All the cool kids were doing it. So I want to do it

GAME OF THE YEAR



1. The Witness - What can I say I fancy myself a fan of how Jonathan Blow makes video games, and I'm into puzzle games. For whatever reason the internet gaming community likes to downplay puzzle games, which I always think is laughable for how try hard "hardcore" they want to be, but they'll dismiss a thinking man's genre. Snarkiness aside, and Jon Blow's pretentiousness as well, The Witness is just expert game design. I was never too into these type of games when they were called Myst, but The Witness won me over with its panel puzzles in how they present a rule and then expand upon it to more challenging selection of puzzles. How the island itself plays into the puzzles, from the moving perspectives, to the little "environmental" puzzles shall we say The Witness kept me consistently engaged, intrigued, and challenged as to not just run right through the game. I didn't complete it, as I only got the regular ass ending, but it's a game I keep going back to. Best anecdote, I took a screen shat of one of the panel puzzles in the game, and was drawing panels n solutions during my lunch break at work while trying to figure it out, and it was fucking rad when I finally got it. My secretary at work thought I was weird, but that bitch don't know the struggle. So when I got home I forgot the paper with the solution on it at the office : (



and then I couldn't find it the next day when I came back to the office : (



I had to solve the puzzle all over again ;_;

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Rest of the top 10



2. Overwatch - Class based multiplayer shooters are back, and while I might lean towards Rainbow Six Siege the best of the bunch that isn't named Team Fortress 2. I still loved me some Overwatch. A variety of well designed and enjoyable to play characters, a brand of polish that very few devs actually deliver on, well designed maps, and a genius brand of application over execution game design. It's a level of genius I usually associate with Nintendo on their best day, and that's high praise for me. As creatively boring as Nintendo is, they are excellent game makers (on their good days), and Blizzard is pretty much on that level. Except when they are making Diablo and World of Warcraft, because loot games are compulsive bullshit.

3. Furi - I love me some beat-em ups, twin stick shooters, boss fights, and bumping soundtracks. Furi is that because it's basically a top down Revengeance, and I like me some Revengeance. The mechanics are nice and tight, the bosses are varied and well thought out, and the challenge isn't offset by some bs upgrade system. When you do a fight more efficiently, it's because you, the fucking player got better, not your gear n shit. You know the things that made stuff like Mega Man and the original Castlevania special, and that's what makes Furi rad. Also fuck that evil sniping whore.

4. The Last Guardian - On balance I'm not usually big on sequels, not because I understand the value of "refinement", but more so that I'm not fucking impressed by "refinement". That shit is on the easy side, the hard part (actually creating something) was already done for you, so I naturally respond to more creative outings and stuff that plays like something I haven't played for. Enter Ueda, who has only ever made new ips and games that don't play like anything else I've played. They fall into a genre sure cinematic platformer/action/adventure games, but the way Trico works, isn't how a companion like that would work in other games. It would probably work more like Ashley in Resident Evil 4, more frustrating like Dead Rising 1, or the dev would be lazy as shit and the companion has no impact on gameplay as in The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite. Personally the controls never bugged me (the camera on the other hand, annoying), because once you get how Trico works, getting him to do shit on command is fairly simple. And as a result you have some exciting set pieces that are a product of the fucking player, where "leaps of faith"...are exactly leaps of faith into this beast that may or may not catch you in time, and it's fucking thrilling. Oh and that soundtrack is nice.

5. XCom 2 - I spent hours customizing my squadmates to look like Snake Pliskin, Kim Possible, Usain Bolt, Michael Jordan, Tony Soprano, Lizzie McGuire. So the real question is why the fuck is The Witness game of the year? why the fuck is this game even at 5? Where did we go wrong in life.

6. Street Fighter V  - Listen I know we have to pretend to be mad at Capcom's bullshit, and yeah Capcom's bullshit is a problem. But, the fighting engine is ace as fuck, the gameplay is tight, and Street Fighter for my money has always been the best fighting game franchise. So consider my values and standards thrown out the window for Capcom's bullshit....but I feel like I'm off the hook, since I only bought this game in the summer when the game was actually finished and had all the features SF4 had at launch. Which makes me the correct consumer, recognizing a good game, but not accepting Capcom's bullshit.

7. Hitman - Simple reason. Uncharted 4 has this gala section that's utter crap where you as a player have no fucking opinion what so ever, and in Hitman the gala level if you are a good enough player to figure out how to solve the level without using a disguise, and Hitman is a moving series of systems n AI on a clockwork, you get introduced at this auction as Mr. Reaper. Which is fucking rad, and it's one of multiple solutions to that level. HItman is for people who value the concept of "getting good at a game", and Uncharted 4's gala section thinks you are a fucking moron, who isn't worthy of getting in the way of Neil Druckmann's story.

8. Dark Souls 3 - It's just more Dark Souls, and I guess law of diminishing returns means I'm less excited when I finish one of these. But It still plays way the fuck better than most triple A tripe, and Dark Souls is an actual video game. So yeah.


9. Doom - It's not quite Doom enough, and it's the wrong brand of metal for Doom, but but but but but but but but but but but they found a way to use the Zendatsu mechanic from Revengeance as a way to have regen health/refill ammo in a way that encourages more bold play from the player. That's pretty fucking legit, and I already said I am quite fond of Revengeance.

10. Superhot - It's the most innovative FPS I've played in years.

Extra awards

Best Moment - Mr. Reaper, are you kidding? Hitman's brand of dark comedy is among the many reasons that game is fucking genius

Best boss fight - The Edge, Furi. Parry city maybe, but hype as fuck.

Best Waifu - Mercy from Overwatch, I know you might like some other broad in a video game this year, but Mercy heals you. Ergo she wins.

Best Husbando - Ryu from Street Fighter V, because he's rugged and handsome.

Best Character - Delilah from Firewatch. The ending of that game is whatever, but but but but but, Delilah is a delight, and she carries that game for me. She's just all around fun to talk to, she's layered, she's got some fun snappy dialogue, I like chicks with sass, she'll probably piss off Tomas, and isn't that what being the best character is all about?

Best Looking Game - Battlefield 1, that game all around looks nuts. Dice is pretty ace in that department.

Best new mechanic - Superhot, really no other way to slive it, that time moves when you move was a cool idea for a video game. It turned a FPS into a bit of a clever puzzle game, but more importantly a badass simulator. And I basically never got tired of the "SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT" montages, because I mean come on. SUPER HOT SUPER HOT

Best ending - Nothing I beat had an ending I liked, Uncharted 4 might be the closest, but Nadine is fucking bullshit, the final QTE thing is dumb, and the epilogue is self indulgent nonsense. So hooray gaming industry

Shittiest ending - Inside: Hey playdead studios, and basically everyone in love with this "we're ambigious when we tell our story, because we're art" this just in The Wire is the best TV show of all time, with basically no competition until Dead wood gets an ending. The Wire never needed to resort to unnecessary ambiguity to act like it was saying something meaningful, it just fucking said it in a manner that respected the audience. Being all vague n shit creates intrigue, but when you then conclude it with an ending that's complete tripe it makes your bullshit less tolerable. So either come up with good endings for your "we're going to be vague all the way through" games, or stop doing that and tell a more coherent story. Because sneaking a shitty story in the back door, doesn't make it less shit.

Come back to us award - Naughty Dog, Neil, come back to us man. I like The Last of Us, the gameplay is enjoyable, the script is good, it pisses off Tomas, the ending was great, and I thought there was a mostly good balance of cinematic nonsense (like walking ugh) and engaging gameplay. And in Uncharted 4 the shooting is fucking great, some of the combat encounters are fantastic, but you spend so much fucking time making me suffer the bullshit climbing that's not fun to do, or boring drives in Madagascar, and just hours and hours and hours of fucking doing nothing. And for what? Yes the story is confident and charming, but let's not get carried away they didn't fucking make The Prestige, they made National Treasure 4, the more serious edition. If you want to move "gaming stories forward" like your apologist fanbase says you do, you must do it by moving the GAME part of your story telling forward. Doing it with cutscenes or other passive manners doesn't really achieve shit, it just makes you a poor man's movie. And I watch too many to be impressed by your bullshit. So start making more engaging consistent video games again, signed Gagan. Also tell your buddies at Rockstar to make a good video game for the first time in this fucking lifetime. I mean I guess I should have known better, because as series only 2 of the Uncharted games are good (2 and 4), and otherwise the series is mediocre as fuck, but I expected my time to be wasted less, not more than usual when I played your game.

This should bum you out - Not saying Doom isn't good, it is. But lets get to some not so pleasant stuff. The return to form of a FPS and truly exceptional outing in the FPS space happens to be a FPS game that owes most of its principles to a game from 1993, we didn't improve DOom, because it's not a better video game than Doom 1 or 2 for that matter, we made an adaptation 2 decades later to remind us what FPS games could have been if they had stayed enjoyable and not become shit.

Cut it the fuck out - Hey triple A space, I think it's cute that you continue to think that giving me less than what I used to get for 60 bucks at launch is acceptable, but it's not. Indie games, the middle market, all of them get a slight pass because you know those games at least have a soul. Your shit? it's a bunch of assembly line quality shit you're trying to turn out in record time, and when you need a fucking delay because game development is pretty fucking hard, you're like "meh fuck a delay, lets just release early access style and we'll finish the game after we get people's money". Yeah no dice, you don't get that pass. Between your loot boxes, your dlc, your day 1 dlc, your mountain dew dlc, your preorder dlc, your microtransactions at pound me in the prices for bullshit, your pay to win mechanics, and then added bonus: you're fucking game isn't even that good. So yeah cut it the fuck out.

Fantastic read, well done. I really like your picks.

Good stuff.

I've been wanting to pick up The Witness but $40 is a bit much for a non-physical game.