- Prey
A game out of time, with a design philosophy that seems from 15 years ago. It really is System Shock 3. Ok, not that great, but still, I felt it as much more proper inmersive sim than any of the two new Deus Ex. Yeah, on the final stretch there are a bit too much backtracking and it needed a few more enemy types, but still a great game.
- A hat in time
Super charming, cute-as-heck platformer that controls deliciously. I can only imagine they worked on the controls and the feeling for years. Additionally it’s also pretty varied, and the collecthaton is fun to do.
- What Remains of Edith Finch
The walking sim of 2017! The anthology format really works great here, giving great doses of imagination and magical realism to the game, really using what the genre allows.
- Dominions 5
Tom made a good point on his best of the year list, in that Dominions 5 is a great game, but it doesn’t really feel like a new entry in the year of 2017. Dominions is really a single game, and each entry is just a new major upgrade, to 4.0, 5.0, etc. Still, it deserved a position in my Top5.
- Cryptark
A surprising 2d roguelike with good action, a distinctive visual look, tight game design and original ideas that make brain and brawn mesh perfectly.
What other games I loved this year?
I loved TW Warhammer 1 and FH3 but are from 2016!
What other games I liked, with some reservations?
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
Nex Machina
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
Destiny 2
Oxenfree
Dirt 4
Quake Champions
Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider
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What other games I played, which were disappointing, overrated or were just not-for-me?
Sniper Elite 4. I liked SE3 but this was too much more of the same, and in the middle of the campaign I lost interest.
Agents of Mayhem. It has some good ideas and maybe it bombed comercially in an unfair way, but it also is undercooked in important ways.
Elex. Great exploration and decent faction and quests… terrible combat, animations, AI, main story, etc.
Pyre. Look, I don’t like VN as main conceit to tell the narrative, I didn’t like how the story handled your own character nor the little agency it offered, and I don’t like sport games, so what did you expect.
Little nightmares. I got stuck super soon in this game, so not-for-me.
Wolfenstein 2. Mediocre action, repetitive gameplay, and they fell into the trap of making the second part taking the memorable scenes of the first game and then “turning it up to eleven!!”
Cuphead. Great visuals! But high difficulty and simplistic, unfullfilling gameplay.
Middle Earth: Shadow of War. After playing 10 hours I really felt as I was replaying the first game with an expansion. I just discovered I had satiated my thirst for killing orc in the same ways with the first game.