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Best of the Rest: Danny's picks of 2013
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. Dragon's Crown Dragon's Crown is the best thing to happen to the beat-'em-up genre since Castle Crashers. Taking its inspiration from Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons games, Dragon's Crown forges its own identity with satisfying combat, a lengthy quest, and a bottomless well of character customization options. The sheer amount of loot players accrue in Dragon's Crown keeps the experience fresh and compelling even after you've hacked your way through hundreds of owlbears. The game offers a broad selection of playable characters, all of which play very differently and require varying degrees of expertise to master. Online multiplayer is a joy as a result, mixing the game's varied cast for some gloriously chaotic battles. It's worth noting that Dragon's Crown has seen a number of significant improvements since its initial release, as patches have consistently addressed player feedback while adding major gameplay features. The newest patch, for instance, gives hardcore players the option of skipping the game's introductory chapters, making character leveling more efficient than ever before. Oh, and it also adds a 10,000-floor dungeon. If you love beat-'em-ups, Dragon's Crown will keep you satisfied for months.
Clicking Bad is the darker side of Cookie Clicker [Update]
The latest strangely enticing phenomenon, Cookie Clicker, rewards players with cookies for every click of the mouse. Among the list of things more addicting than cookies is methamphetamines, the drug central to the plot of the popular, recently ended TV show Breaking Bad. Capitalizing on both properties is Clicking Bad, a free browser game in the same style as Cookie Clicker that has players cooking up drugs and selling them to upgrade their equipment. Clicking Bad launched its public beta roughly a week ago and just recently hit version 0.6, which added more manufacturing and selling tiers as well as changing the cost structure. The game tasks players with managing their drug creation business by either manually clicking "buy" and "sell" buttons or using in-game money to purchase upgrades like sleazy lawyers and abandoned trailers, each providing a boost to sales or production. The upgrades may also impact the odds of authorities catching on and seizing your meth-cooking labs as well as the purity levels of your drugs. The game's Twitter account notes that an achievement system "may or may not make it in this week," indicating that more updates are on the way. We're waiting for the right moment to introduce Clicking Bad to our own Richard Mitchell, who recently opted to stream his Cookie Clicker obsession for all to pity. We're worried about him enough as it is. Update: The game has just been updated to version 0.7, and sure enough, it now includes achievements.
Joystiq Replay: Cookie Clicker
Cookie Clicker is a mindless, addictive and fascinating web game. In the off chance that you aren't playing it at this very moment, we put together a quick live stream of the entrancing browser game, in which our own Richard Mitchell details everything you need to know about clicking on both cookies and the things associated with cookies. Archived here is the recorded broadcast for you to enjoy. Is it merely an informative video laying out the mechanics of a popular game, or a sly, subversive commentary on the nature of reward structures? You decide. What games would you like to see us play next? Let us know in the comments, and we'll let you know when you can catch the stream and the subsequent replay!
