by bigevil1987
2017 didn't always allow me to play as many games as I wanted. I got engaged, bought a house and had a myriad of other life events both good and bad happen to me. It was a year of high highs, and pretty low lows. It's like we're adults now or something. Despite it being a fairly busy year for me I did play a few new games, so here are some that I really liked, in no particular order.
Showing 1-10 of 20 items
I just started digging into this during the last week of December and it has quickly reminded me that I enjoy the occasional real time strategy game. I'm a casual RTS player at best, I mostly enjoy the feeling of building a big army and sending the entire thing at my enemy's base. I also got a Corsair Lapdog near the end of the year, so I'm now playing RTS games on my couch on a 65 inch TV and it's pretty sweet. ALL UNITS.
I've only played about an hour and a half of this so far, but I was so struck by this game in that time I felt it was worth mentioning. The puzzles and combat seem a bit tedious, but the visuals and especially the sound design are phenomenal. I put a 1080Ti in my PC this year, and Hellblade runs pretty smoothly {and beautifully) at 4K. The game's content has inspired some debate but few games even attempt to deal with mental illness in a remotely serious manner so I think it's admirable they tried. Very curious to see where it goes once I get around to finishing it.
A short and beautiful puzzle game with some unique design. There isn't a lot to say about this one other than it looks great and the puzzles can be very satisfying. Even though I definitely solved a couple of them by just moving stuff around until something happened.
It's not Wii Sports, but forcing your friends to stare each other in the eye and milk an imaginary cow is pretty fun. A solid party game for first time Switch players.
The gameplay gets a bit repetitive pretty quickly, but I have enjoyed it in short spurts. Also, the whole thing is a Metal Gear Solid spoof which is pretty great. The writing is genuinely funny and the simple game mechanics make it a light, easy thing to pick up and play for 20-25 minutes at a time.
Can't say this struck me as hard as it did for some, but I really enjoyed my time with it. At times whimsical, others poignant, others sad. It's a solid story that should not be missed. And who doesn't want to become a shark and roll down a mountain slamming into trees along the way?
The original version of this game came out a few years ago, but it only got released in North America in 2017 so I'm counting it. PPT can be played as a totally competent version of either Puyo Puyo or Tetris (it's way better than that recent Ubisoft Tetris game) but where this game shines is in the combination of the two properties. Forcing the player to switch between playing both games every 30 seconds is a frantic and fun experience.
Splatoon was great, Splatoon 2 refines it and makes it better. Salmon Run is a pretty solid new mode, and the regular multiplayer remains as fun as ever. Having Splatoon in your pocket wherever you go is a pretty cool thing that you can do now. The Switch is great.
Destiny 2 is a great game, and improves on Destiny in many ways. I played a lot of Destiny, and was expecting to dive into the sequel in the same way, but the game prevented me from doing so. Despite being better than its predecessor in many ways, I didn't feel the same drive to keep playing it like I did with the first. The ramp to levelling up and getting good gear was made so short and quick this time around, it felt like they didn't want you to keep coming back to it. And I'm fine with that, gives me time to play more games. I'll check in whenever expansions come out, but I doubt it will pull me back in like the original did. And that's probably a good thing. I thought this might be a Game of the Year contender for me but it didn't quite hit that mark. Still great, just not 400 hours great.
Cuphead makes me exhausted, the gameplay is so intense I need to take a break after each encounter. As such I haven't put much time into it, only beaten a couple of the bosses so far, but I will come back to it. The art and the music are so phenomenal it's hard to believe it's actually a game, even when you're playing it. Truly an achievement in art and animation. And made by a couple of Canadian devs!