| Title | Top ten games of 2015 |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Features |
| When | December 20, 2015 |
For the first time since I've been doing these lists, which is probably ten years or more, over half of my choices are from independent developers. It's an encouraging development..
Read the full articleI like hearing about the way the best games find a way of working into your life, of getting under your skin in the best way - like the way a great song will keep intruding on your thoughts constantly until you're forced to recognize it, to just listen or sing along until your can exorcise it until it decides it's time to pop back up (like that gum jingle in Inside Out). I've got a copy of Massive Chalice I've been sitting on for months now - actually two since they gave it away on Xbox Live for a while. I've been meaning to give it a shot but I'm a little intimidated by its scope and the way it sounds like it will let you completely screw yourself in the endgame. I can be a real gaming coward sometimes.
Really love this list, mostly for having Renowned Explorers on it. My game of the year is probably Witcher 3, but Renowned Explorers is a game that I just love playing in little one hour chunks when I have a bit of free gaming time. So good, and so strangely overlooked on so many lists. In fact, I think this is the first place I've seen it mentioned.
Oh, and you needn't worry about not having spent more time with Heart of Thorns. At least for me it pretty much is the opposite of a game of the year. For me at least it spelled the death of a gaming genre, the dedicated MMORPG (and of any stripe--subscription, buy to play, freemium, or whatever). MMOs are going to look more and more like GTA Online and Destiny and Diablo III I think.
I'll second the notion that Dirt Rally has some of the best graphics of the year. I don't think I've ever seen snow banks in any game that are as realistic as the ones in this. While most racing games have very bland tracks (they're bland in real life too), the courses in Dirt Rally have so much character to them without being as cartoonish or garish as some of the more arcadey Codemasters games. I especially love how the morning sun blinds you temporarily as you round a bend at Pike's Peak, or when your headlights go out in a night rally and you're forced to navigate by moonlight. Really wonderful game and definitely one of the best of the year!
Very happy to see Arkham Knight continuing to receive the love it so richly deserves in some circles. A shame that the enduring narrative seems to have crystallized around how much people don't like the batmobile fight segments and how irritated people seem to be at being able to guess the twist. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that in a culture preoccupied..obsessed with spoilers and "oh shit" moments, a fairly obvious one would count as a mark against it, as if the developers were questioning the audience's intelligence by daring to insert a simple and easily solved identity mystery.
Arkham Knight is one of the most impressive games of the decade because it took an extremely established character, with a plethora of difficult to emulate skills and strengths, and make you feel like you were actually inhabiting that character. I actually dared to let myself pretend to be batman at points in that game, because it earned my trust, and I knew it would have my back when I wanted to be silly and do a little in game roleplaying by myself. No weird companions getting stuck on geometry. No desperately trying to remove myself from freaking sticky cover that snaps at the worst possible time. Just the absolute thrill of gliding through the air, calling the batmobile, watching it race towards me and spin around right as I hop into it, and the sound of the engine roaring to life as I seamlessly blast away into the night; weather, sound, atmosphere, music, all perfectly in sync, working together. If indie games have taught us the obvious lesson that you don't need expensive graphics to have fun, arkham knight is the case in point that a well realized and high fidelity aesthetic can be just as much of an asset as a strong gameplay foundation
also also we should talk about big pharma sometime.......i have FEELINGS about it
edit: the game is actually arkham knight ha ha ha ha
Wow, that is a great list of games I haven't played..at all! And the only one I own is MGSV but I haven't played that either apart from its intro.
Thanks for writing this, I will check couple of these.
My list is then completely different..
1. The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
2. The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone
3. Life Is Strange
4. Dying Light
5. SOMA
6. Grand Theft Auto V
I haven't played any other games this year that were good enough to be on my TOP list :(
I will check out DIRT Rally and Massive Chalice.
MGSV, bar none. That game just keeps on revealing layers and layers of depth, even after you've finished all the missions and side-ops. Over 3 months later and 260 hours of gameplay, I've never experienced such a fluid third-person shooter in my life.
Good call, Tom. MGS fans will fumble with it--the Metal Gear game for people who've hated Metal Gear games. Not only the best in its genre and series, but the most important step forward in this generation of consoles. Kojima truly trolled the world here; this is his masterwork.
EDIT: Leave it to the Japanese to give us a game that treats its audience as intelligent, rather than the disposable fast-food nature of the West's approach to game development.
Right, Bethes--I mean, Activision?
I really appreciate how your top ten list is formed by how these games made their way into your life, and what they meant to you personally and emotionally, Tom.
I hope that eventually you'll also be able to view the gamers who take issue with characters like Quiet not as pearl-clutching feather-rufflers, but rather as people, like you, who want to make a connection to a game and are simply advocating for less of the elements that alienate them.
I will definitely be checking out Massive Chalice!
wtf...how is it possible for a man to turn the experience of mgsv supremacy to ash in my mouth with just one post
this poster..he truly is one level beyond..
Tom, so Fallout 4 isn't even in the expanded top 27? Wow, I got the feeling you enjoyed it more than that. On your list of games that you didn't get enough time with, my wish would be for you to go enjoy Witcher 3 and Dying Light. I think you would like those.
Don't be afraid Pogue! The time investment isn't that great and this is a game where the first time things are experienced is definitely the best. Play to experience the different character classes, the first time you encounter a type of enemy, the bits of witty dialog. It's OK if you don't win your first attempt. It probably won't take too many tries on normal difficulty.
Nice list. I own most of those, but haven't played them much. In fact, I think this is exactly what I am going to do.
I do feel, that not unlike most other lists around the internet, we could have used some Dying Light here - Such a great game, and apparently completely underrated by many review sites.
Well, I hate to turn this into another discussion of a well-worn issue, but I hope that you'll eventually be able to understand my perspective as coming from someone who wants a variety of experiences, tones, and characterizations in videogaming, even if they're not all for everyone, and not as coming from someone who views the gamers who take issue with Quiet as pearl-clutching feather-rufflers. It's totally cool if you don't like a certain character in a certain videogame. But using that character as a cudgel to beat the industry as a whole is silly and an unfair representation of the state of videogames.
By the way, I don't know what a pearl-clutching feather-ruffler is. It sounds like an 18th century sex toy.
And, yes, I hope you enjoy Massive Chalice. Regardless of my own enthusiasm, it's one of the finest tactical strategy games at a time when we have a whole mess of darn fine tactical strategy games.
Would you recommend MC to a strategy fan whose personal favourite SRPG is the PSP revisionist remaster of Tactics Ogre?
I do understand! And I won't turn this into a drawn-out argument. I appreciate your perspective.
Absolutely. In fact, I might recommend especially to such a person. Games like Massive Chalice, Invisible Inc, and Skyshine's Bedlam will be especially appreciated by Tactics Ogre aficionados!
I liked Fallout 4, but no, it wouldn't rank particularly high on an overall list. And, yes, I definitely intend to get back into Witcher 3 and especially Dying Light. Dying Light has a lot of new content coming February 9th, so I'm kind of holding out for that.
I don't doubt it, but as I mentioned at the head of the list, I didn't get to play it enough to include it. :( But it's definitely my kind of game and I look forward to getting back to it with the February 9 release of The Following add-on.
Dude, a new Chibi Robo game is out? Why did no one tell me?
Also, bless you for even considering putting Mad Max on a top ten of the year list. I don't think it will be appearing in proximity of any others, much less on, but I loved that game in a way I didn't expect to.
Life is Strange deserves praise for showing us where modern adventure games need to be going rather than the dreck Telltale has committed to churning out now.
Unfortunately, the whole thing comes crashing down at the end of episode 3. A new twist develops and it goes from a story based Sands of Time - based around using a rewind power to gain insight and empathy towards others - to a convoluted sci-fi mess that throws all that out the window. Think of it as changing from Back to the Future into Back to the Future 2.
By the time it hits episode 5, the convoluted kicks into overdrive and it goes into Mass Effect 3 mode where none of your choices matter (which is a shame because they did a great job with choice effects prior). They show you snippets of what could have been better endings before shrugging their shoulders.
Such a letdown to a promising buildup.
