Top 10ish Games Of The Foul Year of Our Lord 2016

A few days ago, the year that killed David Bowie ended. It was a real rollercoaster of a year with a lot of things going downhill. Ironically, games were pretty good. And I went back to school to try and make myself hirable as something other than a punching bag, and to my surprise I am doing pretty damn well in school. So here's to hoping that keeps up as we start down on the highway 2017 and whatever this year brings us. So without further ado, here's some games I liked and can say things about in a somewhat coherent manner.

Games that made an impact, but didn't make the list.

• The Witness - Best designed world this year.
• Virginia - Best use of Twin Peaks. Interesting evolution on Thirty Flights of Loving game concept.
• Dishonored 2 - Best use of sneaking, though it feels like a weaker experience than the first.
• Watch Dogs 2 - Best improvement over a predecessor. Wrench is my bro.
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - Best use of cybernetic implants. Though I didn't ask for this game to be this small in scope.
• Unravel - Best use of yarn. Also, most Swedish game of 2016.
• Asemblance - Best use of looping memories. Screw you, I am going to stare into the wall until I see the truth.

Runner-Ups of the year, these ones almost made the list.

• PinOut - Best mobile game 2016. It's endless pinball in a TRON-esque environment.
• Final Fantasy XV - I haven't enjoyed a Final Fantasy this much since FFVII. Best looking food since Sunny's eggs in MGS 4.
• Thumper - It's so good I wish I had bought it sooner.

The actual top 10ish list that this whole thing is about.

10. Overcooked / Tricky Towers

If there was a combination of just fun couch games this year it would have to be these two. For a rare moment in time I brought my PS4 over to my mom's place for an evening hanging out with my brother and her. I had these two games on the console but I figured they would be fun for a little while until we moved on to something else. Lo and behold my surprise when they take over more or less our entire evening. Even my mom got in and played several rounds of Tricky Towers, which was super fun to watch considering she doesn't play games at all (outside of trying to play Suikoden once in 1997). And going through most of Overcooked with my brother was a frustrating treat, didn't know we could shout that much at each other in a joyous manner.

9. Batman: The Telltale Series

As a big fan of Batman and Telltale's games, there's a lot of things going for this game. Naturally it could all fall apart, but luckily it didn't. In fact, it was quite a fresh take on Batman that managed to seemingly take inspirations from all sorts of Batman sources. I found it really interesting to tackle the issues as either Batman or Bruce Wayne and the core concept of who Batman or Bruce Wayne actually is.

8. Adr1ft / Firewatch

Maybe it's 2016, maybe it's the responsibilites of life in general. But this year I found myself really drawn into games and stories about isolation and alienation. Firewatch is a gorgeous game with a really charming story about finding yourself. The interesting part was that I realized something about myself playing that game when I noticed how I was contemplating how Henry should respond to Delilah's inquiries. I enjoyed how the game manifests through its story man's ability to see ghosts where there are none.

Adr1ft on the other hand ended up being more of a puzzle game than I had anticipated and I often found myself lost in the similar looking hallways. But there was something relaxing about the experience, as if I was drifting far above my responsibilites on earth and how small they seemed up there.

7. Overwatch

There's something special about Overwatch's ability to both give you the thrilling sensation of a really good multiplayer FPS while also incorporating the flow and sense of breaking waves as in MOBAs. I also quite appreciated a multiplayer game that wasn't trying to be edgy, super fast or overly complex. Overwatch is a fun game with complexities, naturally, but it manages to straddle the line and never go into the deep end. Every character feels viable and even though I found my niche, I was never uncomfortable playing something else if needed be.

6. Stories: The Path of Destinies

Here's a game I took a chance on one evening when I was bored and was hooked on for a long time. The core of the game is finding your way to the true ending and you do that by playing it through to an ending and realizing things along the way. You start over and you make different choices and so on and so forth. It may sound repetitive, but I actually found it really interesting to play through a narrative where I slowly but surely saw every character and choice in the game with different eyes with the varying bits of information I had acquired along previous runs. The combat is fast and fluid, even though its pretty simple and the game has some really good use of narration.

5. Battlefield 1

If I had to define myself within the franchise it would be as a Battlefield 2 kind of guy. I missed the whole Bad Company part and Battlefield 3-4 and Hardline just didn't quite scratch the Battlefield itch I had. But Battlefield 1 is something special. In some aspects it feels like a palette switch from Battlefront but with added complexity, because the game is missing something from Battlefield 4. Not in any negative sense, but it feels like a lighter, more streamlined Battlefield. But I haven't had this much fun getting headshots on dudes from too far away since Battlefield 2. And when you get those 'Battlefield Moments', it's a real treat.

4. Hitman

An episodic Hitman game sounded like a really weird idea. How much fun could there be on one mission alone? To my surprise, a ton of fun. Even in Colorado, my least favorite mission, I was still having fun finding my own way of tackling the mission. While I didn't end up finishing every mission a ton of times, I have seen enough by completing them to know that there's plenty more for me to do if I ever wish to. Good on you, 47. Looking forward to your next season.

3. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

I have a weird love/hate relationship with Uncharted. I have always disliked the combat, loved the story and environments and rolled my eyes at the end game of the ones that I got that far in. So imagine my surprise when Uncharted 4 is an improvement on all my negatives without sacrificing my positives. This is by a long shot the best Uncharted, I even enjoyed engaging with the combat. It was also one of the games with in-game camera that I had a ton of fun stopping whatever it was I was doing to do photography. If this ends up truly being the end of the franchise, it's a hell of a good way to end on.

2. EA UFC 2

If there was one game this year I spent more time with against my brother it would hands down be this game. We're both into MMA and UFC specifically. But EA UFC transcends that by also being a really fun pick up and play fighting game. The career mode is serviceable, creating a fighter could still be a little more nuanced, but the in-ring action is fun as hell. They streamlined the ground game from the last one, making it a little more manageable. When it comes to the stand-up side of things, they added a weird amount of physics to everything and extra animation to the point that the game got even more jank than the previous entry. I suppose I should give the game a negative for that, but the amount of time me and my brother has been sitting at 4am laughing till tears together is worth more than a technically "perfect" game.

1. Mafia III

All things considered, I probably couldn't have asked for a better Mafia sequel than what Mafia III turned out to be. I'm an unflinching apologist for Mafia II and its open world design. And while Mafia III builds on that and makes it a little more active on the map at all times, I still found the world of Mafia III to be just as enjoyable as Mafia II. Add to that an engaging story with varied cast of characters, fun and weighty combat and cars that handle great enough to make your action film sequenced driving look easy. There was no other game I had as much fun with this year as I did Mafia III, by the end of the game I was engaging with the systems for no reason and I was finding my way through the city without even looking at the road signs. Those light effects though, what was that all about?