Year is bad

Video games is good

I like video games

You like video games

Here is ten

Goooooooooood

Anime.

The original Watch_Dogs didn’t do much for me. A miserable setting with miserable characters was pretty hard to care about when Grand Theft Auto V was still fresh in my mind. Watch Dogs 2 actually musters the courage to care about its world, about the things that happen there, about the people that live in it.

The crew at DedSec want to make the world a better place, even if their methods are a little over the top. Sure, it's a little hard to swallow a game that asks you to care about corruption but then turns around and lets you level half a city block with a grenade launcher, but the vibrant charm of the world built around that, the optimism and inclusivity, outshone that for me.

The bright-eyed enthusiasm and pure joy with which Watch Dogs 2 approaches everything it does is really nice to see in a genre dominated by cynical, drab revenge plots.

Everybody in this game is someone I want to be friends with. Even the guy that looks like a Hot Topic mascot. He's pretty cool.

I probably don’t need to extol the virtues of Doom 2016 to users. It takes all of the things that made the original games fun and modernizes them in a way that makes for a better shooter campaign than anything we’ve seen in years. Somehow id knew exactly what a Doom game needed to be in 2016, maybe better than anyone could have expected.

Also you get to rip demons in half by the jaw so, y’know.

Limbo is a game I’ve returned to several times since I first played it. While it never really spoke to me on a deeper level, the atmosphere and awesome puzzle design made it a great game to power through in a single sitting every once in a while. With Inside, I’m not sure I’ll ever need to go back. It feels like everything Limbo ever aspired to be.

There's a point about halfway through where things felt like they were slowing down a little too much for me, but then you meet a little buddy with some impressive swimming skills and things ratchet right back up again, and stay there, all the way through to the end.

The moody atmosphere, the look and feel of the game, and the way the puzzles continue to expand on each other as the game progresses all blow Playdead’s first offering out of the water (pun not intended I swear) And then there’s that ending.

When Uncharted 4 first got announced, I had the same reaction a lot of people did. “Is this really necessary?” Even if 3 was a little lackluster, it certainly felt like the natural conclusion of the series; So when reviewers started getting their hands on Uncharted 4 and saying it was better than my beloved Uncharted 2, I was excited to be proven wrong.

It didn’t necessarily blow me away as much as it did some people, but man. MAN. What an absolute blast. Uncharted, strangely, feels like kind of a dying breed in AAA games right now. Unapologetically linear, with no real replay value hooks other than the fact that it’s just damn fun to play (We can pretend the multiplayer doesn’t exist, right?)

It’s not gonna be for everyone, and I totally understand anyone who just can’t bring themselves to care about more Uncharted, but I’m just glad to see Nathan Drake off on such a high note.

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I never got around to Gone Home when it first came out. A bad PC and the misguided stigma around “walking simulators” kept me away from a game that might’ve totally been my kind of thing. Firewatch ended up being my first real experience in the genre, and I couldn’t have asked for a better entry point. Firewatch is beautiful. Firewatch is depressing. Firewatch made me involuntarily stand up from my chair multiple times because I couldn’t stand the tension. Ultimately, though, Firewatch is disappointing.

Not in a bad way though; The disappointment end emptiness I was left with after Firewatch was weirdly invigorating, because no other work of fiction had made me feel that way before. I’ve probably already said too much, but if you’ve played Firewatch you know what I mean.

Some people might just call it a lame, anticlimactic ending and be done with it, but Firewatch’s conclusion left me reeling in a way that has me excited to see what Campo Santo does next.

In a medium dominated by stories about saving the world and killing a bunch of bad guys in the coolest, flashiest ways possible, it’s really refreshing to have a game like VA-11 Hall-A that just feels relaxing. The game even tells you to grab a drink and get comfortable when you start it up for the first time.

VA-11 Hall-A is a game interested in the little things. In a big, neon drenched cyberpunk city with no shortage of diverse characters and crazy, intrigue filled stories to follow, it’s content just letting us get to know with a single down on her luck bartender and her friends.This sense of intimacy is where VA-11 Hall-A’s writing thrives. Simple but thoughtful conversations between characters that feel like real people discussing real problems in their lives. The game has sort of a main plot, but even that feels as down to earth and relatable as any of the stories you hear from bar patrons.

There’s a wonderful moment in VA-11 Hall-A where a good friend pulls your character aside and reverses the roles, pouring you a drink and urging you to talk about your problems for once. Rarely does a specific video game feel like “self care” to me, but VA-11 Hall-A does. Not in a constantly cheery, lighthearted kind of way, but in a way that’s sometimes messy, sometimes ugly, sometimes depressing; But usually, at the end of the day, for lack of a better word: hopeful.

Alright, now let me tell you about murder.

There’s a lot of video games about murdering dudes. Roughly half the games on this list are about murdering dudes. With Hitman, though? Murdering’s never been better. One time I blew up a guy with a cannon, dressed up as his golf instructor, and poisoned his sister’s champagne. Another time I yoga’d a lady off a cliff and sucked another dude’s blood out by hacking his automated surgery machine.

I’d tell more stories but I think this video can make the rest of my case for me.

Basically, Hitman’s the greatest game ever made.

Okay, there might be some other games on this list I had more fun with in the moment, but there’s absolutely zero video games out right now that I want to return to as often as Overwatch. Even right now, I’m writing this entry and thinking about all the holiday loot boxes I could be getting. It drives me crazy sometimes. I’ve had to walk away more than a few times due a humiliating loss because somebody absolutely insisted on PICKING HANZO WHEN WE ALREADY HAVE A WIDOWMAKER ON ATTACK COOL NO PROBLEM GUYS

But it’s fun. It’s really, really fun. Sometimes I wish I could stop playing, but I also really don’t wish I could stop playing. I haven’t been sucked into a game like I have with Overwatch in almost a decade, and it’s so nice to feel so at home with a game again.

Sure, there’s always gonna be attack Widowmakers and people who just will not stop picking Genji, but I feel pretty okay taking the bad with the good on this one.

Alright, that’s probably enough words for a post. I’m gonna go do some quick play now.

Runners up, and games that just barely got edged out of this top ten: Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Oxenfree, Yomawari: Night Alone, and Pokemon Sun & Moon

In case you wanna see my specific awards like best horror game or best music, check out my first list over here.

I make Animated (Kinda) and other videos over here, and tweet over here.