Hey folks, Dan Kempster here. I hope you've all had a pleasant, relaxing Christmas. I wish I could say I had, but I didn't. I won't go into any explicit detail, as this isn't really the place, but I'd say it's been my least favourite Christmas on record. That's not to say it was wholly terrible, mind – I received some genuinely lovely, thoughtful gifts, and my mum's Christmas dinner was as delicious as always. But, now that the glitter has settled and the festive celebrations begin to make way for that awkward seven-day lull between Christmas and the New Year, we as players of video games collectively turn our attention to sites like Giant Bomb for their annual Game of the Year awards, and all the deliberations that inevitably come with them. Some of us even participate in the discussion, venturing our own Game of the Year nominations. That, duders and duderettes, is what I have come here to do today, by way of a little five-day blogging extravaganza that I like to call 'My End of 2015 Awards'.

I haven't done a proper, full-blown End of Year Awards thing since 2012. The last couple of years have been scaled-back affairs for various reasons, ranging from a lack of variety in games played to the Giant Bomb text editor swallowing an entire day's worth of writing and forcing me to down-size in what little time I had left. This year, though, things are different. Over the course of 2015 I've managed to beat a total of thirty-two games from a wide array of franchises, genres and developers. That means there's enough variety in the games I've played to justify a return to the full End of Year Awards format of old, and that's what I've elected to do. I've also learned my lesson concerning first-drafting, and am writing this in a text document which I'm saving frequently to ensure nothing is lost.

For the uninitiated, this is how My End of 2015 Awards will pan out. Parts One through Four, released daily from the 27th to the 30th of December, will consist of me handing out individual awards to every game I've beaten over the course of 2015 – eight on each day, and thirty-two in total. Each award is named for a song from my list of personal favourites, and will recognise a particular strength or weakness that I identified within a game while playing it, highlighting my lasting memories of the titles I devoted myself to this year. On New Year's Eve, Part Five will acknowledge my own personal top ten games that I played this calendar year, in no heirarchical order and (contrary to Game of the Year conventions) with no distinct 'winner'.

Now, if everyone is sitting comfortably, I'll begin with the first eight individual awards...

'Bad Reputation' Award for Most Disappointing Sequel

Tomb Raider Chronicles

I've been a fan of Tomb Raider since way before Crystal Dynamics successfully rebooted the franchise to relevance a couple of years back. I've been adventuring with Lara Croft since the days of the original PlayStation, and as a result I can overlook a lot of the shortcomings of the first five CORE-developed titles. I even think the original Tomb Raider and The Last Revelation stand up as legitimately great games, in spite of their tank controls and draconian puzzle design. But even coming back to it from this perspective, it was difficult to find anything redeeming in the experience of playing Lara's final PS1 outing, Tomb Raider Chronicles. Its multi-scenario premise feels schizophrenic rather than varied, with only the first of its four distinct chapters feeling like a bona fide Tomb Raider game. The others come off as poor imitations of other contemporary franchises as they try to emulate Silent Hill's claustrophobic horror, or Metal Gear Solid's high-tech stealth infiltration. This mish-mash of styles, coupled with lazy presentation and some incredibly frustrating late-game bugs, all served to put Chronicles on the penultimate rung of my Tomb Raider ladder, just above the hot mess that was The Angel of Darkness.

'Your Latest Trick' Award for Best Skateboarding Game

Skate

It's been a long time since I lost myself in a video game about skateboarding. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 was the last time it truly happened – I spent a fair amount of time dabbling with Underground due to the inclusion of goals in its Park Creator mode, but I never sank the scores of hours into it that THPS4 demanded of me. That's probably why I was so surprised when Skate came along this year, and blew my preconceived notions of what a skateboarding game should be completely out of the water. By superseding Tony Hawk's tired old combo-heavy, animation-based model of skating with a much more physics-based approach focused on finding and nailing lines, Skate injected a healthy dose of realism into the genre that I didn't even know I wanted until I was already absorbed by it. I spent hours of the early part of 2015 just skating around San Vanelona, looking for new areas to skate and new potential lines to carve up. The learning curve is steep, and the imprecision of the analogue controls can be frustrating, but when Skate works and flows as it should, the feeling of finally nailing a new line is a better rush than any high score in Tony Hawk's could ever be.

'Vegas Two Times' Award for Game So Good I Played It Twice

Kingdom Hearts

Technically the quality of Kingdom Hearts wasn't what prompted me to embark on two extensive playthroughs of the game almost back-to-back. My second journey through the original cross-over project between Squaresoft (now Square-Enix) and Disney was prompted by my sister witnessing me finishing my first comprehensive run-through and wanting to know what the game was all about. Consequently, no sooner had I sealed the door to darkness than I found it open once more, and this time I'd have to close it in the company of my curious younger sibling. The reason this game gets this award is that at no point in my second playthrough did I ever feel fatigued or burned out on the combat, which demands a surprising amount of skill and strategy on the game's Proud difficulty level. Nor did I tire of its colourful environments or its enjoyable-yet-nonsensical narrative. Admittedly this wasn't true of my attempted third playthrough, which would've seen me start a brand new serial blog project here on the site, but the fact the game was able to retain most of its charm through two consecutive playthroughs is pretty commendable, and that's what this award recognises.

'Promise' Award for Unrealised Potential

Alpha Protocol

I wasn't expecting much going into Alpha Protocol, probably because of the lukewarm critical reception it received on its release back in 2010. Nonetheless, the idea of James Bond meets Mass Effect was enough to encourage me to give it a chance this year, and do you know what? There are a lot of things it does really well, particularly with regards to the writing and characters (something that probably shouldn't have come as a shock to me given my experience with developer Obsidian's other big 2010 release, Fallout: New Vegas). Unfortunately, that's about where the train of praise stops for me. The game doesn't look great, with stiff animations and the texture pop-in I've come to expect from games running on Unreal Engine 3. The combat isn't very enjoyable either, ranging from acceptably functional to frustratingly inadequate. I might have been able to overlook the shoddy fighting were it not for the fact that the game seems to force you into it at every opportunity, especially in its closing chapters. It would have been nice to have more options to avoid combat through dialogue, but even though I specced my Agent Thorton pretty heavily towards the suave and charismatic end of the spectrum, I was still forced into shoot-outs with bullet-spongy “bosses” far more often than I would have liked. Alpha Protocol is a great foundation for a role-playing spy thriller, and with some more refinement of its mechanics and presentation, it might have been a great game in its own right. Unfortunately, when I look back on it, all I remember is squandered potential for something much better than the actual product.

'There's Glory in Your Story' Award for Best Interactive Narrative

The Wolf Among Us

I had no prior knowledge of the Fables graphic novels going into The Wolf Among Us, but it's fair to say I had at least some level of expectation given my experience with the first season of The Walking Dead back in 2013. By the end of its five-episode run, those expectations had been exceeded in just about every way possible. The Wolf Among Us takes place in a fascinating fictional universe, where corruptions of well-known fairy tales coexist in a real-world setting, sprinkled with touches of 80s neon and film noir detective fiction. It's a wonderful mish-mash of styles and influences that come together to create something especially memorable. The characters that inhabit this world, already familiar to many players by way of their original source material, are easy to recognise and identify with, and nowhere more so than with protagonist Bigby Wolf. His brilliantly written and delivered dialogue serve to create a character who remains consistent and relatable, no matter which choices the player makes. The Wolf Among Us is one of Telltale's finest hours, perhaps even better than the first season of The Walking Dead, and I really hope we'll see a continuation of Bigby and Snow's story some time in 2016.

'The Battle Rages On' Award for Most Epic Combat Encounters

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite

It took a while for the gamplay loop of the Monster Hunter series to click for me. That magical moment finally happened earlier this year when I first encountered the mighty Yian Kut-Ku in Freedom Unite on my PSP. With my limited knowledge of the game's mechanics, it completely flattened me on my first couple of attempts, but unlike my earlier efforts to get into the game, I refused to admit defeat. I went away and did some grinding against weaker monsters, harvesting hides and claws and teeth to improve my weapon and armour. Better equipped, I returned to the Kut-Ku and spent some time just observing it, learning its movements and attack patterns, looking out for openings to land charge-strikes and draw-strikes with my greatsword. I used those observations to formulate a plan of attack, put it into action, and managed to bring down the Kut-Ku in just a couple of tries. This is just one story out of dozens from my time with the game, and all of them serve to make the same point – that every new monster encounter is its own unique, memorable and exhilarating challenge.

'Behold the Colossus' Award for Best Team ICO Game

Papo & Yo

Alright, so this isn't actually a Team ICO game, but it might as well be. Developed by indie company Minority Media, Papo & Yo borrows a lot of elements from both ICO and Shadow of the Colossus that leave it feeling like a reverential homage to the work of Fumito Ueda and his team. It's set in a world characterised by environments that are at once exquisitely detailed and yet somehow bleak and sparse. It's an adventure platformer with an emphasis on solving environmental puzzles in order to progress. There are many elements of escort missions in its game design, particularly in protagonist Quico's interactions with Monster, who evokes both the tranquil presence of Yorda when placid, and the fearsome threat of the Colossi when enraged. It's a poignant allegorical tale that tugs on the heartstrings and even threatens to call forth a few tears in its closing moments. In a year that renewed my hope that we might actually see The Last Guardian emerge from its vaporware limbo, it was a joy not only to play something so evocative of Team ICO's signature style, but also to love every minute of it.

'Old Red Wine' Award for Vintage Video Game That's Aged Well

Super Mario 64

For almost twenty years, Super Mario 64 was one of the largest and most embarrassing omissions from my gaming history. Having grown up in a household that owned initially Sega consoles and then switched to Sony machines with the arrival of the PlayStation, I never owned a Nintendo 64, and consequently missed out on this seminal title that essentially codified the archetype for the 3D platformer. When I acquired the game through the Wii's Virtual Console earlier this year, part of me was worried that I might be too late to the party to appreciate its true significance. Thankfully, those worries were unfounded. Mario 64 holds up fantastically thanks to its tight controls, open level design and mission-based structure, pioneering hallmarks that almost every other contemporary 3D platformer ended up trying to imitate. Not only that, but (as fellow GB blogonaut Mento pointed out in his blog series dissecting the game) it wildly varied objectives serve as a remarkable insight into the experimental nature of early 3D game design. That's why I'm glad I prioritised Mario 64 this year.

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That's the first part of My End of 2015 Awards over. Eight awards down, twenty-four to go. Join me tomorrow when I'll be handing out another eight individual awards to eight more games that I played this year. Thanks very much for reading guys. Take care and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing – Pokémon Omega Ruby (3DS)