As the final days wind down for 2016 I am left with mixed feelings about how the year went. We lost a lot of great people in the entertainment industry, and we watched the world burn and tear itself apart in various regions. Sure, there were positive things that happened this year, but even I am struggling to think of any at the moment… And that’s why I think I value video games so much. They’re a great way to get away from the world, or at the least, distract you for even the smallest amount of time. So, that’s what we’re here to celebrate from the year of 2016! And to help me present the best games this year, I have included my wife in the discussion. She will add a small list of her favorite games as well.

As many of you who know, I am as big a lover of old games as I am of new games. So, like last year, I have broken down my top games of 2016 into two lists: one for old games and one for new releases. In addition, you will find that I have also expanded my list of old games from 5 to 10. This is largely due to the fact that I have somewhat broken myself of a certain game, one of which you will still find in the list down below, and have made time to play many more games this year from my backlog.

Top 10 Old Games of 2016:

10. Destiny

I had a blast playing this game with my wife and a few friends. The shooting was solid, the missions were fun and the loot system was addicting. I spent countless hours doing strikes and playing Crucible. But the reason that the game didn’t leave a longer lasting impression was the lack of a party-finder system. We struggled to get enough people on to make it through the first two raids. I also had an issue with the amount of grind that was needed in order to obtain the required Light Level for some of the content. And after it was all said and done, I didn’t have the patience to try and get a group together for the final raid of The Taken King, King’s Fall.

9. Fallout 4

I’ll be honest, I couldn’t bring myself to purchase this game last year. It was mostly because I felt that I couldn’t support a product that was going to be broken out of the gate. Sure, I love Bethesda and their open world games, but I have long since been fatigued by their “jank”. So, I waited until this year, when patches and bug fixes a plenty had been added. And I was not disappointed. The world of post-apocalyptic Boston is filled with danger and amazing moments just waiting to be discovered. There’s not much more to say about this game. It’s a Fallout game, nothing more to it. But feeling the rush of excitement as you raise the lift to the outside world for the first time, or retaking the Castle from the mirelurks sticks with you. And the base-building system was way more fun than I had anticipated!

8. Bloodborne

The game that makes me love my masochistic tendencies. This game is brutal. I died, a lot. But the world is enthralling and the crazed characters that you meet along the way make for an immersive world. The enemies are varied and the weapons that you have at your disposal are both absurd and awesome! Played it, died, loved it.

7. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

This past summer, my wife and I decided to play through all of the PS2-era GTAs and it was a blast. I found that CJ’s outing was the best of the bunch through the sheer amount of content available. You can race cars, hit the gym, do the various story missions, and even go out on dates. The game even has Samuel L. Jackson in it! San Andreas is also responsible for my love of 90’s gangster rap. Sorry to those who have ever ridden in a car with me.

6. Minecraft

Okay, confession time: I actually don’t look at Minecraft as much of a video game. For me it’s a way to relax when I’m too tired to want to do anything else. It’s also a great way for me to get most of my OCD tendencies out. My wife and I have a world with another friend of ours and it’s slowly become a monster of a place with many projects scattered throughout its landscape. Some are completed, and some are barely even realized, but that’s where the beauty lies. The only issue that I have is that my wife thought it’d be a great idea to have 900 sheep right outside of our main house. So much baa-ing…

5. Trivial Pursuit Live!

The only game on this list that makes me feel like a genius one moment, only to dash those feelings away in the following minute. It’s my go-to game when we have company over and it’s such a blast. The questions are rarely repeated and the fun had from watching people get an obvious answer wrong is so addicting. It was the one game that I kept coming back to this past year. Also, I’m tired of people skipping the sports category, it angers me…

4. Until Dawn

I’m so upset that I didn’t get around to playing this game last year as it would have easily made my Top 10 list. The scares are fantastic, the characters are well-acted, and the tech behind the motion capture is top-notch! I ended up playing the entirety of it with my wife and a couple of friends. It turned into a mini-game of passing the controller back and forth and trying to make sure we didn’t get anyone killed. Mission accomplished! We have plans to go back through the game at a later date just so we can see the deaths of every character in glorious, gory fashion. I’m really hoping that Supermassive Games does a sequel!

3. Dota 2

Ah, my old friend, my old enemy. For years now I have struggled with accepting the pull this game has over me. Not so much because I think it’s a bad game, but more so that it has interfered with my other gaming habits in the past. I’ve accepted the beast that is this MOBA and through accepting its place, I have learned to control my urges to play it. It’s still by far the most competitive game I’ve ever come across and its complexity makes most other games pale in comparison. Hell, even watching the esports scene is addicting. Valve has also done a great job with updating the game, and has even gone so far as to completely revamp the leveling system to include talent trees similar to that of Heroes of the Storm with introduction of the 7.00 patch. I know that it will remain on my best games lists for years to come, but I’m proud to say that it will no longer hamper my love for other games.

2. Gears of War 3

Another series that I decided to take my wife through after picking up a couple of Xbox Ones was Gears of War. The third game is the best of the series and is arguably the most emotional. Watching the “dude-broness” unfold for it to only turn into the saddest moment when Dom makes the ultimate sacrifice is not only jarring, but also a reminder that this series' characters are actually in real danger. The cover-based fun is ramped up to 10 in an all-out war against the Locust with plenty of chain-sawing goodness to be had by all. It was nice to replay one of my all-time favorite series again and to watch my wife become a fan in the process. Spoiler alert: it still holds up.

1. Age of Empires 2 HD

There is so much to be said about my favorite RTS of all-time. I purchased the HD re-release years ago, but never truly got pulled back into the medieval bloodshed until this year. It’s rare that a game this fun teaches you something. I remember playing this game when I was 10 and learning all sorts of fun facts about some of the most famous heroes in history. Couple all of this nostalgia with some new expansions from Skybox Labs, equipped with all new campaigns and civilizations, and I was hooked for far too many hours. I’ve recently gotten my wife and a friend into it, and there is something to be said about playing a game of all-random Regicide against well-designed bots and watching the back and forth of Skirmishers and Knights for hours. I’m even loving the new aesthetics of buildings when playing as some of the newer civilizations. I haven’t found my new favorite yet though as I am still getting used to their tech trees. Call me old-fashioned, but the Britons' Longbowmen and the Vikings’ Berserks are still amazing, even in 2016.

Waifu’s Top 3 Old Games of 2016:

3. Destiny

Oh Destiny. Right when this game first came out, and I mean vanilla Destiny only. You know…the really short campaign that everyone was really confused about when they finished it and said, “that’s it?”. Yeah, that Destiny. When it first released, the husband and I were like, “Oh man this game looks really cool, but not $60 cool”. And we were right: totally not worth $60 up front. But then the DLC and add-ons started pouring in, the original game dropped to $30, and we were like, “A’ight, we’ll buy it now”. So we did. One copy of Destiny and a Destiny PS4 later, we were playing. And I loved it right away. Granted, I was absolute GARBAGE at first. Really glad it didn’t keep track of my hit percentage, because yikes. I’m garbage with practically all shooters though, so I was really impressed with this game. I was a glowy-eyed Awoken Titan that ran around punching EVERYTHING. We should probably sneak around and attack from behind? NOPE. LEEEEROOOOOOY JENKINS. That was my policy. That guy is three times my size? Gonna punch it. That eyeball thing has a shield? Gonna punch it. Going online into Crucible? Gonna punch everyone. In fact, that’s how I got the Triple Play trophy. I punched one of each class. That was my philosophy in this game: punch everything, with a side of gunfire and a dash of grenades. My husband just told me I could have summarized this with: Punched everything; Great game. Okay, I guess we’ll make that my TL;DR. But seriously, this was a really great game. The classes are fun, the world is beautiful, the combat is easy to catch on to, the online is (amazingly) NOT toxic, and the raids are difficult and require lots of teamwork. The only downfall: no team finding system. We struggled to find a total of 6 for raids, and it hampered us a lot. TL;DR? PUNCHED EVERYTHING; GREAT GAME.

2. Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

When I first heard about this game coming out, I got hit straight in the nostalgia. My all-time favorite Legend of Zelda game, and the first one I beat, was Link to the Past. Well, I gotta say, this is my new favorite Zelda game. If you’re a huge fan of Link to the Past (LttP for short), then Link Between Worlds (LBW for short) is an awesome game for you to play. The LBW world is built exactly the same as LttP; the graphics and colors are just a little sharper. The story, of course, is different, but it still ends up being a good story, especially since that's not the main focus. The dungeons are tough, with puzzles and no hand-holding, but they aren’t ridiculous (like some others can be). I was proud of myself: I found all of the side treasures, and managed to find EVERY. SINGLE. MAIAMAI in the game. There’s 100 of them, spread out between the light and dark worlds. So much running around, so much phasing onto walls and going between worlds to try to get where I needed to go. It was great. Overall, this game is an absolute ball if you are a LoZ fan and need a nostalgia trip. My next task? Getting Ocarina of Time for 3DS and beating that. THAT one has some tough dungeons…TL;DR? Right in the nostalgia!

1. Gears of War 3

All aboard the Feels Express! No, but seriously, this whole series was awesome. In order to play GoW 4, we decided we needed to play the other ones first. Good thing our GoW 4 came with free digital downloads for the first three + Judgment! I picked the third one of the series as my favorite for multiple reasons: the game play was the sharpest, the hit boxes for shooting felt the realest/best, and the story was so well written and executed. This game is a Bro Fest, 100%. When we started playing this series, I never expected to experience some real feelings while playing this chainsaw revving, doo-rag wearing, constant yelling, explosion filled Bro Fest. But I did. In the second game, when Dom had to make the decision to mercifully end his wife’s life, I hurt with him. But here in the third game, when the indestructible Tai Kaliso abruptly ended his own life with a shotgun after being rescued, I was shocked. I mean, my husband had even told me about this a few years ago, not thinking we’d ever have an Xbox to play it. I knew it was going to happen at some point and was still shocked. But you know what ruined me? Dom. Since we had been playing co-op since the beginning of game one, I was the one playing as Dom. I played as him for hours and hours of going through games one, two, and then a good portion of three until he died. I looked at my husband and demanded to know who I was going to be playing as now that Dom was gone. It was sad. He had to kill his wife, and then he made his own sacrifice to save his best friend and their crew. That’s the best bromance ever. It may even be better than JD and Turk, but don’t tell my husband I said that…TL;DR? Gears 3 was amazingly written with the perfect balance of explosions, chain saw guns and headshot pops with the heart-wrenching feelings you were made to experience.

There you have it! The Top Old Games of 2016! Be sure to check back tomorrow as we will reveal our favorite new games of 2016.