My 2014 Gaming Predictions

To me, 2014 is the year of hope. All of the next gen consoles have been released. Several games have been announced for them. Now, we all wait in anticipation, hoping the games will be as good as the developers say they are. We spent a lot of money on these consoles. We want revolutionary games that will make that money worth it.

I have looked at the games that are expected to release in 2014 and made my predictions on the best in each genre. In general, I do not cover game genres that I do not play. However, this year there are several big games in other genres that have won awards in the past. I decided to add a Special Mentions section for these games. I am not experienced in those genres, but their franchise histories are enough to warrant possible contention for Game of the Year awards.

I make my predictions based on a combination of factors, such as the hype surrounding the game, the developer’s history of games released, the previous games in the series if it is a sequel, and what I personally think from the preview footage of the game. I generally weight full game releases higher than expansion packs. An expansion pack has to be perfect to beat a new full game. Unless the company has history of making superb expansion packs, I usually will not even include them in the list of contenders.

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My Gaming Prediction Results for 2013

It is time to look back and see how I did on my 2013 predictions. My results this year were a little better than last year. A couple of my picks for top games were correct. In the other genres, my 2nd or 3rd game in the list was usually the top game, but I my predictions were particularly bad in the Strategy genre. Some of this was because of games being delayed, but a few games did much better than I foresaw.

Action

Predicted Winner: BioShock Infinite
Actual Winner: BioShock Infinite

I think my prediction for BioShock Infinite was correct. While it did not live up to all the hype, it was still far better than the other action games released this year. The gameplay was seen as nothing new, but the story and world the developers created was praised. Many thought it may have been better as an adventure game or role-playing game with exploration being the focus instead of shooting. It did not have the longevity of other action games (no multiplayer), but most players had a lot of good to stay about it.

My order for the rest of the games was pretty far off though. Several games were not even announced when I made my prediction. Others turned out better than I expected. The next two games had to be Metro: Last Light and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Both games scored roughly equally high for different reasons. Metro: Last Light, which I did not think would release in 2013, was praised for its atmosphere and setting. If it had more polish it may have been a contender for best action game this year. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was praised for being a refreshing take on the Metal Gear world, while the developers of Metal Gear 5 get some time to make it a polished game.

Gears of War: Judgment, ARMA 3, and Crysis 3 all got average reviews. I kind of expected that with Gears of War: Judgment. The story was over with Gears of War 3. Judgment felt like a retread, with no new gameplay unlike Metal Gear Rising’s refreshing gameplay. I did not expect ARMA 3 and Crysis 3 to score so low though. ARMA 3 did not have enough content at launch to satisfy most players. Crysis 3 had a weak single player campaign, which was surprising given its pedigree.

I totally forgot about Dead Space 3 when I made my predictions, but it also had a flaw. Many of the horror elements were replaced with more action, causing the game to lose some of its identity. There was also controversy about the single player microtransactions, which felt like a cash grab to many players.

I wrote down Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, but the next game in the series ended up being Call of Duty: Ghosts. Players seem to finally be getting tired of Call of Duty, as its sales were lower than last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. I expected there to be slightly lower sales, but not such low review scores. Usually, the single player just gets a pass. Players have so much fun with the multiplayer they do not care about the campaign. This year they were tired with the campaign, and the multiplayer felt like the same old thing. Battlefield 4, which had not even been announced when I made my prediction, seemed to be a mirror copy of Call of Duty: Ghosts. Few people liked the campaign, so everything was dependent on the multiplayer, which was pretty much the same as Battlefield 3.

Aliens: Colonial Marines turned out exactly as I predicted. It was a licensed game. Licensed games are almost always bad. Aliens: Colonial Marines was a bad game. Sega was able to really hype up players while delaying the release of reviews to get pretty high sales numbers. Pretty soon disappointment stories from the players started appearing everywhere.