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fheonix

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GameBoyle's GOTY 2016

Here's my rundown of the Top Ten GOTY nominations! It was a tough year as there are just so many good games in 2016, despite how crazy the world has been! That being said, I've played a lot of games this year and can safely say I'm confident in both my choices and ranking for once! I didn't get chance to play Uncharted 4 (still working through 2!), nor did I play any of The Witcher's DLC as alas, I only beat the main game this year so I'm saving them for the daunting 2017 ahead! Hope it's not only agreeable for those who've played the games, but inspires some folks to pick up the ones they were on the fence about!

List items

  • No surprise really here, it's a pretty flawless game that did a lot for the FPS genre. It's the only game on the list I've constantly returned to this year because it requires very little commitment to just pick up and play. A hardcore FPS for the casual gamer.

  • On paper, it has no right being on this list if you haven't played it I'm sure. It's mashing a well known JRPG franchise together with the concept of Minecraft. It shouldn't be more than a curiosity but it does what it does so well, that it completely took me by surprise. The combat is very basic, but the building is so God damned fun, it filled me with a childlike glee I've not felt in years. It had potential for my GOTY, but a few shortcomings in how it handles chapters kept it from being a perfect experience. Hope they fix this in any potential sequels.

  • Building on a solid foundation of Titanfall 1, TF2 (no relation) delivers something rarely seen in FPS games. Namely a coherent plot with characters I actually cared about. On top of that, the shooting is solid, it actually delivers on the promise of a first person platformer and mixes things up in an interesting campaign. If not for Overwatch, it'd be my multiplayer game of choice this year.

  • This game is a mixed bag. I couldn't figure out for the first 20 or so hours if I loved or loathed it. It has serious short comings in terms of pacing, it even wants to be a completely different genre at times, not to mention some strange choices in how it approached an open world. Yet I beat it and am still playing it. Why? Well, the combat is immensely satisfying. Despite the characters seeming to be wafer thin clichés at the off, they are the group of Final Fantasy characters I'd like to spend more time with... Something I can't say with confidence for any party since 9. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this is the best FF game since the ninth installment... If it had been more consistent with it's storytelling and not taken a strange left turn in later chapters, it would be up there with the best RPGs of all time.

  • While I've yet to beat it (playing Moon) I can safely say it's a new spin on Pokémon. It feels fresh despite it lacking new monsters and improves on the formula laid out in X and Y. Not a huge leap forward for the franchise, but a step in the right direction, deserving a place in the middle of my top 10.

  • Played right in the middle of my stint with 'walking simulators', the way Oxenfree delivered it's story set it apart from games like Firewatch and Virginia, which also aim to tell an emotional narrative. The choices the player makes help you feel invested in the characters, while the dialogue options not only match tonally the choice presented to the player, but feel like something the characters would say. It was the first game in a long time that I played through for multiple endings, but other than the achievement of 'getting dialogue right', it's perhaps not a game for everyone.

  • A game I'd watched closely since it's announcement that I very much enjoyed. It was a great game to play with the other half who is incredibly into Puzzle Games. While it won't be for everyone, if you scrape away some of the tedium of solving 20+ of the same kind of puzzles, there is something great (though admittedly perhaps a little smug) about how the game assembles itself around so many puzzles, founded on the same learned logic. It doesn't hold your hand too much which is something a lot of games could learn from, though I could see that while the game does have a lot of options for getting to the 'end', that a potentially large number of players wouldn't get there.

  • A surprisingly fun new fighting game that's as quirky and vibrant as it is a joy to play. I didn't play it too much, but it is constantly the game I want to crack out when I have friends over who are into fighting games.

  • Another game that you'd have thought would have no right being on any GOTY list. Doom finally answers what a modern take on the classic FPS would look like. Bloody, fast and chaotic in equal measure. Doom embraces what it is and doesn't get bogged down by trying to be Call of Duty, a true inspiration that leaves me hopeful that an old dog can learn new tricks.

  • More good stuff from the folks at Play Dead. While it doesn't really deliver anything new, it's a solid feeling game with a lot of atmosphere. While I hope they do something new next time around, you can never have too many 'Another World'-esq games in the world.
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