by extintor
Stand out great games of the year:
Titanfall 2, Doom, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Superhot VR, Dark Souls 3, Stardew Valley, Stellaris, Dead Rising 4, Gears of War 4
| Title | Release Year | Pre-2016 status and score | 2016 status | 2016 Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Destiny (XO) | 2013 | content completed (2/5) | Still playing | 4/5 |
| XCOM 2 (PC) | 2016 | --- n/a --- | Completed | 3/5 |
| Fallout 4 (XO/PC) (Automaton, Far Harbour) | 2015 | (XO) Completed 2015 (5/5) | (PC) DLC Completed | 4/5 |
| Firewatch (PC) | 2016 | --- n/a --- | Completed | 4/5 |
| Syndicate (PC) | 2012 | Completed 2012 (4/5) | Completed | 3/5 |
| The Division (XO) | 2016 | --- n/a --- | Content completed | 4/5 |
| Quantum Break (XO) | 2016 | --- n/a --- | Completed | 3/5 |
| Shadowrun: Hong Kong (PC) | 2015 | Completed 2015 (5/5) | to be played | */5 |
| Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (XO) | 2014 | --- n/a --- | Finished playing (5hrs) | 3/5 |
| Stardew Valley (PC) | 2016 | --- n/a --- | Completed | 5/5 |
| Dark Souls 3 (PC) | 2016 | --- n/a --- | Completed | 4/5 |
| Stellaris (PC) | 2016 | --- n/a --- | Completed | 4/5 |
| Doom (PC) | 2016 | --- n/a --- | Completed | 5/5 |
| Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC) | 2011 | Completed 2011 (5/5) | Completed | 5/5 |
| Technomancer (PC) | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 2/5 |
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| Apollo 11 VR | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 3/5 |
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| Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (PC) | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 5/5 |
| Destiny: Rise of Iron (XO) | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 4/5 |
| Fallout 4: Nuka World (PC) | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 4/5 |
| The Bunker (PC) | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 3/5 |
| Edge of Nowhere (PC) | 2016 | n/a | In progress | |
| Mafia 3 (PC) | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 3/5 |
| Gears of War 4 (PC) | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 4/5 |
| Oxenfree (PC) | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 3/5 |
| Titanfall 2 (XO) | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 5/5 |
| Steins; Gate | 2016(*) | n/a | Completed | 3/5 |
| Tyranny | 2016 | n/a | In progress | */5 |
| Final Fantasy 15 | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 4/5 |
| Dead Rising 4 | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 4/5 |
| Superhot VR | 2016 | n/a | Completed | 5/5 |
CURRENT TOP 10 (as of 23rd Dec)
| Rank | Game | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Titanfall 2 | 5/5 |
| 2 | Doom | 5/5 |
| 3 | Deus Ex: Mankind Divided | 5/5 |
| 4 | Stardew Valley | 5/5 |
| 5 | Superhot VR | 5/5 |
| 6 | Stellaris | 4/5 |
| 7 | Gears of War 4 | 4/5 |
| 8 | Destiny: Rise of Iron | 4/5 |
| 9 | Firewatch | 4/5 |
| 10 | Dead Rising 4 | 4/5 |
Notable others
Final Fantasy XV 4/5
Fallout 4: Nuka World 4/5
The Division 4/5
Oxenfree - 3/5
Mafia 3 - 3/5
XCOM 2 - 3/5
Apollo 11 VR - 3/5
No Man's Sky - 3/5
The Witness - 3/5
Earth Defense Force 4.1 - 3/5
Quantum Break - 3/5
Steins; Gate - 3/5
The Technomancer - 2/5
Showing 1-10 of 39 items
Original Release Year: 2013 2016 seems to be the year that this game finally clicked for me. Granted that I'm playing the 'all bells and whistles' version this time, and there's plenty of content now. That makes a difference for sure. The biggest thing is that there's an actual story structure that makes some kind of sense. There's NPCs (after a fashion) that deliver it, and all the game systems are, at last, synchronized and in service of each-other in a way that is both fun and interesting. Destiny is still not the finished article, but if it was only half a game at launch it is definitely almost a complete one now (and a very good one at that). The late game incentive structure is very much centred around making meters go up, to make other meters go up, to make other meters go up. I think that if future destiny DLC or full releases can improve on this then it could be genuinely great. (after a lot more hours) I should probably take my head out of my ass about this game. I have *plenty* of criticism for but I am STILL playing it semi-regularly and and I am STILL enjoying it. I will be buying the September expansion because this game is a good game. A good, recommendable game that wasn't the game I hoped it would be but is still excellent. 4/5 Rise of Iron: 4/5
Original Release Year: 2016 20 hours in (2xfilled notebooks). The Witness is an old school video game of the lineage of myst. It is far better than myst and is equal parts intriguing and maddening to play. After getting into the mountain (with 9 lasers), I've somewhat run out of steam on this game. I hear that the 'story' payoff is right at the end of the game but I'm not altogether sure I'll persist with the time and effort to get there. EDIT 28 Feb> A few weeks have now passed since I put this down. I don't feel any urge to pick it back up so I've drawn a line under my experience and I'm going to leave it there. Ultimately I don't think I enjoyed this game as much as many seemed to. It is a clever puzzle game and I respect it immensely and enjoyed the 'ah-ha!' moments I had with it... but... that wasn't enough in terms of motivation to grind to the end. Completion didn't seem to bring revelation (or enlightenment) in the way that motivates (me at least) to continue. Learning the mechanism and the rules didn't seem to be in service of any narrative carrot. I hesitate to say it but I would not recommend this game so it gets 3/5 from me.
Original Release Year: 2016 At first viewing it feels as if there's something new, better, and different here. As was the case with its predecessors, it is brutally hard and unforgiving, but it is also dramatic and addictive. There's no hand-holding about the importance of your choices and the only way to learn the significance of your choices (both in combat and out of it) is through losing again and again. 'Normal' feels really tough to the point of definitely being unfairly so. I started and re-started the campaign on Normal three times (by which point my total time played was 60 hours). At this point I decided that even though I'd put 100 hours into EU and EW, my strategy for XCOM 2 wasn't going to be as precise as I needed it to be (within a reasonable timeframe) in order to complete the game. There are too many ways that you can make a choice that starts a cascade of bad outcomes that in turn lead to an unavoidable death spiral. That isn't good design and does not respect the player's available time. It should not take me 60 hours to learn a game, and for the primary lesson to then be "normal setting is unfair, bump it down to easy". But that is what I had to do.. I bumped it down to easy and beat the game in 25 hours (easy, by the way, was still no walk in the park). All in all I played this game for 85-90 hours and my overwhelming feeling toward the experience is relief. Relief that I completed it and can now move on. I had some excellent fun with this game, but I also spent a lot of time being confused, irritated, and demoralized by the hours spent understanding that I'd made decisions that had led to bad outcomes and that I could keep playing but ultimately it'd be futile and winning was impossible. The fun parts were sometimes more fun than EU and EW, but the frustrating parts (difficulty mostly) were often more frustrating. The bugs that the game has (hitching, freezing, long wait times etc.) are a minor thing really but they also shouldn't be there (especially on a single-platform release). I'm not sure I'd recommend this game, but I'd also have to say I had some genuine fun with it at times... to call it a bad game would be wrong. To call it a great game would be equally wrong. In short, 3/5.
Original Release Year: 2016 A short but fascinating game that really shines with the character conversation between the two main characters as it carries out an examination into self-imposed isolation as a means to avoid the reactions of the world to impossible situations in their lives. I related to this and loved this for what it was and the experience will stay with me. I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone but that isn't to say that the game is a perfect experience. It's just too short and too focused in its scope to be thought of like that for me. Firewatch is a hugely worthwhile 4 hour game that examines the kinds of anti-heroic characters and human situations that aren't often the focus of video games. It has elements of mystery and adventure but at its core it isn't exactly either of these things. 4/5
Original Release Year: 2016 (5 hours) my opening thoughts on this game are that there's potential for it to be good. I really hope that there's an interesting story to support the gameplay loop but time will tell. (10 hours) the world detail is really impressive and at the moment there seems to be just enough variety to the mission structure to stave off boredom. The game is moving toward a viral post-apocalypse take on heart of darkness (similar-ish to spec ops the line). I do hope that there's a bit more to it than that though. Time will tell. (15 hours) The Dark Zone is tense - and hugely enjoyable (40 hours) Well ok then, I guess I've done what the game gives me to do. All in all, I quite liked it and will be looking forward with moderate interest to what comes next. Vanilla Division has been a better experience than vanilla Destiny was, but it doesn't feel content 'complete' and its hard not to conclude that this because of the business model requirements of DLC and how that will all fit in. This isn't inherently an awful thing but it always feels a bit unsatisfactory when a full price game ends in a deliberately open ended way that only more paid content will flesh out. Still, this has been some excellent fun and one of the better games this year.
Original Release Year: 2016 http://www.giantbomb.com/quantum-break/3030-42696/user-reviews/2200-29248/ Quantum Break is slightly broken. It isn’t a mess. It isn’t unplayable. The gameplay is entirely serviceable and it functions without bugs. When I say is ‘slightly’ broken, I mean that Quantum Break is not a synchronized product. The various parts that have been put together to make ‘Quantum Break’ the video game/tv experience individually range between below average and good but collectively they do not fulfil the potential or ambition that is otherwise clearly evident. I say that Quantum Break has potential because was obviously made with a great deal of love. There are some excellent ideas and some of them have been executed well (some of the time) but the game's systems and components don't mesh together properly. It all works, just about, but you get the feeling that it doesn't work in the way that might have originally been conceived. There are a not-insignificant amount of graphical issues that do not create a good first impression, but the game also has some beautiful effects, and it does look great in certain scenes while looking sub-par in others. Environments are also re-used, with areas often being played through at least twice. However, given the time travel nature of the story that's probably not an unreasonable thing in this case. The sound design during combat sequences is noteworthy, and adds to the intensity. However, this is let down somewhat by loose gun combat with a limited variety of poorly differentiated weapons. The use of powers, while pretty cool in and of themselves, only begin to mesh well with the gun play once you realize and embrace the fact that this game is not an archetypal cover shooter. There is a dynamism and flow to the combat that emerges once key powers are acquired. By the end of the game, everything is rather samey though. The story set up is intriguing but the narrative delivery is very disjointed. The characters, and subsequent attempts at their development are poorly fleshed out and one dimensional. Much has been made of the cinematic sequences to this game but there are only four possible 20-minute segments that intersperse the game play chapters. 80 minutes would be enough to tell a film-length story... but it is also not enough to tell one that is set up in the style of an episodic cable tv-show. Quantum Break's FMV falls into the cable tv category of presentation and so suffers from a feeling of being overly rushed. So rushed in fact that is hard to follow the primary thread of what is going on within each episode (although reading collectibles helps). Correspondingly, it is even harder to see how the footage is influenced in any meaningful way by player actions and choice. After one full play through it seems probable that it isn't. There's something genuinely intriguing about the idea of Quantum Break, but there's just too much disappointment with certain components of it for me to recommend it to anyone. The disappointment is further compounded by how poorly the components come together. With all said and done, it might just about be fair to conclude that it is a bad game, but in spite of it all, I had some fun playing it at times so I’m not going to go that far. In short, 3/5.
Original Release Year: 2015 Re-playing on PC after completing on Xbox One last year. This game didn't deserve all the negativity it received (it did deserve some of it but the internet has a tendency to pile on once there's blood in the water and it wasn't proportionate). Yes, this game is a continuation in the modern-era Fallout lineage more than it is a dramatic jump forward. No, that isn't a terrible thing. On PC Ultra settings it looks and plays beautifully. In many ways it looks phenomenal (albeit not the best in class). I thoroughly enjoyed the primary experience here and the DLC so far has been a nice addition. (after completing DLC). DLC 1. Automatron. Automatron is a fairly narrow-scope DLC. It introduces a cartoon antagonist and a new raider type to the existing Wasteland map. It's acceptable and just about worth playing through but it isn't anything new and other than adding a few weapons, armour, and mods it doesn't do a great deal to flesh out the world. 2/5 DLC 2. Wasteland Workshop. I haven't dug too deeply into this yet but it seems to be new workshop objects and new AI subroutines for settlers. DLC 3. Far Harbor. This is the first piece of add-on content that has a significant story element and what is there on that front isn't too bad. The basic premise is that there are three factions on a geographically distinct island location called Far Harbor. They are each motivated by distinct and incompatible ideologies and conflict between them appears inevitable. Meanwhile, there are a band of raider-style characters called Trappers that exist almost entirely to generate firefights while your character roams around the radiation-stricken island. Basically on the gameplay front it is more fallout (with one minor hacking-game exception). Narratively (and ideologically), after a positive start, it falls a little flat. As is almost always the case with Bethesda games, the reason this is the case is because the characters just aren't relatable enough. They aren't subtle enough. They aren't developed enough. In the end this makes the no-win decisions you'll need to take feel as if they offer calculable trade offs that don't actually matter; and more importantly don't reflect the type of character you have been role playing. 3/5 Nuka World: After 10 hours of play so far, I can confidently say that this is the best DLC offered to date. The game is sort of a cross over between Westworld the movie and Fallout New Vegas so far. Its just dumb enough to work.
Original Release Year 2015: There are free, new, and officially made missions to be played. I do like this game quite a bit so hopefully there will be a good time to revisit it at some point? The Caldecott Caper Official post-game DLC
Original Release Year: 2012 I first played this on release on Xbox 360 back in 2012. I remember thinking it was a solid four star kind of game but as I'd also recently played Deus Ex: Human Revolution my expectations going into Syndicate were influenced by that title and not fully met as a result. That wasn't completely fair perhaps, and with the passing of four years since release, I am now replaying the title on PC. As before, there's a lot about this game that I really like. There's some really cool systems in the single player and I really appreciate the mix of gunplay and tactically altering the battlefield with the 'hack' options. Thematically this is one cyberpunk ass video game and there's much about the game that succeeds in generating the uneasy feeling that is associated with that genre's fiction. An early game example of this is your partner, a stone cold psychopath, who knocks on a door pretending to be 'security' and gives the 'all clear' to a civilian that he then summarily executes once the door is opened... just because why not? Another example would be the upgrade system which requires the player to kill opponents, then extract the chip from their brain in order to acquire new abilities. It is gross and effective and underscores the creepy message that the value of life is lower than the value of the chips that people are carrying inside them. The gameworld and its detail has a very clear and well realised dystopic style. It definitely does the job in terms of establishing context but doesn't distinguish itself or provide any novelty. Neon slums: check. High tech corporate towers: check... etc. etc. There's some very decent writing, pacing, and VO but overall there isn't enough of it and too much of what is there is hidden in notes and looping audio-logs that trigger when you're near. Four years have passed since this game was released, and nearly five since Deus Ex: HR, yet in spite of the gap, I'm still inclined to compare Syndicate with it and to hold Syndicate in lower comparative regard. Syndicate is actually still a very pretty game (and holds up excellently still in 2016) but Deus Ex:HR made better use of the interesting world setting that both games created. There is potential to make a sequel here that could be fantastic. Alas, I think it is a sequel that will never get made. 3/5 (original playthrough back in 2012 4/5)
Original Release year: 2016 I had a very poor first hour reaction to this game in spite of the interesting art style and intriguing setting. It didn't grab me at all and I uninstalled it. 1/5