Best of 2017
This year has started hot with tons of great releases early in the year, hopefully this continues till years end.
List items
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The most fun I've had this year. The story, characters, combat, upgrade system all combine to create an amazing world. I had a blast from start to finish and am eager for DLC to continue my experience.
The story and world are fantastic, hitting on the fascination with dinosaurs combining it with the awe of future technology all while taking place in a seemingly ancient culture. The enemies in this world are dinosaur huge and you feel like you've really accomplished something when you're able to bring them down. I love that the natives wear the tech plastic and fittings of these beasts as our own natives wore fur. The story is told beautifully from the faithful eyes of the religious and their view of what's happening to the scientific narrative of what's lead to this beautiful yet horrific environment.
The upgrade mechanics are very similar to the Far Cry system and continuously had me craving for the next upgrade.
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The extra year in development has resulted in a game much more fleshed out with a rebirth in mechanics. Origins deserves you taking a look whether you're new to or tired of the past offerings. It truly is a worthy game of the year contender, in this unbelievably great year of games, and it's easily the best Assassin's Creed offering to date (and by a large margin).
Combat:
Combat is much deeper as different enemies behave differently and are quick to switch arsenals pending on your distance. Additionally each weapon type has different combos and timing so on some you may want to throw out more heavy attacks and others will punish you for doing so. By experimenting you can discover powerful combos with each weapon type. There are more bow types than really feels useful, but the plus is each type has it's own ammo pool. You can spec out your skill tree as you level up to gain additional power with the tactics you prefer. Health is now regenerated outside of combat saving you the hassle of spending on and using health regenerating items. The varied enemy tactics, rewards for fights, and variety/complexity of the weapons bring fresh life to the Creed combat mechanics and is much improved and deep. Also the addition of rpg stats and grades and perks in weapons further deepens the strategy and choices. For instance right now I'm using a slow club I don't feel very comfortable using, but it does give me health on hit which offsets it's slowness.
Character:
The combat improvements alone would have made this sequel worth picking it up, but the improvements are much deeper than just combat. The world this time feels largely designed around the story and missions surrounding it, making it felt lived in. You can easily sense the people around you built the town in front of you and make up it's ethos and design, whereas in the past the inhabitants felt put in to match the town design, now it feels as if the people around the town built it up. This impression is built by the characters you meet. All the major characters have a background story which is not only told by the individual themselves, but their surroundings, their family if it's nearby, and the way the townspeople interact and speak of the individual. The characters aren't black and white either, they may have smiles around family and friends, but do evil behind closed doors. The animation and dialog in the game does a great job of fleshing out emotions between the characters. You can't help but grin at the child's devoted love of his father, and a wife's love of one's spouse is conveyed with the well done graphics and animations. The time spent giving each area it's own feel and characters has paid off making each area a welcome to visit and actually participate in gaining knowledge of it's inhabitants and structures. If you decide to backtrack and visit a town you have been to you don't simply sense the familiar architecture, you will also remember the characters and creatures surrounding it and their stories interweaving with your own, which is possible because each town has it's own feel not just look. Most games with the amount of content in Origins quickly become a fast click through unmeaning dialog, to get the quest/mission, not true here as most missions have an interesting side story around them and are varied as the characters offering them. The sheer amount of time in developing the quests and quest givers is astounding. It reminds me of the GTA franchise where the amount of characters and story arcs is immense, here it's amazing how they provided the the depth they have with 2 years time.
Environment:
The above had me sold on this being the best Assassin's Creed yet by a large margin. Then I climbed my first Pyramid and loved the game that much more again. As you run up to a pyramid you get an amazing sense of it's size, it's truly amazing how the developers managed to convey the feelings of immensity and awe while not going overboard and hurting the gaming mechanics. First off you see the pyramids far off and they feel much nearer (due to their size) than they are, you quickly realize this as the journey there takes longer than expected. Then you expect to scale it as you have easily the few story buildings cluttering the world, but this time it truly is a test of endurance. You begin your climb and quickly realize just how big the structure is as a single building block is many times your size, as you walk up to them you quickly realize this is not going to be an easy task. As you climb the camera pulls away and your character sways and if you reach for a hold that's not there your character slides making you want to hug the structure and not fall further. The camerawork and animations to convey all this are extremely well done leading to a sense of being there and doing something monumental. In addition to the pyramids, the variety of wildlife, and their locations, flush out the world giving each area it's own uniqueness and keep the game fresh with new experiences. Then their are numerous environmental details, you have the size and beauty of Egyptian architecture here all fresh and unaged around you, you have many different types of vegetation in the wild, side roads are made of lesser materials than main roads, and roads show the wear and tear of use, there are so many such details and they add to experience.
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My first Splatoon game, really enjoy it's simple to pick up yet strategic gameplay. Also, at least for the moment, the other players aren't all pro, so it's fun to have games where you rank well. It's a fun game that's easy to jump into and play.
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The PS4 demo left me feeling like there were some interesting mechanics and story, but I couldn't stand the controls during combat. The PC version is perfect with the mouse/keyboard play.
Prey does a wonderful job of creating an environment that feels familiar yet creepy and beautiful. It got me engrossed immediately leading to the biggest jump scare I've had in years, more impressively, not even in a fully scripted manner. The design of the Neuromod itself is a perfect representation of this world, one in which to gain knowledge you must puncture your eye with not 1 but multiple needles simultaneously.
The atmosphere and story really make this game standout. Additionally I'm a huge fan of obvious RPG mechanics as you find here such as you walk up to a safe and it says Hacking 2 required, or a turret says Repair 3 to Fortify, etc. I really enjoy when an RPG has an elegant design where it's obvious what a jump in a stat will do, versus some obfuscated formula making you wonder what you want to focus on. This game has all the rpg tropes from skills such as hacking, repair, to speed of movement, even your weapons have stat upgrades like magazine size, speed of reload, accuracy, etc. The game is very versatile with multiple options in each area to complete a task, so you can play the game the way you want improving the stats that aid that play style.
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Wow, this game is great. Additionally the updated graphics are great, usually these remakes are unable to touch up much of the old graphics much, this time they did a great job - it feels like it was designed from scratch for the PS4. I've got very little Final Fantasy experience, this one caught my interest due to the special auto play combat mechanic Gambit system. I've had a ton of fun, the story is entertaining, as well as the missions/combat, and characters.
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I'm not a big Zelda fan, mostly have fond memories of original. Breath of the Wild finally got me back and interested in Zelda again. I enjoy it's large open world with tons of varied puzzles and challenges. Everything is custom designed, it's amazing how much there is. The hard work to do this pays off as it keeps the game from getting stale too quickly as you never know what mystery lies ahead or what the next puzzle will be or how to solve it. The systems at play are so capable that it often seems like the maker of a puzzle couldn't conceive of some the trickery you can use to solve it. It's a real kick when you've hacked a puzzle using out of the box thinking, it's refreshing how many options are available to solve each puzzle.
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Best Sniper Elite game by a wide mile. The mechanics of the sniping are largely unchanged, but the widening size of the map with it's vastness and multi objectives makes a profound impact on the experience. For once I didn't feel lead down a set path guaranteeing a rough go of it, now I was able to plan a route to ensure victory - I finally felt like I was planning the campaign vs. being forced into one with tactics I wouldn't have chosen.
The huge maps and versatility of how you can complete objectives make this on of the very best shooters I've played.
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I enjoyed the first game and enjoy this one more. The first one I got frustrated with the combat difficulty in the late game, this one feels a bit more puzzle oriented than difficult. It's an enjoyable grind mining, fighting, returning to town to sell and purchase new gear.
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An enjoyable run, fight, horror game. The story and creepy opening area set the stage for a fun horror romp. The game had me scared of what lay ahead and simultaneously had me often laughing out loud as the enemies are so over the top insane.
This is a great fresh start to a series that has stretched on for some time.
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After a day of work and stresses sometimes I don't have the physical or mental energy to properly enjoy a game, that's where something like this, where I can sit back relax and simply click a choice occasionally, can fill some entertaining time.
The video in this game is very well produced, especially when considering the likely limited budget. The replayability mechanics, though, need a lot of work as there's no fast forward or jump to next choice, instead your forced to re-watch past seen footage.
The video quality, story, choices, and their impact (often immediately noticeable) make this game easy to recommend.
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