My End of 2015 Awards - Part Five

by danielkempster

Hey folks, Dan Kempster here with the fifth and final part of My End of 2015 Awards. Apologies for it being a little on the late side - I had intended to get this written yesterday, but between work, New Year's celebrations and deliberating which games would actually make this list, I ran out of time and had to push it back to today. If you missed any of the first four parts, where I handed out...

This closing chapter of the ceremony is devoted to revealing my Top Ten Games of 2015. To forwarn you all, as with previous years, the criteria for inclusion on this list differ a bit from those used by most people. First and foremost, this list is open to almost every game I played over the course of 2015, irrespective of whether it was released this calendar year or not. The reason for this is simple – every year I only play a handful of newly-released games, meaning that imposing such a restriction on my list would limit it to no more than three or four titles. By opening it up to everything I've played this year, it means I'm able to put together a fully-populated list that also better represents all my gaming experiences from 2015.

The other main difference between this list and most others that you'll see is that there's no heirarchy here. I struggle when attempting to put one game over another on these things, and while it may be relatively easy to structure a top three, I find that the further away from the top spot I get, the ranking gets increasingly granular and arbitrary. For this reason, I decided to abandon any kind of ranked order for this list and put the games up in alphabetical order instead. It's bound to upset the number-crunching Metacritic crowd who categorically want a 'best game of 2015', but I just can't bring myself to do that. Sorry.

With those rules outlined, let's get to what you've all likely come here to find out – which games earned themselves a place on the list of my Top Ten Games of 2015! I won't be going into a ton of detail here, since I've already done so for all of these games in the individual awards handed out in the first four parts. It's been incredibly tough whittling it down from thirty-two titles to just ten, but I'm as happy as I'll ever be with the list below. Let's get started, shall we?

Assassin's Creed Syndicate

(Ubisoft - PS4 - 2015)

Assassin's Creed Syndicate earned its spot on this list for reminding me why I fell in love with this series in the first place. Assassin's Creed II really hit the spot, and while a lot of people go crazy over Brotherhood, that was where playing these games started to feel a bit like diminishing returns for me. Syndicate recaptured a lot of the magic I felt when I played ACII all the way back in 2011, delivering an enjoyable adventure in a beautifully rendered recreation of Victorian London and backing it up with some fun, if slightly formulaic, Assassin's Creed gameplay. The fact I'm eager to get back to this in the new year and pursue a Platinum Trophy should be testament enough to how much I enjoyed it. I'm really glad I skipped over everything from ACIII to Unity and went straight to this, because if I hadn't I don't think it would have had the same rejuvenating feel to it. Also, Evie Frye for life, yo.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

(Starbreeze Studios - X360 - 2013)

Out of all of my wildly varied video game experiences throughout the craziness that was Backlogtober 2015, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is the game that I'll remember more than any other. Its consistently beautiful visuals and wordless narrative combine to deliver an adventure that feels like a fairy story in a world more brilliantly realised than perhaps any other I've explored this year. The basic level of interactivity it offers is supplemented by a fantastic, innovative control scheme that ends up playing into the narrative in a way that both impressed and moved me near its poignant end. Brothers is a title that demands very little of your time, but a great deal of your heart and soul, and the pay-off for that investment was one of my favourite video game experiences of this year.

Kingdom Hearts

(Squaresoft - PS2 - 2002)

I usually restrict these end-of-year top ten lists to new experiences, to give them a chance to shine a bit brighter, but I couldn't overlook the time I spent with the original Kingdom Hearts this year. Having played through it twice in quick succession, and very nearly three times (the Keyblade Chronicles is coming at some point, I promise you!), it was reassuring to see the action RPG gameplay the series is famous for has held up remarkably well, offering an experience that becomes significantly less button-mashy and more strategic on its higher difficulty level. Yes, the story is goofy (no, not that Goofy), but there's an endearing quality to its daft, campy Japanese-ness that's complemented by the established charm of its Disney characters and worlds, a balance that's been unfortunately off-centre in the subsequent games in the series that I also played this year. Kingdom Hearts is a great Japanese action RPG, and I look forward to revisiting it once again in the hopefully near future to get the Keyblade Chronicles officially underway.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

(Flagship - GBC - 2001)

My journey through the history of the Legend of Zelda franchise continues to throw up incredible experiences that I feel ashamed to have overlooked up until now. This year it was the turn of Oracle of Seasons, one of a pair of Zelda titles released for the Game Boy Color back in 2001. Much like its spiritual predecessor Link's Awakening, I found myself consistently surprised and impressed by how well Seasons translates the classic Zelda formula to the limitations of Nintendo's old handheld, all while somehow managing to add new elements rather than having to subtract existing ones. I enjoyed experimenting with new inventory items like the awesome magnet glove, and loved exploring the overworld of Holodrum. My only complaint is that it was a little on the easy side, something its counterpart Oracle of Ages supposedly addresses. I look forward to playing that this year and seeing how this two-parter wraps up.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

(Kojima Productions - PS3 - 2015)

I know I said earlier in this blog that I don't do ranked lists, but if you held me at gunpoint and forced me to pick one game over all the others that I played this year, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain would be it. It's the first game I've played in a long, long time that feels like a truly revolutionary leap forward for the industry. The innovations that The Phantom Pain brings to emergent open-world gameplay are almost too many to count – tight, smooth controls; advanced, adaptive enemy AI; sandbox-style environments that allow the player to approach their objectives from multiple angles; fluid mission design with objectives that change on the fly depending on the player's performance; and a varied toolset that rewards and encourages experimentation. It's got its fair share of flaws, most notably its story, which I think demonstrates the vestige of an interesting Metal Gear narrative delivered very poorly. The fact that those flaws can be so easily overlooked is a testament to just how fantastic the game portion of MGSV is. I put over a hundred hours into it in six weeks, and would happily do so all over again in a heartbeat.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite

(Capcom - PSP - 2009)

2015 was the year that the Monster Hunter formula finally 'clicked' for me. After a handful of false starts in previous years, I at last got caught up in the satisfying gameplay loop that has claimed countless hours from so many other players. Once I got past Freedom Unite's vague tutorials, adjusted to the somewhat draconian mechanics and cleared all the rather dull early-game fetch quests, I found myself totally immersed in the experience of actually hunting monsters. The combat system rewards those patient enough to learn all its nuances, and each new quarry you face demands that you take the time to observe its attack patterns and discern its tells before charging in. When you do finally take down a creature, there's a primal sense of satisfaction in fighting it repeatedly, exploiting its weaknesses over and over again while earning monster parts that you can use to craft bigger and better weapons and armour. I'm really glad I persevered with Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, and I look forward to taking all I've learned and putting it into practice in 4 Ultimate in 2016.

Pokémon Alpha Sapphire

(Game Freak - 3DS - 2014)

It would be almost remiss of me to write an end-of-year awards blog without acknowledging a Pokémon game in some form or another. And yet, this very nearly didn't make the list at all – I really struggled to get into the third-generation remakes for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on. All that changed with the Alpha Sapphire Egglocke, a Nuzlocke variant playthrough that saw me switching out caught Pokémon for eggs donated by some of my best Pokémon-playing friends. What could have been a run-of-the-mill Pokémon experience turned into a social event, where every new hatch was exciting and every untimely death broke my heart a little. The additional layer of attachment and commitment was enough to finally see me complete a whole lap of the Hoenn region, and cemented my time with Alpha Sapphire as one of my favourite RPG playthroughs of all time.

Skate

(EA Black Box - X360 - 2007)

This is likely to be the most surprising entry on this list for most people, myself included, but there's no denying that the time I spent with Skate at the start of this year was the most fun I've had with a sports game in years. The realistic approach Skate brings to its presentation and gameplay mechanics really clicked with me, and I spent a big chunk of January just exploring San Vanelona looking for new lines to nail. It reminded me of the time I spent on a real skateboard back in the summer of 2003, hitting up the local skate park with a couple of friends and coming up with new ways to trick off the same old ramps and rails. Skate is far from perfect, with its imprecise analogue controls being its most obvious flaw, but the core foundation that its gameplay offers is so satisfying that I can overlook a lot of those problems and honour it on this list. I hope Skate 2 inspires more of the same feelings in me when I get around to playing it in 2016.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

(Naughty Dog - PS3 - 2009)

When the discussion about seminal pieces of video game history comes up, it's not uncommon to hear mention of classic titles like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Grand Theft Auto III. In the future, I honestly think Uncharted 2 will be held up in a similar way. Where all the aforementioned games revolutionised the medium with gameplay innovations that countless other titles have sought to mimic, Among Thieves is perhaps the first action game to flawlessly nail cinematic presentation and pacing, establishing a winning formula of combat, exploration, puzzle-solving, and epic set pieces that almost every big action game since has tried to emulate. Uncharted 2 is the moment where the Naughty Dog franchise went from an action/adventure also-ran to setting the pace for everyone else to follow. It was without a shadow of a doubt deserving of its 2009 Game of the Year award on this very site, and still stands head and shoulders above the competition in 2015.

The Wolf Among Us

(Telltale Games - PC - 2013/14)

The first season of The Walking Dead will likely go down in history as Telltale's magnum opus, the title that took them from small-time developers of episodic adventure games and shot them into the big-time. What may be lost to history is that the secret best Telltale episodic adventure game is actually The Wolf Among Us. It's set in a unique and interesting universe, combining a cast of established fairy-tale characters with a noir-esque detective vibe and a neon-drenched 80s visual aesthetic. It boasts great writing that's consistent across the whole season and kept me guessing and second-guessing from beginning to end. It boasts a fantastic protagonist in Bigby Wolf, who's acted terrifically by Adam Harrington and accompanied by a colourful and interesting supporting cast of other Fables. Perhaps most crucially for me, its moral choices always felt consistent with the established character of Bigby – I never felt like I was being forced into a corner with any of the dialogue choices the game presented to me. I'd love to see Telltale revisit this IP in 2016 and bring us more of Bigby's exploits in Fabletown.

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There you have it folks, my Top Ten Games of 2015. It's been really tough choosing which games would make the cut this year, as I played so many brilliant ones, but I'm happy with the ones that I've chosen to highlight above. Commisserations and heart-felt shout-outs to all the games that didn't quite make this list, particularly to Batman: Arkham City and Super Mario 64 which only just missed out on spots in the top ten – like I said, it was incredibly tough making the calls this year. I think at this juncture all that's left for me to say is thanks very much for reading. It's been a great year for games. Here's hoping that 2016 is even better. Happy New Year folks! Take care, and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing – Pokémon Omega Ruby (3DS)