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Favorites of 2017

I usually wouldn’t do this, but I played so many worthwhile games this year that didn’t fit a Top 10 that I feel the need to give these honorable mentions some due:

  • Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, for making the “2017: the game!” quip all too easy.
  • Prey, for having a demo that I played a lot, but then somehow forgot about. Next year? Next year.
  • PlunkBat, for being a game that I didn’t even really play, but was entertained by regardless.
  • Resident Evil 7, for having the best logo ever (and for being a quality entry in a favorite series).
  • West of Loathing, for being the game I feel the most guilty for not playing all the way through.
  • Dream Daddy, for being gay as hell.

Alright. Okay. I think I’m ready to actually talk about the Top 10 games of 2017. Jeez.

P.S. Annapurna have only published two games, and they both appear on this list. Good job, team.

List items

  • Look at me. I used to laugh at the most ridiculous Zelda fans -- you know, the ones that rioted over an 8.8 -- numbers only reserved for the dredge of, like, pretty good games. The ones claiming every step on the footpath was a revelation. The ones whose quixotic passion caused nonsensical timelines to be published and helped engender a stagnation in the series originally built for wonder and unprecedented discovery. You know, those fans.

    But now? Now, I’m among their damn ranks, waving my fist at any notion that implies Breath of the Wild isn’t Nintendo’s best game by a sizable margin. Even with some time between me and my first impressions, I’m still shocked that the same company that cursed Skyward Sword into existence was capable of not only correcting course, but doing so in a way that showcases its abilities as a legacy-defining pillar of this entire industry. It’s a smart-as-hell game, with an endless amount of design choices that separate it from its contemporaries; I basically said it in my review, but never has the term “open world” conveyed a game’s ethos so clearly.

    In a way, the pieces were in place for me last year -- Firewatch was my #1 game, due in part to its reverence for the natural world. Playing that game with no artificial direction as a self-imposed challenge confirmed one of my longest-running suspicions -- that being let free in unknown spaces is one of, if not my single most favorite trait of games. Now, with that in mind, try to imagine the orders of fucking magnitude Breath of the Wild imparted by the time I was done.

  • Little did you know, I’ve already tried to tell you why this game left the impression it did. I’ve tried -- God, have I tried.

    When I first finished the game, I immediately felt the need to say something. It’s been months since then, but that feeling still exists within me, and it’s left a hell of a paper trail. Unlike any other subject this year, NieR:Automata has resulted in well over 4000 words of mine inevitably sanctioned off and discarded, laid in a pile of anecdotes and points and stories that hold some value, but fail to form anything. Maybe someday I’ll dig out a finished report and this small-scale struggle will be a funny thing of the past.

    So, what can I say here that I haven’t already tried to convey? The game’s an enigma -- a knotted string of anxieties delivered completely barefaced. It’s monolithic in its ambition, but somehow scrappy and vulnerable, almost to the point of feeling amateur. It’s a game that, at its lowest point, asks you /tactlessly/ to keep going. For some, this ask was certainly too much, and I’ll leave it to someone else to drink every time “at least the soundtrack’s good” is uttered. For me, though? I wish all games of this scale worked themselves out into such a disheveled heap.

    A messy room, often times, is more comfortable than precise and sterile spaces, and NieR:Automata uses this quirk of humanity to see you through the maelstrom and into transcendence. I truly believe that its existence is one worth cherishing, if only because I don’t believe for a second that anything quite like it will happen again anytime soon.

  • Tekken as a competitive game is kind of strange. It’s more informational than your average fighting game, and the skills required to perform at an entry-level are comparatively low. This isn’t to say that it’s easy by any stretch, and there will certainly be a point where familiarizing yourself with its weighty ethos is part of your daily routine. However, I can’t help but think that I found learning the game to be almost as fun as playing, which says a lot seeing as how I love playing it.

    When Tekken is at its best, matches feels like something you’ve learned from. I’ve played many fighting games, but it’s only just now with this entry, with all of its oddly intuitive design and applicable mechanics, that my time and energy has manifested into something with appreciable returns. And, even if the game wasn’t great, I’d still value it for giving me that confidence.

    Last year, I put Overwatch in my #3 spot for coaxing 50 hours out of me despite being a multiplayer game. So, let’s jump forward a year as I write this #3 entry with 150 hours in Tekken 7. Hmm.

  • Let’s face it: looking to marketed games for any sort of political urgency is inherently difficult. Surely no game I could’ve played this year fitting that criteria started as a response to the anxiety that America’s 2016 brought, even one as civic-centric as Night in the Woods.

    Rest assured, though, that this is part of what makes it great. For, you see, Night in the Woods isn’t created by soothsayers who knew where we’d be nearly four years after its production started. Its heart is and always was one of righteous resistance. If you seek proof, look to the Kickstarter page of the game in 2013 (!) where Mae and her posse were already cast as unassured American youth victimized by their unstable environment, all before the game’s funding was even secured.

    Though it has taken the languid extremes of this nightmare administration to inspire most people, Infinite Falls, and by extension Night in the Woods, find strength in being fashionably early.

  • Ever since the inimitable and leftfield Transistor in 2014, Supergiant game pitches seem to be exclusively done via "What if?" questions. I have written below a few guesses as to what questions they asked when coming up with Pyre:

    What if Obsidian made a Fire Emblem game?

    What if everything was made of stained glass?

    What if sports were appropriated by the biggest nerds on the planet?

    What if Blitzball was good?

    Joking aside, It's this mad-scientist approach to design that make their games so damn worthwhile, despite usually being greater than the sum of their parts. While I would see arguments against any individual piece of Pyre being outstanding, living in the thick of this world is mystifying to the letter of its definition.

  • Though I don’t usually ascribe my childhood to any 16-bit console, should I have to, the Genesis would be first in line. Besides the obvious reasons (unlike the SNES or Turbografx, I’ve actually owned Geneses), I’ve always held an appreciation for its off-kilter library; sure, Nintendo had stability, but looking back, it’s hard not to be allured by Sega’s side of the console war. Even with those company-defining risks and failures up into the aughts, their flagship in Sonic the Hedgehog kept its strength as a marketing icon and nostalgia machine. Even I, a person with only a few affiliations in 16-bit gaming, couldn’t help but have my early years defined in part by the 90’s-’tude-meets-art-deco aesthetics of Classic Sonic.

    All of this is to say that the Blue Blur appeals to me. Unfortunately though, Sonic Team’s handling of the IP has ranged wildly in gaining my appreciation, and even Sonic's inherent appeal fades at a point. However, hidden beneath my nose all these years, there’s been a brewing cauldron of fans refining what good Sonic even looks like. While the mainstream was fanning its contempt for disasters like Sonic ‘06, communal efforts like Sonic Megamix were bringing love-letters to the people who cared the most.

    Cut to 2017 when a few of those same people released their first Sega-sanctioned game, and belittled two decades of mismanagement, both fiscally and creatively. To some, Sonic Mania’s success was a called shot. How I wish I was there with them in that moment, pointing to the lights of the stadium. Sonic Mania is more than just a good Sonic game - it’s more than the best Sonic game, even. This is Sonic for the people.

  • I have a fascination with games that are impossible to capture in an image. This all started some time last year when my game-tourism habits were completely shafted by Ian Maclarty’s The Catacombs of Solaris. That game’s best trick is how it eludes capture; by taking a screenshot, you’re destined to a still of the exact moment before its sole mechanic works its magic. The game, in this way, is just as studious as it is ephemeral.

    Gorogoa achieves a similar goal, albeit with a different coating. As you work through the multiple perspectives, fitting one scene into another like clockwork, it’s easy to forget that if you were to just stop and look at it, Gorogoa’s paneled structure could resonate its own insight. If you were to try and capture a moment in action, much like The Catacombs of Solaris, you’d be presenting an entirely different thing. It almost makes you wonder what you could gleam as a player by removing yourself from its workflow and through the stories its designed to emulate.

  • I spent the night of Christmas playing a few hours of Nidhogg II with my best friend. Having most of my list written out, I couldn’t help but think mid-match, “Fuck, I’m gonna have to do some rearranging.”

    Nidhogg II isn't an iterative sequel by any stretch. If anything, I like to imagine it as Messhof going "what if we went the other way with this concept?" That's probably followed by a self-pat on the back for that good Nidhogg joke, but maybe that's just me.

    While I understand the hesitation, there are very few changes to the formula that I didn't find to be wholesale improvements. There's more than one viable stage now! I can change my color! I play it for more than 3 matches at a time! I love it! Exclamation mark!

  • As weird as it may sound, What Remains of Edith Finch appears on this list not so much as a game I find wholly commendable, but as a game that achieves two things so well that they’re worth taking a spot to mention.

    1. Edith Finch is macabre to the point of being cartoonish, yet the most worthwhile moments were often filled with some levity. I hesitate to call it a dark comedy, but there is a gaiety to the grim that has to be taken lest it swallow you whole. In this particular way, its treatment of death is less ridiculous than at first it may seem.

    2. That cannery sequence, man. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something as pedestrian as daydreaming while performing menial labor conveyed in such an inspired way. In a game that shows so much bizarre death that I began to feel calloused to the family’s misfortune, it’s great that one of its last was easily the most affecting.

  • For a game so fixated on details, my favorite moments of Hidden Folks were often the first few minutes of a new area. The game justifies its “Where’s Waldo, but video game” pitch immediately by showcasing a gigantic replica of bustling life, and seeing these vignettes in motion became part of the reward. Once you’re done oogling the systematic cacophony of the titular folks, you proceed to play a hidden object game; and, unless your heart is crusted over by the sands of infinite nightmare, it’s easy to find some childish joy there. It’s a simple game, but one that managed to remain fondly remembered over the course of a year. And, to me, that’s just fine.
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