hours into Inquisition. That's a milestone I didn't cross with Skyrim until after about a year of owning it... And boy do I ever love Skyrim. I thought I loved Skyrim as much as I could love any game, but the detail and care put into the latest Dragon Age game makes that world look like a pale shadow in comparison. 

It's far from flawless in a number of ways (some of which I've written about), but its just so rare for games to live up to their hype, nevermind outright exceeding it. Beyond that, if Fantasy Life was what I needed to restore my mental wellbeing after a trying few months, then Dragon Age was what I needed to restore my faith in gaming as a whole.

That's it from me, but what about you? What were your favorite games in 2014? As always, share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.

Comments

[Marina V. (Dustie Rhoades)]

Great list, Janine! Thank you for all of your fantastic work here, on your Twitch/YouTube channel, and on StreamFriends! Can't wait to see what 2015 brings. :)