The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Sixteen was in many ways a year in which many of the pressures and trends of the past decade are starting to come to a head. Most action adventure open world games, which dominated the bulk of game releases, were met with an overwhelming “meh” by consumers, despite the fact that most of them weren’t bad, just kind of tired. RPG’s from AAA companies were all but absent in 2016, and the ones that were released, while good, had issues and drawbacks that kept them from reaching true greatness. While having the best level layout and excellent gameplay, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided had enough going against it that I feel it was not GOTY material despite any personal enjoyment I derived from it. Rather it was up to unexpected indies to provide the quality in those genres. It was also a great year for strategy games. But I think the headline for 2016 is one that everyone can easily agree with: first person shooters are fun again. The era of “realistic” military shooters is over. Long live arena shooters!
XCOM 2
The original game was a slow, thoughtful game of defensive strategy and cowering behind cover while waiting for the enemy to come to you. And despite quickly becoming a classic, Firaxis hated that. So when it came time to make XCOM 2, they decided to hold the player’s feet to the fire. Just about everything in the game has a timer. From most of the missions, to the sinister Avatar Project timer that looms over you through the entire play through. Everything is more extreme in XCOM 2. Your enemies are more powerful. But your soldiers are far more capable, and the kind of technology you are able to get makes you more than a match for them. The new narrative hook, the idea of XCOM not as a military elite unit funded by all governments, but as a scrappy band of resistance fighters, works really well with the game play of the series, and it largely helps explains a lot of the compromises that the player is asked to make in this game. It has some performance issues, and the launch was rocky, but on a year that saw excellent strategy games, XCOM 2 was definitely the best of them.
Tyranny (PC)
2016 was a slow year for RPG’s in the AAA space, but thankfully, the indies stepped up to fill that void. Tyranny looked like a re-skin of Pillars of Eternity when I started to play it. However, the more I played the more I liked it. This game has perhaps more reactivity than most role playing games have had in a long time. There are entire missions and entire outcomes that change depending on which choices you make. The game will bring back decisions you made ages ago, and often in ways that are unexpected. And all of this happens without a tired or boring morality system. While it was short in one play-through, this is the type of game that begs to be played more than once to see all the content. The setting and concept are unique too. Taking place in the late bronze age, and putting you in charge of coordinating an invasion for an evil tyrant, give Tyranny more than enough flavor to stand out from the avalanche of other medieval RPG’s that are out there. It is also a game that has not only memorable battle, but smart, compelling dialogue challenges that can be as tactical and nerve wrecking as any big boss fight. A flawed marvel, but a marvel non-the-less.
Masquerada (PC)
If Tyranny is an example of the virtues of branching story telling, Masquerada is a shinning example of what a tightly, controlled linear narrative can do for a game. Masquerada is probably the best narrative experience I have played in a long time. It has a wonderful story, great, well written characters, and a well thought out, fully realized setting that is rarely explored by video games. Masquerada also shows what this can mean for gameplay, showing consistent, challenging gameplay that demands that the players learn its mechanics. It is not possible to simply brute force your way through this game by grinding levels. And this feels like a great addition to genre which very often feels like it expects the player to deal with challenge by just grinding for a few hours. Add to this a wonderful art style that is wonderfully animated, and some of the best voice acting in a long time, and Masquerada is a compelling package I would recommend to anyone with the slightest interest in RPG’s.
Overwatch (PC, PS4, XB1)
Without a doubt, Overwatch is the game that I have played the most in 2016. And I didn’t even buy it at launch. It took a while for me to warm up to the idea of buying the game. It seemed like a bad attempt at mixing up a MOBA with team fortress. But thankfully I was mistaken. Overwatch is great. It has a great cast of characters, along with lore that you can get involved into at your leisure. Do you want to know everything? There are new comics, videos, and details coming out all the time, as well as in game details added to the game that will slowly reveal the lore and the story. Do you not care at all? then you don’t have to know anything to start playing the game. This game has taken Splatoon’s place in my rotation as the game I play to relax when I want some challenge but don’t want to think too much. The relatively short match times really make it the type of game you love to play just for a quick session of gaming. With continued support and new content added often, I think it is safe to say that Overwatch will probably remain in people’s roation for a while.
Doom (PC, PS4, XB1)
If you’d told me at the beginning of 2016 that the new Doom game would not only be good, but that it would be an industry revelation, I would not have believed you. It feels like Doom is filling up a need that is obvious now: people want fast paced, arena shooters once again. It was, after all, telegraphed by the success of games like Wolfenstein: The New Order, and Shadow Warrior. And even the success of games like Splatoon and Overwatch. But Doom’s success took everyone by surprise. This success was well earned, though. Gameplay is fantastic. Brutal, cathartic, fast, and dynamic. Level desing is big and sprawling. I didn’t think I would need to use a map in a shooter again, and it has some great secrets and Easter Eggs, including some old Doom levels for those who want to indulge in some nostalgia. The multiplayer, while not great is serviceable, and the snap map is a nice addition, though probably not used to its full potential. It helps that the development team kept adding content to the game for free for months after launch. It is also a fantastic game in the technical side. It runs at 1080p and 60 frame per second even on consoles, and it never once dropped a frame for me, no matter how crazy things got in the screen. Doom is a game I didn’t know I wanted so much until I got it, and I love it. I would recommend it to anyone with no reservations. It is definitely my game of the year.
