Coint and Plick 2014 - The Seventh Annual ILX Video Game Poll

agh that gif! scary!

i'm not sure if Lamp and Diamondave85's comments are actually praise

certainly sounds interesting. there's a couple things here i would like to have a 3DS for. not enough tho. never enough.

3DS took a while to catch up, and i doubt it'll be as awesome as the DS was in terms of library, but it's certainly a worthwhile system at this point. Grab one!

i dont think i had any fun playing smt iv but i spent a lot of time organizing things which is rewarding in its own ways

also i voted for both pokemon and brothers not sure if those got counted? pokemon was really pretty fun, although theres a kind of despair involved in knowing that perfection is always out of reach i had a good couple of weeks down the rabbithole of perfect ivs, pokemon breeding and hunting shinys before giving it up as a lost cause

also i voted for both pokemon and brothers not sure if those got counted? pokemon was really pretty fun, although theres a kind of despair involved in knowing that perfection is always out of reach i had a good couple of weeks down the rabbithole of perfect ivs, pokemon breeding and hunting shinys before giving it up as a lost cause

lol @

http://i.imgur.com/330sx9p.gif

i counted your votes lamp

#41 (tie): Saints Row IV - PS3/X360/PC - 20 pts - 2 votes

http://i.imgur.com/JkjyepD.jpg

Website | Metacritic | EGM | Eurogamer | Fun | Trailer

Saints Row: The Third

i had so much fun with the SR4 side missions that i wound up completing them all WAY before i was supposed to in storyline, which made some of the late game progress way too quickly. i imagine that after i'm done with GTA5, going back to this/playing around with whatever DLC comes out is gonna be a blast; i really like the crackdown-style physics

also feel like there's a halfway decent thinkpiece somewhere in the character creation/mass effect parody/crew romancing stuff - has a game like this ever treated gender and sexuality so fluidly? - govern yourself accordingly

The Singularity Gun is probably the coolest gun I've ever seen in any 3d game. Shoot it at an intersection and it sucks up people, cars, streetlights, etc. - Adam Bruneau

All the fanservice indulgence with the weapons and costumes is stellar. "Fuck it, we'll put phasers and han solo's blaster in here and fuggin' pulse rifles. Why not" - kingfish

love this game - almost 100%'d it. probably the most pure FUN game of the year - reminded me a bit of just cause 2 re just how enjoyable it was to traverse the city destroying shit

Great game, maybe my favorite of last year. Open world, lots of fun, great super-powers, light on the cutscenes, and the cool glitching graphical effects that distort the world around you was the icing on the cake. I suppose there have been earlier games where you leap from rooftop to rooftop while aliens throw cars at you, but I have never played them. The insurance fraud minigame w super powers is just the kind of insane surreal experience only a videogame could provide. Finally, the overall look of the city at the start, with everything starting out looking like the very first rays of light before sunrise, is a standout in an era that is producing gorgeous games that literally look like dreams.

otm re the insurance fraud minigame. spinning in the air across half the city, getting hit by trucks to pick up speed - very surreal

Re: Mario and Luigi Dream team, and "And 20 points from one vote! Wow".

Sorry, this was me :) I never got round to writing blurb for any of my votes either because I'm super lazy... I've liked all the Mario & Luigi RPGs so far, and while this is just recycled gameplay from previous iterations, that's pretty much all I wanted from it (and more Broque Monsieur because I'm weird and find him hilarious). On the whole I'm a big fan of RPGs where I don't have to grind, and the M&L games always seem pretty well balanced (or maybe that's just "easy").

Noooo as Nhex said, NEVER APOLOGISE! That was more of a 'gee this must be decent' than a 'who does that!?' sort of comment -- I also threw 20 points at a game that is sort of recycled gameplay from previous iterations because that was what I wanted from it (I guess it'll be later in the list..)

I am also a fan of minimal grinding/things other people probably consider 'easy'. I'm disappointed to learn that Fawful isn't in Dream Team, though.

I think I skipped Bowser's Inside Story, so I'm looking more forward to Dream Team than others have

You very well may enjoy it more. I never played Superstar Saga or Partners in Time, and I found Bowser's Inside Story a very novel game.

#41 (tie): State of Decay - X360/PC - 20 pts - 2 votes

http://i.imgur.com/mkp2FPt.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Quarter to Three | IGN | Trailer

State of Decay - Anticipation

Janky, weird, busted, charming. I was lucky enough to finish this game without it screwing me with its terrible gameplay so maybe I'm rating it higher than I should but I had a lot of fun with it. Loved the concept, from the permadeath on characters to the weird basebuilding/material gathering to the support call-in mechanics to the "persistent" (aka: it checks your clock and makes things happen when you load the game again) world. Best B-game of 2013! - Will M.

Anyone else playing the SoD DLC, Breakdown? It's pretty great. I loved the original game, but once you learned the mechanics it grew to be pretty easy, and this sandbox dlc increases the diffuculty significantly, making it much more challenging. My game of the year. - musicfanatic

Next week I'm going to try to get 11-40 all wrapped up, and then top ten following week.

another one of my votes - never quite fulfills its promise but the closest thing yet to an immersive open world zombie game

never got around to SoD but i still like the idea. maybe someday.

Pom Gets Wifi was pretty hilarious

#39 (tie): Rogue Legacy - PS3/PS4/Vita/PC/Mac/Linux - 20 pts - 3 votes

http://i.imgur.com/aBrTeS0.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Eurogamer | dpad | Trailer

Took me a while to get into this, but once I did it was fantastic. I kinda wish that the genetics stuff was a bit more involved (like, breeding in/out skills, instead of just getting randomly handed flaws every generation) but the actual gp gets really fun once you get the best classes (aw yeah lich king) and some decent equipment/runes. I've beaten 2/5 bosses, hope to finish this game soon! - Will M.

oh i forgot about this game. i thought it sounded cool. imma check this out.

Ultimately I wanted to like Rogue Legacy more than I did, but it's a solid game. It suffers a little in comparison against recent games like Spelunky and FTL (which I couldn't fully get into either). I'm going to give it another try soon

#39 (tie): Card Hunter - Browser - 20 pts - 3 votes

http://i.imgur.com/jMLjstJ.gif

Website | Metacritic | Darkstation | Videogamer | Trailer

Dorky, lovable and deep, Card Hunter has an earnest love for its subject matter. Whether it’s in the little exclamations of “Adventure!” and “A-ha!” from its dungeon master, Gary, the complex systems that make up its turn-based, card collection design, or in its descriptions of caverns and sorcerers’ towers, this is a game that’s built on Dungeons & Dragons foundations and isn’t afraid to show it. - Edge

top fun - no lasting appeal and ran its course pretty quickly, but still top fun - Roberto Spiralli

NEEEEERRRRRRRRRDDDS

I enjoyed(but still haven't finished) SR4. I do think on reflection that the game suffers for being too close to SR3. The character stuff is fun, tho

3 votes!? guess i'll have to give this a try at some point

card hunter is great! it's like single player CCG + tactical d&d style combat

nb i got up to like level 15 or 16 and then quit bc some of the adventures got way too hard/tedious (esp restarting a 5 part adventure for the 4th time bc you can't get past the 5th part)

#38: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon - 3DS - 21 pts - 1 votes

http://i.imgur.com/MHzExrL.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Telegraph | Slant | Trailer

In the new 3DS sequel Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, the green-clad Mario brother is pulled back into the ghostbusting business. The ghosts are going haywire, you see. It's up to you round them up. You do this by unloading a charge of your flashlight on ghosts, and then using your trusty Poltergust 5000, a ghostbusting device that straps onto your back, to suck the ghosts up. That's not all you can do with it, though. The Poltergust 5000 has two functions: vacuuming and blowing. Like in the first game, you use these abilities to poke and prod your way through rooms. Who knew so many of the world's problems could be solved with an overpowered vacuum? - Patricia Hernandez, Kotaku

This is just a really cute game that I want to convince lots of people to play. This game looks great and there are so many sweet, thoughtful details in this, like how Luigi hums along to the theme music and how items in a room react when they're near the vacuum. The ghost-sucking physics of the vacuum are pretty satisfying and most of the boss fights are good fun (most -- there's one pretty irritating one). Supposedly the multiplayer is really good but I haven't had a chance to try it. - salsa shark

21 points, you son of a bitch!

haha

Haha I was hoping there'd be at least another voter on that one to mask my awful vote allocation :( SERIOUSLY THOUGH WHY HAS NO ON ELSE PLAYED AND VOTED FOR THIS GAME :(

*NO ONE ELSE :(

Don't feel bad, there are hordes of Luigi's Mansion fans out there... for some reason. I am intrigued though, I hope it's better than the GameCube version.

That screenshot alone looks like ten times more interesting than anything in the original game, for instance

I always want to play all the handheld games in this poll but realistically I can't talk myself into buying a 3DS or a Vita. I have enough stuff.

I never played the Gamecube one so can't comment, but I seem to recall the reviews agreeing that it's much better than the first.

That Dark Moon is better than the first, obviously. I can't type a thought comprehensively today.

#37: Fire Emblem: Awakening - 3DS - 22 pts - 1 votes

http://i.imgur.com/gOQWifk.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Edge | Inside Gaming Daily | Trailer

A fun tactical RPG with good replay value. I've sunk a lot of hours into this one. - diamonddave85

oh man: the new fire emblem is probably the best game released last year in mechanical terms. that requires more explanation but i am saving that for my in-depth gamefaqs mechanics faq. - Lamp

"Fire Emblem Awakening on the other hand is the best in the series & an amazing piece of work, fully deserves all the plaudits its been getting" ... "but wtf with everyone's feet?!?" - Zappi

lamp do you really write gamefaqs faqs? i want to believe

lol zappi

#36: Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective - Browser - 23 pts - 2 votes

http://i.imgur.com/eRTeWVw.jpg

Game | Polygon | Rock Paper Shotgun | James Turrell | Speed Run

Video games as art, video games about art, video games about bad video games, about taste, art about taste, about mortality, anti-art, anti-taste about anti-art. Consumerism. Hell. - s.clover

Weird Twitter in game form. - reddening

Hahaha.

in retrospect maybe i should've voted for that, because it was one of the games i was happiest to know existed last year.

#35: XCOM: Enemy Within - PS3/X360/PC/Mac - 23 pts - 3 votes

http://i.imgur.com/wWyPMTe.jpg

Website | Metacritic | PC Gamer | Game Informer | Trailer

Ideally would have been part of original game but it sure adds a lot of cool toys. It gives enough content that playing through the game again feels rewarding and still somewhat fresh. - bnw

good expansion to already excellent game, added some good extra features and missions. very happy to have excuse to play again. - Roberto Spiralli

#34: Puzzle & Dragons - iOS/Android - 25 pts - 1 votes - 1 top game votes

http://i.imgur.com/tuvUyHe.jpg

Website | Shonen Jump | Pocket Gamer | Trailer

Match-3 Heaven.. or Hell? It's not surprising how influential Bejeweled was on the casual game space, as also being one of a long line of Match-3 games. But the following generation of these games has really spawned from the original Puzzle Quest, making these match games truly addictive with stat progression and inventory, leaning on the endless looting/crafting/leveling from Diablo. Candy Crush Saga got all the attention this year, but it doesn't even come close to the variety and effectiveness of P&D, the child of Puzzle Quest and Pokemon. With a co-op social element, fresh dungeons, monsters, and events every week, I've been locked into this game's tendrils for about six months and indefinitely into the future. - Nhex

Glad we got past what I'm sure is the only match-3 iOS app on C&P 2014

Did you already forget Dr. Who

i did