The Best Games Of 2016 – Trevor’s Picks - Enemy Slime

The Best Games Of 2016 – Trevor’s Picks

Shiny gems in a less than stellar year.

Editorial

Its 2017 but we are rolling out our picks for GOTY 2016. Honestly, I don’t feel like it was a fantastic year for the gaming community. There were great games for sure and you will be a chance to see my top picks below, but overall there seemed to be a lot of disappointments and general lack of awe inspiring games. I played the Last of Us for my third time this year (third time total ever, not my third time this year) and I would put that game on this list if I could because it is that good and we haven’t gotten a game of that caliber this year…. or even close. Jared asked me for five games to nominate for game of the year, but I could only come up with four that I could nominate in good conscience. Below are my picks and I am not ashamed that Blizzard games make up 50% of my picks, they just seem to publish quality polished content.

Overwatch (PC, PS4, XB1)

It seems like there isn’t much competition this year when you consider Blizzard’s smash hit Overwatch. As of this writing, the game has amassed 25 million accounts and it continues to grow. The gameplay is easy to learn and hard to master. Team strategy, great maps, interesting characters and fun holiday events make this game hard to top. What more is there really to say about this game, if you don’t know about it you are living under a rock and if you don’t own it yet you should.

Stardew Valley (PC, PS4, XB1)

This indie surprise has captured the hearts of many with its retro graphics and in depth gameplay. Bringing back childhood memories of playing Harvest Moon mixed with a little bit of Minecraft and you have yourself a winning formula. On the surface it doesn’t seem like a game most would like, I mean you are a farmer and you farm and build your farm up into a giant farm….that is basically the game in a nutshell. However, once you start it is so difficult to stop. The possibilities of which crop you would like to farm or which animals you would like to raise along with the intricacies of the time of year that factor into your crops or the amount of time it takes for them to grow. There is also the mining portion of the game and the story and characters that it brings to life. Not to mention a really pretty price tag of under $20. This indie game really deserves its place among the best games of 2016 and I think this game will continue to be a must have for gamers that enjoy all genres for some time to come.

Total War: Warhammer (PC)

This is kind of a niche pick of mine. The Total War franchise was stale for quite some time after the Rome Total War game first came out. Then the developers came out with the wonderful idea to finally mix some fantasy into their game in a franchise that has been historically based around realistic and historic combat. The outcome was amazing where you can battle the hearty Dwarves against the brutish Orcs in large scale battles with thousands of warriors to control at your fingertips. Magic wielding mages to devastate enemy lines and turn the tide of battle or goblin bat riders to swoop in on top of your foes never felt so satisfying. The strategy that comes from building your base and army along with the diplomacy and alliance building to help control the map really brings the fantasy world to life. If there is any downside it is that Sega insists on dripping content out at expensive prices, per usual with the Total War franchise, such as “extreme blood packs” you pay $8 to add gore to the game which is something that should be included from the start.

World Of Warcraft: Legion. (PC)

As the Enemy Slime in-house Blizzard fanboy it should not come as a surprise that I would like to add the newest World of Warcraft expansion to my list of top games this year. Legion really brought World of Warcraft back to life and brought back millions of players that had been away from the game for so long. The new systems they put in like the artifact weapons, the re-balancing of PvP, the mythic plus dungeons, class halls, and world quests were all a part of what the development team did to bring the game back to a great place where gamers could enjoy the game they fell in love with over a decade ago. I’m not claiming that it is as good as WoW was back in the vanilla or Burning Crusade days, but for the first time in years WoW is fun again.