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zolloz89

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Game of the Year 2015

Here are my picks for game of the year 2015! Looking back, there are a lot of games catered to my specific likes as a kid! Spoilers maybe.

Honorable mentions: Mortal Kombat X, Sims 4, Splatoon, Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition, Galak Z: The Dimensional, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Massive Chalice, Lego Jurassic World, Please Don't Touch Anything, #IDARB, Roundabout, Magicka 2, Helldivers, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, Rare Replay, Star Wars: Battlefront

Did not play: Xenoblade Chronicles X, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Bloodborne, Yoshi's Woolly World, Just Cause 3, Soma, Life is Strange, Ori and the Blind Forest, Axiom Verge, Until Dawn, Undertale, Tales of Zesteria, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Dying Light

List items

  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is absolutely the best of the series. It largely solves all the problems I had with The Witcher 2, namely combat, though I wish that the game got back to the sword style selection from the first game, but I know that's a big request. The world of the Witcher has never been realized so well. The open-world nature of this game really drives the dire situations of the normal people in this world while a war is ongoing. I also think that it makes Geralt and the witchers feel like the wanderers that they are. I am a huge fan of the series and it's nice to finally have a good sense of the entire world of the Witcher, instead of the city or small state in previous games. So far, I've enjoyed where the story has taken Geralt and company, and I'm going to continue well into 2016 with it and the new DLC packs. Definitely my game of the year for 2015.

  • Somehow, I convinced myself that I needed to play this game on day one, despite actively disliking Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation and never giving the series another chance and enjoyed watching Drew in Metal Gear Scanlon. You could throw everything related to Big Boss out of this game and I would have liked this game anyway. It is a perfectly crafted world with what seems like thousands of interacting systems all contributing to some of the most satisfying gameplay of this year. I wanted to just roam around the two available areas, searching for resources, sending soldiers on missions, Fultoning new recruits with high ranks and new skills, and completing missions to develop new loadouts and make myself more effective in the field. I'm not a fan of the second chapter of the game that forces you to complete the same missions on extreme or total stealth, since they don't add anything but frustration to the game if you developed tech for a different play style. For the second of the Skulls missions, I spent at least 5-6 hours developing tools to be able to defeat them as a result of taking a 'stealth until caught' approach to the rest of the game.

  • I've been known to enjoy some SimCity in my day, especially 3000. I had luckily hesitated and avoided the disaster that was the most recent release in the series, which had stripped everything away that made it great. Cities: Skylines definitely scratched that itch. This is the game that I spend 30-45 minutes a day checking on, upgrading my infrastructure, and adjusting zoning and policy. I can run my city in the background while I do other work. I am able to spend hours building up a complete new district to meet specific needs of my city. I like the idea of progressing through different building and zone types, but since the game starts in 2015, I think that some of those choices are only arbitrary and detract a bit. That can be worked around by using the built-in mod that unlock everything from the start, and progressing by improving cashflow to afford better city structures (my preferred play style). My only complaint is that it seems completely random in that I've had cities of all different populations just crash without explanation, and there is a lack of explanation of what some of the systems actually are and how they work.

  • The Double Fine Adventure game was my first and only video game Kickstarter, and I think it was well worth it. I played each act as they were released (that cliffhanger!) and wouldn't want it any other way. I think that the world they created is fantastical, full of lively characters, and BEAUTIFULLY designed. In fact, Broken Age is the best looking game this year. I do agree that the second act of the game had some traditionally hard adventure game puzzles, but I think that it works. After the characters swap settings, both Shay and Vella are in completely foreign environment, and the difficulty spike in the game helps drive that home.

  • When Grow Home was released earlier this year, I don't recall anything aside from spending any free time I had rushing to get more crystals, scan more plants and animals, and finally finding the last seed. I then restarted the game during my Extra Life stream this year to show it off to my family. It's such a unique and fresh take on platforming, which is surprising considering the studio is under Ubisoft. Every time I take control of BUD, I'm constantly smiling and laughing at the procedural animations during movement.

  • Chroma Squad is a quirky little game that I've been following since its Kickstarter that I did not back. Power Rangers and other sentai series were half of my interests as a child. The game is super referential to the source material and has a sense of humor about the whole thing. I'm really into the idea of running a studio outside of the actual episodes and have to manage money, fans and requests, crafting better costumes and effects, and doing certain objectives to get bonus fans. All of this surrounds a solid tactical RPG. I'm a little disappointed that the skill trees on the characters aren't larger, and the 'Megazord' battles are a basically mini games, but those problems don't detract from my experience with the game.

  • Making Mario levels is so incredibly fun. There isn't really much else to it. Nintendo should know better and integrate SOME kind of search in the base game, and I don't think their website solution is going to cut it. I also think that limiting the number of levels you can upload is smart, but I am finding it impossible to get any stars making reasonable levels.

  • Stupid Lego and their stupidly fun games and their use of Jurassic Park targeting exactly the other 1/2 of my childhood.

  • (PS4 Version)

    I've been a big fan of the Batman: Arkham games since the series started and even enjoyed Origins. I always felt that the combat was too strictly timing based, such that it seemed that I could never do the thing I wanted exactly when I needed to. Something about Arkham Knight fixed that for me and I was able to use all the gadgets, special moves, and other abilities with ease. Arkham Knight takes the Arkham story to its logical end, though for a knowledgeable fan, it was almost too obvious where it was going. I'm not sure what could have been done to fix that, but the game might have ranked higher if it did. The addition of the Batmobile was a strange choice, yet it worked for me. I really engaged with the transitions from car to tank to ejecting and back. It made combat in an open city block much more fun and really felt like you weren't hamstrung by the setting. Arkham Knight is a solid entry to my list.

  • I am very excited that I can actually play Fallout 4 in the sense that I can expect to hit what I am looking at. So far, I've been playing on the PC without any mods, though I immediately filled my inventory at least a dozen times within the first 5 hours without the ability to sell anything and free up space. If a game is going to do encumbrance, then at least give me a way to sell and store items immediately. Otherwise, Fallout 4 has grabbed me in a way that Fallout 3 never did. I'm in the minority of people that actively hate Fallout 3; I've attempted to play that game at least 4 times, and when I get to the Super Duper Mart, I quit. Back of the box quote: 'at least I didn't have the urge to quit.' But seriously, the time I've spent with Fallout 4 has been fun, and it is a fine addition to my gaming library.
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