The end of the year is filled with lists, so why not one more! This year of gaming was packed with plenty of variety, whether you wanted a gothic curb stomping from Bloodborne or some episodic humor from Tales from the Borderlands. I’m a certain type of gamer, so here is my top ten games (that I played) of the year.
10.) Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate
I’ve written about my history with AC already, and while I doubt the series can ever reach its AC 2/Brotherhood days, I did enjoy my time with Syndicate. It’s exactly what an Assassin’s Creed game is: an open, beautiful world filled with at least fascinating characters and beautiful set pieces. Evie and Jacob are good characters (Evie is my favorite), one obsessed with the history of the assassin’s and the other just in it for the glory. The typical problems that Assassin’s Creed have are still there, and given how busy the year was, it’s easy to see why this game was overlooked.
A thousand shades of grey
9.) Rocket League
Soccer with cars. When I say that it sounds weird, right? Well, it is, and it’s still awesome. No game made a bigger surprise smash than Rocket League this year, and it needs to be recognized as one of the most simple yet addicting games I’ve ever played. I don’t like cars. I don’t like soccer. I should probably be at least disinterested in this game. Instead, I am fascinated by it and can’t stop playing. When I want to stop roaming around the commonwealth or looking for Ciri, I just wind down with some Rocket League.
Orange V Blue Dawn Of Justice
8.) Dying Light
It’s rare to find a great game so early in the year. Hopefully, it becomes more of a trend because Dying Light was certainly the bright spot along with Bloodborne later on. Dying Light made a compelling and exciting zombie game out of a market that is incredibly saturated with the zombie genre. The parkour system, while odd at first, feels great once you get into it, and the piles upon piles of zombies roaming the street make certain moments during the daytime stressful. But the definition of stress is when you are roaming those streets at night. It’s hard to make an open world game contain any scary or horror element, but nighttime is truly dangerous in this game, and it’s something different. Which is exactly what the zombie genre needs right now. A weak story and eventual god status aside, Dying Light is a great game.
Living Darkness
7.) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Few games have tighter gameplay than Metal Gear 5. I’m not a fan of the previous games; though it’s not that I don’t like them, I’ve just never played them. When I tried to learn about the history of Metal Gear, my ears started bleeding and I passed out. So simply from a gameplay standpoint, this game made my list. And that says something in itself because I’m a stickler for story. The pacing of gameplay and items in this game is incredible. So much thought and care went into making you learn certain things at a steady and reasonable pace that just from a logistical standpoint I am impressed. This is the last Kojima made Metal Gear game, and since Konami can’t take the hint, I imagine we will see more from this franchise. However I can’t imagine it will get any better than this.
Like a fine wine Metal Gear only gets better with time
6.) Fallout 4
I can’t think of a game that had more hype, payoff, and then backlash in six months. Fallout is exactly what I wanted from it, a big open world to get lost in for a while. This is my first purchase of Fallout (though my friend did let me borrow his copy of Fallout 3). This game reminds me of Skyrim to a smaller extent: filled with “Wow” moments from the vistas to watching something crazy go on without my involvement. In Skyrim, it was looking at a dragon attack Whiterun while I was miles away; in Fallout 4, it was watching Vertibird full of Brotherhood members take on an island full of super mutants. Bethesda Games–like Grand Theft Auto games–have those moments you talk about with your friends because trying to recreate them would be impossible.
Yao guai steak for everyone
5.) Rise of the Tomb Raider
Very few games pull me in every direction the way Tomb Raider does. It’s not an open world, but each little world is filled with things for me to pick up so I can craft the next bow part or search for another gun piece. It’s a shame Rise of the Tomb Raider was buried between three of the biggest games this year. Because of the four, Rise of the Tomb Raider is definitely the best. From addictively crafting your weapons too stealthily taking out a camp full of guards, Rise does it all and it does it all well. The sequel improves upon its former by having a better villain(s), side quests, and graphics, though the fact that it falls back into the same story beats is disappointing. An ancient army protecting something from fanatics and Lara is caught in the middle. As the story begins to conclude, I even started to see similarities in level structure and boss battles. With that said, it’s certainly one of the best games this year without a question.
Normal day for Lara
4.) Life Is Strange
There are no bad endings to this game, but all of them will break your heart. Life is Strange builds up to a conclusion you may see coming by the end, but the journey to get there is by far the most important part. I should hate Chloe. She’s a blue haired, smoking, hipster, dropout with no future, but for some reason I wholeheartedly believed her and the bonds she formed with her friends. When a game revolves around a relationship or a person, you have to nail that person and not make them annoying or grating. And while I didn’t always agree with Chloe’s decisions or attitude, I knew deep down that she cared. And that’s what makes this game so good. My decision isn’t always the right one, but I always thought it was the one my Max Caulfield would make.
Hitchhiking with Chloe
3.) Until Dawn
I don’t like horror movies. I’m not particularly scared of them; I just don’t find them that interesting, but once I picked up Until Dawn I knew this was like nothing I had ever played or seen before. Imagine if Telltale had a working engine and fantastic looking graphics and that’s a little like what Until Dawn is. The structure upon which the game is built is a fascinating one that hasn’t really been touched: A teen horror movie in video game form. While some of the dialog and performances can be a little wooden at times (especially in the beginning), you certainly form a bond of either hatred or love for all of the characters.
Scary Horse
2.) Batman: Arkham Knight
No game, in my opinion, had a better presentation this year than Arkham Knight. It’s shot like a movie. Each camera move has a purpose and reason for being where it is, and the cinematography builds tension and spectacle like few games do. The pinpoint gameplay that Rocksteady does so well shines in this gorgeous open world of Gotham City. With a fantastic voice cast like Mark Hamill, Kevin Conroy, John Noble, Tara Strong, and Johnathan Banks filling out this dark gothic interpretation of Gotham, it’s hard to imagine a more polished game. The thing keeping it from #1 is the Bat-Tank. Rocksteady built the Batmobile and needed stuff to do with it, and while driving around breaking stuff can be cool, the tank itself feels like one step too far. That’s not how I want to play Batman, and it seems weird shooting criminals with any kind of gun in a Batman game, rubber bullets or not.
Big Moon
1.) The Witcher: Wild Hunt
Is it impossible to imagine that? Plenty of people outside of me will surely choose The Witcher: Wild Hunt to be the best thing released in 2015, but along with everything I’ve played this year, it didn’t hit me until I was halfway through Fallout 4. Maybe it’s because I never expected Fallout to be more than what it is: a fun game that runs on a shaky engine that works well with modding. That being said, it can’t look much better than it does and it can’t play much better than it does. Fallout 4 is exactly what we thought it would be. Or at least what you should’ve set your expectations to be. So then you look at The Witcher and realize that you can do great things when you evolve past expectations. Did you play the first Witcher game? No? Of course not. It was a point and click niche game that wasn’t well known outside the die-hard fans. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was my first Geralt game and for many people it was theirs too. It was a massive improvement with a deep RPG system revamped and almost intact. Fantastic characters and an exciting, diverse world that didn’t care if you were new the franchise. It was going to kick your ass regardless.
Geralt is a fantastic central character. Some RPG’s, especially older ones, make you play as a created character that happens to be a mute, but Geralt already has a history and a personality. There is no changing his race, hair color, and voice. He’s the same gruff guy with variations in every play through. And that kind of thing adds to the story. Characters have a set way to react to him or act around him. It gives everything a certain cohesive feeling that most games bounce around with clever writing, but all the clever writing is saved for the characters themselves. Triss, Yennefer, Ciri, Dandelion, Zoltan, and Sigismund are excellent and fully realized surrounding cast. Each of them with their history involving Geralt.
Skyrim and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings both came out in 2011, and both sequels most likely went into full on production shortly after that. The Witcher set the bar higher when it comes to look, style, combat, the world, and the universe. Fallout 4 set out to improve on what it already had. Again I’m not saying that’s bad; I’m just saying that The Witcher improved upon an already great thing
