Best of 2016
Potential spoilers in the writing for any of these games. And yes, I feel terrible not including Doom or Overwatch or Civ VI or XCOM 2 but...fuck it, it's my list and I liked all of these games just a little bit more.
List items
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Mafia 3 isn't without its problems: I found the gunplay to be sloppy to the point of unmanageable without copious assist from auto-aim. Driving was squirrely at best. Mission structure wasn't just repetitive – there really seemed to only be three types of missions repeated across 40 discreet missions, making the game seem padded out in a way it didn't need to be padded. And while there were reports of techincal issues with the PC version at launch, many games and PC ports suffer from these "launch window" issues that are unfortunate but frequently corrected quickly, and I had almost no issue playing on PS4. These complaints still weren't enough to keep me from naming Mafia 3 my Game of the Year for 2016. Mafia 3 used storytelling methods rarely used in video games to tell a revenge tale that harkened back to the Blaxploitation and pulp revenge genre films as much as its titular mafia category, with memorable characters and a story I was amply rewarded for seeing through to the end.
One of Mafia 3's best traits is how it's an open world game without the distractions that pad out most open worlds. All side missions funnel into increasing your source of cash or favors from recruited NPCs and the copious amount of collectibles in the world are completely, purely optional. There is one resource that needs to be collected in order to construct phone bugs which are then used on junction boxes kind of like how most open world games treat climbing some kind of tower to reveal more of a map, but Mafia 3 makes this completely optional, meaning these junction boxes provide extra intelligence about an area; they're not required to access an area or complete missions at all.
The second way Mafia 3 excels is in it's creation of a time and place: 1968 "New Bordeaux," an obvious New Orleans analogue. Playing as an African-American main character (Lincoln Clay) in the late-60s American south has gameplay impacts that could even be used in a more modern game – police are slow to respond to poor, majority minority areas of town if they respond at all while Lincoln can be put on the run for walking into a segregated establishment in the rich, white areas of town. The caricatures of white supremacy are clear signposts for that time and place the game is trying to evoke and perform their function well enough, but not as well as the casual racism you encounter not from foes, both major named villains and the nameless cannonfodder thugs that populate every mission, but from allies of a different color who easily toss around racial epithets, or those NPCs who are presumably otherwise indifferent to your existence, your struggle to right the wrong done to you and your extended family, and who just talk like that because it's okay. In a more positive way, Mafia 3 uses licensed music to help set that sense of time and place as well, relying on tracks well known and more obscure to set the signpost, "This is the SIXTIES, man!"
The soundtrack is large and varied, and used in a creepy, subtle way to signal a shift for the game's final mission. Approaching this mission in game requires a lengthy drive. This drive starts with Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Coming" playing on your car's radio, but the music transitions into a series of the same songs you've heard throughout the game, but more modern, frequently more sinister versions. This is helped by the game's narrative conceit; you're seeing this story told in flashback in modern day, with interviews from some of the key figures in Lincoln's life. This allows for multiple potential endings, and I like to pretend my ending where Lincoln left town and spent some time in California before dropping almost completely off the map has an unspoken coda where he had a son who now goes by the name Marcus Holloway who has joined DeadSec in their attempts to take down another corrupt system in Watch Dogs 2. But the real, actually in the game, and just as batshit crazy as it sounds payoff is a mid-credits scene where John Donovan, a former CIA intelligence agent who worked with Lincoln in Vietnam and then helped with his efforts to take down the mob in New Bordeaux, reveals during videotaped Senate testimony that he did all this just to get the names of those people who participated in the assassination of JFK, the committee chairman was implicated in documents Donovan recovered after Lincoln completed his time in New Bordeaux, and kills the Senator chairing the committee during the hearing, again on tape, as a warning to all those who were involved. I swear I am making none of that up and hope to any all deities that this is the set-up for Mafia 4.
Mafia 3 was probably too long and too repetitive for its own good. While combat got repetitive, stealth was a perfectly viable method of dealing with combat areas and gunplay was functional if unspectacular. But the story it told and its willingness to look at race in America in a critical light through gameplay and as part of its story makes it my favorite game of 2016, warts and all.
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Hitman is the most improbable entry on this list. The legacy of Hitman as an unforgiving stealth-based series seemed to have reached its peak with 2006's much loved Hitman: Blood Money and been retooled for a fanbase who didn't appreciate change in 2012's Hitman: Absolution which was...not well received. 2016's Hitman seemed to have the deck stacked against it from the start by announcing it would be an episodic release without elaborating on what that meant and failing to clarify it as the game faced delays. Additionally, multiple options for purchasing the game as a "complete experience" or a "starter pack" with little insight into just what customers would be getting.
Since 2012, "episodic game" has generally meant one thing: a story-driven experience where gameplay is based on dialogue choices or often cumbersome quick time events, player choice leading to minor variations in the story, and frequent delays in publishing episodes after the first one. This is the model Telltale used to great critical and commercial to success with The Walking Dead, then to diminishing returns with Fables. And then Borderlands. And then Game of Thrones. And then Minecraft and then The Walking Dead again and then Batman and then The Walking Dead for a fourth time and will repeat with Guardians of the Galaxy and then Game of Thrones again and so on and so on until the inevitable heat death of the universe or until we run out of properties to license and commodify. There was no way Hitman, a stealth-based third-person action game would fit into this model and thankfully, IO Interactive broke this mold in every conceivable way. While the series stayed true to it's roots as a third person stealth action game, each episode was a mission or set of missions set in a murderer's playground. "Opportunities" guided the player through ways to complete their mission by following discrete steps to infiltrate areas that would be off-limits without the proper disguise, procure tools to set up tragic accidents that would leave your targets dead and you walking calmly away while security investigated the "accident," and show glimpses of ridiculous areas of the map and other tools you could use to achieve the same ends with a little quick thinking and more daring exploration.
Hitman used its episodic structure to encourage players to use the time between episodes to seek out these strange, new ways to kill targets. Finding items throughout the map, using disguises, and completing various kills rewarded the player with experience points that leveled up your "mastery level" for that specific map. Higher master levels led to more places where you could start a mission and already be in a specific disguise, more places to hide smuggled items that could help you get through the level, such as a lockpick, a vial of poison, or an explosive, or more weapons you could choose to bring with you or hide in those smuggled spots for retrieval and use when necessary. Playing through each map multiple times revealed the clockwork nature of the AI routines that served as your opponent, but your actions never felt rote; there was always another thing to try or another path to take to see if you could complete one more ridiculous kill, like dropping a giant stuffed moose on a Swedish banker or killing a secluded mafioso with an exploding golf ball, or getting close to a rock star by disposing of the hired session drummer before he met your target, impersonating the drummer by playing a wicked solo, and snapping the target's neck as you met secretly to discuss joining the band.
Hitman has an overarching story tying each episode together, but more of a draw were the "Elusive Contracts," time-limited assassinations for you to complete during a set period of 2-7 real world days that were gone forever once time ran out, you completed the mission, or you attempted the mission and failed. Unlike the core game, there was no saving during these missions; fail and your only option was to truly "save scum" and quit before your character was killed and try again from the beginning or take your loss like the professional you are. These were something special for the community, and as someone who didn't get invested in the game until much later, missing the first dozen or so is one of my greatest gaming regrets from 2016.
Rhe 5 episodes of Hitman that made up Season One have been released, but Elusive Targets continue to appear, there's a holiday mission using the game's excellent first episode map, and Season Two has been confirmed. For a game that had the deck stacked against it in terms of expectations from its format and prior series release, Hitman came out of nowhere to surprise me with a killer 2016 experience.
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Hearthstone has been on my Game of the Year list since the year before it was officially released. From closed beta to release to ongoing adventures and expansions, Hearthstone (known as Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft until late this year) is a digital card game that reinvented competitive play this year by introducing "standard" mode that rotates which cards are legal as new sets are released and "wild" where anything goes. The latest expansion, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan also introduced a first for the series in tri-class cards which are explicitly synergistic with three of the nine classes in the game; cards had previously been either class specific or truly neutral. New sets – the Gadgetzan expansion, the One Night in Karazan solo adventure, and the year's earlier Whispers of the Old Gods expansion kept shaking up the metagame, made my brief forays into the competitive ladder each month fun, and sated my gaming loot lust by giving more card packs to open. I fell out of doing my Hearthstone daily quests at the end of 2014 s I moved cross country, picked it up again in 2015, and fell off again as I spent some time in and out of the hospital. It was easy and comfortable to pick Hearthstone back up when I felt up to it, and knowing Hearthstone will be updated on a regular schedule each year will keep this somewhere on my Game of the Year list indefinitely.
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Stardew Valley has been described as the best Harvest Moon game in years, and while I have no experience with Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley wormed it's way into my heart and took over my gaming life for a period in 2016. Stardew Valley is a top down 2d farming simulator that sees the player break up his or her day into farming, fishing, mining, and socializing with the people of the town which you have moved to and taken over the farm of a deceased family member. The daily structure gives a player a time limit they have to manage and there's always one more task to complete – one more crop to plan or water, one more tree to chop down, one more fish to catch or crab pot to empty, one more floor in the mines you can explore for ore and treasure. There's a deeper story about restoring the town's dilapidated community center that wraps around you building your relationships with the townspeople, and it's all just charming as hell. The Civilization unofficial motto of "one more turn" became "one more day" for me as I built my farm from a rocky mess to a lush, productive cash producing giant. The recent release on consoles has me excited to play again and still always have more thing to do.
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Titanfall 2 illustrates why so many were disappointed that the original Titanfall had only a series of bot matches with voice-overs for its "campaign." Titanfall was made by Respawn Entertainment, a studio built from the ashes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's creator Infinity Ward after a falling out between the leadership of Infinity Ward and Call of Duty's publisher, Activision. After essentially creating the modern first-person shooter campaign and multiplayer progression structure, Titanfall was a thin experience for people averse to on-line shooters. That said, the original Titanfall remains the only multiplayer shooter in which I've ever "prestiged," and Titanfall 2 keeps the fast-paced player movement and expands on it...when you're not marching around the battlefield in a giant war machine. There are more options for Titans too, with multiple loadouts for multiple frames, although why anyone would choose a Titan besides Tone is beyond me. But Titanfall 2's single player mode is something special. The story of aspiring Titan pilot "Jack Cooper" and the Titan he inherits during battle is one of the more emotionally engaging stories told in games in 2016,with the bond between pilot and Titan growing in between periods of you controlling both of these characters and simply doing dope shit. The standout moment is the entirety of a mission named "Effect and Cause," and has the player mostly on foot, using a unique mechanic in modern shooters to solve combat and platforming puzzles. I'd have played an entire game like this, but the confidence of the Titanfall 2 team to put this mechanic in place, blow the player's mind, and then go back to other things they want to do with their robot shooter has me very excited for a possible Titanfall 3. Respawn also deserves recognition for the "Network" feature they built into their multiplayer game, where players with the same interests can group up, find games together, and enjoy a bonus XP "happy hour" once every day. And all this would be for naught if the movement and shooting didn't just feel so damn good.
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Uncharted, as a series, has long has great stories, breathtaking visuals, and amazing, cornerstone set-pieces. Uncharted 4 added some stealth elements that made avoiding the tedious gunfights between these moments more palatable. Nolan North as Nathan Drake, who has done voice acting for every game released since 2005, is joined by Troy Baker, who has done voice acting in every game released since 2010. The good news is their characters have chemistry and make believable brothers, with each fitting somewhere on the slimeball scale that keeps them endearing but, you know, still kinda slimeballs. I want to believe this is the final story of Nathan Drake, mainly because Naughty Dog nailed the landing of giving him, Elena, and Sully a satisfying send off after 4 games and didn't ruin the pathos by introducing Baker's character of Sam Drake. Where Oxenfree and Firewatch told good to great stories with more simple gameplay elements, Uncharted 4 continues the series' tradition of great story, great action, and games that look like nothing else available on consoles.
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Firewatch wraps up my double shot of narrative-driven games that look great, have simple controls, and stick with you past completion. Firewatch has a mystery tucked into a story about loss and loneliness and making human connections while messing with punk teenagers shooting off fireworks IN A DRY-ASS NATIONAL FOREST. TEENS ARE THE WORST. Firewatch looks great and gets bonus points for implementing a map mechanic where your firewatcher character's map is an actual paper map he holds up to his face. The less said about the story the better as it hits harder if you don't know what's coming, but I feel comfortable saying "Come for the Olly Moss visuals, stay for the narrative gut punches."
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Oxenfree is a tightly paced story about teenagers on a haunted island and how they interact with each other, but more importantly it's about how their relationships grow and change through trauma. While people avoid spoilers for AAA blockbusters, the less that's said about this game the better because major story beats share importance with quiet, conversationally driven moments. There's a little too much backtracking through areas, but not too much to distract from the story significantly. For a one or two sitting, emotionally engaging and creepy as hell at times experience, grab Oxenfree, clear a few hours, and just go with it.
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It's Skyrim, redone on consoles with better graphics, mod support, and all the open world jank you've come to expect from Bethesda games. But again, it's SKYRIM. I've put over 85 hours into this reissue after playing 130+ hours in the original 2011 release. I've killed dragons and emperors, I've snuck through caves, I've pickpocketed merchants, mixed potions, made old weapons into magical instruments of unstoppable death, and smithed roughly 3 million iron daggers. And I'll keep doing all of those things. It's Skyrim, it's great, and it's still fun.
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I honestly believe The Division would be in my top 3 games of 2017 had it not been released in 2016, and that's more a function of how I've been able – or unable in this case – to play games that seek to be a "lifetime" investment. Like Destiny, this is a game that requires an on-line connection and funnels the player through a story towards repeatable, high-level endgame missions and Player-vs-Player content that has a unique twist to encourage cooperative play until you stab each other in the back for sweet, sweet loot.
The Division had problems at launch, and Ubisoft delayed their DLC plans to address player feedback and make the endgame content more rewarding. Unfortunately, games like The Division which stress on-line coop for completing story missions were games I couldn't play due to a 15 year struggle with ulcerative colitis that worsened as games like those became more popular and prevalent. Without the ability to pause a game IMMEDIATELY when I needed to step away, I felt unable to group up to complete missions, and missions were scaled for groups of players.
The game, despite these drawbacks, was far from unplayable for me. There were enough side missions and "open world" activities that I was able to essentially over-level my character and found that most missions were solo-able if I was two to four levels above the recommended level. Unfortunately, the story wasn't interesting or engaging enough to make me want to come back and keep playing knowing that the endgame would funnel me into more of the online content.
So why would this game do better with me in 2017? I touched on one reason: the developers have listened to player feedback and improved the endgame content to be more varied and engaging. On a personal level – I don't have ulcerative colitis anymore after two surgeries. The downside is that there's a real potential this game has passed me by. If you're not running endgame missions at the highest level with optimized gear and skills, no one will want to group up with you, and you can't find or earn the gear you need without completing these high-level missions. Hopefully, in 2018 or 2019, I'll be ready to join in and invest in The Division 2 from the start.
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Quadrilateral Cowboy has been years in the making; I think I've been waiting for this game to be released for 4 years. While I traditionally go for more story-based games, Quadrilateral Cowboy is a puzzle game with a blocky future steam/cyber-punk mashup aesthetic...but it's a pure puzzle game. The puzzles require you to use command line tools and manage systems and robot tools to complete heists. I'm a sucker for games that promote the use of command lines and programming: HackNet, Human Resource Machine, TIS-100 are all great games in the tradition of Uplink, but Quadrilateral Cowboy is the cream of the crop.
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