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    Wolfman JewMatt Gerardi
    12/08/17 8:17am

    This was an astonishingly good year for video games, if not always the culture around them. The best games were confident, experimental, thoughtful, surprising, and entirely sincere. Wolfenstein II had a deranged vision about the horrors of American Nazism and what was needed to fight it, but it was also one it fully embraced. Hellblade did something similar, using the medium to explore mental illness in a way that put most games of that sort to shame. NieR: Automata was the best result we could have gotten from a PlatinumGames and Yoko Taro collaboration, a constantly genre shifting action game that also managed to tell a melancholy tragedy through mechanics, the meta nature of game design, a deep humanity. Super Mario Odyssey was as crafty as it was jubilant, featuring surprises around and within every corner while being excited for players to explore is world. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle sold us on something that oozes distrust just through its title. ARMS explored fighting game design while Prey polished immersive sim conventions to a mirror sheen. Indie games like What Remains of Edith Finch, The Sexy Brutale, and Hollow Knight did excellent work, while the wild Golf Story just came out of nowhere. Cuphead came out. Star Fox 2 came out - did anyone in 2016 think we’d get an official release for that?

    I think looking at it like that also explains this year’s most high profile failings. Mass Effect: Andromeda always suffered a failure of clarity and confidence, never willing or comfortable to forge its own identity. Yooka-Laylee was so stymied by perfectly recreating a largely forgotten design philosophy that it neglected to create something that fixed the myriad of issues that plagued it. Battlefront II isn’t just gross for its micro-transactions, but that those represent a desire to keep needling the player for more and more, an utterly cynical greed contemptuous of what games can be. We’ve almost all forgotten about it, but this myopia might be perfectly represented in Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back, the kind of self aware, lazy cheapness that’s angling to be an instant “thing.”

    And in the end, that’s why I can’t stop coming back to that starting image in what is unquestionably my favorite game of the year, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Link on the cliff on the Great Plateau, seeing this massive, gorgeous world, felt like a microcosm of the best of this year. Nintendo could’ve made a perfectly fine, if derivative, open world game. But they looked to the notion of what “freedom” meant, and what it could and perhaps should mean, and close to everything they did and could do was done to support and evoke and drive that. It’s a game where the world itself pushes you to explore, where every mechanic and threat justifies and encourages experimentation, and where almost nothing is a pure obstacle. The world itself had to be built to accommodate that, throwing out invisible walls and minimizing paths that force you into certain directions. The mechanics, from climbing to its wild “chemistry system,” were kinetic, tactile, and responsive. It allowed players to explore what they wanted, meaning that entire climates and sections of its world could be fun, wild rewards. And while its narrative isn’t great, its storytelling - the act of learning about Hyrule and discovering, surviving, and conquering secrets - led to it being one of the greatest gaming experiences I have had my entire life. This is why I play games, and enthralled me in a way almost no other game of this or any year has managed.

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      Shinigami Apple MerchantWolfman Jew
      12/08/17 8:54am

      As with every post you write here— well said and then some, sir. And endless praise to Nintendo for distilling the Zelda experience down to its pure essence and core for the benefit of players. No matter the age or style of play— all are able to engage in pure discovery on their own terms in so many directions. As you say— they could have just made a new branch on the veritable Yggdrasil of Zelda lore available, but instead they finely researched and crafted the very root of what it means to be a Zelda game. Instead of just building a better mouse trap, they looked intensely inward so that players could possess infinite options to interact outwardly with the flora and fauna of that world with renewed spark and joy.

      And reading yours and everyone else’s personal accounts exploring Hyrule has been one of the highlights of my year here too.

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      jakeotiWolfman Jew
      12/08/17 9:15am

      Absolutely well said. The past few years have seen a lot of games banking on either nostalgia or an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. Comfortably sitting around, gaming was content to just put out bigger worlds on consoles with better graphics and speeds. As such, though, I feel like 2016 was a let-down in gaming. There were solid releases, sure, but it all felt like just another year in the industry. 2017 saw tons of new things being tried. Some were for worse (mainly predatory practices like the expansion of loot boxes), but overall it felt like there was a ton of experimentation. I didn’t even play that many games (I think it’s not even 10), but watching other people experience some of these fantastic works, like Cuphead or Nier, made me certain that they were quality.

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    Derrick SanskritMatt Gerardi
    12/08/17 9:55am

    I shared this in the WAYPTW last week, but here’s my case for my GOTY, Everything:

    Beyond that, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the easy frontrunner for me. Zelda was the first series I became obsessed with as a child, and I’ve played nearly every game in the series to date (sorry not sorry, TriForce Heroes) but Breath of the Wild did more to surprise and reward me than any other game in the series, possibly any other game period. I loved just climbing mountains and looking around at my surroundings, picking out which direction I wanted to explore next, getting in way over my head and running away to prepare myself better next time. I even grew to love the destructible weapons, as they encouraged me to experiment with both weapons and my surroundings in ways I might not have otherwise. My wife and I could obsess over finding the perfect horse (a maxed-out all-blue beauty named “MaryBerry”) and I could experiment with new cooking recipes and paint my clothes and sneak through tall grass and fly on the tailwinds of electric dragons. It was a magical world to explore, well over 100 hours by the time I finally confronted Ganon, and I imagine I’ll likely go back in over the holiday break thanks to the new DLC quests.

    NieR: Automata both was and was not everything I expected it to be. Functionally, it was a traditional Platinum-made beat’em up, with satisfying button mashes and dodges that made each combat encounter into a dance of feints and explosions. Narratively, it was the biggest metanarrative instance of trolling in modern gaming. I’ve never been so excited to hit “start game” for the third time, and the way it got me to stop and ponder the lives and feelings of even the lowliest enemy grunt was something I hadn’t seen in quite some time. It definitely had some rough edges, but they were more than outshone by the overall ambitiousness of the story, characters, music, art, and pretty much everything else about it.

    SnipperClips is my sleeper hit of the year. It was the first thing I played on the Switch, while Breath of the Wild and 1-2-Switch waited wrapped in cellophane. It’s the perfect example of taking a very simple idea—two players who can cut shapes out of one another—and playing with it to see how far that idea can expand across a variety of experiments. The Snipperclips+ update just last month even added a collaborative art mode that plays like a co-op Mario Paint!

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      Shinigami Apple MerchantDerrick Sanskrit
      12/08/17 10:10am

      Oh man, SnipperClips! Great call! I totally forgot about that gem. So many wonderful gameplay co-op vids of that popped up when the Switch launched. As you say, it takes a very simple concept and weaves so many wonderful returns from it.

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      ThyasianmanDerrick Sanskrit
      12/08/17 12:11pm

      Glad to hear Snipperclips is great because I bought my girlfriend a switch, a screen protector, and Snipperclips for Christmas this year. Snipperclips was so much cheaper than every other game, and I wanted a game to play with her, so it was a no brained given I’ve already spent so much on the Switch. I am thinking about also throwing on Mario + Rabbids into the mix as well.

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    BigBadBarbMatt Gerardi
    12/08/17 8:35am

    Breath of the Wild was such a beautiful, engrossing videogame. I bought the Switch after not playing a single video game in nearly six years, and bought it only to play Zelda. That game, above all else, taught this old fool what it feels like to be a kid again.

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      PastyJournalistBigBadBarb
      12/08/17 9:08am

      Great post. I bought the Switch for Christmas for myself - not opening it until Christmas - looking forward to a great “winter killer” of a game.

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      Sentient BeardPastyJournalist
      12/08/17 11:34am

      I’m so unbelievably jealous that you’re about to start playing BotW for the first time.

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    Mr Smith1466Matt Gerardi
    12/08/17 7:16am

    It’s been a very strong year for gaming for me personally.

    For my personal favourite, it’s Injustice 2. Few games have as much life, care and attention pumped into it. Injustice 2 is literally a game I’ll be playing for years.

    Wolfenstein 2 is my runner up. I love literally everything about that game. The story, the action, the cruel difficulty, the vivid characters, the design and of course, the utter utter insanity.

    Cuphead is too annoying for me to play, but the amount of detail is utterly staggering. And as a one of a kind labour of love, it’s a masterpiece.

    Resident Evil 7 deserves endless credit for being a bold franchise revamp. Long may the new Resident Evil series reign over all.

    I had absolutely zero interest in Evil Within 2, but that game is actually really brilliant. It deserves more love and attention for being an entertaining, imaginative and pure horror action game.

    Prey is a game I deeply love from a story and art perspective. I do totally plan to play more than the first few hours... Some day...

    My only major letdown game is shadow of war. It wasn’t bad, far from it... It’s just...A meh game on the whole. Meh gameplay. Meh story. Meh mechanics. Far from bad just not a great game. 

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      Unspeakable AxeMr Smith1466
      12/08/17 8:25am

      Shadow of War seemed to me like a repeat of Shadow of Mordor but with a handful of good new ideas and features (mainly the sieges and the ability to fly around on a drake burning things). And better graphics/bigger world, as well. I’m glad I played it and I again enjoyed slaughtering zillions of orcs, but it’s not quite the leap forward I had hoped for, and the story in both games was dopey.

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      StairmasternemMr Smith1466
      12/08/17 8:47am

      If you got a PS4 I highly recommend giving Horizon: Zero Dawn a try. It’s open world but has fun mechanics along with an interesting story.

      I do hope you get deeper into Prey. A later segment is a bit annoying but as a door opening simulator (“How do I get into THIS room?”) it is fantastic.

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    Kirino SucksMatt Gerardi
    12/08/17 6:41am

    I came here solely for Nier Automata and Persona 5.

    I was not disappointed.

    Those two games pretty much resonated with me a lot. I still listen to the music of both games and I REALLY want to go back to Persona 5 for a NG+.

    I still haven’t finished Gravity Falls 2 though.

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      Kirino SucksKirino Sucks
      12/08/17 6:44am

      Also, the only game I’m hyped for next year (besides DB Fighter Z) is Hokuto ga Gotoku aka the Fist of the North Star game by Yakuza devs.

      Now that Rockstar is confirmed to turn Red Dead Redemption 2 into an online microtransaction MMO piece of crap, my only hope next year is in Dragonball and a Fist of the fucking North Star game of all things. It’s like 1986 all over again.

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      seven-deuceKirino Sucks
      12/08/17 8:48am

      As someone who just finished watching the old, classic Hokuto no Ken anime series (and it’s sequel) I’m now dying to play this game.

      1986 was a very, very good year...

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    ThyasianmanMatt Gerardi
    12/08/17 11:31am

    Anyone else here not able to participate yet because they haven’t played much from this year?

    I’ve only played three games from this year: Persona 5, COD War, and PUBG.

    Obviously Persona 5 takes the cake even though I haven’t beaten it. I’m 80 hours in though, so I’m close. But yeah, I just love how critical the developers of Persona 5 were of Japanese culture: from every aspect ranging from the huge mind your own business to other things like corrupt politicians and judging somebody even though you don’t know their story (your teacher and Sojiro are prime examples of people who come off as assholes).

    Anyways, I have a lot of catching up to do as I usually do each year. But that’s ok because I spent $200 this year on Black Friday online on 7 games and 5 movies: Resident evil 7, Prey, Nier Automata, Horizon Zero Dawn, Dishonored 2, Wolfenstein 2, and Borderlands: the handsome collection.

    Maybe after having spent several months at my new job I might finally be able to find a rhythm of cooking, cleaning, spending time with my girlfriend and friends, and playing single player games.

    Now, I actually spent a good amount of time this year with some new games from the previous years: Guitar Hero Live, Stardew Valley, and Deus Ex Mankind Divided. As well as playing some games from previous years that I’ve already played a lot: Rainbow Six Siege, Rogue Legacy, andRayman Legends. So I did actually get my game on this year, just not as many new games.

    How do you guys find time to play all of these new games? Anyone else suffering from a big backlog?

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      Chum JoelyThyasianman
      12/08/17 5:21pm

      Well, count me in for people who are always years behind on new games. Actually, I have played far more of “this year’s games” in 2017 than in any recent year, and the complete list is as follows:

      Cuphead (stuck halfway through; will I ever finish??)
      Late Shift (a FMV thing nobody cares about)
      Little Nightmares
      Mass Effect: Andromeda       (took a break after 10 hours and never returned)
      Night in the Woods
      Thimbleweed Park
      West of Loathing
      What Remains of Edith Finch

      Looking over this list, I see that almost all of them top out in the low 10-15 hour range (or at least my interest level did), and some of them were way shorter than that— Edith Finch and Little Nightmares were 3-5 hours, and Late Shift was less than 2 hours for one playthrough (there are like 7 possible endings). Any longer than that and I really can’t commit.

      Still, I think this was enough to give me a sampling of what 2017 was about. And there’s plenty of stuff accumulating on my wishlist that will let me continue exploring 2017 for most of 2018 and beyond! Hellblade, Tacoma, Everything, Heat Signature, and tons more.

      As for backlogs... I’ve got literally many dozens of games in my backlog (strictly defined as “I already bought it and haven’t finished it”, and in most cases “haven’t played for more than 30 minutes if at all”).

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      70on17Thyasianman
      12/08/17 6:38pm

      Yeah, gaming has never been a huge hobby of mine, so I’m always behind. Didn’t really play much while I was in high school, and mooched off of my roomates’ games/consoles during my first attempt at college. Got a PS3 in 2012 and slowly worked through a few of the GOAT games from that generation along with a lot of NBA2k. Built a PC just over a year ago to help me try to catch up on this generation, picked up a bunch of games from 2015 that were on deep discount that still working on them since I’ve been so busy.

      So my GOTY is probably The Witcher 3, and I *still* haven’t beaten it. Still love these articles though, they’re great for adding stuff to my wishlist. Definitely planning on picking up Nier: Automata and Prey if they go on sale again.

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    Venerable MonkMatt Gerardi
    12/08/17 9:44am

    I liked Nier: Automata because it asked me to delete my save file after I had finished the storyline, and I agreed it was the right thing to do. I’m the kind of person who keeps incomplete save files I haven’t touched since middle school. There’s always that chance, however slim, that I’ll come back to that almost-finished FFVIII run! So when Nier: Automata told me that my time with the game could be done, for real, and letting go will cause some unseen mechanism to help other people get to the ending I just saw, I was a bit shocked. The game spent hours reinforcing the idea that our memories and our identity are inseparable, and not-so-subtly hinting that the save file you’re building *is* your character’s memories. After a few minutes of considering what that choice meant in the game, I hit the thirty-some “Yes, delete my file.” prompts. I hadn’t even collected half of the secret endings, but I couldn’t go along for the ride Nier: Automata was offering only to get off before the last stop.

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      Shinigami Apple MerchantVenerable Monk
      12/08/17 9:52am

      That FFVIII UFO guy’s still waiting for some elixirs, darn it! :P

      Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF

      And that ending for NieR: Automata has to be one of the best gaming moments I’ve ever experienced. As surreal as “I need scissors! 61!” and as heartfelt and emotionally raw as Persona 4 Golden and Undertale.

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      Venerable MonkShinigami Apple Merchant
      12/08/17 10:59am

      That doofy alien! I need to keep hoarding all my Elixers to not use them on the final boss! I was also way confused by the talking colored rocks in one of the later areas of the world map. Do developers still hide such random crap in their games? I guess in some ways Nier: Automata had some odd discoveries to make, like finding the giant smiling heads deep in the desert...

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    Roland TemboMatt Gerardi
    12/08/17 8:17am

    I’m surprised not to see Horizon: Zero Dawn on this list. It definitely had some first installment rough edges here and there, but the fun and deep combat systems and haunting but beautiful story outweigh those quibbles. It stuck with me in that rare and precious Red Dead Redemption/Witcher 3 kind of way. Even if that’s my cup of tea more than other people’s, the graphics and the dynamic systems behind them are a technical marvel worth a mention

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      DLRoland Tembo
      12/08/17 9:13am

      If there’s a game missing, I’d strongly suggest writing your own item as above! Start with, “I liked Horizon: Zero Dawn because <insert thoughtful reason here>.“ and please elaborate! It will not go unnoticed, and can certainly be published with the next article on Dec. 22!

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      hcd4Roland Tembo
      12/08/17 10:48am

      I’m not even sure those edges where that rough! So many of it’s unique qualities where refinements amongst very competent execution of familiar things, maybe it just got lost. Even more than the gameplay (I love roping me a robot dinosaur) I loved the basic humanity of the arc of the story. So different from the cynical or frequently juvenile-worldliness that games have, even the ones I like.

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    jakeotiMatt Gerardi
    12/08/17 8:27am

    Gonna keep the format of these, though it might be a bit shorter. Three choices...let’s start with...

    I liked ARMS because it was a dream fighting game and a perfect show-off for the Switch. I’m a big fighting game fan, but I’ve never been particularly good at them. Despite playing them for years, I often fumble quarter-circles and charging, let alone have the time and capability to learn comboing. Smash Bros was my optimal bread-and-butter, but even then I found myself failing hard to the tech that devoted players were pulling off. Enter ARMS, where strategy and thought are just as important as execution. While it initially looks slower-paced, diving into Nintendo’s newest IP reveals a ton of depth. Counterpicking arms mid-match to bring down your opponent’s strat is satisfying, and nothing quite beats landing the perfect grab or rush when your opponent made too bold a move.

    Not only, though, is ARMS a solid game on its own, it also highlights the Switch’s unique strengths. Sure, you can play the game with a traditional controller...but the feeling of punching with the separate Joy-Con is delightful. It’s also the perfect game to set up on the go. You may need to have brought some extra Joy-Con for the full effect, but standing the Switch up anywhere turns it into an ARMS arcade machine. It’s one of the best ways to share the fun of the system.

    I liked Super Mario Odyssey because it felt like it was meant to be broken. Speed-running is another section of gaming that I love to watch but can’t necessarily do. And while I’m probably nowhere near the techniques that Odyssey’s future runs will show off, I still feel like I can break the game due to Mario’s expanded moveset. First time through, sure, I followed the linear path that they set out for me. Playing around with the game and getting to know Mario’s different jumps and dives, though? Now I feel like I can truly destroy this game. Why go through the lengthy water section at the start of the Lake Kingdom when I can triple jump into a double hat dive over the wall? The best part is that this isn’t some glitch. The developers knew what you could let Mario do, and they didn’t care. If anything, they probably set it up just for players to power through.

    I liked The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild because it actually made me solve puzzles rather than execute a script. I love the Zelda franchise and its puzzle-based dungeons. But, there’s a certain pattern to many of their puzzles that holds them back from being true brain-busters. For example, a Zelda dungeon might have an eyeball that you can shoot with an arrow. The obvious thing to do, then, is to shoot the eye. Not because you know this will open some door, but because there is an eye, and thus it must be shot.

    Breath of the Wild, though, set most of its puzzles up with the goal being presented first, and the method being what you must then figure out. See a shrine in the distance? Your goal is to get to the shrine. The problem now is for you to figure out what mountain you can leap from to get close to it. You can see a terminal within a Divine Beast, but you can’t reach it. You need to then figure out how to manipulate the Beast so that you can. Some of the shrines still abide by the old “burn a bunch of leaves because there are leaves by a torch” mentality, but they’re also still fun. But being given a vague description of a location and actually studying my map to find it? That left me with a true feeling of accomplishment.

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      LittleMacjakeoti
      12/08/17 9:14am

      I mostly play Ranked Mode in ARMS, and almost exclusively with a single character: Min Min. On top of that, I almost always use left-arm-ramram, right-arm-dragon. I am consistently amazed by how much depth I can get out of that single narrow part of the experience. Subtle changes in timing, a different angle of the wrist, a jump before or after throwing the first arm: they all create fundamentally different combos that can work as defensive or offensive maneuvers.

      It’s a fantastic game, it keeps getting better with every update, and, like all fighting game franchises, the second one in the series is going to be incredible!

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      jakeotiLittleMac
      12/08/17 9:29am

      I’ve been changing who I play. I started as a Ribbon Girl main, eventually decided to learn Lola Pop, and now I’m trying to learn Misango. My arms tend to be the same between them: Slapamander, Megaton/Megavolt or Whammer/Kablammer, and one of the basic fists, usually Nade or Sparky.

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    Ugh.Matt Gerardi
    12/08/17 8:10am

    I bought more games this year than I have in the past few years combined.

    Top 3 (in order):

    3. Horizon: Zero Dawn - the action drew me in at first, before the low-key escalated into something brilliant that had me locked in for two straight days.

    2. Resident Evil 7 - THIS, Capcom, is what RE should be: creepy, claustrophobic, and nerve-wracking. More of this sort of thing, please.

    1. Wolfenstein: The New Colossus - Heart, gore, madcap fun, great characters...not a hell of a lot to hate.

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      StairmasternemUgh.
      12/08/17 8:50am

      Good top 3! HZD is the only one I played. I ended up taking a month playing it, mainly just an hour or so each morning. The end game needed more stuff to do after you do all the quests though - maybe a “hunt this slightly beefed up Thunderjaw” random generator or something.

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      JeffStairmasternem
      12/08/17 9:00am

      I liked that the last few levels were short, because they really wanted you to get into the endgame (and be ready for the Frozen Wilds expansion), and by that point I wasn’t ready for another big ol’ boss battle. Plus, I like that I was able to get through the fights quickly, because it allowed me to remain focused on the story, which was honestly moving and really well written. It’s such a good game!

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