This was a rough year for video games, from vast disappointments to just a ton of uninspired, formulaic titles hitting the market to contend for hard earned consumer dollars. If I sound like a pessimist it’s because I am, at least when it comes to a video games, and so the five on my list really earned their spots this year bringing at least one innovation to the table that should stand as a new bar of quality other developers should strive for. Whether it was fighting a blood curse, going on a date with a skeleton, beheading a griffin, hanging out with a gold painted sniper sidekick or throwing fire bugs from the palm of my hand, these games managed to create a nest in my heart in 2015.
Bloodborne (PS4)
Bloodborne broke my From cherry and I’m not ashamed to admit I dedicated way too much time to that game squeezing every last drop of enjoyment. Exploration, bosses, chalice dungeons, elusive trick weapons, Co-op, PvP, I did and saw it all while admittedly enjoying some aspects more than others. Okay, so the game had a bit of a rocky start, with plenty of glitches that were detrimental to gameplay and could set players back no insubstantial amount, and though an overall pretty game it didn’t have the most exciting or colorful environments. Even so I really enjoyed Bloodborne’s glass cannon combat that begged you defy all reason and put yourself directly in harms way while giving you all the defense of a china doll. I found the world and its lore to be exciting and engaging, and it just checked off several easy Jay marks that’s guaranteed to get any game in my good graces. Combat centered around vampiric mechanics and dept footwork? Check. Unspeakable horrors from a great eldritch beyond? Check. So difficult I want to cry myself to sleep? Better believe that’s a check. I do admit Bloodborne may be a bit of an acquired taste, but I was hard pressed to find a game I loved more this year, save for maybe…
Undertale (PC)
Undertale struck my skeptics eye and I folded my arms, shaking my head at it, “Don’t believe the hype” constantly echoing in the back of my skull as I saw the ratings skyrocket on steam and metacritic. Then a friend gifted me a copy. The hype was real. This homage to 90s JRPGs was a one man effort on behalf of musician and Earthbound enthusiast Toby Fox, and he brought us one of the most endearing, tightly made indie games of the year. I feel each of the games on my list this year have one or two real stand out, memorable elements from Bloodborne’s difficulty to Call of Duty’s co-op to Metal Gear’s sandbox. Toby for sure wins most memorable characters, from his character designs to their personalities to the various battles with each individual, even a single boss encounter is enough to drill the Undertale cast into memory. A certain capitalist spider, anyone? Did I mention this also has the most rockin’ soundtrack of the year? (I’m listening to it as I write out this list) I know, that might be hard to believe with Fallout re-introducing the Ink Spots on the radio to us for the third game in a row. Undertale is a magical adventure, a tale of discrimination and misconceptions, that has a very meta element lurking beneath its surface. It’s one of those things you just have to play to understand. And for the love of god, do not kill anyone… Unless that’s really your thing.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PC, PS4, XB1)
I personally feel as though Witcher 3 stands as the sterling example of what this new generation of RPGs could be. There is a ton of careful detail that went into crafting the Witcher 3’s world. Each and every quest, down to some of the minor experience bag grabs it would spit at you, felt like it was adding just a little bit more to the world. These weren’t simple “Go and get seven of this thing” or “Go here and kill the thing” quests, though you had a couple of those as well. Quests wanted me to comb the area, pay attention to detail, apply a modicum of critical thinking and weight my options of approach. In fact the world was so rich I was disappointed when an NPC had nothing to tell me. This is a compliment to the Witcher 3, as most RPGs just have me regard NPCs as set decoration rather than potentially interactive components. Though a lot of the combat in Witcher 3 is just hack and slash, it feels as though the strategy in the game is in your forward prep. How well or poorly you do is directly correlated to how well you prepare and asked you to really investigate and know your enemies beforehand. Little tricks the game would pull, Geralt growing a beard with the passage of time for example, just made the world feel that much richer. It’s a AAA RPG that tells us AAA RPGs don’t have to be lazy slaughter fests. Witcher 3 had a bad habit of making other RPGs that came out this year, even ones that came out after it, look like archaic, sluggish entries. It is notable that this year gave us a bit of a “Silver Age” of RPGs, but several of them simply felt hollow, or were trapped by the limitations of the indie route. If game developers take even half the lessons from Witcher 3, it’s possible to return to return the entire RPG genre to its richer origins.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PC, PS4, XB1)
Metal Gear Solid V is to Stealth what Witcher 3 is to RPGs. The release of this game made every stealth game before it, and even titles that came after it, feel archaic, hollow and backwards. The stealth mechanics in this title were not only top notch, it felt like a case “well why didn’t we think of this earlier?” Similar to the Witcher 3, I really hope game developers perk up and take note of everything Phantom Pain did right. Now Phantom Pain did do things wrong as well, the story mostly, some of the environments leave a lot to be desired, and the last third of the game resorts to the same “Repeat a mission” mechanic that I think exactly no one loved when it happened in Peace Walker. That out the way I can’t deny how much fun I had with this game’s sandbox and the various toys it gave Snake to play with in the field, weird rental price attached to it or not. From using my buddies, pinning down a guy while I had Quiet snipe him to sleep for example (that’s how sniping works) or galloping about on D Horse. To calling in airstrikes, to cold clocking animals and putting sexy women on cardboard boxes to utilize as oddly effective distractions, it was just a blast to play around in Phantom Pain’s slightly anachronistic version of the 1980s. Shame about that whole bit of nastiness with Kojima and Konami behind the scenes though.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (PC, PS4, XB1)
Cynicism towards games is probably my theme this year, and in some ways it was a year that warranted it, from the Assassin’s Creed Syndicate cash in to lackluster Life is Strange and Game of Thrones endings, to titles like Fallout deciding they needed to ditch their pesky “Role Playing Game” mechanic. Part of my dripping pessimism towards games includes knowing first person shooters will either ditch their campaigns entirely, or just design the campaign as a glorified demo for all the cool stuff you’ll eventually do in multiplayer. Black ops 3 shocked me with what I thought was a pretty strong campaign. Okay, the voice acting left something to be desired, save for Christopher Meloni who delivered as the game’s main villain. Otherwise, Black Ops 3 had a pretty decent Terminator 2/Ghost in the Shell esque plot. Co-op was a lot of fun, especially given you and your team could mix and match various “Cyber Core” powers that allowed you a range of abilities from setting things on fire to hacking robots. Most quizzically and most pleasingly, Black Ops 3 had a few honest to goodness boss fights. Metal Gear couldn’t be bothered, Fallout couldn’t be bothered, Arkham couldn’t be bothered, but here’s Call of Duty requiring you use things like “strategy” and “pattern recognition” to beat the big bad. Multiplayer and Zombies were countless hours of fun too and though it’s mostly the same old Call of Duty gameplay the new freerunning mechanic at least managed to mix matches. If you used your wall run right you could easily get behind an enemy, if you didn’t you would make yourself an easy target, and it added a new layer of fun and challenge to the game’s multi maps.
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