The Ragey's 2013: The Rage Quitter Year End wrap up

God what are you people still doing here? This whole gamer blog fad was so last year, nobody reads this crap anymore.  Well, Since you're here, might as well pull up a chair. Because another year of video games have gone by and I've played a lot of them, so I might as welcome you to this year's year end wrap up of my best and worst games of the year.

The 2013 Ragey's:
Seriously So-Co, Who do I have to blow in that corporation to get you to Sponsor me?

10: The Picked last behind the Fat kid with one Leg in kickball award for "Game I wish I got to play" goes to....

Yakuza 5 (PS3)

Over the past year, I developed a burning fury for the people over at Sega. After three entertaining romps in the Yakuza franchise I have been eagerly anticipating the new installment. A year goes by, and Sega only responds to a western release with "no comment". They made a haiku in response to the inquiry about an announcement coming up. An announcement that says "hey we are making a new one, and you aren't getting that either! LOL." FUCK YOU SEGA.

Sega is sitting a on goldmine of slightly obscure but highly desired titles by people in the west, and they refuse to localize them because they don't think Americans "get it" and Yakuza 5 is the chief offender. The Sony Third Party Production division knows its one of the top two requests for western release. So yeah, just skip on the piles of money you could be making by releasing your actual good games. Keep putting out Sonic: Losing a Step so nobody will buy that either.   Fucking morons.....

And If you guys fuck up Atlus or me getting Persona 5? I will personally fly to your Japan HQ to suicide bomb the Sega CEO's office. (Facetious Satire, NSA)

9: The Trent Richardson 2.8 Yards Per Carry garbage award for "Biggest Disappointment" goes to.....

Assassin's Creed  3 (PS3)

I played this during the holiday launch window so I am counting it for the beginning of this year.  At the time of purchase, I was getting very frustrated the story wasn't going anywhere and I was getting sick of paying for new versions of the same game. So to cap off the actual 5th game of the franchise, I was treated to the worst protagonist in the series, most boring story, and the most slapdashed rushed climax to the Desmond narrative I have ever seen. Aside from the ship combat, there is virtually nothing good about this installment of the game. To be completely honest, this was a SERIOUS contender for my worst game of the year. However, as my pending review for Black Flag will tell you, there is still some hope for this series.

8. The Nilbog is Goblin spelled backwards award for "Biggest Surprise" goes to.....

Payday 2 (Xbox Live, PSN, Steam)

Originally, I was gonna go with Battleblock Theater for this one, but I got bored of that and it got surpassed in the last moments of 2013.  Payday 2 could possibly be my favorite FPS ever, and I usually hate FPS. Grand Theft Auto V taught me that pulling heists are pretty awesome.

And Payday 2 is just that: You are given a job with up to 3 other players, you case your location be it bank, jewel store, night club, or whatever. Figure out where the guards are, where the cameras are, where the staff walks. Sometimes you can be in and out of a place, clearing out a safe before the staff even knows you are there.

But MOST of the time, it turns into a game of survival mode as someone inevitably calls the cops. Typically it turns into a firefight as you wait for your drill to crack into a safe. While the maps are usually the same they sometimes spawn things in various areas or ramp up the detection. But what I love about it is that is constantly chaotic and stressful, and you feel like a complete badass when the heist starts to go your way in a hairy moment. Payday 2 fuckin' rules.


7. The Oh my god, I didn't fuckin' care when the dumb British royal twat's got married, and I don't care that they had a stupid kid either award for "Most Overhyped game" this year goes to.....

BioShock: Infinite (XB360)

You just can't throw out a phrase like "as close to perfection as a game can get" and not expect me to be critical of it. Don't get me wrong, I love these characters and the storytelling was peerless. But my problem with BioShock: Infinite is that it was a dumbed down version of a shooter I actually kind of liked.

Gone were the myriad of fun weapons for 2 generic weapon slots, gone were the terrifyingly insane Splicers for generic troopers in 1800's coats. Gone was the creepy and dark settings of Rapture, for the bright and sunny streets of whereeversville, Gone were the Big Daddies and Little Sisters.

There were some good bits to Infinite and it was clearly better than Bioshock 2. But frankly, its even more watered down to the first Bioshock as Bioshock was to SystemShock 2. Great story, but game perfection? Hardly.


6. The Charles Ramsey 15 Minutes of Fame award for "Flash in the Pan" game of the year.

Tomb Raider (PS3)

While Squenix didn't think this title to be a success in the market, I really had some fun with it. Sure, it took the Tomb Raider original formula, made Lara Croft less of raging psychopath at the start (but barely), and put in a ridiculous sprinkling of Uncharted an produced one of my favorite examples of how the 3rd person shooter genre is done correctly.

I wasn't a fan of the Tomb Raider series, and I haven't been since the start. But I really did enjoy this game a lot. One of the few games where I actually looked forward stealthing around a picking off targets with a bow and arrow. Its story got a bit ridiculous at times and clearly wasn't the best written game. But it was fun and solid purchase. It basically met me half way to bring me into a series I didn't care for. Good show Tomb Raider.

I still hate Lara Croft though.

5. The 750 Dollar Photo of an Xbox one Ebay Purchase award for "Worst Value" goes to....

Beyond: Two Souls (PS3)

You know Quantic Dream, maybe you should sell yourself as an animation studio, and less of a game studio. You sort of had me interested in this game medium you were selling in Heavy Rain but you completely dropped the ball here by not learning from your mistakes. The Graphics in this are amazing, Page and Dafoe show that they are consummate actors and deserve proper billing.

But I play games to PLAY FUCKING GAMES. So watching Ellen Page be sad for 10 hours while occasionally knocking over some papers is hardly engaging game play. Every game dev should sit with their product and then ask themselves "Am I having fun?". A great story is one thing, but there is a good reason movies are 2 hours, not 10. If you are gonna stretch it out that long, you have to have engaging middle bits. Not worth 60 bucks. Should have done Last of Us, Ellen.


4. The "Just the Tip" award for "Best Value" goes to....

Dragon's Crown

Proof that simple still works. This game doesn't have CGI out the asshole. This game doesn't bring a load of complex mechanics to the table. Just straight up side scrolling brawly fun with fantastic art direction, fast paced combat, ratcheting difficulty, and loot gathering.

I was really excited for this game and it absolutely delivered on all fronts. The only real complaint is that it somewhat lacks a narrative, but that's really not what you are getting a game like this for. Its shows hands down that all the shiny AAA budgets and graphics doesn't exactly make a game great. But awesome game play always does.

3. The Consistently On Time Chinese Food Delivery guy Honorable mention goes to....

Tales of Xillia (PS3)

There were a lot of options to go for with the honorable mention, because there were a lot of really good games this past year. Saint's Row IV was a front runner here because it was just ridiculous.  Atelier Ayesha just because of the number of hours I dumped into it. Disgaea D2 for bringing back a group of characters I loved. Hitman: Absloution for polishing up the last true stealth game I've had in years.

But I have to give it to Tales of Xillia because the Tales of franchise is just always a beacon of excellence in the active battle JRPG genre. Great characters, good storyline, fun combat, and typically pretty good voice acting. Yeah its probably a pretty generic pick, but if you play any Tales game you can clearly see what I am talking about. Here's to the Symphonia HD Collection next year. 

2. The Ariel Castro Stay at home Dinner Date award for "Worst Game of the Year" goes to.....

Mugen Souls (PS3)

Dead Space 3's Co-op and micropayments made a strong case for worst of the year. Walking Dead: Survival Instinct's generic and bad game play really did too. But I had Mugen Souls locked in as my worst of the year back in May, and I'm happy to say that it hasn't budged.

Creepily oversexualized young characters, terrible soundtrack, choppy and broken animations, excessive text exposition, overly complicated battle system, overly complicated menu system, generic character creation, incredibly weak story, disgustingly cutesy j-pop sequences, constant ongoing fight animations, and the list goes on. It's absolutely remarkable just how badly this game managed to fuck up at almost every given area. I bought the game at discounted price, and I even regret that.

But whats worst of all is it had one decent idea for the character interaction animations that actually could have been put into better NIS America games, and they didn't even do that. Mugen Souls was just flat out terrible and a complete waste of my time and money.

1. The Johnny Malloy's 2 dollar Long Island Award for "Best game of the year" goes to...

The Last of Us (PS3) AND Grand Theft Auto V 

I really tossed back and forth here because both of these games were nothing short of incredible. And for a long time, it seemed like nothing could top The Last of Us. Sure, at times it felt like it was just a cut out of Uncharted but the added stealth elements with the dark atmosphere, the Cordyceps monsters, and a very well acted and likable cast made The Last of Us and absolutely fantastic experience and one of my must plays for the year. Ellen Page was pissing about how the Ellie character looked like her, and maybe she's right to be upset, because Last of Us was way better than her game.

But then Grand Theft Auto V came along. It's sales numbers alone tell the story, nearly smashing any single day record set before it. After taking a massive break in the development from previous game, GTA:V addressed nearly every complaint I had. Better combat, brighter colors, much less depressing story, more arcadey driving. But most of all, I fucking LOVED this cast of characters. I want Trevor Phillips as my life coach. But more so than that, the game was just a blast to play. I managed to rip through it twice in back to back playthroughs, and had a significant amount of fun playing the online mode.

While I can't consider either game perfect, these two come really, REALLY close. Since they were both so great and I felt I copped out last year with Silent Hill 2, they co-win my game of the year.

Maybe I've lost a bit of steam overtime, and the hit count as been dropping. But if I'm still playing games, I'm still gonna have stuff to say about them. See you in 2014.