Robert Jiang’s Top 3 Games of 2017

2017 was a busy year for video games. 2017 was also a busy year for me, but not as a video gamer. With a failed attempt at graduate school and a new internship, I don’t manage gaming as well that year. I enjoyed what I have played of the Legend of Zelda: Breath of Wild but never manage to beat it or, as one might say, see the credits roll. However, I did manage to see the credits roll in the 3 games below, multiple times in one of them in fact. So allow me to talk about them in the order of my playing them.

List items

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  NieR:Automata

  A tale of sad ro...people, in the hot anime lady hacking and slashing through hordes of robots package. While this is hardly the best Platinum games game, this is certainly their best offering on the narrative front thanks to Yoko Taro. The game stands on its own and delivers on its promise of escalation halfway through, that makes it worthy of the statement “Kojima, but good”, of at least “MGSV, but good”. (Played on Windows PC, in Japanese)

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  Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

  Wolfenstein: the New Order is one of my favorite shooters in the recent 5 years, so New Colossus is a sequel I highly anticipated. While killing Nazi in US soil this time is mechanically less fun than the massacre the Reich faces in Europa in that first game, over-the-top cut scenes, growth of returning characters, memorable new characters and a surprisingly well crafted back story for BJ motherfucking Blazkowicz, this game is a sequel that improves. If they can humanize Terror Billy, I’m interested in seeing where they go next. (Played on Windows PC)

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  Super Mario Odyssey

  This is the first Mario game that I beat, and I was 27 at the time. Well, picking up a Switch can be life changing after all. (Played on Nintendo Switch, in Japanese)