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kingyo

I have so many games to play before the end of the year!

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Games Wot I Enjoyed - 2015 Edition

As someone who favors story in games, this has been a good year. 2014 had a lot of great indies but 2015 brought the big guns, and wow, did they deliver.

Will say I only have a PC. so Halo 5 might have cool action sequences, and Mario Maker might be a really neat way to redo an old franchise, but sadly I haven't played either. Also Tomb Raider looks great so definitely looking forward to that (hopefully) early next year.

The first 10 games are my top ten in order as you'd expect, then I included 5 games at the end in no particular order that I thought deserved mentions but don't really belong on the list for one reason or another!

List items

  • A truly incredible game. I enjoy a lot of it's combat systems and the way the sword fighting feels, the graphics are also top notch. But where this game truly excels is it's story. Really interesting, very fleshed out universe as well as impactful individual stories all grounded in what feels like a very honest and human place. There is a reason the bloody baron was discussed so much, and while not every quest or character is that well written and amazingly developed the quality remains high from start to finish across the board. I would say the other key element that impressed me were the choices. The Witcher has always had difficult decisions and a strongly gray morality but these choices feel much more meaning and though they influence the wider world this time around. CD Projekt Red also have to be commended for their great support of the game, both the free patches to help tackle unpopular decisions at launch as well as more than 10 complementary DLC additions. All in all a phenomenal RPG that has only gotten better.

  • Incredible open-world gameplay is at the core of unarguably the best MGS game to date. The huge array of unlockable equipment gives you a lot of flexibility depending on how you want to play and the minute to minute gameplay ends feeling like some cool action movie.

    The graphics, especially on PC, are also really something and the environments, while a little same-y, are overall very nice.

    There is plenty of Kojima's brand of weirdness present but it's been pushed to the periphery and the some of the game systems so I will say that as a fan of previous metal gear games the story in this one is overall pretty disappointing and while it is probably overall smart not to have the hours and hours of cutscenes it does, for me, loose something. That said I think it's very smart that the often drawn out codec conversations have been replaced this time around with tapes that can be played while travelling around the world doing other things.

    Side characters as well are pretty one dimensional and not developed well, especially if you don't do all the extra missions. The decision to zoom in Quiet's ass at every opportunity and have her bend towards the camera all the time feels preeettty sleazy but at the same time it's so teenage that I mostly ended up just rolling my eyes a lot. Still, kind of a disappointing fate for their only female character.

    A lot of the time in this game is spent collecting resources and troops for your base back home which provides nice little bonuses while your out doing the various side missions and the building up and managing of your base is handled pretty well and adds a cool other mechanic.

    Overall I felt like this was the game that played the best this year and, in fact, has some of the best gameplay of recent memory.

  • This one came out of no where for me, but I ended up thinking that it was a fantastic episodic adventure game. The unique concept here is that the main character can rewind time a last couple of minutes allowing you to say something else or act a different way. This is often really well built into the game and seems to work logically without completely overtaking the story, which at it's core is really about a group of teenagers in a run down town.

    Overall I think the writings pretty good, feels genuine especially when teens are so often written badly. Also I really think they have to be commended for dealing with some pretty hard hitting, but not unrealistic, issues.

  • I wish this game was better. I know this isn't the most positive way to start talking about one my favorite games from this year but whenever I think about this game critically it's what I always come back to.

    That's not to say there isn't a lot to love here, Fallout 4 has a fantastic setting and they've built a really nice world with lots of environmental stories (by which I mean coming across areas and discovering what happened there by exploring it) which really helps to make the world feel more real. The scope here is also super crazy especially when considering that almost every object in the game is either movable or destructible. The shooting is much improved and it's a good job since it makes up the bulk of this game, though the customization of armor and weapons gives it a nice progression and helps keep the action fresh.

    They have certainly gone for a different style in this game, opting for more of what feels like trying to tell a specific story with a specific character. Certainly the choice to have a singularly-voiced protagonist, while being kind of cool, narrows down factors such as age and ethnicity or else there's a bit of an odd disconnect. Within conversations it also feels like the range of options is reduced with them mostly reaching the same outcome no matter which way you go and them trying to maintain their specific backstory. These factors made me feel that all in all there was much less agency over who my character was and ultimately that I didn't really have any customization other than a few basic things. While it is an absolutely valid approach to tell a more directed story within an RPG I just don't think it works that well here. The story is kinda of thin which is a shame because some of the beats it touches on are great but considering they ask you to invest in their narrative, there isn't enough here for me to ever really get into it. I feel like some of the choices it does give you are kind of shoe-horned in just to be ticked off the 'RPG checklist'. Most notable of these is romancing companions which, along with coming out of where, feel especially odd given the way the game starts. Perhaps some of this is coming from having New Vegas fresh in my mind which I felt like offered a lot more in terms of customization and while, like in this game, the story ultimately reaches the same conclusion regardless, it felt like there was a lot more choice in how you got there and with who at your side. While I know they were developed by different studios perhaps I wish they'd taken note when making such a similar game to the previous two especially with such a long development.

    Aside from that my other big issue with this game is polish. It's broken in the way Bethesda games are which I guess is to be expected with funky physics and people wondering into your conversations but worse this game is also full of quest bugs and generally just doesn't run that well with FPS dropping to a crawl at moments. A lot of the UI too feels a bit inelegant and janky with the information you want being hard to find, I found this especially with settlements. Though it has to be said I really enjoyed building up bases and having a use for all the junk I was picking and carrying around!

    I know there are so many negatives here but I really do love the game, playing it was super fun and each second of action and exploring was fantastic. It's more that these are the factors that stopped it being an easy number 1 choice. There are a lot of steps forward but the steps back are a real shame! There is so much potential here to be even better.

  • Played this with some friends as well as watching GBeast go through it and I thought it was a lot of fun. It's basically a slasher flick in game form and as you'd therefore expect, is packed full of the clichés of the genre.

    I would say that where the game excels is it's atmosphere, managing much better at dread and suspense then when it tries outright to scare, though that's not to say that some of the scares didn't get me! One of the big things it boasts is choice and while there certainly could have been more far reaching effects, the unique fact that any and all of the characters involved can die definitely adds to the stakes. The environments look good too, and they manage to get in a decent amount of variation over the course of the game to keep things interesting. Actually graphics in general are pretty great with the character faces here very recognizable as the actors portraying them and though the acting could be better overall I would say story and writing are not terrible and certainly match the feel of this sort of teen horror. Having said that, I was disappointed by the end with all the tension being lost for me as the cause of these nighttime shenanigans is revealed but it certainly wasn't enough to sour me on this relatively tight, trope heavy, showcase of bumps in the night.

  • As a PC gamer finally got to play it... (A year and a half after first released) so thats why it's on my list now. It's GTA... With all the dumb ridiculousness that this game trades in, and while the games are starting to feel a bit same-y to me, they are still fantastic. Add that to an online I played maybe more than any other this year and I couldn't not have this on my list. While online is still far from perfect even now, and though hacking is very prevalent, having others around just multiples the madness and the fun involved. They have also been pretty good with the free updates... even if some of them include things so expensive they feel like they are only there to get people to buy more micro-transactions.

  • >I'm a sucker for AI sci-fi stories, especially those that deal in the merging of humans and machines. This games questioning of what it means to be human and specially the concept of what 'you' as an individual is.

    Framed in an interesting and at times, haunting, environment with lots of interesting smaller stories to be discovered through exploring in a game about the desire of humanity to survive.

    What stopped this game being higher was that the game slightly outstays its welcome, especially a few too many 'hide from X that's after you' areas and the ending was, well pretty unsatisfying. But overall I liked my time with it.

  • Comedy is hard in games, players move around, they don't listen, timing of responses can be impossible. This format of game that Telltale has developed post Walking Dead however is uniquely suited to it since they can rely much more on a consistent environment. With this narrower, more refined experience they flesh out the universe in some cool ways and craft some really cool characters. While not every line is a hit, and it didn't click with me as much as with some people overall it was well written and interesting.

    I think for me it falls down the list as the more of these games there are the more I feel like you can notice some of the stitching of how they work, especially how every option in the conversations leads to the same ultimate outcome with seemingly only one line of dialogue different.

  • What Sims City should have been.

    Few things bring as much satisfaction as getting everything running nicely in a simulation. Fully mod-able, nicely supported by the developers. I would say it suffers from a complete lack of goals though, and isn't prettiest. Still a good time though!

  • While it might be more of the same, the super tight stylish experience and trippy story something I was happy to have more of.

  • If you want the game that I enjoyed all the weirdness around and made me laugh the most it's this. The experience as a whole was fantastic but the core game itself is a relatively limited so not sure it can make the list. That said really hope they get to make something else with a bit more a budget!

  • Not sure this really qualifies as a game, it's more of an 'interactive experiance' or something. But I thought it was super interesting, glad I finished it.

  • Not sure re-releases can really count for the list but the enhanced edition came out this year and was super cool, plus the addition of VO to every line of dialogue is a huge, probably unnecessary, undertaking but it's kinda weirdly awesome they bothered to do it!

  • It's probably cheating to have this here, even if the latest big patch/expansion improved this game dramatically? Thought I'd give it a shout out... at the same time, what I like most about it is they made it more solo-able and allow you to focus more on the core story meaning it's less of an MMO, so kind of fails at what it was meant to be?

  • Loved Just Cause 2 (I even enjoyed the first one!), and this looks even more fun and chaotic despite issues (*cough* challenges) so I think I'd really enjoy it. Sadly though, this game is so broken on my machine I've only been able to play about 20mins.
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