Ack, people are turning this thread into that thread. My brain isn’t ready yet, it’s still 2016! :D
Yeah, noticed. Which is a bummer, because the reason we do the actual voting for this thing in the first week of January is to let folks take a good run at Steam sales and the like before placing their final votes and stuff.
Most played: Hearthstone
Came out of nowhere game: Dragon Quest Builders
Best game: Dragon Quest Builders
Best Patch: all of the D3 ones
Best finally played this after all the hype: Minecraft
Best puzzle: Train Valley
Best Driving game: Forza Horizon 3
I made sure to note in my post , my picks were not final, as I am not done with 2016 gaming yet. :D
I’ll update mine as it goes and will copy it into the future then. :)
This will still be my picks tho’.
I vote we table this thread and do it right with the proper 2016 thread in 2017. Not that I matter at all, lol.
Eh, we’ll do both. Plenty of room. Gives folks a chance to ruminate and change their minds, too.
My theory is that people started early this year because Tom did his lists so early on the front page this year. Last year he did the week before Christmas. This time it was a week earlier. Plus this time, the lists were properly integrated from the front page to the forums through Discourse. So I think that also got people more involved with Tom’s lists than last year.
Thank God this is Merica (mostly) where they don’t limit the number of arbitrary lists we can create
I was disappointed (and surprised) that Tom didn’t create a list of the year’s worst games. It’s underrated click bait. So I’ll make my own picks for the worst game, starting with an overrated one:
Pony Island
I’m already sick of these secretive indie games. Well, maybe that’s not quite right. They’re harmless amusements and I’m happy people like them. But I’m also tired of overly-excited games journalists rushing to their keyboards to tell us we should play these games, but, OMG, they don’t want to spoil any of the surprise. Just totally play it.
Runner-up: 35MM
Oh, I’m definitely buying whatever moody Russian landscape videogame I can get my hands on in the wake of STALKER’s untimely death. This one started off with a promising feel, but it never really went anywhere. The gameplay (and checkpoints) got in the way. I didn’t actively dislike it. It just failed to work for me.
Of course you’re right. I’m just too uptight. :)
Okay, maybe I can get a little help/advice. I still have a couple of 2016 games that I’ve purchased (and in several cases started) but have not completed yet, and I’m trying to do some triage and figure out which ones I should focus on completing.
Here’s what I’m looking at: Oxenfree, Owlboy, Superhot, Dishonored 2 (on mission 6), Hitman, and Abzu.
Thoughts?
I myself and working on Dishonored 2 (Mission 5 here), Oxenfree, and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Gonna get them all done before 2017 hits.
You’re not going to make it, son. I have to save this advice for gamers with a chance to live.
My answer on everything will be Hearts of Iron 4, so there’s that.
I’m trying to finish up Shadow of Mordor so I can dump it and install Doom in its place. :D
I haven’t played Superhot - but I’d at least give it a go to see what its’e like and continue with it if it’s awesome. It’s near the top of my wishlist.
Dishonored 2 is good, but you might want to sample Hitman to see if you like it better. I think I do so far.
Oxenfree is interesting, and I’m not even much of a point and click adventure player - and it’s not that long. So if you really want to finish something you’d have a shot. I guess if you’re on mission 6 in Dishonored you could finish that one too and the last 3 missions were better than the middle of the game for sure.
The “new in 2016” games that I played were Civ VI and XCOM 2. To their credit, I did stick with them long enough to complete a full playthrough. At the same time, I haven’t felt particularly compelled to replay them as much as I did their predecessors.
My list of “best 2016 games” mostly involves things that I haven’t yet gotten around to purchasing, but of course there’s the big Steam Holiday Sale coming up in less than a week.
Play some Hitman just to see what it’s about, but don’t sweat about completing it.
The over-arching story line is total twaddle, there’s no need to rush through the game to see all of it. The actual star of the game are the different maps with a pretty high density of interesting stuff, all of which is impossible to see in a single run through. So it’s actually all about playing the same map at least half a dozen times, and slowly getting better at it, while having it not feel like a grind since you’re still rewarded with new content. So that game is actually best played exactly the way it was released, in episodes. Play through the tutorial missions + a bunch of repeats of the Paris map. Then play something else, and come back for Sapienza in a few weeks.
Eurogamer didn’t do a big list this year. Just their game of the year: Overwatch.
I continue to be perplexed by the love for that game despite reading their write-up.
Have other publications given out awards for this year yet?