Game of the Year 2015
Game of the Year season is always strange as an amateur games writer. A good chunk of my memorable gaming experiences this year has come from 2014 or earlier titles such as Transistor or Wolfenstein: The New Order, and I have yet to play a some buzzed about 2015 releases such as Rise of the Tomb Raider or Batman: Arkham Knight. Still, the end of year is a great time to reflect on the quality of my gaming experiences this year and these lists need not be exhaustive to be illuminating. To that end, here are my top 5 games of 2015.
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I'm a sucker for a big open RPG that pays at least lip service to player choice, so seeing The Witcher 3 here shouldn't be that much of surprise. Still, what CD Projekt Red has done with Geralt's latest adventure is no mean feat. The world is gorgeous and lively, the writing is best in class, and the gameplay has sufficient depth to keep me playing for dozens upon dozens of hours. It all coalesces into a memorable experience that had me actively invested in the well-being of my ward, Ciri, all the while helping the downtrodden citizens of the Northern Realms with their supernatural problems. It is also encouraging to see such a lavish production come from Poland, a country that typically has not been known for game development, and I hope that we see more games coming from all around the world. The Eastern European perspective of The Witcher 3 is a refreshing change of pace from what we usually see and it gets me excited to see what developers from South America, Africa, India, or China could do if given the opportunity.
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I love, love, love Life is Strange in a way that is distinct from any other game this year. Granted, there is very little new about this game. The episodic structure and decision-consequence loop are cribbed directly from Telltale's offerings, the time rewind mechanic is functionally identical to the memory segments of DONTNOD's previous game, Remember Me, and the high school and Pacific Northwest settings have been seen in a variety of games throughout the years. Still, the game just nails the life of a teenager, and even if you grew up before smartphones and social networking, the themes of Life is Strange remain timeless.
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I had a lot of problems with MGSV's story and characters, but when it comes down to it video games are an interactive medium, and no game this year achieved better interactivity than this one. The gameplay of MGSV is silky smooth and makes me feel empowered as a player. The stealth is fantastic, the gunplay is great, and the emergent moments in the wide open sandbox are simply better than any open world I've ever seen. Add to that an addictive "gotta catch 'em all" soldier capture mechanic that feeds into equipment development which makes the gameplay even more fun and you have one of the greatest playing games ever. A definite must-play for both Metal Gear diehards and Kojima newbies.
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I'll be honest in saying that I would likely have not even touched Rocket League had it not been a free Playstation Plus game. An essentially multiplayer only variant on soccer just doesn't sound great to me on paper, but actually playing the game is another story entirely. Rocket League achieves that near impossible goal of making a multiplayer game fun for everyone playing, including those that suck. For a good part of this year I was only able to get a handful of touches each match, but the positioning, strategizing, and bullying opposing players made me feel like I was helping my higher skill teammates actually score goals and make amazing saves. Eventually I got good enough to control the ball and score the occasional goal, and it was immensely satisfying to see my skills slowly but surely improve. Rocket League is simply the best multiplayer game I have played since Call of Duty 4, and like that game I fully expect to return to the rocket pitch for years to come.
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This pick is admittedly a more personal choice, and I suspect that Human Resource Machine will not be everyone's cup of tea. For those that don't know, the premise of the game is that you are a low-level wage slave for a non-specific mega corporation that wants to climb the company ranks. Each level is a year in your not-so-distinguished career completing rote tasks such as sorting letters or numbers. The twist is that you essentially program your character to do these tasks by "writing" a program using a high-level coding language. Human Resource Machine spoke to me in two ways. The first was on a gameplay level, where my recent attempts to teach myself programming finally paid off as I was able to demonstrate what I have learned through sites such as Code Academy. The second was the devious storyline that exposes the futility of our current corporatist system for those at the bottom of the pyramid. The game is quirky, weird, and maddening, but it is for those reasons why I love it so much.
