I know this is a week or two off most lists but I've had a ton of stuff to do and some games I've wanted to finish off before settling on the list kept it back. But enough excuses, here are some games that made me want to put a number on and write something about them in an orderly fashion.
1. The Witcher 3
As I arrived in Skellige the skies were dark and rain was pouring down. Thunder and lighting danced over the seas as I traveled across the islands on Roach. A gentle song emerges, a song of love between someone stuck at shore and someone out at sea ("The Fields of Ard Skellig"). My eyes were tearing up, not because I speak Scots Gaelic but because up to this point The Witcher 3 had been an amazing RPG in a lot of ways. But it was on the islands of Skellige where my heart found a home in the world of the Witcher. Geralt was so happy he celebrated the whole thing by doing a big dive from the Kaer Trolde bridge.
There are so many things in the game I want other games to look at and learn from. Such as well thought out side quests with stories worth your time. Building a world that feels lived in and filled with culture and history. What really impressed me was how deeply rooted everyone's perspective on their world seemed. Even the most random NPC (well, to be fair, within reason) you talked to seem to have their own perspective and values. But the underlying thing that I found fascinating was that the game didn't really point fingers and moralize at it's own world. It just offered up the events as it was and you decide how to tackle them and their morallly ambigious nature. In a lot of games there are moral choices that are both bad (because "gritty realism") and others that are two opposites. I found a lot of the moral questions in this game to feel a lot less about specifics and more about general ideas of perspective. As I said earlier, it never feels like the game is moralizing, so you never really feel penalized for your choices in any practical sense.
That's all not even mentioning the combat which I actually had a ton of fun with, to the point of giving myself excuses just to engage with it. But all the moral dilemmas, interesting stories and fun combat aside though, what really and truly places this on the first place is just the simple fact that The Witcher 3 did what no other RPG of the last 19 years have done; kept me enthralled with it from beginning to end without a moment of downtime. I found myself looking for excuses to play more. Not even Skyrim had me this excited to play more. The last time I played an RPG I was this in love with, was Suikoden back in 1997.
2. Her Story
When I first heard about the game I was quite intrigued by the whole concept. And even before it came out I had this urge to play the game while taking hand written notes (something I started a thread about), it just felt fitting somehow. It wasn't just fitting though, it was very practical. Because the game itself give you so few tools to keep track of what connections you make yourself and how it relates to what videos you've found other than you giving videos their own user tags.
But that loop of searching a word you heard in an answer and explore the videos you found from that was incredibly rewarding in and of itself as I was writing down new information and drawing new conclusions. But the number one aspect of this game is when you find that one search that reveals something bigger. That key that open the door to a more complex idea. Just fantastic experience all around.
3. Bloodborne
I'll confess something; I don't necessarily like challenge. In fact, some would argue I tend to shy away from things I do when things get hard instead of getting better and working through it. And I might even say they have a point. It's probably a mix of being slightly impatient (I guess I'm an instant gratification kind of person at times) and not liking the feeling of being bad at something (because when you're impatient about yourself, you also know you don't have the patience to wait for yourself to get better).
Something about Bloodborne kept me at it though for reasons I can't quite explain. I almost smashed my controller dying several times in a row at the hands of Father Gascoigne. I was so furious. But I kept banging my head at the game and finally it clicked. I don't want to say I was Neo seeing the code in the Matrix, but it was a revelation of sorts. Suddenly it was fun and dying was part of it. But the more I accepted dying being a part of it, the less I found myself dying. Probably because I stopped doing dumb things in a hurry.
The game also has a really cool atmosphere and visual style that kept me wondering what kind of weird monstrosity would be around the corner. A corner I probably now turned around on some aspects of letting my games actually give me the challenge I so often avoid.
4. Until Dawn
There are two sides to Until Dawn that really appeled to me. It's a David Cage-esque interactive movie type of game done almost better than David Cage's own creations (especially a coherent script). But it's also a faithful video game version of cheesy horror film. Yet I can't fault anyone who would take the game at face value because it's so faithful to it's inspirations that you'll be excused in thinking it's not done with that in mind. Or, maybe I should say I hope it's done with that in mind. Because the cast of characters are such perfect examples of horror tropes.
The characters are funny in their own right, the game can get extremely violent (as it should, all things considered), and the game was just down right fun to play. I never made a concious deicision to keep peple alive, but I found myself doing what I expect people to do most of the time (and not what they would do in the movies) and had decent success. Also, I'm a real sucker for any kind of personality tests and what they may or may not say about me.
5. Jotun
Something else me and my long beard is a big sucker for is Norse mythology. Jotun's premise is simple; you are playing Thora, a viking warrior that dies an inglorious death and must prove herself to the gods by defeating elemental giants (Jotuns) to enter Valhalla. I was sceptical at first (because I tend to think people handle Norse mythology pretty stereotypical and poorly) but with the Icelandic VO, the hand drawn art style and a gameplay style that works under the less is more mentality made the game a real treat to play. Sure, it takes some horned helmet liberties but I found enough respect for it's source to ignore that part, because the game is just that fun.
The bulk of the gameplay is some light puzzles, combat against some enemies of your size or thereabouts and big boss fights that are all unique and require their own strategy. The only thing you have to assist yourself beside your axe (that has a fast and a hard swing) are gift from the gods that are limited in use. These things are all useful but you need to think about how, when and why to use them. Otherwise you'll be at the mercy of the boss eventually. Like Bloodborne mentioned earlier, beating a boss and being that one step closer to your goal is just so satisfying. And I cant stress enough how awesome this game looks and sounds.
6. Fallout 4
I didn't think I wanted more fallout. I was wrong. I wanted more fallout. Currenly the dude I am about to meet for a quest is fighting Brotherhood of Steel knights while their ship is hovering above. Guess I'll come back later when he's not busy. I need to remodel part of my settlement anyway.
7. Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
While I am not done with the game, there are enough improvements over Unity to say I'm quite pleased with the game in general anyway. Jacob and Evie are both fun characters in their own right. Jacob feels like a blend between early Altair and Edward Kenway. Impatient, eager and jovial. While Evie on the other hand feels more like the actual assassin of the two, in the vein of Ezio, who try and focus and be a little more serious about matters.
I find them both to offer an excuse to play the game in two distict ways. Either I use Jacob as a blund instrument or I use Evie as an deadly shadow. It makes the gameplay feel less repetitious and missions a lot more varied. Which in some way is already true since the missions in this game feels a lot more inventive than they have felt recently. Even if some of them are remincient of those classical missions, there's enough unique gameplay scenarios here to keep me quite entertained.
8. The Beginner's Guide
As a creative person and a consumer of creative works there are some things in this game that just resonated with me on a deep level. The game explores a lot of concepts all ranging from what of ourselves we put in our works but also what people read into those works. But the game also brilliantly explores the concept of player agency and how that in turn can be related to you as the player.
There's a specific scene in the game that made me question why I even play games at all. I am not saying the creators intended that or anything else I took from the game. But that's also why I find the game to be so fascinating. It's the first time in a while where I feel like what I get from the game is as valid as what the game is doing on it's own.
9. Metal Gear Solid V[REDACTED]
9. Cibele feat. Emily is Away
I know it's unfair to place two games on one spot. And both deserve their own spot, I admit. However they both fit into the same headspace for me since they both share a DNA of personal experiences of my own. I played MMOs as an activity with my long distance girlfriend at the time. I had folders with website ideas, photos, poems and drawings. I lived a large portion of my life online. One part of that life was through instant messengers such as AIM, ICQ and MSN. While being Swedish and most Swedish teens at the time favored ICQ or MSN, I had a lot of US friends through message boards that had me using AIM for the most part. In some way, both of these games represent a nostalgic and sometimes tragic look back at my own love life through other people. But also the good times, old friends and the joy of hearing someone come online and the heartbreak of saying good bye to someone you love at an airport and hearing the sound of someone logging out of your life.
10. Star Wars: Battlefront
I've never been a big Star Wars guy. Writing that I wonder how many other people have written something to that effect when talking about Battlefront. But Star Wars is something that have always been relevant in popular culture in some way so even if you're not, you've probably absorbed a lot of it through osmosis. Battlefront came with some expectations from me as a guy that does love Battlefield and have faith in DICE as a developer. And initially I wasn't wrong.
The game plays great, looks great and (obviously) sound great. It's a feel good experience all around. When people talked about it being shallow I said they were crazy. Because the game was just that much fun. I found the card system for loadouts to be pretty neat, the kill streak esque pick-ups were a welcomed change to how most games do them. All in all I was having a ton of fun. However, something about the game just doesn't keep you there. So I bought Battlefield 4 with Premium on a PSN sale thing and didn't look back. It's not necessarily a knock at the game though because I do think it's a very fun game, it just wasn't that pick up and play multiplayer shooter I craved.
The Case Against Metal Gear Solid V
One notable game isn't on this list and I figured it was worth discussing why I didn't put it on the list despite all its qualities. Few games in recent memory have been so divisive in my own mind that I've had to sit and discuss it with myself. Let us start by talking about the positive aspects of the game. It's a stealth action sandbox game that has some really interesting mechanics. Some are obvious and some I found through reading the forums and listening to podcasts. I was always fascinated by these new solutions and how flexible the game was to your play style. And the game did play great, even if Snake is still a bit stiff as always. But what the game lacked in fluid motion, it made up for in sheer depth of mechanics. But let us be fair here, MGS has never been about fancy gameplay animations and what is in the game is the best the franchise has been.
So for the first handfull of missions (including a bunch of side ops) the gameplay loop felt fresh. Scenarios felt like they needed a different approach to some degree. Though as the game progressed I found myself getting stuck in a singular mindset, play style and loadout. Because at some point you start to find your own groove and what solution nets you the best end result. Two specific things happaned that simultanously had me in awe and ruined everything. I acquired the ability to custimize guns and I met Quiet. This resulted in what can only be described as my own play style's singularity. Most missions became a routine so similar to the previous mission that the game slowly turned into a grind with no carrot. As the impact of the mechanics started to wear thin, the narrative felt equally bare bones. The drop that made the goblet tip over though was the forced FOB tutorial. I was trying so hard to just get through the game's main story when that came up and it just killed every motivation I had finishing the game.
Somewhere in MGSV is a terrific game, unfortunately for me I took a turn with the game somwhere and realized that I wished the core gameplay mechanics was in a better game overall. And while I could have rewarded the game with a spot for it's gameplay alone, I was so furiously frustrated when I stopped playing the game that I managed to resent the game enough to simply not want to reward it. I suppose this long explenation in some way is me recognizing the game for it's good part and coming to terms with how we both just grew apart. It's not you, Snake, it's me.
Honorable Mentions
- Elite: Dangerous - Space have never felt this big and fun to explore. Driving your own cargo ship between stations might not have been the most story heavy, but the visual design of your ships interior, sense of scale and the sound design makes it a treat to just be in the game.
- Mortal Kombat X - Most fun I've had with a fighting game in a long time.
- Kerbal Space Program - I don't know what I'm doing.
- WWE 2K16 - I'm sorry. I had fun with Wrestling this year.
- Downwell - One of the best playing iOS games I've played in a while. Loved those different color options.
- Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist - One of the funniest little games this year.
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