Yeah, gotta give time to people with Zelda and Mario still under the tree as those’ll likely affect the results. ;)
Is Tom still doing his best/worst/most overrated lists for 2017? Those are always a fun read.
I also like the threads were we name our own awards.
Best Use of Exclamation Points and shit like that
He mentioned something on one of those lists on Friday’s stream, so I think he is actively working on them as we speak!
The Quarterlies have always started after the year ends, and I am all about tradition!
My game of the year is putting together PDFs, man.
They made that, it’s called Fortnite Battle Royale!
How do you fuck a PDF?
Step 1: Get in the mood by opening and closing it 100 times on an A11 processor.
I have no idea what you two are talking about. Clearly you misread my post. winky-emoji.gif
Age of Rivals for all the reasons Armando said. I’m 58 hours in now and I’m still coming up with new strategies. If I was beginning to lose interest before, it all came back with the last update, which brought subtle but important improvements.
Runners-up:
Solar Settlers has finally distracted me away from Age of Rivals. It’s an abstract puzzle-ish game that scratches the same itch.
Afghanistan '11 is a wargame where logistics is taken seriously. And it’s not even boring!
I don’t game that much anymore, but the two I have put some significant hours into are:
- Monster Slayers
- Faeria
I’ve also put a lot of time into Guild Wars 2. No idea why. I’m bored with it but I log in every day just to get the chest of free stuff. Sometimes I’ll play for five minutes and sometimes for an hour.
My real gaming time was taking up tennis again. I was playing almost daily until the cold weather set in and my elbow got screwed up from hitting too many backhands. I did really improve my backhand, though. I was hitting some awesome one-handed topspin backhands. I was one-hopping them to the fence, often still on the rise. It was cool. Then my elbow fell apart. In the spring I will probably switch to a two-hander.
Here are my personal picks:
Video Game of the Year: Breath of the Wild
A culmination of many popular genres in recent years, it has raised the bar for open world games. Kudos to Nintendo for putting so many resources into such a risky project, which threw many Zelda game conventions out the window.
Runners Up: Mario Odyssey, Steamworld Dig 2, PUBG
Board Game of the Year: Time of Crisis
Admittedly, I didn’t play many 2017 tabletop games this year, but of the ones I did, this is clearly the winner. A new twist on deckbuilding (from GMT of all places) with clever player interaction and dynamic, ever-changing gameplay, this is one that deserves more attention than it has received.
Runners Up: Shadespire, Mini Rails
Best Non-2017 Video Game I Played this Year: Offworld Trading Company
I had played this just before and after release, but it wasn’t until I convinced some of my friends to pick it up this year that I really started to dig into it. I love economic video games, and I wish more people would develop the genre further.
Runners Up: Battlerite
Best non-2017 Board Game I Played This Year: 1846
Speaking of economic games, 18xx games pretty much epitomize the genre in the tabletop space. Though my first foray into these types of games was the relatively light 1846 (if 5 hours of gaming can be considered light), I quickly understood their appeal. Though these games are pretty much spreadsheets “in-a-box” (calculators are a must), it is incredible how much excitement and drama they produce. For a day-long game, I’ll take 18xx over Twilight Imperium any day.
Runners Up: Imperial 2030, American Rails, Evolution: Climate
I haven’t played any of these games. Not one. Crazy how large the gaming landscape is these days compared to the 90s, when everyone waited patiently and played every big release.
I am glad you said that about Fantasy General. I am gonna reload it. I recall I loved the music…
I came here to note that I loved your write up, but it looks like you deleted it!
I’ll go from memory, but you had a few games on your list I nearly added to mine (Horizon was a super hard one to drop for me; such an amazing game, and it played and looked so good on my TV - I think if I’d played it later in the year, like if I’d gotten the DLC for example and played it recently, it may have ended up replacing something like Prey).
I also really want to try Nioh, it’s been on my wishlist for ages, but I keep putting it off. Maybe it will go on sale here at some point?
I bought a ton of new 2017 released games this year, most of which I ended up very much disliking.
So far only Antihero has exceeded my expectations, its just so much fun.
Haven’t had time for PREY, Wolf 2, nor Death of the Outsider yet. :(
I was busy not cluttering the thread with my dozen of screenshots, and I came up with a PDF (who knew it was as easy as exporting!)
Not much text, though :/
Going over the games I played for the first time in 2017 made me realize how many games there are that were at least “pretty good”. There are few games on my list that I really disliked. There were a fair share of mediocre ones, but many worthwhile ones. I expect that Horizon Zero Dawn will make the top 10 if I get a chance to play before the Quarterlies happen - I can’t play it until Christmas though.
1) Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
The crazy story is what puts this at the top for me. It threw in so many unexpected moments that were sometimes shocking, funny, and / or emotional. The action was good, but not ground breaking. Thanks for not throwing in those boss battles from the first game.
2) Forza Horizon 3
I love me some racing and leader board chasing. It doesn’t hurt that the game is beautiful. I don’t really care about the open worldness of it. It could have just been a menu of events and I would have liked it the same.
3) Through the Ages
I don’t play this as much as I would if it were on PC, but it is such a cool remix of a Civ-type game. The random cards make it so the game doesn’t play out the same every time.
4) XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
All the new stuff just makes XCOM 2 a more well-rounded game. The Chosen were a bit too gimmicky and could be a little annoying, but the basic formula is a good one and got better with the expansion.
5) The Golf Club 2
It’s been so long since I’ve played PC golf and it was good to get back. It can take some work to figure out how to hold the controller to usually get a straight shot. Most of the courses are user made, so quality can vary. Some users get too aggressive with their green layout and that can make for some frustrating play, but the game itself is a lot of fun.
6) Superhot
Such a different take on a FPS game. Getting to plan out crazy take downs felt cool. I don’t think I liked it as much as some, but still a great game.
7) Cuphead
Excellent on every front - gameplay, graphics, sound. It is more difficult than I’d like as I’m making very slow progress on island 2, but I haven’t broken down and done the easy versions of the levels. Sticking with normal so far.
8) Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Technically I started it by playing 1 level at the end of 2016, but 90% of my time with it came in 2017. Everything about the game is super polished and the UI does a great job at giving the player information and giving them the tools to command their group. Coordinating the movement and ability usage is very rewarding when the plan comes together. It can be hard, at the end a bit too hard.
9) Axes and Acres
This game is way too unknown for the amount of fun I’ve had with it. Great auto adjusting difficulty level acts as a high score in a way. Play to see how hard you can raise the level to. It’s a very simple strategy game, but there are different ways to succeed. It’s played out on a small hex based map. It also uses cards that can be used in 2 ways and some dice.
10) Opus Magnum
Very clever game. I didn’t realize how many ways a problem could be solved until I saw other players’ solutions. It hasn’t been difficult to get a solution, but I’ve banged my head against the wall for hours trying to optimize a solution.
Honorable Mentions
Monster Slayers
It can be a little grindy, but this is a great deck-based dungeon crawler. Combat is resolved by playing cards. A lot of different classes to choose from that make the game feel different. I can’t believe I put over 100 hours into this game.
Homefront The Revolution
The single greatest thing about the game is the way to make me feel like I was part of an insurgency to take back my country. The shooting was fine. The missions were good, but the atmosphere really elevated it.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
I’m not a big AC fan, usually I find them boring. The combination of the historical people you meet, Evie Frye, the excellent city design just worked more than usual. Sure there were boring, repetitive tasks but nothing says you need to actually do them all.
Prey
This teetered on being an excellent game for me, but there are three things that held it back. I didn’t enjoy the backtracking I had to do, I hated when I had to go out into space, and the enemy design just didn’t do it for me. I enjoyed the story and initial exploration of areas. It felt like a real place. The action was good.
Pinball FX 3
I simply have fun chasing high scores in this game. I have trouble knowing what I need to do in what order on many tables, but it doesn’t stop me from having fun trying to hit the flashing things and keep the ball from draining.
Steamworld Heist
What a weird little turn based system with ricocheting shots. It’s got character and pretty rewarding game play.
Fantastic list. I really need to check out Shadow Tactics though, I thought that looked great prior to launch and keep passing it by when it goes on sale, and several lists have had it on there so far.