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

Honorable Mention: Quadropus Rampage – iOS/Android – 5 pts – 1 vote

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

Website | Metacritic | Touch Arcade | Droid Horizon | Trailer

I love a good Roguelike. More than that, I enjoy a good game that makes excellent use of Roguelike design elements. Enter Quadropus Rampage: an "Endless Roguelike Brawler" starring an incredibly angry four-legged octopus and his almost equally miffed starfish companion. It's a weird concept, certainly, however Butterscotch Shenanigans knows exactly what they're doing. - Rob Rich, 148 Apps

Man, folks slept on this. Action RPG meets iphone sized gameplay length. Loot, rampage, descend, die, rinse repeat. - s.clover

ok black crown (the first game listed) is def the best writing ive ever seen in storynexus, holy crap. super creepy

thing i am gonna check out this Quadropus Rampage

looking forward to more recommendations from AnalDoomsday

man if i had a dollar for every time youve said that

Honorable Mention: flower – PS4/Vita – 5 pts – 1 vote

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

Website | Metacritic | Gamespot | Eurogamer | Trailer

FLOWER | Concluding The Third Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2009 - Part Four: #1 through #20

typical hipster comment "this must be amazing to X while you're high". you can tell something is overrated pseudo intellectual tripe when junkies come on a video and bore you with some anecdote about how they shoot heroin to this or whatever. if anything it shows how unengaging gameplay wise this "game" must be if its possible to "play" it will taking illegal substances. this game has no story, you play as a petal ffs, yet "oh no its too deep for you, its minimalist art you uncultured barbarian" - Gabriel Voidx, 8 months ago

This captivated a room of thirtysomethings on New Year's Eve at a friend's house. - Jordan

(AnalDoomsday is not an ilxor fwiw, just some person in a comments section.)

sure he isnt

AnalDoomsday is every person in a comments section IMO

We are all AnalDoomsday.

*breathes sigh of relief about not going with AaanalDddoomsday as commenter name at the last minute*

AnalDoomsday is a feeling

actually if you could just work AnalDoomsday into every pullquote credit from here on out that would probably be for the best

Hungry4AnalDoomsday

really great use of the touch controls and overall a very solidly designed game - forkscloveanaldoomsday

my mom and sister LOVED this game despite both being non-gamers. they went so far as to get 100% (or whatever equivalent this game has) on every level except the one that I had done and forced me to 100% that level like 6 months later

lol it wasn't until I clicked on the picture that I realized I've been confusing flower with grOw

not the best storynexus i have played, but far from the worst - emil.doomsday

yep. slow day at work.

also I get what dude is going for but man do I want to punch the second paragraph of the Gamespot review in the neck

In Flower, you ride the wind. You enter the first level to see a single hovering flower petal; you press a button to surge forward and carry the petal with you, and tilt the controller to steer, as if you're the pilot of a blissful breeze. As you rush through the grass and natural growth, you pass through clusters of flowers, each bud blooming and adding a petal to the ever-growing bouquet that sails through the air. Each time you glide through a batch of flowers, petals emit notes that complement the bucolic soundtrack. In this way, you aren't just a player but a musical collaborator, composing your own countermelody as you rush ahead. Flowers are arranged in rows, circles, and other patterns, and following those patterns enhances the musical effect by allowing each tone to flow into the next.

SHUT UP

Whoever wrote nauseating paragraph is a total f'king anal doomsday suppository.

someday AnalDoomsday is going to google his screen name and then there will be a reckoning. or maybe a homecoming.

*almost googles "AnalDoomsday" at work before catching himself*

oh, analdoomsdaypaws

Honorable Mention: Poker Night 2 – PS3/X360/PC/Mac/iOS – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/WDYAqN5.gif

Website | Metacritic | Gamespot | Mac Life | Trailer

this maybe could have been my game of the year except for the minor sticking point that the game is HORRENDOUSLY BROKEN. hangs and crashes and all of that. in a poker game. and oddly because it appears that the people who made it could code animations and tons of threaded dialog and branched storyline shit but could not actually code - jjjusten

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha OTM

the creepy lag spikes followed by the rush of the animation trying to synch back up to the audio track is incredibly unsettling, much more unsettling than a poker game should be

so fucking otm as soon as i saw that pop up i thought "who would vote for something w/ that many hangs/full on crashes/etc"? shit was fully unplayable on ps3, dunno abt other platforms but jesus christ what a mess.

I actually only ever had it freeze on me once

well I mean freeze and then didn't recover

hahaha the great thing is that gif is actually a lot like trying to play the game

it's funny how well the story bits are incorporated into the horribly broken framework

freezes never recover (hang = like a freeze but eventually "recovers")
freezes are infinite~~
crashes are console killers (or on pc/mobile usually just the app dies)

GLAD 2 HELP ILX BUGTRACKING NOMENCLATURE TODAY

I've never seen an actual crash, that would be fun as long as there wasn't any destructive buffer overrun involved

i am pretty sure that poker night 2 is the only time i have ever seen an actual ps3 retail kit running a released game crash, although i have seen a few x360 retail kits do it (not for years tho, unless you count hardware failures which i do not)

usually at the very least you can get into guide/XMB and terminate but this game made even that imposs!!! i was impressed. should not have been allowed to come out as per sony standards.

ultra business tycoon III: i feel like i would've really reveled in porpentine's game style seven or eight years ago, around the same time i felt like i "got" tao lin. right now i feel fatigued by all the vivid, unmoored language; it doesn't give me a thrill like i think it's meant to, i don't "get it" anymore, i can no longer access that headspace.

poker night 2: i had this on my steam wishlist, figuring 5 bucks might be worth some sam & max jokes, but maybe i'll just watch a let's play instead.

Honorable Mention: NES Remix – WiiU – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/1HfuUrq.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Nintendojo | Escapist | Trailer

Like Retro Game Challenge but with actual retro games. How little they tend to directly touch these games means that when they do the surreality of it is enhanced further (the bits where the view just keeps zooming out and Link climbing Donkey Kong girders are highlights so far) - if

Honorable Mention: Type:Rider – iOS/Android/PC – 5 pts – 1 vote

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

Website | Metacritic | Slide to Play | Gamezebo | Trailer

We live in a world of type. We tattoo our cities in it from top to bottom. It clothes us, and sometimes armors us. Yet despite the fact that it permeates every aspect of our lives, few of us really feel that they understand typography. A new game, Type:Rider, aims to change all of that by turning some of the world's most influential fonts into a multiverse of video game worlds. - John Brownlee, Fast Company

The most beautiful game I played all year. The Kandinsky painting come to life was astonishing. The gameplay itself is a bit weak, and the crashes are irritating. Still, a reminder that there are possibilities we have barely explored. - s.clover

Honorable Mention: Guacamelee! (including Gold Edition) – PS3/PS4/Vita/Xbone/PC – 5 pts – 1 vote

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

Website | Metacritic | Pocket Gamer | x |
Trailer

You begin Guacamelee as a poor Mexican farmer named Juan, whose boring life is interrupted when the woman he loves is kidnapped by a murderous skeleton named Carlos Calaca. Juan is killed in a botched rescue attempt but finds himself resurrected as a luchador in the realm of the dead. Journeying through the forests, deserts and temples of the surrounding countryside, Juan builds up an arsenal of mystical wrestling powers to take on the dastardly Calaca.

Guacamelee smartly "gates" new areas behind obstacles that only new skills and abilities can overcome, and those new tricks are also added to Juan’s growing combat and platforming repertoire. The headbutt skill destroys yellow blocks but also can be used to send enemies ping-ponging across the screen. The uppercut destroys red blocks and allows you to extend your jump just enough to access some initially out-of-reach ledges. Every upgrade grants the immediate satisfaction of new areas to explore and the extended goal of mastering a new move. - Philip Kollar, Polygon

It figures I would miss some tag shit in my last one of the day, haha.

see ya tomorrah

Guacamelee is awesome for its design and humor, but some of the platforming hits a level of difficulty that just pissed me off and had me quit.

ok so the kandinsky level isn't the only amazing level in type:rider. all the modern levels are pretty great -- the bahaus one equally so, and the newspress / nytimes one only slighly less so. if you can get this cheap or on a free promo, its def worth it, and if you're at _all_ a typography geek this is the only game made to target your demo and your demo alone. i mean shame the gameplay isn't fantastic, but the design is astonishing.

also if you ever think you might be in a "are videogames like art maaaan" discussion this is good to have in yr back pocket.

but if you want a great platformer, i mean, probably a mario knock-off will be more rewarding.

Haven't played it yet, but still expected a better showing for Guacamelee.

seems kinda underlooked, given the positive reaction i've seen

Honorable Mention: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies – 3DS – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/abyj0aD.jpg

Website | Metacritic | EGM | Polygon | Trailer

Probably only playing to fans at this point (hence the online-only release?) but this was the best entry in a long time. Gameplay-wise just much better executed recently, and the strands of plot were tied together in a way that was much more fun and in the last case more emotional. A couple of dodgy gender-related missteps and the ridiculous final reveal were the only downsides. Looking forward to finally getting to play AA vs Professor Layton. - if

I wish they'd port all of the PW games to iPod Touch, or online, or something. I've only played the first but I love it so much and could easily become some kind of gibbering fangirl.

damn, i really need to pick that up now that I finally have a 3DS

Guacamelee is fun as hell but the Reddit humor in it (iirc there are, like, lolcats and derp jokes?) is really dire

Honorable Mention: Doki-Doki Universe – PS3/PS4 – 5 pts – 1 vote

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

Website | Metacritic | Polygon | Guardian | Trailer

Doki-Doki Universe is a game about empathy, and that's weird.

In many of the games I played this year, you often solve problems by shooting people in the face. That, I can handle. In Doki-Doki Universe, your antagonists aren't clearly defined, and your progress is measured by your ability to seek out societal problems and solve them indirectly through non-violent means.

Doki-Doki Universe's gameplay lands somewhere in between Animal Crossing and a Myers-Briggs personality test. It's like nothing else I've ever played, and it's pretty awesome...in a totally weird sort of way. - Danny Cowan, Joystiq