The Games Unplayed

2014 was a year for many videogames, many of which I didn’t write about. Some of them I liked, some I disliked, but for a lot of games, I just didn’t put pen to paper. As I clear out my game drive for the new year, I felt it appropriate to reflect on the games that are part of the game pile, but will probably never merit a full-blown article.

  • Bionic Commando Rearmed. It seems a pretty decent platformer, but it also wasn’t interesting or fun enough for me to push much distance into the game. The tutorial was also obnoxious.
  • Warhammer 40k: Space Marine. The control scheme bothered the shit out of me and wouldn’t save remapping. Also it was very ploddy.
  • Capsized. Meh, indie puzzle platformer. Nothing in its premise really interested me and the first play wasn’t very engaging either.
  • Magical Diary. I can’t get into this game but I know two people who love it to bits. What possible use can there be in my talking about it?
  • Wake. See Capsized.
  • Valdis Story. See Wake.
  • Rocket Knight. See Valdis Story.
  • King Of Fighters XIII. This can sit alongside Injustice – hang on a second.
  • Injustice, right there we go, as games that are too hard for me. I want those games to do well and I like the culture around them, but they are beyond my skill level to approach, I fear. Also their keyboard controls aren’t very good.
  • Transistor. Ehhh, if you can’t say anthing nice, y’know?
  • Claire. This was slightly knottier in that the game itself has some things I wish it did better, reminding me of Lone Survivor. On the other hand, the game itself has bad conveyance, confuses obtuse with scary, and the dev seems to be a piece of shit, so I was turned off pushing through the bad early stages.
  • Assassins Creed IV – Black Flag. It’s such a porky game it won’t run smoothly. I’ll maybe revisit it if one of my computers gets upgraded.
  • Kairo. It’s a wandering-around puzzle type of game, like Antichamber. I couldn’t get into it, but couldn’t see any reason to talk against it.
  • Receiver. A friend said ‘Receiver is the Police Quest I of Shooter games.’ They’re absolutely right. I am awful at this game, but it is amazing. I hope to see another of my friends write about it, so I can promote their work on the topic.

There are others, lurking in dark spaces on the hard drive, but those are the ones Steam conveniently gives me a list of that I know I’m not going to really go back and try and revisit. I’m mentioning them here to take any ‘cheat’ work out of my repertoire. We’ll see what the new year brings!