As usual, going to make my post the same as last year, breaking the format and making a proper list after it all. All in all 2016 was a great year for gaming for me, giving a nice mix of old franchises and fresh faces that I found myself far more invested in compared to last year's affair.
The Roman Numeral for Ten. The Last Guardian
A Single Intern | PS4
The Roman Numeral for Nine. Titanfall 2
Respawn Studios | PS4, XB1, PC
VIII. VA-11 HALL-A
Sukeban Games | PC
VII. Gears of War 4
The Coalition | XB1, PC
VI. Inside
Playdead | XB1, PS4, PC
V. Doom
id Software | PS4, XB1, PC
IV. Stardew Valley
ConcernedApe | PS4, XB1, PC
Continued here.
The Roman Numeral for Ten. The Last Guardian
A Single Intern | PS4
After all of these years it turns out Last Guardian is actually a videogame. TLG is, like every Team Ico game, kept minimalist and simple—at its core you are just a boy trying to navigate through the areas with Trico, your dog bird pet thing companion. While events unfold and more is discovered about who you are, what you're doing, and what's going on, the main drive of the game never changes. On a mechanical level, the game the game never elevates much or focuses on doing anything too outrageous. While there are enemies it's a mostly passive affair more about directing Trico than anything else, and while there are a handful of (surprisingly well realized) setpiece moments the game is typically going at a slow plodding pace. Some puzzle elements are present but, again, it's mostly just figuring out how to navigate you and your birddogthing together.
Having a huge reliance on an AI companion seems like a surefire disaster but it ends up working when the entirety of the game is built upon growing attachments. Seeing the bond grow throughout the game, having you both help each other in a rough spot, even just the general pace of the game while you scope out a room and see Trico do the same independent of you. While there are some natural frustrations to deal with, TLG ends up offering something very unique in the process that you really won't see replicated. In many ways it made my list simply due to how much it stands out compared to everything else I played this year.
That said, it's certainly not the most polished. I can put up with some technical issues but man is this game rough around the edges. The framerate is consistently poor, having some particular standout moments where you can see everything tank and die when you hit some of the bigger outside sections, and the general game feel is just...off. The boy simply doesn't control well, the camera even with sensitivity cranked up is a slow plodding annoyance to control and it's actually surprisingly difficult to get on and off Trico himself. It almost becomes an unintentional parallel of the game structure itself—patience is absolutely necessary to get the most out of this game in some good and bad ways. The natural formation of a connection takes time, but the unnatural judder of whatever the hell the camera is doing when it fades to black and resets comes along for the ride as well. This is a game where I could read a 10/10 review and a 6/10 review while nodding my head and agreeing with both as it has many things I typically can't stand for in a game, but in so many others there's no real parallel to what this game is, which let me put up with more than I usually do. In the end The Last Guardian is still going to be a game that sticks with me long after playing it, so even if there's some rough patches on the way there, I'd say they did a fine job. It could do for a few patches, but this is one case where I'd be afraid to say it needed more time in the oven because it just may have never come back out.
Having a huge reliance on an AI companion seems like a surefire disaster but it ends up working when the entirety of the game is built upon growing attachments. Seeing the bond grow throughout the game, having you both help each other in a rough spot, even just the general pace of the game while you scope out a room and see Trico do the same independent of you. While there are some natural frustrations to deal with, TLG ends up offering something very unique in the process that you really won't see replicated. In many ways it made my list simply due to how much it stands out compared to everything else I played this year.
That said, it's certainly not the most polished. I can put up with some technical issues but man is this game rough around the edges. The framerate is consistently poor, having some particular standout moments where you can see everything tank and die when you hit some of the bigger outside sections, and the general game feel is just...off. The boy simply doesn't control well, the camera even with sensitivity cranked up is a slow plodding annoyance to control and it's actually surprisingly difficult to get on and off Trico himself. It almost becomes an unintentional parallel of the game structure itself—patience is absolutely necessary to get the most out of this game in some good and bad ways. The natural formation of a connection takes time, but the unnatural judder of whatever the hell the camera is doing when it fades to black and resets comes along for the ride as well. This is a game where I could read a 10/10 review and a 6/10 review while nodding my head and agreeing with both as it has many things I typically can't stand for in a game, but in so many others there's no real parallel to what this game is, which let me put up with more than I usually do. In the end The Last Guardian is still going to be a game that sticks with me long after playing it, so even if there's some rough patches on the way there, I'd say they did a fine job. It could do for a few patches, but this is one case where I'd be afraid to say it needed more time in the oven because it just may have never come back out.
The Roman Numeral for Nine. Titanfall 2
Respawn Studios | PS4, XB1, PC
Ah, Titanfall...back in 2014, this was a very special game for me. Pretty much over the standard CoD MP fare, it felt like a true evolution of what those games excelled at, and bit its teeth into me more than any multiplayer game had in the past couple of years. The fantastic maps, the ebb and flow of the pilot/titan combat dynamic, the pure mastery of gamefeel as you whipped around the maps from wall to wall—shit was just sublime. Titanfall 2 is not quite the followup I expected, but is still a fine game in the end.
The biggest strength here is, shockingly, the single player component. TF1 had some weird attempt at a narrative, haphazardly tied into active multiplayer matches that had critical events happening through radio comms in the corner of the screen. A cute idea, but nothing really beyond that. 2 now has a full blown campaign and nailed it beyond whatever I could have been expecting, taking the great mechanics and crafting some surprisingly creative playgrounds for them. Running and shooting on a factory belt actively building housing facilities, leading to a sideways platformer that peaks in an arena fight at the top. That moment anyone who played the game knows. A well realized and timed power fantasy sequence...there's a lot of punchy and memorable moments dashed all throughout, and their usage of the Titan is surprisingly well balanced. You're never in BT too long, nor does the game make it so you feel like you're just playing a standard FPS outside of him. I'm sure I was grinning ear to ear the entire way through.
Multiplayer wise, the gamefeel is still here in spades, even improved with the addition of the slide, which feels absolutely amazing and even has a satisfying gun tilt animation to follow it. The various guns all feel great to wield and stay true to Titanfall 1 where I found myself messing around with a large variety, changing my playstyle to suit what I was doing--anything from warping shotgunning to stimmed run and gun smg usage. But beyond this, it doesn't take titanfall 1 and evolve or improve it, nor does it take the same game and add more maps. It has some big sweeping changes to the presence Titans had, stripping them of their shields and adding a battery pack mechanic to entice some level of cooperation. Titans themselves are no longer just chassis you pick to mix and match weapons and abilities, they're now set in stone characters of sorts, not too far removed from being a hero character from a class based shooter. To me none of these really made the game better, just...different. The most unfortunate aspect of Titanfall 2 are, sadly, the maps. Going from 1's excellent repertoire to...whatever these are. Eden is basically the one single map I really like, and the rest range from being merely there to outright painful to see pop up (Crash Site, Complex). Considering there's only 9 maps total, which is a piss poor ratio and is the biggest hurdle I have with the game. So many of these maps just totally miss what made TF1 maps so smooth to play—run routes aren't as natural, certain lane based maps get locked down by Titans like Legion who are literally made to control an area. It's kinda baffling. You can have the best mechanics in the medium, but flop on the playgrounds that are needed to utilize them and you're only doing a disservice to yourself.
It's a shame, since when everything clicks, TF2 is an absolute blast. But the ratio of maps is too poor to have kept my attention quite like TF1 did, but it's offset and held up more by a solid campaign. Titanfall 2 isn't the sequel I expected, and in some ways isn't the one I wanted, but I still had a blast with it overall and hope Respawn get a chance at making another, and really knock it out of the park.
The biggest strength here is, shockingly, the single player component. TF1 had some weird attempt at a narrative, haphazardly tied into active multiplayer matches that had critical events happening through radio comms in the corner of the screen. A cute idea, but nothing really beyond that. 2 now has a full blown campaign and nailed it beyond whatever I could have been expecting, taking the great mechanics and crafting some surprisingly creative playgrounds for them. Running and shooting on a factory belt actively building housing facilities, leading to a sideways platformer that peaks in an arena fight at the top. That moment anyone who played the game knows. A well realized and timed power fantasy sequence...there's a lot of punchy and memorable moments dashed all throughout, and their usage of the Titan is surprisingly well balanced. You're never in BT too long, nor does the game make it so you feel like you're just playing a standard FPS outside of him. I'm sure I was grinning ear to ear the entire way through.
Multiplayer wise, the gamefeel is still here in spades, even improved with the addition of the slide, which feels absolutely amazing and even has a satisfying gun tilt animation to follow it. The various guns all feel great to wield and stay true to Titanfall 1 where I found myself messing around with a large variety, changing my playstyle to suit what I was doing--anything from warping shotgunning to stimmed run and gun smg usage. But beyond this, it doesn't take titanfall 1 and evolve or improve it, nor does it take the same game and add more maps. It has some big sweeping changes to the presence Titans had, stripping them of their shields and adding a battery pack mechanic to entice some level of cooperation. Titans themselves are no longer just chassis you pick to mix and match weapons and abilities, they're now set in stone characters of sorts, not too far removed from being a hero character from a class based shooter. To me none of these really made the game better, just...different. The most unfortunate aspect of Titanfall 2 are, sadly, the maps. Going from 1's excellent repertoire to...whatever these are. Eden is basically the one single map I really like, and the rest range from being merely there to outright painful to see pop up (Crash Site, Complex). Considering there's only 9 maps total, which is a piss poor ratio and is the biggest hurdle I have with the game. So many of these maps just totally miss what made TF1 maps so smooth to play—run routes aren't as natural, certain lane based maps get locked down by Titans like Legion who are literally made to control an area. It's kinda baffling. You can have the best mechanics in the medium, but flop on the playgrounds that are needed to utilize them and you're only doing a disservice to yourself.
It's a shame, since when everything clicks, TF2 is an absolute blast. But the ratio of maps is too poor to have kept my attention quite like TF1 did, but it's offset and held up more by a solid campaign. Titanfall 2 isn't the sequel I expected, and in some ways isn't the one I wanted, but I still had a blast with it overall and hope Respawn get a chance at making another, and really knock it out of the park.
VIII. VA-11 HALL-A
Sukeban Games | PC
Valhalla is a visual novel I enjoyed burning through this year, it felt like a game that had a simple idea and knew how to execute it. Put in the role of Jill, a bartender in the year 207X, Valhalla takes place primarily in a dystopian downtown bar. It's actually quite a refreshing role to take on as despite being the main character, the focus isn't all really on Jill herself. You are merely a window into the lives of many of the patrons. This is used to cleverly build the world outside the walls of the bar, and despite being a visual novel, there are no dialog options—instead the game is changed based off how you deliver the drinks the clients order.
As a VN, the gameplay is obviously pretty light. The bartending itself is ultimately a simple menu where you drag the corresponding ingredient into the mixer based off the recipe. Some people don't order drinks directly and instead ask for a taste akin to Bubbly or Sour, and as mentioned above what you give them can alter the events that play out. One ingredient, Karmotrine, is essentially the alcohol being put into a drink and dumping a bunch of that into a drink would be the main way of changing things beyond just botching an order completely. Still, it's mainly there as a means to an end and give you something to do inbetween all the talking. Inbetween shifts you return to Jill's apartment where you can spend money to decorate the room, but mostly to check out apps on her phone and read the daily news to further flesh out the happenings outside.
The bar goers themselves are naturally the draw of the game, bursting with personality and dealing with some surprisingly heavy themes. Even though Valhalla is frequently light hearted, it's not afraid to touch on real world issues both political and personal. Deal with robots, bounty hunters, sex workers and more. It's such an obvious concept for a game that I can't believe I haven't seen it used before, as it works so well for this style of game.
And finally, the soundtrack. Holy shit, it's good. When each day starts you get to set the jukebox playlist, which sets a higher emphasis on the background songs as you're the one setting the tone. These themes all mix and match amazingly well into the cyberpunk bar aesthetic--you can literally just blindly select random songs and be totally happy with each one you add.
VA-11 HALL-A is not a game I even really knew about before I jumped in, but I'm very happy not to have missed it. At the very least I'll be bopping this soundtrack for awhile while getting horribly drunk.
As a VN, the gameplay is obviously pretty light. The bartending itself is ultimately a simple menu where you drag the corresponding ingredient into the mixer based off the recipe. Some people don't order drinks directly and instead ask for a taste akin to Bubbly or Sour, and as mentioned above what you give them can alter the events that play out. One ingredient, Karmotrine, is essentially the alcohol being put into a drink and dumping a bunch of that into a drink would be the main way of changing things beyond just botching an order completely. Still, it's mainly there as a means to an end and give you something to do inbetween all the talking. Inbetween shifts you return to Jill's apartment where you can spend money to decorate the room, but mostly to check out apps on her phone and read the daily news to further flesh out the happenings outside.
The bar goers themselves are naturally the draw of the game, bursting with personality and dealing with some surprisingly heavy themes. Even though Valhalla is frequently light hearted, it's not afraid to touch on real world issues both political and personal. Deal with robots, bounty hunters, sex workers and more. It's such an obvious concept for a game that I can't believe I haven't seen it used before, as it works so well for this style of game.
And finally, the soundtrack. Holy shit, it's good. When each day starts you get to set the jukebox playlist, which sets a higher emphasis on the background songs as you're the one setting the tone. These themes all mix and match amazingly well into the cyberpunk bar aesthetic--you can literally just blindly select random songs and be totally happy with each one you add.
VA-11 HALL-A is not a game I even really knew about before I jumped in, but I'm very happy not to have missed it. At the very least I'll be bopping this soundtrack for awhile while getting horribly drunk.
VII. Gears of War 4
The Coalition | XB1, PC
Gears of War is a series I have always had a soft spot for. I tend to prefer third person over first in most genres, and in a world where multiplayer shooters go deeper and deeper into loadouts, unlocks, etc., I've always thought these type of setups simply feel like the rich get richer. I vastly prefer even ground, the idea that a brand new player can theoretically best a three year veteran even if the skillgap obviously will by the decider. But Judgement was...uh, not really the game I was looking for, and 3 came out in 2011. It's time.
Gears 4 is, well, some gears-ass-gears. For better or worse it is basically the exact game you would expect, which in many ways can be seen as a relief when a new studio is behind the wheel(even if a lot of the same talent is present). In both single and multiplayer 4 keeps the Gears formula close to its chest, meaning the singleplayer has a whole lot of perfectly sized walls to take cover on as you fight the totally-not-locust, with the torch passed from Marcus to his son JD. There is perhaps a bit too much of old man Marcus, but I found him weirdly endearing and liked how they handled the original cast, though your main squad with Kait and Del don't feel like they get enough time to really flesh out into their own characters yet. Despite all of this, I was surprisingly into the campaign. While it doesn't reinvent the wheel, it does have a few neat mechanical twists such as the storms and pods that give an increased focus on environmental interaction—shoot pods you see on the wall/ceiling to drop it on enemies or to make some makeshift cover are always fun to mess with and lead to some exciting fights.
The new weapons they added, specifically the Dropshot, Embar, and Overkill are all huge winners. The overkill in particular is an absolute riot to wield—essentially being a quad barrel shotgun that fires once when you hit the trigger and again when you release, meaning you can empty the bullets EXTREMELY fast or hold the trigger for stagger shots. The gibs that ensue are simply magical, and the punchy classic Gears sound effects are here and better than ever. The pop of a longshot headshot, the guitar riff when you clear a room of enemies, the ever satisfying active reload sound. As usual for the series, it all just comes together to create a fantastic playing and sounding game. Everything feels weighty, purposeful.
Multiplayer wise, Dodgeball and Escalation are great new additions. Dodgeball is essentially a blend of Warzone and TDM, instead of being able to naturally respawn like in TDM you are only brought back in if someone on your team gets a kill. This means in a 1v5, a straggler can get picked off and make it a 2v4...which leads to some wild comebacks, and even some crazy back and forths in the round itself. Escalation puts three points on the map to control, and you either win by score or through a shutout, if a team gets control of all three points they auto-win the round. A nice twist here is that after each round, the top scoring player on the losing team gets to actually place a weapon on the map. This makes each round progressively change as instead of rushing points you now may try to fight for map control for a power weapon, or it could just be a mindgame set by the team that they'll ignore. It's a neat way to make each match feel unique.
And after all of that, there's still Horde. Now split into classes (I think Judgement started this?), Engineer, Soldier, Scout, Sniper, and Heavy. All use cards and have different focuses, such as the Engineer being better at buying and setting fortifications, while the scout is the guy who wants to run out for the currency to buy everything. It's, again, what you'd expect if you've played Horde in the past. There's an unfortunate side effect of their loot crate system here hoever, as you level the class skills by cards you randomly get here, which ends up being pretty significant. The standard multiplayer chests only do visual changes that you can ignore but this is a pretty big no-no for me to actually mess with balance, even if it's a co-op focused mode.
Looking at my list, Gears stands out as just being a hell of a lot of game. The full campaign, multiplayer and horde package actually has a ton of meat on it which seems to be an increasing rarity in this gaming landscape. It may play it safe, but if you want some more Gears, 4 delivers that in spades.
Gears 4 is, well, some gears-ass-gears. For better or worse it is basically the exact game you would expect, which in many ways can be seen as a relief when a new studio is behind the wheel(even if a lot of the same talent is present). In both single and multiplayer 4 keeps the Gears formula close to its chest, meaning the singleplayer has a whole lot of perfectly sized walls to take cover on as you fight the totally-not-locust, with the torch passed from Marcus to his son JD. There is perhaps a bit too much of old man Marcus, but I found him weirdly endearing and liked how they handled the original cast, though your main squad with Kait and Del don't feel like they get enough time to really flesh out into their own characters yet. Despite all of this, I was surprisingly into the campaign. While it doesn't reinvent the wheel, it does have a few neat mechanical twists such as the storms and pods that give an increased focus on environmental interaction—shoot pods you see on the wall/ceiling to drop it on enemies or to make some makeshift cover are always fun to mess with and lead to some exciting fights.
The new weapons they added, specifically the Dropshot, Embar, and Overkill are all huge winners. The overkill in particular is an absolute riot to wield—essentially being a quad barrel shotgun that fires once when you hit the trigger and again when you release, meaning you can empty the bullets EXTREMELY fast or hold the trigger for stagger shots. The gibs that ensue are simply magical, and the punchy classic Gears sound effects are here and better than ever. The pop of a longshot headshot, the guitar riff when you clear a room of enemies, the ever satisfying active reload sound. As usual for the series, it all just comes together to create a fantastic playing and sounding game. Everything feels weighty, purposeful.
Multiplayer wise, Dodgeball and Escalation are great new additions. Dodgeball is essentially a blend of Warzone and TDM, instead of being able to naturally respawn like in TDM you are only brought back in if someone on your team gets a kill. This means in a 1v5, a straggler can get picked off and make it a 2v4...which leads to some wild comebacks, and even some crazy back and forths in the round itself. Escalation puts three points on the map to control, and you either win by score or through a shutout, if a team gets control of all three points they auto-win the round. A nice twist here is that after each round, the top scoring player on the losing team gets to actually place a weapon on the map. This makes each round progressively change as instead of rushing points you now may try to fight for map control for a power weapon, or it could just be a mindgame set by the team that they'll ignore. It's a neat way to make each match feel unique.
And after all of that, there's still Horde. Now split into classes (I think Judgement started this?), Engineer, Soldier, Scout, Sniper, and Heavy. All use cards and have different focuses, such as the Engineer being better at buying and setting fortifications, while the scout is the guy who wants to run out for the currency to buy everything. It's, again, what you'd expect if you've played Horde in the past. There's an unfortunate side effect of their loot crate system here hoever, as you level the class skills by cards you randomly get here, which ends up being pretty significant. The standard multiplayer chests only do visual changes that you can ignore but this is a pretty big no-no for me to actually mess with balance, even if it's a co-op focused mode.
Looking at my list, Gears stands out as just being a hell of a lot of game. The full campaign, multiplayer and horde package actually has a ton of meat on it which seems to be an increasing rarity in this gaming landscape. It may play it safe, but if you want some more Gears, 4 delivers that in spades.
VI. Inside
Playdead | XB1, PS4, PC
Inside is an incredibly hard game for me to write about for a few reasons. First, I don't want to spoil anything...the less you know heading into this, the better. But also, I just don't think I have much to say. Limbo was one of the first indie games I can recall playing that played up the atmospheric 2D sidescroller, and Inside pretty much takes and perfects that formula. It's a game that I beat in one sitting, unable to pull myself away until I saw what happened next. Despite clocking in at a fairly short ~3-4 hours, I can totally see how this took years to make. Each scene feels lovingly crafted and detailed, despite being a 2d sidescroller they evoke a huge sense of place and it's coupled with incredible sound design. There's quite a few interesting scenarios the game puts you through that most other games would iterate upon multiple times, but Inside is fine just leaving this crazy idea as a one-of and moving onto the next. It shows a ton of restraint underneath everything.
And it's impossible to just not mention it, the ending sequence is probably the best animated thing I have ever seen in a videogame. Just...everything that happens. I don't even know. It's certainly going to stick with me forever.
But yeah, that's all I got. You should probably play Inside. Haunting, ethereal, weird.
And it's impossible to just not mention it, the ending sequence is probably the best animated thing I have ever seen in a videogame. Just...everything that happens. I don't even know. It's certainly going to stick with me forever.
But yeah, that's all I got. You should probably play Inside. Haunting, ethereal, weird.
V. Doom
id Software | PS4, XB1, PC
I'm sure it's been said a million times in this thread already—the showing DOOM had did absolutely no justice to the end product we received. That slow walk E3 presser, the pre-release beta just being for the MP component, everything was just secretly keeping this rabid hellbeast held back, catching everyone by surprise and also probably making most people feel like doing cocaine. Or just me. Don't judge me tho. Blame Mick Gordon.
Doom starts off fast and furious, and kinda...keeps doing that. And then there are guitar riffs. Then more guitar riffs and some screaming as you snap the jaw off of an imp. Then you start double jumping and finding secrets, bro fist a mini-figure of a doom guy. The game is just fuckin' fun, creating a great blend of old school doom while mixing it with some modern tropes, almost feeling like DMC/Bayonetta of FPS games where you're given arenas and a bunch of tools to fuck everything up. At its peak Doom is just brutal as hell, you're constantly doing something while in combat and it just feels good to be unshackled away from the hole most FPS have pigeoned themselves into. No need to sprint, you just have actual movespeed. Weapon wheels! HP and armor! Taking off the shackles of regenerating HP lets combat actually have time to breathe, something we have been desperately overdue for. Doom just knows what it wants to be, and does it well. This is simply a game where you kill a whole bunch of shit to a rocking soundtrack, with a plot that is barely present but enough to give you drive.
The MP component is also a thing that exists. Sure does. A bit of a shame the DLC ended up being focused on that instead of giving more ways to kill demons, but sometimes life just says no. In all honestly I actually played way more of the MP than I probably should have and actually had dumb fun with it, but it seemed to have a ton of balance issues(turning into the demons jesus christ no) and wasn't really doing much to keep me invested. It's worth noting that whoever did the animations for the taunts did an amazing job, they are hypnotic and fantastic.
Snap Map on the other hand seemed to be pretty wild, but I didn't get to dabble in it too much either. But I was able to play some weird level where I was growing a farm that had a mine I was going down. So, thumbs up from me.
Overall, Doom isn't quite the well rounded package compared to some other games, but the campaign alone is all it needed. Well realized, pure adrenaline.
Doom starts off fast and furious, and kinda...keeps doing that. And then there are guitar riffs. Then more guitar riffs and some screaming as you snap the jaw off of an imp. Then you start double jumping and finding secrets, bro fist a mini-figure of a doom guy. The game is just fuckin' fun, creating a great blend of old school doom while mixing it with some modern tropes, almost feeling like DMC/Bayonetta of FPS games where you're given arenas and a bunch of tools to fuck everything up. At its peak Doom is just brutal as hell, you're constantly doing something while in combat and it just feels good to be unshackled away from the hole most FPS have pigeoned themselves into. No need to sprint, you just have actual movespeed. Weapon wheels! HP and armor! Taking off the shackles of regenerating HP lets combat actually have time to breathe, something we have been desperately overdue for. Doom just knows what it wants to be, and does it well. This is simply a game where you kill a whole bunch of shit to a rocking soundtrack, with a plot that is barely present but enough to give you drive.
The MP component is also a thing that exists. Sure does. A bit of a shame the DLC ended up being focused on that instead of giving more ways to kill demons, but sometimes life just says no. In all honestly I actually played way more of the MP than I probably should have and actually had dumb fun with it, but it seemed to have a ton of balance issues(turning into the demons jesus christ no) and wasn't really doing much to keep me invested. It's worth noting that whoever did the animations for the taunts did an amazing job, they are hypnotic and fantastic.
Snap Map on the other hand seemed to be pretty wild, but I didn't get to dabble in it too much either. But I was able to play some weird level where I was growing a farm that had a mine I was going down. So, thumbs up from me.
Overall, Doom isn't quite the well rounded package compared to some other games, but the campaign alone is all it needed. Well realized, pure adrenaline.
IV. Stardew Valley
ConcernedApe | PS4, XB1, PC
Now that Doom is out of the way, let me talk about the most savage game of 2016. Stardew Valley on a surface level seemed like a nice little farming game that would grab my attention for a few days, but little did I know the vast vortex I just opened myself up to. This game is everything. You have a farm, but there's also the entire town to build social links, partake in holiday events, an entire dungeon substructure in the mines that keeps going down, fishing, hidden areas, secrets everywhere, an actually astounding amount of assets for a million different items, crafting, animals, having multiple girlfriends at once, trying to uncover the mystery of why Clint is so weird. Everything.
I am still playing Stardew Valley, currently. I actually just got my first animals in a chicken coop, and I've been playing for nearly 24 hours. Yet I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface of the subsystems at work here, considering there's a plethora of buildings, animals, and items I can work towards. I am currently harvesting the chicken eggs to put into my mayonnaise machine to sell and rule Stardew Valley as a mayo dictator. And that's just the start.
From the getgo, Stardew can be as complicated or as simple as you'd like. Every day has purpose—if you so choose. This can go anyway you want, focus on the farm to start having something obvious to do each day, or neglect it to fish by the beach all day, or head down the depths of the mines. When you're trying to juggle everything at once, time management becomes very important and just getting everything wrapped up for a day feels satisfying and makes you want to keep going. Maybe it's someone's birthday tomorrow and you want to give them a gift, but it turns out it's raining that day so you can skip watering all of your crops, freeing you up to go deeper in the mines. But first you want to talk to Leah since you're tryna' smash. Etc. There are some light story element goals to work towards, and a big split that is either helping restore the town's community center, while is a year+ affair requiring a vast array of items from basically every element of the game, or you can get a membership at not-walmart which destroys the community center and makes way for our glorious corporate overlords. Or you can just ignore all of that, because you're a fuckin' farmer. Who cares what they want, you do you. Plant a million blueberries and become a billionaire.
You just can't mention Stardew without talking about the boppin' ass soundtrack as well. Just a perfect background noise to match the zen-like state you can approach the game, particular shoutout to this magical melody during summer. Or this. Or all of it.
It is actually insane to me that one person made this game. You can just see the passion in every corner, if anything it's a miracle this game didn't become a disaster from having new ideas and trying to shove everything into a game. He did shove it all in here and made it work. Stardew Valley is a goddamn marvel. It's amazing. It's everything.
I am still playing Stardew Valley, currently. I actually just got my first animals in a chicken coop, and I've been playing for nearly 24 hours. Yet I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface of the subsystems at work here, considering there's a plethora of buildings, animals, and items I can work towards. I am currently harvesting the chicken eggs to put into my mayonnaise machine to sell and rule Stardew Valley as a mayo dictator. And that's just the start.
From the getgo, Stardew can be as complicated or as simple as you'd like. Every day has purpose—if you so choose. This can go anyway you want, focus on the farm to start having something obvious to do each day, or neglect it to fish by the beach all day, or head down the depths of the mines. When you're trying to juggle everything at once, time management becomes very important and just getting everything wrapped up for a day feels satisfying and makes you want to keep going. Maybe it's someone's birthday tomorrow and you want to give them a gift, but it turns out it's raining that day so you can skip watering all of your crops, freeing you up to go deeper in the mines. But first you want to talk to Leah since you're tryna' smash. Etc. There are some light story element goals to work towards, and a big split that is either helping restore the town's community center, while is a year+ affair requiring a vast array of items from basically every element of the game, or you can get a membership at not-walmart which destroys the community center and makes way for our glorious corporate overlords. Or you can just ignore all of that, because you're a fuckin' farmer. Who cares what they want, you do you. Plant a million blueberries and become a billionaire.
You just can't mention Stardew without talking about the boppin' ass soundtrack as well. Just a perfect background noise to match the zen-like state you can approach the game, particular shoutout to this magical melody during summer. Or this. Or all of it.
It is actually insane to me that one person made this game. You can just see the passion in every corner, if anything it's a miracle this game didn't become a disaster from having new ideas and trying to shove everything into a game. He did shove it all in here and made it work. Stardew Valley is a goddamn marvel. It's amazing. It's everything.
Continued here.
