While gaming in 2014 had its ups and downs, there’s no denying the fact that there were plenty of good games released this year. And with those good (and some average) games came moments that shocked and thrilled you. Here are ten such moments from games in 2014 that will remain an indelible part of gamers’ memories. (NOTE: Slide no. 10 is a big spoiler for The Wolf Among Us. Also, a minor spoiler for Alien:Isolation on slide no. 7).
The Clash kickstart your Kyrat adventure (Far Cry 4)
While a bloodied Pagan Min introduces himself, the opening riffs of The Clash’s classic song start playing. Then when Min promises that the both of you will “tear s**t up!”, the song’s immortal refrain asks one question of you, “Should (you) stay or should (you) go”? A small moment, but still as memorable as the “burning down marijuana fields to a Ziggy Marley/Skrillex song” from the last game.
Killing your first dragon (Dragon Age: Inquisition)
The dragon battles are one of the best things in Dragon Age: Inquisition and that’s saying a lot about a game that’s chock full of great moments. Every dragon battle requires a lot of patience combined with tactical thinking and understanding both your and your party’s strengths and weaknesses. Downing a dragon is immensely satisfying because not only do you get a lot of good gear and crafting materials but also an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.
Witnessing your first Titanfall (Titanfall)
It’s a great tragedy that a game as good as Titanfall has been mostly forgotten as we head into the new year. Still, the exhilaration you felt when you called down your first Titan, and it rammed into the earth throwing up debris and dust, there was nothing else like that at the beginning of 2014.
The Luigi Death Stare (Mario Kart 8)
Yup, this one was the most meme-worthy moment from all of gaming in 2014. Luigi, not the most gangster of gaming characters, gives you the most intense hate filled stare as he passes you by during a race in Mario Kart 8. Now, that should be enough to completely change Luigi’s reputation and make him the new lead in the next couple of God of War games.
Getting a Warchief assassinated by his own Uruk bodyguards (Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor)
One of the most fascinating things about Shadow of Mordor was its unique Nemesis system that let you develop a relationship with the orcs in the game. It also let you mind-control an orc and ensure that he was promoted to become an Uruk Warchief’s bodyguard. Get a couple of similarly mind-controlled Uruks to become bodyguards of the same Warchief and then sit back and watch as they betray him and hack him down to pieces. When it was successfully executed, there was nothing more satisfying in any game of 2014.
Your first Alien encounter (Alien: Isolation)
In the mood to get scared? Just start playing Alien: Isolation, the excellent first person survival horror game released a couple of months ago. The scariest moment in the game has to be when you encounter the Alien Xenomorph for the first time while you’re trying to shut down an alarm system that’s raising hell on the space station where you’ve landed in search for your mother. You’ve barely switched off the base’s security alert when the alien comes crashing down from the ceiling mere feet away from you. You hide, sneak away and then come to a hallway where you see the true horror of the alien as it rips through a bunch of soldiers in little time.
Destroying a gang hideout without raising any alarms (Watch Dogs)
There was plenty wrong with Watch Dogs, the open world action game launched earlier this year. One thing that it got completely right were the gang hideout missions that required you to kill every single gang member in a structure. You could go in guns blazing but chances were that you would be shot down very, very quickly. As a result, the best way to complete these missions was to stay hidden in the shadows while using cameras to hack through the structure’s electronics to distract or incapacitate enemies. It took a while to run through every such mission but it felt like quite an achievement when you were successful.
The Bank Heist (Thief)
Like Watch Dogs, Thief was another game that mostly disappointed and didn’t live up to its distinguished heritage. However, The Bank Heist mission (unfortunately, a DLC), took the game back to its roots by giving you a large playground with multiple routes and a single objective: raid a bank’s vault and steal everything inside. By keeping the core concept simple, and putting the player in a non-linear stage, the Bank Heist was everything the actual game should have been.
Snow White is dead (The Wolf Among Us)
There’s probably no moment in a 2014 game that’s more shocking than this one. You play Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of Fabletown, on the hunt for a serial killer and helping you is Snow White, the woman you love. Just when the first episode of the game is drawing to an end, you return home with a witness and see cops milling about. You work your way through the crowd and see what has the cops so frazzled. In a scene reminiscent of the movie, Se7en, there lies Snow White’s decapitated head on your stoop. Every gamer involved in the game’s story let out a tiny gasp at this moment.
Retro Wolf 3D (Wolfenstein: The New Order)
Wolfenstein: The New Order was one of the games released this year that truly surprised everybody with how good it was. One of the fantastic easter eggs in the game was in the headquarters of the rebels who rescue you from the Nazis. While exploring the headquarters, you come across a mattress that you can use to go to sleep but doing so makes you ‘dream’ of playing through the first stage of the original Wolf 3D game in all its pixelated glory. It’s a fantastic throwback and a fun way to remind the player of the series’ history. I only wished that you could play the entire Wolf 3D game and not just the first stage.