Games What I Liked and Enjoyed in the Year 2016
by satchamobob
The year's over! Finally! To celebrate this occasion, I've once again made an exhaustive list of the games I enjoyed over the last 365 days. As always, this list is super highly subjective, so don't feel bad if I didn't put your favorite game on my list. Lists aren't meant to be taken seriously anyway! Without further ado, here are the 10 games I liked the most in 2016, in no particular order.
The List of 10
Rez Infinite
When I was but a baby games researcher in the year 2009, I had the chance to experience my university’s CAVE for the first time. If you’re unfamiliar with that recursive acronym, a CAVE is a room with high resolution rear-projection screens across each wall that allows people to see images and models in a physical space while wearing 3D glasses. While the tech demos the faculty showed my group were impressive, I left the CAVE with one thought burning through my mind: “What would a game like Rez look like in a CAVE?”
Ever since my first experience with Rez, 2008’s HD remaster on Xbox 360, the game has been this quiet revelation for me. The music is phenomenal, combining perfectly with its Kandinsky inspired visuals. The rhythmic nature of Rez’s gameplay felt refreshing as it offered and encouraged players to explore, to improvise, to...well, play with the music. But apart from being a great game, Rez became so much more than that to me. It helped shaped me as a person and a researcher; the kinds of questions I wanted to ask, the type of research I wanted to work on. It’s no surprise then that when it came time to pick a research topic for my Master’s thesis, I chose Rez.
But the question of what comes after Rez continued to follow me throughout my career. Sure, 2011’s Child of Eden was a noble attempt, but the finicky motion controls and lack of tactile/haptic feedback left me wanting. Then Tetsuya Mizuguchi announced he was porting Rez to PS4, complete with VR support and an entirely new level devoted to VR. My heart skipped about four beats.
Without hyperbole, Rez Infinite is the game I’ve wanted since I first walked into that CAVE. It feels like the game Mizuguchi had in mind when he and his team first released Rez on the Dreamcast 15 years ago. Everything I loved about the original game has been fully realized thanks to the inclusion of PSVR support. The audiovisual style of Rez suddenly felt more alive than ever before as the game’s world opened up to me in a way I never expected it to, culminating in the beautiful new Area X. To say Area X had a profound effect on me as a player would be an understatement. Being surrounded by such a unique digital landscape left me breathless and awestruck, and that’s putting it lightly.
Yes, Rez Infinite is mostly a retread of the game’s original levels and modes. Thing is, Rez didn’t need many changes in the first place. The same fantastic gameplay experience is here and worth your time, no matter how long you’ve been playing Rez. But it’s the VR support that truly makes this re-release shine. It took a long time to get here, but I’m glad I finally got to experience Rez this way. Now here’s hoping Area X gets developed into a fully fleshed out VR game.
Doom
I’m still blown away by how good Doom is. This is a game that, up until release, seemed destined for the bargain bin. It languished in development for years as a Call of Duty clone with demons. The early trailers didn’t impress and the multiplayer beta received a tepid response. On top of that Bethesda didn't send out early review copies, a move that suggests a lack of confidence on Bethesda’s part regardless of their post-release comments.
Despite all of this, Doom turned out to be a brilliant reinvention of a classic series and one of the best shooters in recent memory. The core loop of the game modernizes all things that made the original Doom a classic without feeling like a shallow pastiche. Combined with some gorgeous locales and a tongue-in-cheek storyline (complete with a pitch perfect soundtrack), and you have one of the most memorable, high-octane games in years. It’s a game about constantly moving and getting into the thick of it while a swarm of demons surround you. There were times when I looked at a level’s map and thought to myself, “This is a Romero level” or “This feels like a Sandy Petersen level.” Needless to say, I had the dumbest grin on my face every time I played Doom, and I can’t thank the developers at Id enough for that.
Overwatch
If this list was decided solely on the amount of time I've spent playing any particular game, then this list would be Overwatch and nothing else. What Overwatch adds to the class based multiplayer shooter is nothing short of fantastic. Apart from having distinctive personalities, each character possess a wide range of unique abilities that makes everyone a blast to play, even if a particular character doesn’t fit your playstyle. There are support characters in Overwatch that I enjoy playing, and that says something. More importantly, the character diversity in Overwatch, although not perfect, is miles above many other games. When a game lets you choose between Egyptian sniper grandma and buff Russian lady with a cool haircut, you know your game is something special. Special enough that the game manged to foster one of the most positive, creative, and engaged (albeit sometimes crazy) communities for a multiplayer shooter ever.
I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to gush about Overwatch’s usability design because I absolutely adore it. The sound design is amazing, with so many small flourishes and effects that provide the right amount of information to the player. The post game votes and Play of the Game videos do a great job of keeping play positive (also no troublesome K/D Ratios!). There are so many options for colorblind players, you guys! ...Ok the colorblind filters aren’t great, but it’s a good start!
Bottom line, Overwatch took all things I loved about Team Fortress 2 and expanded on them in ways that opened up a plethora of possibilities for class based shooters. It was the game I kept coming back to all year, and that’s probably not going to stop anytime soon.
Aside: Mei is bae.
Hitman
The best thing about Hitman is that it knows it’s a video game. That philosophy is reflected across every part of Hitman’s design. Each level acts as its own little clockwork space, with layers upon layers of systems interacting with one another. It’s those interactions between the game’s systems that makes playing Hitman such a joy. As you continue to familiarize yourself with each level, you gain a better understanding of Hitman’s limits. This allows you, as a player, to push to those limits to their breaking point, leading to some truly memorable in-game moments. And despite becoming so intimate with the rules of Hitman, there’s just enough ambiguity in things like AI behavior that lead to these wonderfully organic moments of chaos. It’s this combination of mastery and improvisation that leads to some of Hitman’s best moments, and the interactions between the game’s mechanics and AI behaviors reminds me fondly of games like Spelunky.
On top of all this, who would’ve thought that IO’s last minute decision to make the game episodic would turn out to be the linchpin that brought everything together? With each new episode, I found myself more and more engaged with Hitman. And the elusive targets in between new episodes were great excuses to keep revisiting previous maps. I started 2016 having never played a Hitman game. As 2016 ends, I can’t wait for season two.
Ladykiller in a Bind
Ladykiller in a Bind is a game about so many things. It’s a game about social manipulation; about identity. It explores topics like relationships, sex, consent, body image, crossdressing, flirting, and so on. It is also Very Hot.
What makes Ladykiller work is a robust dialogue system. The dialog options you choose between surface as a result of multiple factors, including tone or the ability to unlock further dialog options down the road. More impressive is the fact that sometimes options will appear or disappear based on the context of the conversation. It’s a design choice that results in a lot more planning and consideration on the part of the player. In this way, it rewards the player with a more engaging, sometimes more realistic rhythm to in-game conversations.
But it’s the game’s attitude towards sex and relationship that stand out the most to me. Rather than treat sex as just a reward for picking the right options, the game encourages players to take an active role in these scenes , alongside the conversations surrounding them. Consent is at the forefront of these encounters (as well as the ones outside of the bedroom), positioning communication as a vital and essential part of the experience. The final product is a game that lets the player explore different relationship dynamics, while understanding that sex can be funny and awkward as well as fun. And hey if sex isn’t your thing, the game allows you to skip these parts of the game too!
Ladykiller in a Bind is a fun, sexy, well-written game with a wonderful cast of characters. I hope to see more games reference Christine Love’s work in the future. God knows the world is thirsty enough to need it.
Hyper Light Drifter
Hyper Light Drifter has the most lived in world of any game I played this year. From the moment that game starts, I was immediately in that world, ready for the journey that was ahead of me. This is all thanks in part to the tremendous amount of detail that Heart Machine put into the game. The visual style of Hyper Light Drifter is evocative of a world in ruins and the beautiful soundtrack by Disasterpiece helps drive home the haunting sense of loneliness and isolation in the world. On top of that, the use of pictographs instead of language provide a clear understanding of the game’s world and the trials of its inhabitants. The Drifter’s universe feels like a real location with its own history and culture, much in the same way as perennial comparison Dark Souls does. The attention to detail also permeates how the game plays. Movement and combat are extremely tight and enemy encounters keep players on their toes. There’s just something about zipping around an arena and slashing enemies that feels so satisfying. Even the upgrades you acquire during the game add to the otherworld feeling of The Drifter. The resulting game is one that hits all the right notes for me in terms of storytelling and worldbuilding. Surprising for a game that’s entirely wordless.
Monster Hunter 4/Monster Hunter Generations
Last year, Monster Hunter 4 almost made my list. Unfortunately, I just had yet to dig deep enough into the game to really understand its intricacies. This year was the year everything clicked for me. From the combat, to the mission structure, to learning why I should always be gathering mushrooms. The more I found myself mastering MonHun’s loop, the more the game sunk its claws into me. What also helped was sharing the experience with a regular group of people, some newbies like myself, others seasoned veterans. Nothing compares to the tension you feel as you try and take down a huge monster with your friends. And while my veteran friends felt this year’s Generations title was too much of a retread, I fell in love the with the game’s faster and snappier combat mechanics. There’s still a lot more stuff about Monster Hunter that I need to learn, but now that I’ve passed the initial learning curve, I’m ready for more.
Also, you can pet an alpaca in Monster Hunter Generations. So there's that.
Overcooked
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard and so frequently while playing a video game with friends. Overcooked is that special kind of couch multiplayer game that bakes chaos into its design, ensuring you’ll spend many a level yelling at your friends through tears of laughter. On paper, everything sounds so simple: You prep food, you cook it, and you serve it. Occasionally you have to wash some dishes. But in practice, Overcooked keeps tweaking the challenge in each stage ever so slightly, throwing a wrench in your team’s plans for well coordinated cooking. Sometimes the countertop shifts places forcing you to take on a new role. Sometimes you’re frying fish and chips on a slippery iceberg. Sometimes ghosts will shift the pots around because ghosts apparently want soup, but also like messing with the kitchen staff? When your team puts a plan together, playing Overcooked becomes a well-oiled machine that’s a sight to behold. But the game truly shines when everything falls to wayside in a ball of chaos and madness. Overcooked is a simple game that executes its ideas perfectly.
Reigns
As 2016 lurched forward, I found myself playing more mobile games than in previous years. Part of this is finally having a smartphone for the past two years, and part of it is the steady increase of quality games for mobile devices. Unfortunately, many of the year’s biggest mobile releases didn’t keep me interested for long. Playing Clash Royale became a daily occurrence for a while, but a combination of hitting the paywall and some truly toxic UX decisions made me bounce off that game harder than any other game in recent memory. And while I was fascinated with how Pokemon Go changed the way players interacted with their environments (and each other), the game was a bare bones minimum viable product at launch, and that’s only just starting to change now.
Thankfully, Reigns is there to keep me company. Part kingdom management sim, part tinder clone, Reigns does an excellent job of making you feel the weight of your decisions. Even when most of your decisions boil down to a “swipe left or swipe right” binary. What gives the game its longevity is that each king is the heir of the previous king you just got killed. The choices you made with your posthumous king may affect the choices and scenarios your new king must face. Reigns is a small, but well-polished game that keeps surprising me with new characters and new scenarios to find. It’s swiping mechanic is perfect for mobile devices, and I found myself playing Reigns for much longer than I intended to.
Frog Fractions 2
Disclaimer: I am friends with both Frog Fractions 2's lead designer Jim Crawford and lead artist Rachel Sala. I also playtested the game before it was released/discovered.
The jig is finally up! Frog Fractions 2 is out in the wild. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil the surprise here. If you want to know what game I'm talking about, you can check out recent posts on this very website. Regardless, you should all play Frog Fractions 2. It builds on its predecessor in a way that is at once familiar and completely clown shoes bonkers. I have a feeling the game is going to be much more divisive than the first one, but that’s beside the point. The point is, Frog Fractions 2 goes places and it is totally worth your time to track down this game. Just remember: It’s all about the friends you make along the way.
Games that probably would’ve made this list, but didn’t for one reason or another.
Titanfall 2
Titanfall 2 almost made the list, especially considering how surprised I was by both the game’s campaign and its multiplayer. Unfortunately, I’ve spent more time with Doom and Overwatch this year, and I didn’t want to flood my list with shooters (2016 was a really good year for shooters). Consider this the most honorable of mentions.
Devil Daggers
I love the hell out of Devil Daggers. Its look, its gameplay, ITS GORGEOUS SOUND DESIGN (2016 was a really good year for sound design too). All of it spoke to me. That said, the game didn’t hold my attention as much as I thought it would. That, and the fact that I’ve hit a bit of a skill wall that’s going to require some dedication means this game just barely misses the top 10. You should still go play Devil Daggers though.
Darkest Dungeon
I’ve only played about 2 hours of Darkest Dungeon, which is barely enough time to start feeling comfortable with the game’s core loop. The game is delightfully macabre, but I want to hold off on final impressions until I’ve had a chance to really marinate in the supposed endgame grind.
Dark Souls III
I bought Dark Souls III at a time when my laptop was on its last legs and I was waiting until new graphics cards were released before building a new desktop. As a result, I only made it past the first boss before bouncing off the game due to technical problems. The fact that I’m still working my way through the excellent Bloodborne hasn’t helped, but I want to return to Dark Souls III soon.
Owlboy
Owlboy looks amazing, and I love the Zelda in the Sky gameplay, and I made the mistake of buying this game towards the end of the year when I had other games I wanted to finish first. That’s about the long and the short of it.
Thumper
This game was so good when I played it at various shows and conferences. Problem is, it came out around the exact same time as Rez Infinite. And if the long essay at the top of this list wasn’t obvious enough, Rez is very special to me. Thumper is next though. Dear god is it next.
Stardew Valley
Let me be real here for a moment: I want to play Stardew Valley, I really do. I’ve never played Harvest Moon before, and this looks like a much better version of that. But a friend showed me his very intricate and complicated spreadsheets he uses for the game and it scared me. Also, I bought the game at the same time as Doom and Doom won the priority battle. I’m still gonna make that farm though. Just...need to not think about those spreadsheets.
Persona 5
WHADDAYA MEAN PERSONA 5’S NOT GETTING AN ENGLISH RELEASE UNTIL APRIL THIS IS GARBAGE I’M GOING TO LEARN JAPANESE JUST SO I CAN PLAY THIS GAME EARLY THAT’LL SHOW ATLUS.
Games I want to play but haven’t started yet
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor
Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice
And this Extra Stuff
Pro Wrestling Match of the Year: Sami Zayn vs Shinsuke Nakamura - NXT Takeover: Dallas
If there’s one silver lining to the garbage fire that was 2016, it’s that there was a lot of great pro wrestling. So much, in fact, that choosing my favorite match from this year was actually more difficult than anticipated. If I’m being perfectly honest here, the 2-out-of-3-falls match between The Revival and DIY is probably the best wrestled match of 2016. It’s certainly the best tag team match I’ve ever seen. But in the end, nothing encapsulates all the different things pro wrestling can be quite like Sami Zayn vs Shinsuke Nakamura.
There is so much to unpack from just this one match. On the one hand, you have the WWE debut of one of the best wrestlers from japan, complete with what might be the best entrance theme ever given to a wrestler. And here he is blowing up the establishment by being himself, amidst worries that WWE was going to micromanage the personality out of him. On the other side of things, this match is the last hurrah for Sami Zayn in NXT. Zayn is one of the wrestlers that helped me rediscover pro wrestling, and his work in NXT generated a system of expectations that frankly did not exist until he showed up and tore the roof off the place. NXT’s reputation as WWE’s wrestling show for fans who like wrestling is in part thanks to Sami Zayn. In the middle of these two is a crowd that’s ready to lose their goddamn minds over what’s about to happen in the ring. The match itself is pro wrestling at its purest: Two people with big hearts and something to prove facing off against one another. The match works as an introduction to Nakamura and his Strong Style of wrestling, as well as a farewell to Zayn, who is destined for bigger things after this match. The crowd even creates a new chant for the occasion (jury’s still out on how overused “Fight Forever” is going to get). Taken as individual set pieces, the match might seem a bit pedestrian. But once you put all of these separate parts together, you get something explosive and magical. Zayn vs Nakamura shows how great this dumb fake combat sport can be when it’s firing on all cylinders. Do whatever you need to do to watch this match.
Best non-Giant Bomb related Podcast: The Adventure Zone
The emergence of tabletop gaming podcasts has been a welcome addition to the podcasting format (shoutouts to Austin Walker’s Friends at the Table), and none of these podcasts entertained me more than The Adventure Zone. The Adventure Zone follows the McElroys, brothers Justin, Travis, and Griffin, along with their father Clint, as they design characters and throw them into the many different kinds of shenanigans Dungeons and Dragons has to offer. The McElroy’s special brand of humor is on full display here as their D&D characters deal with whatever DM Griffin throws at them in the oddest and most absurd ways imaginable. Sometimes it even works out for the party too! Definitely check this one out when you have a long day of traveling ahead of you.
Most Precious Boy: The Boy Mayor of Second Life
Speaking of the McElorys, 2016 was the year I fell in love with these crazy brothers. The group has a chemistry and a sense of humor that speaks to me on an emotional level. Their magnum opus is Monster Factory, a show where Griffin and Justin make bizarre characters in video games and send them out on adventures. Somehow this show is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, and I don’t think I’ve laughed harder at something than the continuing adventures of the Boy Mayor of Second Life and his trusty secretary Totinos. Griffin and Justin are able to pull humor out of any situation, and their trip though Second Life was no exception. Whether it was a successful reelection bid against Duran Duran, his pro-dog voting platform, or simply hosting a massive election party above someone’s private Second Life property, the saga of of The Boy Mayor of Second Life provided me with lots of desperately needed laughs.
Seriously, you should go watch some Monster Factory. Like right now.
Most Wanted Character for Marvel vs Capcom Infinite: Phoenix Wright.
Yes, I know Phoenix Wright was in the last Marvel game. I don’t care. Capcom, you know what needs to be done. Put him in Infinite. Make him the god tier OP character he should’ve been in UMvC3. Don't forget to include a sweet remix of Cornered. Do it for me, Capcom.
Obligatory Shoutout Award 2016: Games and Playable Media, UC Santa Cruz
This year was a phenomenal year for UC Santa Cruz’s Games and Playable Media programs. Our reach as a premier game design degree program is expanding, and it’s been a pleasure to be apart of all of it. This year’s highlights include four UCSC games being chosen as finalists in this year’s Indiecade competition, with games Bad News and Threadsteading each taking home an award. In addition, a team of designers from our master’s program won $10k in a nationwide game design competition sponsored by the AARP. Student games were shown at various trade shows like E3, and a number of student projects are awaiting full releases on Steam. Here's to 2017!