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jaqen_hghar

This is too much the best time to be playing video games! Too many games!

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Top Ten 2015

This has been a great year, both in gaming and in my life in general. It has been a year where I haven't had as much time to play games, and where I found and played older games for longer than I thought I would. Because of this I had a hard time finding 10 new games I have actually played this year. Which means this list will be a little weird. Every game I put on the list is also the PC version. This is the first year where I have played nothing on my trusty old 360 or PS3. If only I had a WiiU...
Another thing, I am writing this from the bottom up, so it will most likely be best to start reading from the bottom. Also, anything past number 10 are honorable mentions.

List items

  • I haven't beaten Witcher 3 yet, and it pains me to no end. Other games stole my time, while I at the same time waited for a big patch. The patch is out, as well as (what I hear) awesome DLC. And I will go back, I promise, because this is without a doubt the best game experience I have had this year. The world, the characters, the graphics, the story. It is all top notch. I don't see the hate Geralt gets, but maybe that's because I have read the first book and know more of his backstory.

    The Witcher 3 is a huge accomplishment as far as I am concerned, and it takes my number one spot this year.

  • As previously mentioned, I love building. And you can't really build things bigger than a city (well, you can, but that game isn't out yet). SimCity was a huge letdown, and the Cities XL series has been said to have deep flaws. But Cities: Skylines is a great one. I have yet to build a good large city without gridlocks 24/7. None of my cities has turned out to be aesthetically pleasing constructions. But I still love it. The inclusion of easy modding and adding of stuff through the workshop only makes it better, and has allowed people to do things like remove traffic lights in roundabouts (to make it a proper roundabout), add awesome sunken highways cutting trough my city and plonking down the Hill Valley City Hall next to Wayne Enterprises and the City 17 Citadel. Throw in a statue of Azura for good measure as well.

  • This is probably my biggest surprise of the year. I have never cared for Metal Gear Solid. In fact, I have actively disliked the old games for a long time. Sure, the story is bonkers in a way I can appreciate, but the gameplay... I am a lover of stealth, and playing through MGS2 on Xbox back in the day colored my perception of the series as a whole. "Stealth? Boy, please!" I would say and go back to Thief 2 on PC. I can't even see the love for Revengeance, and think that game is a hot piece of shit.

    Then Metal Gear Scanlon started. I pre-ordered Metal Gear V the second I had watched the Ground Zeroes episode, in order to play GZ right away. MGSV is one of the best games of the year. The gameplay, the open world, the graphics and animation, the little weird quirks. It's all there to make this game great. The story is so and so, mostly because there is not enough of it. And as a long time hater of MGS who came around on it all this year, I loved the twist at the end. It is exactly the kind of dumb bullshit I love in every type of story.

  • Yet another game I haven't beaten, but one I am working on as I write this. I am a sucker for all things Fallout, have been since the first Fallout. I am also a guy who adore crafting and building things. There is a reason I played hundreds of hours of Minecraft, mostly modded to add more and more crafting of machines and industry. In Fallout 4 you can only build houses and things to protect you and yours, and you can modify your tools of destruction. But this has proved to be very effective to me. Steam says I have 107 hours under my belt in the game. I am sure at least 30 of those has gone to building up Sanctuary, and my skyscraper on top of Red Rocket nearby. That part of the game is what makes me the most happy when thinking about what modders can do later. The story is so and so (still haven't reached its conclusion), the usual jank is there and the graphics aren't as crisp as some of the other games on my list. But the atmosphere is there. This is one of the games I really want to walk around in VR for some reason.

  • As with puzzles using logic ports, I am a sucker for faux programming. Turns out this was more than that. While simple and sort of crude, the programming you do in this feels so damn satisfying. When you think you got the solution, press run and see the numbers slot in the way they should... I love it. The interface and everything around the game portion is also really fun. Still haven't found out the truth of the whole thing though, as I am still stuck on a few of the programming puzzles. Ordering lists of numbers when all you have are addition and subtraction is kinda hard.

  • Yet another game I have only played with my brothers, and when they moved on to something else, so did I. But the itch is there. With every new update, with every new awesome looking DLC, I want to get back in. That is the sign of a good game. Probably the most fun I have had in a multiplayer competitive setting ever, and I normally don't like competitive multiplayer much.

  • I'm starting to feel like Rorie this year, as I am writing these up from the bottom up, and I see now that I haven't beaten that many of the games on my list yet. This is the one that pains me the most. Ori is a beautiful game, both in graphics and in sound. The hard gameplay came as a surprise because of it, and I love it. I am one of those crazy fuckers who beat Super Meat Boy in Dark World mode, and usually can't get enough of stuff like this. The thing that made me stop (temporarily) was also the thing that made me realize I love this game; the first tree you have to save and then escape from. The harrowing flight upwards through the dangerous tree with water rushing behind you was so tense, so "by the skin of my teeth" that I actually hurt my shoulders. Yes, I pulled a Dan Ryckert. The music playing at the same time probably helped me do that. So fucking good.

  • Another game I wish I had more time to play, as the concept and execution is awesome. I played through the initial few levels, then something else came along and stole my time. Been meaning to go back to it, but something else always comes up. Next year, HoF. Next year I will beat you.

  • I enjoyed this game a lot. Which is to say, I enjoyed exploring this world with my brothers. As with Dead Island, this was a family experience for me. The three of us ran, killed and survived together throughout the whole game, save for the last boss which you had to do on your own or something. I forget. I do not forget how bad that last boss encounter was, but whatever. The game in itself was highly enjoyable, and when the big DLC hits next year I am sure we are all in it again.

  • I wanted to play this the moment I saw it in action. For some reason I love the dry, logical puzzles games like this presents. Whenever something presents me with logic ports or something like that I want to try it out. And this is a really good puzzle game. I did not have time to beat more than the first set of puzzles, and I have seen that things have been added that both makes the game slightly easier, but also more tricky as you have more options. No doubt a game I will come back to now and then.

  • Best game of the year that I haven't actually played myself. I will get around to it someday, but for now I have only watched a "no-kill" playthrough that Steam Train (on Game Grumps) did. It is a surprisingly beautiful little thing, with a lot of heart and soul in it. The humor is great, the story goes places, and the music is really good. I especially like the ambient track that plays when you walk around called "Snowy", and how it changes in a great way when you play the genocide run. So beautiful.

  • I hate scary games. I just can't handle them. So Soma wasn't even on my radar when it came out. The I heard chatter about it, how it was this dark and surprisingly deep sci-fi thing. I got interested, and started watching a playthrough on YT by Markiplier. I stopped after a few episodes because I knew I had to play this myself. It is now sitting in my Steam library, ready to be played. But I know I won't be able to get to it just yet, so sorry Soma. Next year.

  • My "Best old game of 2015" award goes to Guild Wars 2! I started playing this is January, stopped after a few weeks, then came back to it a month before the expansion hit. And I have been playing it hard since. I think I am going to take a break now until my brothers want to play again, but mostly to get time for all my other games.

    Guild Wars 2 is a great game, as it is an MMO you can solo without trouble, save for a few spots. But if you find a friendly and fun guild, you can augment the fun, even if you are like me. I usually don't want to play with people I don't know, but I have still had a lot of fun. Sadly the GB Guild is mostly empty, but the Rock, Paper, Shotgun one called Rock, Paper, Signet is really cool and fun to be a part of.
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