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My Top 5 Games and DLC of 2017

By Zevvion January 3, 2018 11 Comments

I usually do a top 5 DLC’s/expansions and a top 10 games of the year. This year, my gaming time was consumed by a few outstanding games and some amazing games from years prior, so I only landed on 5 games. I still have more to play and my list is open to be edited in the future once I’ve played them. For now, this is where I’m at:

Best Games

5. Mass Effect Andromeda

Disappointing games can still be incredibly fun to play, as Andromeda was for me. Most of its disappointment lies in its technical inadequacies and overall story. The former I can overlook if the game is fun to play and the latter I generally do not care about. I’m a gameplay kind of guy and this is the best Mass Effect has ever played. In addition, it facilitates exploration which made me wonder about the stars more than any of the procedurally generated space games of years past have managed to accomplish. Even overlooking the technical side and narrative, it has its shortcomings, but not enough to sway me from putting over 100 hours into it before setting it aside.

4. Absolver

The concept around the game might be borrowed from a handful of games, but in that it creates something unique with a certain depth that begs to be mastered. While I love the PvP side of this game a lot, I secretly hope they do add more PvE stuff to the game over time. This can be so much more than a fighting game. It can be a world. As it stands, it is one of the better playing games and interesting ones of 2017.

3. Nioh

It shows that Souls games can work in different templates and adds to the central formula of the game while it’s at it. Nioh is not just one of the best Souls games to come out in recent memory, it showed it is the best when it bested Dark Souls III handily in creativity, innovation and just plain fun. It may not sit at the top of my best Souls games list, but it is definitely among them.

2. Destiny 2

It may lack an interesting endgame and it may attempt to persuade players into spending money in a handful ways too many, but the fact remains that Destiny 2 is just tremendously fun to play. It makes a lot of changes for the better (and some changes for the worse) and somehow managed to launch with a surprisingly good first Raid that was unique in its approach and design. While I have countless suggestions to make the game better, I cannot be honest with myself and deny that I am still looking forward to Raids, Lairs and other activities; and looking back on them, I remember having so much fun with them for months now.

1. Prey

The aesthetic, interface and UI all scream Arkane Studios created this game, but while playing it I kept being surprised by that fact. I always liked the afore mentioned aspects of Arkane’s games, but they seemed to have trouble finding a good progression in their games and handcuff the player from interacting with the possibility space of their gameplay sandbox. Prey has a fantastic progression that facilitates the many approaches you can take, and it allows you to take any of them without artificial repercussions.

It is appropriately atmospheric and puts a lot of emphasis on the contents of its environments both in threats that may be hidden within them and the possibility space it offers. It may be a stroke of dumb luck, but it otherwise seems Prey is very aware of certain mechanics or encounters getting stale and changes things up repeatedly. Whereas enemies could have been hiding in the environment, you gain a piece of gear that allows you to see them beforehand. Whereas you’d had to be careful taking down some of the tougher enemies using the environment in clever ways, you can now just use sheer force to overpower them. I bet that on paper these changes would seem like bad decisions, yet in practice they work out perfectly. Which makes it all the more baffling to me Arkane is responsible for this one.

This game is crafted so well and does what it does so well, it will undoubtedly get multiple playthroughs from me over the next couple of years. Which is all the more exciting because Prey handles its various endings and the implications thereof extraordinarily well.

Best DLC

5. Knights of the Frozen Throne – Hearthstone

While I like every Hearthstone expansion to a certain extent, they are all very predictable in what they give you that they don’t usually make my list. Knights of the Frozen Throne however, adds new hero cards which change up your hero power in a more meaningful way than Justicar did and allow various new archetypes to spawn from them. They are generally such strong cards that they fit in most decks. Coupled with various new cards, this expansion gave me a lot of reason to just have fun with whacky decks. Moreso than usual.

4. Defiant Honor – Nioh

It adds the tonfa as a weapon. Also, same moveset as in Ninja Gaiden II. That is reason enough by itself. I'm not even joking: it led to some of the most fun I've had this year.

3. The Crimson Court – Darkest Dungeon

When you add small but smart additions to an already highly replayable game, it makes it that much more engaging to play again. It bolsters Darkest Dungeon’s replay value by a significant amount.

2. Curse of Osiris – Destiny 2

The bulk of the content found in this DLC is ironically the opposite of bulky. In some cases it does 95% of the work on a new activity, only to omit to adding that last 5% that would have made it near-infinitely replayable and rewarding. It seems like Bungie is having a hard time deciding if they want their game to be a one-and-done type experience or a mastered replayable live game. Their language seems to suggest the latter, but most of Curse of Osiris’ content is operating in favor of the former. That said, one crucial part of it, the first Raid Lair, is such a good and well crafted challenge that it instantly shot up to #2 on my list of favorite Raids. It pretty much single handedly made me come back week after week.

1. War of the Chosen – XCOM 2

The developers of my favorite game of all time started work on DLC, quickly realized the volume of their work was too ambitious for a DLC pack and were told they should’ve used it as the basis for XCOM 3, then decided that it was more important to them to support the game they had already put out and released it as DLC anyway. Against all present-day logic of videogame development and the cost thereof. Not only is that super cool, but XCOM 2 just became cemented into my favorite game of all time with the additions War of the Chosen has brought.

Published a sweet mod for XCOM 2, mere hours before the DLC launches

By Zevvion August 28, 2017 3 Comments

After creating custom classes for myself, I moved on to the next project of creating two custom SPARK-classes. These have turned out not-broken enough to publish, so I did.

Ever since their first introduction SPARK's have been criticized. They can't bring any items, can't upgrade their weapons with weapon mods, can't install PCS's, can't take cover so they get hit all the time and not all their abilities are fantastic. Oh, also, their aim sucks. People always considered it less efficient to bring a SPARK along.

With this mod, I intended to not just change that perception, but flip it. I want you to feel like a fool if you don't bring one alone. Both these SPARK's have an intended role. One is an assaulter and tank, the other a sniper and support. They should be disgustingly good at their intended roles so they are actually preferred over regular soldiers. Which is what I want because these things are so expensive at 2 Elerium Cores that you can only make a limited amount of them, contrary to soldiers that are just endless.

On the flip side, they still have disadvantages over regular soldiers. Less item carrying capacity for one. Also cannot pick both perks like you can in the DLC that releases tomorrow for regular soldiers. As a result, they should be adequately balanced.

If you're ever interested, you can get it here.

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My theories on Game of Thrones' story (SPOILERS up to season 6, speculation after)

By Zevvion July 9, 2017 18 Comments

I like good story arcs with significant story elements. Game of Thrones has that in spades. When I first saw season 1, I figured it would make total sense from a story technical perspective if Jon was Daenerys' brother. Why? One was a fire godess on one edge of the world, the other was an ice warrior on the exact opposite edge of the world. These two would eventually meet to do something significant, but since bloodlines always seemed a core concept of the series, I figured if my theory was correct, they'd have to be related as well.

Being somewhat right about that made me feel great. Until I discovered I was wrong about so many other things. So I decided to write down my theories so I can have a good laugh about how wrong I was afterwards, or possibly be surprised by being right. I thus intend to look this stuff back up after season 7 and most importantly season 8.

I'm ordering these from most likely to be somewhat correct, to probably wrong but making sense to me.

Daenerys and Jon form the force against the Night King with the help of Bran

As I explained earlier, I think there are two unmistakably significant themes in Game of Thrones (or rather a Song of Ice and Fire). The clash of fire against ice is the easy one. The importance of bloodlines is the other.

I believed that Daenerys and Jon are related and we have seen confirmation of that in the latest season. In my loose interpretation, the clash between fire and ice will be between Jon, Daenerys and Bran against the Night King and his army. Daenerys will supply the army to this fight: her legion of followers and her dragons. Jon will be the warrior on the ground that leads those forces to victory and he will be the only one capable of actually destroying the Night King in combat with the help of Bran who will act as a catalyst of some sort.

The Night King is a Stark

As bloodlines are incredibly important to the story from my interpretation, I believe the reason this trio are the only ones capable of stopping him is because they have blood ties. I believe the Night King has Stark blood. There will be some sort of reason why he can only be killed with someone who shares his blood. It would make sense to me if a sacrifice of some sort was involved. I fully expect Jon to die when the series ends, or perhaps absorbing the Night King's power and then committing suicide before he generates the same thirst for death.

Bran built the Wall

I could be totally wrong about this, but I thought I gathered that Bran was named after Bran the Builder, a Stark who unsurprisingly built a lot of things, including things for the Night's Watch. I believe he was mostly responsible for the Wall and I think that since we have seen that Bran can manipulate things in the past, he is actually the one that built the Wall in a cycle theory. He goes back into time and makes sure the Wall gets built. This would connect with my next two pieces of speculation.

Bran is the old Three-Eyed-Raven

Yeah, here is where it gets into 'this probably isn't it' territory. But it could be that the old man in the tree is actually old Bran. This is the least fun theory as it is pretty rote at this point to have this type of cycle-story. Nevertheless, it is a possibility I have been thinking about. Perhaps the Night King can never truly be defeated. Whether he can only be suppressed for thousand years or a new one will be born; it is consistent with the timespan noted in the series. The White Walkers were sleeping/hiding for a thousand years. The old Three-Eyed-Raven was waiting for Bran for a thousand years.

At the end of the series, Bran could climb into a tree and wait for a thousand years for the next Bran to teach him how to defeat the Night King. After which that Bran will then wait for a thousand years for the next one and so on. While these stories are played out to a certain extent, I feel it could probably still make some sense and work. I kind of hope this isn't what it turns out to be though. Between Mass Effect, BioShock Infinite, The Matrix and whatnot, while I enjoyed each and every one of them, I don't have too much desire to see one of these types of conclusions again.

Bran is the Night King

I wrote this down, I'm not even sure why I thought this was a legitimate possibility. Looking back at it now, this doesn't make too much sense. I believe I connected Bran and the children, the creation of the Night King and the children and then taking the possibility of a cycle-theory and running with it. Contrary to the previous cycle-theory, this one doesn't make too much sense though.

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April: Good games, good movies and that sweet XCOM 2 mod

By Zevvion May 3, 2017 0 Comments

What a good month.

The weather started getting shitty, which was actually kind of nice because it gave me a good excuse to stay inside and do some things. Andromeda took up a lot of my time. It quickly became my favorite open world game to date. I love exploring that universe so much. So many interesting things to find and even more to just look at, wondering what it would be like to explore the galaxy yourself. This is a game that resonates with me to my core. That announcement from NASA, the plan the put people on Mars by 2033, it makes me so excited and it also makes me hate myself I wasn't born 100 years later. I love to travel, but visiting different planets? I would probably instantly perish from not being able to comprehend how great of a time I would be having.

Andromeda

Andromeda managed to capture planetary exploration better than any game ever has. It was also a good reminder how infinity isn't the thing that makes space exploration so appealing to me (looking at you No Man's Sky), but rather the sense of things and what is placed in them. There are only a handful of games that manage to swallow up all of my time and make me skip three hours of sleep. Andromeda is one of those. It also helps that the gameplay is pretty fantastic. Right from the get go until the very end. At least on Insanity, I am assuming playing below it is just as boring as it always was. So much build variety and switching builds on the fly. It's better than it has ever been. Even early combat encounters can yield great results that make you feel good.

It is unfortunate that many of the characters beyond the core squad members are a bit underdeveloped. There are a couple of great sideline characters that are instantly classic ME characters, but the bulk of them are somewhat dull information hubs. They have more to say than past ME characters, but it's just a bit uninspired. What No Man's Sky is to exploration, is what most side-characters in Andromeda are to character interaction. Yes, you can claim to have a lot of it, but it's just not that interesting.

But luckily, there is still a lot of cool character interaction too (Vidal, you wonderful bastard). Most of the loyalty missions are also great, with a few among them that are instantly at the top of the board for me. I don't think a game ever made me laugh as much as Liam's loyalty mission did. It fits well with the character too and it was one of those moments that made you understand that character a lot better retroactively.

While I have finished it, I am not nearly done with Andromeda. I imagine I will finish it many times. Apart from the general characters, it is quite easily my favorite Mass Effect game so far. While not needing it to get there, that multiplayer being better than it ever was certainly is a big plus for me also.

Un'Goro in Hearthstone

The newest Hearthstone expansion is easily the best expansion they have ever made. It changed things up, making many decks top tier and more importantly, it made playing the game a ton of fun. All the new quests are so much fun to play with. Unfortunately, they are all Legendary status, so Un'Goro is also easily the worst Hearthstone expansion so far, in the sense that it costs insane amounts of gold, dust or real money to play around with more than one or two decks. Luckily, I had tons of dust saved up so I was able to craft everything and still have plenty of Dust left over.

So far, my favorite deck is probably the Paladin quest deck as I figured out a pretty fun and cool way to complete the quest. I also really enjoy the Hunter quest and had good fun with the Druid and Warlock quests as well (and I hate the Rogue quest. I am not crafting it out of spite. You Rogue quest guys are evil).

Fast & Furious 8

No, it's not called Fate of the Furious here. For some reason. I am actually very curious what that reason is. Perhaps they perceive non-native English speaking countries to not understand the goof in that title? I guess it doesn't matter. What does matter is that those movies keep being awesome. They are exactly what they need to be and not a shred more or less. Great, enjoyable action with funny performances and a pretty easy/standard storyline, but pulling it off extremely well. The only minor nitpicky thing I have to say about it is that they overplayed the whole Statham/baby scene. The bit with the baby music was hilarious, but they could've left it at that. They revisited that same thing like two or three more times as that scene played out.

But so much good there though. Some pretty decent performances from Mr. Vin. Nice locals, relatable characters, nice cars, good humor, just a good movie all round.

XCOM 2 and Building a Mod

XCOM 2 is slowly creeping up to be my favorite game of all time. Besides the core game being amazing, the modding community has been so active in catering to every type of player. While I ultimately came to the conclusion that Long War 2 is really not my thing (because I think it is bad design to steer the player away from the core of what makes your game fun: tactical combat), there have been many, many mods that I love using. Most of them make the game quite a bit harder, by adding different variations of certain enemies. Or even simple ones that augment existing enemies. One of my favorites is a mod that gives Berserkers the Sustain perk, meaning you can only reduce them to one hitpoint at most over the course of a single turn. Using some .ini magic and increasing their health even further, they are fearsome beasts now, where they used to be quite easy to deal with in vanilla.

Over time, I started getting bored with the vanilla classes. I tried some mods that added new ones, but never quite liked any of them enough to keep using them. So, I decided to take my time and create a mod of my own. I started making a new soldier class. I'm not going to lie, I wanted to quit within an hour of getting started. It is ridiculously hard to code. I had never done it before. It took hours and hours to create my first, extremely basic, custom ability (meaning an ability that is not in the game by default). But now, I am almost done with my mod. It is not one class, but I have created six entirely new classes for the game.

Release me from this nightmare!

For experienced programmers, this probably sounds like nothing. But for me, it is a major achievement. I never quite did hold it against developers for not getting things done, but now I have a whole new found respect for them. The amount of effort it takes to just alter an ability so it does something else, is an insane undertaking. Heck, even understanding what the hell I'm even looking at already took more time than I care to admit. I am not exaggerating, I was working on some abilities that took me 16 hours to finally get working, over the course of multiple days. The conflicts that arose from it, not knowing where I made an error made me want to punch Vin Diesel's baby in the face so goddamn hard. Every time I had a working build, the next ability messed things up again. It doesn't help that I have no experience in coding whatsoever and apparently I also do not have any hidden talent towards it. I made so many dumb mistakes... but ultimately, I have a working build now that is pretty much feature complete, having many new custom abilities. I'm just playing through the game now to see about balancing it.

If you are still playing XCOM 2, you can give my mod a try in a few days when it is done. The purpose of these new classes is that they are quite a bit more powerful than the vanilla ones to accommodate mods that make the game significantly harder. Alternatively, you could play one difficulty level higher than you are used to doing.

Also, I have decided to create three more mods. One revamps the Psi-Soldier, creating two entirely new Psi-Soldier classes. The second one is a MEC-mod. Creating at least two new MEC-classes, possibly more depending on how much creativity I have towards MEC-specific abilities. The last is a custom XCOM 2 overhaul, creating a new difficulty above Legend. I will make several tweaks to the way the meta-game plays out. For instance, I plan on making every Guerrilla Ops mission able to be completed (no longer having to choose between one of three), but they expire relatively close to each other, so you have to have many more capable soldiers than you are used to. Any Dark Events that slip through your fingers will be permanent, so unless you want to face Venom Rounds wielding ADVENT for the rest of the game, preparation will be key on your part.

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Nutrition Highlight of the Week (29-01-2017)

By Zevvion February 3, 2017 0 Comments

Hi!

I am a sportsdietitian and am currently dabbling the idea to write short summary advise for scientific nutritional research. This idea was sprouted because I work for several gyms and one of the complaints I have received a lot was how hard to find and obtuse research reports are. This is following several seminars and walk-ins where it became clear that people have trouble to determine whether certain research is (enough) reason to alter their intakes and/or behavior. It's difficult to name a nuanced example of that, so take this hyperbole one: when research came out that certain sugars might play an important part in developing hypertension, the conclusion made by the client was: 'therefor, I am not allowed to eat anything that has sugar in it'.

It appears difficult to put research into perspective. So as a trial, I am going to write short descriptions on specific pieces of research and draw a conclusion from it, which will be added in the email chains and websites for those gyms. This won't start until summer though, so I am going to just get in the habit of doing it, once a week or so. Not necessarily just the newest, off the presses research. Just whatever I find interesting and think is relevant for my clients.

So, first up:

Quantity of fruit and vegetable consumption for health

In an effort to establish if and how much fruit and vegetables contribute to health, a cohort study followed 65.226 people over a 7.7 year period and asked about their fruit and vegetable intake, among other baseline questions such as if they were smokers. The researchers gathered information about their development of cancer, cardiovascular disease and mortality.

At the result, 6.7% of the study's population had died (4399 deaths). The study found that fruit and vegetables yield effects beneficial to health incrementally, and higher than the current daily recommended levels. There was a correlation between the studied deaths and a lower intake than recommended, but consumption kept giving beneficial health effects up to 560 grams per day for non-smokers and smokers showing benefits from greater amounts than that.

It was noted that effects were higher as vegetables made up a larger amount than fruit in overall consumption. The data also showed that frozen fruits and vegetables showed less beneficial effects and sometimes even hazardous health effects. It was noted in the discussion that this was a surprising result, since other studies have shown frozen vegetables in particular to be as healthy and certainly no less healthy, than their fresh counterparts. They theorize their methods of data gathering did not account for certain factors when discussing this particular finding.
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To conclude, specifically vegetables but also fruit are very beneficial for your health, but the ceiling of their benefits is much higher than the average recommended intake in most countries. In most western countries, the average person does not even reach the daily recommended intake however, so the thing to take away here is that you would likely benefit from increasing your average daily vegetable intake greatly, including frozen vegetables (as long as they are purely vegetable; spinach a la creme is an example of a frozen vegetable product to avoid).

Source:

Oyebode, O., Gordon-Dseagu, V., Walker, A., Mindell, J.S. (2014) Fruit and vegetable consumption and all-cause, cancer and CVD mortality. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

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Preview of 2017; It's Looking Great

By Zevvion January 12, 2017 13 Comments

2016 was looking like the best year ever until two high profile games were pushed back (Destiny 2 and Mass Effect Andromeda). We might see both of those this year, which would make it a fantastic year in and off itself. But there is so much more I'm looking forward to in 2017 and I'm just calling it out now so I remember. Since we all love lists and orders, I'm ordering them from least to most anticipated.

Worth Tracking

NieR: Automata

Developed by: Platinum Games
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4
Date: 23rd February

I didn't even play the first NieR, but it is clear that game had a fanbase worth respecting. The fact Platinum is making the combat of this next one and taking the passion of the fans from the first game, this is on my radar at least.

Star Citizen

Developed by: Cloud Imperium Games
Platforms: PC
Date: 2017

I mean, aren't you curious what this becomes? I did not put any money into Star Citizen and I'm not even sure if I would enjoy the game at all, but I want to check it out at the very least. People who are putting 60.000 dollars into this game are crazy but who knows, it could be great?

Death Stranding

Developed by: Kojima Productions
Platforms: PlayStation 4
Date: 2017

I don't even know what this game is, but anything Kojima is worth at least a look.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Developed by: Nintendo EPD
Platforms: Switch, Wii U
Date: 2017

I'm not necessarily a Zelda fan, but it's hard to ignore the quality of the games in that series. Coupled with a Nintendo system I am for once very interested in, this is on my radar.

God of War

Developed by: Santa Monica Studios
Platforms: PlayStation 4
Date: 2017

Excited about a God of War game? Who would've thought that? I never liked the original games, I was too elitist for them. Given how this new one pushes for a new direction, I'm actually excited to see what it will become.

State of Decay 2

Developed by: Undead Labs
Platforms: PC, Xbox One
Date: 2017

The first State of Decay was awesome. It was busted and unpolished, but it didn't matter. Years later, zombies are not as fun to fight and the things that made State of Decay unique have been implemented in many other games since. If State of Decay 2 will be just more State of Decay I'll still play it, but probably won't end up liking it as much. There is a chance this will improve on all those mechanics though, which is an exciting idea.

Horizon Zero Dawn

Developed by: Guerrilla Games
Platforms: PlayStation 4
Date: 28 February

I haven't seen anything in Horizon so far that makes me unable to wait to play it. That said, it does look good and I might end up really liking it. Perhaps I don't know yet how much I will love playing it.

Prey

Developed by: Arkane Studios
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Date: 2017

I have to admit I don't even know what this game is. Perhaps I shouldn't have put it on here, but I will play it solely based on the original Prey 2 leaked video's. Is that dumb? Yeah, that's kind of dumb.

8. Crackdown 3

Developed by: Cloudgine
Platforms: PC, Xbox One
Date: 2017

Crackdown was on some plane a secret spiritual successor to Mercenaries on steroids. It was great at just letting you play in the world and integrating that in the grand goal of the game. Crackdown 2 was a disappointment before it was even released. Exact same open world? No significant graphical improvements? Minor added abilities? Removed features such as transforming cars? Too many steps back.

That said, everything Crackdown 3 that has been said so far sounds like they are definitely on the right track to recapture the awesomeness of the first game. The idea that a great new Crackdown game would come out this far after the minor succes of the first one is very exciting.

7. Agents of Mayhem

Developed by: Deep Silver Volition Inc.
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Date: 2017

Apart from this game looking like the future winner of 'Best Style of the Generation' - because seriously, I've never seen cell shaded style and cartoon stylished animations meshed so well with traditional graphics - it also sounds like a fun game. It has some good ideas that seems to play to that Crackdown 3 style of pure open world fun. It is difficult to challenge Crackdown at its own game, but if any game came close to beating it there, it was Saints Row 4. In that respect, Volition's next game instantly gains my attention. It's not just the style and the sound of the game, it's the credentials behind it. If you had a list of games of 2017 and you had to assign developers to each pitch, you would put Volition on Agents of Mayhem. This makes complete sense for that studio.

6. For Honor

Developed by: Ubisoft Montreal Studios
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Date: 14 February

This looks like something unique. It seems like the emphasis on attack animation and timing that a Dark Souls games has, except it is more action oriented and has a more unique combat system. It's all about whether or not the combat will go deep enough to keep this interesting for long. For Honor looks like a pretty simple game on a grand scale so far, but I am assuming (hoping) there will be more to its combat than we've seen so far. At least in the long run. I suspect the easier parts were shown up front to sell people on wanting to play the game and on the concept as a whole. We'll see, but For Honor is looking great so far.

5. Spider-Man

Developed by: Insomniac Games
Platforms: PlayStation 4
Date: 2017

I can hear you say, why is this so high, it's a licensed game? Bare with me on this. First of all, we can all agree that Spider-Man is the most fun superhero ever. Second of all, this particular game is not tied to any movie (even the new one), so the developer has creative freedom. Also, that developer happens to be Insomniac Games, who's recent game is Sunset Overdrive. Lastly, this game did not start development a year before it was released. This process started in 2014. It will be an open world set in New York too. Nothing I've heard or seen of this game makes me think it will suffer from being a licensed game. I would love a new Spider-Man game that is actually great.

4. South Park The Fractured But Whole

Developed by: Ubisoft San Francisco
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Date: 2017

Apart from the actual gameplay, the previous game in the South Park series was fantastic. It looked great, it was genuinely funny and it had some great ideas. Even if we get the worse case scenario and The Fractured But Whole ends up being a try to get more money out of the critical acclaim of The Stick of Truth, it will still be worth playing. The writing will make it such. The latest season of South Park has been great and the prospect of getting some sort of 'wieners out' movement gameplay in the new game is making me nearly unable to wait to play this.

3. The Last of Us Part II

Developed by: Naughty Dog
Platforms: PlayStation 4
Date: 2017-2018

Granted, we don't even know for sure if this comes out in 2017 and it might not since that new side-story of Uncharted will come out this year, but I choose to both be optimistic and at least acknowledge that it might come out this year. The Last of Us was a fantastic game in most respects. I still play it from time to time. It had a great story and I actually liked the gameplay a fair bunch although I would've preferred some more consistency in some area's. Part II takes things further for Ellie and possibly Joel (fan theories are racing already he might be dead) and if it improves even a little bit, it will be an instant GOTY contender.

2. Destiny 2

Developed by: Bungie
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Date: 2017

Do I even need to explain why I'm excited for this one? Destiny is one of the greatest games I've ever played and it reached its pinnacle with Rise of Iron's release last year. Destiny 2 is improving upon everything while keeping everything that made Destiny great in the first place. The only thing I want to know about it still, is what transfers from the first one or which bonuses I will get for the stuff I've already accomplished and beyond that I fully trust Bungie to deliver me the next best shooter ever made.

1. Mass Effect Andromeda

Developed by: BioWare Montreal
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Date: 21 March

Mass Effect is the best trilogy I've ever played and beyond that Mass Effect 3 is one of my favorite playing games of all time. I still play that multiplayer every once in a while and I always restart the entire trilogy every year and a half to two years or so. I don't want or need to see anything on Andromeda. Doing the research and knowing which dev team is exactly making it (the ones that did the multiplayer in 3, most of the DLC of 2 and 3) I have complete confidence it will turn out great. If I were to guess they are going to make great changes to the gameplay again as they did in 3. I don't even know if there will be a multiplayer component, though I think there will be and it should be awesome. I can't wait to play this one. It's been a long time coming.

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My Top 10 Games and Top 5 DLC's of 2016

By Zevvion December 28, 2016 3 Comments

I decided to add a Top 5 with DLC's. It felt either unfair or really weird to compare, say, Destiny DLC to a new game that released this year. So, I gave it its own category instead of mashing it into the others which would create a very weird and honestly depressing list. In short, I thought this year was pretty fantastic. Not as fantastic as I hoped though. Some stuff disappointed. Some other stuff was pushed back into 2017. What I predicted to be the best year of gaming, it turned out was not as spectacular as that (need that Mass Effect in there). Nevertheless, great year overall. And here we go.

10. Dishonored 2

There are actually a fair amount of games that disappointed me that still made my Top 10. This is the first of them. While I think Dishonored 2 is a very well playing game and has a really cool combat sandbox, it certainly has issues. It added a healthy amount of new abilities that actually work in tandem exceptionally well. So well, that I sort of doubt Arkane realized how creative the community would be. Summoning your dobbelganger enables all sorts of crazy combo's on paper alone, but even in practice you can do pretty crazy stuff with it depending on your environment. It feels incredibly satisfying to summon her in combat, use other powers to set them up for death, swap location with your dobbelganger and then ensue certain death from a distance setting off the chain reaction you set up previously. There are more cool combo's to talk about than I actually have time for to write this.

That said, I had almost no fun with the stealth mechanics in D2. It seems you get spotted from such weird angles that don't make sense and they go from not being aware at all to complete combat mode in less than a second sometimes. The game is not forgiving at all when it comes to that stuff. I think for a game who's premise was originally: 'stealth sucks because you have to wait a lot, let's add teleportation' and broke the boredom of stealth for a lot of people, they could've addressed the frustration about immediate detection as well. Yes, you can go into combat mode, but I don't always want to. In fact, when your tooltip keeps telling me: 'hey! If you murder people you're a bad person and you'll probably get a different ending!' that argument falls flat on the water. What is it with games that try to tell you you're a good or bad person in such a black and white nonsensical scenario? Every single person I killed was a corrupt and often sadistic piece of garbage. I understand the philosophy that killing any human life, no matter how rotten, is bad, but don't force that on me. You're telling me I can make my own decisions, so why not let me make up my own reasoning for why I'm doing the stuff I'm doing? It feels really disjointed to be told to do whatever and then have to adhere to a list of things I can't actually do if I want to avoid a morality crisis I'm supposed to have later.

I'm counting the days until games just allow me to kill someone and then have that be on my conscience as a player. Not on some arbitrary invisible meter to try and enforce that conscience on me. I... eh, damn. I wrote a lot of negative on a game I put on my list didn't I? The thing is, I think the game is good, but it could have been so much better and so much higher if it did more than just 'make another one of those'. It developed the gameplay, which I really enjoyed, but it did not develop the stealth or underlying gameplay systems, which it should have.

9. Fire Emblem Fates

Awakening was my return to the series and was really great. Fates does more than it probably had to. It makes a really cool campaign where you can choose one of two sides, each spanning a full game's worth of missions and content. Of course, only one is given to you. The other is bought DLC. That does not matter much though, the path they give you is the path you're given in any Fire Emblem game normally (the 'good' one). The characters are once again well written and genuinely funny at times. Some revamps are made to certain classes, but largely the core game remains the same. A little too much the same though. Same art style, same menu's, same UI design. I get that it worked really well and you don't need to reinvent the wheel, but hey, you're still relatively low on my list because of it. I like change in a series such as this. It is what made me return to Awakening. If they'll do another one of these, I'll probably skip it. I only played Fates once as well, which is a bit meager for such a game. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed my time with it.

8. Salt & Sanctuary

I was afraid Dark Souls III would show up this low, but I hoped it would've surprised me at least a little bit with the... oh! Ha!

Hilarious, well encompassing and just amazing to look at. That's Salt & Sanctuary. It's really cool how they managed to capture Dark Souls to a 2D sidescroller. They captured the core philosophy very well too. Everything is in here. Even the character creator is samey in its obtuse nonsense. That said, while I was amazed actively while playing, I did not feel Salt & Sanctuary was an actually good Souls game. It messes up some mechanical issues because they are unique to 2D games such as dodge rolls at the edge of the screen. Every little thing that makes your combat sandbox less than perfect, makes you that much less Souls. Ultimately, Salt & Sanctuary has more of the visual and atmospheric resembling of a Souls game but a lot less of the actual playing of it. That's not to say I did not enjoy it, it wouldn't be here otherwise. But a proper one of these would've been much higher on this list.

7. Final Fantasy XV

Funny story, a friend of mine played so much FFXV that it even impeded him from eating and sleeping properly. He fainted at work. Was told by the doctor to go home and rest. You can probably guess how this story ends.

Final Fantasy XV has some outstanding hooks and parts of its core are just fantastic. It is easily my favorite Final Fantasy game since X, though for the record, it does not beat that one. The car is cool, the green chocobo's are awesome (yeah, that's right. I gave the big guy a pink one too), the fighting system is simplistic but fun, and it has a really neat world. The story is OK, it's a Final Fantasy story. If you don't take it too seriously, it's decent fuel to keep going. It is the most significantly different Final Fantasy game in a long time though. It is what made me like it so much. Unfortunately, I too often got the sense that I understood too clearly that this game had development issues. At washes it made me think this was the best game of the year, only to squander that a little later. It doesn't appear to fully understand what it is trying to be. It seems incoherent and inconsistent at times. If they create another game from scratch where they actually get a strong core of what this game is trying to be, it might be the best Final Fantasy ever made. As it stands, FFXV is a great game that I really enjoyed playing.

6. Civilization VI

I mean... it's probably the best Civilization ever made? I think it might be. The art style is controversial, I don't necessarily love it myself, but it works. Other than that, Civ 6 makes some really smart changes and additions to it's core gameplay, having a stellar UI to boot. Also, Ned Stark giving you all the technology upgrade run downs is a dirty play, that completely works. I was expecting him to die at the final technology upgrade, but it appears my humor is a childish one that isn't shared by Firaxis.

At the same time, there isn't too much to say about it other than it being more Civilization, but better and newer. I wasn't expecting anything other than that though.

5. Mirror's Edge Catalyst

The follow up to my GOTY. Mirror's Edge makes some neat adjustments like skill points to unlock new moves that are actually great fun to use. It also has a terrific art style and visual design. It controls very precise and reaffirms it has the best parkour in the business by leaps and bounds. That is, the best skill-based one of course. There are games that make it really easy to pull of crazy stuff, but it being the main focus here, it's centered around skill. I once again found myself performing certain moves that made me smile, on the fly, keeping my flow high. But then... then...

Then I slowly came to terms that this new Mirror's Edge has a significant design flaw. In case you don't know, I'm talking about the open world. Everything about Catalyst is fantastic, but its open world is utilized to little... well... no effect really. Mirror's Edge is a game about flow, precision, speed and decisiveness. Creating a new game from that in an open world means you should structure your game such that those elements remain untainted, intact. Instead EA seemingly just lifted a basic open world template and added it in. Do I have a fantastic idea on how it should have worked? No, not really. But having all this down time in between stuff and having random tertiary quests lying around is harming the flow significantly. It would even have been better if they just created a tight story that was merely set in an open city. I need to be moving constantly. Always having a next objective to hit. Not looking at my map to see which story mission I want to do next that is basically limited to a specific part of the city anyway. It ultimately feels like I'm using this city as a hub to get from mission to mission. You might as well allow me to just pick the missions of a list at that point instead of moving over there to start them. At which point all it really is, is missions that have far less tight design and options to tackle them with because this city seems to have been created without specific missions in mind, bar a few indoor ones.

The biggest problem with this is that the city is sectioned off into different zones, similar to how older GTA games used to do it. Having to cross a bridge to get into a different zone of the city was already somewhat annoying in a GTA game, but in Mirror's Edge where you need to be constantly moving it is a catastrophe. You run and vault your way somewhere only to find out you have to do a complete 180 because you missed the bridge that allows you to cross to the other zone you need to be in. Even worse, Mirror's Edge features a wanted system of sorts, showing a search radius on the map that you have to escape to avoid KrugerSec, the game's police force, for hunting you down. That radius can cover the entire direction of where you're headed and you won't be able to get out of it because you went 'the wrong way' and the city just stops. It doesn't communicate clearly to you where you can and can't go. It resulted in me having to turn on the Runner Vision to 'Full' so I get a suggested path, at least at that point I know it is a viable direction.

For what it's worth, almost everything else in Catalyst is really outstanding. They made some smart changes to the combat. Focus is a resource that you build by performing parkour moves, staying in motion and running at high speeds. When you're being shot, damage will first be deducted from your Focus meter, which can absorb a very large amount. This means if you keep moving and stay in flow, you practically won't get hurt. Especially because if you max your Focus, it won't decrease at all until you mess up your flow, meaning even direct hits don't deduct from it, basically giving you immortality until you stop moving.

The combat is also great. It has a small number of enemies, but they each change up the way you should approach them and groups in different configurations require different tactics. The story is 'fine', but the performances are actually quite impressive which makes it very engaging to play through. At some point I just committed to doing Story Missions-only, completely avoiding the side stuff which I thought was terrible in the way it broke the pace of the game. As a result, I started enjoying Catalyst a lot more and truly believe it is one of the best games this year.

However, I wanted the next step in Mirror's Edge, but instead it seems I got slightly less good Mirror's Edge. It turns out slightly less good Mirror's Edge is still great fun to play though.

4. Darkest Dungeon

As we get higher on this list, we get to the games where I should be ashamed of how much time I spent on them. Darkest Dungeon is the first of them. I bought it in Early Access last year and barely played it. In fact, this year I played it a bit and was not into it. I realized it was because I had no interest in such a game at that specific time however. Later this year, I completely was in that mood and luckily remembered the game. I was not disappointed. It filled the void I had and then some. I don't think I've ever played a game that looked more simple than this one that had such tremendous depth.

Having to consider which classes you bring and in which positions they will shine. Which moves are you going to assign them and how will those moves interact with other people in your party? What are the enemy types you're expected to see, what can they do, and how can you counteract that? Which negative traits might destroy your run and which positive ones will give you an easier time? What provisions will you bring to the place you're going? Are you going to sacrifice valuable inventory space, possibly not earning any gold or even losing some in exchange for a hyper-prepared stock?

I love just about everything about it. There's a class or two that doesn't speak to me, but with all the classes it has to offer that's hardly an issue. Some of its randomness might be a little too random (I have to eat in between every single room three times in a row? Come on), but that is really about it. Let the games above this one speak to how great those are, because in most other years this could have been my game of the year.

3. Dark Souls III

Dark Souls III is nearly the perfect Souls game. Let me get to the point: it misses a larger sense of inter-connectivity and multiple pathways, thus as a side-effect of that, it also has some issues with progression on subsequent playthroughs where you sometimes have to complete 70% of the game before you can get the thing you need. Beyond that, it seems to split the difference on Dark Souls and Dark Souls II in a great way. It has more build variety, deeper combat and much better boss design (from a gameplay perspective) than the former; it has a better atmosphere, visual design and consistency than the latter. Beyond making a good hybrid of the two, it also adds some cool 'new' mechanics (that were sometimes already present in Demon's Souls) like the FP bar and skill moves. I really enjoyed the split between Estus and Ashen Estus Flasks. It makes good sense too, if you're in close melee range you might need more health regeneration, whereas if you stay further out to use magic you need to regenerate your mana more often. It makes you make some more hard choices that I really enjoy. Nevertheless, with that also come some problems. Some magical attacks appear very underpowered (looking at you Lightning Spear) and it ties into the issue that creating a specific build sometimes takes way too long. Making miracles work requires you to have no less than 40-50 Faith, which is crazy.

Everything else is really great however. The bosses are cool, the combat is appropriately deep, the enemy types vary very well in their respective locations, it has neat and vague interactivity in the environments and perhaps most importantly, has a healthy amount of build variety that change up the gameplay possibly even more drastically than in DSII. It might be up there with DSII's DLC as some of the best Souls ever made (though I'm not sure it actually beats that). However... something about it is a little unsatisfying. This is Dark Souls. While we know this is the final installment in the series (even though Miyazaki has started a collaborative project with the dude from Berserk), it feels too much like it. It feels like tricks from older games are re-applied. It gives you some nostalgic giggles, but ultimately I want a new Souls game to propel the style forward, not look back and re-do or reiterate. This is probably the biggest reason why this is 'only' at #3 on my list.

I've only played it once through and busy with my second playthrough now, so eventually I might conclude this is the best Souls ever made, but it will always be that because it solidifies things done before, not because it propelled the series forward in a meaningful way.

2. XCOM 2

Let me bust the door in immediately again to get the negativity out of the way. XCOM 2 misses the Meld mechanic that I actually really liked and it misses Gene Mods which I reaaaaaaally liked. Beyond that this is in every single way a better game than Enemy Within. It looks better and has a really cool artstyle that actually feels like a proper solid art direction. It does some cool environmental detail that is neat as well. It has a very good progression, much better than the previous game. You're no longer forced in a specific direction right off the bat. It has some minor balance issues when it launched (my precious mimic beacon... you were great) but it remained challenging all the way through the end, even though it allows your guys to become even more powerful than in the previous game. It just feels even more satisfying which I thought to be impossible.

It makes some smart changes as well. The Foundry used to be a nightmare. It gated much wanted upgrades behind two long research projects, very high credit cost, build time and project time. In XCOM 2, many of those projects are just intertwined in other milestones, allowing you to either get them much faster/easier, or straight up give them to you as a result of another project. For example, if you create the second tier of armored suits, you get what used to be called Tactical Rigging (being able to equip a second utility item) as part of that suit of armor. With the exception of the Turret room that allowed you to field turrets on one specific mission alone, there was nothing in XCOM 2 that felt like a too long route or that I was gated by nonsense.

You still have to make hard choices though. The Psionic soldiers are incredibly powerful, almost brokenly so, but they are hyper-expensive and time consuming. Almost everything in here feels like a good trade-off you really have to think about. The meta-game has been changed to be more interactive as well which is very fun and adds a layer of complexity I enjoyed. For what it's worth, I thought two of the three DLC packs were fantastic additions to the regular playthrough of the game too. I can keep going on about things I love about this game. Being able to save your characters to a list so that they may pop up in subsequent playthroughs is a small touch that has a gigantic impact. I really love how XCOM 2 embraced the way the core community plays this game, which is over and over and over again.

As expected, I almost have 300 hours into XCOM 2 already and I still have so much desire to play it. It's great, I really love playing it 100% of the time.

1. Furi

You... you beat Dark Souls and XCOM? In case you do not know my taste, I can describe it as such: there is a beautiful future where someday I never want to play anything other than Destiny, Dark Souls and XCOM. Those three franchises until the end of time (with some Mass Effect vacation thrown in between). Dark Souls III is basically a collection of best Souls moments. XCOM 2 is by all accounts a better XCOM. And Furi is above them? How is this possible?!

To be honest though, if XCOM 2 was the first XCOM I had ever played and Dark Souls III was the first Souls I had every played, they would probably be above Furi. The truth is that playing something you already played before will always be slightly less fun and impressive than if you played it for the first time. Also, while I described my perfect future, I have to admit I basically have a character action game background. It used to be my favorite type of game. Ninja Gaiden Black, Devil May Cry 3/4, Revengeance; they are all fantastic games that I completely love. I just love mastering games. I love it when a game kicks my ass but is completely fair and I can see me progressing to be better at it. It is a key characteristic of what I love. Furi is 100% that.

Its core gameplay is just so solid. It feels hyper-precise and allows me to do what I need to do. The boss design is superb. I don't think I thought a single time that something cheap was happening. The mechanics layered around the multi-stage fights are very intense too: deplete this block of the boss' health and you'll get your health back, but if he depletes yours he gets his current health bar back. Similar to Revengeance, I really like how this game is centered around parrying rather than an extreme offensive. Don't get me wrong, I'll never say a bad word about doing a 3-minute combo in Devil May Cry. That's what that game is about and it plays fantastic and is tons of fun. But the other side of that coin is great too and Furi just absolutely nails it on every level. Nothing about it felt not quite good to me.

Even all the reasons I do not play it for are still great. It looks great, it looks unique, it sounds great, it even has a somewhat interesting story and lore. The transition scenes are real cool and bunnyman is a clear reason why that story becomes interesting. The voice work is generally good across the board. The game is infinitely replayable for someone like me.

On all fronts, this just feels like the next step to me in this genre. If you like character action games, you'll mention Furi in the same breath as Ninja Gaiden Black, DMC and Revengeance. And it wouldn't be weird to mention in in that caliber for a single second. It belongs there. It has earned it.

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TOP 5 DLC's and EXPANSIONS

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Whew! That was a long write up. This has been a fantastic year for games. Both new ones, but also add ons. I'm listing those of here. My ruleset here is that DLC, expansions and updated games are eligible for this. Basically everything that had a 2016 release that wasn't a new game (except for ports, they never count in my book). Alright, here we go.

5. Ashes of Ariandel - Dark Souls III

The reason this isn't higher is pretty simple. It was disappointing. Besides being incredibly short, it just doesn't add anything unique, really. Look at Dark Souls II. That's how you do Souls DLC. It has never been better than that. Ashes of Ariandel has the same problems as Dark Souls III in general, which is that it tries to hard to tread on old tracks. The truth is, more Souls is almost always a good thing. While disappointing, it was still a very solid piece of content that was fun to play through. It was a good time even though it didn't last very long. And hey, some of those new weapons and such are fairly interesting, so it at least makes the rest of your playthroughs better.

4. Whispers of the Old Gods - Hearthstone

Hearthstone releases roughly four expansions every year. Half of them are card dumps, adding 100-150 new cards with interesting effects to the mix. The other half are adventures where you go up against several bosses and earn a few new cards when you beat them. While I really like the latter, they haven't reached a point since the very first one (Naxxramas) where I can say they improved upon that concept. The new cards however, can be quite fun sometimes and spawn entirely new decks and possibilities.

Whispers of the Old Gods was the biggest and most interesting expansion to me this year. It added Standard, a game mode where you can only play with the latest two years of cards, which I really enjoy as a feature. It switches the meta more drastically and in more interesting ways. Which also shifted because of all the cards introduced in Whispers of the Old Gods. The four Gods they added have really cool mechanics and spawned deck-archetypes completely based around them. It felt OP to some at first, but people quickly figured out counters to where it wasn't a huge deal. I still quite enjoy running cards mostly from Old Gods at this point. It was the most impactful expansion I had played of Hearthstone in a while.

3. Shen's Last Gift - XCOM 2

As with Darkest Dungeon before, I'm going to say that the reason this isn't higher is simply because the ones above this are so damn good. Because man, Shen's Last Gift is not only great, it also really surprised me.

It adds mechs to your game as a soldier class. Unlike Enemy Within, you don't augment your existing soldiers to build one, they are completely robotic here. They still gain experience and have their own unique skill tree that has very cool abilities such as taking three actions in a single turn or taking the energy from getting shot at to increase the damage of your next regular primary weapon fire. The mission played to unlock this special class is very strong. It adds a neat enemy type, gives you temporary control over Shen as a Colonel Specialist and features some neat mechanics.

What surprised me so much though, was the narrative around it. You end up trying to take the prototype mech from an AI gone haywire, but this AI speaks to you for the entire duration of the mission, which isn't that short. He reveals some interesting things and most notably pokes fun at XCOM. His voice work is outstanding in the most literal sense of the word: he stands out from all the others in a significant and meaningful way. The delivery is top notch. Whereas you normally get frustrated with Bradford for talking so much, I actually paused at times to listen to this AI ramble. In fact, he voices his frustration with Bradford pretty clearly too in a funny way. I was actively laughing at some lines. The conclusion was pretty satisfying as well. I don't want to oversell it, at the end of the day it's just a new mission and a new soldier class, but I just never expected XCOM DLC to nail it like this. Seems very un-XCOM. In a great way.

2. Alien Hunters - XCOM 2

Two in a row, nice job XCOM 2. For the record, XCOM 2 has five DLC packs for sale. The ones that made this list are also exactly the only ones you need to concern yourself with. The others are pretty bad. They are cosmetic-only and often only for the first tier of armors. As for why I think Alien Hunters is the best DLC: it adds to the gameplay in a very meaningful way.

It adds three new boss units to the game. XCOM has never seen boss units before. The way it works is that, after being activated through a new mission, one of them can show up at any point, in any random mission you engage in. They generally have a ton of health (on Commander it's 60HP for the Viper King, 90HP for the Berserker Queen and 112HP for the Archon King) and after you've dealt a certain amount to them, they'll start to flee. Once fled, they can show up again in a later mission. They will be at the health you left them at, for good reason because you can probably do no more than 40 damage at a time. Once killed, the next boss can start showing up. If you let one flee three times in a row though, they'll be 'escaped' which means the next boss will start to show up even though you didn't kill the first one yet. It might return after you killed the other two at that point.

What makes things even more interesting is that these Rulers, as they are called, take no ordinary turns. If you perform an action, they immediately interrupt your tun and get a single reaction move. You perform another action, they get another reaction. Not a full soldier turn too, one action point, one reaction point for them. It is very interesting because you don't want to spend your action points on moving. It is pointless. If you move to get a better line of sight, the Ruler moves in response. If you move, he might just straight up attack you too. Looking at the code, it seems Rulers prefer to attack your highest health soldier, which makes sense in two ways. One, if they used all their reactions on a single dude as optimally as possible, your entire team would wipe 100% because you simply can't output 40ish damage before the Ruler can output 6-16 damage. Second, it makes these fights a drawn out intense fight that surely results in all of your soldiers coming back from the mission Gravely Wounded and having high recovery time, possible a death here and there too. The After Action Report reflects that you faced a boss incredibly well and while it's coded to not try and kill people outright, if you make too many mistakes, you will get a squad wipe.

On top of that, they have really cool new abilities like freeze effects. And... when you finally slay them you get to turn them into a one-off piece of armor that has a chance to panic aliens over whom they ruled (Vipers can panic if you wear the Viper King suit for example), has generally great stats and have a unique ability you can't get anywhere else, such as a lash that pulls enemies out of cover and freezes them. Oh also, it adds four new weapons to the mix that are 'Hunter' weapons.

A quite literally epic challenge and great rewards. It is almost by default my favorite XCOM DLC, although it worth mentioning the majority of the community disagrees with me. Many people find it too unforgiving or unfairly hard. I don't see it that way myself. I much prefer the crazy battles over having a new soldier class.

1. Rise of Iron - Destiny

Yeah, I know that the majority of these forums hate Destiny, but I always loved it. It is the best shooter I've ever played, it is the most fun multiplayer shooter I've ever played and it has by far the best and most meaningful cooperative shooting I've ever played. Don't bother me about how I shouldn't like it, I do like it.

Rise of Iron is not as polished or grand as The Taken King was. The story missions are rather dull and it doesn't have a whole lot of side stuff that Taken King did have. But while nice, I don't really care. Because what is in here to last is the stuff that matters. And the stuff that matters, is extremely good. I'll say that Wrath of the Machine, the new Raid added in Rise of Iron, is the best Raid they have ever made by a mile. It has no boring sections (Vault of Glass had those a lot), it has no bad sections (Crota's End had some of those) and it is really challenging without artificially doing that by putting lame, hyper-specific wipe-mechanics into play (King's Fall, you really have aged worst out of everyone). On top of that it genuinely has cool set pieces and a rather awesome final boss fight. It might be tied with Atheon as the best bossfight in the game, might even be above it.

Beyond that, many small changes were made to make everything better and increase the quality of life of the game. Leveling is now the best it's ever been, acquiring gear is now consistent, getting all the materials and currencies you need is very straight forward and so on. The new stuff added is also very cool. I liked the return of Gjallarhorn and the ornaments on armor sounded like a dumb idea that actually proved to be really neat. If you're in Trials and you see your opponents wearing all the sick Trials gear with the ornaments lighting up, you can't help but clamp onto your controller that much tighter. If you're doing the Raid and you see someone lighting the place up with his bright ornament Raid gear, you'll feel that it's going to be an easy run.

There is a lot more to say, but perhaps it would be simpler to say that I think Destiny has never been better than with the release of Rise of Iron.

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HONORABLE MENTIONS

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Let me say right here that I was never the 'my list is set in stone' type of guy. The truth is I can play something from 2016 in 2017 or even later and discover it is such a great game, I can go back to see where it would land. So I might edit this as I have edited my lists in the past. I generally don't do placement swapping after the fact though, it should only concern new stuff.

That said, there are some games I'm playing through right now that I thought were worth mentioning. They didn't make my list, but when I look at the bottom half of my list, I can see it going up there eventually when I feel I've played enough. It might, it might not, but the honorable mention is at least appropriate.

DOOM
It is a really good Arena shooter, but DOOM ultimately did not make my list because I found it too slow and too reserved. Where DOOM shines for me, is when you have to engage with its combat system on a more complex level. Moving around quick, using the various weapons at your disposal to get the desired effects and keep unleashing an onslaught. As it stands, DOOM just refuses to ever put enough demons your way so that it becomes a fight worth fighting. At best, it gives you a 60 second fight. I want DOOM to ask more of me. Its combat system justifies that it can. It just won't do it. On top of that, I absolutely hate having to explore in that game. It is tedious and boring. The game looks fine, but the environment is not something that promotes exploration as there is nothing worth looking at, really. I wish it had an option in the menu to just put an objective marker on screen of where you are supposed to go. Nevertheless, the shooting feels great as id shooters always do. After playing DOOM for 3 hours, I actually booted up RAGE because I was reminded just how much I loved that game.

Let it Die
I have not been able to play enough of Let it Die to seriously consider it for my Top 10 list. But what is in here, is incredibly interesting. It goes in the direction that Dark Souls III should have gone in. Set up similarly to Dark Souls, you can also send one of your characters to other people's game to invade them and hunt them down as an AI. If your character defeats them you get some spoils of war. If you die in your own game, your character is lost. It becomes an AI called a 'Hater' and it will wander near where you died. You have to defeat your own Hater using a new character at which point it will be send back to the hub and you can play as that character again. That said, the gameplay itself resembles Dark Souls but honestly does not come anywhere close to its versatility, depth or mechanical strengths. If I end up liking Let it Die a lot, it won't be for it's actual gameplay itself, but more for the stuff surrounding it.

SUPERHOT
To be fair, the reason I'm doing honorable mentions this year is almost entirely because I started playing SUPERHOT yesterday. That game is awesome. I've only played an hour of it so far, but I'm really liking it. I don't quite like how the replay looks sometimes which is what I found enough to not put it on my list yet until I play more. I had some runs that felt completely crazy, only to see the replay didn't really capture that. Almost felt like wasted effort. But perhaps things will turn up later. For now, the game is really fun to play.

Shipwrecked - Don't Starve
I didn't get a chance to play this DLC yet. I remember when it was in Early Access and I had time, but it was zoned off from the rest of the game. Meaning you boot up either Shipwrecked, or Don't Starve. I want to boot up Don't Starve, build a boat and go to the Shipwrecked locale when I want to interact with it. I'm not entirely sure if that's even possible in the final release. Don't Starved is one of the games that I absolutely loved during Early Access, but for my money they didn't need to keep doing that for the DLC. I'll check this out at some point.

The Witness
Alright, listen. I don't think all of you are crazy for liking this game so much, but I think you're absolutely crazy for praising it so much. Come on, it's not that unique at all. It's a puzzle game. A good looking puzzle game, but a rather simple puzzle game. It has depth for sure, but it was ultimately pretty boring for me to play through. I will never finish The Witness just because I don't enjoy playing it that much. I like the Antichamber/Stanley Parable/Talos Principle stuff way more than this. But The Witness proved a game that was very easy to boot up with a date or a friend that doesn't play games much. We would have some fun and some laughs while basically talking about other stuff to have a good time. I guess this is false praise, but The Witness might be the best game this year to play while you don't want to play anything serious and are paying attention to something else. Before you lash out, I'm well aware I'm in a minority on this, but this is my list and this is what I felt with this game.

Moirai
If you haven't played Moirai, go do it now. It is free on Steam and it takes 20 minutes to play through if you are taking your time like I did. It is a very interesting experience and I don't want to spoil anything, so that is probably all I can say for a free 10-20 minute game. Go play it. At the very least, you won't regret it.

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My Top 10 Games of 2015

By Zevvion February 1, 2016 0 Comments

Yes, I realize this is late. But I had to wait for Rise of the Tomb Raider on PC. And I'm glad I did, as you'll see. Overall, 2015 was a pretty solid year for me in games. Like most other years though, it suffers from fill-the-last-couple-spots-with-something-syndrome. I'm not entirely sure why that is, because I've been assured by others 2015 was so much better than 2014. It sort of felt the same to me. Maybe even slightly worse? I guess I just have different tastes. 2016 though, that will be one insane year.

Best DLC and Expansions

3. Legacy of the Void (StarCraft II)

Man, this could have been so great. It could have been soooo great. I was very surprised how much I liked this. The campaign was alright. But the thing I really loved about this was the online co-op. Special missions specifically designed for co-op is what Legacy of the Void offers. You choose one of several heroes or the Protoss, Zerg or Teran, each with their specialties and each with unique powers and unlocks as you rank up by completing co-op missions. The missions themselves are tons of fun, featuring mechanics that really require two players to complete them. Unfortunately, this virtually perfect mode comes to an end way too soon. After roughly 5 hours you'll have maxed out your hero of choice and there is no real reason to continue playing. You can level the other ones, but what is the point. You can already complete them at the highest difficulty at this point. I need more unlocks. Give me more unlocks! This game could have benefited from a more elaborate upgrade tree, perhaps with various choices to make or even doing prestige in some form. But after the couple of hours, interest drops. But while it lasts, it is a ton of fun.

2. House of Wolves (Destiny)

There is only one reason this is on here, and that is because it introduced the most fun, most sweaty and most demanding PvP mode I have ever played, in Trials of Osiris. It's 3 on 3 elimination. You get killed, you don't respawn. But you can possibly be revived by a team mate. If all players on one team are dead, the opposing team wins the round. First to 5 round wins, wins the match. If you win 8 matches, you get the highest tier reward that week (it is a weekend PvP event). If you lose 3 matches though, you're out. You have to start a new card. If you win 9 matches without losing a single time, you'll go 'flawless' and are invited to Mercury to open a special chest containing even higher tier loot. I started wanting to get 5 wins every week to get the reward tied to that number, but soon I wanted more. Before long, I got my first flawless victory, which I thought was never possible by me. It is hard to describe what makes Trials so much fun, but the hyper competitiveness of it is definitely the draw. You want that flawless victory. You need it. Often though, you won't get it. And you'll spend your Sundays queuing up Trials matches with some friends and before you know it, you've been playing for 10 hours straight. It's that type of game mode.

1. The Taken King (Destiny)

And the only reason it didn't make the top of the list was because of this. The Taken King makes an already incredibly fun game an actually great game in its own right. There was a ton of stuff to do, 3 new subclasses to play with (one per class), the story was much improved, some much needed UI tweaks, overall balancing, tons more weapons and armor, more events, a new Raid and of course the return of Trials. It helps that the Raid is commonly thought of as the best one they made yet, which I tend to agree with. I had lots of fun completing it every week with our Giant Bomb associated clan Cerberus Wolves. Most of us are currently taking a break though. It's been fun, but after playing it with dedication for months, we can wait until the next big content drops. Which sounds like it might be never? Who knows. The Taken King was definitely worth it and it'll wait for me if I ever want to return.

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On to the best games of 2015.

10. Batman Arkham Knight

It's another Batman game. It was pretty good. Not much else to say. It's not special in any way, really. In fact, because I had the luxury of playing other games at the same time, I never even reached the halfway point of Arkham Knight. For all the raging Rocksteady did on Origins, I expected they'd make a game that would be a whole lot better than it. Turns out it's 'just another one of those'. It just so happens that those games are pretty good, so here we are at #10. The game looks great, and plays well. The Batmobile stuff was a bit forced and needless, but it wasn't all that bad. On a sad rainy day, I will return to Arkham Knight and probably have a pretty good time. Oh, and when I do, I'll skip every single one of the Riddler things because you put like 600 in there. The dick were you thinking...

9. Lara Croft GO

The rebooting of Tomb Raider sure is successful. At least, from a quality standpoint. Hitman GO was a pretty great mobile puzzle game and Lara Croft GO is the same. Except it is even more fun to play than its Hitman counterpart. It's hard to explain why that is exactly, but I suppose it boils down to the design of the puzzles and the solutions thereof. I like a good puzzle game, and contra to my expectations, Lara Croft GO gave me a good 'Ah! Ha!' moment several times during my playthrough. It also helps that the game looks pretty for what it is. Nice colors and pretty sweet animations and transitions. It did feel a bit shorter than Hitman GO, but that might just be because I played it with more dedication. The epilogue chapter is especially good, as it ramps up the difficulty of the puzzles significantly in a pretty interesting way. While it may have felt short, I did feel satisfied and 'done' when I finished all that the game had to offer. There is no real reason to go back to it, but that's okay. I had my fill, it was great.

8. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

This could have been so much higher. The Witcher 3 is a good game in its own right, but there are moments where I can just see the potential it had. For a lot of people, the game is exactly what they wanted it to be. I just had a lot of trouble having fun with the game at times. All the ingredients are here, the execution is just flawed. Take the combat for instance. It's solid in theory, but the wonky animations make it play relatively poorly. The amount of items available is great, but most of them are just near identical versions of existing ones, making them meaningless. The cluttered inventory doesn't help on top of that, to make it a lackluster experience. The skills that are available are interesting, but there is no reason to pick more than a couple of them because of the way skill selection is designed. You're especially punished for this in the 'early' game (the first 30-40 hours) which makes the gameplay monotonous and unrewarding. The Witcher 3 is great at its storytelling and some of its questlines, but that is the only thing it excels at. I really want to love the rest of the game, but I ultimately wasn't having fun with it all the time to the point where I stopped playing. That's not to say the game is bad, it wouldn't be here if it was, but it could have reached #1 and there are moments where I can see it should have.

7. Invisible Inc.

This is better than I expected it to be. Invisible Inc. is a very interesting tactical turn based stealth game with some roguelike elements mixed in. It felt way too easy at the recommended level, but fortunately it offers a lot of incremental difficulty increases on top of that, to the point where I could find a good balance for me. It made the game flow very nicely and difficulty scaled up gradually. I love it when games let me fine tune the difficulty in separate fields, and Invisible Inc. does let you do that. Because the maps are randomly generated however, the environments are mostly uninteresting at best and you can get some pretty crazy layouts that are not that fun to play. Which is unfortunate, because the game is nice to look at visually otherwise. I do feel that one of the underlying mechanics of the game actually work against it, which is that it is a timed campaign. You can only do roughly 10-15 missions before the final mission pops up. I kept feeling like I was only 'just' becoming a strong unit, and then the game ends. You can change this time a little bit, but I never found it to be enough. In that sense, the game would have been better for me if it followed a comprehensive base campaign like XCOM does. I'm sure for others the short-but-sweet nature of the campaign is perfect, but I kept feeling a little unsatisfied by it all. But it's probably for the best, as you soon realize the game doesn't have much to offer if you would be able to continue past the intended time period if you play Endless.

6. Fallout 4

Fallout 3 was amazing. New Vegas added very interesting gameplay systems like Hardcore Mode. Fallout 4 had a lot to live up to. For the most part, it doesn't do that. Fallout 4 is a much more polished and better playing game than the previous ones, but in terms of everything that makes the series interesting, it takes a lot of steps back. When I first emerged from the Vault and started exploring, I was having a ton of fun. The world was new, everything was yet to discover. I found some cool stuff, made some cool stuff, explored, explored and explored. I love exploring in games in general, and it is fantastic in a game like this. Unfortunately, the more I saw of the world and the game, the less I liked it. It's not that anything was bad, it's just that a lot of things that made 3 and New Vegas great were missing here. Where is the day-night cycle? There virtually isn't one. Why do I not receive more experience for a harder setting? I get the same amount as I would on Easy. Why is there no Hardcore Mode? Why are there so few choices in terms of clothing and armor? Along with all these things, some new problems exclusive to 4 also came up. Why is the Settlement building cap so low for instance? Problem after problem arose. The game is more barren than it seems on the offset. I rediscovered Fallout 4 later, by installing mods that address all of these issues. The game is legitimately great to play having installed those now, but there is no excuse for that stuff not being in the game in the first place. Similar to The Witcher 3, this could have made the top of my list.

5. Prison Architect

After being in early access for at least two years, Prison Architect has finally escaped for real. It is worth mentioning that it was probably my best experience with an early access game yet. It was (mostly) functional when I bought it 2 years ago, and I had already gotten 30+ hours out of it at that time. The game was updated pretty much monthly or bi-monthly from that point on, receiving meaningful additions and fixes each time. I didn't play every single version all the time, but I would play it again once every 5 months or so, having a lot of fun with it. It's finally out, and it's still great to play. I played it last probably half a year prior to it releasing for real, and there was a ton of stuff that was new and changed. The campaign is still lackluster, I think, but you'll play this game for its sandbox mode. It's weird how fun it is designing a prison, and installing stuff just to shut your prisoners up instead of being humane. I like how planning is very important, and executing on a plan feels very satisfying. Overall, just a very fun and unique build and sim game.

4. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

In the prologue, you're chased down in the woods by a flaming man riding a flaming horse. The woods light on fire. Later, you attach a balloon to a puppy and shoot him into the sky. When that dog is grown up, he uses a knife to stab people. This game belongs on the list. Besides being awesome, The Phantom Pain is also a mechanically impressive stealth game. It feels fair and gives you plenty of opportunities to remain stealthed in various ways. One tiny mess up won't encourage you to reload the last checkpoint, which is key for making a stealth game great. The strategy layer is actually pretty fun and engaging, if a bit poorly presented. I felt the use of Kiefer may have diminished the story a bunch though. There is plenty of dialogue from various characters, but only a handful of lines from Snake every 10 hours or so. It feels weird. Like more dialogue is supposed to be there, but it just isn't. Some of the upgrades are also way further down the tree than they probably should be, like a proper sniper rifle. But the gameplay in the sandbox is just so sweet, you can't get mad at The Phantom Pain.

3. Bloodborne

It's probably the biggest disappointment of 2015. It's quite easily the worst Souls game developed by From Software I've played. But it's still up this high because it is still pretty good. And a good Souls game seems to be better than most games for me. If anything, my disappointment illustrates how great the previous Souls games were. They all clocked in at #1 quite easily in their respective release years. Bloodborne messes up in a couple of key ways. Replaying the game is not as much fun, because there is only one real way to play the game. You can still mess around with certain builds, but that only means your stats are invested differently. The playstyle of that character remains near-identical. In my review, I believe I described pretty well why I was so disappointed with it. But in short, there is almost no magic to speak of with some 6 spells in the entire game, and Dark Souls II's 250+ melee weapons had been reduced to 15. The melee weapons all transform giving them the impression of more depth, but the lack of being able to two-hand or dual wield soon reveals they have less moves than the typical weapon in Souls games do. There is little to no environmental variety, and the game is far more tolerate of mistakes and poor play to the point where you can get away with a lot more than you should. The lore is there, and it's interesting, and they at least tried to change things up with the setting. It led to me enjoying my time a lot with Bloodborne my first time through, but being disappointed with subsequent playthroughs. Ultimately, it makes Bloodborne just a real good game. Not a good Souls game.

2. Dying Light

Apart from some weird animations and visual glitches, this game is pretty damn fantastic. You have an open world to explore while using parkour to run across the rooftops and avoid the zombies down below. Search for junk and gear to craft items and weapons. The typical fodder zombies are easy enough to kill, but you can get overrun by a group quickly, which makes the parkour all the more satisfying. There are some cool add-ons for your weapons to output more damage or inflict status effects which you'll need to take down the bigger ones. Then, the thing that makes all of it great, is nighttime. I can't remember the last time I actually ran from things in videogames because they would annihilate you. Having Volatiles only show up at night is also pretty great, since unlike Fallout 4, Dying Light embraces nights and makes them pretty damn dark. Volatiles are faster than you are, and in a pure troll decision, the devs made a button dedicated to looking behind you while you run. You know you shouldn't use it, but you do. And it will make shit tense as hell, seeing a Volatile running up to you at ridiculous speeds. I felt at a strong disadvantage at night for most of the game, which was a glorious concept I loved the entire way through. It's worth noting the game has also been well supported. While I haven't checked it out yet, apparently, other players can invade your game Dark Souls style while playing as a Volatile. That's... pretty great. I really wish I had the time to play more of Dying Light. Perhaps in the far future, since 2016 will release amazing games at an insane pace.

1. Rise of the Tomb Raider

Told you it was worth waiting. Tomb Raider (2013) was a great game. It's a style of game I really enjoy, but don't see too often. I like the adventurous overtone the game has. I actually think the combat is pretty good too. Rise improves on literally every aspect of the 2013 reboot. More meaningful tombs to raid, better puzzles, bigger and more interesting environments, stunning visuals, more applicable outfits and a lot more adventure. The only thing that remained more or less the same is the combat. It's not perfect, but it feels pretty good and you are given more than enough tools to handle each situation in different ways. Lara is very capable at dispatching just about everything. Rise adds more materials to be collected from the environment to craft things with, like weapon upgrades, ammo and ammunition pouches. It feels pretty solid, and it eludes to the possibility of a pretty fun survival game. The campaign never really becomes about survival though, which isn't a bad thing per se. But the option to have some more interesting mechanics related to survival in there on higher difficulties would have been cool. The story is actually decent and it wraps up nicely, while leaving a little room for a sequel. The puzzles are all pretty simple, but they are all set in pretty impressive environments and use some fun mechanics to make them interesting. There is a good amount of them too, though a lot of them are 'hidden' behind doors and barriers you cannot access until you acquire the corresponding abilities. Which is fine, since Fast Travel is a thing. All in all, with the exception of the final 2 hours, Rise of the Tomb Raider is just the perfect blend of exploration and combat. It's one of those games where I immediately started a new game upon completing it.

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My Top 10 Movies of 2015

By Zevvion January 28, 2016 0 Comments

While there weren't a ton of movies in 2015 that I really liked (yes, this list suffers from fill-the-last-couple-spots-with-something syndrome), there were some at the top of this list that were absolutely fantastic. Most of the movies I enjoyed were sequels, in one form or another. But I only truly realized this when I looked at my list. It didn't feel like a rehash year, though I suppose an argument could be made for it. I was surprised by a lot of these movies, especially my top picks. So, while it wasn't one of the best years ever for me with regard to movies, it certainly wasn't disappointing either.

10. San Andreas

What can I say, other than it was okay? Despite not being very special, the movie managed to grab my attention and hold it until the end. All the while I was enjoying watching it. Although, not all the time to be honest. The 'moment' at the end there was embarrassingly cliche and nonsensical. But oh well, I guess this movie didn't climb higher than number 10 for a reason. I thought the characters were pretty much all likable in their own way, which went a long way to keeping me entertained. I especially liked the upcoming architects performance and his role in general as well. Slice the tires. Brilliant.

9. Terminator Genisys

I don't know why people are so harsh on new Terminator movies. They aren't that bad. In fact, they are pretty good. They are not destroying your childhood if you watched the first one and liked it better than the new ones. While I didn't think Salvation was a great movie, I do remember thinking 'hey, this is okay'. I liked Genisys a whole lot better than it though. I thought most of the characters were fine. I liked Schwarzenegger's throwbacks to the previous movies too. I also thought the story was actually pretty good and it was entertaining to see it unfold. I guess I'm a sucker for time travel stuff, but that's fine. I just like a good time-mind fuck and Genisys surely gave me that.

8. Ant-Man

In all honesty, I was slightly disappointed with Ant-Man. I was expecting it to be a weirdly crazy action movie. It was still a crazy movie, but more of a predictable nature. Trailers may have ruined some of this for me, as all the best action sequences are in the trailer (I hate trailers) and I was sort of expecting something more. But putting that aside, Ant-Man was a very entertaining movie to watch. The main character is genuine and likable, the movie has a healthy dose of funniness and it does some clever things with matter of perspective and size. The ending sequence was very impressive to watch visually, I'm just not sure I was into the reason of why things were 'solved'. It felt a little too convenient just for ending's sake. But regardless, fun movie to watch.

7. Ted 2

I was warned beforehand that this was not as good as the first movie. And no, Ted 2 is not as good as Ted. Not just because of the 'new' nature the first movie had, but it also misses a couple of things here and there that made the first so hilarious and fun to watch. That said, Ted 2 is still fun to watch. Besides obvious jokes that make it worthwhile, it also actually tries to address the subject of what a person is, what a satient being is and what property really is. It is hit and miss on some notes here, but when it does hit, it makes you think. Who knew a movie of this type would make you seriously think and question the nature of things? The fact it manages to do that while being pretty funny along the way is impressive.

6. Ex Machina

The premise is relatively boring, but the execution is very strong in Ex Machina. The movie makes you think. Hard. Mostly it just makes me think... what was her question at the end there... really? Was it even a question? Her actions in the moments after that are one of the things that makes the movie crazy. And I'm not even entirely sure if the movie is good crazy, crazy crazy, or just poor crazy. Ex Machina does one thing extraordinarily well: it really makes you question human rights. For any sensible person, basic human rights are a given and very straightforward. You don't need to think about them, you just know them. You can't kill another person, of course. You can't keep another person against their will, of course. You can't needlessly of selflessly harm another person, of course. These and far more basic rights are second nature, yet why did I doubt - if only for a second at times - if these rights also applied in the situations shown in Ex Machina? Contrast to this, the ending doesn't even matter. Good, bad, whatever. The real essence of the movie, and what it should be praised for, is how it makes you think and second guess yourself.

5. Avengers: Age of Ultron

The worst thing to say about Age of Ultron is that it was 'just' another Avengers movie. It didn't do anything out of the ordinary. It was more or less what you expected it would be. But since you'd expect it to be a good and fun movie, that's a good thing. It has some great action sequences and the dynamic between all the characters is just very entertaining to watch. I didn't like Ultron's attitude at times though. It felt a little too much like he was trying to be funny. Which he was on occasion, but they were trying to lay it on a little thick. I will say I was pleasantly surprised by what I thought was an obvious set up for one of the characters dying, being cleverly averted. Overall, a very enjoyable watch. One of those movies you can watch again later. And it's not necessarily a worse movie than the first one. I did enjoy the first one more, but that is entirely because it was the first. Not in the case of Ted where it was also less good of a movie in its own right.

4. Creed

Who expected this to be great? I didn't. I liked the Rocky series a good amount growing up. But even while being a child I thought they were B-movies. Which is saying something. Just to be clear, I thought those movies were great B-movies. But Creed rises above them in a way that I can't quite place my finger on. Maybe I have just matured myself and I can more clearly see the drama that is going on in Creed and value it for what it is trying to do. Maybe that always was present in the Rocky movies and I just didn't see it as clearly. Or valued it as much. Whatever the case may be, I didn't expect Creed to hit me on so many levels. I do have affinity with fighting so it remains a subject I can fall in favor of easily. I also seem to grow more appreciation for Sylvester Stallone with each movie I watch of him. He was one of the great action movie hero's while growing up, and seeing how he is trying to handle leaving behind a legacy makes me respect him that much more. It helps that his performance in Creed is quite good. I remember one of the fights being shot particularly impressively. It never cut the camera throughout the entire fight, yet shows the fight from all angles. I was disappointed to see the final fight not being shot this way, but it is understandable given the timeline. In the end, it is pretty hard for a drama to grab me and hold my full attention throughout, but Creed certainly did. I'd almost toss it up there with Warrior as one of the best movies I've seen with fighting as subject matter.

3. Furious 7

This is right up there among the best Fast & Furious movies. Maybe it even is the best. Fast Five was the 'first' movie in this vain, really, but in Furious 7 the entire crew seems closer together. It's super weird to give a movie additional acclaim because one of the leads had died in an (non-related) car accident while his shoot wasn't fully done and they filled in the remainder using his brothers as body doubles along with some costly CGI. But it did add a certain amount of respect to the film for me. While watching it, it became pretty obvious which parts were shot using body doubles as the camera tried to not shoot Walker's face. Of course, the CGI was even more noticeable. But, all this stuff was done in service of the movie and it was done with a tone of respect that I could really appreciate at the time. I imagine if you have no idea what happened in real life to Paul Walker, Furious 7 must be a confusing movie in the way it wraps up. But if you did, which we all do(?), it feels pretty well done. Again, it's weird to say, but it does add something to the movie. It helps that the entire movie on its own merits is awesome to watch. There's a good amount of typical Furious nonsense action sequences in it, that almost put Dom's rescue jump in 6 to shame. It hit a pretty good emotional note at the end, with great symbolism that I truly admired. But leaving that stuff aside, the movie is packed with 'oh, shit' and dumb moments that you would watch this for. It's pretty hard to imagine this movie would have been better any other way.

2. Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens

The first ever truly great Star Wars movie. Don't worry, before you rush to reply how I don't know anything, let me assure you I am fully aware I'm in a very small minority here for thinking this. But yes, while I did like Star Wars before, I always thought all the movies were pretty overrated. We all know the new trilogy has received its fair share of criticism, but I honestly didn't think the older ones were that much better. And what better point of reference than the old trilogy for The Force Awakens, when they act as if the new trilogy never happened. Keeping it short, I always thought the movies suffered from spotty acting and direction at best and I didn't find them believable in the slightest. I talk about it in detail in My Thoughts. The thing is, The Force Awakens addresses all complaints I had with those movies and builds around it to the standards of today. It's hard to believe the movie has largely likable characters and believable sequences. I also thought the performances were great throughout. It managed to be one of the few movies this year I'd go back to the theater for to watch it again. (And again).

1. The Martian

Once again, I'm grateful I do not read books. Apparently, this movie didn't fully live up to expectations of those who read the book, even though it clearly is one of the best movies of the year. In my case the actual best. I didn't even find any flaw that detracted from my enjoyment of the movie, but I suppose expectations can tarnish that, even if the quality remains the same; 'worse' can become a substitute for 'different'. Which is one of the reasons I will always stay away from books of fiction. In my experience though, The Martian was quite easily the best movie of the year. My number 2 doesn't really come close in all honesty. And that doesn't say something about The Force Awakens' quality, it says something about The Martian's. The entire set up doesn't sound like it would be entertaining for over 2 hours: a human expedition on Mars goes wrong and one man gets left behind. He needs to find a way to survive on Mars. That's it. That is what the movie is about. There is nothing else going on. No extra terrestrial life, no treasure hunt, no love story, nothing. Survival on Mars. Not only does it manage to keep that entertaining for 2 hours straight, it manages to do so while being very, very tense and exciting. I still can't grasp how they pulled that off. I was on the edge of my seat for a good portion of the movie. On top of that, there is some genuinely good humor in it. There is nothing I can write here that accurately explains how good the movie is. It truly is better than the sum of its parts. It instantly became my favorite space travel movie of all time, one of my favorite movies of all time, and my favorite movie of 2015.

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I disliked Fallout 4. Installed these mods, now I love it.

By Zevvion January 19, 2016 21 Comments

Here's my story of why I had to seek out mods for Fallout 4: loved Fallout 3. Thought New Vegas' hardcore system was very interesting and fun (having to eat, drink, sleep). I was expecting Fallout 4 to turn it up a notch. Not only did it not do that, it turned it down a notch. Key features were completely missing. I was disappointed right as I exited the Vault because there was no 'Do you want to enable Hardcore Mode?' checkbox.

I started having some fun despite that though. Only to be disappointed to read I don't gain more XP from playing on Survival. Okay, Normal it is then. Started getting into the settlement building stuff, and just as I did, I wasn't allowed to build anymore. After roughly 20+ hours of play, I realized I was still wearing the exact same clothes as I did in hour 3. I went looking for new stuff and there is just barely anything. Come to think of it, why has it never been night? Where is the day-night cycle? What? It is nighttime right now? Why is everything so bright as daytime at night? Just what the...

Disappointment after disappointment arose. Finally, I just quit playing Fallout 4. There is a fantastic game in there somewhere, but they just didn't do the work to make it such. After about 1,5 months, I wanted to get back into it, but knew I would just turn away again. I looked up some mods and found out there is already great stuff out there. Started installing them as they sounded appealing and what do you know? I am having a blast with the game now.

Were you disappointed with Fallout 4 like me? Maybe check out these mods as they did well for me, maybe they do for you too.

Crucial Mods

Simple: these features should have been in the game and they have no reason to not be here (often they were even present in previous installments). This is basic functionality the game should have shipped with.

Primary Needs

Type: Gameplay

This mod enables two parts that were key to Hardcore Difficulty: food and drink. Sleep is not included. How does it go about it? It adds food and drink as addictions in the game. Brilliant! When eating any food item you will now become 'addicted' to food and need to eat once a day to avoid harsh stat penalties and slow health decay. The same works for drink. The modder went as far as to revamp how food and drink provides buffs and bonuses to be more realistic to expectation. For example, eating raw meat will not give you HP, rather it gives you food poisoning. It will, however, still satisfy your 'addiction', thus sometimes a hard choice must be made if you did not prepare enough. It sounds very harsh, but it is not very much so. You just need to keep in mind that you need food and water to survive, as Hardcore Mode should do.

Link to Primary Needs

Darker Nights

Type: Visual

You know when you wander the wasteland, enter a loading area and the tooltip says something about using your PipBoy light? And then you're like: '... why would I ever need to use it'? Yeah, me too. It is insane how bright nights are in Fallout 4. I can see everything just as perfectly as if it's day. Not only does it not make sense, but it takes away atmosphere and gameplay possibilities. Stealth is not a viable option because it isn't dark. Ever. NPC's can spot you from miles away even at night. It also just looks dumb if you ask me. This mod gave me back the atmosphere I wanted and stealth actually became viable. It allows you to set different tones of darkness and how much it affects NPC vision too (for example, if you want a dark night atmospherically but still want NPC's to spot you as easily as daytime, you can do that).

Link to Darker Nights

Higher Settlement Budget

Type: Customization

So, let me get this straight: I'm encouraged by tooltips to build out my settlement because that is better somehow. I get on it and start to enjoy placing defenses and structures and even a personal area for me with a bobblehead stand, lockers for my gear, stimpacks and so on. I want to go slightly further than this though, like build a doghouse for Dogmeat and an area for my settlers. But oh wait, I can't. Because the building limit is ridiculously low. I've searched long and hard what could possibly have the cap be this low and even if you expand and maintain 30 settlements, it seems highly unlikely to cause memory issues moreso than normal. I used this mod which increases building space by 3x and have had no issues whatsoever. Except I'm finally able to build what I want.

Link to Higher Settlement Budget

Difficulty XP Scaling

Type: Leveling

In Fallout 3 and NV, you received more XP for killing enemies on higher difficulties. It was a nice reward based system. You up the difficulty, you increase faster in level. Arguably, those games needed it the least because the level cap was lower. Fallout 4 has much increased leveling possibilities, and the XP you earn on Very Easy is the exact same as on Survival. Ha-ha. That's a good joke. Entirely unbalanced, but a pretty good joke. This mod has various files that all alter the amount of XP you gain on the difficulty you choose. I went for 150% more XP on Survival as a sweet spot. You can also go for 140 or 160%. Alternatively, you can even go for 30% if you really like Bethesda's train of thought and want to be punished even more for playing on Survival. It's your funeral.

Link to Difficulty XP Scaling

OCDecorator

Type: Customization

Part of a sequel's expectation is to improve on an existing formula. At the very least, if it worked adequately, make sure you don't make it worse. Boo, Fallout 4, you made placing items worse. Hurray, OCDecorator, you made it better than before. Let's accept the argument that I am insane for the following scenario: I want to place plates and forks and knives on the table where my settlers eat. I want to place mugs there too. I want to make a shelf and put food on it that I found in the wasteland. I want to decorate my place by lining up Nuka-Cola bottles in order of variation and so forth, because I'm insane. Nevertheless, the reason Bethesda games get a pass on glitches and bugs is because they allow you to do this type of stuff.

Except they don't. When it gets too much to handle, all the stuff I lined up just starts falling through the table and eventually the floor. I place all this stuff, go out adventuring and when I return it is all stuck clipping through the table or shelf. I have to spend a lot of time reorganizing, because if I don't, it just falls through never to return. OCDecorator allows you to build an object that 'solidifies' any object you place in it. Thus, I take my Nuka-Cola, put it in there, take it out and place it. It will be there. I go out, return, it's where I left it. It can't even be knocked over. Yes. I can finally do what this game told me I could.

Recommended Mods

These mods don't cover crucial features like the ones described above, but I still expected these to be in the base game and they weren't. You'll probably get more enjoyment out of the game if you use these too.

True Storms: Wasteland Edition

Type: Visual

I was almost about to pair this with Darker Nights (see above), but ultimately I just felt the weather effects in Fallout 4 were 'just' lackluster, instead of destroying my fun with the game. That said, I wouldn't want to uninstall this mod. It adds a lot more atmosphere to weather effects such as rain, making it more noticeable than in vanilla. It also adds new weather effects like radiation rain, dust storm and more. It also has some neat options for increasing the duration a weather type holds and decreasing how often it is 'good' weather (thus increasing rain, dust storm etc). You can also just keep it to regular values if you wish (which I did).

Link to True Storms

Create Your Own Survival Rebalance

Type: Gameplay

I thought we agreed that 'increase enemy damage by ridiculous amount' and 'decrease player damage by ridiculous amount' are not to be combined to create a harder difficulty setting? Playing on Survival feels wrong. It's not about it being hard or easy, it is literally about dying in 2 seconds, while every enemy (that wears shittier armor than you!) is a bullet sponge that just won't quit. I'm not saying you can't mess with damage multipliers, but the combo of these are just killing for any game I've played. Take XCOM. Imagaine if, on top of the HP buff enemies get on higher difficulties, their guns also do 2x damage as usual. That sounds fucked in a way that isn't fun. It is exactly what Fallout 4 is. And it is boring.

The solution for me is to take more damage than usual, but also deal more damage than usual. It is harder, as groups of enemies still take you out in seconds, but are also capable of killing an enemy or two without having to backtrack-run > regain AP > VATS > backtrack-run and so forth. It makes for more interesting encounters, while still being harder than the Normal setting. This mod allows you to completely change the damage multiplier values. You can make them do even more damage than on Survival, and you do even less damage than on Survival if you want. Note that you can also set the damage multipliers to normal, effectively having combat on Normal difficulty, while still having all the added challenge in other area's that Survival offers.

Link to Create Your Own Survival Rebalance

Wearable Backpacks and Pouches

Type: Gameplay, customization

For generations people have been complaining about encumbrance and weight. Not being able to carry enough. While there are mods out there every time that just increase carry weight to 10.000, people still want a more elegant system that deals with encumbrance. The system being there for gameplay reasons is clear and valid, but nothing is done to mitigate it later in the game apart from some perks. I don't want encumbrance removed or have it be a non-issue, but I don't want it to hamper my experience either. Welcome to backpacks. What we've been asking for, since... like... I can't even remember. It does what it should do. Adds backpacks and pouches to be crafted and they increase carry weight dependent on the type you made. Perfect. In-universe reason to carry more stuff and making it more fun and manageable from the gameplay perspective.

Link to Wearable Backpacks and Pouches

Functional Weapon Racks

Type: Customization

It doesn't destroy the game that it isn't in here, but it was in Skyrim? Why not here? I was kind of expecting it to be. I like displaying my stuff and this mod made it possible. It is also cool that the modder in question is also working on armor stands as we speak. A simple mod, but a cool one.

Link to Functional Weapon Racks

Nice Addition Mods

Lastly, these mods aren't crucial and I didn't even necessarily expect them, but they are good/fun additions to the game still.

Radiant Clouds and Fogs

Type: Visual

It makes clouds thicker. Makes fog more of an actual fog. It's good and works nicely with True Storms.

Link to Radiant Clouds and Fogs

Eli's Armor Collection Remade

Type: Customization

If only this had a significant number of new outfits. It does have some new outfits, but also touches up a lot of the older ones. It's good and I like it, but if there was more to is, this would be up to the Recommended Mods. Because the base game of Fallout 4 is heavily lacking is customization options in terms of clothing and outfits.

Link to Armor Collection Remade

Eli's Sleeveless Outfits

Type: Customization

More outfits. Got to have more outfits. Again, it isn't much, but it is at least something and at least it looks different.

Link to Sleeveless Outfits

Craftable Floor Supports

Type: Customization

You like how all your structures are floating in the air? Me neither. Here is a support structure that can be built so that it at least looks plausible.

Link to Craftable Floor Supports

Improved Map With Visible Roads

Type: Interface

Is this cheating? I don't know. Fallout 4's base map gives you an idea in which direction something is, but it doesn't tell you where or how to get there. Maybe that is the point? So a better map is actually cheating? I don't enjoy it myself however. I like exploration, but having to figure out how the map works in relation to the world does not equal fun for me. This mod makes the map better.

Link to Improved Map With Visible Roads

Unlock All Hairstyles At Game Start

Type: Customization

'You can unlock this hairstyle by completing the game'. Haha, buddy, we are so not on the same page. Yes, I get it. You want unlockables in your game so that even after completion people keep playing. But taking hairstyles away from my entire game experience because I might continue playing after beating the game and getting new hairstyles is not the way. When the game is done, it's done. Give me full customization of my character from the start please. Thanks mod.

Link to Unlock All Hairstyles At Game Start

Nanosuit

Type: Customization

Doesn't this look cool? Yes it does. And it looks different from all the monotone outfits in Fallout 4. All seven of them. Need more stuff.

Link to Nanosuit

21 Comments

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Zevvion

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By Zevvion January 3, 2018 11 Comments

Best Games

5. Mass Effect Andromeda

4. Absolver

3. Nioh

2. Destiny 2

1. Prey

Best DLC

5. Knights of the Frozen Throne – Hearthstone

4. Defiant Honor – Nioh

3. The Crimson Court – Darkest Dungeon

2. Curse of Osiris – Destiny 2

1. War of the Chosen – XCOM 2

Categories

Best Story

Best Soundtrack

Best Looking Game

Best Use of Difficulty

Best Surprise

Most Disappointing

By Zevvion August 28, 2017 3 Comments

By Zevvion July 9, 2017 18 Comments

Daenerys and Jon form the force against the Night King with the help of Bran

The Night King is a Stark

Bran built the Wall

Bran is the old Three-Eyed-Raven

Bran is the Night King

By Zevvion May 3, 2017 0 Comments

Andromeda

Un'Goro in Hearthstone

Fast & Furious 8

XCOM 2 and Building a Mod

By Zevvion February 3, 2017 0 Comments

Quantity of fruit and vegetable consumption for health

By Zevvion January 12, 2017 13 Comments

Worth Tracking

NieR: Automata

Star Citizen

Death Stranding

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

God of War

State of Decay 2

Horizon Zero Dawn

Prey

8. Crackdown 3

7. Agents of Mayhem

6. For Honor

5. Spider-Man

4. South Park The Fractured But Whole

3. The Last of Us Part II

2. Destiny 2

1. Mass Effect Andromeda

By Zevvion December 28, 2016 3 Comments

10. Dishonored 2

9. Fire Emblem Fates

8. Salt & Sanctuary

7. Final Fantasy XV

6. Civilization VI

5. Mirror's Edge Catalyst

4. Darkest Dungeon

3. Dark Souls III

2. XCOM 2

1. Furi

5. Ashes of Ariandel - Dark Souls III

4. Whispers of the Old Gods - Hearthstone

3. Shen's Last Gift - XCOM 2

2. Alien Hunters - XCOM 2

1. Rise of Iron - Destiny

By Zevvion February 1, 2016 0 Comments

Best DLC and Expansions

3. Legacy of the Void (StarCraft II)

2. House of Wolves (Destiny)

1. The Taken King (Destiny)

10. Batman Arkham Knight

9. Lara Croft GO

8. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

7. Invisible Inc.

6. Fallout 4