Phil Fish is Président À Vie at POLYTRON.
Reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.
2017 has been an absolute fucking nightmare of a year!
Here are some videogames I liked!
In no particular order, except for Zelda. Zelda is the best game ever, maybe?
Yakuza 0
It’s a game! It’s a movie! It’s a real estate management sim! It’s a dancing game! It’s got classic Sega arcade games, phone sex, sexy wrestling, slot car racing, karaoke, fishing, baseball, fighting, drinking, like 4 different types of cutscenes and WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE, it’s 200 hours long and I'm nowhere near finishing it.
Goro Majima’s introduction is probably the greatest introduction to a character anywhere, ever.
When you punch people, money flies out of them. 10/10.
Opus Magnum
Buy this game for your dad, sit back, and just watch the GIFs roll in.
Look at this fucking thing:
Hours of fun.
HQ
HQ is tied with animojis for this year’s "Most Black Mirror shit ever" award. A complete clusterfuck of a live show that almost never works anymore. It’s like TV, but early access! And it’s amazing! It goes something like this: host Scott Rogowsky is trapped in a dimension of PURE TRIVIA and needs you to answer a bunch of questions for the chance to win ONE WHOLE DOLLAR, while idiots yell DILLY DILLY over and over in the super useful and necessary chat.
I think Paul Verhoeven might secretly be behind this one.
Wolfenstein 2
What a cathartic fucking game to be playing in 2017. And what a GIFT. I can’t believe we got a second one of those. My only want in life now is for this trilogy to be completed. I love these characters. I'm extremely attached at this point. I love Terror-Billy, Anya, Set, Grace, MAX HASS!, Bombate and Fergus. And I love pig most of all. I LOVE THESE NAZI KILLING DOOFUSES AND THEIR DUMB TOILET HUMOR. Goddamn, this game has HEART!
Tonally, it’s all over the place, and I couldn't care less. It works. It’s touching, it’s disturbing, it’s SCREAMING HOLY SHIT DID THAT JUST HAPPEN AT THE TV, it’s funny, too (that birthday scene!). What a joy it is to see max grow as an artist, or William and Anya spend a quiet moment together. Or fuck. Lots of fucking in this game.
The pacing is equally all over the place and good. Going from batshit crazy action sequences, to quiet and surprisingly touching character development moments. the game has a Gone Home level, for fuck’s sake! The short tableaus that play out all around you aboard the Evas Hammer are almost like Tacoma’s AR recordings.
I think Steve Gaynor might secretly be behind this one.
Echo
Echo has THE longest, slowest and greatest tutorial i’ve ever seen. It sets a mood and builds a world like nothing i’ve ever seen. The game is aesthetically PHENOMENAL. Painfully cool production designs all over the place. It’s like if Ridley Scott and Stanley Kubrick got together and decided to make a Metal Gear but not stupid.
I started playing it and thought “this feels like a weird sci-fi Hitman kind of?” turns out developer ULTRA ULTRA (cool name) is made up of ex-Hitman devs! (see below for my feelings on Hitman)
You should go into this one blind. To be honest, I'm still not 100% sure what kind of game it is.
Prey
It’s been a great year for games about reading email on abandoned space stations.
Prey is the one with guns. It’s very good.
Tacoma
It’s been a great year for games about reading email on abandoned space stations.
Tacoma is the one without guns. It’s very good.
Injustice 2
Injustice 2 was so good that I like DC comics now.
I think Ed Boon might be my favorite videogame auteur.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
If i ever make another video game it’s because Breath of the Wild made me love again.
2016’s game of 2017: HITMAN
Hitman came out almost 2 years ago and it’s still getting new stuff.
It’s one of my favorite video games ever. The absolute best in exotic murder tourism. There’s never been a more beautiful and intricately designed puzzle killbox. A master class in level design. Levels that feel like real places that I know intimately. Real places I’ve been to. Places where I’ve killed men with toilets in more ways than one. IO if you’re reading this, I have a really good idea for a level in season 2. Call me.
SUPERHYPERCUBE
Nobody knows who’s behind this amazing spatial reasoning puzzle game for VR that just launched for VIVE.
Who did the art direction and UI? It’s so good and sophisticated! GOTY!