Last year we had a few great videos game and then a sea of mediocre titles. This year we saw more great games then I could put on this list. Honourable mentions to the games I didn’t get chance to play like XCom 2, Civilisation 6, Overcooked and watchdogs 2. I’m looking forward to catching up and playing them early next year. This list is a little late since I needed the first two weeks of January to finish Dishonoured 2 and DOOM. But here it is my top ten games of 2016.
Pure FPS excitement in both single player and multiplayer. The only FPS this year that made me keep coming back for more multiplayer madness. A campaign that fits more excitement and variety into just six hours then what most games fit into ten or twelve.
Since the beginning of the series I would buy and play each hitman game as it was realised and each time I would enjoy playing them but not quite get it. The games would never make my top game lists and I would always finish them disappointed in how many attempts it took me to beat each level or how I just couldn’t find a really sneaky way to eliminate a target. That all changes with the latest release. Eidos made improvements to the user interface and game prompts that allow players to more easily attempt the hard or more complicated methods of eliminating targets. The elusive target mode gives me a great treason to play the game again every other week and always leads to some intense and tricky moments.
They combined two things I love; Total War and Warhammer. This is a game that I will end up player a number of campaigns over the next few years and probably end up with hundreds of hours played. Each time they add a new army as DLC I want to go back and start a whole new campaign. If they keep releasing more maps, army’s and units this could be the Warhammer game to end all Warhammer games.
Actually released in late September 2015. I missed the chance to play it that year and didn’t get around to it this year. But this game is one of the most fun co-op games I have played in years. It’s so good I feel bad about it missing last year’s chance so it has to be on the list this time. I always say that a true co-op game requires both players to require each other’s help and true teamwork. Many first-person shooters having a second or third person can make it a more chaotic and fun experience but it’s never necessary. In lovers in a dangerous space-time you have to work together and constantly talk to each other to just barely make it though some levels alive. You have to assign roles and strategies so you can make it though some encounters. I’m sure that overcooked is the same kind of fun but I have a hard time to convince three of my friends to play it with me hopefully next year I can get a four-player group together for that game.
I play the original DOOM every now and again since its fast-paced hectic fun with a great soundtrack. The latest version of DOOM understands what the original is all about and is a great FPS with both fun new features but still loyal to the core gameplay elements of the original.
An unexpected excellent adventure. One girl and her dog heading downstream on a raft in a flood. You have to fight to survive and at any moment you can go from being ok to having a broken raft, broken leg, starving and freezing while being hunted by wolves. The game has the perfect ramp in difficulty starting you off with having to outsmart and kill a wolf and then later attacking you with multiple wolves and then more deadly threats. The great randomization made it fun to play this game a number of times. With ten unique levels to travel through the game is emotional because of its permanent death rule. When you’re traveling downstream in your raft and you transition from a sunny steady watered flooded town to a stormy rapid water hazardous terrain you get the feeling of dread and concern since any hit on the rocks could be your last. When you finally make, it thought the storm and back into a sunny calmer part of the river the music starts playing and birds chirping and you get a feeling of calm and pull up the raft at the next clearing hoping you get an empty warehouse full of supplies and not a wolf’s den surrounded by poison plants.
I love me some cyberpunk and I love me some gadget/future tech based stealth gaming. The game has a few shortcomings but I enjoyed every moment playing it and the way I managed to clear out some rooms of security was hilarious.
Another great adventure into the fantastic fantasy world of Dark Souls. I wish they would have made more changes like they did when going from the first game to the second but still an enjoyable game. There are plenty of fun new bosses and levels that make up for the lack of gameplay changes since the last game. I wouldn’t want a Dark Souls 4 unless they changed it drastically I have now had my fill with this type of Souls game but would be interested in something that mixes things up a bit again. Parts of the fun of Dark Souls is not understanding everything that’s happening and having to figure it out the hard way and unfortunately the formula is just too familiar this time round. I get too comfortable in the game they need to make me feel unsure and uneasy again.
Persona! Wait no its not? But it is? Its basically a persona game. It’s like a half-length and budget persona game. Which might sound bad but this time round they mix the gameplay up in some crazy ways. In a single turn I was able to get over 20 attacks using the new attack chaining system. A unique way for as JRPG game to play and for that reason alone its worth playing and a whole lot of fun.
At the bottom of the list since gameplay wise it’s one of the most basic games I have bothered to play in a long-time. It’s simple and repetitive game. So it might not belong on a list of complicated well designed games but its different to anything else. I like to award games being different. Finding a Pokémon and then swiping up to catch it is plain but the fact you have to walk around and explore real life locations is the part that’s excellent. It kind of succeeded in its attempt to bring Pokémon to the real world. It’s not the gameplay that gives this game the number ten spot but the real-world locations design and the crazy events I was a part of because of it.
Seeing on my phone that a rare Pokémon is nearby and walking to some random part of town I would never normally go to and catch it. Only to see three other people there trying to catch it as well and getting to talk to people like the Pokémon are real. “You after that Blastoise as well?” “There was a Dagonite at my house yesterday”, “I hear there are great Pokémon normally at X”.
Meeting other Pokémon trainers out in the world and my friends going on walking adventures together to catch new Pokémon. A game that made me drive for an hour to somewhere with better Pokémon catching and then walk around for six hours catching them.
The police pulling me over because I look suspicious as I’m driving around at 2:00 in the morning catching Pokémon.
A whole bunch of great moments finding rare Pokémon on long walk and meeting another Pokémon enthusiast. A strange experience and a game I play on the way to and from work everyday.
Either it’s a great game or terrible game I don’t know any more I’m in too deep but either way I’m still playing and for at least the next few months I just might keep playing.
