Game of the Year 2014: The Gamer's Lounge Picks

The crew of The Gamer’s Lounge has gotten together and discussed our game of the year picks. To some of us, our GOTY candidates were epic 60 hour RPGs, for others it was new IPs destined to change the face of gaming, and for some of us our choices were games that flew under the radar. 2014 was truly a great year for gaming for every platform.

[OmegaShen]

Destiny is so GOTY, its still getting more players (which kind of a shock).

[kube00]

They must be doing something right

[EnzoLuca]

No, lots of people are doing something wrong

[Jovahkiin]

I can't decide between Farcry 4 (40 hours) or Dragon Age Inquisition (50 hours)

Both are masterpieces in their respective genres.

[JediHunter66]

Destiny should not even be close to being considered a GotY candidate when there's a plethora of better choices out there.

[UnHoly_One]

Agreed. I played a lot of games this year and I would put Destiny at or very near the bottom.

[CorndogBurglar]

The thing is, Destiny has the ability to keep millions of people interested even months after it released.

That isn't easy to do. Despite its flaws, it definitely has a HUGE following.

Does it deserve game of the year? I don't know. It would be close for me, as no other game has kept me interested for 4 months on end. I mean, its all i play. So that in itself is huge for me. Its just that fun.

But I do recognize that games like Shadow of Mordor or Dragon Age Inquisition probably deserve GOTY more, simply because they are better made games with much more content. But then again, you have to go back to staying power. Even though SoM and Dragon Age have more content, how many people are still going to be playing those games 4 months after they beat them?

So its tough for me.

[Omnisonne]

How people can play the same 3 generic missions and strikes for this long is beyond me

From my experience Destiny is addicting in a bad way, and somehow that addiction shrouds people from thinking straight and seeing the game for what it really is; cut content DLCs on top of a DLC, with really repetitive gameplay and a fractured storyline that I can hardly remember.

Apologies for the gloom and doom.. I wont stop anyone from playing it if they want to but, the game seems built around addiction/exploit and nothing else. Rather than earning a playerbase with high quality content.

[EnzoLuca]

Having clocked more then 200hrs into De$tiny i can no longer stand it

Locking off content for dlc and then charging 50% of the original price of the game for it has left a mighty sour taste in my mouth

And im not even going to mention the updates to the game that have reduced exotics to mere blue rarity weapons and a new convoluted currency system

Also Xur f**k you

[Spotie]

Since when is $15 half of $60?

And... you've spent 200 freaking hours. You got your money's worth, and then some.

[Oschino1907]

The dlc expansion was $19.99 or $34.99 for the season pass.

[EnzoLuca]

£40 full game
£20 dlc
Other currencies/countries exist btw

[CorndogBurglar]

How many other games have you played for over 200 hours? Its obviously doing something right to keep you playing that long. If you had said like 80 or 90 hours then I would understand that maybe you wanted to be sure to get your money's worth, or you wanted to experience everything. But you played 100 hours more than that lol. Do you mean to tell me that during that extra 100 hours you weren't having fun? Come on now, no one would play that long if they weren't enjoying it.

Like I said, it definitely has its flaws. But the fact that people like it enough to put so much time into it says a lot. Especially with its flaws.

Also, 20 is not half of 60.

[pompombrum]

I enjoyed my time with Destiny and have pumped more hours into it than most games this year but GOTY contender? Some people have ridiculously low standards. Even when I was enjoying it the most, the flaws were still clear as day obvious and only the most devoted fanboy could overlook them.

[Tyrant 8 RDFL]

I play Destiny a lot. I feel its the multiplayer co-op game of the year for me.

Now for single player Destiny sucked at it since the story was so boring and all over the place.

What Destiny did right was making a game for gamers who are so presistent to max out and level up have so much to do in order to accomplish it.

This is why we keep coming back. We want this weapon. We want these materials. We want to be level 32. We want to beat the raid. etc etc etc

Its repetitive for sure, but in the future when more DLC release it will feel less and less repetitive.

The game is only 3 months old.

[jcmeadows]

I'm loving Destiny but I have 5 other guys I play with that makes a huge difference in my time with the game. I love Dragon Age but haven't played much more then an hour. A lot of people say Shadows of Mordor but I could not get into it. I love Assassins Creed and Batman. I also love LOTR but SoM as game of the year? No where near the top of my list.