The First Half of 2016: The Best Time to be Playing Video Games

Boy has 2016 been a year thus far.

Vinny's favorite tagline for the Beastcast might be slightly sardonic, but it is hard to remember a better period of time for video games in recent memory. The quantity and quality of games in the first half of 2016 has been astounding. At this point, the current generation of consoles is in full swing. PC gaming is still going strong. From sequels to originals, from AAA to indie, just about every area of the industry is firing on all cylinders at the moment. I'm basically going to gush about a lot of video games for about two-thousand words, so I can't help you if that’s not your bag.

XCom 2 Got Me Through Snowpocalypse

XCom 2 released just in time for the biggest snowstorm of 2016. Thanks to our glorious digital future, I was able to purchase the game, go shovel, and return an hour later to spend the rest of the day parked in front of my TV. And thank god for the Radeon R9 390 I purchased last Fall, as this game was shockingly a resource hog, especially at launch. This was also the first big AAA game that gave my new Steam Link a workout, and I was pleasantly surprised how well it held up. Save one or two occasions, the game ran lag free from my downstairs PC to my upstairs room.

As for the game itself, I was addicted to this game for the next two weeks. I played it obsessively during every spare moment of free time up until the point I finally finished the last mission of the campaign. It's a shame between its early year release and the numerous technical issues it had at launch that it has been somewhat overlooked, because XCom 2 is a better game than its predecessor in most every way.

Clearing the Backlog

Like many others, I used the early months of 2016 to clear out ye ol' gaming backlog. I managed to finish up the first two Danganronpa games, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Cibele, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Rebel Galaxy, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Affordable space Adventures, and Bloodborne: The Old Hunters. But most importantly of all, I finally got around to playing The Talos Principle. If for some reason you still haven’t played that game, you owe it to yourself to pick it up. This is especially true when it is regularly on sale for about $10 on both PC and PS4. The Talos Principle quickly became one of my favorite five games of the past few years. From its insidious, yet fair puzzles to its creative and surprisingly emotional narrative, this is the best puzzle game since the original Portal. In some ways, it even resulted in me perhaps liking The Witness, which I would play a few months later, a bit less.

TellTale's Tree Bares Fruit

Both Campo Santo and Night School Studios were formed by ex-TellTale employees, and the first game from each gives a glimpse into what that studio could be doing if it wasn’t caught up in their current release cycle. Sure, Tales From the Borderlands broke up a streak of mediocre (Wolf Among Us) and uninspiring (Game of Thrones, Walking Dead Season 2) games, but the studio’s output in recent years has become a little formulaic.

Firewatch is a first-person adventure game heavily focused on the dialogue between its two leads, Henry and Delilah, and the writers are able to use this level of concentration to make the pair the two most intriguing, believable, and relatable characters of any game released this year, at least in my opinion.The story works for the most part, even if it has some issues toward the very end.

Oxenfree meanwhile was a more traditional experience, but one which features without a doubt my favorite dialogue interface in a modern adventure game. If you check that game out for no other reason, it's worth at least taking a look to see how snappy it feels to have dialogue presented in smaller snippets in a way that doesn't take your eyes constantly away from the action to read dialogue choices on the bottom of the screen.

The Soul Still Burns

You can’t talk about the first half of 2016 without touching on the final entry in the Dark Souls trilogy. For me, Dark Souls 3 was about as satisfying a conclusion as one could hope for to one of the best series in recent history. While it didn’t quite hit the high standards of Bloodborne (keep in mind Bloodborne is my favorite in the series), I do think it might be the most fun game featuring the actual “Souls” title to play at this point. Most notably, I think this represents the best base game set of bosses FromSoft has ever produced.

Marvelous May

The two weeks from May 10^th until May 24^th produced three of the best games of 2016 thus far. Starting on the 10^th, we saw the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. After Uncharted 3 left a rather sour taste in the mouths of many fans, enthusiasm for this game seemed mixed at best. The departure of Amy Henning, writer of the original trilogy, certainly did little to inspire faith. Thankfully, Naughty Dog added enough new gameplay mechanics to the existing Uncharted game formula, while at the same time offering a more complex and thoughtful narrative than the series has previously featured. Cap it off with the fact it’s one of the best looking AAA titles ever produced and the result is arguably the best game in the series and a far more satisfying conclusion than Uncharted 3 was.

Blizzard meanwhile finally unveiled their big multiplayer class-based shooter: Overwatch. Overwatch is not just a financial hit for the company, but a bit of a cultural force. From a spirited conversation around video game rear ends to endless Play of the Game meme videos to Blizzard taking on Pornhub, not a week goes by without the game appearing in force on social media. Oh, and the game itself is also addictive as hell. Whether you sneak in a quick game or play for hours, there's something about the way everyone can find something to do in this game that makes it recapture a lot of what made Team Fortress 2 so great a decade prior.

And then there was Doom. I could gush about Doom for another two-thousand words, but that review I wrote was probably enough as is. While I'm not going to rank every game I’ve played to date, Doom would be my personal pick for Game of the Year thus far. There's not much else to say other than I'm still amazed this game is not just good, but as good as it is given the awful lead up to launch it had.

Come December, don’t be surprised if these three games combine for the majority of Best Game of the Year awards.

Severed: The Biggest Surprise to Date

Even as someone with a deep appreciation for DrinkBox's previous works, I did not follow the development of Severed. I ended up buying the game almost completely on faith after seeing just a few screenshots of it, as the art style immediately grabbed my attention. As much as I like Guacamelee, Severed is on an entirely different level. The combat is simple yet challenging, the art style is gorgeous, and the game’s sparsely yet emotional narrative is one of the best recent examples of minimalistic storytelling, a style that has unfortunately been copiously copied without much success. Save Persona 4: Golden (which is a bit of a cheat anyway), Severed is my favorite game to ever be put out on the Vita and my favorite handheld game since Link Between Worlds.

Severed will be coming out for the Wii U this summer. Amusingly enough, the Vita is about the only major gaming system in North America with a lower install base than the Wii U. Check it out if it in any way looks interesting to you.

Disappointments

Even in a strong year for games, not everything can be a hit.

The fortunate aspect of a good year for games is that I've had so much to play, I've been able to resist ordering games at launch and thus avoiding the most notable disappointments. Battleborn and Star Fox Zero were telegraphed. I keep thinking about getting Mirror’s Edge Catalyst just because of my love of the first game, even despite the collective “eh” that game was released to. But with that said, I do have to say other than the nuclear hot messes surrounding Mighty No. 9 and Street Fighter V's launch, we haven't had too many complete duds to date.

My personal biggest disappointment is a game that, thankfully, most people seem to like: Hyper Light Drifter. Given my love for Zelda, the Souls series, and indie games with unique art styles, you would think that game was made for me. Unfortunately, the combat didn't feel great until almost the midway point of the game when you had enough upgrades, the controls around chain drifting were unnecessarily restrictive with their timing, the exploration was an exercise in unrealized potential thanks to most collectibles being the same thing, and the story and lore were underwhelming.

Perhaps my biggest disappointment of 2016 though wasn't a game, but an aspect of it: the narrative of Fire Emblem Fates. Setting aside the overall mundaneness of the Fates games themselves, the result of all that added emphasis on storytelling and attempt to tell a more grandiose story was Birthright telling a generic, paint-by-numbers tale and Conquest being the most rage-inducing, slapdash, insulting take on grey morality in a video game in some time. Considering these games followed the excellent Fire Emblem Awakening, I’d go so far as to say the narrative of Conquest is my actual pick for most disappointing aspect of a video game of 2016.

My Top 10 Thus Far

The advantage of me being busy the past week was I got to sneak in a few more games before having to name a top 10. The other advantage to listing a top 10 right now is I don’t have to rank these games, as this list could change depending when you ask me. So in no particular order, here is my top ten thus far:

• Doom
• XCom 2
• Uncharted 4
• Overwatch
• Inside
• Severed
• The Witness
• Dark Souls III
• Firewatch
• Oxenfree

I'm dreading having to figure out a top ten come December. We're already at the halfway mark, so the odds are against at least three or four of these games being on a final list. The thought of a game like Dark Souls III or The Witness not being even a top ten game of this year for me is mind-boggling. I think I’d actually take this list here over my top ten from 2015, and that was one of the strongest years in recent memory!

The Best Time to Be Playing Video Games

My time right now (other than when playing Overwatch) is split between three games: The Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna, Salt and Sanctuary, and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. I'm also just getting started on Rhythm Heaven Megamix. I have a few recent purchases set aside for once I finish with those: Zero Time Dilemma (hey it finally shipped!), Stardew Valley, and Unravel. And like many others, I'm looking forward to early August when we finally get our hands on No Man's Sky.

So I hope you all enjoyed this little recap of the year so far. With so many big second half releases like No Man's Sky, Dishonored 2, Titanfall 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, and Cuphead, there's still plenty yet to come before we close the book on 2016. I hope you're all enjoying video games in 2016 as much as I am.

And don't forget my most anticipated game, Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice is coming out in September! No? Maybe that's just me…

I'm right there with you about how good 2016 has been. If the rest of the year is as good as what has already come out, then 2016 will be spoken of in the same breath as 1998 or 2007. I'm also happy to see you giving Severed props. For such a strong year, I'm genuinely surprised how well that game has stuck with me. Who knows if I'll still be talking about it in December, but more people need to check out that game!

It really has been a good time so far, with Doom the clear highlight for me. But I'll have to give you a bit of gruff for using Soul Calibur's tagline up there; you got me excited that I had missed a new SC game.

@cav829 Fun Blog Cav! 2015/16 has definitely a great midcycle peak like 2010/2011 and other peaks before it. Been a heck of a lot of fun, I feel like I'll be playing releases from these years for years to come.

totally with you on XCOM 2 Cav, been playing lately and the performance issues fro me are almost all gone other than slow loading screens on occasion. I feel like that and Rise of the Tomb Raider got shafted by the gaming public a bit due to circumstance

You mentioned playing it through the Steam Link, were you using a Steam Controller? That's how I've been doing it and while it's been workable I'm not sure I'd call it great. I do find it's a very good game to get used to the SC quirky layout (gotta admit I hate how far in the face buttons are I keep hitting Y when I want X), since it's turn based.

But man the Steam Link has been a godsend, there's a couple quibbles here and there I still have (like controller issues with USFIV and a little compression on some titles like MGSV) but that to me has been the single most transformative thing for me personally about this gen.

The title I'm most looking forward to is Dragon Quest Vii. That's been a hole in my gaming history for some time.

@darth_navster: I dunno man, this may be the crotchety old gamer in me a bit, but I don't think 2016 is going to be held up in quite the same light. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of fantastic solid titles and I'm having a blast, but their brilliance so far comes from execution and subtle refinements. Overwatch is exemplary of this. It's simply great, but it's also a gameplay idea/concept that has been around for a good while. Same with Doom and the Witness and DS3 and XCOM2.

What this console peak doesn't have is those landmark innovative titles yet that completely change how you think about gaming (like a GTAIII or Mario64). I think it's up to VR to produce something revolutionary and at least what I've demoed so far in VR hasn't convinced me that devs have got it anymore figured out yet than they did with motion controls.

Really solid mostly iterative games might be our new normal going forward now that console gaming is 30+ years old, and I'd be ok with that if we keep getting bangers like this.

I'm jealous you guys got to play Severed, I only have a PSTV which doesn't have the touch screen :(

Gotta clear that blacklog somehow. The "don't buy any games in a year" approach has been really hard with all the great games coming out.

I respect your taste sir .

Doom being so gushed over by SOOOO many people, even with an agreed upon meh multiplayer, has me all teary eyed. Such an awesome game I was hyping to friends for the years since its initial reveal, and to have it be justified is great..... except for the whole playing the competitive online multiplayer part.

@darth_navster: Severed is one of those games I just keep liking the more I think back on it. Right now, I think it'd be in my top five favorites if you put a gun to my head and made me rank a list, but yeah, it's going to be brutal trying to come up with a list at the end of the year. At the very least, I hope Wii U owners check it out. I mean as bad as the Wii U install base is, at least it's better than the Vita. You would think they would port it to tablets at some point.

@rorie: I deserve it! Man, it's depressing with how good Tekken 7 looks realizing that Namco can't figure out what to do with Soul Calibur. SC I and II are my two favorite fighting games of all time.

@slag: So I have a Steam controller, but for XCom 2 I played it with a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. I haven't been overly enthralled with the controller yet, but like you, the Steam Link has been the most transformative piece of gaming hardware I've bought in years.

"Which year is the best" discussions can be tough. I mean, it's all too easy to say "blank older year" will never be topped because it founded so many concepts. The best parallels to that can be found with sports, where it's too easy to just go like Babe Ruth/Ted Williams is the best ever and that will never change. But this could turn into a really long and complex discussion.

@eder: I know, I keep trying to bang out things on my backlog, but it's been tough with all the great new stuff out. I especially want to go back and play the Shadowrun Returns and Hong Kong after how much I liked Dragonfall. I also just bought the Homeworld Collection, which I really want to go back and play. I bought that with Deserts of Kharak during the Steam sale (Kharak is really good btw, but just not quite good enough to make that top ten list).

@spankingaddict: Thanks!

@wheresderrick: Yeah, the multiplayer is totally forgettable. That's okay for me because Doom was never about the multiplayer experience, even though it was the first online multiplayer shooter. Now if Quake Champions can do for multiplayer what Doom did for single player....

Good read dude. I really need to find time for Severed at some point. My Vita has exclusively been a Downwell-playing device for the last few weeks.

@eder: I told myself I was going to not buy any games until the backlog was cleared. I'm a liar now....

@slag: I get what you're saying, but I can't help but disagree with your conclusion. Video games have long been an iterative medium, and I don't think you can dismiss 2016 on that basis alone. Look at 2007, a year many agree to be one of the greatest in gaming. Very few of the big games really did anything new. I mean, Mass Effect was just a higher production version of Jade Empire and KotOR. Call of Duty 4 simply added progression to Call of Duty 2's already stellar shooter gameplay. Even Super Mario Galaxy could be reduced to a prettied up Super Mario 64. Or look at 1998. Ocarina of Time was basically a remake of LttP in 3D, Starcraft was just a space version of Warcraft, and the trio of Half-Life, Thief, and Deus Ex were just building on the foundation established by System Shock.

2016 could end up falling short of those great years, certainly, but I still think there's enough potential here to make it one of the greatest years in gaming. There's been enough quality software (Overwatch, Stardew Valley, Uncharted 4, etc.) and smart advances (Doom's health system, Oxenfree's approach to dialog, Pokemon Go's social dynamics) that I still think it can hang. Sure you can reduce all these games to iterations on what came before, but like how I dismissed avowed classics in my previous paragraph, it would be a silly exercise.

@cav829: Yeah, I'm definitely pulling for a smartphone/tablet port for Severed. I can't imagine the Wii U port will do much to boost its profile. I mean, I'm glad Wii U is getting software, but I sincerely doubt that Severed is going to get many people to turn their consoles back on.

@sloppydetective: I tried the 6 month approach because I knew I couldn't go a full year without buying games for myself. I made it about 5 1/2 months, so I'm proud of that. :)

Thanks also for mentioning the Severed game, as I didn't know anything about it. I'll look for it when it comes out on Wii U during the summer.

2016 has been a great year for games for so far.

My backlog's on hold, and I haven't bought any older games this year. Because 2016 has just been stacked.

I don't have much else I'm looking forward to, but the first half was something special.

Man all the negative buzz I've heard about the writing in Fire Emblem Conquest and Revelations isn't exactly enticing me to go back to them, considering I found the stories in Awakening and what I've played of Birthright subpar.

Still yeah I've played a lot of good stuff this year. Picked up that 7th Dragon game on a whim, turned out to be quite strong, the best thing I've played on 3DS in some time.

@thewildcard:Yeah, what I'll say about Conquest is don't play it for the story if you're going to. Only play it if you're jonesing for more maps. The quality of the maps themselves is quite high; it's definitely better than Birthright in that regard.

I was done with the Fates games by the time I finished the first two, so I didn't touch Revelations. I know in the GB thread a lot of people were saying the maps were too big to accommodate the size of the armies, Maybe someone else can elaborate on it.

None of those games did what GTAIII did. It was most certainly innovative: it did something that hadn't been done before.

I bet the GOTY podcast's are going to be longer than ever.

@dinkys: GotY is going to be a knife fight. I can't wait. I mean even though the Bomb crew wasn't really into XCom 2, none of them played Severed, and Alex is the only one who played Oxenfree and didn't sound like it was a top 10 type game for him, the other seven games will be a factor for them. And then you have to throw in Stardew Valley, Factorio, Salt and Sanctuary, and Hitman. There was a thread a month or so ago about games that were "locks," and I thought it was crazy people were already locking in things like Stardew Valley when Doom, Overwatch, The Witness, and now Inside are actual mortal locks given the universal staff love, and that's almost half a top ten.

@dudeglove:Not to mention there was another great Disasterpeace soundtrack for Hyper Light Drifter, more great Souls music (although Dark Souls games never seem to win that category), that fantastic Oxenfree soundtrack, and a few others. But man, that Doom soundtrack is so good...

@cav829: Stardew Valley is absolutely a lock in my opinion. Even if it was only Dan who played it for any length of time (?), it will still make top 10. Dan has been so passionate about that game that I see it being more of a lock than Overwatch for example, which I think more of the crew played. Just look at Invisible inc. from last year.

@frodobaggins: It's just too early to say that. It'd be today, but you can't lock in a game based on a single opinion on a site where eight (assuming Austin's position is filled) opinions will factor in. I'm waiting to hear what Vinny thinks of it. Those type of Invisible Inc. pushes end up being the only game someone like Austin really pushes for, and only if a spot or two is still there to make a push. It certainly wouldn't place over any of the other four locked in games. It still very well could make it; don't quote me on this in December saying it wouldn't make it. We just need to see the rest of the year.

I mean, this is kind of like me starting to realize something like Dark Souls III might not even crack my own top ten, which seems insane.

@ravey: even if GTA III didn't completely invent something it is undeniably responsible for the popularization of the innovation, e.g.Thomas Edison and the Incandescent light bulb.

You could say the same for Pokemon Go. And to the general gaming public that's what really matters.

@cav829: I'd be extremely shocked if Doom doesn't win GotY handily from the staff, not that I necessarily think it's the best game this year. I just think knowing their personalities and voting, it's likely going to have Jeff and Brad backing it very very strongly. Which almost guarantees a win given the way those two tend to dominate the conversation (unless they change the format). I don't expect anything other than Overwatch to give it a fight, and Jeff isn't real big on OW since he doesn't like team stuff so I'd be shocked to see it win.

Looking at the fall lineup unless CoD or Dishonored 2 is incredible I doubt anything else has a real chance at the top spot.

@slag: Yeah, right now I think Doom has it on lockdown. But then again, nobody really saw Doom being that good, so who knows. We'll have to see how much Overwatch holds up for everyone, but right now it'll certainly place high. I can't see CoD or Battlefield being that game. Deus Ex or Dishonored 2 have better shots.

I mean, there's still Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice...

@dudeglove:I know what you mean. There is some really good stuff in there, though (obligatory mention of Gwynn's theme kicking in during the Soul of Cinder fight). The main theme is great, though Bloodborne's is better as well. Either way, none of the other Souls game OSTs have ever even really made it far in the discussion as far as I remember.

Not to be a bummer, and I love games, so I'm not saying 'games suck now', I wouldn't do that, but I don't think this years been that great for me personally when it comes to games. Nothing that I really want to put on my game of the year list yet high up. Deus Ex is the game I'm anticipating most though, and there's more to come. Most games are either 'meh' to me (Firewatch); disappointing to some degree (Quantum Break, as it's Remedy, and to me, all their games have been great up until that point); even good, but still disappointing (Uncharted 4), and games that are fine, but nothing I consider special (Inside). Dark Souls 3 was also another disappointment; to me the worst Souls-esque game (in terms of the games from From). Doom wasn't that good either, I struggled to want to get through it. Nothing outright sucked so far, but again, nothing I would personally put near number one on my list.

2016 is a great year so far and looks like it'll continue. I think we're at the peak of this console generation in 2016/2017.

I expect Dark Souls 3, Uncharted 4, No Man's Sky and maybe FF15 will end up being the stars of the year.

Vinny ain't wrong.

@mambogator: 2016 for you reminds me of 2015 for me, although Life is Strange is up there on my all-time adventure game list, and after the DLC, Bloodborne is up there for me as well (it's my favorite Souls game at this point). But other than that, there were plenty of good games, but only a couple that really came off as great for me.

I'll probably give Catalyst a shot at some point, especially with how rapidly it has been dropping in price. It's already been a little over half off a couple of times.

You might want to consider giving XCOM 2 another chance and check out some videos on strategy with the game. It definitely takes some adjusting to from the tactics you used in original XCOM. That being said, I can see you not liking it due to the changes in the base management side of the game. That seems to be the part that turned Jeff off the game as well. I actually think the game is a little easier overall though once it clicks.