While the whole editorial staff contributed to our 2014 awards, we wanted to allow everybody the opportunity to publicly name their personal top 10 games of the year. While many did play the majority of releases in 2014, please remember that unlike our main awards, the editors are not naming the best games, but their personal favorites out of the selection they played.
We have all-new worlds to explore. Immediately after the opening act, your character is exiled into the European Dead Zone. It’s an Earth destination and the biggest map we’ve ever created by far. You will explore this destination and its lush forests. That’s really where you’ll start your new journey. You’ll journey to Titan, an oceanic moon. The entire moon is one big sea, but there are these human installations that were erected during the Golden Age. You’ll go to Io, which is one of Jupiter’s moons and is the last place the Traveler touched before the Collapse. It’s a place of magic and mysticism. Finally, you’ll go to Nessus, which is an unstable planetoid that has been completely transformed into a machine world by the Vex.
Who would have ever thought a mobile game would end up on my list? As a big fan of the Hitman franchise since its second iteration, when it was announced that Square Enix Montreal would be working on a mobile game in the same universe, I was no doubt concerned. To my surprise, it ended up being one of the best games of the year. It takes the scenarios we’ve come to love in the full-fledged stealth games and creates bite-sized puzzles. There’s no game on my Nexus 5 that I played more of this year, trying to master each mission, while doing so with the least amount of turns or picking up the optional briefcase. While it’s not what I hope the series will move towards in the future, it is a nice side activity that will distract you for a couple minutes at a time.
In Destiny 2, the story kicks off with tragedy. Dominus Ghaul, the leader of the Cabal Empire’s Red Legion, has unleashed his might on the Last City. Destroying the Tower and crippling all Guardians, Ghaul seeks to capture the power of the Traveler. In his mind, the Traveler has made a mistake by granting the power of Light to humanity, and he seeks to take it for himself.
What does relationship mean for lore though? Of course, the actual relationship aspect of Destiny is there, but it’s always been there. Destiny 2 is not only creating worlds, though, it’s actually telling stories within those worlds. The people that inhabit these spaces are important and Bungie seems to be doing everything to make the player care about them. From the looks of interaction with those around you while traversing the many environments Destiny 2 has to offer, the aspect of relationship is everywhere. Zavala giving command to the player and other NPCs around him. It creates a sense of urgency immediately invoking a compassion that only comes from feeling connected to others. Then there is the EDZ a new area for players to call home. The people they were protecting have started forming communities here. Actively participating in these places will create a more grounded sense of community. It’s the reason WoW cities felt so lived in; the people that inhabit these spaces are going about their daily lives. It isn’t about, go out, kill aliens, return. It feels like being the Pavlovian dog waiting for the treat. None of that seems to be in Destiny 2.
The Taken are a fightable enemy in Destiny 2 in both the story and out in the open areas. There aren’t any new enemy types within the Taken race, but it’s still entertaining to fight them. The different tactics they use compared to their non-Taken counterparts make them a more unpredictable foe.
The battlefield then led to the dig site, which shows just how cinematic Bungie intends all missions to be. Giant drills are circling around, and getting smacked by one of them automatically kills a Guardian. You have to navigate across a Cliffside while trying not to get hit by them, and dealing with the Cabal. With so many moving parts, The Inverted Spire is easily more cinematic than anything in the vanilla version of Destiny.
Considering how Destiny’s campaign was universally panned, Bungie took extra care to craft a proper campaign for the sequel. Destiny 2 Armor 3.0 2 does have a campaign, one where each missions has unique objectives and doesn’t always end with a battle against some large, bullet-sponge boss.
It's a bit nerve-racking that lore, while mentioned, didn’t come up that much, other than story content. With such a serious overhaul to story, gameplay and the two combined, it’s odd that Bungie would leave out what they’ve done for Destiny lore access to the player base. They introduced a number of needed fixes (maps) and while these are already a drastic improvement to the core Destiny game, lore seems out of reach for the moment. It’s not to say that Bungie won’t talk about it later, but still. While not showcasing access to lore, it's most certainly there. For lore nerds like myself, Destiny 2 already looks to be a dream come true.