THE BEST OF 2017 - The Best GAMES Of The Year

THE BEST GAMES OF 2017:

- This was an amazing year for games, any way you slice it. There were a multitude of great, instant-classic games this year - games that were not just high quality, but games that actively got me excited about the medium as a whole. And I get that, on one hand, there is reason to be cynical about the direction the industry is headed in. This year felt like the culmination of a growing trend that, increasingly, saw too many games become bloated "experiences" that were overly complicated, overly long, artificially sprawling, and, worst of all, became about offering paid "service" to players in the form of obnoxious microtransactions. This came to a head with the Star Wars Battlefront II debacle, in which major publisher EA was forced - due to a vocal backlash - to remove planned microtransactions from its (very high profile) game at the last minute. And yeah, that sort of thing gives reason to be cynical. And yet ...

... for every example of a game that represented the worst in terms of where the industry is going, there were many more that represented gaming at its best. There was exciting new IP, like Sony's seminal Horizon Zero Dawn. There was a continued surge of interesting, innovative indie games - games that pioneered new ways of interactive storytelling, that paid homage to the classics, that provided the sort of simple and classic gameplay that is often missing from the bigger budget titles. And then there was Nintendo and the runaway success of The Switch. Now, I've been cynical about Nintendo for many years now. I turned away from Nintendo consoles as a teenager, when Sony won me over with its 3D-capable Playstation, which stole away key third party franchises like Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Castlevania, and Metal Gear. I never owned an N64, a Gamecube, a Wii, or a Wii U. But I bought a Switch - my first non-DS Nintendo console since the Super Nintendo. What changed? Well, partially it's me being older and having the ability to own multiple consoles should I choose to. But more so, I'd boil it down to four things:

a.) The Switch gave us multiple AAA titles - a new Mario and a new Zelda - in year one of release. That's unheard of. Sure, Nintendo console owners could usually count on a Mario and Zelda over a couple year span. But both right out of the gate? That's hard to resist. 

b.) All the good Indie games are coming to Switch. The rise in indie gaming is Nintendo's stealth secret weapon this go-round. While the underpowered Switch is still going to be a red-headed step-child when it comes to Day 1, high-quality ports of AAA titles - indie titles are another story. You can already get some of the best recent indie games on Switch - Stardew Valley, Rocket League, Steamworld Dig, etc. And with Switch, you can play them on the go - a huge bonus.

c.) More big games are coming from Nintendo. Nintendo's first-party output slowed to a crawl with the Wii U. But the Switch already has Mario and Zelda, which now frees up Nintendo to pump out the kinds of games they should have been making all along. We know a new Metroid is on the way. And that may just be the tip of the iceberg. 

d.) Portability. This Thanksgiving, I took the same Mario and Zelda games I'd started playing at home on my TV, and continued playing them on my flights back east. That's pretty awesome.

Now, if I had to choose one console and one console only, I'd still go with Playstation - no question. The Sony line-up of first and third party games is just too good and too plentiful to pass up (plus Sony still has the best controller!). 2017 saw huge Sony exclusives like Horizon and Uncharted: Lost Legacy - and in 2018 you've got Spider-Man, God of War, and beyond that The Last of Us 2. But competition is good - gaming always takes a nosedive when any one company's got a monopoly. Alas for poor Microsoft, their well seems to have mostly run dry this year. My sole regret about not owning an XBOX One is my inability to play Cuphead - so here's hoping that 2018 brings a PS4 port. 

I'll also mention that my actual favorite game I played in 2017 may have been a game that first released a few years ago, but that I finally caught up on in recent months. That game was LIFE IS STRANGE, and it sort of blew me away. As someone who loves great stories in any and all media, Life Is Strange wowed me in that it felt like one of the best examples of interactive storytelling I've yet seen. It told a story that felt wholly original, with a unique vibe and tone that mixed teen angst with time-travel sci-fi to deliver something that, to me, was one of the best and most involving serialized stories of the last few years, period. Working in entertainment, I always hear people unfamilar with the games industry talk up some new piece of tech as being the next big thing. And I always shake my head, because it's ALWAYS about the content, not the tech. The tech is just the delivery mechanism, but it's nothing without great content. And while it's easy to get caught up in buzzwords and next-big-things, games like Life Is Strange reaffirm that what's really game-changing is simply a game that delivers a great new experience - be that an innovative play mechanic, a fully-realized new world to explore, or just a good, old-fashioned, really well-told story. 

With that said ... it's going to be fascinating to follow where the industry goes in 2018. A lot of companies have a strong investment in seeing VR still succeed ... but it's still very unclear what possible killer app is going to finally push VR into the mainstream. I'm sure there are great minds at Sony, Occulus, and Facebook working on it as we speak ... but no doubt VR is a tough nut to crack. In terms of the ongoing console war, we know a lot about Sony's 2018 slate, but not as much about Nintendo or Microsoft. What is clear though is that Nintendo is back, and is going to likely be a sales juggernaut through 2018. How will third-parties react? TBD. 

Without a doubt, I felt more invested in games and more excited about games this year than I have in a long while. And a lot of it was due to the titles below.


DANNY'S BEST GAMES OF THE YEAR:

1.) Super Mario Odyssey


- As a kid, there was nothing more exciting to me than a new Mario game. The series was, after all, the gold standard of videogames. I still remember the feeling of waking up one early morning to find my new Super Nintendo all set up with Super Mario World ready to play, to explore, to discover. But it's been many a year since I've played a new Mario game. I was out of the Nintendo loop. I'd moved on to less primary-colored pastures. But man, playing through Super Mario Odyssey has been some of the most fun I've had with any game in quite some time. Odyssey has its share of nostalgic moments, but it also presents an all-new primary gameplay mechanic, in the form of Mario's sentient hat, Cappy, who can be tossed at any enemy either as a combat technique or as a means to possess them and utilize each enemy's unique abilities. It's simple, but as implemented, it's sheer genius. Odyssey is just filled with delightful moments, with fun challenges, and tons of stuff to discover. It's also, by coincidence, the perfect antidote to all the overstuffed open world games out there - this is just pure gameplay - all killer, no filler.  

2.) Horizon Zero Dawn 

- Whether one prefers Horizon or Zelda is a matter of individual taste, but I give Sony's big new franchise the slight edge. Both games are phenomenal, but Horizon wins in my book because it does a couple of things better than Zelda. One is story - Horizon's got a top-notch, uber-intriguing narrative that slowly reveals itself as you play - brought to life by fantastic voice acting (Ashly Burch, who I became a fan of via Life Is Strange, voices main character Aloy). The characters are cool, there's a kick-ass female lead in Aloy, and the world is unique and looks amazing. Which brings me to point two - absolutely killer graphics. Horizon is, arguably, the best looking game ever made, and that's not nothing. This is a game that will cause you to just stop and stare at the awe-inspiring visuals that bleed out from the screen. Finally, this game controls like a dream - you can run and jump like you're in Uncharted, but there's also finely-tuned combat with a strong element of strategy. Going into this one, I was skeptical about yet another massive open-world behemoth. But Horizon really raises the bar. 

3.) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

- And then there's Zelda. Breath of the Wild is very clearly Nintendo doing its take on the Skyrim-style open-world RPG. But what Nintendo does so well is distill down the mechanics to their essence, simplifying things and guiding the player through action rather than endless text or tutorials. Zelda is also Zelda, so of course there's all kinds of amazingly-designed puzzles. And Zelda being Zelda, the overall production value is top notch - the game looks phenomenal despite the limitations of the Switch - the art direction is fantastic, the character animation is gorgeous, and the world is impeccably designed and rife for exploration. Another new classic from Nintendo for the Switch. 

4.) Nier: Automata

- Japanese games continued to make a comeback in 2017, and Nier: Automata was case in point. This Playstation-exclusive action/RPG, from enigmatic game designer Yoko Taro and the Platinum Games studio, is a concentrated burst of hyper-stylized weirdness. It combines the frantic action of a Devil May Cry or Bayonetta with sprawling open-world levels, RPG elements, and an out-there sci-fi anime story about a dead universe now populated solely by robots. And, oh yeah, the camera and gameplay style will flip on a dime, suddenly shifting gear into an overhead scrolling shooter or a 2D platformer. This game is flat-out insane. It's bursting with creativity and strange ideas, but it's got a rock-solid action core. 

5.) Injustice 2


- The first Injustice was a very pleasant surprise, especially for a major DC Comics fanboy like myself. Not only did it have extremely fun fighting mechanics, but the single-player story mode told an incredibly-epic superhero story that tops anything seen recently in DC movies or TV shows. Luckily, the sequel kept the momentum going. The story mode was again excellent. But even better, the gameplay felt much more finely-tuned and balanced, with tighter control and more intuitive special moves. The traditionalist in me still very much disapproves of how reliant on DLC this and other fighting games now are, but that aside, Injustice 2 was a real winner.

6.) Tekken 7

- Meanwhile, Tekken 7 helped make 2017 an awesome year for fighters (now featured on televised ESPN e-sports competitions - this is big business now!). I've always loved the Tekken games, and had been jonesing for a PS4 iteration. Tekken 7 did not disappoint. While the core Tekken gameplay remains relatively intact, the addition of Injustice-style super moves changed things up just a bit. But where this game really wowed me was with its huge character lineup, with a mix of old favorites and a plethora of fun (oftentimes fairly insane) newly-added characters. The best Tekken game yet.

7.) Uncharted: Lost Legacy

- Uncharted is perhaps my favorite current videogame franchise - but I'll admit that recent entries, while great, have felt a bit bloated and overlong at times. Enter Lost Legacy, a streamlined, budget-priced Uncharted spin-off that pound for pound, is as good as any game in the series to date. It simply cuts out a lot of the fat and focuses on quicker chapters and a more fast-moving storyline. I approve. It's also cool to see the focus shift to two leading ladies - Chloe and Nadine. While their in-game banter is not quite up to Nathan Drake levels, it's cool to have a new story and character dynamic at play. And developer Naughty Dog doesn't rest on their laurels when it comes to gameplay, either - while there are many segments that feel like old hat to the Uncharted faithful, there are some interesting new mechanics introduced as well. A worthy entry in the series, and a new direction that I wouldn't mind seeing more of - for this series and others.

8.)  Resident Evil 7

- As a longtime Resident Evil fan, I was reluctant to see it go first-person. But Resident Evil 7 succeeds by shifting the series' focus back to horror, after recent entries had gone too far into all-out action territory. Yes, I'll always prefer third-person, but I'll also give RE props for getting back to survival horror basics. The game is creepy af. And while it gives a new spin to the series, it still feels like Resident Evil at its core.

9.) Thimbleweed Park 

- Thanks to developers like Telltale, the last several years have seen a full-on revival of the graphic adventure genre. But now, the OG masterminds behind games like Monkey Island have returned to show everyone else how it's done. Thimbleweed Park is a classic point-and-click adventure, with the trademark sense of quirky, self-aware humor found in the old Lucasarts PC classics. It's got a great story, and is the perfect game to get on the Switch to play on the go.

10.) Steamworld Dig 2 

- Another big trend of the last few years has been the indie-space revival of the "Metroidvania" genre that was popularized in the 16 and 32-bit eras (by, as the name implies, the Metroid and Castlevania series). We've seen new games take classic 2D gameplay into the next generation. One of the best examples of this Metroidvania new-wave yet comes in the form of Steamworld Dig 2 - a game filled with clever mechanics (you can essentially dig your own path through the various levels) and eye-popping art and animation. Another indie game perfect for the Switch and it's ever-handy portability. 

THE BEST OF 2014 - The Best GAMES Of The Year

THE BEST GAMES OF 2014:

- Man, what a strange year it's been for videogames. It's hard to encapsulate, but I'll try. The videogame industry collapsed under its own weight in 2014. Gaming broke. The good news is: that may ultimately prove a good thing, because now, finally, we can move forward.

The storm has, perhaps, been brewing for a while - but many couldn't see it coming. On one hand, gaming has, for several years now, been moving in a positive direction. As geek culture in general expanded and diversified, so too did the audience for games. With the proliferation of smart phones and tablets, millions of people had an easy, ever-present way to discover or rediscover games. But it wasn't just the casual games that brought in a more diverse audience. More and more female gamers counted themselves as hardcore gamers in 2014. And I don't say that to mean that they preferred a certain genre, or console, or franchise. I simply mean that gaming culture - long a boys-only club - was increasingly filled with genuinely-interested girls and women this year. Not that they hadn't been there before - but this year, it felt more normalized. It didn't feel strange or surprising anymore to meet a girl who dug gaming. The fact is, gaming culture is fun. People who dig gaming tend to be, for the most part, smart, open-minded, cool, creative, and funny. And more and more, gaming culture felt like a place where all were welcome. Some of the women who embraced games had always been there - perhaps just not so open in their love of the medium. Some were newbies. For me though, the thing that sort of paints a picture of gaming, at its best, in 2014 is the Indoor Kids podcast. Hosted by the husband-and-wife team of comedians Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon, this to me is the new generational reality, the new ideal: two smart, funny people - male and female - who play games together and share a love for the medium and culture of gaming. As this became the new paradigm, coverage of gaming also evolved. Growing up, the predominant coverage of videogames was from publications aimed at young boys - the Game Pro's and Nintendo Powers of the world. Now, you've got smart sites like Kotaku that mix traditional reviews and previews with all manner of interesting think-pieces about games and gaming culture. Writers are male and female. Coverage includes mainstream games, indie games, and everything in between. For the enlightened - the people who grew up with games being talked about in a certain (juvenile) way, but who were now ready for a more sophisticated conversation, gaming, of late, seemed to be in a really good place. At least from a cultural perspective, gaming seemed like this almost utopian sort of thing - a subculture filled with really smart and cool people doing innovative and creative things.

So what happened?

In parallel to this, there was a counter-movement going on. A movement that spanned across a spectrum that was on one end mostly harmless, on the other end pretty legitimately scary. The thing is, games had indeed grown to appeal to a more diverse audience over the last several years. But with the good comes the bad, and part of the bad was an influx of bro-culture into gaming. This was the segment of gaming that was less Indoor Kids and more virtual militia. These gamers latched on to the Call of Duties of the world and made them into huge sellers. In turn, they made the budding world of online gameplay a world rampant with misogyny and juvenile behavior. A place that seemed to represent the worst of gaming. We saw a subset of games that increasingly catered to this demo. And somehow, this demo claimed the term "gamer." To the public at large, "gamers" were black T-shirt-wearing thugs who lived to frag virtual opponents on their XBOX. I'm not saying that all fans of online shooters fall into this group. Not at all. And certainly, there are plenty of gamers whose tastes span all categories.I'm just saying that a certain segment of gaming was actually becoming *less* evolved, a place where casual misogyny was the norm. I'm saying that while all this positive stuff was going on, and gaming was changing for the better, there was, in turn, something ugly festering.

That something ugly was GamerGate. I won't go into the whole history of GamerGate. I'll just say that what started as attacks against two prominent female members of the gaming community - one a cultural critic, one a developer - spawned a "movement" that claimed to be about legitimate things like "ethics in journalism," but in fact became an excuse for the worst subculture of so-called gamers to lash out against women and women in games. Prominent people - almost all women - who spoke out against GamerGate fell victim to threats of violence and very real incidents of cyber-bullying. Anita Sarkeesian, the cultural critic whose video series "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games" triggered an onslaught of threats and online abuse, became GamerGate's public enemy #1. And why? Because she dared to critique the role of female characters in videogames, and call for more thoughtful representation of women in games. Here's the thing: I don't necessarily agree with every point Sarkeesian makes in her videos, but I'm 100% cool with her making these arguments. More than cool - it's about damn time that someone talked about games in this way - the same way that cultural critics talk about books, movies, and TV. Games have been around long enough, and their narratives are now sophisticated enough, that they've earned the right to be taken seriously as culture and art. And yet the "gamers" of GamerGate don't really even want to engage in these conversations. Instead, they continually fell back on personal attacks. Their whole purpose seemed to be more about trying to discredit women in the gaming community - and in turn forcing them out - than it was about anything else. The whole GamerGate thing also came in a year when we as a country were reeling from multiple incidents of real-world violence, in which the perpetrators subscribed to versions of the "men's rights" ethos. These killers read stuff on various dark corners of the internet that fostered and encouraged their belief that feminism was a nefarious movement meant to stomp all over men, a movement conspiring to ruin everything men liked while denying them everything they wanted. Dangerous stuff, and it's a way of thinking that encourages a toxic mindset - a mindset that men are human, women are inhuman. It all reflects the internet's dangerous ability to serve as an echo chamber. All of these troubled young men found their festering, misogynistic views confirmed by like-minded individuals, and the collective voice grew stronger. The worst manifestation of this voice is in mass-killings. But further down the spectrum, you've got the GamerGaters who became brainwashed into thinking they were fighting a good fight, when they were in fact spouting nonsense. And a finger of shame to prominent people - like actor Adam Baldwin - who encouraged these people via Twitter and other social media. Wrong side of history, dudes.

Luckily, the blight that was GamerGate seems mostly to have subsided as we head into the new year. And videogaming again, mostly, seems awesome. The one positive to have come out of this whole thing is that I think people were genuinely surprised to see how much of a nerve GamerGate touched. Men, women, all kinds of people came out of the woodwork to proclaim their love for games, and their revulsion that this harmful element was trying to lay claim to the "gamer" label. Average joes and celebrities like Joss Whedon alike felt frustration that the GamerGaters seemed to be trying to turn back the clock and make games a less cool, less inclusive, less progressive place. The movement and the backlash to it also came in the midst of a major feminist revival. A growing number of individuals and publications have been looking at pop-culture with a critical feminist slant, and so the internet seemed poised and ready to mobilize against the GamerGaters. Although some may grow tired of "feminist" being such an omnipresent descriptor these days, what's important is an understanding that being a feminist implies wanting equality, not superiority. As that sinks in, and people stop viewing these conversations as "us against them," I think the negativity that people harbor towards the Anita Sarkeesians of the world will subside. That said, it will take a while for games to fully get over this whole thing, but I think positive change will come. Games with more diverse characters, more sophisticated narratives, and designed with more than just a very narrow demo in mind. A gaming culture that is increasingly diverse, sophisticated, and that once again feels like the kind of thing that cool, smart, progressive people want to be a part of.

And of course, that's not to say that games in 2014 weren't awesome in and of themselves. It still felt like a transitional year, with the XBOX One and PS4 still sort of finding their footing. 2015 seems to be the year that the big influx of next-generation games will really begin. But 2014 continued the interesting trend of indie, digital-only games getting as much buzz as their big, blockbuster, franchise-ready counterparts. That trend certainly will continue in 2015, with digital indie games like No Man's Sky seeming to be just as anticipated as the next iterations of Uncharted, etc. I like it. As some of the big franchises become more and more impenetrable with each iteration, it seems like some of the most original, creative, and fresh-feeling development is happening in the indie space.

For me, time for hardcore gaming sessions was rare in the past year. And much of my play time was devoted to wrapping up 2013-and-older titles like The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite. However, I did take the plunge and purchase a PS4, so I've been trying to play catch-up on some of the big games of this year.


DANNY'S BEST GAMES OF THE YEAR:

I once again did not play anywhere near the number of new games I wanted to in 2014. I've been binging a bit over the holidays playing catch-up, and I will say that there was some really good stuff this year. I think that 2013's The Last of Us was such a monumental game - I spent a lot of time on it in 2014, and there was nothing this year that, for me, was quite on that level.

So my Game of the Year for 2014 is a bit of a cheat:

1.) The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead: Season 2

- I love what Telltale Games is doing these days. Back in the day, I was enamored with point-and-click adventure games. Sure, the gameplay mechanics were simple, but the games were unforgettable. There's a reason why people have been going crazy in recent weeks over the announcements of HD remakes of classics like Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle. Those games rocked. And it's great to see adventure games making a comeback, almost entirely because of Telltale. Really though, these guys are raising the bar in general when it comes to storytelling in games. The writing on The Walking Dead series eclipses that of the show. The writing in The Wolf Among Us is every bit as good as Fables, the comic on which it is based. I'm a huge, longtime fan of Fables. In what world is a videogame spin-off giving me one of the best Fables stories I've seen in years? In this world, I guess. Telltale deserves huge kudos for what they are doing. It's come to the point where my first choice for any narrative-driven franchise adaptation is now to have it turned into a Telltale game. Speaking of which, I can't wait to dive into their version of Game of Thrones.

2.) Dragon Age: Inquisition

- I'm still only in the early stages of Dragon Age: Inquisition, but I can already tell that this is a game that, like Skyrim before it, could easily envelop my entire life and that would be that. What was cool about Skyrim was that the narrative happened on the fringes of the game - really, you made your own story. But Dragon Age mixes the massive open world of Skyrim with Bioware's trademark storytelling to create a game that's both expansive and story-driven. I believe the word I'm looking for is "epic."

3.) Infamous: Second Son

- I've been a fan of the Infamous franchise, but something about Second Son really appealed to me. Maybe it was just that the next-gen upgrade made the open-world that much smoother and prettier. Maybe it was that the story was a little better-written and more interesting. Maybe it was that the gameplay seemed just a little tighter. But Second Son is hell of a game that was one of the first of this generation to feel truly next-gen.

4.) Shadows of Mordor

- I didn't anticipate that the Batman: Arkham Asylum games would make a good template for a Lord of the Rings game, but ... they did. Shadows of Mordor is a fun, action-packed adventure that builds on the Batman games with an interesting "nemesis" system in which enemies remember your previous battles, and make tactical adjustments the next time you meet. Very cool stuff. My one complaint is that the story and world doesn't quite feel Lord of the Ring-ish enough for me - the darker tone seems more suited to some other fictional universe.

5.) Broken Age

- Speaking of old-school adventure games, this Kickstartered gem is a return to point-and-click from maestro Tim Schafer, the man who helped bring us the classics like Grim Fandango that I mentioned above. The crowd-funded nature of the game means that Schafer was free to keep the gameplay classic and familiar, while imbuing the graphics with a modern sheen. And man, it looks great. The story and humor is classic Schafer. Hopefully this leads to more games in this vein that don't need Kickstarter to get made.