GOTY 2015
The Year Next-Gen Games Got Their Shit Together™
List items
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I've always loved the world of The Witcher. The way Andrzej Sapkowski mixes fairy tales, medieval politics, and Western/Samurai, character-driven storytelling into such a compelling narrative has always astounded me. Being a huge fan of the source material, I am ever so happy the virtual incarnation of Geralt of Rivia has been left in the very-capable hands of CD Projekt RED. The Witcher 2 was one of my favorite games of the last generation of consoles, and CD Projekt really outdid themselves with this latest entry in the franchise. The game boasts tight, deep, satisfying combat systems in a beautiful, massive open world, filled with the type of storytelling that would feel right at home in one of Sapkowski's books. It's no small stretch to call it one of the best western-style RPGs ever made. In a year that has seen my amount of free time slip away as I started grad school, I still found myself sinking way too much time into this game. From searching for the Bloody Baron's family to discovering hidden armor from other Witcher schools to fulfilling the three wishes of a man who can't die (in the wonderful Hearts of Stone DLC), I found no end to the joy of exploring and cutting my way through Velen and the Isles of Skellige.
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This year, after leaving my job and entering grad school, I found myself constantly surrounded by new people and new friendships. After years of staying in the same place and being around the same people I'd become comfortable with, I found myself thrust back into new social situations and friendships. This was, all at once, exciting, nerve-wracking, and exhausting. Just as I was finding myself feeling stressed and overwhelmed, I started playing Undertale, a game that tackles these feelings and relationships in an incredibly-cathartic way. Making my way through Undertale's narrative was a truly special experience, filled with heartfelt and amusing moments that got me to think hard about my own life and relationships.
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Life is Strange is far from perfect. It's an episodic, choice-driven narrative game that too often contains dialog that is so far off the mark that it takes the player completely out of the experience. But the game's rewind mechanic, which allows the player to go back and change the decisions they make, was a welcome addition to the story-driven narrative experience that Telltale helped to pioneer. In addition to that, the story the game tells contains a lot of heart and is filled with enough "holy shit" moments to make your head spin. The central characters of Chloe and Max overcome the game's so-so writing in such a way that you quickly grow to care about them and those around them. The ending moments are ones that, like The Last of Us, will stay with me for a long while.
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I haven't finished Metal Gear Solid V yet. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm not even all that far into The Phantom Pain's mission-based narrative. Maybe halfway? But it doesn't matter, because the narrative of The Phantom Pain, which is all-too scarce and difficult to even follow when it is present (it is a Metal Gear game, after all), isn't the reason this game is on this list. So far I've found it to be lacking in interesting dialog and crude in its treatment of women. No, it's the gameplay that keeps me coming back. I've spent countless hours exploring MGS V's open-world versions of Africa and Afghanistan, capturing enemy bases, completing side-missions, and gathering resources to further develop new weapons and gear for Big Boss. The perfect blend of stealth and action gameplay, sneaking into a base after scoping out every nook and cranny from the perimeter, sprinting through enemy territory as your companion sniper deals with the enemies coming after you. It all makes for one of the most fun, satisfying game experiences that can be found on the new generation of consoles. Come for the weird, anime, Kojima bullshit. But stay for the satisfaction of hopping onto a chopper for evac while MGS 3's "Snake Eater" blares for everyone in the desert to hear.
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Relationships are messy, especially first relationships. Living in an age where you can meet someone online and get to know them very well without ever getting to meet them can lead to... difficult situations. Cibele combines both of these into a short narrative that, if you've ever been in either situation (or both!), really hits home. It's a deeply-personal, intimate experience that made me sit down and think in a way I wasn't expecting.
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To this day, I've never finished a game by Hidetaka Miyazaki. Between the Souls games and this year's Bloodborne, I simply don't have the patience to make it all the way through the grueling, twitch-based combat and tough-as-nails bosses to reach the credits roll. However that doesn't keep me from playing and loving each game in this vein that From Software puts out. Bloodborne switched things up in an interesting way by taking away the player's shield, forcing them to play more aggressively. Dodging in and out, avoiding attacks altogether instead of resorting to blocking, made me a better, more skillful player than any of the Souls games did. As a result, each boss fight was more white knuckled, more satisfying. And when I would see "Prey Slaughtered" emblazoned on the screen? My fists have never been raised higher.
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"Search engine-driven narrative" isn't an idea I would ever come up with myself, and it certainly isn't an idea I would have thought would work as well as Her Story. Searching through partial interview footage from a cold case and piecing together the narrative was an incredibly-interesting experience. I sat for a few hours in my room as I played through the game, writing down relevant words to each theory I had of what had happened to the young woman on the screen in front of me, crossing them off as I looked to see if there were any videos related to what I thought was going on. The winding narrative played out before me like the most insane set of Tarantino time jumps possible and the resulting story was one that could only have been held up by the excellent acting of Her Story's sole voice, Viva Seifert.
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I play Borderlands games, but I never finish Borderlands games. There's something about the combination of first-person shooting, aesthetic styling, and loot-driven gameplay that just doesn't click with me in the traditional entries in the franchise. So when Telltale announced they were making a story-driven Borderlands game in their studio's signature branching narrative style, I really didn't care all that much. But, considering how much I've loved every other game they've put out since the first season of The Walking Dead, I decided to give it a try. And I'm really glad that I did. Quirky characters supported by a clever narrative structure and some very funny writing made me care more about the Borderlands universe than I ever thought possible. Add to that the game's incredible opening credits sequences for each episode, and you have my favorite Telltale game since the first meeting of Clem and Lee.
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The Beginner's Guide is a difficult game to talk about without spoiling in some sense. It's better to go into it knowing as little as possible. I'm a huge fan of The Stanley Parable, so when I heard that the game's creator, Davey Wreden, had a new release on the way I was very interested to see what it would be. I'm not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn't this. Playing through The Beginner's Guide and slowly unraveling its messages about the creative process and what it means to share the things you make is an experience I won't soon forget. In a year full of games that had important messages, I found the one here to be the most eye-opening.
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I played through Arkham Knight in a fever dream over the course of a few days after release. I played it on PC, though I luckily saw almost none of the issues the greater gaming community had with the game. I've always been a fan of Rocksteady's take on the Dark Knight, and the story that plays out in Arkham Knight is wonderful. This isn't because of the highly-telegraphed twist that comes in the latter part of the game, but instead is the result of the way Rocksteady continued to explore the relationship between Batman and the Joker. The end result brings with it a finality that makes good on the studio's statement that this game is the end of their trilogy. What an end it was.
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I'm bucking a few of my self-inflicted rules here to make sure I get to talk a little bit about SOMA. I haven't played one bit of SOMA. I don't even own the game. This is because I'm a big baby who can't handle the immersion I get from games when placed into a horror context. However I did watch Patrick Klepek play through the game so I could experience the story that game was offering, and boy am I glad I did. The ideas and concepts explored in SOMA's narrative are huge and fascinating. Where does data end and humanity begin? Can we exist in a purely digital state and retain our humanity? If you were perfectly cloned with a full scan of your brain, which would be the real you? I'm keeping things vague and non-story relevant here to avoid spoilers, but the questions posed by Frictional Games are ones that will leave you thinking for a long while. If you can stomach horror, seek this game out. If you can't? Seek out a playthrough on Youtube.
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