My Gaming Highlights of 2014

Merry belated Christmas everyone (where applicable) and happy new year as well. I have not made any new years resolutions actually, in fact I think I rarely do. I'm not sure if it's because I don't feel like there is anything I need to change or improve on or because I know I won't stick to it anyway. So how was my 2014? On a personal note, just splendid. The son has been growing like weed, and although not always easy to handle all in all a great kid. It's been loads of fun to see his own little personality starting to emerge and in general we have a really good time together. Although he doesn't speak yet, he is quite good at communicating his wants through facial expressions and gestures and he is at the age where he wants to touch and play with exactly everything he sees.

My year could've ended better however. We spent 1,5 week at my dads, and the son must've picked some bug up at the airport. The first night after arriving he started vomiting in the middle of the night and although he was fine the day after, my boyfriend got sick with the same thing two days later. Then me two days after that, my dad two days after me and my dads girlfriend held out the longest and didn't get sick until on new years eve, lucky her. It's a pretty funny story now that it's over and done with, but the rest of us did not recuperate as quickly as the baby and it obviously meant we basically had to cancel all our plans, like me meeting a childhood friend of mine. Even still, we had a nice. Just not all at the same time.

Must touch everything...

I calculated that I bought about 88 games in 2014. When I had tallied it all up I just sighed to myself. What am I going to do with 88 games? And that's 88 games just this year, that's not even taking into account all the games I bought 2013 that I haven't gotten around to playing yet. But you know, it can't hurt. Or at least that is what I think every time I see a game at a bargain, because almost all games were bought pretty cheaply. Let's look at some of the ones that I am more excited about;

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
This was the year I decided to finally get into playing some of the Castlevania games. Eventhough I have always been a fan of the series, especially the music, I had never played a game until this year. Don't ask me why, I guess I never really considered it my kind of game. At the moment I have played all the games on the GBA and a couple on the DS but Circle of the Moon is still my favorite out of the handheld ones that I've played. We'll see if Symphony of the Night beats it when I get around to trying it sometime this year.

Whoooppa! (ie the sound a whip makes) - mybrainongames.com

System Shock 2
Although I haven't finished it yet, I can already say that this is a great game. If you haven't played it I couldn't recommend it more if you have even the slightest interest in fps, sci-fi or horror games. I had heard so many good things about it and since sci-fi horror are one of my favorite genres I decided I needed to try it. I am not disappointed, it was in fact a lot more fun than I had imagined.

Thief
I had never really played a stealth game before I tried Thief, but I guess this was a good choice for a first game in the genre because daym is it fun. It's obviously not very realistic, but I don't care a single bit when it manages to make you feel so cool as a proffesional shadow sneaker instead. It's one of those games (as the other classics on this list) that manages to make you feel clever without holding your hand. That is some great level design right there.

Ugly zombies are creepy too - gamefaqs.com

Deus Ex
I guess this could be summarized as the year when I got around to realizing what everyone else had already known for years. Deus Ex is another game that everyone said was so great and I felt like I needed to finally give it a shot. Yes, I can confirm. It is loads of fun. The platforming isn't as well programmed as in System Shock 2, but fortunately there isn't that much of it and a quick save function makes the constant ladder falls at least a tiny bit less infuriating. Everything else is awesome.

Darkout / Steam Marines
Two vastly different indie games that I recommend checking out if you're looking for something to play. Darkout is similar to Terraria, but with a very different feel to it - darker (obviously) and overall more interesting if you ask me with tons to craft and dig out. Steam Marines is a nice little rogue like, which was still in early access when I played it. I guess yet again the sci-fi setting got me interested and it was already fun enough to keep me playing for hours.

Googling Koudelka was a surprise - vizzed.com

Koudelka
I haven't got around to playing this game yet, but I was so happy to get my hands on it on an auction site. I've been wanting to play this game for years.

And in 2015...
Already sometime in November I decided that 2015 was going to be the year when I venture back into World of Warcraft, however long for. Literally everyone I spoke to about Warlords of Draenor that had tried it said "it's so much fun, you should really try it". Obviously I got incredibly curious. Maybe this could be the perfect opportunity for me to check out some WoW before I go back to work again?
So yesterday (2 of January) I set everything up. I bought the expansion, I downloaded the game. Today I subscribed for a month and logged on for the first time in 1,5 years. I had left Zinn flying in Hinterlands, poor girl. For a while I didn't even really know what to do first. I got the quest to speak to Khadgar, but I wanted to sort out my UI a bit. I didn't really remember which addons I was using at the time I quit or if I still wanted those, but after I had sorted something out and flown to the Dark Portal I decided that the questing could wait a bit. Instead I logged onto a warrior alt and tanked a Violet Hold just to see if I still had the tanking flow in me. I did (although in all honesty, you could smack your face against the keyboard and still succesfully tank Violet Hold). After that I didn't really feel all that enthusiastic about anything and logged off.

I think my problem, if I can call it that, is that my main - Zinn, the priest, isn't really a questing character. In the past when I've done the tedious questing as disc or even holy it's been with the promise of raiding at max level as motivation. I could go as shadow, but it's actually not sounding all that fun to me right now. But Zinn doesn't have to be my first character to max level of course, I don't have to experience the quest chain the first time on her. That's just sentamentality telling me that. Instead I think I will try it out on another character, probably my mage. Or maybe I will start a new character and level about a bit like I used to love doing.

To be frank I am happy this is my first reaction to the game, because I was worried it would be "too much" fun. The fact that I can take a step away from it and feel like I want to do something else is exactly how I wanted it to be, just like I feel about anything else I do. But, that might just be because I spent some 30 minutes gaming and haven't actually gotten into any of the fun stuff yet. Time will tell.

So how was your 2014 and what are you hoping to get from 2015? Either way, I hope we all have an awesome year!

Nomnomnom