It's the most wonderful time of the year. The time where we all rank the games we loved or just liked this year and then yell at each other about how that one game should really be number 4 not number 5. Last year's GOTY I tried an excursive where I only wrote a sentence or two per game, this year I'm not doing that! You all get to get my full rambly and often grammar error riddled opinions on each of the games on this list. On top of that I'm not doing a top 10 list this year! Every year I look at my last years top 10 list, and I realize that about half the games on the list are just in a different class than the other half. This isn't because those games aren't good, I just wasn't passionate about them. This year I'm doing away with those "stocking stuffer" games and only putting down the games I really do care about. As a result this list is only about 5 games long, but thems the breaks! I definitely played more than 10 good games this year, but these 5 stand out above that crowd as games I will continue to care about in the future.

1) Undertale

At this point I don't know if there's anything I can write about this game that you haven't already heard. I feel like every possible opinion about this game has a thinkpiece about it on medium somewhere. If your a big enough gaming nerd to be on this website reading this top list then you've likely already formed an opinion about this game. Maybe you played it and you liked it, or maybe you didn't, or maybe you did but didn't understand the hype, or maybe you were turned off by the obnoxious fanbase, or perhaps you've decided to rail against it for political reasons, or whatever.

Given all that, all I can say about this game is that it really connected with me. The humor really hit with me, made me laugh quite a few times. The characters are so adorkable (You gonna put a skeleton that I just want to hug in the game, Im gonna be happy), and the greater story and meta story really made me think about the games I play and how I play them. Few games have done that for me, so this game isn't just my favorite game of this year, but one of my personal favorites of all time.

2) Hacknet

Hacknet is a game dripping with style. It does an incredibly good job of making you feel like your a hacker in a 90s movie. There are a lot of games in this pseudo-programming/IT gaming category. A lot of those games make the mistake of trying to be edutainment. Games like Hack N Slash, TIS-100, etc all present you essentially a training simulator for how programming works. The upside to these games is you learn something, the downside to those games is programming is kind of boring. There's also only so many problems you can present in those kind of games. How many times do you really need to solve the Tower of Hanoi problem?

The genuis of Hacknet is that it doesnt really expect you to know anything about computers. The most it asks you to do is know how "cd" and "rm" work, both which it explains. The reality of it is that the gameplay is dead simple, often just timing button presses while a timer ticks down. However, it drapes all of this in a super thick veneer of movie hacking nonsense. This is what elevates it from fun litte game to an amazing experience. Everything about this game is so perfectly on point with its style, with special shout out to the musical integration (the "Sequencer" mission in this game is one of my favorite things in all games).

If you've ever wanted to feel like a hero in a hacking movie sequence give this game a shot. It's just close enough to reality to be really immersive, without requiring you to actually know anything about computers.

3) Tales From The Borderlands

Like a lot of people, I think I was a bit bullish on Taletall this year. For most people the Game of Thrones game this year had them wondering if Telltale was running out of steam. For me, I was never that invested in the action adventure game format they started with The Walking Dead. The last Telltale game I really enjoyed was Sam and Max.

Enter Tales From The Borderlands, a series that enough people were telling me I should play that I had to check it out. It does not disappoint! This may be the funniest thing Telltale has put out. I know some people aren't huge fans of the Borderlands universe, but don't let that put you off! All of the humor in this game is of its own distinct flavor, and it's often couched in genuinely serious moments that make you wonder how this could possibly be a Borderlands game.

On top of the amazing humor, the style of this game is just amazing. Every episode contains what might a well be a music video for some amazing pop music in the intro act. The story of the two dumbest con-artists in the universe trying to get theres is oddly compelling. All of it just comes together to create an experience worth playing.

4) Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

This is a game that kind of snuck up on me this year. I had never really played the Monster Hunter games before, and the idea of playing a game with minimal story, focused mostly on gameplay, and one that requires such a large time investment really put me off. This is because, if were being honest, most games can't survive on their gameplay alone past like the 30 hour mark. Even the best gameplay focused games, your Mario games etc, get tiresome once you play them for that long. After playing Monster Hunter though, I can say that this is one of the few games that breaks that rule.

The complex systems of Monster Hunter readily make up for its lackluster story. The beauty of the systems is that their complexity is so easily and readily understood and so incredibly fun when you interact with them. The weapons all feel super unique, and for most people they will easily find one that fits their preferred style of fighting. The mechanics of how fights work: limb damage, traps, smoke, weather, etc; All of these have a basis in reality, so they are all readily understood. The way the loot system works seems weird at first, but you quickly understand how incredibly powerful it is. The equipment doesn't just increase arbitrary stat numbers, they give you abilities that literally change the way you play the game. The diversity of these skills ensure that there isn't just one single "best" set, the most powerful sets of equipment are determined by your play style not by arbitrary greatness.

I ended up playing Monster Hunter for over 200-300 hours right after it came out. The only other game I can think of that has managed to get me to invest that much time in it on gameplay alone is Nethack. Don't let that comparison scare you though, Monster Hunter is so much more accessible than it seems, and its the kind of game you can come back to over and over again.

5) Pillars of Eternity

I'm going to admit this right now: I have a soft spot for Obsidian. They're gameplay is often not as good as it could be (Alpha Protocol), and their games are regularly riddled with bugs (New Vegas), but I feel like their one of the few companies out there invested in actually advancing the Role Playing genre in ways not directly tied to their gameplay. These days when we talk about RPGs we regularly focus on the story, which is either a prebuilt tale or one entirely driven by your characters BIG CHOICES, and the gameplay, which is often just a new take on how Cooldowns and Buffs work, but we ignore the "Role Playing" part of the games.

Enter Pillars of Eternity. The gameplay of Pillars is actually pretty sound on its own. It's essentially a new take on some old DnD systems, mixing in elements of 4th edition D&D with 3rd. The new takes on classic classes, Chanters for Bards and Ciphers for Spell Thieves, all work really well. It also manages to really capture the spirit of those old classic infinite engine games. On top of all that you get a pretty classically weird Obsidian tale. It raises some questions that it fails to answer, but its weird in a way thats nice.

The arena that this game shines though in my mind is the Reputation system, something Obsidian has been evolving and developing throughout all their games. I'm not even sure how many times it really comes into play in Pillars, but when it does come into play its a reminder that the world your in isn't static, that it's not just moved forward by the few big decisions you make. Essentially the way the system works is that it keeps track of the ways you respond to quests. Do you respond honestly to questions? Do you lie to people? Are you generous in your rewards or violent or greedy? These all feed into a system that then determines how people react to you, and how you can respond to them. The classic example of this working in practice is that if you are regularly honest to people, then sometimes you can skip parts of quests by just telling people the truth and having them believe you.

It's a rare thing in RPGs today to actually *encourage* roleplaying through mechanics, and even though its a small thing it left a big impression in my mind. I'm excited to see Obsidian continue to develop these ideas about roleplaying and reputation in games, and Pillars is the next exciting step in that direction.