2017 Community Game of the Year - Results on the front page!!

cube wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
oilypenguin wrote:

Hey E, if ME:A wins goty I'm calling foul and demanding a recount.

Piss on your recount. ME:A has a strong lead in the Electoral College.

You’re right. And the remarkable thing is that it’s rigged against ME:A. Everyone knows this.

Yeah, but look at this map. There's a lot more red, let me tell you.

IMAGE(http://s3.vidimg.popscreen.com/original/15/M0pXU0JiTy1FYzgx_o_mass-effect-3-destroy-ending---shepard-lives.jpg)

That's not even the right galaxy.

It never mattered Cube.....never.....mattered....

Mass Effect: Andromeda is a mess of a game. But it still made my top 10 this year because I really enjoyed the planets, the vehicle traversal, and the combat. The game just had a ....charm to it that I really cannot explain. Something that kept me coming back even though I knew the thing was just a complete failure in so many ways. My...God.....I think I know how my parents felt about me during my awkward teenage years..

Here’s the short version of my list for tabulation purposes:

Spoiler:

1. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
2. Destiny 2
3. Nier: Automata
4. Mass Effect Andromeda
5. Persona 5
6. Xenoblade Chronicles 2
7. Horizon: Zero Dawn
8. Mario Odyssey
9. Forza Motorsport 7
10. Dishonored 2

To get it out of the way up front for those who have been waiting on the edge of their seats: Elite: Dangerous did not make my list for the year, but only just barely, and only because it was such a banner year for games all around. It is at/near the top of my list of also rans, which is still pretty special, especially in the light that it made my list for the last three years (top of the list for the last two!) thanks to excellent continuing content updates, and that didn’t stop this year. I just played a lot more besides it this year, and a lot of it was really, really good, which is awesome.

Also, a bit bummed that I didn’t quite have time to go take my own screenshots for all my games this year, because it was a really fun project and a nice way to cap off last year. I’ve used my own shots where possible, but for Forza, the PS4 games, and Nier (for reasons people who have finished the game will understand) I had to source images from the internet. Well, maybe next year I’ll be better about taking shots as I play.


My 2017 Game of the Year


1. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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It’s hard to talk about this game without sounding ridiculous and hyperbolic. In recent years I’ve fallen a bit out of love with Nintendo; they’ve remained impressive in terms of general quality and polish, but they’ve played things safe and comfortable for a very long time, which has dimmed my interest in their products. Breath of the Wild is bold and adventurous with its design and execution in a way that is not just exciting, but is so impactful that it destroys and recalibrates my expectations of what Nintendo is capable of doing as a creator of video games. Those new expectations weren’t fully met later in the year (more on that later), and whether they will or not moving forward is a different question, but either way for now I’m far more excited to see what they might make next than I ever thought I would be again.

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This game was just that good. It so perfectly matched with what my heart wanted from a Zelda game -- hell, from any game, period -- while simultaneously being so completely different from everything that we’ve come to expect from the series. I’m far from the first to express this thought, but it feels so true: it’s like they looked back at the art from the manual of the original NES game and said “let’s make a game that feels like THAT.” And then, they proceeded to do it, completely unafraid to throw away even the most sacred of concepts in pursuit of making an interactive version of that art, a never ending series of dark, foreboding horizons that inexorably entice you to venture forth and explore, survive and ultimately conquer the frightening unknown.

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The Runners Up


2. Destiny 2
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So, I guess this game disappointed diehard Destiny 1 players, right?

Well, it very much did not disappoint me, except in the respect that very few people seem to be interested in continuing to play it in the same way I am. Granted, I passed on Destiny 1 until late this summer (more on that later), and while I really enjoyed everything I played of it, I did miss out on the new and shiny period. Context is everything, and I just don’t have the context to care about most of what people seem to be upset about. (Not that there aren’t valid concerns and complaints about this game, or even things I’d personally love to see change, but that’s outside the scope of this discussion.)

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So whatever the case may be for others, I unabashedly love this game. It’s a masterpiece of art and sound design. It has Bungie’s world class, unrivalled FPS mechanics. And it has just enough MMO/RPG hooks to activate the deep, dark places of my psyche while respecting the fact that I don’t necessarily need it to be the only thing I play, ever.

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Aside from all that, it’s also done something I didn’t expect would ever happen again: it’s made me not only interested in a PvP mode in a game, but actually genuinely excited to play it. It’s been quite a while since I accepted that adversarial shooters were just not a thing I was going to ever enjoy again, no matter how fondly I might look back spending endless hours in my teens and early 20s playing competitive multiplayer with my high school friends, then my college buddies, and finally with the early GWJ community. Well, Destiny 2 defied that. Not that I’m anything approaching being any good at it, mind you, but playing it fills me with the same excitement and joy that I recall from all those years ago (not surprisingly, often with other games made by Bungie).

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Anyway, for that, and just for being a really damn good co-op loot shooter, it easily wins out for me over quite a murderer’s row of excellent contenders for my favorite games of the year. (Okay, maybe there’s also a tiny bit of recency effect at play here too, but still, this game is something special, and dominated my time this fall and winter in a way I did NOT expect to happen.)
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3. Nier: Automata
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Speaking of that murderer’s row, here’s the leader of the pack; many other years, this would have been an easy lock for the top spot or two of my list. A beautiful, dark, and affecting look what it means to be human, Nier goes places and does things games rarely do in a way that’s very hard not to admire.

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Admittedly, some of its emotional punches failed to fully connect for me -- maybe because they were often intentionally understated or underplayed, maybe because I had heard too much discussion of the game beforehand, or maybe just because I was in a weird place emotionally while I was playing much of the game -- but I greatly admire how stubborn it was about just continuing to swing away over and over again. More importantly though, the hits it did land were powerful ones, whose impact stayed with me long after I finished playing the game.

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Moreover, this game reminded me just how much I miss this kind of weird, heart on the sleeve, avant garde fearlessness in video games. I feel like I used to find it so often in Japanese games, and maybe I just stopped looking for it in the right places, or maybe it’s dried up as the industry has changed. Whatever the case may be, I very much hope that the breakout success of this game will inspire more developers in Japan and elsewhere to once again swing for the fences and be as creative, imaginative, emotional, and thoughtful as they possibly can be instead of playing things safe or selling their good ideas short.

IMAGE(https://www.platinumgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Pascal_SS_01.jpg)

Oh, and another thing I miss from the days when I played many more Japanese games than I do now: the soundtrack is so, so beautiful, and so perfectly matches both the visual aesthetics and the narrative tone of the game. I haven’t been this enamored of the music in a game in a very long time, and it brought back many fond memories of getting lost in the aural landscapes of SNES, PS1, and PS2 era JRPGs.

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4. Mass Effect Andromeda
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I know, I know, it wasn’t supposed to be cool to like this game. Too bad. I liked it, and quite a bit at that, and I’ve been so excited to read in this thread that I wasn’t alone in that.

Yes, it didn’t quite recapture the magic of the original three games. Yes, it was rushed out the door to meet a financial deadline, leaving it a mess from a QA and polish perspective. Yes, you can easily see the places where a lack of resources and changes in development leadership and direction created a product that was significantly diminished from what it could have been. But it still did the vast majority of the things I love about Bioware games to my great satisfaction, and even a B or B- effort from Bioware’s B team is still a pretty damn good game by most other standards. I wrung every ounce of gameplay possible out of the single player game, and I dearly wish I had been given a chance to play a bit more via the clearly planned but never implemented DLC that gets teased at the end of the story.

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Oddly, my main problem with the game barely gets mentioned in all the lols and memes about facial animation and whatnot. I wanted more new and interesting alien races, and ones that don’t follow the credulity stretching Star Trek design pattern. (That is, looks like a human with bumpy sh*t attached to the forehead, behaves like a human with a few unremarkable personality quirks, has a very human culture, etc.) Give me more races like the Elcor or Hanar next time around, please (assuming there ever is a next time around) -- the new alien races here were a bit dull for my tastes.
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5. Persona 5
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I enjoyed the hell out of this game, but I think I would have loved it significantly more if it had been maybe 20% shorter.

Lots of hay was made around the time of its release about how uneven and haphazard the localization was -- particularly compared to the high standards Atlus has set for itself -- and while people critiquing the game on that front weren’t necessarily wrong, that didn’t really bother me. Instead, my biggest frustration is that the original script of the game didn’t seem to trust the player to be paying attention, spending often absurd amounts of time recapping and re-explaining very basic and understandable plot beats as though they were extremely complex mysteries. Cut all that redundant exposition out -- or better, replace it with more exploration of how those events affected the vibrant, relatable characters that populate the story -- and this would have been a game I could rave about almost unconditionally.

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After all, there is a TON to rave about. Persona 5 is a masterwork of visual design, and other than sometimes uninspiring dungeon maps, it is a nearly perfect crystallization of everything that fun and delightful about the JRPG genre. But also, it continues this series’ now long standing tradition of being that perfect nugget of crunchy JRPG goodness while also being something very, very different. Partly that’s because it’s just as much a visual novel, a dating game, and a time management sim as it is a JRPG, but more so it’s because this series, and this entry in particular, insist on having a unique, overwhelming sense of style in every aspect of the game. The art direction, the music, hell even the menus, all work together to communicate something very specific and special in a way that rarely happens in games, or in any other media for that matter.

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6. Xenoblade Chronicles 2
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Speaking of shining examples of the JRPG genre -- and of this year’s greater theme of appeals made to my deepest of nostalgic bones reviving old passions -- there’s Xenoblade. It was an early December release, so I’m still making my way through the late stages of the game as I type this, but my first thought is: how on Earth am I playing this game just two years after Xenoblade X? It’s like the developers found a pocket dimension and built a game that would normally take three or four years to develop in barely two. Yes, I know the developers have talked about how much more they overlapped development of the two games than is usually the case, but still, it’s a crazy achievement especially considering just how complete and well produced this game feels.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/loRJekA.jpg)

If you’re familiar with the team that makes these games, particularly with their most recent two games, you probably know both what’s good and what’s bad about this game, because they pretty consistently deliver the same thing: beautiful JRPGs with gigantic, hardware defying ambitions bursting at the seams with awe inspiring worlds to explore, delightfully creative and unique sci-fi fantasy settings, and bizzare, mind bending, often incomprehensible epic stories that make up for their absurd, trope heavy, clumsy delivery with undeniable emotional impact and warm hearted, deeply likeable characters. Oh, and there’s usually giant robots too.

Spoiler:

And confusing, deep Judeo-Christian mythology and symbolism -- like, frequent crucifixion imagery is generally just the start of it.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/NJ9eLrE.jpg)

Anyway, this game is definitely all of that, and if you are like me and have a soft spot for this special mixture of crazy, well, you probably are already playing it so there’s not really much reason for me to advocate for it here. If you aren’t, suffice to say, JRPGs are still alive and kicking in all their glory, and I think that’s a thing to be happy about.

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7. Horizon: Zero Dawn

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This game so very good in so many ways. In fact, it’s probably the most solid, all around technically and artistically impressive game I played this year. But for some reason it’s not nearly my favorite game of the year, and I’m not at all sure why. Maybe it just played things a little too safe? I mean, that’s not even quite right -- the game is bursting at the seams with creativity and newness in so many ways, and in the places where it is playing it safe, it’s still making all the right choices of which existing ideas to combine and synthesize and present in their most perfect forms. Also, it’s no small feat that it achieves the shockingly large design scope that it does while also being so fastidiously well produced and tested -- Horizon is a forceful rejection of the modern trend of beta grade code filled with glaring “known shippables” being acceptable on day one.

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Maybe it’s just that this was a year where I got to play the best Zelda in decades. Maybe it’s because this year was packed with a never ending cavalcade of well made games that appealed to all the various things I like most in games. Maybe it’s something else; I just don’t know. The point is this: Horizon is a fabulous game, a fabulous achievement, and despite its surprisingly low position on my list, it’s probably the most immensely (nearly universally) recommendable game I played all year. Well, except for maybe...

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8. Mario Odyssey
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It’s pretty good! Not the revelatory new experience that Zelda was, but it’s a very, very fun game, and I struggle to imagine a person who wouldn’t enjoy playing it. Plus, the silly but fun costume mechanics and exceptionally welcome screenshot tools let my wife and I make a Bob Ross style painting of the Mushroom Kingdom featuring Mario dressed as Bob Ross himself, so that’s pretty cool.

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But, I guess I was hoping for something more new -- not that what’s here isn’t great, and it’s not really this game’s fault that Zelda absolutely blew out my expectations for what Nintendo can do when they really let go and go crazy. But, I suppose I should be satisfied with one franchise (and genre) redefining, expectation shattering game from them this year, and enjoy the just super good but on the rails product that this game is on its own merits.

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9. Forza Motorsport 7

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Although the progression design was muddied a bit by more prominently featured blind box mechanics than in previous entries in the series, and I’m still not sure how I feel about the tighter homologation requirements for career races, this is easily the strongest Forza Motorsport game since the amazing fourth game in the series. It would probably sit a lot higher on the list if I hadn’t started my Destiny binge relatively soon after it came out, but even still I loved the time I did spend with it, and very much look forward to spending a lot more time with it throughout the coming year whenever the driving bug bites, as I do with each new entry in the Forza series.

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10. Dishonored 2
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I missed playing this in time for 2016, but it instead provided an excellent start to 2017. It was beautiful, and fun, and felt like more of the Dishonored I enjoyed previously with clever new powers and gorgeously evocative new settings. But at the same time, it didn’t grab me in the way I expected it to -- it was merely the sum of its (quite good!) parts, when it felt like it could and should be more, well, new and different.
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I mean, it's hard to go wrong when the formula you are following is this strong, but with one notable exception --- the mission “A Crack In The Slab” -- I felt like they did err a bit too much on the side of caution, and thus I came away a bit less blown away than I hoped to be. But, that’s more a commentary on how high my esteem is for the people making the game, since I felt reasonably confident that they could have delivered something as special as "A Crack In The Slab" across the whole game.
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Honorable Mentions


Destiny 1 plus all expansion content
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I skipped Destiny the first time around, which was a surprise to me given just how much I loved the Bungie made Halo games. However, part of what I enjoyed so much about those games was spending endless hours with a specific group of friends smashing ourselves against challenging co-op campaign scenarios, but that group of friends decided to skip this console generation and just play games on PC instead. That, combined with the fact that the original release sounded like a bit of a trainwreck, kept me away, but with Destiny 2 approaching with a PC release, I decided it was finally time to give the first game a quick playthrough.

Guess what? Even though the forensic evidence of that original trainwreck is still very much present, turns out Bungie still makes a really good FPS. And while the MMO trappings have maybe muddied the waters that allowed the perfect crystalline combat scenario design that was a hallmark of their Halo games, the effect was not as severe as I feared. So, you know how people often talk about this game in terms like, “it was a mess, and there wasn’t enough content, but for some reason I can’t stop playing it” -- that “some reason” is called really f*cking good design, and Bungie has always done that -- assuming you played their games on a difficulty where enemies could survive long enough to be interesting.

So, even though unknowable levels and differences in player capabilities core to the concept of having random loot and other RPG mechanics might make it a bit harder to implement that perfect design, Destiny seems to have found a way to make players finally experience the thing that Bungie is best at -- by making use of their compulsion to grind for larger numbers and cool new armor. It’s a bit of a dirty trick, perhaps, but I think I’m cool with it if more people get to experience the kind of amazing gaming that my friends and I enjoyed for years with the Halo games.


Elite Dangerous content updates (2.4 “The Return”)
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Elite has aliens now! And they are really, really cool, have amazing visual and audio design, and provide even more breadth of content to experience in Frontier Development’s amazing space sim. But, even though I still spent crazy amounts of time playing it this year, this was finally the year that other games actually stepped up to the plate and earned the right to be on my list instead of it.


Forza Horizon 3 Blizzard Mountain and Hot Wheels Expansions
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Blizzard Mountain was amazing, giving me everything I love about this game turned up another notch or two. It presented new, more extreme terrain with a wide variety of races and other challenges to take on using the already established spectacular blend of simulation and arcade racing mechanics.

Hot Wheels was a bit less appealing to me, since the main idea was to shift the gameplay to feel a bit more arcadey, like a Burnout or Need for Speed game, and I think that the balance that Horizon already finds on the spectrum between sim and arcade is perfect for my tastes. That said, the idea was so audacious and unique and the implementation was so exceptionally good that it was hard to to love it anyway, and I hope to see Playground Games take similarly interesting chances in the expansion content for future Forza Horizon games.


No Man’s Sky Foundation, Pathfinder, and Path of the Atlas Patches
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After three major updates, this game finally feels like a complete thing. I definitely enjoyed it more than most in its original form last year, but even still it really needed the work they’ve done in the past year to add the mechanical and narrative depth needed to allow players to really enjoy the outstanding work it does at creating surreal, beautiful landscapes (and space environments) to explore.


Dragon Age: Inquisition The Jaws of Haakon, The Descent, and Trespasser DLC
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DA:I was my game of the year two years ago, and the DLC did not disappoint. Granted, I had already min/maxed and grinded the hell out of the core game, so I was mostly just sleepwalking my way through the combat with my well built and established character, but the storytelling, character development, and world building drew me right back in. Haakon was a nice step into unfamiliar territory, fleshing out a culture and a location that has mostly been glossed over in the series so far, and The Descent and Trespasser were nice hints at very interesting things (presumably) to come in the next Dragon Age game.
SUPERHOT

IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/Uqf9hWGZENVKw/giphy.gif)

SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I've played in years!


This Year’s Pile


And, here’s all the games I would have played (or played more of) with more time, that I expect I would have very much enjoyed from what I’ve seen and heard. Man, this is a big list this year -- hope I’ll have time for at least a few of them before I find myself writing another one of these posts.

Spoiler:

Pyre
Beautiful beyond belief. Also, very fun so far, but I only got an hour or two in before getting distracted by other things.

Gorogoa
Sounds neat!

Cuphead
Sounds fun..?

Night in the Woods
I did a really bad job of playing small games this year -- I really just wanted to get lost in big, all consuming experiences. This sounds like one that I really should go back and check out though.

Divinity: Original Sin 2
The first game didn’t quite click for me, but I didn’t really give it enough of a chance either. Sounds like the sequel is even better, and totally in my wheelhouse too.

Prey
I really dig this kind of game, but I just wasn’t in the right place to play one when it came out, and I was busy with a ton of other things. Hopefully sometime soon though.

Assassin's Creed Origins
I skipped the last entry in this series too, but it sounds like this one especially might be worth returning to at some point.

Metroid: Samus Returns
Why isn’t this on the Switch? Nintendo, can you please release this on the switch? I really, really don’t like playing handheld games, but I really, really like Metroid games.

Dead Cells
Really enjoyed what I played of it, but I decided to let it come out of early access before digging in too deep.

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus (and The New Order
Like Doom last year, I just didn’t have the urge to play this kind of shooter this year. I really liked what I played of the New Order a few years ago though, and the word about the new game is so interesting that I’m determined to at least give these games a try again at some point.


Previous Years’ Pile


And, mostly for my own record keeping, here’s the games that remain on my radar from before this year.
Spoiler:

The Last Guardian -- Played the first few hours. It definitely had the charm and atmosphere I loved in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, but it didn’t grab me with enough force to keep me going. I might come back to it at some point, though.

Thumper -- The cool kids also like it, and also lead me to believe I might too. Waiting for VR at this point, maybe.

Doom -- The cool kids like this one too, and once again lead me to believe I might as well.

Civilization 6 -- I generally only play one or two games of any Civ game, so I decided I’d wait for an expansion or two before digging in this time.

Far Cry 4 -- Each year lots of other games fall off the pile without getting played, but I love these games enough to keep this one on the list -- just not enough to actually play it, I guess?


Previous Lists


Spoiler:

2006
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...
Lumines Live, Final Fantasy 12, Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Oblivion, Gears of War, Chromehounds, Viva Pinata, Dead Rising, Saint’s Row

2007
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...
Mass Effect, Rock Band, Halo 3, Bioshock, Persona 3, Portal, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Forza 2, Super Mario Galaxy, Crackdown

2008
Missing link!
WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, Rock Band 2, Fallout 3, The Witcher Enhanced Edition, Far Cry 2, Burnout Paradise, Fable 2, Left for Dead, Gears of War 2, Saints Row 2, Persona 4, GTA4

2009
Missing link!
Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed 2, Dragon Age, Forza 3, Shadow Complex, Batman Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 2, Flower, Red Faction Guerilla, Left for Dead 2

2010
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...
Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed 2 Brotherhood, Red Dead Redemption, WoW: Cataclysm, Halo Reach, Just Cause 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Fallout New Vegas, Dragon Quest 9, Heavy Rain

2011
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...
Skyrim, Forza 4, Xenoblade Chronicles, Portal 2, Witcher 2, Dead Space 2, Batman Arkham City, Bastion, Dragon Age 2, Saints Row 3

2012
Missing link!
Mass Effect 3, Forza Horizon, Journey, Dishonoured, Borderlands 2, Dragon’s Dogma, Xcom, Guild Wars 2, FTL, Mark of the Ninja, 1000000

2013
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...
Forza 5, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Assassin's Creed 4, Mass Effect 3 DLC, Bioshock Infinite, Rogue Legacy, Gone Home, Tomb Raider, GTA5, Forza Horizon Rally Expansion

2014
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...
Dragon Age Inquisition, Forza Horizon 2, Elite Dangerous, Transistor, Far Cry 3, Zelda: Link Between Worlds, South Park Stick of Truth, Shadow of Mordor, Threes, A Story About My Uncle

2015
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...
Elite Dangerous, Witcher 3, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Fallout 4, Metal Gear Solid 5, Forza 6, The Beginner’s Guide, Halo 5, You Must Build A Boat, Ori and the Blind Forest

2016
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...
Elite Dangerous, Forza Horizon 3, Witcher 3 DLC, Abzu, Final Fantasy XV, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Firewatch, The Witness, Inside, No Man’s Sky

This year I decided to do a write up on my games rather than just post the list. It was fun to do. Eleima-friendly list to follow.

10. Side Words (iOS)

I’ve been a word game junky since the original Text Twist on my Palm Pilot. I’ve played dozens of incarnations of “how many words can you make from these letters,” but Side Words is the first that scratched the exact itch left by Text Twist. The old strategy of finding the longest words for the most points is flipped on its head by board management. Longer words take up more board space that may block other, more critical words. No timer, and no point tally means the only goal is to complete the board, regardless of how.

9. Sonic Mania (Switch)

I’ve always wanted to like a Sonic game. I never owned a Genesis and skipped basically all consoles after the original NES until the Wii. And emulated Sonic never clicked for me. Now that I have a Switch and an excellent re-creation (as I’m told) of original Sonic, I’ve found a game to like. I will say, it was only the comment by someone on the conference call to consider rings as an extra life and not a collectible, that left me free to accept level completion with 3 coins and just move on with the game.

8. Mario Kart 8 (Switch)

My first purchase on my Switch. What brought it into my top 10 list was the brilliant addition of the Kart equivalent of bumpers in bowling. My 4-year-old daughter isn’t ready for simultaneous acceleration, steering, and item management, but she is ready to watch her Peach race down a track, turn into Bullet Bill and careen into my Peach ahead. Yeah, she always wants us to be the same character, and there's nothing sweeter than playing with her.

7. Dead Cells (Steam)

I’m not usually one for Early Access games, but hearing of the overall polish, I dove in and promptly forgot it was still in development. I fell off when my Switch arrived, but this was my go-to game for the 45 minutes I had during kids’ naptime in the Sumner. Easy enough to quit or pause if naptime didn’t involve actual sleep, but deep enough to keep me going for run after run if 45 minutes happened to stretch into 90.

6. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Switch)

I fell in love with my Switch while playing Mario XCOM. Prior to that, It was a fun toy, but ultimately just a Mario Kart machine since I didn’t click with Zelda. Enter Mario XCOM, which I played 100% handheld in short bursts (a must with a “play with me, daddy” 4-year old, and a teething infant). The quick battles, moderately engaging skill tree, and ho-hum story was perfect for my Daddy-lifestyle, and still let me feel like I was really gaming. And that’s where I feel in love with a console for the first time. Mario + Rabbids was deep enough with awesome movement and precise hit-chances, and mobile enough on the Switch for what time I had to play.

5. Divinity Original Sin 2 (Steam)

This is only ranked number 5 because I just got it (Thanks, Stanta Chimalli!) and my friend and I are running the story in co-op, which means we’ve ran the intro twice and wandered the island a bit after restarting to get Origin characters instead of custom. I think if we were further, this would be in my top 3 just based on our experience co-op for the entirety of Original Sin 1. It’s an experience that cannot be beat, though a logistical nightmare that stretched the original game into a 2-year-run. And I certainly plan to be playing co-op D:OS2 for the next 2 years!

4. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (Steam)

I love PUBG. I hate PUBG. I keep playing PUBG.

Most of the time I can place some emotional distance between myself and the inevitable slaughter of my entire squad. Most of the time I can keep my pulse at a reasonable level. Most of the time I can find humor in friendly fire or insta-death to a sniper or a flipped motorcycle suicide. But then the circle constricts, the player count drops, and the ever-elusive chicken dinner looms, an ethereal vision. Emotions peak, pulse races, humor evaporates. It’s just me, my squaddies, and that one guy on the ri— oh, and his buddy behind the tree who just wiped us all. Dang it!

3. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch)

Never played a Xenoblade game before, and I’m only just starting chapter 3, but this game is so vast and wonderful already. I think I’ve spent more time wandering and collecting than actually progressing the story. And I love that! When I heard the term “single player MMO combat” I really wanted to try it out. MMOs always sounded so relaxing if I could get away from the social and obligatory part of it. That’s what I found here. Not to mention, I really like Rex’s attitude. I could sure use an optimistic voice in my ear now and again—especially nowadays.

2. Mario Maker (3DS)

Surprise hit of my year! I bought a used 3DS and Nintendo sent me a coupon to get me initiated into the eShop. My choice was down to Smash Bros. or Mario Maker. I opted for Mario Maker because I wanted to make no-failure levels for my daughter to play. Her fingers aren't trained for movement/jumping at the same time and she was pretty annoyed with Super Mario World because she could never get anywhere without dying, even with a Yoshi along. Of course, many of the Maker elements were locked behind a lengthy campaign, which I played diligently until I unlocked Yoshi (my daughter’s new favorite) and then completed for completionism sake. Looking back, I actually quite enjoyed the unique levels, despite a few that were sheer frustration incarnate. Now, I’ve made 12 boards of varying difficulty for my daughter and I’ve absolutely been thrilled by the ease and enjoyment I’ve found. Watching her run through and squeal at hitting the flag or finding Yoshi has been a joy.

1. Mario Odyssey (Switch)

I was hooked pretty quick. I’ve never played a 3D Mario game before, but Odyssey controlled beautifully. Collection and progression only loosely tied together left me never feeling like I needed to spend longer in an area than I wanted to. Most of the time, I stayed long after hitting the moon count I needed, but occasionally it was so nice to just be able to move on, particularly as I neared the end and wanted to finish out the “storyline” as much as it can be called that. And I kept on collecting moons for hours and hours after. Eventually I dropped off as moons became harder and harder to get and playing handheld, without motion controls, became a handicap. But what I really want now is an Odyssey-style game where I can play as Peach. Seriously, that needs to happen.

Honorable Mentions:

Spoiler:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

I wanted to love this game. I still do. But I’ve bounced off. It’s the combat, the breakable weapons, and my inexperience with console controls (KB/M for life other than NES, Gameboy, and Wii). I just don’t have the control-memorization needed to manage so many things at once. And with Zelda in the title, I kept expecting more “Zelda.” I think I might actually enjoy it more if I can convince myself it’s “generic fantasy game: BOTW” and learn how to swap a shattered weapon mid-combat before I’m one-shotted. Again. By a stupid intro-level mob. Again. Seriously, why have 3 hearts if a single hit takes out 3 hearts?

Stardew Valley (Switch)

I’m just not clicking with Stardew Valley. I want and need a relaxing game in my life. Mobile no-less. But I’m just not seeing it. Honestly, I think it’s the townspeople part that’s throwing it for me. If I were just a farmer and fisherman, I think I could get into it. But I’ve got to meet everyone in town, and figure out gifts for their birthdays, and figure out when their birthday even is? Wait, I just want to clear my land and plant some crops. If it weren’t a quest, I’d probably skip the town entirely, but the game is clearly steering me that way, and I need to clear that quest queue, dang it! I still don’t have any real variety to what I can plant yet—and there’s apparently an optimal planting scheme I’m not following… blargh, why did I start reading up on the game online before playing it!?

Mass Effect Andromeda (Origin)

I pre-ordered. I played some multiplayer while I waited for single player patches. MP wasn’t as fluid as ME3, so I moved on long before the patches came trickling in, before they dried up entirely. I'd love to go back, but I likely won't if I'm honest with myself. The original trilogy is in my top games ever list, perhaps my topest of top games, and I absolutely loved ME3 (even the A/B/C ending). Mass Effect is my favorite game universe, the best music, and ranks extremely high among all fictional universes for me. It's probably more likely I'll replay ME 1-3 (for the 3rd or 4th time) instead of loading up ME:A again. My paragon, non-romancing FemShep is Mass Effect to me, and I'm just not ready to let the reigns fall to Ryder. I think I can be okay with that, regardless of whether ME:A is still a buggy mess or fixed enough to be a beauty of its own.

Shepard, I miss you.

Eleima-friendly list:

Spoiler:

1. Mario Odyssey
2. Mario Maker
3. Xenoblade Chronicles 2
4. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
5. Divinity Original Sin 2
6. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
7. Dead Cells
8. Mario Kart 8
9. Sonic Mania
10. Side Words

1. Horizon: Zero dawn
The trailers for Horizon were amazing but, when I started to play the game, I found myself fighting human enemies and doing quests on what appeared to be a typical open world map. I really wasn't feeling it. Fortunately, I gave the game another chance and discovered the stunning landscapes, the varied tribes people, with their brilliantly realised jewellery and the endlessly fun (and tricky) fights with robot wildlife.

Over time the game has won a place in my heart. The amazing camera mode is just the disproportionately large cherry on top of the whole experience.

One of my favourite aspects of Horizon: Zero Dawn is Aloy herself. She's calm, measured, thoughtful and inquisitive. She feels as if she's cut from a different cloth than other video game heroes of heroines. She also looks distinctly North European/Dutch which seems to compliment her personality.

Screenshots

2. Uncharted: Lost Legacy
I've enjoyed all the uncharted games I've played and nearly every game is a step up from it's predecessor. Lost Legacy is no exception. The writing and acting are exemplary. The environmental design and the detail within those environments is mind boggling. The game is a wild adventure and a joy to play, which is all you can really ask.

It also had Nadine in it.

As a side note: Uncharted’s multiplayer (available with Uncharted: Lost Legacy) continues to be entertaining. In the original trailers the multiplayer in Uncharted looked like it would be a broiling chaos of mystical abilities and AI companions. It is actually a fun multiplayer shooter with lots of mobility and fast gunplay. The powers and companions add variety and chaos to proceedings but they can also be used to create devastating tactics or allow you to interrupt the tactics of another team.

(I’m hoping the increasingly horrible loot box grind (the recent half price ‘sale’ felt like a far better balance for ‘time to lootbox’) and the arguably ‘pay to win’ weapon DLC are a little less egregious in future Naughty Dog games.)

3. Portal 2 (co-op levels)
I played the original Portal and Portal 2 on the 360 and loved them. Unfortunately, I bought Portal 2 very late in it’s life and could never find no one to play the co-op with me (my Mac was too old to play Portal 2). Usually, when there is a part of a game we can't access, we tend to forget about it and move on but there was something about the co-op in Portal 2 that continued to call to me.

When I splashed out on a new Mac recently I suddenly realised that I had another chance to play those co-op levels. Thanks to Eleima (Co-op partner extraordinaire) I have finally been able to play Portal 2 co-op and it didn’t disappoint. The levels were as challenging and as fun as I remember and the games understated genius and sublime humour once more shone through.

Now to play the community created levels.

Screenshots

4. SuperHOT
Much like Portal, SuperHOT has a brilliant idea at it’s core which is only complimented and enhanced by a strong sense of style both in visuals, sound and story. It is the essence of the first person shooter experience triple distilled down into a fire red shot of hyper stylish joy.

It really is the most innovative shooter I've played in years.

5. Assassin’s Creed: Origins
When I did finally set foot in this game I was struck by how quickly I felt at home and how my love for the series came flooding back to me. Origins has brought back the excitement of exploring an unexpected time and place in our history. It's brought a much needed refresh to the mechanics and given me an amazing main character and cast. Ubisoft are quietly becoming experts creating a strong sense of place and time with the enormous care and detail they put into their worlds.

6. Far Cry: Primal
Speaking of capturing long lost worlds and giving the player a sense of place, I loved Far Cry: Primal. Unusually for me, I haven’t finished the game, or even progressed that far through it but I was just enthralled by the basic experience of sneaking through a prehistoric world, encountering aggressive enemies, sometimes visible, sometimes hidden, and hunting incredible creatures that can become your treasured companions. I was a little disappointed when I started to uncover the usual Far Cry structure inside what had been, until that point, a nail-biting survival game with tense fights to the death using clubs, spears and bows.

7. The Evil Within
I was too late coming to the Resident evil series. I tried some of the games but the tank controls and the deliberate awkwardness of the aiming just did not work for me. I’d hear the general enthusiasm for the games but never shared it or developed an appreciation for the series. Ironically, it took The Evil Within to make me see how much fun a bizarre, disgusting, disjointed, and occasionally very difficult game could be.

8. Yakuza 0
Yakuza 0 is a throwback. I’d say it was retro but I’m not sure that something can be considered retro when it has never not been what it is. I am very much a fan of ‘gritty and realistic’ games but I do have fond memories of Shenmue and the arcadiness of this game is both pleasantly nostalgic and incredibly refreshing. I even find things like the way it blocks off certain streets in order to funnel you towards your goal, oddly endearing.

9. Wasteland 2
Wasteland 2 is a gritty, turn based rpg that I really enjoyed my time with. It does have an old fashioned feel in terms of having to spend a lot of time looking for objectives and quest givers. Markers in the world that lead you to your objective aren’t ideal but this game reminded me why they are there.

10. Invisible Inc
Invisible Inc combines three gaming styles stealth, turn based combat and rogue-likes. The first two are completely in my wheel house. The third isn’t. I had incredible moments of joy while playing this game but my experience was always tempered knowing that I’d have had more fun if the levels were part of a more straightforward singleplayer experience.

Good post, Zero (even if you got a bunch of games and their order wrong).

Honestly, we should be surfacing some of these on the front page.

I want to add another honorable mention to my list.

Project Cars. The original, not the one that came out this year. This is more a mention of GWJ's Racing Dorks. Scheduling racing events with that group of dorks has been some of the best fun in gaming I have had over the past year. I eagerly anticipate each event and the antics in each race never fail to put a smile on my face. They have renewed my interest in racing games and given me someone to hate....Damnit Bismarck why are you so good!?

If anyone has an interest in racing games come join us. We typically stream our races and welcome anyone that wants to go wheel to wheel, as long as you don't mind me shoving you off at turn 1.

oilypenguin wrote:

Good post, Zero (even if you got a bunch of games and their order wrong).

Yeah, I know. But at least there wasn't some glaring, obvious omission from my list, like Nier, or Mass Effect, right?

Very big thank you's to tuffalobuffalo, BadKen, zeroKFE, Antichulius and Higgledy!! Oily is right, those are some quality lists, there!! BadKen, it's too bad I'm not a gambling woman, because I just knew AC: Origins would be your #1, seeing how you've spent so much time in it. And Higgledy, it truly was my pleasure, and I'm glad I helped in a ever so small way to make the Portal 2 coop experience enjoyable. I almost didn't allow the vote, but let it be known that the Portal 2 coop is such a different animal compared to the single player. And well worth playing, I might add!

Re: Destiny 2

zeroKFE wrote:

Well, it very much did not disappoint me, except in the respect that very few people seem to be interested in continuing to play it in the same way I am

You know, I have such mixed emotion about Destiny 2. It should be the game I love, and I absolutely enjoy the time I spend on it... but I just can't get myself to launch it after I hit the magic number 305.

Thinking back, it might be because I'm a single player at heart. Not saying I *don't* play MMOs, but that I would play MMOs alone.

Almost everything in Destiny 2 requires you to be engaging with the community actively. The story portion is, let's be honest, subpar. The grindy grindy looty shooty part is only fun until you hit the max number and get the ideal load out. Even then, the variety of guns and gears aren't impressive in this game. What Destiny 2 focuses on is the PvP, the raid, the strike, yet the lack of playlist (i.e. auto-match) means I need to actively seek out other players, schedule a time, and log on. It's not the "drop-in and play" MMO I'm used to, and definitely plays a huge part of my disliking.

Shame really, because I actually regret buying this game at full price. It's a crappy feeling because I feel like they're doing the right thing for an MMO. But the right thing is not the thing I want. I really think had I held off on purchasing at launch, read through people's review thoroughly, and buy it for 30% off I'd love this game so much more.

lucci.tonight wrote:

Almost everything in Destiny 2 requires you to be engaging with the community actively. The story portion is, let's be honest, subpar. The grindy grindy looty shooty part is only fun until you hit the max number and get the ideal load out. Even then, the variety of guns and gears aren't impressive in this game. What Destiny 2 focuses on is the PvP, the raid, the strike, yet the lack of playlist (i.e. auto-match) means I need to actively seek out other players, schedule a time, and log on. It's not the "drop-in and play" MMO I'm used to, and definitely plays a huge part of my disliking.

This is basically where I'm at with it. I like the gameplay a bunch. I want to play more. I still hop in for an evening if I want to do some mindless shooting. But I don't think I'll be coming back with regular intent, because the intended next step is "now hook up with all those friends you've made along the way and play these high end challenges!" Except I haven't made any friends along the way, because I prefer to play single player, which means I have to drastically alter how I play in order to keep playing the shooty bang part that I like. Or I can just treat it as an occasional activity I do to kill time with no real purpose, which is where I'm at.

It's not helped by the semi-mandatory DLC purchases that have very little content I actually want. Ultimately, Destiny is half a game that I really enjoy, and half a game for a different type of player than I actually am, and that makes me sad.

Not much played this year.. but I have my favorites

1. Dishonored 2 - I felt this was an even better go around than the first.. I'm almost finished the DLC as well and its on par with the Daud DLC from the first game so overall this represents my favorite game of 2017

2. Hollow Knight - I found this game engaging.. both mechanically and with the world and story. Very much the best 2D Dark Souls Platformer around. Manages to capture the feel of mystery and sadness that Dark Souls accomplishes with a world that is both alive and dead at the same time.

3. Prey - Great Intro! seriously one the best since Half Life 2. It started to drag a bit and ended up in my pile but I will finish up the last 20% soon enough. But its a fantastic game with interesting and varied powers and approaches to combat. One negative is that there are so few enemy types but you must have done something right as one of the enemy types has spawned all sorts of real life merchandise like Not a Mimic coffee mugs.

4. Middle Earth: Shadows of War. Ended up not quite living up to the hype of the early gameplay reveals but in the end it was an enjoyable romp through one of the best yet least copied systems around (The Nemesis)

5. Steamworld Dig 2 - I bounced off the first one a few times but this one immediately stuck. I didn't quite 100% it but I got above 90% which is pretty good for me.

You know, I have such mixed emotion about Destiny 2. It should be the game I love, and I absolutely enjoy the time I spend on it... but I just can't get myself to launch it after I hit the magic number 305.

Well, I mean, there's always chasing THREE 305s...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/1AKdxcf.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/Kb4jOwL.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/L2Ri6aE.jpg)

Or, you know, three 335s now that the first DLC is out. (Not quite there yet, so my five weeks in on PC, uh, achievement (?) will have to suffice for semi bragging, semi crying for help. )

Thinking back, it might be because I'm a single player at heart. Not saying I *don't* play MMOs, but that I would play MMOs alone.

The funny thing is, I have a similar approach to things these days. Not that I haven't played MMOs heavily with groups, but the changing demands of life mean I no longer can really commit to the heavy scheduling and time commitment required to really do the multiplayer part of MMOs right. So I've actually been quite pleased that Destiny 2 has let me be a mostly solo player and still experience the full breadth of what it has to offer. And, even before the DLC and accompanying patches to vanilla content addressed some of the issues with incentives to play past the level cap I found the basic mechanics more than fun enough that I was eager to turn the game on for a few crucible matches or to go screw around planetside chasing challenges or milestones or whatever.

Of course, since the clan dried up a bit I've had fewer opportunities for pick up play for nightfalls and raids, and I would really appreciate more effective matchmaking tools for those activities to help fill things in there. But, playing on PC and having easier access to third party tools, as well as the new activity types added in the patch (i.e., the heroic strike playlist) has meant that I've still had the ability to continue playing and enjoying the majority of things I love about the game despite definitely feeling the lack of other GWJers around to play with.

Shame really, because I actually regret buying this game at full price. It's a crappy feeling because I feel like they're doing the right thing for an MMO. But the right thing is not the thing I want. I really think had I held off on purchasing at launch, read through people's review thoroughly, and buy it for 30% off I'd love this game so much more.

Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from, and it's a bummer. Hopefully Bungie can find a way to make sure fewer folks have a similar experience both going forward with this game, and with their inevitable next outing.

I forgot I played Dishonored 2 this year, and Hollow Knight, and I just got into Nier Automata... Dang it.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I forgot I played Dishonored 2 this year, and Hollow Knight, and I just got into Nier Automata... Dang it.

Still three days left in the year!

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I forgot I played Dishonored 2 this year, and Hollow Knight, and I just got into Nier Automata... Dang it.

This is why I only put games I've completed on the list at this point.

...well, one of the reasons.

Official new years are dead to me. Years start and end with the CGotY posts.
Welcome to 2018.

Antichulius wrote:

Stardew Valley (Switch)

I’m just not clicking with Stardew Valley. I want and need a relaxing game in my life. Mobile no-less. But I’m just not seeing it. Honestly, I think it’s the townspeople part that’s throwing it for me. If I were just a farmer and fisherman, I think I could get into it. But I’ve got to meet everyone in town, and figure out gifts for their birthdays, and figure out when their birthday even is? Wait, I just want to clear my land and plant some crops. If it weren’t a quest, I’d probably skip the town entirely, but the game is clearly steering me that way, and I need to clear that quest queue, dang it! I still don’t have any real variety to what I can plant yet—and there’s apparently an optimal planting scheme I’m not following… blargh, why did I start reading up on the game online before playing it!?

You're making Stardew Valley way more stressful than it should be. Of course there's an optimal way to play, optimal seeds to plant (on specific days!), and an optimal way to lay out your farm -- but none of that matters. There's no time limit in the game and there's no win state tied to making $X, so just play how you want. I picked it up for Switch last night and think I'm going to do hops and fruit -> beer & wine with this farm. Sure, I could make more money doing something else, but it doesn't matter.

As for the town and relationships -- again, there's no time limit. My first time through, I didn't meet everyone in the town or give a single gift until the second year of the game. I was busy enough doing other stuff.

Re: Birthdays - there's a calendar on the wall by the store that tells you whose birthday is on which day. All giving a gift that they link on their birthday does is give you a relationship boost, so there's no penalty for skipping out on that stuff all together.

I have a list of my top 10 gaming moments in no particular order. Eleima, this is 100% NOT a list to be tallied, but this seems like the best place for it. Anyways, it's all spoilered so people can ignore it if they want. There are very, very mild spoilers. Most of the stuff hinted at you'll have to have played to know what I'm talking about.

Spoiler:

In no particular order:

The play in Life is Strange: Before the Storm

The end of NieR: Automata

The D&D game in Prey

Finding out about the class structure in Gravity Rush 2. Also, the insane ending of Gravity Rush 2.

Finding a giant underground basement filled with Guardians in Breath of the Wild. There were a lot of moments like that in Breath of the Wild. It really knows how to make you feel like you discovered something incredible.

Finding how The Unfinished Swan ties into What Remains of Edith Finch.

Every cutscene in Wolfenstein 2.

Realizing Hellblade had all the Zelda stuff I wanted that isn't in Breath of the Wild.

The first time you shoot a gun in SUPERHOT VR.

Playing Doki Doki Literature Club. That's a game where you're really IN it while playing it, but it doesn't necessarily hold up looking back on it.

1) NieR: Automata (PC)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/PXYVmma.png)
This frisson inducing, haunting and dreamlike game bore into my thoughts and stayed there for weeks. Yoko Taro and Platinum Games subverted and contorted the language of video games to deliver their strange and interesting themes in a way unique to the medium. Even the brilliant soundtrack is best experienced through play.

And every aspect of the game, from the UI to the color palette had a true feeling of authorship.

It’s thought provoking, funny, endearing, emotional and well, a masterpiece.

2) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/fRyd0nX.png)
A Link to the Past continues to be a blueprint for developers today so it only makes sense that the Zelda team would set a new standard for open world design.

The huge amount of player agency, reactive world and complete lack of hand holding delivered such an immense feeling of adventure. It's one of those games you wish you could erase from your memory to experience the discovery and awe again. And I loved reading and hearing other peoples "and then a grenade rolled down a hill" stories.

3) Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/APMX9kp.png)
This game constantly surprises you with imaginative mechanics, creative ideas and inspired level design. And Mario’s expanded moveset is a joy to play.

Ya, wah, wahoooo!

4) Hollow Knight (PC)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ow9N7Po.png)
One of the best Metroidvania’s I’ve ever played. Really enjoyed exploring the levels, fighting the huge variety of enemies, taking down challenging bosses and being immersed in the insect/soulslike world. Hard to believe that only 2 people made this game.

5) Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ivnKxjV.png)
It’s been a long time since I’ve played a huge RPG like this and it was good to be back. Really enjoyed the cast of characters, the adventure you embark on, the deep systems and phenomenal soundtrack. And the levels are giant creatures, how cool is that? This is the first Xeno game I’ve played and am really looking forward to more.

6) Divinity: Original Sin 2 (PC)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/hEO5zfp.png)
They managed to have their cake and eat it too with the origin stories giving a more directed story and somehow keeping the crazy amount of player freedom. Larian really went all out and they delivered.

7) Splatoon 2 (Switch)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/vlu6ca6.png)
Woomy! Everything about the game is just so weird and wacky in a good way. The single player is great with each world having a different gimmick. Salmon Run is the best horde mode I've played in a long time. And the competitive modes mesh so well with the mechanics and systems. The community aspects are also really cool. I need to get back into this.

8) Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Switch)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/bRNWH7W.png)
Who thought Mario XCOM could be so much fun? I really enjoyed their emphasis on movement along with the removal of RNG from chance to hit as it made the encounters feel almost like a puzzle.

Rabbids are still an abomination though.

9) Destiny 2 (PC)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/rQkI6nv.png)
There is something so distinct about Bungie’s combat. The players interaction with the world feels very tactile and the pace of combat is deliberate. You throw those aspects in with their well designed mini-sandbox encounters and engaging enemy design and you get their “30 seconds of fun” loop. The end game could use a lot of work though.

10) ARMS (Switch)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/iwHxljK.png)
Great character designs, interesting fighting mechanics and that Mario Kart team polish shining all over it.

*****************************************

What a year for video games. It was really tough to order the top 3 and I imagine they could have all been #1 in different years.

Games I didn’t play that I would have probably enjoyed: Resident Evil VII, Nioh, Cuphead, Prey, Metroid: Samus Returns, Pyre, Persona 5, Golf Story, and Yakuza 0.

Now I can finally read through the thread

List to make things easier for Eleima:

1) NieR: Automata (PC)
2) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
3) Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
4) Hollow Knight (PC)
5) Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch)
6) Divinity: Original Sin 2 (Switch)
7) Splatoon 2 (Switch)
8) Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Switch)
9) Destiny 2 (PC)
10) ARMS (Switch)

Thanks for your list, TheGameguru. All five games have been taken into account!

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I forgot I played Dishonored 2 this year, and Hollow Knight, and I just got into Nier Automata... Dang it.

By all means, if you want to edit your list, go ahead. I haven't played Nier Automata, but Dishonored 2 made number one on my list last year, and for good reason.

Tuffalo, that's a great idea, I like what you did there. I'm going to have to search my memories and see if I can add any in there. Not from this year, but from a few years ago, one gaming moment that's really stayed with me was the ending of Memoria.

Edit: No worries, BNice, I've got yours too.

My favorite new games from 2017
1. Dead Cells
2. Super Mario Odyssey
3. Horizon: Zero Dawn
4. Opus Magnum
5. Steamworld Dig 2
6. Snipper Clips
7. Pinball FX 3
8. Destiny 2
9. Gorogoa
10. Race for the Galaxy

Games from previous years which I played quite a bit
Hearthstone
Elder Scrolls Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Overwatch
Magic the Gathering
Titanfall 2
No Man's Sky

Haven't started Zelda yet, but I'm sure I'll love it

Thank you for your list, Me Eko! Interestingly enough, yours is the first vote for Gorogoa! Which probably shouldn't surprise me, since it was released on Dec 14th, but considering all the praise it's been getting, I wouldn't be surprised to see it on folks' lists next year.

Thanks to all of you, definitely keep these coming! Every single vote counts, they most certainly do, I see the changes in the rankings as I go, and it's really fascinating. So make your gaming voice heard!

boogle wrote:

4dSwissCheese: Have you yet gotten over it?

I'm actually really bad at the game and so I may never truly get over it. But every time I go back to the game, even if I don't progress, even if I end up falling back, I still find it a relaxing, thoughtful experience. So maybe it was never mine to get over in the first place?

Eleima, I've been really enjoying your cheerful encouragement and feedback people posting their lists throughout this thread. I can't wait to see your writeup of the results once voting is closed, and you've got that all ready.

Awww, thanks a bunch, WolverineJon. I do try to keep up with the thread, and I'll try not to disappoint.

WolverineJon wrote:

Eleima, I've been really enjoying your cheerful encouragement and feedback people posting their lists throughout this thread. I can't wait to see your writeup of the results once voting is closed, and you've got that all ready. :smile:

This is exactly what I was talking about when I said she was doing a better job than me.

billt721 wrote:
Antichulius wrote:

Stardew Valley (Switch)

I’m just not clicking with Stardew Valley. I want and need a relaxing game in my life. Mobile no-less. But I’m just not seeing it. Honestly, I think it’s the townspeople part that’s throwing it for me. If I were just a farmer and fisherman, I think I could get into it. But I’ve got to meet everyone in town, and figure out gifts for their birthdays, and figure out when their birthday even is? Wait, I just want to clear my land and plant some crops. If it weren’t a quest, I’d probably skip the town entirely, but the game is clearly steering me that way, and I need to clear that quest queue, dang it! I still don’t have any real variety to what I can plant yet—and there’s apparently an optimal planting scheme I’m not following… blargh, why did I start reading up on the game online before playing it!?

You're making Stardew Valley way more stressful than it should be. Of course there's an optimal way to play, optimal seeds to plant (on specific days!), and an optimal way to lay out your farm -- but none of that matters. There's no time limit in the game and there's no win state tied to making $X, so just play how you want. I picked it up for Switch last night and think I'm going to do hops and fruit -> beer & wine with this farm. Sure, I could make more money doing something else, but it doesn't matter.

As for the town and relationships -- again, there's no time limit. My first time through, I didn't meet everyone in the town or give a single gift until the second year of the game. I was busy enough doing other stuff.

Re: Birthdays - there's a calendar on the wall by the store that tells you whose birthday is on which day. All giving a gift that they link on their birthday does is give you a relationship boost, so there's no penalty for skipping out on that stuff all together.

Good points. Writing all it out helped me realize how I’d gotten too deep in optimizing a game that I wanted to be relaxing. I’m going to try again, not even restarting but just from where I left off. But I need to get a bit more space-time between myself and what I read first and to let more of what you describe sink in. No time limit, not do x by y goals. Thanks for that.

This was a weird gaming year for me. On the one hand, much more than in past years I have plowed time into evergreen type games that I return to over and over again such as Civ V and VI, Europa Universalis 4, Cities Skylines, and couch co-op Diablo 3. Additionally, over the last couple of years my wife and I have started playing iOS boardgames like Ticket to Ride and Ascension nightly after brushing our teeth and taking my night meds while waiting for the meds to kick in.

So a very large percentage of my gaming time was not spent on exploring unplayed games and my pile has suffered. Games that I would likely enjoy have gotten postponed and punted into next year. So Uncharted 4 and this year’s Lost Legacy both sit unplayed. The Witcher 3 plus expansions, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Nioh, and many, many other likely very good games sit waiting on the pile.

1. Breath of the Wild- Switch- By dumping a lot of the conventions that the Zelda titles have stuck with since A Link to the Past, Nintendo revitalized the series and recaptured the simplicity of exploration plus combat that was the cornerstone of the original NES title. I loved it so much that I tracked down all 120 shrines and leveled up almost all of the gear over a 170 hour playtime. However, I’ve had little desire to revisit the game by playing the newly released expansion content, I could write tons more about this game, but everyone already has so I’ll move on.

2. Path of Exile: the Fall of Oriath- Steam I originally tried Path of Exile during the closed beta 5 or 6 years ago when the game consisted of only two acts and the skill constellation felt like it was being completely remapped fairly frequently. It was fine, but didn’t grab me, and I didn’t stick around for the game’s actual release. This year I heard that the newest iteration of this Free to Play was coming to the Xbox so I started looking into it again. I was hoping to find another couch coop game of this type to play with my wife as we have just about played Diablo into the ground.

Unfortunately, the Xbox release was not going to have couch coop. However, my research uncovered that the new expansion was fleshing the game out to ten acts of story and the years of expansions since the beta had layered a lot of new systems and content into the game. So, I jumped in on the PC with the launch of Fall of Oriath and the Harbinger season. I ended up pouring more than 400 hours into this game, leveling multiple characters through all ten Acts and deep into the post story mapping system. This is a great game that I now plan on revisiting for a season or two every year.

3. Super Mario Odyssey- Switch This is the second announced game that actually convinced me to pull the trigger on purchasing a launch Switch after being relatively disappointed with Nintendo’s offerings on the Wii U. This game recaptured the magic of Mario 64, but with the modern polish of the Galaxy games. While not nearly as interesting as Breath of the Wild, this game is in many ways pure happiness on a cartridge. The music, the visuals, the whimsy, it just makes me happy to play it. It may be another couple of years before Nintendo releases another title that is personally a must have for me as I don’t care for many of their newer franchises but Odyssey + BOTW completely justified my purchase and make up the strongest 1-2 punch that I think a publisher has ever landed in a launch year in a very long time.

4. Race for the Galaxy- iOS Since releasing earlier this year, this digital translation of the card game of the same name has joined Ticket to Ride and Ascension in our nightly presleep ritual. Build your space civilization by focusing on creating a trading empire, conducting military conquest, or by taking the lead in scientific, political, and economic developments. Focus on mineral exploitation, gene studies, or alien worlds. Side with the rebels or the galactic imperium, or just ignore them both. The mixing of theme and mechanic works here even if it is still as thin as in most Eurogamer. As you’d expect this iPad version plays even more quickly than the physical version which is already a fairly fast moving game once you get the rules down. We’ve added all three of the digital expansions to our game, and it just keeps getting better and better.

5. Planet Coaster-Steam - The first 2016 game on my list. I have no doubt this would have made my top ten last year if I’d gotten to it by the end of the year. This is one of the more beautiful strategy/sim/sandbox titles out there. As you set up you park, the rides look amazing. However, it is the lighting that really makes things look great. Whether it is sunrise or sunset, or the brilliant lighting of your rides at night this game takes you back to the carnivals and theme parks of your youth. In my case, it brings back strong memories of my yearly outings as a kid to Six Flags over MidAmerica, my early adult trips to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom and Kings Island, and the multiple trips I’ve taken to Holiday World as an adult with my own kids.

As far as the game itself, it is at its strongest for sandbox creative types who want to painstakingly create assets using the games built in tools and create their own masterpiece parks. Unfortunately, the management side of the game isn’t nearly as strong. With harder and deeper scenarios and more management required in the modes that let you build from scratch this would no doubt be higher on my list. However, it is still a strong entry that I think will likely see annual play alongside Cities Skylines, EU, and the Civ games.

6. Injustice 2- PS4 I’m not traditionally really into fighting games. I mean, I played Street Fighter 2 and the Mortal Kombat games casually in high school in the arcade and again with friends in the dorm in college. Ditto with casual play of the early Tekken and Soul Calibur games with friends in law school/grad school. After that, I didn’t play much at all until the Mortal Kombat reboot. I liked its story mode, but didn’t play much after that.

Injustice complete edition around the PS4 launch changed that as I played quite a bit of that game with my kids. So when Injustice 2 was cheap over the Black Friday sales, I scooped it up for some more fun time with the kids. At least that was the plan. However, the multiverse mode added a bunch more solo play into the mix as well. I joined a guild and have played 30ish hours already. I have leveled most characters up to level 5 and have 7 or 8 of them up to level 20. The game is beautiful to watch. The gameplay is smooth and fun with everything turned up to 11, and the characters are easy to pickup and play. It really makes me a bit sad that Capcom and not NetherRealms has the Marvel license.

7. Forza Horizon 3- Xbox Play Anywhere Generally speaking I don’t like racing games most of the time. I’ve had some fun in the past with arcade stuff like Jet Moto, Speed Devils, Need for Speed: Rivals, and my previous favorite: Burnout Paradise. I’ve tried both the GT and Forza Motorsport series before and really didn’t enjoy my time with either of them. Then just before Christmas my wife expressed interest in trying a racing game together. So I picked this up in the Christmas sale. The play anywhere ability should mean that I can play on the PC with her on the Xbox. We haven’t tried that yet, but I have played on both platforms and switched back and forth seemlessly. I’m only 15 or so hours in, but I love this game. The variety of events, tracks, environments, and cars is wonderful. It just feels good to race when you find that car that handles exactly as you’d prefer. I also know I haven’t scratched the surface as you can tune any car you have and change the blueprints on most events to create the kind of races YOU want to race. If I’d played it more already I could see it hitting even more highly on this list.

8. Hitman (2016) - Steam. I started this in the last few days of 2016, but not in time for my 2016 list. This game brought back the open ended gameplay of Blood Money, but made each level an even more intricate and gigantic playground. Each level is designed to be played over and over, exploring ever more bizarre ways of dispatching your targets. This game would no doubt have finished higher on this list, but I ran into network issues with my Steam Link and the game got set aside unfinished. Then I had another bad concussion and had to step away from gaming completely for several weeks. I returned just as the BOTW launch was imminent and have sadly never made it back to Hitman.

9. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) - Xbox Over most of the summer I watched and read as a number of gamers streamed this game nonstop. It is buggy, rough, and the concept is not incredibly complex. However, the basic simplicity of being dropped on an island with nothing and trying to emerge as the last player standing is probably its greatest strength. Easy to explain, tense to play and watch, with every minor accomplishment feeling like a huge victory, this is in many ways the feel good game of the year. Shooter fans seem to love it. For a non-shooter guy like me, it is not painful to lose. Getting another game is fast and painless and how can I feel distraught losing when 99% of players have to lose every match? Since picking up the Xbox release, I can confirm the game is even more rough there than all the PC videos I watched. The framerate is bad, the textures are bad, the control scheme feels designed by someone who has never used a controller before. In spite of all this millions are playing it anyway? Why? Because it is fun despite everything that is busted.

I’m still chasing that elusive chicken dinner. Maybe the allure will melt away when I finally grab one. Who knows? I’ve been pretty good at getting in the top 20 and have a second place, multiple third place, a fifth place, and multiple 9-11th place finishes. I also have a 97th place finish where I was gunned down as I landed by someone who clearly had a better handle on the parachute process then I did on that first day. This game would likely be higher if I was playing the current more polished PC version, but it remains to be seen how much the developer will eventually clean up this Xbox version.

10. Everybody’s Golf- PS4 I have been playing the Hot Shots series since the first couple on the original PSX. This installment continues the fun. Not sure what else to say except that I really hope for a quality Switch Mario Golf title some time in the future as I really like some of the outlandish course that have appeared in that similar game.

Honorable Mentions: I liked these games, they just didn’t make the cut because it was a strong year:

Spoiler:

Necromancer expansion-Diablo 3. PS4 I loved this expansion, but couldn’t in good conscience put Diablo 3 on this list a third time. (Original console release & Ultimate Evil release with the big expansion were on previous lists for me)

Culdcept: Revolt- If this were on any platform I could play on the TV, I probably would have played it much more, and it would have made the list. It is just very hard for me to have an enjoyable time on the 3DS.

Farcry: Primal- Played 5 or 6 hours, but never got back to it after the concussion. I was liking it, but don’t miss it.

Mario vs. Rabbids- Surprising concept. I enjoyed it, but the lack of any randomness at all made it feel more like a puzzle than something like XCOM. Plus, it just came out when I was busy with a lot of other games, and I never finished.

Pinball FX 3- I like this new wrapper, but it is just a new front end for the pinball I’ve always enjoyed. I’ll likely play it a lot in the coming year, but can’t see putting it on the list.

Grim Dawn- I was really enjoying this Diablo like until I stopped playing because I fell into the much more compelling Path of Exile hole. After spending 400 hours in that hole, I haven’t felt the need to go back to this yet.

Fast RMX- This was a fun multiplayer Switch racer for local action. Great little cheap year one game.

The following are new pile games that likely could have changed up this year’s list considerably or might be on this list next year, but either didn’t get played at all this year or only got a brief 30 minute pop in to check them out because of time constraints:

Spoiler:

Horizon: Zero Dawn
Uncharted 4 & Lost Legacy
Nioh
Witcher 3
Assassins Creed Syndicate & Origins
Dead Cells
Bloodborne
American Truck Simulator

Here's my list:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
2. Super Mario Odyssey
3. Prey
4. Horizon: Zero Dawn
5. Steamworld Dig 2
6. Hollow Knight
7. Resident Evil 7
8. The Evil Within 2
9. Wolfenstein: The New Colossus
10. Tacoma

4dSwissCheese wrote:
boogle wrote:

4dSwissCheese: Have you yet gotten over it?

I'm actually really bad at the game and so I may never truly get over it. But every time I go back to the game, even if I don't progress, even if I end up falling back, I still find it a relaxing, thoughtful experience. So maybe it was never mine to get over in the first place?

Sounds like you are over it in the trueest sense.

Good climbing friend.