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GOTY 2016 Ethan’s Top 5

2016 will probably not go down as a great year for the world, but dammit it was an excellent year for games. Especially those shoot-em-ups.

Tons of fantastic games this year didn’t make it on my list even with three honorable mentions. Mostly I just didn’t dedicate enough time to see if a particular game truly clicked with me. I’ll have you know each game in my top three cycled through basically all possible spots, so they’re all the best games of the year in my book.

I’m pretty proud of this list. It reflects on the many different styles of games this year I’d normally never get into if it weren’t for peer pressure. (It’s not always a bad thing!)

Maybe next year I’ll get into Dark Souls…. Or finally make a dent in The Witcher III.

Honorable Mentions:

Overwatch

Despite being a dedicated Blizzard fan boy and dabbling in the beta, I didn’t have high expectations for this game. Another class based shooter? Give me a break. Team Fortress 2 has that locked down.

But Overwatch’s characters, balance and setting give it a leading edge over those other class based shooters. Smart multiplayer changes like the play of the game and voting for the best team members makes every match feel important.

I loved how EVERYONE played it during launch. Some of my best gaming moments this year was staying up way too late playing Overwatch with my pals. Unfortunately, Overwatch’s emphasis on teamwork over skill is a double-edged sword for me. I refuse to play this game with random people online, because if the freaking Genji doesn’t get on the damn point I’m going to lose my mind and the sporadic-ness of my friends list has left me with little desire to boot up Overwatch recently.

Regardless I still love the lore and the characters and follow everything Blizzard will do with the game. It’s Blizzard, dammit and they seem to do no wrong.

Monster Hunter Generations

Ricardo kept yammering on about this game and one night of too much drinking at EVO, I bought it. Turns out it’s a weirdly wonderful game.

The tutorials are complete trash, the interface is clunky and some of the quests are just grind fests, but boy does this game have a fantastic loot and gameplay loop. Shame it’s super hard to get into unless you play with a friend or dedicate yourself to watching online tutorials.

But taking down giant monsters with a friend/s is so much gosh darn fun I love it. I want to play more since Generations has a TON of content I haven’t even touched despite playing it for dozens of hours.
As far as co-op games are concerned this is easily one of the best.

XCOM 2

I thought Civilization VI would be my go to strategy game this year, but Firaxis other tactical game took that title handily. XCOM 2 expanded on what made the first reboot great, by adding stealth mechanics perfect for the scrappy, guerilla warfare your team found themselves in.

The story takes place in a world where you lose the first game and it opens up to more desperate situations where you have to grit your teeth, make a decision and hope the worst doesn’t happen. Yet, so frequently the worst always happens. The key to playing XCOM well is: always expect the worst.

It’s a shame the game launched with a ton of bugs and made me a little hesitant to try Ironman mode, where decisions were permanent. Regardless, I felt “one more turn” syndrome more than any other game on this list. Even if that one turn was just to watch Bob Ross get mind controlled by a sectoid and murder his squadmate, Solid Snake.

Top five list:

5. That Dragon, Cancer

This is the first game I’ve played that ever made me cry. Not like, “there might be something in my eye,” cry but full on “I hope we bulk bought tissues in this house” cry.

This game follows the heart breaking true story of the Green family who has learned their one-year-old son has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Created by the Green family as a way to work through their grief, never before have I seen a game that’s so deeply personal and raw.

At times a little too artsy for its own good, the game shines when it shows you glimpses into the Green’s daily life as they struggle with their faith and their ill son who they love while sharing moments of joy with their family. So often we hear about how hard dealing with a sick family member is, but rarely do we get an honest and intimate look into a family’s everyday struggles.

For anyone who has ever had a severely ill family member, That Dragon, Cancer is uncomfortably relatable and deeply cathartic. The game came out in early 2016, but a week hasn’t gone by where I haven’t thought about it.
Please play this game.

4. Street Fighter V

Last year was the first time I took a dive into the fighting game scene by attending EVO in Las Vegas. I later realized it was only $10 to enter and compete in the biggest fighting game tournament ever and the rest was history.

Sadly, the flagship game everyone was hyped for, Street Fighter V, launched as a mess. No single player, half the stats don’t work, the servers were buggy, rage quitting was rampant, but that didn’t matter because the actual fighting is fantastic.

I began to respect the game and the fighting game genre after forcing myself to play Street Fighter V for a video series. Fighting games are truly a tough genre to get into. YouTube tutorials are so entrenched in fighting game terminology it’s a bit hard to wrap your head around how to pull off simple combos or what exactly crush counters are.

Once I jumped online and finally started winning after a long, long streak of losing, it was one of my best moments of gaming, not just this year, but ever. Even losing started to become satisfying, because I’d learn from my mistakes and be hungry for the next match.
Street Fighter V is sort of better after being patched up a bit, but it has a rocky future ahead of it. Capcom seems to be standing behind it though and I’m willing to continue to put more time into it.

3. DOOM

I have fond memories of playing through the original DOOM (It still holds up!) on my Xbox 360 with a friend all in one night.

Other games have tried to emulate what DOOM accomplished by melding environmental puzzles and insanely fluid first person shooting, but the likes of Pain Killer and Serious Sam never quite captured the magic. It took the team at ID to refine DOOM into its pure and perfect essence, a fast paced demon murder party.

Between the brilliant inclusion of a techno-death metal soundtrack, beautifully grisly visuals and shooting mechanics that bridge the gap between modern and classic shooters, DOOM is a triumph. I welcome seeing health packs, ammo and key cards right at home next to a modern skill tree.

DOOM Guy is a fantastic protagonist despite not uttering a single word. You clearly know his motivations: Murder All Demons. The actions of punching through a demon and ripping out its guts speaks louder than words.
It’s a shame the multiplayer and snap maps are kind of a disappointment because the absurdly tongue-in-cheek singleplayer is the best shooter campaign I played this year. Few moments in gaming will live up to listening to the “BFG Division” while ripping demons in half with guns, fists and chainsaws.

2. Titanfall 2

IT’S NOT ANIME!

The original Titanfall was a good game. Back when the Xbox One first came out, this was the only multiplayer game to get. Weirdly, even after new shoot-man multiplayer games came out, I still found myself going back to Titanfall game despite its lack of singleplayer and progressive unlocks.

Luckily, Titanfall 2 simultaneously expanded and refined so many parts of what made the first game great. A solid single player accompanies one of the greatest multiplayer shooters ever created. The pilot traversal system remains the most fluid movement in a first-person game ever conceived. (Yes, even better than DOOM)

The game is defined by how it feels. After playing it, all other fast paced shooters just feel slow, clunky and unresponsive in comparison. Especially the new Call of Duty.

I was surprised by the single-player, but primarily focused on the multiplayer, where pilots are free to fly through the air doing cool tricks and to murder dudes very stylistically until they drop their Titan down. Titans feel powerful in the right hands, but can be brought to their knees by a few skilled foot soldiers.
The developers at Respawn have already stated there’s no season pass and all updates to the game, besides cosmetic items, will be free going forward. They also created a network system that makes it easy to find a group and should be implemented in all other multiplayer game. It’s decisions like these, that push Titanfall ahead of other multiplayer shooters in my book.

1. Hitman

Realistically how all my Hitman runs go.

I expected nothing from this new Hitman game. I played Blood Money, but it was a little too obscure for me. Absolution was a little to hand holdy. And the last minute decision to make the game episodic was a big red flag that this game would be a hot garbage pile.

Instead, it was hot fire.

The decision to make this game episodic was actually the greatest decision they made. Each level is so jam packed full of content, between escalation missions, the elusive targets and mastery levels, it takes hours to absorb it all. I’d be forced to play the same level over and over and instead of getting boring it actually made me explore and appreciate the care the developers put into each nook and cranny.

Another smart decision is perfecting the amount of information the game gives to you. Opportunities nudge players in the direction of “cool kills.” An exploding golf ball is way more entertaining than execution via pistol.

Although my favorite part is pushing the game to its limit. Does throwing a knocked out target off of a cliff counts as an accidental kill? If I shoot my target now, will anyone notice? There’s only one way to find out!

Even if something goes wrong, Hitman gives you so many options to try and recover from what realistically would be an impossible situation. Sure you won’t get a great rating in the end, but it’ll be funny/exhilarating if you make it.
The new Hitman is a platform for elaborate, over the top and sometimes goofy assassinations in gorgeous environments and I can’t wait to see where Agent 47 goes next year.

GOTY 2016 Ricardo’s Top 5

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2016 has passed us by like a hurricane filled with rusted knives, abrasive sand, and stinky poop. What a stinky year, indeed.

Except for video games!

Yeah, a lot of good games came out this year. So many that, again, with an “adult peoples” schedule, I found it a little hard to keep up. Therefore, as might be evidenced by the title of this thing, these are just the five most affecting games to ME this year. There were some I wanted to include, sure, but dammit I’m sticking to this Top 5 constraint.

I’m a man, and that’s what men do. So let’s get down to business to defeat the Huns.

5. Street Fighter V

Street Fighter V was and continues to be a damn mess. This game launched with hardly enough features and content to justify its $60 price tag (most would say it didn’t). And between “baked in” frame delay, spotty online and some questionable decisions concerning DLC, Street Fighter V is easily a contender for most disappointing game this year.

So why is it here, then? Well because Street Fighter is still that game franchise that makes me feel all tingly in my pleasure centers; take that however you wish. From EVO in July to here in December in my new apartment, my affection for this game and this franchise does not waver. Through all the mess is still an amazing fighting engine with great new ideas and some of the most beautifully realized character design– from a graphical standpoint at least. I love Street Fighter, and although V is flawed, I couldn’t help but have it consume much of my gaming time this year.

4. Let it Die

Where the hell did this game come from? Suda 51’s Grasshopper Games studio pumped out the free-to-play Let it Die for the PS4 this year and it gave me almost everything I was looking for in Dark Souls 3: Tense, stakes driven gameplay, weird and often obtuse multiplayer online components, crazy world and character design, it’s all here. That’s not to say that Dark Souls 3 wasn’t a great game, but the neon, surreal, dadaism of Let it Die grabbed me in a way Miyazaki’s dark medieval fantasy didn’t.

Plus, Uncle Death may just be my new favorite character in any game. Wild, senpai.

3. Firewatch

When you want to talk about affecting gameplay, few games have gotten under my skin like Firewatch. That’s because I don’t think Firewatch is so much about its narrative as it is about presenting you with the human condition and with the idea that all people are flawed. The adult mind is inclined to make terrible decisions and to run from responsibility, and Firewatch feels like taking a syringe full of that crippling humanity and injecting it right into your central nervous system. To say I had a few questions about what kind of person I was and what kind of life I was living after playing this game would be an understatement. That won’t be everyone’s journey with Firewatch, but it was with me.

2. Monster Hunter Generations

Another year, another Monster Hunter. It’s easy to say that Generations is a half-step; a refinement of the formula rather than a full-fledged new installment. And although that’s not entirely incorrect, goodness gracious does Generations bring a lot to the crowded Monster Hunter table. Hunting styles are a fantastic way to refine one’s playstyle, Palicoes add a fun and useful dynamic to the MH grind, and the “Fated 4” monsters are not only some of the coolest ever designed, but provide a great goal for even a beginner to strive for.

MHG was also the first game I ever played multiplayer and holy hell do I see what I’ve been missing. The monotony of gathering becomes exponentially more fun with a friend, and the dynamics of a hunt are on a whole different level with another person involved. While I’m not certain it reaches the full package potential that 4 Ultimate did, Generations is a fantastic game and the easiest point yet for new players to get intro’d to this awesome franchise.

1. Overwatch

This isn’t a surprise. You know how good this game is, so really what can I say about Blizzard’s multiplayer team shooter that hasn’t already been said? Overwatch hits so many pleasure centers, hits so many landmarks of what makes a great piece of MEDIA that it’s hard to deny it as anything short of a masterclass. Certainly time will tell where Overwatch eventually lands on the list of all-time great games, but even should the game falter in prevailing years, the litany of amazing characters and memories created here will live on.

Beyond anything, that’s a future we can all fight for. After all, the world could always use more heroes.

Game of the Year 2015

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Don’t want to sit through six hours of podcasts to find out what our favorite games of the year were? No problem! Watch this video instead.

You can also find our individual top 5 lists here.

GOTY 2015 Matt’s Top 5

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Alright I’m late as it is, so let’s get this intro out of the way.

2015 was one of the best years for video games in recent memory. So many great games came out. Both AAA titles and surprise independent nobodies can be seen not only on this list but the hundreds of others that are out there on the Internet. Some of my favorite games of all time came out this year. Usually, I struggle to pick even 5 games that I played and consider good at the end of the year. This year it was a real battle in my head over which game should get which spot, as well as over 5 other games that I had to cut just to make this list possible. As someone who doens’t do this for a living and can’t afford every game and console out there, this was a historic year.

And while 2016 is looking to be a big year (perhaps we’ll see if VR can actually be good or if the NX will be a game changer for Nintendo) I’m not sure it can beat last year for games. I’m certainly hoping it will! Considering stuff I’m looking forward to returning to (Darkest Dungeon) and games I can’t wait to try out (No Man’s Sky) as well as older ones I really want to put more time into (Heroes of the Storm, Vermintide, and Kerbal Space Program) this year already has a lot going for it. The reason that 2015 was so great is it got me excited, I mean like really excited, to play these games. I would be at work thinking about possible directions the plot would go, or new strategies to try out. I would spend time watching YouTube videos of optimal mission paths or techniques, which is something I almost never do. I came home and played some of these games almost every night before bed. In fact, every game on this list almost completely occupied my time with it in one way or another, rather than simply being an enjoyment which began and ended. The best part is I can still see myself playing some of these games in the coming year, especially as several of them have just hours and hours of replay value.

Before we get to the list, here’s a few games that didn’t make the cut but are still pretty dang good:

Honorable Mentions:

Favorite Local Multiplayer: Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Favorite Game that Got Me to Think MOBAs are Actually OK: Heroes of the Storm

Favorite Game I Watched but didn’t Actually Play: Contradiction: Spot the Liar

With all that said, on to the list!

6.(Screw these top 5 Rules) Life is Strange

teens and high school what will they think of next

It was such a close race between this and the game below for the number 5 spot that I couldn’t just leave it out. There are very few games that even try to attempt to cover some of the heavy topics that Life is Strange does, and almost none that pull it off so well. I won’t spoil the details of the plot, but needless to say that my initial impressions of a light-hearted high school adventure (with some sci-fi time travel thrown in) ended up being a little off. The game ramps up the mystery and direness of its character’s situations with each increasing episode, and ends up in some dark places.

This isn’t one of those games that’s good simply because it’s dark though. It earns all of its emotionally charged moments through consistent character development. With one or two exceptions, every character has more to them than first glance will reveal, and even characters I started hating reveal reasons why they act that way. In this regard the game also does a great job of not going too far in the other direction, as plenty of these characters have to live with the bad choices they have made.

The game also evolves the New Adventure Game format popularized by Telltale and brings that genre forward in a way Telltale hasn’t (in most games at least.) The time travel element makes for some creative puzzles and dialogue options without trivializing the content. People have criticized the dialogue for being over-the-top “young people” speak, but while there were one or two times it pulled me out, I thought the amount of teen attitude was spot on.

Ultimately (and the reason it sits lower on my list,) the game doesn’t quite stick the landing, though it still managed to leave me with strong feelings few games have been able to do. I also blame Ethan for pointing out how little the characters’ faces emote, which I somehow hadn’t noticed until we began our Spoilercast for the game, and now I can’t unsee it. But don’t let that video game quibble keep you from enjoying the story.

5. Tales from the Borderlands

on the hunt for that vault

Wait a minute, didn’t I just say that Life is Strange is better than any recent Telltale game? Yeah ok, but that was before I played Tales from the Borderlands. This game blew me away, and if it wasn’t for a game further down my list, it would be one of the funniest games I’ve ever played.

Like, Ethan, I have tried repeatedly to get into the Borderlands series and never been able to stick with it. I don’t find loot games engaging, and not only do I not find it funny, but it actively annoys me with its referential and “Internet” related jokes. The more “funny” a character is supposed to be, the more I disliked them (coughcoughHandsomeJackClaptrapcough.)

So imagine my surprise when not only did this game help me regain faith in Telltale’s ability to make engaging games, it made me laugh out loud and care about the story and characters it was presenting to me. It actively plays with Telltale’s own formula, and while it doesn’t necessarily fix some of the problems with this style of game it does reference the foibles that the style has had. It says a lot that even my wife, who has never played a Borderlands game and has no desire to, was excited to see what happens at the end of this story.

Between the excellent writing, the emotive characters, and some cool directions the plot goes to, this game is definitely my favorite Telltale adventure game. Yes, that includes the first season of The Walking Dead. If you’re as burned out as I was on this kind of game, this one might just change your mind. If it doesn’t, it should at least make you laugh.

4. Rocket League

the thing about arsenal is they always try to walk it in

I’m not a fan of sports games. I don’t really like driving games that much either. In fact I don’t even really watch regular sports. With that being said, Rocket League captured me in a way that won’t be any surprise to someone who has played that game. Rocket League takes a formula so simple, which makes you wonder why no one else has thought of it, and combines it with a deep level of skill that gives new and old players reasons to come back to it.

When you think about the concept (rocket cars and soccer) it’s hard to imagine why so few games have done it. Or done it well at least. Even Psyonix, the game’s fairly small developer, has tried this same idea with much less success. This time, they nailed the execution and made sure that every part of the game is addicting and intense. Not to mention the regular free updates the devs have been releasing only adds to the experience.

I could speak about how simple the controls are to learn but how deep they are to master. I could talk about how the size of the playing field and ball works perfectly with the physics, I could explain the joy of perfectly hitting the ball right into the net, only to watch it explode and launch players across the field. I could talk about the equal joy that blocking a near certain goal, or rocket jumping into the air to clear a bouncing ball, or being the first to race across the map to the starting kick off, or the literally dozens of other individual moments that this game provides in spades.

If you have a PC or PS4, you should play it.

3. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

is this the final chapter for big boss and his brother snake

The stories of the Metal Gear games are bonkers crazy, but somehow strangely engrossing to watch. Yet I’ve had no joy playing them. Well Kojima’s (and Konami’s) swan song for the franchise flips the script and just swaps those two. This time it’s the story that’s rather boring (though still ridiculously over written in Kojima style) but the gameplay produces some of the more perfect moments in open world design.

And even then it’s still an achievement, because I usually don’t like open world games. With a few exceptions, I usually get overwhelmed and burned out with all the options and side quests and collectibles and races and the rest of the stuff that overflows out of almost every modern open world game. Metal Gear presents its missions to you in an order that is straight forward, and while there are collectibles, each mission gives you optional side objectives that make them possible to get without feeling overwhelmed.

And when you get into the missions themselves you get to some of the best open world, best stealth, best sandbox gameplay I’ve ever seen. There are just so many ways to tackle each mission, so many different weapons you can equip for each given scenario, and so many options to tackle difficult objectives. That feeling of sneaking into an enemy fortress, quietly tranqing guards or even making your way completely unseen to your objective, and getting out before people even know you’re there is one of the best in the world. Then you pull the trigger on your C4 and all the radar towers in the base explode, leaving smoking rubble and shocked guards as you fly away in your helicopter. Or if you want to run in with a shotgun and a rocket launcher, calling in an airstrike as you order you sniper to open fire on all exposed heads, you can certainly do that too.

metal-gear-solid-5-the-phantom-pain-animals-locations-guide

games are art

Also you can Fulton a bear, I don’t think I have to explain too much more.

2. Super Mario Maker

getting the goombas out of those pipes once and for all

Super Mario Maker is THE Mario game. It successfully makes game creation an easy and fun process, and also provides infinite Mario levels for our enjoyment. I was having a blast just trying the 100 Mario challenge for a while, but it’s almost impossible to play without creativity just seeping into your braining and whispering “You could make something cool like this!”

At first most of the user generated content was fairly poor, but it has gotten better and better since release, and by following a few key creators I have been able to find some really good levels. The joy of playing Mario 1, 3, World hasn’t changed (even with their slightly updated physics) and even New Super Mario Bros has its place with its unique mechanics.

But nothing quite comes close to watching your level get played. I have been trying to create “good” Mario levels, but I have also seen the joy of just being a jerk, especially when it’s Ethan and he dies to the same Spiny every time. And even the times when I was frustrated with his level (but seriously who makes an autoscroller round 1? He’s gonna regret that) I was having fun. Also the Spiny that killed me is a cheater.

1. Undertale

the undertale logo

What a surprise! The indie darling that took the Internet (and GameFAQs) by storm is is also my favorite game of the year.

Honestly, at this point everyone’s probably sick of hearing about Undertale. The game itself is far better the less you know about it. And while it doesn’t exactly put its best foot forward, it plays with your expectations in such an amazing way, which is part of what makes it so great.

It has hilarious humor, great characters, meaningful drama that doesn’t feel forced, and plays with mechanics and tropes in games that honestly pushes the entire medium forward.

But I think Griffin McElroy of Polygon put it best:”Undertale is an easy game to assume you already know… I had already decided out of hand that I knew everything about it. An hour in, I was pretty sure I knew some things about it. Two hours in, I was mystified and head-over-heels.”

If you can get to that point and allow yourself to be mystified, then you will be in the for the best gaming experience of 2015 (and all-time according to www.gamefaqs.com).

Episode 84: Game of the Year 2015 Part 3

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For the final part of our Game of the Year 2015 discussions, Matt, Ethan, Ricardo and Amber dig in for the long haul to decide the best multiplayer*, best new character, best Metal Gear buddy, best story, and the coveted Pixel Legends Game of the Year! Warning: potential spoilers ahead!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:47:40 — 98.6MB)

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GOTY 2015 Ethan’s Top 5

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What a year it’s been.

An absolute ton of excellent games came out in 2015. Even though I played more games this year than I have in the past, I still didn’t put enough time into all the games I wanted to play.

2015 was the year of the open world. What felt like tons came out and each of them somehow managed to differentiate themselves from the pack. Problem is, big, impressive, open worlds take a long time to complete. 2015 produced not just a lot of games, but a lot of game. Blah, blah, blah, this year was great, but what is worth playing you might ask? Well, in my not so humble opinion, these are my favorite games of 2015. Okay, these are actually my honorable mentions, but scroll further and you’ll find my list.

Undertale:

Despite my problems with the beginning of the game and being absolute trash at bullet hell games, Undertale is a charmer. Within the first hour or so, I thought I had this game figured out, but pretty quickly, this game goes bonkers. All of the characters, even the lame monsters found in the wilderness, are memorable in their own way. Couple that with an amazing soundtrack and you have a game that will be remembered for years to come. (I know Tumblr certainly will.)

Cibele:

I want more games like this. Personal stories. Cibele is about its game designer, Nina Freeman, who falls in love with a guy through an MMO during her college years. Personal stories have been explored in film, books and to an extent in song lyrics, but not much in games. I feel games have the potential to give a more intimate look at someone’s life than any other medium. For the most part, Cibele succeeds. I can’t say all of it comes together, but I love what Cibele is and I hope to see more games like it.

Metal Gear Solid: V:

I can’t believe I played a Metal Gear game. I didn’t think I’d ever touch one of these after attempting to play Metal Gear Solid II. The overworld, free-to-play, mechanics are super wonky, but most of the mission designs are a blast. Congratulations Hideo, you got me to put 40 hours into a game that I didn’t even think I would touch. For that, you get an honorable mention.

Rise of the Tomb Raider:

Rise of the Tomb Raider doesn’t break new ground, but it is one of the best game-ass-game, big-budget titles around. It has a solid story, gorgeous graphics, a manageable amount of side content and awesome tomb raiding. It took everything enjoyable about the first game and refined it beautifully.

5. Her Story

She’s so charming with her guitar. Too bad she’s probably a murderer.

While not a game I could ever go back to, this is easily one of my favorite experiences of 2015. Her Story is a game where you look through an unsorted list of interviews. The only way to navigate through these files is by typing words from the transcript into the search engine. It sounds so simple when you explain it, but it’s a completely innovative way to tell a story. It also is one of the few games I know of that doesn’t have a definitive ending. Just play until you’re satisfied.

Her Story makes you feel more like a detective than any other game I have ever played. Combing through files on a familiar interface felt real and sometimes I would forget I was using a computer within a computer. Because you can see the clips in any order possible, the story comes together in an organic way unique to your playthrough and thought process. There are no hints, there are no checkpoints (per-se), it’s just you trying to piece together the story in your head.

This is a form of storytelling that can only be done in video games and I want more.

4. Super Mario Maker

Everytime I killed Matt with some BS obstacle, my heart skipped a beat.

I played this game at Matt’s house and figured I knew everything I needed to know from that brief play session. “Neat it’s a game for making infinite Mario levels. That’s cool.”

No, no, no. It’s so much more than that. It revolutionizes level creation tools by allowing anyone to use it. Without any prior experience, you can put together a solid level in 10 minutes. That level won’t be anything clever, but it’s amazing to create a level that looks like it might actually appear in a Mario game.

No other game gave me the same level of joy of watching someone bash their head against a level I created myself. Between the play testing and the level creation it’s the only game in my memory that made me feel like a real video game developer. “Oh, Lakitu can be used to exploit this section. Is this jumping section more frustrating that it is fun? This level needs more variety.” The process of watching a friend or family member play a level I made, had me questioning all of my design decisions. It’s safe to say that part of the accessibility is because you’re making Mario levels. A game nearly everyone has played.

The creation interface is one of the rare cases of design where usability also dives into obscurity. Dragging items on top of obstacles and shaking the item to change it is brilliantly intuitive, but sometimes I found myself lost at where to find specific items. For example, checkpoints turn into arrows when you shake them. I can kind of see the logic, but it’s a bit of a stretch. I had to Google where to find them. It’s not as instinctive as shaking a wiggler and OH NOW HE’S AN ANGRY WIGGLER.

Seeing other people’s courses is a blast too. Sometimes before I head to bed I pop on a 100 Mario challenge, which tasks you to beat 16 randomly selected courses with only 100 lives. It’s a great way to see some of the most curious content and blow off steam before bed. (was this level made by a kid?) There is so much to love in this wonderful package and I can see myself playing this years to come.

3. Tales from the Borderlands

Choices in video games.

I don’t care for Borderlands at all. I think the shooting feels terrible and the world is boring and fraught with referential humor that never did it for me. When Tales from the Borderlands was announced from, interactive story maker of all things popular, Telltale, I hardly cared. Oh boy, I can’t wait to play a story driven game with a ton of insufferable characters. But after hearing many people saying this was their favorite Telltale game ever I gave it a chance. (Full disclosure: Telltale sent me a Steam code as well, which pushed me to play it)

Boy, I wasn’t expecting to love this game as much as I did. This is the first Telltale game where death and choices don’t matter much, so I wasn’t going in expecting all of my choices to affect the story like so many other Telltale games are expected to do. All of the characters are diverse, colorful and lively. I fell deeply in love with almost everyone in the game. Even characters I disliked in Borderlands 2 became fully fleshed out lovable people. This game’s humor is top notch with memorable moments from every single episode and that’s not including each episode’s intro featuring some of the best use of licensed music ever.

The story, a fairly straight forward heist comedy, is still interesting, but the characters are what make this game stand out above the rest. Another rare feat in episodic gaming is each episode continually gets better and better. When the credits rolled, I couldn’t shake this feeling of melancholy. I may never see more adventures of Fiona, Rhys and friends. Maybe that’s for the best, because this is one of the few games in recent memory featuring a solid ending.

Forget your “Telltale fatigue” or your dislike for the Borderlands universe, this game transcends beyond that and is one of the most fulfilling story driven gaming experiences this year.

2. SOMA

Too spooky.

I didn’t expect much in the terms of story from the developers of heart attack simulator, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but the story made SOMA fantastic. Frictional Games toned down the horror in SOMA and instead focused on building a cohesive world dripping with atmosphere and a compelling narrative.

The narrative was my driving force between the game’s bugs and horrible monster encounters. The monster sections aren’t horrible because they’re scary, they’re horrible because they can be utterly frustrating. Luckily, dying isn’t a big deal in this game, which everyone I streamed this for can attest to, but it still made progressing through the game more chore than fun.

Of couse there are always real life scares.

Remember to lock your doors.

The best times I had in SOMA were when I was exploring the rotting underwater lab and poking through the puzzles the game presented me. Each puzzle was unique and thought provoking not only from a logical, problem-solving standpoint but from an ethical standpoint as well. At one point the game makes you constantly restart a person’s digital consciousness multiple times with different settings just to get information out of him. Each time he’s scared, frightened and says the exact same line of dialog. Each time I hoped he would give me the information. After I got it, I was presented with the choice of erasing the hard drive, essentially ending his life for good or leaving him alone inside the confines of a hard drive forever.

I erased it. I’m a murderer…but I did the right thing…right? Please tell me I’m not horrible.

The beauty of SOMA is it presented me choices I had to make, but none of them affect the game later on. Instead, it affected me personally and how I viewed my own morality system. Is your consciousness, confined to a nearly non-functioning robot an excuse for human life? No other game this year made me think about the big questions in life as much as SOMA did.

1. Heroes of the Storm

People still make mistakes.

Look, if you know me, it’s no surprise this game tops everything else on my list. No other game this year comes close to the hours I have dumped into this game. MOBAs aren’t new to the gaming world or to me. I had a couple years of my life where I deeply invested in League of Legends, but as my real life responsibilities grew and I wasn’t able to devote as much time to playing it as I used to, the game’s complexities overwhelmed me and I dropped off. I tried a few times to go back, but the game kept changing and asking for more than I was willing to give.

Then I heard of Heroes of the Storm. A few of my friends had been singing its praises so I booted it up and instantly fell in love. No longer did I have to worry about learning each character’s last hit window, worry about which items to buy or sit through what could be an absolute slaughter after our team’s luck took a turn. Instead I found unique characters (Cho’Gall lets two players play the same character at the same freaking time!), diverse maps, shorter more action packed games, and a surprisingly deep talent system.

As a Blizzard fan, it’s also a joy to see how the company translates all of its characters and worlds into a MOBA setting. It’s like Super Smash Brothers for the PC! Even though this game is more accessible than most MOBAs, it still has a decent amount of depth to it after you scratch the surface. If anything, the game revolves more around teamwork than around equipping your character properly, which unfortunately in turn has lead to a semi-toxic experience higher up the ladder.

They can’t stop my passion for this game, though. Every time I pick Murky (pictured at the stop of this article) his dumb stupid face makes me grin with all the memories of slaughtering all my foes with a dumb baby murloc. Heck, I didn’t play nearly all of December, but I can’t wait to get back into it. I know Heroes of the Storm will welcome me with open arms.

This game shines by offering something new in an increasingly crowded MOBA genre and I can’t wait to see where it goes in 2016.

SHAMELESS PLUG: If you’re thinking of playing Heroes of the Storm, please sign up through this link. It will give me a dope mount that I can ride into battle. I’ll send you pictures if you want.

Episode 83: Game of the Year 2015 Part 2

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Matt, Ethan, Ricardo and Amber return for more shouting and discussion on this years best games, including the weirdest, spookiest, funniest, and best sounding games of the year. As well as, Soniciest? Warning: potential spoilers ahead!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:00 — 54.0MB)

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GOTY 2015 Ricardo’s Top 5

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Twenty Fifteen. Man, that was quick.

Cliche as it may sound, with my advancing age, the years seem to come and go with greater rapidity. As such, it often feels like there’s very little time to do all the things I want to do and even littler time to play video games.

Yet here we are.

My favorite games this year turned out to be the ones I could either sink my fangs into, diving deep into the success of some mission of some perceived importance, or conversely ones that could be returned to periodically, like visiting a familiar place and remembering why it was so special while also discovering brand new things that make it worth returning to. Without further waxing philosophic, though, let’s get to it.

First, I’d like to do some spring cleaning and get in a trio of honorable mentions. Perhaps most surprisingly, Destiny returned to my gaming schedule this year with its big “The Taken King” expansion. What essentially amounted to a reinvention of the game, Destiny very well could have ended up on my games of the year list last year (and out of our “Most Disappointing” category) would this had been the way the game was launched. But c’est la vie, I guess. At least the game’s undoubtedly solid, even if it does have 100% less Peter Dinklage, now.

Speaking of quality voice acting, the new King’s Quest is full of it. Chapter 1: A Knight to Remember has everything that’s made the new Adventure Game revival a fun an exciting one, but also manages to tweak and improve on many elements that are are quickly stagnating in the Telltale-saturated genre. Not that those games are bad, but they’re quickly losing the heart that King’s Quest shows in spades. I can only hope later episodes are as good.

Lastly, before we hit my list, I NEED to mention Until Dawn; a game I personally didn’t play. However, I felt like I was part of the experience with Until Dawn, sitting, screeching in a friend’s living room as polygonal approximations of that guy from Mr. Robot and that dude from Agents of SHIELD are jump-scared into oblivion. To put it bluntly, from just watching Until Dawn played from beginning to end, I was monk’d. Monk’d hard. And I liked it.

But that’s enough of those games. On towards my genuine top picks of 2015!

5. Hearthstone

I might be cheating with this one, but Hearthstone WAS officially released on mobile devices this year. It quickly became an on again, off again obsession of mine. Blizzard has really captured the highs and lows of the collectable card game, but done so with a style and charm only they can provide. I’m always eagerly awaiting their newest expansion or excitedly looking for new ways to play the game, and Blizzard isn’t failing on those fronts. It’s true, I’m not terribly good at the game myself, but when that perfect combo falls into my hand and I get to hear the sweet cacophonous choir of Grim Patrons bellowing, “HEY EVERYONE! GET IN HERE!”, it makes every loss worth it.

4. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

Dump your mind into the swirling technicolor violence of Hotline Miami, and you begin feeling not exactly yourself. Much like the first, I think Hotline Miami 2 is at its best when it completely envelopes and immerses the player in its blood-spattered streets of neon and animal masks. It does this with its music, its visuals, and its breakneck gameplay. Wrong Number takes it even one step further, with a multi-layered plot that propels the story into an even stranger, darker place than before. And for me, that’s not a bad thing in the least.

3. Bloodborne

“We are all born of the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes have yet to open…” So says Master Willem of Byrgenworth, and in this might be the reason why From Software’s Bloodborne is such an affecting game for me. Not only is this Lovecraft-inspired world of men and monsters a beautiful, disturbing and all-around perfectly realized one, but Blooborne is a game that can mold your whole perception on games and gameplay. Is it hard? Jesus Christ is it ever. Is it fair? Absolutely. Is there still a whole hellacious haul of things I need to explore in it? Oh yes. But Bloodborne is too good for me to ignore. In 2016, my hunt will continue, and I am both excited and terrified for what this amazing game has for me. “Our eyes have yet to open…”

2. Guitar Hero LIVE

Music and rhythm games are an odd genre, because they’ve always existed in one capacity or another and have lacked a ton of significant innovation from game to game. I mean, let’s be honest; the difference between many music games is the peripheral they use and not much else. Enter Guiter Hero LIVE, touting its biggest features to be a redesigned controller and an entirely FMV single player campaign featuring crowds that “react” to your playing. One would be more than right to be skeptical, and though the redesigned guitar controller IS superior to the previous design and the FMV festival crowds of the titular LIVE mode ARE amusing (and perhaps unintentionally hilarious), the real meat of Guitar Hero LIVE is its perpetually updating, never offline, event-filled GHTV mode.

The joy of just sitting in your room on a Friday night in the late ’90s as MTV shocked your senses with the latest and greatest music videos in what seemed to be a never-ending stream is replicated to perfection in GHTV. And whattya know, you actually get to play an amazingly tight rhythm game while you do it, now. Put briefly, Guitar Hero LIVE is a fabulous experience, and one that anybody who longs for the days when video killed the radio star.

1. Monster Hunter IV Ultimate

Monster Hunter IV is perhaps the most fully-fleshed out game I’ve played. Like, legitimately, so few games have felt this swole full of features and content to explore and master without feeling like any of it is fat. Just thinking about how good this game is, but then remembering how few people have played or care about it is infuriating. In fact, I feel a comparison coming on…

For all intents and purposes, Monster Hunter IV is the John Cena of 2015 video game releases. And it’s not just for the aforementioned reference to high muscle with low fat content, but much more. Stick with me.

John Cena, for those uninitiated, is a professional wrestler who has been derided over the years for being not that great at his craft, yet constantly pushed to the forefront of the WWE. He’s fun and colorful and most can see his appeal from a marketing standpoint, but not too many people have been keen on accepting him as a legitimately good wrestler. More of an entertainer.

Yet, in the year 2015, John Cena produced more quality matches, promos and storylines than any other WWE superstar. He single-handedly made many sub-par wrestling shows watchable, and yet has received little to no recognition from the blind masses at large for having these skills. And that’s a shoot, brother.

Monster Hunter as a series has similarly been brushed off by the masses. Most can see its appeal, fighting colorful monsters in your equally colorful garb procured by hunting these mythical beasts. But the sloppy, grindy and oft-indecipherable learning curve of early Monster Hunter games have given people the perception that nothing’s changed.

That’s why I implore anyone curious, anyone with a 3DS, hell anybody who has even been burned by Monster Hunter before to try IV Ultimate. What you’ll find is an infinitely silly, infinitely deep, and infinitely fun action game that you can realistically play forever without being bored. I’m ashamed that the back half of my year has been so sparse with Monster Hunter, and I vow to set that right in 2016.

Monster Hunter IV Ultimate is THE game of 2015. It represents everything a game should be feature-wise, gameplay-wise and from a stylistic standpoint. Drop the preconceived notion and get ready to hunt, fish, cook and tailor for hours on end. And prepare to love every minute of it.
The champ is HERE. And he’s SO TASTY.