2015 Games I Played
Games that I completed or played enough of to get a feel of and were released in 2015. For GOTY purposes.
List items
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The best city creator and simulator ever made.
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Fantastic PC port.
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A truly impressive and ambitious game. Some of the best and most engaging writing I have ever seen in a game. A staggeringly beautiful and dense fantasy world. But the relentlessly dour atmosphere weighs on the player after a while. There is rarely any emotional variation to keep people engaged. It has glimpses of greatness but is unfortunately held back by those issues, along with some nasty bugs, ugly animation and occasionally clumsy gameplay.
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Xbox One
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Batman: Arkham Knight has gotten a pretty bad rap this past year, due to a disasterous PC release. It's unfortunate too, because buried underneath the drama is a great game. I played this on Xbox One and loved it. The gameplay is better than ever, but still feels like Batman. The open world feels large and varied, and the side objectives and collectibles are far better than Arkham City's filler. The story is engaging and loyal to the franchise but tapers off slightly by the end.
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Quite literally a masterpiece. Kojima's best work so far. Something as ambitious and polished as this rarely ever finds its way out of someone's brain and onto shelves.
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Avalanche managed to create a beautiful and dense open world out of a barren apocalyptic wasteland. I didn't care much for the story but the fun combat, driving and collecting kept me interested for hours on end.
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Despite having a laughably terrible story mode (thanks to Spike Lee), this game once again proves that 2K are the masters of the genre. The amount of modes, features and options, combined with its impeccable gameplay, graphics and animation make this a masterful step forward for not just basketball games but sports games as a whole.
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The shooting part of Halo has never been better. And that is what usually matters most in FPS's, but the Halo series separates itself from the rest by interweaving deep lore and interesting storytelling, despite a decidedly stoic main character. Unfortunately 343 still has not found the secret formula of gameplay and storytelling that Bungie once held. I will say, it is slightly more coherent than Halo 4, however. There are audio logs, strewn throughout the campaign, but they are brief and add nothing of narrative value. Its unfortunate too, because Halo 5 has great gameplay pacing, level design and shooting mechanics. It takes some interesting risks too, in walk-and-talk missions that attempt to flesh out the story, but they don't make up for an ending that comes close to mirroring Halo 2 in its feeling of emptiness and incompletion. It all feels a little pointless by the time the campaign raps up and you start to realize that the past 5 hours (yes, 5 hours) have basically been a prologue to the inevitable Halo 6.
But hey the multiplayer works this time! And its pretty great! The begged-for changes from Halo 4, like weapons on map and less armor abilities make for a balanced and very enjoyable competitive multiplayer experience. In its current state, it is lacking some classic Halo modes(which will be added over time), but Warzone, Halo 5's flagship new game-type, borrows elements from popular MOBA's and feels right at home in the long Halo's long list of fantastic, unique multiplayer modes. All together, Halo still feels like Halo and with some smart additions and changes, the now 15 year old series feels as fresh and fun as ever.
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Bad
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