2017 Game of the Year Day 5

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

THERE WILL BE MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ALL GAMES!

Krewella presents 2017’s Wettest Beat:

• Who We Are- Descendents
• Fortune- Krewella
• TH2C (Dyro remix)- Krewella
• New World- Krewella
• Dead Af- Krewella
• Look What You Made Me Do- Taylor Swift
• ...Ready for it- Taylor Swift
• I did something bad- Taylor Swift
• Humble- Kendrick Lamar

Honorable Mention:

TH2C- Krewella (both original and remix)

Dead Af- Krewella

Runners-Up:

Fortune- Krewella

New World- Krewella

Winner:

...Ready for it- Taylor Swift

NJPW Match of the Year

https://njpwworld.com

• Tanahashi/Naito WK11
• Okada/Omega 1 WK11
• Okada/Omega 2 Dominion
• Okada/Omega 3 G1 Tournament
• Omega/ Elgin G1 Long Beach
• Omega/ Ishii G1 Long Beach
• Okada/Evil G1
• Yano’s Entire G1
• Okada/ Minoru Suzuki G1
• Omega/Juice G1
• Omega/Naito G1 final

Honorable Mention:

Anything Toru Yano did- BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK

Omega/Ishii from G1 special Long Beach: I had the pleasure of being in attendance for both days of the NJPW G1 Special in the USA. Both days featured some incredible matches from the best in the world, but this match in the finals for the NJPW US Championship between Kenny Omega and the Stone Pitbull Tomohiro Ishii is the best match I've ever seen in person.

Runners-Up:

Omega/ Juice from the G1 tournament- This match has one of the most surprising endings of any match this year. This ending made waking up at 3 in the morning every day for 3 weeks worth it.

Tanahashi/ Naito from Wrestle Kingdom 11- I would go as far as to say this was the best match at Wrestle Kingdom 11. Taking nothing away from what Omega and Okada did, the story behind this match and the story told in the match make it one of the top three best matches of the year.

Winner:

Omega/ Okada 2 from Dominion- Keeping a match that enthralling for an entire hour is a feat few wrestlers on the planet could achieve. This match deserved all 6.25 stars it got. If you have the time to watch the entire match, I would HIGHLY recommend it as I would consider it to be one of the top five best matches I've ever seen.

2017’s Best Games

Dishonorable Mention:

Mass Effect Andromeda- They killed Mass Effect

Honorable Mentions

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider- For some reason, Dishonored 2 didn't hit me the way the first did. Death of the Outsider, however, hit me just as hard as the original. Its fantastic gameplay and phenomenal level design are part of the reason this game is so good, but the story brings the Dishonored franchise to a brilliant close. As much as I would like another new Dishonored, if this was the last we see of the franchise, I would be okay with that as well.

Fire Pro Wrestling World- As most people know, pro wrestling games are almost exclusively bad. Fire Pro Wrestling World is rather good in that regard, but the true greatness of this game is the community creations. Any wrestler, current or past, is available in the steam workshop and the community around this game has made it easy to find incredibly well-made versions of all of the most popular wrestlers today. Pitting the best of New Japan against the best of WWE in every dream match I could conceive of is what makes this game as great as it is.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy:- Lost Legacy is what would come out if you boiled the entire Uncharted series down to its core elements then replaced Nathan Drake with a protagonist that is actually interesting. I would be lying if I said I would be glad to play another Uncharted game anytime soon, but this one is a fantastic addition to the series.

The Top 10

10.

Resident Evil 7- I came into Resident Evil Biohazard with no expectations. I absolutely hated the beginning hour demo thing they released last year, but when I got my hands on the game, I was blown away. The first two-thirds of the game are some of the most downright stressful and terrifying sections I've ever played in a game. Everything about this game has the making of a true game of the year until you get to the boathouse section. This boss fight is the moment the game jumps the shark, never to go back to the tense and frightening moments from the early parts of the game. The last third of the game you are basically a walking tank and it goes against everything that made the first two-thirds so good. The final boss is also one of the stupidest things I've seen in a while. That being said, the first two-thirds of this game are more than enough to earn it a spot in the top 10.

9.

Nier: Automata- It says a lot about Nier: Automata that I only played about 20% and yet here it is in my top 10. I did not enjoy playing the game, but every single thing I've heard about the game's story makes a strong impression. Everything about what this game is about and the things it does all sound like they would be incredible had I seen them for myself. It may have been the best game of the year if I had seen more of this game for myself, but for now, it fills the 9th spot nicely. This is a game I will absolutely return to in 2018.

8.

What Remains of Edith Finch- Ever since I played Gone Home, I've found myself drawn to the so-called "walking simulator" genre. While I enjoyed Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, The Beginner's Guide, and Firewatch, none of them hit me in the same way that What Remains of Edith Finch did. All of its flashbacks are incredibly well executed and the overall story itself leaves a lot to think about when the credits roll. I've talked about a few of the moments in earlier awards, but one thing that I caught on my second playthrough is the fact that the game sort of implies that the things you're being shown may be exaggerated in a big way. Whether they are or aren't doesn't matter because all of it leads up to an impactful ending that left me fully satisfied with this game.

7.

Hellblade- Senua's Sacrifice- I went into detail about this game in my review of it and in the best story category on day 4. There's not much more I can say about this game so it'll suffice to say that this game is a major step forward in how video games explore their themes. Also, you can V-trigger enemies so there's no way it wasn't ending up somewhere on this list.

6.

Pyre- The thing I love about all three of Supergiant's games is that they are all different and unique. What I've played of Bastion was great, Transistor was probably my favorite game of 2014, but then there's Pyre. I went into detail about the gameplay on day 4, but what really stands out is the characters and story. Whether it's the dog with a goofy mustache, the worm-knight who wants to prove his honor, the vagabond girl you can actually name Bae should you so choose, or many of the others, every character in this game is unique and memorable in various ways. Around the midway point, Volfred Sandlewood, who appears to be on the verge of betraying you at all times, tasks you with helping him start a revolution in the Commonwealth. This is one of the most unexpected twists I've seen in a long time, and from that moment on, every liberation rite becomes recontextualized and becomes much more than just helping a friend regain their freedom. This game has maybe one of the most emotionally effective third acts of any game this year. The twist that the rites are coming to an end and soon no one will be able to regain their freedom contrasted with needing to liberate as many of your friends as possible, is a gut punch knowing that many characters you've grown to care about will be trapped in the downside for the rest of their lives. All of this builds up to an ending that can go many ways based on how you performed in the rites but is effective no matter what happens. It's also one of the best sports games ever made. Pyre may have been a top 3 game in most other years, but 2017 wasn't a normal year.

5.

Yakuza 0- Yakuza 0 is a microcosm of everything I love about Japanese pop-culture. The perfect blend of the absolutely absurd with the dead serious, the soundtrack, and the overall styyyyle of this game come together to make it one of the best games of the year. I talked about the gameplay on day 4 but the story it tells is an engrossing tale of the many people trying to gain the rights to a small plot of land in the middle of a rapidly growing town. Owning the land will bring untold amounts of money and power and an all-out war breaks out throughout two Japanese towns.It's not an original story but it is the equivalent of a page-turner. Also, you can talk to a chicken named nugget and interact with a man in his underwear named Mr. Libido. This game is really good y'all.

4.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild- Breath of the Wild is an incredible game that basically rewrites what it means to be an open world game. The phrase "you see that mountain over there, you can go there" is a meme at this point, but in this game, if you go there, you will find something cool and you will also be able to see multiple other points of interest that you can go to as well. Being able to go anywhere in Hyrule is made even better by the fact you can climb everything. This one feature single-handedly lessened every other open world game that I played this year. There are so many incredible design choices that were made in this game, like giving the player all the abilities at the start, allowing the player to attempt the final boss at the start, and the way all to the ways the various systems interconnect to allow for some of the most incredible emergent moments in any game ever. Even the world itself was designed meticulously to flow well and allow the player to see multiple points of interest from anywhere on the map. But, this game does have a few major problems. The story isn't particularly great and the gameplay can be frustrating at many points throughout the game. Despite these issues I would go as far as calling The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild the best open world game ever made and it is a game that will define the genre for years to come.

3.

Horizon: Zero Dawn- You may be asking yourself how an open world game can be placed above the best open world game of all time.It's simple. Horizon: Zero Dawn may be a lesser open world game, but it is a better overall game. I tipped my hand slightly by having this game as a runner-up for best story and winning best gameplay, but I truly feel that way about this game. I would go as far as saying Horizon: Zero Dawn may have the best second half of any game I've ever played. Even if that isn't the case, I still love everything about this game. I love the way it plays, I love the story, I love the main character, I love the world, I love the fact that I found many familiar areas of my home state in the game. But there are a few major reasons that this game isn't my #1 game of the year. First off, it is basically an amalgamation of every open world game made over the past 5 years. It has towers that have plagued Ubisoft games forever (although they are hella sweet giant robot giraffes in this game), it has many elements from the Far Cry franchise, and it would feel like just another derivative open world game if it wasn't so unique in its presentation. But there is a much bigger problem.I would be lying if I say that I didn't bounce off at points in the first half on both of my playthroughs. I would get myself amped up to play some Horizon, then I would only do one mission or so. I can easily see why people may bounce off the early parts of the game because I almost did as well. But, at the end of the day, I'm incredibly glad I didn't because I would have missed one of my favorite games in years.

2.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus- There is something to be said about how certain aspects of this game work in 2017. With all of the events happening in the real world, it's incredibly hard not to view this game as some sort of political statement. It is a game about how the Nazis of your textbooks took over America, and how White, Christian, Americans were not only okay with it, some of them embraced the Reich with open arms. It's a game about how people will sell each other out to one of the worst evils mankind has ever known just to be slightly better off for themselves. As much as I'm trying to avoid doing this, there are too many things in this game that parallel elements of real-world America, to the point where I was waiting for one of the bad guys to literally say the Nazi's made America great again. But beyond the game's politics, there is a fantastic story that turns B.J. Blazkowicz into one of the most well-written video game protagonists of the year. On top of that, this game is filled to the brim with so many amazing moments that both myself and this here website were FORCED to create a specific category for the best moment in this game because it would have been unfair to any game competing against it. Still beyond that, if you play on easy like I did so you can blaze through it, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus features plenty of good ol' fashioned Nazi killin', and in 2017, maybe that's what we all needed.

Before I get to my #1 game of the year, I would like to point out that I feel this is my strongest top 10 ever, and there were a few games that I didn't get round to that easily could have made this list. However, it is worth mentioning that every single game on this list can easily be torn down by valid criticisms. Wolfenstein and Nier having less than amazing gameplay, all of the main stuff in Breath of the Wild, Horizon being every open world game smashed together but with more neon. It was hard to pick a number one because every game on this list, especially my #1, has major flaws that hold them back. I was hours away from having a 3-way tie for second place and just not having a #1 game of the year this year. But the more I thought about it, the more only one game came to mind, so without further ado, I present:

2017's Game of the Year

Life is Strange: Before the Storm- I have written many things about the original Life is Strange. In short, that game affected me in ways I never thought a fictional story ever could. Hell, my pro wrestling name, C.J. Pricefield, is a direct reference to the game. And the character of Chloe Price is the biggest reason why. I have never more strongly related to a character as I do with this one. So being given the opportunity to not only interact with her again but to see the world as she does was an exciting prospect. Before I go any deeper, I need to stress that this is a game that should have been more disappointing than Mass Effect Andromeda. It started out of the gate with everything imaginable working against it. I went into more detail about this in my best surprise category, but in all reality, this game should not have worked at all. The new team, Ashly Burch not being able to reprise her role as Chloe due to the voice actors strike, the lack of time travel abilities, and everything else this game faced, all should have tanked it. But somehow, not only does it overcome all of these, it does so in some ways that make it one of the best games I played all year. Playing this game allowed me to step back into a world I connect with on the deepest levels of who I am and there is really no other games on this list that could pull that off. On top of that, Deck Nine was able to nail everything they needed to. Rachel Amber is everything she needed to be, they flesh out Chole to make her even more sympathetic, they tell an engaging story that leads to what I would call the most brutal happy ending I've ever seen. And that leads me to my only major criticism as of right now. The unnecessary post-credits scene. The ending of this game sees a montage of Rachel and Chloe growing as people and as friends or lovers depending on how you played the game (Let's be real here, this is a romantic relationship). The final scene before the credits is a fadeaway of the two of them hanging out in the junkyard and Chloe is happy for the first time since losing her dad. This is an emotionally uplifting scene until you remember the ultimate fate of Rachel, and it makes this "happy" ending one of the most brutal things I've seen a game pull in a long time. By showing this scene after the credits, I feel they overdo it enough to be worth mentioning, but not enough to affect the game as a whole. Sure it may not technically be the "best" game of 2017 (as I probably can't actually pick what that would be), but with what this franchise and especially the character of Chloe mean to me on a personal level, this game not only getting things hella right but doing a few things better than the original, earns Life is Strange: Before the Storm my personal award for being 2017's game of the year.

Most anticipated games of 2018

Before we ring in the #YearOfTheSnowflake, I would like to take a look at some of my most anticipated upcoming games.

• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Tropico 6
• Monster Hunter World
• Metro Exodus
• God of War
• Yakuza 6
• The Crew 2
• The Last of Us 2
• Death Stranding

That does it for 5 days of personal nonsense. I hope you enjoyed reading these lists as much as I enjoyed making with them. I hope to get to writing more about games outside of the last week of December so be on the lookout for quite a few things from me next year. Thanks for reading.

You can follow me on Twitter @_CJ_Pricefield