My 2016 List
What a year huh?
List items
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Without a doubt this was my favorite game of the year. I loved Limbo, but Inside went beyond my expectations. The detail at which Play Dead crafted every detail in the environment, and the characters animations are second to non. I was constantly amazed not only the wonderful animations but of the subtle and vague story telling that you rarely see in games.
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The Souls series is my all time favorite so DS3 being here is obvious. It gets a lot of slack being derivative and full of callbacks but there is still nothing like a Dark Souls game so why deviate from the golden formula. I feel that From Software has been toeing the line between hardcore Souls fans and rounding the corners of the mechanics and RPG elements to invite new players into the series, and I am alright with that being a late Souls player (started at DS2).
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I have never finished a Team Ico/Ueda game before The Last Guardian. I attempted to play Shadow of the Colossus last year and was instantly turned off with its dated controls. But The Last Guardian's development story, and visual style made me give it a shot. After some getting used to the controls I fell in love with the game, and the large beast Trico more specifically. I recently adopted a puppy several months ago and dealing with Trico reminded me exactly of my frustrations and rewards while training a dog. The game beautifully simulates the cycle of learning with a new companion and the bond formed between animal and human. Finally the story, specifically the last half of the game was exactly what you would expect out of a Ueda game, emotional and memorable.
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Any Giant Bomb fan will tell you that Hitman was one of the best games of the year. I've only played a couple hours of the game but I have watched 10 times that on the site and absolutely love this game. The player freedom is amazing and the level details are second to non. Nothing beats sneaking up on an NPC and starting to choke them out, and right before they black out you hear them whisper "No, it's my daughters birthday today" or "Thank you....".
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I grew up a Nintendo fanboy, never owned owned a PC capable of playing FPS in the early days so Doom's history is only a story to me. The way everyone spoke of Doom (2016) made me interested, and the $20 price tag on Amazon didn't hurt. I wound up drifting away from the game, and picking up something else, but my time with it was a fun rollercoaster that I would recommend to anyone looking for a great time, without taking yourself too serious.
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After years of waiting for Jonathan Blow's follow up to Braid, and semi-closely following The Witness's development blog, I could barely wait to totally submerge myself in this beautiful and mysterious island. And submerge I did. I might have spent around 20 hours with this game, solving puzzles at a fairly brisk pace...and only banging my head on a couple puzzles. After solving all of the ground level puzzles and lighting all "light beams" I entered the mountain....and totally fell off this game. I really love The Witness and I wish it was higher on my list, and I wish that I finished it. I felt that it was several hours too long. I am aware that you do no need to light all 'beams' to enter the final area, but I enjoyed the puzzles so much I didn't want to stop. There just wasn't enough pull for me to finish the mountain bunker and see the end. With that being said, The Witness is amazing. I will return to some day, probably just live on that island and forget about the puzzles.
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I did not own a PS3 so I missed the Uncharted trilogy and the love for Nathan Drake. I did purchase and play through the Nathan Drake Collection and before playing Uncharted 4 and found them all enjoyable. I was unfortunately disappointed with Uncharted 4, despite it being an amazingly crafted game with top notch graphics and mechanics. I love the exploration, the climbing and slight puzzle solving but find the waves of enemies and gun play to be just plain boring, and frankly the lowest points to a decent story/game. I wish Naughty Dog would have taken more from The Last of Us and made combat feel like it had real stakes. And finally I absolutely despise the final boss in this game. I will not spoil anything, but I found it frustrating not due to its difficulty but due to the fact that they introduced new mechanics at the end of the game. I am admittedly terrible at button prompts/quick time events, as well as reading directions in a pinch, but why was the final fight so different from the rest of the game?
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Despite the hype and the drama, I spent a good 50-70 hours playing No Man's Sky before dropping off to never return. It was clunky and confusing, mixed with a touch of frustration, but I enjoyed every moment of it. I wanted this game to quietly wander around cool looking worlds, and thats sort of what I got.
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My pick for best style and soundtrack of 2016 hands down. The game play was wonderful, but I found "tell the player nothing" aspect a bit too much for me at the time I was playing it.
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Firewatch was short and sweet with amazing art direction. There were a lot of technical issues on PS4 unfortunately, but it didn't stop my enjoyment of the story.
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Being a Souls fan I was excited to play Salt and Sanctuary. I never really meshed with the control scheme and always found combat difficult because of it. I also couldnt wrap my head around the Dark Souls, hide behind a shield and make your way around to the back of an enemy, style in 2-D, but have watched plenty of better players find this game much more enjoyable. Hopefully I will give it another shot some day.
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I love Far Cry 3 and 4 but Primal fell short. Maybe I need guns and explosions....I don't know.
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I really wanted to like this game, I loved the setting/style but found the open world/Ubisoft-nesss of it too suffocating. It got so bad that I would be talking to an NPC, and a phone call would play over our conversation, while a news broadcast was playing over those two things. My in game phone was constantly buzzing, maybe an intensional statement on our always connected world/future, with silly side missions I had not interest in. I finally had to turn it off and felt good about never going back into that world.
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I like Mario, it was the first game I ever played as a kid in the 80s, and I love the perdition platforming of the side scrolling games, but this is not a side scroller. It is a great one handed mobile game with touch controls...and not for me.
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