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Xbox One Lacks a Screenshot Feature
The Xbox One shipped with even fewer features than the PlayStation 4 did, but a lot of cool new features have been added to the system regularly throughout the year. However, it still lacks a feature that fans have wanted from the start: The ability to take screenshots. The system already has the ability to record short gameplay clips but it can't take a simple screenshot? The PlayStation 4 had this feature in from the start and is personally one of my favorite features on the console. On the PS4, the call for more games to feature a "photo mode" has taken off because of how useful and fun it is.
That's not even mentioning that sharing screenshots online is essentially free advertising for the game and for the console it was taken on. Microsoft constantly notes that they are still working on adding the functionality to the Xbox One but there is still no date given on when that might actually happen.
Timed Exclusives
Now, the interesting thing about Rise of the Tomb Raider is that Microsoft initially made it sound like the game was going to be permanently exclusive on the Xbox One. Some poking and prodding later, they finally admitted that it was simply going to be a timed exclusive. It very well may not have been as big of an issue if Microsoft was up front with their business deal but they decided to skirt the issue as long as possible until the public outcry became too much.
Don't think I'm singling out Microsoft and Rise of the Tomb Raider either. We have seen exclusive content released for Destiny on the PlayStation 4 that the Xbox One players will not get until later in 2015. Call of Duty continues the tradition of first releasing DLC on the Xbox platform. We have seen Bayonetta 2 released exclusively on the Wii U. I'm willing to give Bayonetta 2 a pass because without Nintendo, the game would not have been made, period. Most recently, we see that Street Fighter V is exclusive to the PlayStation 4. Is the situation for Street Fighter V closer to the deal that Microsoft has for Rise of the Tomb Raider or closer to the situation Nintendo had with Bayonetta 2 where the game wouldn't even be made if it wasn't for some high profile outside financial assistance? Nobody really knows.
Deals like this are terrible for everybody no matter which console you prefer. It starts off just being one or two games or content that are exclusive to a platform but then it turns into more and more and more. Eventually it boils down to whichever company has the biggest checkbook. When that happens, nobody really wins.
Chromatic Aberration and "Cinematic" Gameplay
In every game I played that used Chromatic Aberration, there is only one that I didn't mind, Alien: Isolation. The reason for that is because that graphical effect actually made sense! The entire game was made to look and feel like the old VHS releases of the Alien films. In other games, it feels out of place and if not implemented properly, it can make you feel like your eyes are actually going bad.
The example image above is from Lords of the Fallen around when the game released. At first glance, the full sized image may simply look a little fuzzy to you. Take a look at the mountains in the background or the flag on the right side of the image. Notice how to the left of edges it looks red and to the right side of edges it's green? That's Chromatic Aberration in a nutshell. In the real world, it's actually an error caused by lenses being unable to converge all colors to the same point. Yep, game makers are now adding in actual visual errors into their games in an effort to make them more "cinematic" in appearance.
Stop that. Unless you can add the effect so that it's as subtle as can possibly be, don't even add it. Don't even think about adding it. If you can't do that, at least make it so that the effect can be turned off independently of other visual effects. At least Lords of the Fallen was updated later to allow users to disable the effect if they so desired, though other games were never given that luxury.
Speaking of "cinematic" gameplay though, let's talk about those black bars. You saw them used already in The Evil Within just a couple of months ago. You'll see them again in the PS4 exclusive The Order: 1886. The big problem here is that it cuts off the top and bottom edges where you would normally see your environment. The Evil Within's bars, prior to a PC patch giving players the option of turning them off, made it so that you often couldn't see objects or enemies on the ground near your position. Climbing down a ladder? You can forget about being able to see if it's safe to continue or not! Want to use them in a cutscene where the player doesn't have control? Fine! That's perfectly fine! That's really the only time it would make sense to use the black bars.
If I wanted to play games in a 2.35:1 or even a 2.50:1 ratio, I would have bought a monitor that supports that aspect ratio, but I didn't. Most people probably didn't do that either. Most people, like me, probably have a monitor or a TV that is 16:9. So please developers, stop trying to make your games "cinematic." If there's some other reason for having to use those bars, such as the fact that it allows your game to run at a higher framerate, then tell us! Just stop tossing out how your games are "cinematic" all the time. And please, if you're adding those black bars to your game and you really don't need to for performance reasons, then don't.
Community Reaction to Resolution Differences
One thing I noticed more this year compared to any other year is that people love to argue about differences in resolution for games released on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. My God, there are threads that span for dozens of pages on sites like NeoGAF where people go back and forth about how a higher resolution means one platform is more superior than the other. Or how a higher resolution means that version of the game is somehow better. Or how if a game is the same resolution on both platforms it must mean that the developer was aiming for parity and isn't developing to the strengths of such and such of a platform.
You know what those sorts of arguments remind me of? The arguments back in the Genesis vs. SNES days, or the arguments made in the PlayStation 2 vs. Xbox days. Back then it was less about differences in resolution but a more generic "console war" type of fight. In the earlier days the arguments weren't carried out online but in school or when hanging out with friends. Now the Internet simply makes it easier for that old "console war" mentality to flare up once again. Everyone has an opinion but instead of arguing the differences in game offerings, they argue about how an increase in the number of displayed pixels means their game or platform of choice is the clearly superior one.
Yes, I am well aware that arguing about visual differences is nothing new either but it is far more prolific now when it's less about noticeable visual changes and more about pixel counting or how 900p is in someway vastly inferior to 1080p. I play games to have fun. If the gameplay is identical across platforms, who really gives a toss about differences in resolution? That's not why I started playing games in the first place and I bet that's not why you started playing games either.
"Next-Generation Gameplay"
What in the world do some of these articles mean when they say they're disappointed about how games on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 don't feature "next-generation gameplay?" Seriously, what in the hell is that?
The last I knew, new gameplay experiences (ie: "next-generation gameplay") came from creative games and the creative developers behind those games. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are mere upgrades to the old generation of consoles. They feature updated hardware with a few new bells and whistles here and there but for all intents and purposes, they are just beefier versions of what we had before. New console hardware isn't going to magically create these "next-generation gameplay" experiences the industry keeps mentioning. That is precisely why I can't help but scratch my head and wonder just what some of these people mean when they say they're disappointed there isn't "next-gen" gameplay in a new game release.
If you really want "next-gen" gameplay, you're better off looking at the Indie game scene. They are the ones that are less afraid about taking risks. They are usually at a point where they have nothing to lose if they try an idea and it fails spectacularly. Larger studios are less likely to take those kinds of risks because at the end of the day they are still more concerned about their bottom line than a new game idea that has the very real possibility of flopping. They stick with safe games that have worked for them for years. Even then, these Indie games I generically mention are still not really "next-generation gameplay." It's just called being creative. It's something that has been the case for years now, long before the new consoles ever showed up.
So please, stop begging for "next-generation gameplay" or being disappointed when a new game doesn't feature "next-generation gameplay." That doesn't exist. That isn't even a thing. Every time that phrase is used unironically, it's clear they have no idea what exactly it is they're really asking for.
However, virtual reality headsets on the other hand...
Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation 4
Never before have I seen so many people have their hearts ripped out and stomped on than when Square Enix's Shinji Hashimoto took the stage at the PlayStation Experience. Let me set the scene for you.
Hashimoto came out on stage. He begins to address the audience. Behind him the logo for Final Fantasy VII appears on the massive screens. The audience cheers. Fans at home cheer. I cheer. Everyone is thinking, "this is it! Final Fantasy VII is going to be given the HD treatment for the PlayStation 4! We, the fans, have wanted this for years now and they're finally giving us all what we wanted!" And then it's revealed Final Fantasy VII is coming to the PS4, but what's this? It's... it's not getting remastered? It's not even getting any visual upgrades? It's just going to be a port of the PC release of the game? That's uh... Cue the hearts being ripped out here.
The rollercoaster of emotion from Final Fantasy and PlayStation fans was incredible.
Destiny and Titanfall
When you think about games that were monumentally disappointing in 2014, these two titles stand out the most. Let's start with Titanfall.
The game itself was a ton of fun on whichever platform you played it on. Yes, it was exclusive to Origin on the PC and yes, the Xbox 360 version came out well after the PC and Xbox One versions, but the core gameplay was still very enjoyable. Despite having a tacked on single player component, the multiplayer more than made up for it. It was fast-paced and added in some interesting gameplay mechanics that other shooters lacked. It was one of the first games to really utilize vertical movement and wall-running effectively in an online game. It featured giant mechs that were completely optional and who doesn't love giant mechs?
The problem is that the game's community disappeared. Just a few months after release, it was next to impossible to quickly find a game on the PC version of the game. As DLC continued to come out and fragment what little of the community was remaining, that was it for Titanfall. It is a game that I would probably still be playing to this day if the community was still around. Sitting around waiting to find a game eventually took longer than the actual matches. That isn't exactly my idea of a good time. Rather than have 40GB taken up by a game that has a ghost town for a community, I reluctantly uninstalled the game from my machine.
Then we have Destiny, a game that was hyped up beyond belief prior to release. It was a game where I actually bought into the hype, something I try not to do. I played the alpha and the beta periods on the PS4 and wasn't really impressed with either of them but man, that hype. So, I bought the game.
Content that was shown off in the Bungie ViDoc videos was cut from the final release. The playable areas were small and lacked content. PvP is a massive step back from the incredibly enjoyable PvP experience Bungie gave us with their Halo franchise. All of those amazing actors and actresses that were brought on as voice actors for the game? Wasted. Story? Virtually non-existent with a bulk of it showing up only through a website outside of the game itself. Then they release DLC for $20 that features what is arguably far less than $20 worth of content.
The game's only redeeming factor is that the gameplay itself, the shooting part, is really well done. The game would be completely dead if it wasn't for that. It probably helps that the only other major "looter shooter" released this year was Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and the longevity of that one ended up to be incredibly disappointing. I'm honestly ashamed to admit that I still play Destiny almost every day. Why? I have no idea. It certainly isn't for the fantastic story. It certainly isn't for the variety of missions. It certainly isn't for the varied locations and vast environments. (The joke is that Destiny doesn't have any of those.) Maybe it's because I like looter shooters and this is the only one where the shooting aspect is still enjoyable even if the rest of the package sucks. Maybe it's because the friends I play games with still play Destiny every so often as well and have also moved on quickly from Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.
I will say that I refuse to pay such a high price for the DLC when it offers so little. I learned my lesson from buying the base game. Bungie will have to work some serious space magic to get me to even think about playing Destiny 2.
GamerGate
Come on, you knew this was going to make the list.
GamerGate may have single-handedly set the public image of gaming and the gaming industry back years. Originally, I had toyed with the idea of making every single word and use of punctuation in this section a separate link to high profile media pieces that condemned GamerGate or links that showed just how truly vile these people are. I started to do that, but as you can tell that's not how this section ended up. It certainly wasn't for a lack of links. There are more links showing how terrible they are than there are words in this section alone. I have a wealth of bookmarks that I've been collecting for quite some time now. The thing is, when I started to sort through it all, it just became incredibly depressing.
Time after time I kept reading how GamerGate harassed and threatened someone else in the gaming industry, usually a woman or a transgender individual. Time after time I read how GamerGate released private and confidential information about someone (doxxing) in the industry, usually a woman or transgender individual. Time after time I read about how GamerGate tried to push people to try killing themselves that were already expressing suicidal thoughts and tendencies, usually a woman or transgender individual.
Do you notice a pattern here?
Publicly speak ill of GamerGate and they will fight you tooth and nail even when they are wrong. They will hit comment pages hard on YouTube to counter any claim made in the video against them. Likewise, they will do the same in the comments of written media articles that paint them in a bad light. They do so blindly believing that the rest of the world is wrong any time it says just how bad GamerGate is. Most recently, they decided to go after Wikipedia's Co-Founder, Jimmy Wales. For a group that claims to be against harassment, they sure have harassed him quite a bit through social media and even through email. That began after a Wikia piece about GamerGate and written by GamerGate was deleted after it was deemed to be an attack page that lacked credible sources. Go figure.
It really became too depressing to go through everything that they have done and that they continue to do to people. It's become frustrating and tiresome calling them out on their horrific behavior through social media because they still have people that blindly defend the actions of those in their toxic group. They still have people saying it's about ethics in games journalism, when it never really was. They still have people saying it's a consumer revolt, when it never really was. They lie about how they accomplished change when they never have. One such example being how they believe they got the FTC to revise their rules and guidelines after one of their numerous email spam campaigns. They didn't. All the FTC really did was re-word what is essentially their FAQ, something that they publicly stated they were doing anyway even without GamerGate bothering them.
They defend the heinous actions of people in their group while pretending to take some sort of a moral high ground. They say how they reported a GamerGate member that was dishing out harassment and "isn't really a part of GamerGate" while retweeting harassing messages from others in GamerGate. They claim that harassers aren't a part of GamerGate but that's the problem from being a disorganized group filled with harassers. "They aren't a part of GamerGate," they cry. Yes, they are. Anybody can join and instead of those few well intentioned members of GamerGate leaving the toxic group, they stay and make up flimsy excuses. They are as much a part of the problem as those directly doing the harassing.
These same people use an avatar that shows their support of a failed game developer turned doxxing creep that was banned multiple times from Twitter for harassing multiple people in the name of GamerGate. They openly welcome neo-Nazis to their group. They have had multiple bans from social media for harassment. Patreon campaigns run by GamerGate have been shut down for illegal activities. They have attempted extortion and blackmail. One Patreon set up by the founder of 8chan, GamerGate's current "go to" site after being banned from 4chan, was previously shut down over the disgusting nature of the content hosted on that site. 8chan founder, Fredrick Brennan's "solution" is to say his Patreon is now about making videos of his cat with all excess funding going elsewhere. If Patreon tries to remove it again, GamerGate plans to say it's discrimination due to his disability. Yes, those scum are already planning to play the disability card if and when it comes to pass.
They concoct new conspiracy theories on a regular basis dealing with fabricated plots that aim to discredit them (as if they ever had credibility to begin with). They welcome the support of people like Jack Thompson, a man who actually made strong pushes to outright censor and ban games. They pretend that this is some sort of a war, complete with mass email spam "operations" and poorly made propaganda posters which often make very little sense or feature outright lies.
It's not an "us vs. them" type of situation as they would like to believe it is. The only side in any of this is GamerGate. The opposition that they keep saying exists isn't anti-GamerGate, it's not "social justice warriors" (SJWs), it's not a handful of women in the industry, it's not the media, nor is it any particular group. It's literally the rest of the world. It is literally billions of well adjusted, well meaning people of all ages and races that are the "opposing side" going against GamerGate. They don't understand this. It's a game to them. What they do and what they say mean nothing at all to them. They don't see human beings on the other side of the screen. They don't see the repercussions of their harassment, threats, or in publicly doxxing individuals. Maybe they do. I can't tell what is a more chilling thought: That GamerGate can't understand the repercussions of their actions, or that they actually do realize what they're doing and yet they continue to do it all because they feel like their hobby is somehow threatened.
I won't dive into the origins of GamerGate again as it's been said time and time again now. Nothing has changed. The only good that has come from all of this is that GamerGate is getting precisely the opposite of what they want. People like Anita Sarkeesian have been thrust into the spotlight. Many articles have been written about industry women and their ordeal with GamerGate, with some of these harassment targets making television appearances.
To call GamerGate a hate mob of disorganized, leaderless, misogynistic, inhuman, like minded shitstains would be a kindness to them. They are easily some of the most god-awful people I have ever seen, and this most certainly includes their various figureheads. The only comforting thought in all of this is the fact one day GamerGate will eventually just shut the fuck up. However, as recent as this week, GamerGate continues to write articles explaining why their first target was a woman in the industry, Leigh Alexander. The reason they provide? GamerGate claims it's because she said that gamers are dead. She didn't actually say that. In fact, nowhere in her article was the word "dead" ever used. GamerGate continues to be that incredibly dense for four months and counting now.
GamerGate live in their own little bubble outside of reality, an echo chamber full of hate. You tell them they're wrong, they refuse to believe it. You provide documented facts, they ignore them. You tell them just how horrible the rest of the community thinks they are, they respond by mocking.
Almost since I first saw just what that group for what it really is, I have tried my hardest not to use the term "gamer" in any of my news posts here. They have tarnished that word. In my mind, GamerGate have made the term gamer synonymous with every disgusting act GamerGate has done these past four months. They have again done the exact opposite of what they wanted to see happen. They keep getting upset over something that was never actually said, so let's just go ahead and say it now. "'Gamers' are dead" and GamerGate are the ones to blame.
I'm also calling out developers and publishers in the industry on this one. They have remained almost completely silent, refusing to make any official statement against GamerGate. They see what is happening. They see what these people have done and continue to do. Sometimes, profit isn't everything and the point has come and gone where it is no longer acceptable to remain silent.
If you really want to know more about the heinous trash that GamerGate has done or the origins of it without any unncessary sugarcoating, I suggest you read through the Rational Wiki entry for GamerGate. For an added bonus and perhaps a free chuckle, check out that entry's "Talk" page. However you should be warned, there is an abundance of salt to be found there.
There you have it, my list of the biggest disappointments for 2014. I'm sure there were some issues or events that I completely overlooked. Feel free to leave a comment below if there is something else that sticks out in your mind as the worst of 2014.