(ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ.｡.:☆ video games, dude

Uber is the soft-spoken botmaster & emoji trashlord of the exclusive and mythical Anime Lounge, but you just can call him Sean if you're feeling friendly. He is usually tired, really likes Star Wars, and thinks there are better ways to waste your life than acting like a 10 year old that argues about pizza toppings. He's only writing in the third-person here because he wants to pretend that his list was also featured like the rest of those cool special guests on the site. You can get his attention on discord if you have a nice picture of chinchilla or cool My Hero Academia fanart to share.

[*Obligatory giant middle finger to 2017*]

Hello internet. I'm glad you're here.

Up until now, I had fallen off doing the list thing mostly out of sheer laziness, but since I am morally bound to participate in a community GotY podcast + discussion with a certain group of people whose opinions I respect, (but for real I like the idea behind this thing) I thought putting a more tangible list would help set my ideas in place. Or at least it'd be better than some half-baked notepad doc that I've been pecking away at for a couple weeks. Yay, microscopic betterment of self! Yay!

Some honorable mentions to get things rolling:

I didn't want to put them on the really-for-real list because I play all these casually and they're all dusty old trash, and a deep dive into the meaning of free to play games as a crutch of escapism is both scary and boring. Pay no mind that they are all properties from a certain small California-based indie developer, I just really appreciate a well-polished time sink.

Overwatch - While my play time has dropped off significantly after the Doomfist debut, I still enjoy the occasional evening in arcade mode, and still get starry-eyed at any cinematic short Blizzard is willing to share with us. Seasonal event arcade modes like Lucioball, Uprising, Junkenstein's Revenge, and Mei's Snowball Offensive continue to be a good time with friends, or even just goofing around with randoms in matchmaking. More "dancing only" custom games, please.

Heroes of the Storm - My comfort moba for babies, and my rock in a lineup of "throw on a podcast and zone out for a bit" kind of games. They added a bunch of fan favorites across the Blizzard universe to the HotS roster like Lucio and Zul'jin and Kel'Thuzad and Malthael, and I'm super pleased that the HotS team at Blizz is listening to community feedback and steady with content updates. Gold star for week we got the Escape from Braxis PVE Heroic Brawl that brought back some good Starcraft 2 custom game vibes - I hope they continue to push the envelope and try new things with this game, even if it is an icky, dirty moba. Gross.

Diablo 3 - Diablo celebrated their 20th Anniversary! Rise of the Necromancer came out! You can roll a necro dude or lady and summon armies of skeletons and golems and blow up corpses with hexes and blood and it's rad as fuck. The ability kit and legendary aesthetics are super cool and fit the vibe really well. Certainly a little late of an update, considering the game is being run in maintenance mode, but I was happy to hop back in for several handfuls of hours and tear shit up in greater rifts with my dark arts as a Priest of Rathma. Still no Diablo 2 remaster, but I'm hopeful for that day.

Hearthstone - Technically a 2013 thing, but I wanted to praise the expansions that came out this season. Besides the personal draw of getting to admire the new card artwork and clever flavor text -- Journey to Un'Goro brought quest cards, Knights of the Frozen Throne with hero cards in the form of Death Knights, and the most recent Kobolds & Catacombs introduced the Dungeon Run single player mode - a fun mode that capitalizes on the solo adventure expansions from years past, with the added twist of being separate and unchained from standard Hearthstone rules. Good mode to unwind with if I'm not feeling up to getting stomped on the ladder.

Warframe - Not a 2017 title, but - this is more about the growth of Digital Extremes, the developer of Warframe, than it is about the actual game. Not to brush aside the fact they did finally launch the Plains of Eidolon update this year, a sprawling landmass was definitely a breath of fresh air from all the years of corridor tilesets from all updates leading up to this. It's impressive to look back and see how much has changed since I started playing in 2013 during the closed beta days - compared to now when Warframe is buying ad space in Times Square and running the commercial breaks during this year's Game Awards. They would have been my pick for "Best Ongoing Game' for 2017. Overwatch is great, but would have been nice to shine the spotlight on the little guy instead.

So if you've been away from the game for a while, it's a good time to peek your head in and check out the new digs. A lot has changed. I don't think it's a "brands are people" thing, but I'm proud of Digital Extremes as a developer. It's been exciting to watch them grow over the years.

Also, it's the game I can attribute to my first cameo on a UPF -- dancing in game while the Warframe GB Clan showed Rorie around the dojo. Small highlight for the year.

...and now the top five part of this thing:

5. South Park: The Fractured But Whole

Obsidian's Stick of Truth was one of my favorite games of 2014. Color me surprised when those boys Matt and Trey still have some charm left in reserve to make another game about butts. The lore transition from kids playing fantasy to superheroes was great, and lends itself to ability shenanigans just as imaginative as the last game. The grid-based combat is more satisfying than the last game, and the encounter design pushes you to be a little more thoughtful about your actions when squaring off against enemies. Like escaping a room of pissed off elderly people because you ruined their live weekly musical entertainment by farting into a trumpet.

It's more South Park in the way that you can make that "bigger, longer and [positive descriptor of your choice]" without second guessing yourself, and it's worth playing if you need another adventure as the New Kid. More laughing to yourself when you hit the fart button and Butters laughs too (because I'm a very mature human adult), more cameos and callbacks and fan service to the show, more simultaneously stupid/smart deconstruction of current events and the like. Definitely more South Park, and in the best way possible. Definitely worth your time, if you need some levity through the absurd.

I should have expected it from playing the last one, but the story goes places, and there are plenty of twists and turns out of left field along the way. When you reach the point when you're expecting the game to end, the game kept going - and I enjoyed the hell out of it for the 25+ hours I put into it. So unlike some other crushingly disappointing sequels and franchise cashgrab garbage in 2017, this is definitely one of the good ones -- provided you're on board for more of that acquired taste of South Parky goodness.

4. Destiny 2

I didn't have the opportunity to play the original Destiny, so forgive my wide-eyed wonder and naiveté. This was my first game back to a Bungie shooter since Halo: Reach and it's been a treat. I had missed those signature skyboxes and satisfying gunplay. I'm a sucker for cool-looking armor and it's easy for me to fall in the groove and just grind away for loot. It's relaxing, and the satisfying combat moments interspersed with the dumb -- like dancing around the rally point with other guardians while we wait for the public event to start -- is my kind of jam. The first time Lord Shaxx cheered me on with a "FIGHT FOREVER, GUARDIAN" when I hit a 21.0 efficiency rating in competitive crucible remains one of my favorite moments in this game to date. Shaxx is the best.

It's not without faults, and the PC launch was kinda hot/cold with the community, myself included as a casualty of the memory leaks and crashes and miserable server issues that plagued me for a several weeks. Shortcomings and salty D1 vets aside, I still really dig this game, and I'm eager to see what's next.

3. Pyre

Another gem from Supergiant. Top notch artwork, UI design, original music, and interesting characters all come together to create yet another space that I wanted to wrap around myself like a blanket. It's one of those games I could just stare at the both the static art and moving parts for hours. The motion design in the blackwagon wobbling around is one of my favorite things in that game, no matter how small. The celestial basketball was good, but it was secondary to my need to getting to know my wagonmates. Flirt with the ethereal lady trapped in the book? Pry into the secret past of Jodariel? Anything to help me understand and build up the world of Pyre. It really is something.

I don't think it tops Bastion and Transistor for me, but definitely stands on its own as yet another Supergiant treasure. Greg Kasavin and company continues to produce hits like this and I will always be excited to check out whatever they are working on.

2. Assassin's Creed: Origins

The longer I play this, the more I like it. Despite feeling a little bad every time I have to smoke a lion or ten hyenas with a fire sword and poison arrows - but that balances out with prowling around the shadows and poisoning a dozen bandits who that mouthy merchant kid's wares for themselves. I put over 60 hours into this game without even noticing, and still have plenty left to do on the map.

It's not the AC 2 & Brotherhood that I hold as a franchise favorites, but man, this is a joy to play. The Dad with a vengeance angle is a lot more interesting than trying/failing to recreate yet another Ezio. I kinda miss having a quartermaster/gadget guy who would drip feed you new equipment and somehow weave it into the story, but in the era of all Ubisoft games running together and borrowing everything from each other, the play-how-you-want style works well. -- brushing aside all the times I accidently set my own horse on fire by carelessly swinging a sword, of course. As much as I secretly eat up all the schlocky advanced-proto-civilization-lost-to-time garbage, going around helping people as the last Egyptian super cop feels more rewarding, on top of some of the surreal curveballs they thrown in along the main campaign. Origins is definitely a step in the right direction, and it feels like we're on the upswing for more good stuff from the franchise again. Fingers and hidden blades crossed.

1. Night in the Woods

Thank you Alex. Without you mentioning this on the Beastcast, I probably would have missed out on my favorite game of the year.

Night in the Woods nails the vibe of growing up in a small, middle-of-nowhere town, and coming back to find that home isn’t what it used to be. Because hey, I grew up in that semi-rural Pennsylvania town much like what co-creator Scott Benson was going for. 2 traffic lights and a handful of family pizza shops? Rural setting with a slew of blue collar folks just working to get by? Getting up to dumb shit out of boredom and having campfire parties in the woods? That's all me. It repeatedly hits home. Maybe less on the supernatural run-ins and missing person mystery side of things, but still. I haven't delved too deep into the realm where games address characters with depression and other mental illnesses till now, but it handles the subject matter well. Characters and dialogue are written in such a way that it feels authentic and mirrors how old friends talk to each other.

I super enjoy the art direction (it's cute/simplistic done right), and the writing weaves charm and humor and real life issues together in smart way. It’s like someone took a piece Richard Scarry’s Busytown and ran it through the “growing up” machine. It's a more sensitive version of Daria, but she's a talking cat, and has better parents.

There's so many other small touches that I love in this game - like Demon Tower and Sharkle and TOUGH ANGRY SINGLES. Selmer's poetry and star gazing with Mr Chazokov. Everything feels like it was crafted and placed with care. After I saw credits, I sought out and booted up the Lost Constellation and Longest Night supplemental games just so I could spend more time in that world. "Sad Asshole Cat" (-__-)''''' and company might not have captured the hearts of everyone on the bomb crew, but it sure got me good.

I've come to terms that there probably won't be any more adventures in Possum Springs in the near future, the memories will definitely stick. Best game of the year.

That was my 2017, and now I'm fixing to cryogenically freeze myself until the release of Ooblets. You are welcome to do the same.