1.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen ; The PC port of Dragon's Dogma was the first time I got real serious with the game, and man, what a ride it was. People like to rag on Dragon's Dogma for having a dry world, but I found that it couldn't be further from the truth. This is a game where a Griffin periodically comes down and fucks with you and then flys away because it knows you can't do shit about it until you make the long and arduous trek through bandit-infested territory to put a knife in it's stomach. This is a game where a bounty is put on your head and a group of assassins periodically try to kill you across the entire overworld map. This is a game where horny Ogres steal your female allies and then literally dropkick you on your way to a fortress that's been overtaken by Goblins. This is a game where a little rich girl is a giant dick to you, so you get to implicate her dad of various crimes, have him sent to prison and force the child into a life of squalor. This is a game where you can get a girlfriend by gifting her tons of booze. Wait a minute...
All of these wonderful touches to the world are held up by the best, most flexible, most responsive and most flashy combat system any open world game has ever had and it's all set in a universe that feels legitimately dangerous with monsters, bandits and cultists constantly breathing down your neck and ready to nuke your ass for stepping foot into certain parts of the world too early.
I love you Dragon's Dogma. Be my beloved.
2.
Overwatch ; Team Fortress 2 is dead. Long live Team Fortress 2.
3.
Titanfall 2 ; Titanfall 2 is a game that I feel should have been a slam dunk and should have been my GOTY, yet is unfortunately plagued with maps of questionable quality. And there aren't that many of them to begin with. Specifically, Titanfall 1 shipped with 15 maps, 14 of which I consider stellar. By contrast Titanfall 2 shipped with 9, now has 10, and of those 10, 2 are fairly horrendous by a wider margin than anything that was in TF1. And yet I have to play them consistently.
Why am I harping on this? Because maps make the shooter. They dictate the flow of matches, how I kill and how I get killed. And especially with a game like Titanfall, well made maps are incredibly important for ensuring that pilots can smoothly and successfully navigate across terrain quickly while also doubling as effective combat arenas for the Titans themselves, and both are consistent issues with the maps on display in Titanfall 2.
The movement is beautiful. The new weapons are absurdly fun and silly. The individual pilots skills are incredibly varied and useful. But we went from some of the all time greatest shooter map designs to maps of middling quality. And while I really enjoyed the single player and thought it had some incredible pacing and great level design, it's still just a sub 8 hour single player campaign, and the
inclusion had a direct detriment to the portion of the game that I'm actually going to be spending the next year or two on.
But still. No one is making movement and momentum based shooters quite like Respawn is. And for all the faults with the maps in TF2, it's hard to deny how right everything else ended up being.
4.
Deadbolt ; Take one part Blade, one part Hotline Miami, sprinkle in some noir, and what you get on the other end is
motherfuckers trying to iceskate uphill Deadbolt.
What may just look like some random indie PC game is actually probably the perfect refinement of that room-clearing, weapon improvising, psuedo-stealth formula that Hotline Miami popularized. And unlike Hotline Miami, Deadbolt is played from a 2d sideview reminiscent of Gunpoint, which alleviates one of the more aggravating issues of not always having a great sense of your surroundings or when enemies have been triggered.
Deadbolt's a fantastic, yet challenging game with a ton of cool weapons to unlock and play around with, a phenomenal sense of style and an
incredible soundtrack. Highly underrated, highly recommended.
5..
Deus Ex Mankind Divided ; From a gameplay standpoint, Mankind Divided is the perfect evolution of Human Revolution in all the ways that matter. From the much more satisfy and less finicky shooting model, to the much improved cover and stealth interactions, to even the new augmentation toys(such as the blink...hmm), Eidos Montreal was smart about smoothing out the rougher edges of the Deus Ex experience.
We also went from dry and frankly ugly locales like Hengsha and, uh... Detriot and Eidos Montreal coalesced all their manpower to take us to beautiful Prague, which is so chock full of secrets and alternate passageways that it washes away whatever resentment I might've had about the reduction in the number of hubs. And that's really the star of MD. For all the complaining I've heard this year about how same-y Mankind Divided is, it's an argument that falls apart once you take the time to appreciate how much more intricate the layout and level design in this game is.
Which is why it's so unfortunate that MD left so much unresolved and ended the way it did. It's a fantastic, meaty ride, but you might not even come away with that impression a couple of hours after beating the game due to just how poorly it wraps up.
6.
Doom ; Rip and Tear, until it is done.
Doom is maybe the one of the smartest and most unconventional solutions I've ever seen to modernizing an old beloved property. How do you make a modern Doom? Well, it turns out, you structure it like a Devil May Cry game. Lock the character in an environment during fights, make them do some light platforming in-between moments of respite and sprinkle in some carefully paced backtracking. Make sure the player has a sense of progression by giving them weapon upgrades and moveset upgrades. Throw in some secret missions as a bonus.
Genius. GENIUUUUUS.
That comparison also doesn't do justice to the fantastic level design within the actual fight rooms or the wonderful interplay between the various demons or how MINDBLOWINGLY GOOD the game runs.
You did it, id.
YOU DID IT.
YOU DID IT.
7.
Street Fighter V ; The netcode barely functions. Dailies were missing for months. A proper ragequit solution was missing for months. Proper arcade stick functionality was missing for months. The servers are down for literal hours every time they release a new patch. The CFN and fighter id stuff are only now just sorta working. It gave me a FUCKING ROOTKIT.
That is how good the street fighting in Street Fighter V is. This is how much I value having 3rd Strike characters in a new game. This is how much Urien's massive, bulging god-like schlong means to me. All hail the schlong. PS don't tell anyone I secretly mostly just use his default costume.
8.
Dark Souls III ; I am admittedly only roughly halfway into DS3(that's still 30+ hours chill out I'm working on it don't judge me you don't know me). But it turns out that all of the quality of life improvements from Bloodborne and Dark Souls 2 rolled into a less whimsical DS2 and into a more oppressive DS3 is still enough to have the game chart in my top ten, despite not seeing the finish line. I also appreciate that invaders eating shit got carried over from Bloodborne.
Also helps that the Caestus are still here and still stunlocking the fuuuuuuck out of everything. Punch fever forever and ever.
9.
Battlefield 1 ; Battlefield 1 is the first Battlefield in a pretty long time that I've really enjoyed and I can't quite put my finger on why. Maybe it's because the gear and equipment are far less obtuse than in the previous games or maybe it's because of the focused nature of the Operation mode lends itself to more frequent firefights or maybe it's because semi automatic rifles are fun as hell to shoot and reload in video games or maybe it's because it only takes me 100 years to load a BF1 match rather than the millenium it took in BF4 and BF3.
It's probably just the sick capes, though.
10.
Earth Defense Force 4.1 ; EDF is a stupid game where you spend 50 hours zoning giant bugs and robot aliens and can call in reticule guided airstrikes, and have laser chainsaws, and Batou and Iron Tager's voice actors spend hours talking like they're in a low budget Godzilla dub, and where foot soldiers literally have nonsensical conversations as a result of the game randomly stringing together independent catchphrases and this is not happenstance shit this is something the game does on purpose because Sandlot knows it's hilarious and they're right because they're Sandlot.
Hey, don't die.
Let's talk about this tomorrow.
I now understand the sweet siren call of EDF. I love you EDF. I just wish you didn't make me spend 900 centuries picking up 200 lootboxes filled with trash at the end of every level.
Honorable Mention
x. N++ ; It's N+ but with a fuckload of levels, user creation tools, a
bangin' soundtrack and lookin' criiiiiisp.
x. Monster Hunter Generations; I did not play a ton of this but the Long Sword has a parry in this one so I don't know that probably means this is the actual best game released this year.
