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ilovecheesepizza

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The "I Don't Play Enough Games to Make a Top 10" Best Games of 2016

I spent most of 2016 playing only a handful of video games, but I played that handful of games A LOT. I've found that in my old age I prefer games that will give me more bang for my buck. I've grown past the idea of paying $50-60 for a twelve hour experience. There were a lot of well received games this year that I simply didn't play because they didn't fit the criteria.

Some "New" stuff I played this year that don't really qualify:

The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine- The Witcher 3 was my second favorite game last year. Hearts of Stone was really good. Blood and Wine is absolutely amazing. The entire Witcher 3 package is a top 5 all-time game for me. Blood and Wine does so much fun, goofy stuff that isn't always there in the main game, but it's still The Witcher. It's still dark. You're still killing monsters. An amazing expansion that puts most full retail releases to shame. The Witcher 1 and 2 were great games, but 3 gives me absolute trust in anything CDPR does in the future.

Rise of the Tomb Raider- As a PS4 owner, I had to wait until 2016 to play this title. It's like someone read a list of everything that bugged me about the reboot and fixed it. My only complaint is the story was incredibly familiar and was almost one for one with the story of the reboot(minus the Illuminati stuff).

List items

  • I never would have tried out Hitman if it wasn't for the videos on the site. After playing through Paris, I was in love. I've gone on to get 100% of the trophies, and I'm currently working on getting 100% of the challenges done.

    Hitman is a game that you can play like Dan. You can run around like an idiot throwing fire extinguishers and screwdrivers. However, you can also go through an entire mission in the standard suit completely undetected. That's the magic of Hitman. It even embraces it. The Wicker Man challenge in Colorado allows you to walk around in a scarecrow costume setting everyone on fire. There's a challenge that involves putting on a yellow motorcycle costume and killing targets with a sword. How is that not the best thing? Every level, contract, etc is set up to be done in the most serious manner or by being batshit crazy.

    Hitman is also a game that just keeps on giving. The season pass gave you the intro area and six locations. On top of that they gave us the Summer Bonus Episodes. These were two unique contracts set up in previous locals that were redesigned for the contracts. One turns Sapienza into a movie shoot where you're tasked with killing a perfectionist actor in an Iron Man-like costume. When the full disc release drops in January, we're getting a second bonus called "Landslide". They also gave us the Holiday Hoarders pack for free. They gave it to us for free and asked if we like it to just donate to a charity. That's crazy. That's not something you see a lot of in 2016. On top of ALL THAT, we get monthly updates with Elusive Targets and new Escalation Contracts.

    I still have so much I want to do in Hitman, but I still want Season Two right now. It's crazy. I spent last night lying in bed trying to map out how to do Paris without being detected while only in the suit. I'm lying there with my eyes closed thinking about that before I fall asleep. Ridiculous.

  • There are two types of people in the gaming world. Those that love Overwatch and those that hate Overwatch simply because they were tired of hearing about it. Every person that I've got into the game has absolutely loved it. It's full of colorful characters and environments. I can spend an entire evening playing Overwatch and not have a single match play out the same way twice. It's so well balanced and diverse in its play-styles.

    Overwatch is also a game that allowed me to connect with a lot of GB people through our Overwatch community on PS4. I probably spent 100+ hours with various members playing this game and that's awesome.

    The only major complaint I had with Overwatch was the Summer Games loot box stuff. They did right that with the Halloween and Christmas boxes. I have no problem dropping $10-20 on boxes to support a game that's offerring all future maps and characters for free. However, I should be able to spend the in game currency on these items. Fixing that with the latest events was smart.

  • I wish I had paid a little more attention to Oxenfree when it was released. I had zero interest because I saw the qualifier "horror game" attached to the title. I'm not into horror games because the entire genre revolves around jump scares as substance. What made me finally give it a shot was finding out that the lead writer was the writer of my Game of the Year from 2015, Tales from the Borderlands. Boy, did I make a mistake not playing this game sooner. Calling Oxenfree a "horror game" in the traditional sense is an insult. Oxenfree gave me goosebumps and made my skin crawl multiple times without a single jump scare. It brought sincere dread and despair, but it also brought feelings of hope and togetherness.

    Oxenfree does suffer from one thing that drives me nuts in a lot of adventure games. During the later portions of the game, it requires a fair amount of backtracking to complete the game and find optional letters that really flesh out the story. It's an artificial way of extending the length of the game. The letters add a lot to the story, but they're not obtainable until the last quarter of the game. It just felt like a way of them making the game longer so people wouldn't complain about a four hour game costing $20. Some letters are placed in areas you would never visit in that last quarter of the game. If they had just placed them in the normal route of the game, it would have been a lot more forgivable.

    Oxenfree was a very positive experience for me. If it wasn't for the needless backtracking, it MIGHT have surpassed Hitman for my Game of the Year. Unfortuntely, that third act sucks a lot of wind out of the game at a point where it's firing on all cylinders.

  • Titanfall 2 is the unicorn of the FPS genre. It had an amazing campaign and multiplayer. Most FPS games seem to split on one or the other. You have Overwatch and Battlefield 1 that excell in their Multiplayer with lackluster or NO single player content. Then you have Doom that has an extremely well received campaign and a multiplayer that is absolute garbage.

    TF2's campaign is action packed with appropriate, slower break periods. You have giant mech battles mixed with ventures underground to restart the nuclear power systems. It makes you care about a giant robot. It lets you accomplish insane FPS power fantasies.

    The multiplayer is varied and chaotic. Turning a corner to come face to face with an enemy titan is one of the most exilerating moments in any FPS. Whether you're a pilot or in a mech, you have plenty to do. It's just a shame that EA absolutely screwed its sales with an awful release date. Some nights there's only 200-300 people playing certain game modes.

  • Furi is a game that I never would have tried if it wasn't free on Playstation Plus. I really loved everything about this game. The combat system was deep and rewarding. The story was really solid. The bosses all felt really cool and unique. The music was enthralling. Everything was there and came together well. I don't want to harp on the "Brad is bad at games" trend, but if you were unimpressed with the game because of Brad's QL, give it a try if you got it free. It may surprise you. There's a lot of basic concepts they teach you in that tutorial that Brad glossed over during the recording process. Those concepts would have made his life a lot easier. Maybe he went back and realized that. I hope he did.

  • It's a game about completing line puzzles. It's a game about exploring a weird island full of line puzzles. I never felt smarter or dumber while playing any other game before. I will admit I had to cheat through the sound puzzles in the Bamboo Forest. Years of working in high decibel areas has left me with extreme tinnitus that requires annual hearing tests. It's unfortunate, but I tried and it wasn't happening. It's the same reason I never tried for the "final test". I'm not sure if it has sound puzzles, but I didn't want to get that far and get stuck.

  • I really disliked Limbo, but I loved the hell out of Inside. I think the major factor was the lack of bullshit deaths. In Limbo I felt like I was being punished for nothing. I would die because a trap blended in with the background. In Inside if I died it was because I had to figure out the "puzzle" of getting around the attack dogs. It was just a real delight to play. It was nice taking a break from games that put a gun in your hand and tell you to kill.

  • I'm usually not a big fan of any of what this game has to offer, but for some reason Gungeon grabbed me. Unlike something resembling Binding of Isaac, I feel like you always have a chance in Gungeon regardless of your drops. Whenever I'd play Isaac I would just quit games after the first floor because I got a bad power-up. In Gungeon, I can get a bad gun and till make progress and feel good about it. Each run I could feel myself getting better and learning more. I've still yet to down the final floor. Each night I get closer and closer, and I have a blast doing it.
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