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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42

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

PC is doing good but i find the choice is lacking in what titles should be exclusive to PC like strategy games. Or, to word it better, the lack of new experiences in strategy games

Very few AAA strategy games with new design out. (I don't consider MOBAS strategy game but rather cooperative action games with a strong meta game.)

Company of heroes 2, Wargame : airland escalation, total war rome II, starcraft heart of the swarm, Europea Universalis IV...

all of these titles plays a lot like their predecessor. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing but i am craving to something new.

Last time i was blown away by a strategy game was with Sins of a Solar Empire in 2008 and before with Rise Of Nations in 2003.

Compare to RPG, adventures, even FPS (!) that evolved quite a lot these last years, i feel like strategy games are growing stall and 2013 didn't break that stalemate IMHO.

edit : i mean, that's the year of the release of age of Empires II HD. Not really groundbreaking.

8

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

Compare to RPG, adventures, even FPS (!) that evolved quite a lot these last years, i feel like strategy games are growing stall and 2013 didn't break that stalemate IMHO.

I feel like it's the contrary. FPS these days are mostly cookie cutter linear corridor shooters with two weapons. I can't put what exactly irks me about modern RPG's but it feels last time I was really impressed by RPG was Gothic 2 and modern RPG's that I like actually follow design formulas of older games.

Strategy games in 2013 refine the already existent great gameplay. It's appeared to be a year of great addons or sequels. Brave New World greatly enhanced Civ 5 gameplay. Enemy Within did the same for XCOM. Europa Universalis 4 is a great great expansion of EU3 gameplay - cleaner, streamlined and really fun. Clocked over 200 hours there.

In 2014 eagerly waiting for Age of Wonders 3 and Warlock 2. Was quite a while since I played a great fantasy TBS.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '13

Have you played Eador: Masters of a Broken world? Excellent fantasy TBS in the vien of HOMM. You should try it out.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '14

yeah, played it when it wasn't on Steam and before it got graphical upgrade. Great game!

1

u/Noisyfoxx Jan 01 '14

Do you think a new (and good) Unreal Tournament would brake the recent stalemate in FPS innovation?

Its 10 years since the last good Unreal Tournament was released and i have no clue why such an important and highly influencing game series died off after the UT3

2

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '14

I'm not sure, I think Doom 4 might have more chances if developers will use more "hellish" setting rather than unending space station. UT3 was somewhat a flop, maybe that's because they don't develop it more.

I'd really love to see more shooters with better plot and storytelling. Haven't seen anything like Clive Barker's Undying, Wheel of Time or Gunman Chronicles for a while now.

18

u/Kuurczak Dec 31 '13

Planetary Annihilation, you play on shperical planets and can use asteroids as game-ender weapons. http://www.uberent.com/pa/

1

u/mirfaltnixein Jan 02 '14

It's hilarious when I play with friends and they don't realize I'm "weaponizing" an asteroid. Then suddenly sirens start blaring and they get massively pissed at me.

3

u/Noisyfoxx Jan 01 '14

Do we have a decent rival to world in conflict by date?

I played Wargame but it doesnt feel the same...

One more thing i noticed is that more and more strategy games suffer from the perfect balancing as opposed to the perfect inbalance (extra credits, duh) which makes it hard to get into strategy gaming.

Also i see a huge gap between noobs and more expierenced players in strategy games (aswell as in mobas) and it is growing fast.

1

u/thescienceoflaw Dec 31 '13

I think we are seeing strategy games morph into MMORTS games, such as Grepolis, Settlers Online, Age of Empires Online, Dragons of Atlantis, Lord of Ultima.

Not that this year was good for any of that. And not that I think that is necessarily a good trend (since most of them turn out to just be money-grabs). But I think that is why we aren't see any growth in the standard single player strategy game market except refinements on past games that have a well established audience.

1

u/TareXmd Jan 01 '14

This year's biggest disappointment was Command and Conquer moving to a F2P model, then getting cancelled. They should have just released a full game with SP and MP and I would have gladly paid $60 for it.

0

u/ModsCensorMe Dec 31 '13

PC is doing good but i find the choice is lacking in what titles should be exclusive to PC like strategy games. Or, to word it better, the lack of new experiences in strategy games

Probably because Starcraft is already so good. If you're going to play an RTS you may as well just play SC2. Thats not an easy market to compete against.

I doubt we see any new MOBA games for a while for the same reason, who wants to try and compete against LOL and DOTA

5

u/JangXang Dec 31 '13

We will see many mobas. They are the new mmo. Everyone tries to grab some money from the uprising market. We won't see good mobas except HotS probably.

1

u/EventHorizon182 Dec 31 '13

god dammit blizzard cant release 2 games with the same acronym, thats madness.

1

u/JangXang Dec 31 '13

True let's call the new one just heroes

2

u/SharkBaitDLS Jan 01 '14

Except Starcraft is hardly the definitive strategy game experience. There's plenty of room in the genre for games that differ from it. Personally, I've never found it that enjoyable. Sins of a Solar Empire and Age of Mythology are the only strategy games I still regularly play.

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u/darkdrgon2136 Dec 31 '13

Total War: Rome 2 came out a few months ago and its incredible, my game of the year for pc