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For an Old Sonic fan this game was a cathartic relief of an experience. Sonic may not be for everyone (Brad) but for some it's home, a mix of familiar visuals, sounds and mechanics that just feels right.
Actually I think it would be a good introduction for people who never played a Sonic game before. For those of us who were fans in the MegaDrive era it happens to be packed with nostalgia and enough new features to make it feel fresh.
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I understand why the gameplay is frustrating for some people, and it certainly was difficult, but I always found the payoff to be worth it and myself to be at fault. Frustration is actually a key element in the games I've rated this year, in some ways it's the frustration itself which keeps me from bouncing off, it makes me want to improve, set myself targets or actually finish a game, a rare occurence these days.
I won't go in to the many excellent insane spoiler-filled events which make the game especially notable, needless to say, I loved every single one of them.
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I don't think there was a single gaming community that wasn't overtaken by PUBG this year, that people somehow managed to avoid playing it amazes me.
I'm mostly just happy that this year's zeitgeist was a genre I specifically enjoy, Tactical Shooters. When I first saw screencaps of Battlegrounds I immediately thought of SOCOM, when I played it I recalled ARMA. But ultimately it is (was) a very unique game and recent changes still promise an enjoyable experience in to 2018.
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So a lot of the new games I played this year were really just reboots and sequels. But you know what? They were great reboots and sequels! Thimbleweed Park harkens back to what may be the golden-age of point-and-click adventure games, when LucasArts was a thing that existed, and actually made games set outside the Star Wars universe. The first Monkey Island game particularly amazed me because it was different from the very action oriented games I played as a child, and also because at first, I couldn't get past the first couple of rooms as my floppies were broken. (That's a trend which will come up later)
It's very much one of those games, not a straight mystery game but a comedy which bends expectations and forces you to think illogically about things.
The most interesting thing I noticed about the game as I played it may have been the writing. Without Tim Schafer's brash voice the comedy is a lot drier, a different but still entertaining experience, and one you'll really need to enjoy in order to enjoy a game like this. For me, it works. It draws you in and takes you places you weren't expecting.
And you know what, Ransome the *bleeping* clown for best character of 2017.
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Heat Sig was probably the game I most anticipated this year.
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I haven't played enough Bomber Crew to really judge it yet, but from what I have played it seems like a faithful recreation of the classic DOS Flying Fortress games in the style of a modern Indie game. My understanding of the genre is purely through reading the manual of that first game (because the Floppies I had were broken, again) , mesmerised at the complexity of the systems, but it also relates to much more recent games like FTL which also use squad management in an enclosed space, a mechanic which will offer you control then tear it away from you in an instant.
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Gang Beasts is finally releasing. It's one of those games I feel like I know intimately despite never actually playing it, and it's giving me so many good memories it really needs to be mentioned.
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What little Injustice 2 I've played so far seems very addictive. I loved character customisation in Tekken 5 DR and Soul Calibur IV, this game ramps that up and from what I can tell so far does not break the balancing of the game or the enjoyment of the actual gameplay.
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