2015's Games of the Year?

[Sno]

So i have some big gaps in what i played this year, i ended up skipping over both Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 for example, but both are games i'll probably eventually get around to. What i did play this year was a whole lot of Nintendo-system games, with more draw and focus than usual, and while i find Nintendo usually has one or two games that feel like they could contend for being my personal game of the year, i feel like they've actually had an unusually excellent year. Particularly, while the 3DS has been reasonably strong as it often is, i feel like this was actually the year that finally justified the Wii U's existence, and that it did it in a way that is easy to push and recommend.

So yeah, I'll do a list of five.

5 - Xenoblade Chronicles X / Wii U - Xenoblade Cross is very much a game that is in progress for me, i'm still making my way through it, but i've already played a significant deal of it and like what i've played enough to guarantee at least this spot on the list. Not all of its systems work out, but most of them do, and its environments are gorgeous, diverse, and densely populated with things to be engaged by. Compared to its predecessor, a game i would count among my favorite RPG's, i think Cross is a messier and less charismatic production, but it's unrestrained and enormous on such an astronomical scale that it's hard to believe it exists at all. Xenoblade Cross possesses kind of an undeniable attraction in its boundless ambition, it's a game that at times makes even Bethesda's efforts seem small and constrained.

4 - Soma / Steam - Most of the PC games i did play this year haven't stuck with me the way Soma has. It's disruptive, upsetting and ambitious as a narrative, while showing tremendous restraint as a horror game, presenting actually an almost adventure-game like focus in its mechanics and presentation, pacing itself so that you're forced to dwell on the conversation it wants to have. I think it's a brilliant little piece of sci-fi horror and i can't recommend it enough.

3 - Super Mario Maker / Wii U - Super Mario Maker is brilliant. Nintendo has cleanly avoided the pitfalls of similar products not just by couching it in time-tested Nintendo know-how regarding its Mario franchise, but in presenting a set of level construction tools that is almost primal in its simplicity, and irresistible in its ability to engage a creative drive. I'm also quite impressed to see Nintendo actively pursuing solutions for the package's few lingering failings, especially concerning discoverability.

2 - Splatoon / Wii U - I honestly wasn't expecting anything out of this, it was not the game i bought a Wii U to play, and it was not even a game i thought Nintendo could really deliver on. I decided to give it a chance though, i enjoyed the demo with some reservations, and the overall buzz around the game was kind of tepidly positive. So i started playing it, and then i kept playing it, and i'm still playing it. I think Splatoon is the most fun i've had with a competitive shooter since Halo 3, there is an incredibly strong core here. Splatoon still wouldn't be up this far on this list though, if it wasn't for the outright strange amount of free post-release support Nintendo has done for the game, far beyond what was allegedly just on the disc waiting to be unlocked. Splatoon has grown out into an absolutely terrific, enormous game beyond what could have been realistically expected from it at its release.

1 - Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate / 3DS - I still don't know if what changed was Monster Hunter or me, my ultimate suspicion is that it's a bit of both. I feel like MH4u is the game that has most fully realized its own insane design ideals, while western players in a post-Dark Souls world are more understanding of the pace and flow its combat is meant to move with and how that active combat plays off of other systems in the game. Regardless of whether my time with the game was a product of refinement or zeitgeist, MH4u was an incredible experience. It was one of the most thoroughly engaging and engrossing action RPG's i've ever played, and after a few prior false starts, i think i'm now fully on board for the future of this series.

Looking at all of what came out, including things i played and did not play, i can't help but feel like 2015 was a pretty damn spectacular year for video games.

A few honorable mentions:

Fast Racing Neo / Wii U - Now this is more like it, this is the kind of ridiculous arcade racing i've been losing my mind waiting for. FRN is sexy, so fast, and goddamned hard. Please, everybody buy this, i would like to see this particular genre return.

Grey Goo / Steam - Grey Goo kind of got a raw deal when it came out, it had some issues at first, but it didn't really even get rattled for that. The game was simply met with apathy, despite being a pretty genuinely terrific RTS throwback for the neglected C&C crowd.

Majora's Mask 3D / 3DS - The most interesting Zelda game got a pretty damn solid port. I don't think there's much more to say here, everybody's already made up their mind on this game. (It's awesome.)

Zenzizenzic / Steam - A really pretty ace bullet hell shooter that is tightly designed and incredibly stylish in equal measure. There's a roguelite mode in there too, but it was kind of busted, and the score attack is the thing you're there for anyways.

The 2014 game of 2015:

D4 / Steam - The PC port came out earlier this year and i liked it quite an awful lot, it felt like a pretty worthy follow-up to Deadly Premonition's brand of zaniness, so i will be intensely sad if the subsequent episodes don't ever happen.

 

Game of the forever:

 

Dota 2 / Steam - Dota 2, oh how i can't stop hating you.

 

My favorite piece of DLC:

 

The Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna / Steam - It can come across as more of the same, and it honestly would be if not for how it uses a distinctly different narrative style and an eminently familiar context to explore the themes of the core game from new angles. In doing that, it stands pretty tall, i think. I really loved it.

Things i wish weren't exclusive:

Bloodborne / PS4
Halo 5 / XBO

 

Anyways, so how about all of you?

[Ben X]

THE SWINDLE 

 

I'm mainly posting this so I can have "most recent post" on all four boards, but also because it's an ace game. Spoiler tagged for the people who are sick of me going on about it:

 

Full of character and very well balanced (imo - many would disagree). As long as you accept that it is not a big deal to fail, that the upgrade curve is unusual (it takes a while to start picking up loads of cash per level and gain a few safety nets, but once you hit that point the player power exponentially opens up), and that by design you are not able to 100% all things all the time, it's very enjoyable and addictive.

 

Also: Quake.

[JamesGoblin]

5.Chess, offline (Yes, that's how little the market has to offer me ATM).

 

4.Fallout 4 - this one might rise to even higher positions over time.

 

3.Elder Scrolls Online - Cyrodiil, PvP and stuff...say no more =)

 

2.Vanilla WoW - yes, the glasses are colored rose, shiny fluorescent neon rose <3

 

1.Warhammer Online - "But, it was shut down in 2013??" - Yes, it was...

 

 

THE SWINDLE 

 

I'm mainly posting this so I can have "most recent post" on all four boards, but also because it's an ace game. Spoiler tagged for the people who are sick of me going on about it:

 

Full of character and very well balanced (imo - many would disagree). As long as you accept that it is not a big deal to fail, that the upgrade curve is unusual (it takes a while to start picking up loads of cash per level and gain a few safety nets, but once you hit that point the player power exponentially opens up), and that by design you are not able to 100% all things all the time, it's very enjoyable and addictive.

 

Also: Quake.

 

I like the spoiler idea very much, an excellent way to protect others from myself <3

 

Bookmarked!

[Patrick R]

I played two 2015 games this year. That said, they were Downwell and Undertale, which are both great.

[Ninety-Three]

If 2014 was the Year of Meh, for me 2015 was the year of "I hate your Game of the Year". I could make a top 10 list of games I hated that made everyone's top ten lists.

 

I made a top 4, because filling out arbitrarily-sized lists is silly. I thought about it and there are exactly four games I found special enough to mention.

 

4. Infinifactory Zachtronics continues to deliver its "Engineering in a game-shaped package" games, and I continue to be exactly their target audience. Spacechem felt more engineery than Codex of Alchemical Engineering (where you would often have to scrap a solution and rebuild from the ground up, rather than tweak it), the addition of 3D means Infinifactory has even more room for tweaking and engineering, I've never had to scrap an approach as unworkable. The drawback to 3D is that there are a lot more moving parts than Spacechem, I sometimes run into the problem where I know exactly what I want to build or how I want to tweak my solution, but doing so feels laborious.

 

3. Nuclear Throne I don't know how to say much about this. It's a twin-stick shooter where one playthrough lasts maybe twenty minutes, whose big innovation is random weapon drops that add a lot of variety to each play. And it's really good.

 

2. Thea: The Awakening A 4X game where instead of managing an empire, you manage one settlement populated by seven to a couple dozen people, each with their own stats and equipment to manage. What I love about it is that it's asymmetrical, rather than you vs the AI empire, it's you vs the monster-filled environment, which neatly dodges the typical 4X problem of "The AI is dumb and the difficulty settings just give it double resource production to compensate".

 

1. Sunless Sea It's not the best game I played all year, but it's the most irreplaceable. If I didn't have Nuclear Throne I'd play some other shooter, but nothing else can provide what Sunless Sea does. You know how every game is designed as a game first, and then the writers come in and put a story on top of the video game? Sunless Sea is the only game where it comes across that it was first and foremost, written by professional writers, then had game mechanics added. In addition to the generally excellent writing, the game's overarching theme is about endings or "Dying well", and it really worked. Whenever I finished a playthrough I'd sit back and just process the experience, like after a really interesting book or movie.

 

I'll end on this quote from the game's postmortem, because atmosphere is very important to the game.

 

Sunless Sea is a stately game. You could reasonably call it a slow game. But we’ve resisted speeding up the ship, because it would reduce the tension, the sense of space and distance, and the menace of the dark. I think it’s quite possible that if the ship was 50% faster, the game would be more fun and less grindy - but I also think there’s an invisible line we’d cross, somewhere before that 50%, where the atmosphere was diminished without anyone quite knowing why.

[jennegatron]

My top 3 of 2015:

3. Cibele - I love when honest stories about women get the room to be told, and this one was particularly relatable to me. I love the desktop simulator as genre, and loved the care put into faithfully recreating young relationships especially those that take place primarily online.

2. Contradiction - I think this game was hurt by its poor UI choices initially. By the time I played it, that had all settled. A fantastic experience to play with a friend or romantic partner over 1 - 2 play sessions. Made me laugh a lot, had a great, fun core gameplay loop. Highly recommended.

1. Dropsy - I've gone on at length to anyone that will listen about why I love this game so much. I think it has some of the best puzzles adventure games have to offer, has a huge heart and cares so much about its characters. There are a few story details that can be hard to decipher (which was extremely fun for me to puzzle over after I completed the game.) Thsis game is now out on iPad! Please everyone play it. (There's a free DLC/content patch coming soon after the new year also.)

[Dragonfliet]

My top games this year are in no particular order, and are quite a hodgepodge, which makes ranking them, even for something as arbitrary as my preferences this year, even more worthless.

 

Ori and the Blind Forest -- Very good platforming, and gorgeous art makes this just work SO WELL for me.

Invisible Inc -- While the art is also incredible, the xcom stealth gameplay is just so damned perfect it hurts.

Fallout 4 -- I don't really believe myself when I say that this is one of my favorites, as it's really just FO3 but a little bit more, but this game made me neglect grad school so I could loot another house and kill some more ghouls. It fulfills an itch in such a great way that I am sold.

The Witcher 3 -- Incredible Writing, beautiful, greatly improved gameplay and an open world that actually feels like a logical, consisent world, with quests that are surprisingly fun to complete. 

Undertale -- What a clever, fun take on an old genre. I hate the way it looks, but stop caring 10 minutes in.

 

I missed some big ones this year, still haven't played Pillars of Eternity, Satellite Reigns, the new Assassin's Creed or Halo, or MGS 5, etc. Which is a shame. I would catch up on some of those if I weren't still roaming around the wasteland in FO4 like a goddamned addict.

[elmuerte]

Fallout 4 is by far my GOTY of the year. 148 hours on record and I'm still not bored to play it.

 

Other great games of this year would be:

Tales from the Borderlands. Even if you don't like Borderlands this can be a fun telltale story.

Sunset, my favorite walking simulator of this year.

 

Just Cause 3 is missing from this list, because even though I bought it at release I haven't played it yet (due to Fallout 4).

[SuperBiasedMan]

I can't do a list as I'm just on my phone but number 1 is unquestionably Undertale. It gave me everything I want from a game, and tackled a thematic message that's been terribly neglected in games for so long.

It's not for everyone, but I think everybody should try the demo of this weird upstart. (I also apologise for the rampant fandom)

[jennegatron]

If you like Undertale, but also like point & click adventures, try Dropsy.

If you like Dropsy, but don't mind a little bullet hell gameplay, try Undertale!
Those 2 games have a lot in common when it comes to themes of love and compassion and forgiveness! It's a shame they came out so close together.

[Badfinger]

There were so many good games this year.

 

Cities: Skylines

Helldivers

Ori And The Blind Forest

Pillars of Eternity

Axiom Verge

Crypt of the Necrodancer

Nuclear Throne

Her Story

Rocket League

Fallout 4

 

but the game of the year, and would have been in so many years is Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. So, sooooo good. GOTD

 

And I haven't even (for various reasons) played The Swindle, Invisible, Inc., Undertale, MGS V, Starcraft LOTV, AC: Syndicate, Rebel Galaxy, Beginner's Guide, so much less 80 Days than it deserved, Lara Croft Go, and a lot of other stuff.

 

What a good year for video games holy crap.

[Erkki]

Surely it should say Gamse in the title? I feel even less than last year that I have any business making this list... I've played so little. I think most game time went to The Witcher 3 and Mad Max.

 

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt -- even though in hindsight I can think up many faults for it, at the time of playing it felt really refreshing, the best open world RPG that I've played to date.

 

2. SOMA -- what an excellent next title from Frictional and still keeping with their own trademark style. One of the best sci-fi stories told in games.

 

3. The Talos Principle -- I didn't finish it yet, but am impressed so far.

 

4. TIS-100 -- writing assembler is cool again!

 

5. Life is Strange

 

Runner-ups/good games, but not great:

 

Mad Max, Broken Age, Feist

 

And of course there are a ton I wish I would have played but didn't.

 

PS. It feels like Steam really should help me remember by having a list of recently played games where I could select how long I want to go back (e.g. "Games I've played <since 01-01-2015>"). Anyone know if this exists, maybe as a 3rd party service?

 

[edit]Wuxtry, Wuxtry, as a bonus category, mobile gamse of the year: Alto's Adventure! That shit is awesome and a real challenge compared to most modern games. I spent 2 weeks trying to conquer the last level, until got a hint to try on the iPad instead of the iPhone, and then solved it on the first try.

[Erkki]

To answer my own question, it is possible to get a longer list of recently played games in Steam: go to library, the list view with columns, sort by last played (or whatever the english column name). Unfortunately having lots of categories like I do will be a hindrance here as each category will have it's own sorting.

 

[edit] And I did actually find a couple of more I had played for any longer period and enjoyed, but not really gamse of the year: Gravity Ghost, Grow Home, The Beginner's Guide. Actually Grow Home should have been on my list. That's a really unique little thing and is fun to 100%, except one annoying achievement.

[Ninety-Three]

4. TIS-100 -- writing assembler is cool again!

 

Writing assembler was never cool.

[Smart Jason]

As of now I still have Undertale and Else Heart Break sitting in my queue. It would be a pleasant surprise if they upended my top bunch, but I've got my doubts.

 

I preferred 2014 to 2015 on the whole (with 2013 being so much better in class than any in its vicinity that it's pathetic), so Life is Strange gets the win almost by default for checking the boxes of what I want most in a game (contemporary setting, non-violent plot, choice-driven narrative, etc.) without really raising the bar in any particular area. Likewise, Fallout 4 would have been my de facto second on account of its reliably large, explorable world and all the other good things a Fallout game does, delivered without major disappointment.

 

However, I want to make special mention of the fact that I got a PlayStation 4 for Christmas, mostly looking ahead toward Persona 5 (and a few other things, but if I'm really being honest, Persona 5). To make the purchase seem justifiable at the moment, I picked up Until Dawn, whose sleeper hit reviews intrigued me. I've not finished it yet (and, in fact, I'm now holding off on playing it because I'm doing so with my father - and the denial of it is likely making it even more succulent to me), but I have to say I'm extremely impressed. Obviously the comparisons to Quantic Dream titles (of which I'm an outspoken fan) come easily, and while it's deliberately not a stellar drama, there's a charm in how campy and derivative it is as well - although admittedly there are limits to that charm.

 

I love that the game attempts to (or at least makes the player think that it) systemize not only the emotional state and relationships between the characters, but the collectible clues you find. I love that you can track the choices you make and their effects like any other section of your inventory - it doesn't subtract from the immersion of the game, it actually adds to the layer of dehumanizing, voyeuristic cynicism fundamental to slasher films. The totem system is a brilliant hint guide at first glance, turning arbitrary choices into meaningful ones. I would actually say that I love the sheer mechanics of the game so much that I'll miss them more than anything when the game is over; it's too bad this isn't the narrative game blueprint being constantly recycled by Telltale.

 

I would say it very quickly eclipsed Fallout 4 as my second favorite game of the year. I've been saying that until I started writing this post. Now, once again, that denied urge to play it more is getting to me and I want to say that, based on how it ends, how I optimistically believe you'll be able to replay it for variety, trophies, choices, etc., it may just be my favorite. But that could be the fact that I haven't totally devoured it in one sitting speaking. I'll have to come back to this post later. Let it be here, though; let it be said that 2015 was a lot more exciting with Until Dawn in it.

 

Here are the rest of the games I played from this year (in the order in which I started them), for the record:

 

Life is Strange (PC, 2015)

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 (PC, 2015)

Grand Theft Auto V (PC, 2015)

Rock On (iOS, 2015)

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - The Bright Lord (PC, 2015)

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PC, 2015)

Batman: Arkham Knight (PC, 2015)

Her Story (PC, 2015)

WWE 2K15 (PC, 2015)

SongPop 2 (iOS, 2015)

République Remastered (PC, 2015)

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD (PC, 2015)

Rocket League (PC, 2015)

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PC, 2015)

80 Days (PC, 2015)

Saints Row: Gat out of Hell (PC, 2015)

Fallout Shelter (iOS, 2015)

Duelyst (PC, 2015)

Fallout 4 (PC, 2015)

Until Dawn (PS4, 2015)

[Vulpes Absurda]

I wrote up my game of the year list but can't seem to get spoiler tags to work so I'll just post a link to my blog.

 

And for those who just want the list:

 

1:Bloodborne

 

2:Destiny

 

3:Fallout 4

 

4:Etrian Odyssey Untold 2: The Knight Of Fafnir

 

5/6 tie: Shadowrun: Hong Kong and Undertale

 

7:Puzzle And Dragons: Super Mario Edition

 

8:Downwell

 

9:Gravity Ghost

 

10: Steven Universe: Attack The Light

[juv3nal]

No order, but I liked Fallout 4, Her Story, The Room 3 (iOS), 80 Days, Shadowrun: Hong Kong, Hacknet, Pillars of Eternity (well the first half to 2/3 anyways), Rocket League, and Pro Evolution Soccer 2016

Destiny should be on there by amount of time played, but I only ever really enjoyed it when cooping with pals, which owing to my weird work schedule was a pretty rare thing.

[mikemariano]

If we can count expansions, my game of the year 2015 is The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth: Afterbirth.  I have done each day's Daily Run, have completed Greed Mode with every character I have unlocked, and have made this game way too much a part of my life.

 

Runner up: Shadowrun: Hong Kong.  Playing both this and Pillars of Eternity in the same year made me realize how much more I enjoy the action/reaction of turn-based RPG combat vs. the confusing rush of shapes of real-time-with-pause combat.  Harebrained Schemes is so good at storytelling through their games—I loved just walking around the docks and talking to old men playing mahjong.

 

I feel bad knocking down Shadowrun after two years (2013 and 2014) in the top spot.  It's still really good!

[aprettycooldude]

No complete order yet because I haven't really thought this through completely, but my top 3 are set in stone

Bloodborne
Mortal Kombat X

Destiny: The Taken King

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Super Mario Maker

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Rocket League

 

3. Splatoon

2. Rock Band 4

1. Undertale

[JonCole]

1. Fallout 4 - I already know that this will probably be one of my most played games in 2016 and the time I've spent with it thus far has been so excellent. 

Destiny: The Taken King - This expansion/game has a reputation for taking Destiny and making it a game that is recommendable to everyone, which is entirely true. The changes to the story make it more replayable than ever and the changes to the multiplayer meta make it far more competitive and interesting than the relatively stale HoW MP.

Until Dawn - Such a unique game with excellent motion capture, a fun teen horror theme, etc. Plus, a perfect couch co-op game to play with a friend or spouse.

Bloodborne - The first Souls-type game that really roped me in right from the beginning and it deserves no shortage of credit for that. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 - Same old COD multiplayer, but it's consistently my most liked FPS multiplayer so it practically gets on my list by obligation.

[sclpls]

Rocket League, Witcher 3, and Aviary Attorney I guess? I dunno, I thought this year was kinda weak for new games... but those games were bright spots for me.

[Zeusthecat]

I'm still mostly playing games from previous years so if we're only counting games that officially released in 2015, then my top (and only) 4 are:

1. Kerbal Space Program
2. Destiny: The Taken King
3. Rocket League
4. Super Mario Maker

My most hated game: Borderlands: The Presequel

[Bjorn]

Damn, looking at Steam...I have played almost no games that were actually released this year, or at least not enough to have a decent opinion on them (like, I played Downwell and Rocket League, but while great, neither captured me like they did some others). 

 

Bloodborne was great, though didn't end up taking over my life the way previous Souls games have.

Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth was pretty swell.

Warframe (yeah, technically out for a couple of years, but still getting regular content updates so it counts) is scratching a Mass Effect 3 MP itch better than I ever could have hoped. 

[graddy]

I have a list in order, nothing written as of yet.

13. Lara croft go

12. Heroes of the Storm

11. Beginners guide

10. Subterfuge

9. Grow home

8. Subterrarium

7. Undertale

6. Her story

5. Mario Maker

4. Rocket League

3. Downwell

2. Invisible Inc

1. Infinifactory

[Badfinger]

Holy smokes I didn't even put Destiny on my list, and i played that game to the exclusivity of nearly everything else for an entire month. I should also probably add Elite because even though all I do is bitch about it in the thread* I managed to lose a huge part of this past weekend to the game when I was "supposed" to be playing Pillars of Eternity, as mentioned also incredible.

 

I'm surprised people feel down about this year's games. There seem like there are such a large variety of games that are truly good at what they do. Rocket League just passed Spelunky for me on hours played this weekend. Strong testament to the staying power of Car Hockey.

 

*Sorry to all the people in the Elite thread. There is the kernel of something incredible obscured by the vastness and aimlessness of an entire available galaxy.