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RPS Time Capsule: the games worth saving from 2014We list our favourite games from 2014, and why they deserve to be preserved above everything else
We list our favourite games from 2014, and why they deserve to be preserved above everything else
Welcome back to the third edition ofThe RPS Time Capsule, a monthly feature in which the RPS Treehouse puts their hivemind together to pick their favourite, bestest best games from a specific year to be preserved until the end of time. In the spirit of keeping you on your toes, this time we’ve set our sights on the best games from 2014. Which games will make the cut and ascend to the realms of the PC gaming elite? Find out below.
Video Game Music Quiz - Can You Guess The Adventure Game From The Tune?Watch on YouTube
Video Game Music Quiz - Can You Guess The Adventure Game From The Tune?
The Sims 4
The wonderful thing aboutThe Simsis that it can be approached from so many different angles. Is it an architect simulator? A character modelling studio? A soap opera storytelling machine? A time- and resource-management challenge? I sometimes think no two Sims players are actually playing the same game. For me, The Sims primarily acts as the ultimate geeky playground: somewhere I can re-create favourite characters from games and other media when I find our time together is over too soon — and the powers of Create-A-Sim even extend to resurrecting the beloved dead. It’s a game that can contain every other story that I love too much to let go of straight away; a DIY patchwork of unthinkable fanfiction crossovers, precision-curated to my highly specific yet ever-shifting tastes. The metaverse could never.
You’ll be unsurprised to learn that I think The Sims is one of the best game series out there, and — despite a number of fans preferring the still-supported third iteration — The Sims 4 is my go-to for a fix of that sweet gameplay loop I’ve been consistently hooked on since I first played the original back in 2001. The Sims 4 maybe isn’t the pinnacle of the series, which at one point ran the risk of collapsing under the weight of its own ambition, and has perhaps scaled back its innovations a bit too far in response to that. But its core of good Sims-y fun remains the same as ever: delivering an up-to-date take on most of the franchise’s greatest hits while being the most stable version so far, not to mention the easiest to pick-up-and-play in 2022. That counts for a lot when deciding what to encase in lucite for future generations to enjoy.
Alien: Isolation
Alice Bee:Believe it or not, I am not pickingDragon Age: Inquisitionfor our 2014 Time Capsule, a game I have clocked over 300 pointless hours in. And I have not, nor will probably ever finishAlien: Isolation, because it is terrifying. But I think Isolation needs to be preserved for a couple of reasons. One is that North Americans liked it noticeably less than a lot of the rest of us, this game where you crawl around a ship and spend many minutes hiding (weeping) in a locker, hoping against hope that the xenomorph doesn’t spot you. I assume this is because the game is intended to be more like the first Alien film, where you face off against but a single alien, only here you’re also facing seemingly insurmountable odds, and you do not have a lot of big guns. In fairness, Alien would not be much fun to live through, but I still find this very culturally interesting!
Secondly, Alien: Isolation is agreat horror gamebecause it is, just, a masterpiece in set design. Playing as Ripley’s daughter, you are constantly jumping at half-glimpsed bits of furniture and piping because so much of the ship looks like the alien. The developers keep you scared all the time without even having to try! Excellent ratio of terror:action. Good work, those people.
2:22am
2:22am captures the feeling of dreams and dreaming more than any other game I’ve played. The unconscious grinding through thoughts and feelings, putting the surreal and the fantastic and the mundane and the nonsensical and the horrifying together in different forms to see how they fit. And it captures the feeling of finding no comfort in those dreams, nor in the waking, nor in the separation of the two, nor in anything, but simply existing in unreality. I did not enjoy 2014. Revisiting 2:22am today pulled that feeling straight back out me, made it feel real again, then me glad I escaped that year. Please, video game, get into this time capsule to perfectly preserve this terrible feeling for posterity.
“Play alone,” the instructions say. “Play at night.”
Titanfall
It takes a master of their craft to balance such disparate FPS styles; Respawn nailed it on the first go. Though on that note, without Titanfall, we wouldn’t haveTitanfall 2: a sequel with all the same competitive thrills that just happens to include one of the decade’s finest FPS singleplayer adventures as well. And inApex Legends, we have a battle royale that cuts both the Titans and the wallrunning, yet still gets enough mileage out of the underlying gunplay and movement skills to be one of the best BRs in an industry full of them. The best, for my money. These two successors might secure Titanfall’s legacy in part, but it’s also impossible to talk about what’s good about them without paying respect to the original. And if we can’t bring it back, we should at least preserve it as it was.
The Room
Katharine:Yes, the ultimate form of Fireproof Games' tactile puzzle box game arguably lies on mobile, but the spruced up PC version from 2014 remains an absolute masterclass in design that deserves to be dipped in amber for all time. It would certainly make for an interesting extra puzzle layer to get into its box of treasures, in any case.
Wolfenstein: The New Order
I never expected existential philosophy to crop up during my time with The New Order, but its earnest heart is the reason I adore it. Don’t get me wrong, this is a profoundly silly game, one that sees you shooting robot dogs and fighting Nazis on the moon. You spend far more time dual-wielding machine guns and battling baddies in mechs than you do pondering what makes humans, you know, human, but that’s what makes these quieter moments so memorable. Nestled within this absurdist piece of alternate reality fiction are fully-realised characters, with Blazkowicz acting as the grounded core that helps keep proceedings from tipping over into pure nonsense.
Transistor
Image credit:Supergiant
I don’t want to say any more than that. Please, please, discover this game for yourself. The combat is wonderfully creative. The world is alive like no other game-world I’ve ever seen. The characters and story are wonderful, and heartbreaking, and ingenious. The music is just… There are no words. This game is a concentrated explosion of creativity, emotion, and beauty. Play it.
Dark Souls II
Quantity doesn’t often usurp quality, but the game’s disjointed approach makes it feel more like a traditional adventure than the originalDark Souls. You aren’t ascending or descending but pinging between bonfires in distant or bizarre lands. And sometimes you can’t help but stand in awe in between all the zigzagging: ancient samurai Sir Alonne rises from his meditation like Qui Gon Jinn as you step into his marble office; a humungous frog peels back its mouth to reveal the skeleton beneath; thunder crackles overhead as a twisted knight wields a mirror that summons evil shades.
And then you’ve got Aldia, Scholar Of The First Sin: a disfigured, flaming tree who sounds like David Attenborough melting into a puddle of wax. He broke the curse, managing to exist outside of light and dark! What the heck are you on about Ed? Let’s just say he shed light (heh) on the nature of the titular soul and put many lore points in perspective. Essentially, he’s a figure of – what I’d consider, anyway – importance with cracking dialogue. His narration of Dark Souls II’salternate endingstill gives me goosebumps. It’s a flawed journey of fantastic scope, and you can’t knock its ambition. You could even go so far as to say it bears great resemblance toElden Ringin its structure. But more than that, if you forget Dark Souls II, you’re forgetting Aldia and his rightful place in the Souls universe. Nowthat’sa sin.
Nidhogg
Nidhogg’s greatest strength, though, is that the controls are just as easy to understand. I’d dabbled in Mortal Kombats and Street Fighters, but the long lists of moves and combos were too much. My brain was filled with French vocabulary and algebra at that age, so I needed something a little simpler from my fighting games. Nidhogg hits the nail on the head, with three different sword positions and a handful of ways to stab your enemy.
Since you have the same set of simple moves, reaching the finish line is a test of mastery over Nidhogg’s combat system and, more importantly, your opponent’s behaviour in battle. It emphasises predicting the placement of your opponent’s next lunge over endless button combos, and it’s those simple thrills that I want to preserve forever. Nidhogg lets you settle arguments with ripostes instead of rib punches, and it’s the perfect way to quickly decide who gets the last chocolate digestive.
