Top Ten Games of 2016

2016 has been a great year to play video games (and to forget the tragedies and death that took place in this 12 month period). Fans saw their favorite series come back with Final Fantasy XV, Fire Emblem Fates, Titanfall 2, Doom, and Team Fortress 2! It was an astounding year for almost every genre especially for Role Playing Games and First Person Shooters.

I would like to admit that I did not finish all ten of these games this year due to my hectic schedule and for my desire to write a novel, but I played enough of these games to fill a top ten list!

List items

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  1. Titanfall 2

  You can read more of my thoughts in my review, but Titanfall 2 does a great job blending fast paced combat with a variety of loadouts to make an enjoyable experience that would make Call of Duty and Titanfall fans extremely happy.

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  2. Hitman

  I never was a big Hitman fan before I saw Dan and Brad play. I remember watching the quick looks thinking to myself that there had to be other way to use the environment and items that they were overlooking. What I underestimated was how tense every situation was when you were "compromised" or "hunted". Hitman of 2016 definitely taught me that you couldn't just rush out there to kill your target. I spent most of my time being patient before striking my kill. It was the most invigorating thrills I've felt this year and the best thing about it is that the developers are still going to churn out content for it. Hitman in 2017 should be fantastic.

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  3. Overwatch

  Here's the spiritual successor of Team Fortress 2. When I was a college lad, I played a heck of a lot of TF2. The class system in TF2 brought a refreshing experience in how you played the game. Overwatch does just the same but provided more importance on how well you played through each character. The term "play your class" was never true until Overwatch. Overwatch is still a work in progress, but what Blizzard provided was fun and it can only get better from here. It's probably the most fun I had with my party of friends this year.

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  4. Stardew Valley

  Stardew Valley is everything that I loved from a social link/visual novel perspective from Persona 4. It also has some simple combat elements from the earlier Legend of Zelda series. And there are some Harvest Moon farming in the game. While I'm waiting for the next iteration of Animal Crossing, this game scratches that itch. This game is a real treat. Despite my doubts of the artstyle and how simplistic this game is, its easy to fall into this experience because its pretty calm and relaxing to play. I hate to call this casual gaming due to its negative connotations, but Stardew Valley is so stress-free to play.

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  5. Doom

  Doom is back and Id Software did a pretty good job subverting expectations of the leaked previews of its canceled sequel. While my expectations were pretty low when gameplay was showed, I was pretty surprised that gaming journalists were raving about how fun it was to play. I felt like such a badass playing the role as the Doom Marine. The weapons feel pretty good and you can't help feel accomplished after dominating waves of demons. As of this writing, I did not finish this game, but I look forward to after reading some of the game's lore and watching Noclip's documentary. I'm hoping I can do a review when I'm done.

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  6. Darkest Dungeon

  Another game that I could not beat. It is not the hardest game I played but still the management of a band of different classes was tough. The stress mechanic in the game adds more depth to this game than I thought it would. I always hoped that my party would make it towards the end of the dungeon but running into a squad of monsters always led me to sigh with defeat. Leading my party out of a dungeon never was so stressful with the Darkest Dungeon but it felt so rewarding.

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  7. Madden NFL 17

  It's been almost a decade since I picked up a Madden game. I always criticized EA for locking up the NFL license since NFL 2K5. But to this day, Madden NFL 17 is probably my most played game of 2016. I've always been a sucker for management sims and franchise mode definitely scratched that itch that I've always been wanting since XCom. Developing your rookies into superstars have always felt gratifying and this year with the legacy system made drafting and development a big part of creating a winning franchise. The developers streamlined the gameplay where both rookies and veterans of Madden would enjoy the game. Pretty smart of the developers to have the commentators fly back every week to record new commentary which makes it rewarding to hear at times when making big plays. All and all Madden NFL 17 deserves to be on this list.

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  8. Final Fantasy XV

  The wait is over! It's great that the game's combat borrowed the gameplay feel of KH, but they also brought the nonsensical storytelling from KH too. While FFXV isn't exactly what I wanted from one of my beloved gaming franchises, it still provides a thin layer of nostalgia that grabbed me like its predecessors. While I am pretty shocked at the lack of exposition of the game, I'm still intrigued to go through the game. At least Square promised to patch the game with more storytelling later on so New Game + will be worth another playthrough. Let's hope FFXVI come out before I am in my 40's.

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  9. Dark Souls III

  As the boxart shows, this game is a thumbs up! Note: I did not finish this game, but the experience I went through fighting one of the earlier bosses was exhilarating. My build was to be swift and to beat the enemies charge, I found myself getting better by removing my armor to get enough agility to dodge. With every attempt I learned to be patient with my attacks. And eventually I was victorious! There is not a game that provides an experience like this which is why Dark Souls III is in the top-10 of this list.

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  10. Dragon Quest Builders

  Now I really dig Minecraft and Role Playing Games. When I heard that Square was making a Minecraft clone, I was pretty skeptical of how they would execute the game. While keeping the survival genre roots, they make the game pretty fun while going out to the wild to complete quest and to find new blueprints to create new items. This game definitely is the best survival game I played in a while and is definitely charming enough to keep my interest going.