Playing catch-up, what 2015 releases are you digging into?

Here we are, seven days into the new year and I'm curious as to what last year releases the GB community is playing now or eyeing up next. If you managed to get to everything you wanted to play last year then congrats! I have plenty of stuff I need to get back to since 2015 was a year where I missed out on a lot.

I started this year with a bang and began my journey into Phantom Pain, I'm saddened I missed the boat on this and not being apart of the early day discussions but goddamn is this game just a blast to play. I don't know the specifics (I tried pretty hard at avoiding most things about this game) of the story other than I know it was a bummer for some people. If that ends up being the case for me at least the gameplay is strong enough to prop that up for me. Having such a good time running around and getting into trouble and telling D-Dog to put some dudes on ice with his knife and other tomfoolery. At some point last year I made a choice between this game and Fallout 4 due to a lack of funds.

I feel I backed the wrong (D)horse. I didn't hate Fallout 4 but how I feel about Phantom Pain already compared to the entirety of my experience of Fallout 4 tells me a lot of how that game missed it's mark for me in a big way. I'm enjoying the general gameplay loop of MGSV a lot more at the very least.

I have other 2015 releases sitting around like Rise of the Tomb Raider but I think I'll be mainlining Phantom Pain for now, now what are you wiling away your hours with?

I need to finish Ori. Game was great but ran like serious shit on certain levels on my laptop and I had to stop after a point. I also need to play SOMA since I've heard incredible things about that game and its ending. Otherwise nothing else interests me. Fallout 4 looks like Fallout 3.5 and Just Cause 3 seems to have the same type of issues I had with Just Cause 2. Need to get around playing the WItcher 3 DLC, but I think I'll wait when the Game of the Year Edition comes out and get it on PC.

On Xbox One, I've been playing Ori and will be playing Black Ops 3 after that. This has mainly been on the weekends so it's a slow burn.

On PC, I just started playing Arkham Knight again after waiting for the PC patches. I've also finally started to play all the Telltale games (Besides Walking Dead Season 1) since I got them from a Humble Store bundle a while ago. I finished Walking Dead Season 2 last night (Every character besides Clem is the worst) and Wolf Among Us is next. I'll eventually get to the GoT and Borderlands games, which are the 2015 releases. I also have Galak-Z, Invisible Inc., and a couple other shorter indies I'll get through.

The Wii U is still a Super Mario Maker and Xenoblade Chronicles X machine at this point.

Been going back to Invisible, Inc. I really liked that game when it was called Incognita, and now it's much better. Would have made my top 10 if I'd played it earlier for sure.

Also bought Xenoblade Chronicles X before christmas and still haven't booted it. Gonna have to start it up next week.

I've kind of delayed putting my GOTY list out there since I'm still playing Kerbal and it keeps rising higher and higher on my list. Currently trying to build a sky-crane solution and rocket for delivering a rover on one of the closer planets.

Just wrapped up Onechanbara Z2: Chaos yesterday after putting it off for god only knows how long. Wow, that game is waaaaay better than it has any right to be. Don't get me wrong, the A.I. is garbage, there's like maybe 10-15 different types of enemies max, the combat arenas are claustrophobic as fuck, and the textures look like they're from a PS3 tech demo, but goddamn is the combat fun. It has a lot of neat, unique mechanics of which my favorite is the "Chase" which not only allows you to dash across levels with easy, it also sorta sucks up any enemies in your immediate location so you can still maintain combos and whatnot. It's legitimately really cool.

I was also surprised at how little fanservice there is. To be fair, two out of the four characters are barely ever wearing anything (and yet somehow wear even less when they transform...), but when it comes to pervy zooming in on titties and asses and shit like that, I can probably count the number of instances on one hand.

Also chugging along through Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold and, let me tell you, if you own a 3DS and like JRPs and/or dungeon crawlers, you should totally pick this up. It's fucking incredible. It's my first EO game too. I knew the whole drawing your own maps thing was always a part of the series, but I somehow never actually saw it in action. I like that part of the game much more than I thought I would to the point where the game forces me to go back to town or something, I get genuinely upset because I'm not able to finish my map haha

After listening to the final podcast of the GOTY week, I jumped back into Super Mario Maker and really began plotting out a stage. Previously, I'd pick a few design themes and work them in a pretty logical progression from stage start to stage end. However, I started thinking less about my ideal design, and for the first time, thought through the level as a designer. Does the player understand what skills are required to complete this section of the stage? Could I make it more intuitive or give greater direction to the player? Should I give the player that greater direction? I began to understand how difficult it really is to make the perfect platforming sections we all enjoyed throughout the last 30+ years, and I appreciate that game so much more now as a result.

I've also spent a bit of time catching up on some small PC titles, including Her Story, The Beginner's Guide, and Cibele. I don't think I'm as high on those games as much of the discussion I heard throughout the GOTY discussions, but each brings some interesting storytelling mechanics to the forefront. If anything, it's refreshing to see some novel takes on narrative design in this age of iteration and uniformity of design.

Marathoned life is strange this week because it sounded fantastic. I loved it and also went back to watch the Beast Boys play too. Bought invisible inc and Undertale too while listening to the game of the year podcasts.

I played Hacknet after seeing that Jeff & Vinny were really into it and I loved it. Stylish, unique, great soundtrack and oddly satisfying. Just a neat game all around, highly recommend it.

Getting back into Witcher 3 at the moment. I got the bad ending my first time through, so I'm playing through the end again to get the good ending, and then I am going to finally play the Hearts of Stone expansion that came out.

I bought Axiom Verge during the steam sale and now I'm obsessed with it. It's the Metroidvania (ugh) game that I've wanted for a long fucking time.

I played Dying Light when it first came out but I stopped playing right about the time you get to the second area (Old Town). Picked it back up and I forgot how great the game was. Having a tremendous time with it. After I finish it I'm going to jump back into Witcher 3 for the DLC.

Currently catching up on some Witcher 3. What a beautiful game.

I got The Last of Us for Christmas and I'm going into that, also picked up Batman: Arkham Knight

I'm trying to get in to Black Ops 3, i love the graphics.

I spent the last few months mostly on longer games like Fallout 4 and Witcher 3. This year, I'm doing something very different to get through more games by mainly playing shorter games.

I'm excited to finish Life is Strange and then play Cradle, The Beginner's Guide, and Contradiction. There are many, many, many more, but those are three highlights from my first "To Play" list for the year. :)

Yeah, I haven't put my GOTY list up yet, because I'm trying to finish or get farther into 2-3 games I started last year. Since my list is just for fun, I personally like to try to get through games I started last year for a more "accurate" list that I can look back on years from now.

2015? I'm catching up with 2011. Currently playing through Resistance 3, which only about four hours in is my favorite of the trilogy so far. Not that competition is particularly stiff. The first suffers from being a very early PS3 game, the second suffers, well, from being itself. They struck a good balance with 3. For being mostly associated with Ratchet & Clank, Insomniac did a very good job with the FPS genre. The weapons are awesome and controls are fucking tight.

Two games I plan on digging into are ori and the blind forest and undertale.

Finishing things I didn't complete on my personal GotY list and just started Citizens of Earth

Right now I'm playing the following:

• Dragon Quest Heroes - After 35 hours, I think I'm done with it. It's a pretty solid game, but I just think I've had enough of it.
• Xenoblade Chronicles X - My primary addiction at the moment. There's something about this that just kind of works even though I'm not sure the average human being is meant to understand all of this game's systems.
• Danganronpa 2 - Man.... I really liked Danganronpa. The gameplay was really meh, but it didn't grate on me the way it does in 2. I'm on chapter 4, but after the last trial, I might turn the difficulty down to easy just to get through this as fast as possible.
• Book of Unwritten Tales - After hearing Vinny talk about the second game, I bought the bundle of the first two games during the Steam sale. I'm not too far in yet though.

After that, I plan on playing a lot of Rogue Galaxy and Invisible Inc.

Resistance 3 wound up being one of my favorite FPS campaigns of all time. I almost skipped the game because it didn't look particularly exciting, so I was very pleasantly surprised. It nailed its tone, had the best gameplay of the series, and it constantly varied up the campaign's level design. Haven't played since release so I'm due for a replay.

I didn't do a game of the year list in 2011, but Resistance would have been near the top.

I wanted to get Xenoblade Chronicles X before the end of the year, but just didn't have the time. Besides that, I started Hotline Miami 2 and might keep that up for now. I should finish Ori since I'm near the end. I played a ton of Splatoon over the summer, but lapsed once Super Mario Maker took over my Wii U. Might get into that once again.

Working on getting the Platinum Trophy in One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 on PS4. It's a great game to play while listening to music/podcasts/etc. Working on getting S-Ranks on every island in one mode, then after that it's just grinding out different characters to get all the skills and upgrade coins.

After that, who knows? Should get back into Tales of Zesteria.

Soma. I've been meaning to play it for awhile, but finally got it after the GOTY talks. So far its really great.

@smtdante89: I haven't watched much One Piece (other then a few episodes of the 4kids version waaaaaaaay back when) so I'm not too aware of it's game incarnations but the Pirate Warrios games are made by Koei and Dynasty Warrior-esque right? From everything I've seen of that series and it's cast of characters/villains seems to make it a great fit for that kind of series treatment. I love me some Koei games, even the grind since like you I take the opportunity to bang out some podcasts while getting whatever mcguffin is the order of the day in a particular warriors title. Maybe that series will jump on the Xbox One at some point since I do my gaming there.

I saw a few mentions of Witcher 3 and every time I see it mentioned I'm tempted to go out and buy it but know it will just sit in my shelf. After Phantom Pain I'll probably bust into Rise of the Tomb Raider and then maybe Wasteland 2, I even bought Mad Max for a black friday bargain of twenty bucks, not to mention a bunch of indie stuff like Don't Starve: Giant Edition which I've wanted to play. Might just be better to wait for a combined edition of witcher with the two expansions and then carve out some time to jump into it.

Goddamn, it's only ten days into 2016 and I'm already swamped with choice after I finish metal gear.

I just got a PS4 not too long ago, so I've been dipping my toes into a lot of stuff just because of the novelty. The only games I've put significant time into so far are: The Witcher 3, Battlefront (almost exclusively couch co-op horde mode), Magicka 2 (also couch co-op), and Rocket League. Mario Maker and Splatoon never go too long without a quick level/match being played. I'm also chipping away at Morrowind and The Talos Principle on PC, but those aren't 2015 games.

I've just finished up with AC Syndicate and it actually is a fun game. I've played all of the major AC games so far and it's the most fun I've had since Brotherhood so I'd definitely recommend giving it a go!

It's not even 2015, I've been playing a lot of Need for Speed: Rivals since it was on a sale an man that is actually a pretty fun game. From what I saw of the latest Need for Speed release the hud elements and so forth is very similar so I think they just too Rivals and evolved the formula a bit but the world doesn't seem as diverse. Either way, Rivals is a fun little arcade racing game and I'm not at all bothered by the lack of interaction with other players as Jeff appeared to be.

It's not a 2015 game, but I just started replaying fire emblem awakening to get ready for Fates next month.

Finally getting around to White Night, and it seems real neat thus far. Would have definitely made it into my GOTY list for 2015 if I could have been bothered to make one. And if I had also started playing it within 2015 for that matter.

Given our eerily similar tastes it seems like a game you too would enjoy, @lost_remnant!

Does my fourth playthrough of 1992 classic A Link to the Past count?

Since January started, I've finished the normal and pacifist routes of Undertale (I started it New Years Eve) as well as completing Her Story, seeing all the clips. And I played a bit of Yoshi's Woolly World when one of my friends came over. I didn't get around to any Metal Gear over this break (so I'll have to do that in the Easter or Summer) and I also didn't start off Witcher 3 (which was a Birthday/Christmas gift), though I did play about 40 hours of Xenoblade Chronicles X before the new year so I could be happy with my community GOTY list I entered.

During my free time at university (which I leave for later today), I plan on playing more: Xenoblade Chronicles X, Yoshi's Woolly World; as well as completing Pokémon Alpha Sapphire (2014) and starting Majora's Mask 3D (another present). I also bought Rocket League, Ori and the Blind Forest, The Beginner's Guide, Grow Home, Axiom Verge and Cibele on the Steam Sale that I haven't got around to yet (from the sale Undertale and Her Story are all I got through).

Edit-- How could I forget these great titles I want to play more of (and will have access to on my laptop and WiiU at Uni): Life is Strange, Super Mario Maker, Bayonetta 1&2, Pikmin 3 (final area), Xenoblade Chronicles (2011 - I should probably just forget about my 100% playthrough and walk into the final dungeon), The Last Story (2011) and Pandora's Tower (2011)

I'm about 15 hours in to Pillars of Eternity, which I had no hope of finishing last year what with everything else I played through so I held off playing until now. There's still a pile of other games from last year that I either haven't had time to start (Ori, Her Story, Axiom Verge, Stasis) or I want to go back to complete (Fallout 4, Just Cause 3), but so far I'm just sticking with PoE.

I'm really enjoying my time with Assassin's Creed Syndicate at the moment so planning to finish that and might play some Tomb Raider in between when it comes out on PC.

There's also the Witcher DLC I want to dig in to, heard some good stuff about it.

I'm gonna play Undertale, Axiom Verge and maybe Tales of Zestiria. Also going to make my heavily delayed GOTY list (chances are at least Axiom Verge is gonna be on it, so I wanted to play it first).

Renowned Explorers: International Society

Saw it appear in a few of the GB guest GOTY lists and I'm loving it. In between Elite Dangerous sessions that's all I'll be playing until Dragon's Dogma gets its PC release.

I cracked the (digital) seal on Life is Strange this weekend. I had watched the Quick Look and GB East's first Choose Our Own Adventure, so I knew most of what happened in episode 1. Started playing, finished episode 1, started on 2.

I'm on board. This is all great so far. Even if it didn't have the time mechanic, I'd still be interested in seeing Max and Chloe's story play out. And it's such a pretty looking game. Sure it cribs a bit from the Telltale/Walking Dead formula and style, but I liked TWD, and it's different enough that it doesn't feel like a copy. It's its own thing.

I'm trying to wrap up a bunch of left overs while there's a lull in new releases. So far I've finished Just Cause 3, Tales from the Borderlands, and the Hearts of Stone DLC for The Witcher 3. I still have Black Ops 3, AC: Syndicate DLC, Bloodborne DLC, and Until Dawn to tackle.

Same here. After reading about a hundred hours of gameplay in Pillars of Eternity, I've kept putting it off, but I've finally started it. 10 hours in, and it feels vast. I wonder if I can finish in 100 hours!

Now that I've finished the story on Xenoblade Chronicles X (as of Saturday) I can now start putting time into other games. Few things I want to sink my teeth into.

1) Hacknet. Was interested in it anyway, but I didn't realize just how much Jeff and Vinny loved it, so I grabbed it during the steam sale.

2) Undertale. Another Steam sale said screw it bought it moment.

3) Finally playing the XCom reboot. Not 2015 but still.

Beyond that I'm still going to be working on Xenoblade, as while I won't likely 100% it I'm going to get farther (I still have 1 character to unlock, want to clear all the affinity missions, and at least more of the story side missions).

I completely wrote off Assassins Creed: Syndicate earlier in the year but after hearing how much the staff and others enjoyed it I picked it up on sale and started hopping on roof tops and killing dudes. I was pretty sour on it the first hour or so of playing but it has really turned around for me. I haven't gotten far enough to when the out of animus stuff gets interesting but I'm having a lot of fun with it so far. Some things still bug me about how that game treats it's story and characters but I've come to let that go for the most part and just have fun in London.

I've been playing an ungodly amount of Nuclear Throne. Finished Tales from the Borderlands over the weekend which was great. Right now I'm looking at maybe digging into Rebel Galaxy or perhaps the Heart of Stone DLC for Witcher III.

I just finished T.I.T.S: SC on Saturday and started up Xenoblade Chronicles X. That game seems like it's going to take up a few months of my time.

Started playing AC Syndicate and it's been a pretty good time. One of the best looking games on pc i've played (although i can't max it out), and the grapple hook is fun. The AI is horrible though, and I kinda wish they would just tone down the combat a lot and focus on building the stealth mechanics more. I need to get back to the witcher 3 and finish that up and get the dlc, fallout 4 will probably remain unbeaten like every other bethesda game before it.

What's this game about tits?

Finally getting to Hearts of Stone for Witcher 3. Almost wanted to wait for all the DLC but I keep hearing good things.

I just cracked into Grow Home. It's really interesting so far. Hasn't super grabbed me but I do really like its uniqueness.

Came very close to buying SOMA but I have enough to play already that I figured I'll wait a bit.

Otherwise old games far past 2015. I continue to enjoy Evil Genius (especially with a great total overhaul mod that was released that really rebalances the game, check it in the Steam community hub) and I have Children of the Nile on deck. Never played either one but I was in the mood for that kind of builder/sim/tycoon-ish game and the recent ones look boring to me.

There are two T.I.T.S. You really need to finish with the first one before you start the second.