So yesterday, we covered the worst that gaming had to offer, and indeed, it was a pretty substantial worst list indeed. We had emotionally charged issues, we had game play train wrecks, and we had complete silence on some of the biggest eventually upcoming releases of the year. We had plenty more than that go wrong, of course, but with 2015 only a few hours away, it's a great time to consider just what really rang positively about 2014 in gaming, and there was plenty of good to be had mixed in with the bad.

The Console Wars Heated Up

While it was clear that Sony was still well, well ahead of Microsoft in terms of the console war, Microsoft made some changes that were very well received. Divorcing the Kinect from the system itself and launching a price drop that ran through December was a welcome development to say the least. Sufficiently so, in fact, to give Microsoft the edge on Black Friday, and potentially carry through into December, though we'll have to wait for at least January to compile all the numbers and figure out just how the season ultimately went.

The Internet Archive's Internet Arcade

For those who bemoan how difficult it can be to find older games, particularly without the need to resort to piracy, the Internet Archive delivered a magnificent surprise; a panoply of older games that could be played directly from a Web browser. Games from Root Beer Tapper to Sinistar were suddenly on hand, and those of us who were children of the 70s and 80s could remember those days of darkened roller-rink back rooms with quarter-gobbling arcade machines lining the walls. Oh, but you wouldn't need quarters here, and for that reason, this is infinitely better than the good old days ever could have been.

The Games

You can scarcely talk about the best in gaming without talking about the actual games that made 2014 an exciting prospect. A console version of “World of Tanks” gave us some exciting multiplayer action on consoles. Diablo 3's expansion gave us a whole new edge to fighting horrors from beyond. The return of the EDF with “Earth Defense Force 2025” gave us good old fashioned giant bug-blasting action, and that was just the first quarter. We can name a host of games from there, of course; “South Park and the Stick of Truth,” “Titanfall,” the last DLC for “BioShock Infinite”, even “Five Nights at Freddy's”...all of these added up to make for one pretty impressive year when it came to gaming.

So what will 2015 give us? Well, hopefully it will give us a little more gaming and a little less Gamergate, but as long as there are people involved in gaming, there will be emotions and accompanying issues. Hopefully we can realize that we're all gaming together, and making gaming just a little more inclusive isn't likely to make the produce unplayable, or unenjoyable. 2015 should be a pretty impressive ride indeed, and at the end of it all, we'll likely have a whole new string of games and gaming events to talk about that really made 2015 pop.