My Top Games of 2015
Usually it’s easy to pick a GOTY but this was the hardest year in recent memory. Skip to the Top Nine if you don’t want to see what games I didn’t play.
Apparently Great Games I Didn’t Play
SOMA
I never heard of this horror game until yesterday and it’s on a lot of lists.
Fallout 4
I never finish Fallout games and initial impressions I read on the internet were mixed so I stayed away. Yeah, it takes place in MA and I should play it, but the more 60+ hour games I can eliminate from my life the better.
Splatoon
I came so close to buying this multiple times! I knew people liked it but I was surprised to see how many GOTY lists it showed up on. It sounds like it has some of the biggest innovations of the FPS genre in years.
Until Dawn
The other “butterfly effect” game this year along with Life is Strange.
Rockband 4
I prevented my girlfriend from throwing out my plastic drums because I knew this was coming. I’ll have to buy it before she gets ideas again.
Destiny: The Taken King
I hate played Destiny for far too long and the scars have kept me from playing this. However, it sounds like Bungie finally got it right.
Ori and the Blind Forest
I reserve the right to adjust my top ten list later to insert this game. I think I’m going to like it a lot. The spiritual/druid/whatever-ness of it kept me from realizing that it’s a Metroidvania game.
Axiom Verge
Another awesome looking Metroidvania.
Cities: Skylines
SimCity resurrected properly.
Protect Gotham Racing
I haven’t played the Batman series enough so I’m not immediately drawn to it and once people complained about the driving I stayed away.
Games I Did Play a Little Bit
The Witcher 3
I’ve always meant to play a Witcher game and I was excited for this but I just couldn’t get past the sluggish controls. After coming from Bloodborne, a game that does “sluggish” to perfection, it was a real turn off. In response to criticism they added a snappier combat controls option, but it didn’t seem that different to me. Some day I’ll suck it up and try to make it to the Bloody Baron quest line, perhaps the best writing in an RPG ever.
Undertale
I started it, it’s cute, and I need to give it more time.
The Top Nine
Yep, I couldn’t think of a tenth worth making the list.
9. TIS-100
My job gets the Punch-Out!! treatment. Most of the stages aren’t too hard to beat but each one has a leaderboard for fewest instructions, fewest cores, and fewest cycles so you’ll end up rewriting it over and over and discussing ideas with coworkers. And when you finally feel good about yourself and submit your solution, the scores come up and you’ll go “What?! How did Brandon do this in only 215 cycles?!”
8. Hearthstone
Yeah, I know this came out in 2014, but an expansion pack, new adventure, and the phone client all shipped this year.
I’m not good at building decks so Magic was never worth the effort, but Hearthstone cuts out enough of the CCG BS to suck me in a couple times a year. This also gets the honor of being the only F2P game I’ve ever spent money on, but I have a friend who works on this and I need to support his retro game collecting disorder.
7. Her Story
You sit down at a computer to look at old police interview footage of a woman whose husband was murdered. Rather than showing you the entire videos in order, you watch clips which give you ideas of things to search for in hopes of finding new clips. Yes, it’s Google the game and you might be bored or highly confused for the first 30 minutes but then you’ll find a clip that makes you go “whaaaaaaat?” and you won’t put it down until your satisfied (it’s up to you to decide when to log off).
I really wish I could have played this simultaneously with some friends because no two people explore the story the same way plus what really happened is somewhat open to interpretation. If you don’t like your endings vague, it’s okay, still play this because it only takes 2–3 hours.
In the Telltale Era of storytelling, it was nice to be reminded how much better it is to use a real human being. Body language matters, kids! I was glad to see the actress, Viva Seifert, win Best Performance at the Game Awards.
6. Mario Maker
I’ve wanted this game to exist forever and I had lots of fun trolling friends and being trolled by them. Schadenfreude: The Game. However, many execution flaws keep me from rating it higher, like having to wait weeks for new components to be “delivered” to you, no good way to find levels/people, not having check points, limiting you to ten stages, etc. Nintendo is or has fixed some of these issues by now.
It does get points for being the only game this year that got me to donate to charity. Patrick Klepek and Dan Ryckert are three months into their escalating Mario Maker conflict where Dan creates impressively sinister stages in hopes that Patrick will tap out. The first stage, the Ryckoning, raised over $10,000. At the cost of his sanity, Patrick has triumphed twice so far but it looks like the Armageddan will finally break him. Try these stages if you dare.
5. Battlefield 4
“Here he goes again with another game that didn’t come out in 2015.” If ZODIAC_MF can use it, I can too.
The Battlefield series is my favorite multiplayer FPS and I played tons of 1942 and 2. When I got an Xbox One, I grabbed 4 and it was just terrible so I sadly put it away thinking I would never return.
But last month I rejoined the PC Master Race and two coworkers of mine started playing BF4 so I decided to grab this and join them. The bugs are fixed, there’s tons of content, and it’s incredible. We play it almost every night after work. This is the FPS to play right now. Also, fuck tanks.
4. Life is Strange
This is a lot of people’s sleeper GOTY so I grabbed it off the Steam sale to binge it during vacation even though all I knew about it was it involved time travel. The first hour was a rude awakening as I learned it focused on female teenage angst at an art prep school in Oregon. I almost bailed on it but I powered through the emo and by episode 3 I couldn’t put it down. I didn’t see any of the plot twists coming. I don’t know how to talk about the game much without spoiling things, so here’s some random paragraphs.
Avoid reading about this game at all before playing. Avoid image searches.
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the relationship between Chloe and Max at first, but when I described it to my girlfriend she said that’s exactly what it’s like to be best girlfriends as a teenager. So even though most of the writers of this game are men, they may have gotten it right.
Many have praised this game, and rightly so, for covering many real world topics never addressed in gaming. Without getting too specific, it is one of those rare games that takes place from female perspectives. Thankfully more and more of that is happening thanks to indie game development.
A lot of people don’t like the final episode but I don’t agree except for the annoying, extended stealth sequence. While episode 5 isn’t as good as 4, I think people are just being picky.
If you are an emotional person, make sure there’s a tissue box nearby (the game got me once).
I was thinking this should be turned into a TV miniseries, but without an interactive time travel mechanic I don’t think it would be as impactful. Choice is powerful and that’s why we play games.
I want to rate this game higher, but it had so many cringeworthy moments and I can’t put it above the incredible gameplay and polish of the next three.
3. Metal Gear Solid V
I’m a huge MGS fan so I was really looking forward to this and the gameplay has exceeded my expectations but it has serious pacing and story problems. The prologue was the most intense gaming moment of the year for me and the game hasn’t gotten close to that since. I haven’t beaten it yet and I hear I’m in for a letdown but, man, have I spent a lot of time enjoying Fultoning dudes and building my base.
It’s worth noting that this could be the last “auteur” video game that will ever get made. AAA budgets are out of control, including this game supposedly, and I bet no single person will ever be given this much money and control again.
2. Bloodborne
I bought at PS4 for this game and I wasn’t the only one. With the two systems having essentially the same games for a year and a half, this was the first exclusive that warranted buying a system. It’s beautiful, frustrating, rewarding, mysterious, deep, and terrifying. It doesn’t matter how many times you clear an area — if you relax the game makes you pay.
Think you’re going to turtle like in Dark Souls? Well, too bad, there are no shields this time. By forcing you to take more action, the game is more accessible, fun, and greatly improves on the Dark Souls formula in my opinion (full disclosure: I’m a Dark Souls dilettante).
It probably took me 8 hours just to beat the first boss. I finally beat him by turning off all the auto camera stuff (pro tip from a coworker) but until then this was probably the angriest I’d ever been at a game and my girlfriend was worried about me. I couldn’t let it beat me and once I did the game opened up. For you it might not be the first boss, but you’ll hit a hurdle. Don’t give up. It’s worth it.
GOTY: Rocket League
This indie game launched without much fanfare but a couple of folks I follow on Twitter wouldn’t shut up about it so I checked it out and it felt like I had just been let in on the biggest secret of the year. I kept telling everyone at work to play and their response was “Rocket League?”
The depth of this game and the controls blew me away. First you master the shot angles and play with the two camera modes, then you realize how hitting the ball while jumping is better, then you realize you can jump spin to apply action, and then you see someone do an aerial and your head freaking explodes. And I could keep going by, for example, talking about how strategies change depending on the game size.
So why does this game get first place? It’s a game I’ve played every week since it came out (on two platforms!) and I don’t see that changing. No other game this year is as fun per minute as this.