Game of the Year 2015

Another year, another chance to play a whole lot of great games, some not so good and occasionally some horrible ones because someone has to, right? Below is my little rundown of my favorite games of the year and I’ll also be posting a little something with the runners up and some whining about titles that definitely deserved a spoonful of hate.

#5 Fallout 4

 
I had been craving a new Fallout for years – or 5 to be more precise, and in most ways Fallout 4 didn’t disappoint. For better or worse I knew exactly what I would get and that matched pretty good with what I ultimately got. Except for the base building which quite frankly didn’t win me over, little was new to the formula and that’s completely fine. My requirements for a good Fallout game these days is that moment where you first step out of the vault and the ability to find strange, fun and interesting quests where you least expect it. However, one game did this a lot better this year which we’ll get to later on. It looked slightly better this time around, it let you mess around pre-wasteland for a tiny bit and it let me have all the wasteland fun I expected. The story was somewhat solid and the hallmark choices were there although I didn’t agree on the absoluteness of them all that much. What really helped lift the game was the abundance of good companions, all with their own interesting story lines to complete and the rewarding perk at the end. MacCready’s killshot perk messed up the difficulty of the game a whole lot, but it’s just so much fun. In the end we got another time sink well worth the investment and for that Fallout 4 is my number 5.

#4 Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture

 
I imagine it takes a fair bit of guts to decide to make a walking simulator. Where other games get away by implementing a potentially infinite amount of interesting mechanics, walking simulators are often stripped bare of user input. The emphasis on good writing and perhaps a solid soundtrack becomes so prevalent I can only imagine the pressure. It was hard to overlook the fact that The Chinese Room forgot to tell us about the sprint button – it didn’t help that you had to hold the trigger and wait for it to slowly build either, but the slow speed of the game only became a true nuisance when you decided to return and explore previous areas. Which I did. A lot. I actually played through the game 5 times which might have made me overly sensitive to the slow pace, but the fact I’m sitting here ready to announce it as my number 4 is a testament to what the game has to offer regardless of the speed in which you experience it. The atmosphere provided by an at times photo realistic British village, the eerie story telling and the monumental soundtrack provides a package that comes together in such a profound way I find it hard not to recommend this even though this genre of clearly won’t resonate with everyone. If I had a soundtrack category, there’s nothing out there in 2015 that even comes close to what Jessica Curry did with this game, and if I had a VR set for this I’m pretty sure I would become British.

#3 Rocket League

 
Did anyone even play anything else last July? Rocket League is probably the best source for the most unadulterated fun you could have this year in a game. First and foremost a game that looked and played a lot better than Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, the stars definitely aligned for Rocket League in terms of timing. With perfect match length, fun and inviting controls and a constant urge for just one more match, Rocket League is a game that’s equally fun to play as to watch, which is why people still care a whole lot about it 6 months later. That’s quite something in a time where attention span is a luxury few inhabit. With a constant stream of free and paid content, Rocket League has grown since its launch and doesn’t look like it has any plans to let go of the boost button anytime soon.

#2 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

 
When I mentioned that there was a game that did strange, fun and interesting quests better than Fallout 4 this year, this is it. You might loathe the words sprawling, visceral and immersive, but they all belong to this game along with a lot of other fancy words to describe something this good. Witcher 3 didn’t only look and play well, it captivated players in a pretty fantastic world filled to the brim with stuff to explore and experience. At one point I looked at the map, found a plot of land with what looked like a building and decided to visit it, only to emerge 2 hours later after a long and rather mysterious side quest. No marker, no hint, just there. Almost nothing in 2015 made it this easy for me to stick with a game, to exhaust every nook and cranny, to appreciate the systems built for me and to take advantage of them in creative and necessary ways as much as Witcher 3. Almost nothing appreciated my time more and gave me increasingly fun and inventive ways to spend it. There are story arcs in Witcher 3 that feels broader and more fleshed out that entire games. Also: Gwent.

#1 Bloodborne

 
My experience with Souls games prior to playing Bloodborne? Sending intimidating looks at my monitor while watching other people play. To me those games were off limits, yet I own them all. There was something in the way they were described and talked about that made me go nuh-uh and proceed to play Peggle 2. Well, I’m not that horrible of a person or gamer, but regardless, I decided to go all in with Bloodborne and what I got was my game of the year. A relentless experience that kept constantly pushing and punishing me, yet drew me back in with the hopes of another shortcut, another magnificent boss battle, another killer weapon, another corner of this desperately bleak place to explore before being smeared across the cobblestones of Yharnam yet again. Bloodborne kept ticking off checkboxes I didn’t know I had, and pushing buttons I had no idea existed in me. Experiencing and exploring the lore through the game, through Youtube videos and chatter with my friends became just as important as actually playing it, and the end result feels flawless. No other game had such a firm grip on me as Bloodborne did in 2015. I played all the various endings and took a pretty deep dive into the abyss of the Chalice dungeons before I called it quits, and there’s not a moment of regret to be had. Only the sound of a sinister bell …

   
These are my favorite picks for last year. Feel free to let me know your very own in the comments below!