The Annual Top XX Games of 20XX Thread

[Phinnway]

Don't usually play a lot of brand new games each year. I usually wait until they go on sale the following year, unless they are a must play like The Witcher 3 or Metal Gear Solid V. So here is my top 7 of 2015. Includes some older games I hadn't played before, or had played before but never really "discovered."

1. The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt.
2. Mount & Blade: Warband. This is an example of a game I "rediscovered" in 2015. I've never attempted a "conquer the world" campaign in Mount & Blade before. This year was the closest I've come to finishing one.
3. Metal Gear Solid V. I don't need to mention how awful the plot is. Nevertheless, the core gameplay is fantastic IMO. It deserved a better context tho.
4. Pillars of Eternity. Never finished this (I have a bad streak with CRPGs). But I liked what I played a lot. Looking forwards to finishing it. in 2016
5. Dawn of War. Loved Dawn of War. Played the campaign and experimented around with the multiplayer quite a bit. Probably my favorite RTS I've played in years.
6. Diablo 3. They released enough updates to peak my interest again. Kept me entertained my many, many hours.
7. Age of Wonders 3. Loved this game.

So that's my list of top games of 2015. Call me boring for not trying out too many new games, but there it is.

A few special categories...

Best FPS - Battlefield Bad Company 2. Bought this last Dec. Still has an active multiplayer community.
Best RPG - Pillars of Eternity. Sorry CD Projekt RED.
Best Strategy - Dawn of War.
Best Action - Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. Didn't beat it, but the action is great.
Best Game I Bought And Never Touched - Elder Scrolls: Morrowind.
Best Alpha / Early Access Game - Star Citizen. It's embarrassing, I know.
Overall GOTY - The Witcher 3. No contest.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

My list:

1. Pillars of Eternity.
2. Grim Fandango Remastered (never played the original).
3. Shadow Warrior (Linux release).
4. Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic [in Wine]. (not really a 2015 release, I'm just playing it for the first time ).
5. Armikrog [I'm a backer] (I see @schinderhannes.999 included it as well ).

As usual, I play only DRM-free games that are playable on Linux. So I had to skip TW3 (until the Linux version will come out). Also, while Divinity: Original Sin for Linux came out right before the end of 2015, I just didn't have a chance to play it yet, otherwise it possibly could be in the list too.

---------- Updated at 10:41 PM ----------

Best Alpha / Early Access Game - Star Citizen. It's embarrassing, I know.

Embarrassing that it's alpha or that it's Star Citizen? The game itself seems quite promising.

 

[Guest 3847602]

1. The Witcher 3
2. Pillars of Eternity
3. Transformers: Devastation

 

[Phinnway]

Embarrassing that it's alpha or that it's Star Citizen? The game itself seems quite promising.

Embarrassing because I literally paid money to beta test a game. On top of that, it's still very much in alpha stages of development, and we still have no clue when it's coming out.

 

[M4xw0lf]

I'm not putting up a ranking, since I only played TW3 and Pillars of Eternity. Those two sure are among the greatest games of the last few years. Currently I'm replaying PoE, and it's a ton of fun, again. I dream of an AAA-sized game based on the RP foundations that Obsidian laid down there, all those different reputation systems for the various cities and factions and most of all your character reputations... great stuff.

 

[Arvuti]

1. Witcher 3 - Probably one of my new all time favourite games, has it's flaws but that doesn't distract from the overall amazing experience.

2. Life is strange - Obviously not for everyone, people might be put off by the "cringy dialogue" but it's one of the few times where I actually have gotten attached to characters in a video game. Amazing art style, great licensed soundtrack also add to the overall experience.

3. SOMA - A game that unfortunately kinda flew under the radar, when it was approaching release it didn't have much hype surrounding it for some odd reason, despite being by the creators of the very popular amnesia: the dark descent. Anyways, amazing setting, easily the best story of the year, kinda let down by dumbing down of game mechanics and it not being as scary as amnesia. Eitherway it was quite a terrifying experience.

4. Fallout 4 - Bad RPG, fun open world shooter. Dumbed down dialogue is a shame, the writing was a big improvement over bethesda's previous work, but it was still pretty weak. The strengths of fallout 4 easily come from the amazing looking world that they built which was a blast to explore, it's just a shame that the engine this game was running on was literally put together with glue and duct tape.

5. Grand Theft Auto V PC - To be honest I am rating this so low just because it's technically a game from 2013...but still, really stunning game with an amazingly alive open world. I haven't played through the story mode yet, but so far it's been miles better than GTA IV. Online is also very fun to play around with your friends, eventhough if you want to actually buy things you have to grind like crazy or pay real money... tsk tsk. Doesn't stop this from being an amazing game though.

 

[schinderhannes.999]

01. Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
02. Inside
03. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine
04. Superhot
05. The Banner Saga 2
06. Owlboy
07. Darkest Dungeon
08. Zombie Night Terror
09. Grim Dawn
10. Hyper Light Drifter


Honourable mentions:

Dungeon Rats
Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire
This is the Police
Aragami
Shadwen
Event[0]
Obduction
Okhlos
The Dwarves
Necropolis
Doom (2016)
The Witness


Dishonourable mentions:

Tyranny
- Kyros demands (and deserves) way better than this short, lacking and streamlined to hell and back glimpse on what otherwise could, as a whole have rivaled, or even surpass Pillars of Eternity had Obsidian/Paradox not wasted that opportunity.

Shadow Warrior 2
- FWH's very admirable anti-DRM stance and 'no compromises, PC-first' mentality aside - Shadow Warrior 2 would have worked so much better as a multiplayer-centric stand-alone instead of a direct sequel to the excellent first installment of the rebooted franchise.

And again basically all titles that the respective developers/publishers in their great naiveté and short-sightedness decided to stain with the integration of Denuvo (except for Inside and recently Doom that rehabilitated themselves somewhat by having it removed since then). Turns out that a few of those titles (in particular Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Dishonored 2) also had and still have all sorts of other issues even Denuvo seems the lesser evil in comparison.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Best games that I played in 2016?
* The Dwarves.
* Dragon Age: Origins (Wine).

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is another good one, though I just bought it and didn't have a chance to play it properly yet.
Tyranny is probably good, but I'm waiting for major bug fixes there before playing, so it won't count in 2016.

There was quite a list of disappointments with failed Linux releases, so obviously I'm not counting those.

 

[227]

Is this thread going to become a yearly tradition or something? I'm down.

Firewatch had solid voice acting and was almost good, but the story got lame and indie-pretentious, ruining the whole thing

Tyranny was fun, but having a bazillion different paths doesn't matter if none of them have endings

I Am Setsuna got close to greatness by nicking Chrono Trigger's combat, but the writing was (mostly) awful and it's never a good sign when you want to garrote the title character

Fire Emblem Fates pretty much destroyed my interest in my favorite series with some of the most inane plot contrivances imaginable, and random changes ruined the gameplay

Dreamfall Chapters is easily one of the worst games I've ever played in my entire life and everyone involved should be banned from gaming forevermore

Blood and Wine was decent enough. Vivienne was the only character I actually liked, though, and it felt like a better ending for book readers than those who were into the games. And there's some plot stuff that still bugs me.

Pretty much everything else I was interested in had Denuvo, which is an insta-ignore, but I had decent luck digging into the backlog and finding gems missed from years past. Super Panda Adventures, the Shantae games, Chronicles of Mystara, and Lost Horizon were all great enough to make up for the piles of trash released this year.

 

[Sunsibar]

Now, what did I play during the year 2016?

• Witcher 3
• Bravely Second. I love that series, it's battle system and different jobs and combinations of those. Story isn't that special, but it's still one of my favorite games. That battle system is just genius if you like turn based combat at all.
• Witcher 3
• Witcher 3
• Gwent beta
• Started FF15 but can't say anything about it yet. I'm still very early in that game. So far battle system seems to be more comfortable than in two previous games. And moving around more annoying than in any previous games, but like I said, this might improve while I progress more.

Did I already mention Witcher 3? (Which is still work in progress, BAW completed only 3 times and investigating more endings)

Spoiler

Also in the middle of Vampire Bloodlines and Witcher 1, but those aren't 2016 games in any way...

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Also in the middle of Vampire Bloodlines and Witcher 1, but those aren't 2016 games in any way...

They are for you, since you are playing them for the first time. The thread is about yearly experience, not about when games were released.

 

[Phinnway]

Top games of 2016....

#1 Pillars of Eternity
Still have not beaten this game, but I love it! Definitely one of my favorite RPGs.

#2 Shadow Warrior (2013)
Just started playing this recently, and I love it! The best shooter I have played in a loooooong time.

#3 Star Citizen
Sadly, or ironically (take your pick), I spent more time playing this "game" than any other game this year. Star Citizen's alpha kept me entertained for a long time. The fact that it kept getting updated made it easy to keep coming back to see the new things they added. I'll probably continue to play it in 2017.

#4 Spec Ops: The Line
Really enjoyed this one. It has a good story. Only takes around 7 hours to beat, but those 7 hours are very enjoyable. Worth picking up on sale.

Honorable mentions: Dark Souls 1, Dragon's Dogma, Wolfenstein: New Order, TW3: Blood & Wine. Spent some time in these games, but didn't get invested.

Biggest Disappointments of 2016...

Stellaris
Bought this game to play with my brother. He didn't like it Maybe it will be good two years from now after $60 worth of DLC. :dry:

Civilization 6
Bought this game to play with my kid sister. She decided she likes Civ 5 better, and I agree with her. Frankly, Civilization 6 sucks in its current state.

 

[volsung]

I didn't play as much as I used to, but thoroughly enjoyed TW3 Blood and Wine. Non-2016 games I liked include Shadowrun Hong Kong (I think I played it this year?), Broken Sword 2, Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor, Technobabylon, Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition, Shadowgate Special Edition, Stasis, Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniv. Edition, half a replay of Pillars of Eternity and Brutal Legend.

That's quite a list actually. Those remakes of classic adventure games are awesome by the way. And the Enhanced Editions of BG are *gasp* surprisingly GOOD! Can't comment on the new characters, completely ignored them!

2016 games I want to play ASAP would be The Dwarves, Shadow Tactics, Tyranny and Shadow Warrior 2.

Lately I just don't feel like paying more than $25 for a game. Most of the time they're not worth it.

 

[M4xw0lf]

All the 2016 games I played are my 2016 top games.

The LIST:

1. Blood and Wine

2. Tyranny


The END

 

[Rawls]

I played three new games (or expansions) last year. Ranking them is fairly easy:

1. Witcher 3: Blood & WIne Expansion (excellent)
2. Uncharted 4 (excellent)
3. Stellaris (mildly disappointing ... but still decent)

I also replayed the TW3 base game + HoS Expansion, the ME Trilogy, DA:I, & The Last of Us. It was kind of a down year for gaming in my opinion honestly.

 

[Guest 3847602]

Not much to chose from, only played 2 games last year:

The winner: Dirt Rally
2nd best: Dark Souls 3

All the games I was looking forward the most in 2016. (Kingdom Come: Deliverance, South Park: TFBW, Tides of Numenera, M&B Bannerlord) got delayed for 2017, sadly.