**A work in progress**
Please remember this is a work in progress. If you are taking a peek at this list before I've reached my #1, it may seem a bit lacking. Thanks for your understanding.
A few notes and a couple of disclaimers
This is a list of all the games I played and beaten in 2016 alone, even though not all of the games were necessarily released in 2016. I've beaten ALL the games on this list to the end of the campaign or main story, no exceptions. The games on the list are not 100% accurate in terms of which platform I played them on, as the GiantBomb database is not complete. My commentary consists of my own opinions and nobody else's and relies on basic gaming knowledge of the game and the genre when reading them. And lastly, this is in no way, shape or form, a review.--I'm not describing the individual games, I'm describing my experience with them.
It's been a wild ride. Some duds, but for the most part, I enjoyed 2016 very much. In order from worst to best, starting with #49...
*Reminder: this list is in inverted order
Showing 1-10 of 28 items
#49 Not anyone even knows there was a game. There was. It was a bad movie tie-in that released digitally a week before the movie came out. It was free. A rag-tag development team was quickly hired to piece this thing together solely to promote the movie. It played like trash. It was unfun. And it literally had PS2 graphics. Not only the worst game I played in 2016, but it is also the worst game I have played this generation.
#48 Down here in the forty-somethings on the list, it gets a bit fuzzy. I don't know if Goat Simulator rests firmly at #48, or if it is more accurately represented as #45. All you need to know for sure is that whatever title you see, it's definitely better than the one immediately above it. I've heard of this game, as with everybody. I didn't get to play it until it got console-side. I just couldn't get behind what it was trying to do. I enjoyed small slices of the game at 10-mins at a time, for sure. But as an actual game, it was clunky, repetitive and ugly at its best. But being a purist that likes to beat all of his games, I probably put more time into this hunk than most did. It overstayed its welcome.
#47 Not a bad game. Just not a good one. I don't have overwhelming positive things to say about it in actuality, but I admire and appreciate what it was trying to do. I wish I could say it was a brilliant 2D, side-scrolling adventure game with inspiring puzzles and great story. But it fell short on all fronts. If this game got some polish however, I could see something on the level of Shovel Knight.
#46 Like Whispering Willows above it (you will see I often like to compare the titles above), this game was not bad, just not particularly good. Super Time Force had some really great ideas, they just weren't executed on an amazing level. The game... worked. But my little characters bouncing around the screen got overwhelming and tiresome. This game literally hurt my head after playing it. With all the characters, bullets and platforms flying around on the screen at the same time, in bright, pixilated graphics no less. Only about a 2-3 hours game, but I could only stand to play 20-30mins at a time. Just goes to show that not every innovative idea in the vg industry necessarily means it should be a thing. Nonetheless, I did enjoy my time with it. The first level and the beginning challenge modes were quite fun. Gets VERY convoluted later in the game and forces you to bruteforce your way through the stages and bosses. Despite me ragging on this game, it was still in a league of its own, better than the title before it on this list.
#45 These Lego games are always great. At least, they used to be. This had been sitting on my shelf ever since it came out. It was a launch game for my Xbox One and I was really in the mood for another Lego game. The newest game in the series I had played at this point of time, it was arguably bigger and better than all the other Lego games before it. But it just wasn't what I had come to expect anymore. The game felt exactly the same as the older ones. And I am just tired of the way they played, the no-fail mode, the endless collectables, ect. I just can't do these games anymore. At least it was an actual game with polish, compared to the titles above. Still, I was glad to move on after it was over.
#44 Now we are getting into games that I enjoyed with less critical backlash from myself. I thoroughly enjoyed this little title. I heard about, but never played the original on PC and mobile. The console (Evolved) version seems to be a bit better visually. But it is a straight-forward sim game, easy to pick up and understand. After a very short time with it and some frustrations later, I finished all the campaigns and walked away satisfied. One of those games not everyone will enjoy, but everyone should at least try once.
#43 Another semi-famous game I have heard about but haven't bothered to play until recently. Now you know why so few of the titles on this list were actual games from 2016. I've been too busy playing catch-up. Dear Esther is a first-person adventure game with no combat. Not much more. I enjoy the genre quite a bit, and this apparently is the first in "walking simulator" games. It was what I expected as the first in the genre.--Very short with a great narrative. I liked how melancholy the game was. I did enjoy it, but it being so short went a long way. I don't imagine a game like this being 10 hours long. Not a whole lot more to say.
#42 I loved this game as one of the hallmark gems on the 360 and enjoyed the Remastered version again here. Although not nearly as much as the first time. This was a comfort game for me. The humor used, the art style and the beat'em'up gameplay is not the best compared to other more modern games. But it is still a fun title and a complete package of the previously mentioned. The music is fantastic though, and holds itself up on its own merits, even compared to other titles. I remembered while playing it however that I did not really enjoy the grindy nature of the game in the end. But overall, a fun revisit.
#41 You're going to see a few Walking Simulator games on this list. I enjoy them. But this one wasn't terribly great. Still a pretty good game though. I consider myself a Telltale enthusiast. And for me, their Batman game fell a bit short. There is an episode of Impractical Jokers on television where they joke about making a video game titled "Superman: Just the Clark Kent Stuff" as a point for boring. I sorta felt this was that game, but Batman rather than Superman. But this isn't a joke, it's a real game. Not as bad as I am making it seem, just the weakest Telltale game imo in a series of similar games in the genre that all meet or exceed my expectations.
#40 I wanted to love the Adventures of Pip, but I only just liked it. Still, I liked it a fair amount. No real complaints. The game was not terribly hard, but not quite casual. The collectables weren't inane or overwhelming. And the story and concept were cool. If this retro-style game had came out back in the early-mid 90s, it would have revolutionized the platforming genre with its cool concepts. But today, it's just a mediocre platformer as is.