List items
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I love open world games, but even the great ones tend to overstay their welcome. With The Witcher 3, I never felt that. I didn't want it to end. I didn't want to run out of stuff to do. It might be the only game that's given me a "point of no return" warning that I actually heeded, turning back to go do some more side missions because I felt like I hadn't seen enough of this world. The characters, the story, the combat - it all just clicks in a way that is so damn magical.
Plus you can have sex with a sorceress on top of a stuffed unicorn. Game of the fucking year.
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Holy hell did this game come out of nowhere! I debated putting it in my top spot, because I don't think I've put more hours into a game in the past year than I have with Rocket League. Psynoix continues to support the game with great free updates and smartly has only charged for (also great) cosmetic items. For a game I intially paid $0 for thanks to PS+, I'd say giving them a few bucks for a Delorean is the least I can do.
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After an hour with Undertale, I wasn't really sure if the game was actually any good or not. By my third hour, I was so hooked on it that I was already thinking of how I would approach it differently on my second playthrough. It is weird, charming, disturbing, and just so great.
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A cinematic, choice-based horror game starring real actors playing characters that could die at any moment? Until Dawn feels like it was made with my tastes specifically in mind, and I'm looking forward to playing it again with the hopes of keeping everyone alive. Well, maybe not Emily. She sucks.
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Assassin's Creed Syndicate is my favorite game in the series. If you'd told me I'd be typing those words when the game was first revealed, I'd have laughed in your face. But here we are. The revamped combat feels fresh, despite being mostly borrowed from WB's Batman games, and the new approach to assassination missions finally gives you agency over how you kill your prey. After being let down by the majority of AC games since Brotherhood (Black Flag was a bright spot), Syndicate took me by complete surprise, and I hope this means Ubi has righted the ship on this series for good.
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One of my favorite developers makes game based on my favorite TV show, and it lands on my list to no one's surprise. The story does borrow a little too much from the show, as many members of House Forrester are almost 1:1 copies of the Starks, and at times the similarities of their journey feels less like like intentional parallels and more like lazy storytelling. But Telltale ultimately nailed the grim, violent, and unforgiving tone of the source material, and in doing so, created one of their most compelling games to date.
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A better game than it's predecessor, even if it doesn't change up the formula all that much. Shooting dudes in the face with arrows is still super fun.
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Yeah, I have a thing for story-driven, choice-based games. Life Is Strange had a lot of hokey dialogue, but it did a great job of investing your in their characters. The way even minor characters had significant character growth truly surprised me, especially considering the first episode or two seemed to paint each character into a fairly rigid archetype. I did get frustrated when some of the dialogue and other choices devolved into pass/fail guess work, but the big choices you made did feel like they had a large impact on the game as a whole, and the rewind mechanics made for some interesting puzzle solving.
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Proof positive that Telltale can still make funny games. In many ways, Tales From The Borderlands in my favorite game in the Borderlands series, because it focuses on the strengths of the world and characters and doesn't force me to actually play Borderlands proper (which I've never particularly cared for).
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You know, Star Wars Battlefront isn't a "great" game by most metrics, but I still love it a lot. The sights and sounds of it are a treat for a die-hard Star Wars fan like myself. I just can't help loving running around the forest moon of Endor, blasting stormtroppers with reckless abandon.
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Honorable Mention: A victim of my Destiny addiction, what I've played of MGSV, I have absolutely loved. I just haven't played enough of it.
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Honorable Mention: Much like MGSV, I bought Bloodborne while I was still playing an alarming amount of Destiny. It's the first "Souls" type game that I've really enjoyed. But I'm so far removed from it at this point that I'll probably just have to start over.
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Honorable Mention: I'm not sure if Fallout 4 would crack my list even if I'd played it more. The settlements and base building system is robust but seemingly useless in the larger scheme of things. Still, I haven't hated one of Bethesda's Fallout games yet, so I'm sure I'll enjoy this one once I get around to putting more than 5 hours into it.
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