Another year has come and gone and 2015 was another year with games. Games we played; some good, some bad. In fact, a lot of them were bad. But some were good, and some of there were very good. So without further rumination, here are some good games.
Game Of Thrones (PC, PS4, XB1)
Last year I declared Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us 2014’s game of the year. And I was correct. This year Telltale came to us with another version of their iconic choice-based games this time capitalizing on the wildly popular Game of Thrones series and didn’t go as good a job in any regard. GoT feels less open-ended, less clever and generally just less fun than The Wolf Among Us.
So why is it on the Game of the Year list? Well, in spite of being an inferior product, the Telltale model is still pretty fun. Even when making choices that I could tell were sometimes just meaningless decorations on a story that’s going the same way regardless of what I do, it’s hard not to get caught up in the illusion of making decisions, and while it’s not an especially engaging Game of Thrones story, they did capture enough of the political intrigue and brutality that there’s still some of the magic to be enjoyed. Since I can’t put The Wolf Among Us on the list again, this one’s not too bad.
Fallout 4 (PC, PS4, XB1)
Fallout 4 is not a great Fallout game. In fact, it’s kind of a lousy one. It’s short on fun dialogue options, it’s top-heavy with dungeon crawling and monotonous combat and its weird Blade Runner plot doesn’t even really feel true to the Fallout world. I don’t even think I could bang a prostitute. What the hell is that?
So how did this one get on the list? I can’t lie, despite being a bad Fallout game it’s still a pretty good game. The 150+ hours I put into the game can attest to that. It’s a tragedy that the one Fallout we’ll likely get for the next several years doesn’t scratch the itch you look to this series to reach, but I think if we called this game “Radioactive Guy” we would all think it was pretty sweet.
Rebel Galaxy (PC)
I didn’t exactly have an unlimited well of nice things to say about Rebel Galaxy either (This year required some compromise), it is the first game on my list that really felt like a triumph. This is a game made by two guys and a handful of contract artists and it looks gorgeous and is a lot of fun, and I think that’s what made this pretty decent game so stand out for me. The game has some flaws, some of them that definitely got to me while I played, but in the end I walked away really liking Rebel Galaxy. I was impressed by how clearly the creator’s passion for their project shined through, even when there were flaws, and that’s something I feel like I don’t see from big studios or even a lot of indie developers.
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (PC, XB1)
This is definitely the first game on the list where I have no complaints. When we showed up at PAX I had never heard of of Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, but once I got my hands on it I was immediately impressed. Once I got the full version I was hooked. Couch co-op isn’t exactly my forte, but Lovers is the type of game where the fun is so quintessentially linked to playing with another person that there’s no way it could have been done any other way.
While everything in the game is great, there’s something I really like about how they’ve made a game that’s cute without being saccharine. This game looks like it could be a big circle jerk for Bronies and adults who like to color, and while it definitely goes all the way to adorable, it also enjoys a degree of reservation that makes the game charming. It’s nice to play a game that has childlike charm without being childish… Speaking of which.
Ori and the Blind Forest (PC, XB1)
This year’s home run of home runs, Ori and the Blind Forest was an unexpected surprise for me. A Metroidvania-style platformer really isn’t the type of game I get excited about, and going into Ori I was pretty indifferent. What I got was a title that’s perfectly challenging, absolutely gorgeous and even a little magical. Everything about the game felt so dead on, from tight platforming mechanics and fast-paced action (There’s a point where you have escape a flooding tower; I may have died over a hundred times but I loved every try), to the Disney-esque cartoon world that feels both wonderfully mystical and a little hauntingly sad.
Ori made me feel a certain innocent wonder which I used to feel playing games as a child and backed it up with some of the best gameplay that I can recall in recent years. So in the end, while 2015 didn’t even have enough games to fill a list with unforgettable titles, it did give me one that would stand out any year.
