Well, it's the last few days of 2015 and that can mean only one thing - it's time to put on some music and rank video games.

10. Titan Souls

Titan Souls caught my attention due to my love of Shadow of the Colossus. Thematically it's almost exactly the same - you're dropped into a large, pixelised world with no real explanation on what to do and you kind of stumble into the first boss. Like SotC, you only fight massive bosses but the twist here is that they only take one hit on their weak point to best - this makes the game more of a puzzle game than an action game where your trying to figure out how to unveil the titan's weak point in order to strike the vital blow. Another twist comes from the fact that whilst they have one weak point, you literally have one weapon - an arrow you shoot and have to continually find and pick up. Titan Souls was a fun little package at the start of the year and despite the short length, I'd happily recommend it.

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9. Cities: Skylines

City building simulators were struck very hard by the disastrous Sim City that launched in 2013. The stage was set for someone to grab the baton and create a true successor to Sim City and Paradox Interactive, creators of the excellent Europa Universalis, Victoria and other grand strategy games, took up the mantle BIG TIME. Cities: Skylines is a very deep city builder with a fantastic amount of options and really does encourage you to mess around with what you have and create. It's just fun. Despite personal frustrations with building a city for five-six hours then realising that something I did in the first thirty minutes fucked me over, Cities is fun enough to start again and again. With a thriving mod community and an apparently excellent first DLC pack in "After Dark" (which I really need to try), Cities: Skylines is getting better and better.

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8. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D

This game... oh Majora's Mask, how I love you. What hasn't been said about this game? It's the best Zelda game, period. I said it. The world building and characterisation in this game still astounds me. In other Zelda games, Hyrule is a backdrop, some nice scenery. Termina is alive. The NPCs are no longer just NPCs but actual characters that you want to help and want to learn more about. The soundtrack is excellent as well. Thanks to the 3DS we finally get a definitive MM running at a decent frame rate as well! Ignore the people who may say "IT ONLY HAS 4 DUNGEONS" - okay, they're right but the dungeons are all fantastic and the parts between the dungeons are so much better than any other Zelda game it's almost crazy. This game would probably be higher but it's just a remake and it would be a bit unfair on actual 2015 games. Majora's mask... is a fantastic game you guys. It's one of the best games ever made. Do yourself a favour and play it if you've put it off for some reason. Play it again on 3DS if you've played it on N64. It's great.

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7. D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die

Hey... wait a minute! This game came out last year! Well, you're right but I don't have an Xbox One and D4 finally made it over to the PC in 2015. David Young's adventure is goofy in all the right ways. The gameplay, whilst obviously kinectless, translates well to the mouse. The characters are memorable, from Duncan and his mannequin to Phillip Cheyney the classy flight attendent (who has one of the best themes I've heard in ages). In fact, D4's soundtrack is just brilliant. It captures the feeling of an actual episodic TV series better than any episodic game out there. LISTEN TO THIS THEME. I wish I could have heard it more than twice. Which leads me onto the biggest shame about D4 - Swery was only able to make 2.5 episodes for "series 1". I have no idea about the status of a series 2 but here's hoping because I really want to see how this concludes. There's just something about japanese games like D4 that I just can't help but be endeared by. Seriously, if you're looking for something that's actually different and not just presented as different then buy D4.

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6. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

I have a lot of things to say about this game. It looks great (I played on PC), it plays great, it sounds great but I just can't shake the feeling that something was off about it. Metal Gear Solid V is a fantastic game, no doubt about it, but is it a fantastic Metal Gear game? I'm not really sure. It's definitely very different. I wasn't a big fan of the structure - I'm not a fan of peace walker and this game presented a lot of similar problems. I also felt that there wasn't enough incentive, besides doing fun stupid stuff, to actually develop a lot of the weapons. I used the tranquiliser pistol at the start and I used it at the end. It just felt a bit sparse. When MGSV was on its game - the end of chapter 1 for instance - it was absolutely thrilling but when it was off - a lot of chapter 2 - it was a slog. Annoyingly, considering how good Kiefer Sutherland was when he actually spoke, Snake was almost mute. Kaz and Huey provided some fantastic exposition when they were allowed to as well... Quiet was there. Ocelot was in and out. Eli had the potential to be a fantastic character but wasn't given the scenes to do it. I don't know - MGS4 had way too many cutscenes but this was the other side of the coin. They needed a balance and MGSV didn't provide it. I probably sound like I dislike this game, I don't. V is probably the best playing action game ever, no joke. The amount of things you can do in it is staggering. It's just really fun and if it had any other name I wouldn't be so harsh. I just felt that Kojima's last Metal Gear had to go out with more of a bang and more of a conclusion to the Big Boss saga.

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5. Undertale

The most controversial game of 2015! Or something... This game, at least for me, literally came out of nowhere. The first time I saw Undertale was on Giant Bomb East's quick look! Thanks guys. Let's start by ignoring the gamefaqs poll, ignoring the rabid people who think this isn't a game for "real gamers" or something. Ignore all the hype, melodrama, fanart and everything else surrounding this game and get down to it. Undertale is a great game and a great experience. The characters are funny, awkward and well... likeable. The artstyle suits the game to a tee and that's what you want. The world that Toby Fox created is intriguing and just fun to be in. The music... well, the OST is incredible. From the Snowy plains, to the Shop, to Sans theme and literally every other piece, Undertale does what an OST should do - set the scene. It's just a joy to listen to and without the OST I don't believe this game would be anywhere near as good. All the elements of Undertale just come together in a great way and it's my favourite type of game - a surprise. I wasn't "hyped" for it, I wasn't desperate for it to be amazing, I wasn't comparing it to previous games in the series or anything. I just enjoyed it for what it is. The fact that it managed to create almost two cults - the rabid fanbase and the group of people who will do anything to hate it - shows just how much of an impression it has managed to leave on the community and say what you want, that's rather impressive.

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4. Super Mario Maker

If I had to describe this in one word - endless. Literally endless. I absolutely adore the 2D Mario games and here we have a game that grants me an unending supply of levels. Who could argue with that? Mario Maker is so simple the name tells you exactly what is happening. Create Mario levels and play them. It's a concept that Nintendo could have really botched but the amount of tools they give you is fantastic - with four tile sets to mess around with. The biggest praise I can give SMM is the fact that I made one level on LittleBigPlanet and it was absolutely terrible, I've made 7 on Mario Maker and I was happy with them. The interface is so intuitive and it's probably the best use of the Wii U gamepad that I've seen. It just goes to show you that the most important part of any game is the underlying concept. Mario Maker is so simple, yet it's so brilliant and probably the best Nintendo game I've played since Super Mario 3D Land. I really need to play more of it. Here's a very basic level I made with a (well at least I think) fun concept: 4B9D-0000-002D-0DA8 - don't look at Miiverse if you don't want spoiled.

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3. Life is Strange

I bought episode one of this in January and I only bought 2-5 during the latest steam sale. Gotta thank Giant Beast for getting me interested in this again because Life is Strange is probably the best episodic series I've played since Walking Dead: Season 1. I just fell in love with all the characters and these types of games succeed and fail on the strength of their characters. The voice acting is very well done for the most part, the stereotypes are funny enough to not annoy me and Max and Chloe manage to form a bond that makes you care about what happens to those characters. I've mentioned OSTs a lot on this list but I'm going to do it again because Life is Strange's hipster rock and almost indie folkrock OST is superb. Again it comes back to setting a scene and the music does just as much as the characters to give Arcadia Bay, the setting, a sense of identity. One thing that LiS does as well that some Telltale games seem to have moved away from is letting the player feel in control - you can walk around and explore the enviroment you're in to your hearts content finding a lot of things that help to add context to all the characters and that's all I ask for in these types of games. I don't want to be whisked from cutscene to cutscene, choice to choice - I want the ability to stop and smell the roses if I ever want to and Life is Strange gives me that. Even if you dismissed it, like I did, Life is Strange is worth playing.

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2. Ori and the Blind Forest.

Ori is wonderful. Here's a game with probably the most beautiful aesthetic I've ever seen but with the substance and tight, technical systems to back it up. There's an argument to be made that some indie games rely too much on artstyle and can't back it up with mechanics but Ori gracefully leaps over all those potential pitfalls because it's an absolute dream to play as well as look at. It's a relatively standard Metroidvania - relying more on platforming than action - but it's just an enthralling journey from start to finish. I'll have to mention OST again (games have really done well in the music department in 2015) because Ori's is gorgeous - here's my personal favourite, "the waters cleansed". The story is simple but you do care by the end of it. I'll admit, I thought that Ori would slip out my mind after playing a bunch of other games but it's stuck with me - I just can't see any other game coming close to it in terms of pure mechanics. It might be a bit short but it doesn't overstay it's welcome and I can see myself playing through it again... I might actually get started after I finish writing this up. Play Ori and the Blind Forest you guys.

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1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

This is it. This is the best game of 2015. Whether you're travelling through the Isles of Skellige hunting a drake for a village or trodding through the swamps of Crookback Bog in search of witches, you're always on an adventure. That's what Witcher 3 does. It makes you feel like you're on an epic quest. It's the first open world game in so long where I've been completely engrossed in the world - realising at 2 am that I've been playing for five hours straight. Other games in the genre fall into the chasm of having a lot to do, barely any of it is interesting or fun but even the smallest quests in Witcher 3 have a story to them, a reason that you want Geralt to go out of his way to help these people. The main quest line as well, it isn't another "all powerful mute person going around and saving the world" - it's a deeply personal journey where two people try and find someone they love. Along the way you meet a whole host of characters, some new, some returning, all entertaining and interesting. The Northern realms are beautiful, mythical and alive - it isn't just your playbox, this is a real world with people with real problems and Geralt is an interesting character with his own ways of looking at things. Some of the scenes - the battle at Kaer Morhen for example - are absolutely enthralling and absolute top of the line AAA scenes. The only problems may be the bosses, they don't feel too climatic and fall into repetitive patterns but that isn't enough to detract from Witcher 3. Add in the best DLC of the year - Hearts of Stone and you could be playing this game for what feels like forever. Oh wait - I forgot. GWENT. THE BEST MINIGAME SINCE TRIPLE TRIAD - IT'S ALL ABOUT THE HEART OF THE CARDS. Witcher 3 is just brilliant, it's the game that just keeps on giving and to me at least, it delivered on all of its promise and provided a fitting conclusion to Geralt's saga. Play this game!