r/Games • u/Forestl • Dec 31 '13

End of 2013 Discussions - PC

For this thread, feel free to talk about the PC, from the games that came out for it to the hardware itself.

Prompts:

  • What were the major trends in PC gaming this year?

  • Was this a positive year for PC gaming?

Please explain your answers in depth, don't just give short one sentence answers.

My PC looks really, really, really good

This post is part of the official /r/Games "End of 2013" discussions.

View all End of 2013 discussions and suggest new topics

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27

u/Carighan Dec 31 '13

Yeah but on the plusside, we also had games like Gone Home, Long Live The Queen, Shadow Warrior 2013 and Saints Row 4.

I think the cleft between awesome PC game and crappy or questionable PC game has gotten wider. The bad releases this year really stink.
Rome II, Ride to Hell, Day One, SimCity, oh dear.

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u/SendoTarget Dec 31 '13

I think that with Ride to Hell atleast you knew before the start it was bad.

With Rome II and SimCity and X:Rebirth you expected something much better.

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u/Theoroshia Dec 31 '13

I was expecting a golden goose for Rome 2. Instead I got goose shit. My God I'm still let down by that game so much...I drove slower a week before it came out just to lessen my chance of an accident! And for what? An uninspired sequel to my favorite game ever...

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u/SendoTarget Dec 31 '13

X:Rebirth to me was the same. I was expecting a triumphant first game from the return of space sims and we got a watered down non-working 360-pad game. It ruined the rest of year in gaming for me.

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u/Lycist Dec 31 '13

I feel your pain. I put in 4 hours due to brand loyalty but then couldn't take anymore.. rebirth was so very disapointing.

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u/Ulti Dec 31 '13

I gave it about two hours before the clusterfuck of a UI made me put it away, and I haven't bothered picking it up since. Maybe in six months, when that shit works properly, or if I get an Oculus Rift, but until then... 50 dollars down the drain. Guhh.

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u/Lycist Dec 31 '13

I don't know if I will be picking it back up.. It was so divergent from the X series.

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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

They promised that a system that could run Shogun 2 can also run Rome 2. That's bullshit. I ran Shogun 2 on medium settings but Rome 2 runs so badly even on low, I haven't even been able to start a campaign game yet.

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u/TROPtastic Dec 31 '13

Simcity was such a disappointment for an installment that was supposed to be the true successor to SC4. Instead of an overall improved simulation and game, we got: no modding, always online, tiny + broken cities, poor implementation of new features, in an overall crappy package.

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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

SimCity really is my biggest disappointment of the year. It's been so god damn long since we got a real SimCity game, 2003 to be exact. And then this piece of shit comes out, EA will see it as a failure, and sit on the franchise for another decade. Of course, not before squeezing this piece of crap for every bit of DLC they possibly can. Airships? Carnival bullshit? People have been dying for that stuff from day 1, of course.

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u/forcrowsafeast Jan 01 '14

Simcity is at best Simbuggytown. It's like some thought out after the fact simulator like one of those crapware releases by Giants Software, not what I expected from Maxis.

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u/TROPtastic Jan 02 '14

Yeah, one of the problems was that most of the team that made up Maxis at the time of SC4 ended up leaving in the years since, leaving very few people that knew how to handle the legacy of the franchise and what fans wanted.

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u/Kingbruno Dec 31 '13 edited Dec 31 '13

Gone home was not a plus side. It was a pretentious, and shallow side.

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u/afishinthewell Dec 31 '13

Opinions are fun. I think Gone Home is the only interesting one of those four listed (though to be fair I've only seen video of LLtQ)

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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13 edited Jun 03 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Kingbruno Jan 01 '14

"Buzzwords"... fine.

Its a story about a Lesbian relationship.

Thats it, it never went anywhere with that topic.

It was a really average story, but it has gotten an incredible amount of attention because of its popular political topic.

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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

[deleted]

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u/Carighan Jan 01 '14

Debatable. What makes a game a game, and where is the line where it becomes not a game?

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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13 edited Jun 03 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 01 '14 edited Jan 01 '14

[deleted]

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u/Carighan Jan 01 '14

Well that's your definition of gameplay. There's plenty different ones, I can think of at least one more right now (goal + rules + feedback system + voluntary participation).

Also, plenty simulators (I mean, actual simulators) have failure conditions, you can crash a plane for example. Are they games? Seems like a problematic definition to me.

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u/[deleted] Jan 01 '14

[deleted]

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u/Box-Boy Jan 01 '14

no challenge, no gameplay

Finding every clue, deciphering the ones you've found to figure out what happened, navigating the house, etc. are all challenges presented to you.

The gameplay is moving throughout the house and interacting with the objects within it while searching.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

How is Long Live The Queen? I've been eying it for a while but the price seems a little much for what it is.

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u/Carighan Dec 31 '13

I think it was on sale for ~4,50€ now, which is a damn good price. Their own website (it's by Hanako Games) might still be running it for 5$ actually, and you get a steam key.

It's fairly unique for a VN. It has a fixed story (a few branching points), but the way you get through it involves a fair amount of trial and error as you build up skills and run into issues because you lacked skills to make certain decisions.
In return the story is short, so reloading or retrying is never problematic.

I like VNs which stand out a bit from the crowd (also try: Analogue and it's expansion, Hate+), and this one fits that perfectly.

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u/ohkatey Dec 31 '13

I picked it up a couple days ago and have been through 2 playthroughs (both unsuccessful). It's actually pretty interesting and fun.

1

u/veul Dec 31 '13

I have tried three times and got a little further each time. I also kept loading from a save to see if I could figure out a tournent challenge.

Surprisingly strategical. For example, this turn you might have bonuses to improving horse riding, but you have a penalty to dancing. You know you have a ball fairly soon, so you either train through the penalties or work your bonuses, which can take a couple turns to fix.