I feel like December is never complete until I've read how Tom Chick feels about this year's games. And since nobody else seems to have done it yet, I'll share the holiday cheer with you.
There are four lists this year. I've clipped a bit of his explanation for each game. For some slightly more complete explanations, you can follow the link and read the full articles.
The Most Disappointing Games of 2016
Calling a game disappointing arguably has more to do with me than the game itself. Disappointment isn’t an inherent quality. It can’t exist without some sort of expectation in the first place. In many cases, these games are sequels, or the creations of developers with proven track records, or entries in established genres, or games with promising beginnings. But for various reasons, a central fact about these games is that I had personally hoped they would be better.
10. Zombasite - "As much as I love Zombasite’s wrapper, the candy inside is past its sell-by date."
9. Watch Dogs 2 - "I think it was sometime during a go-kart race that Watch Dogs 2 started to fall apart for me. It was definitely after murdering a dozen security guards to expose the injustice of a — gasp! — kidnapping."
8. Abzu - "An ocean is probably the worst place to make an exploration game in which you just work your way down a corridor. That’s how Abzu plays."
7. Battlefleet: Gothic Armada - "I can’t find much tactical variety in here, which is a glaring problem in a game about tactical combat."
6. Clockwork Empires - "A textbook example of a bad interface utterly undermining what should have been a decent game."
5. Dead by Daylight - "At least in 2k Games’ ill-fated Evolve, the four players who weren’t monsters got to do the hunting."
4. Mighty No. 9 - "On June 21, when Mighty No. 9 was released, 67,226 people went from enthusiastic Kickstarter supporter to owner of a bog-standard platformer."
3. Killing Floor 2 - "Pretty much the same game as Killing Floor 1, but with micropayments and loot boxes."
2. Rise of the Tomb Raider - "I liked Tomb Raider because of the story. I liked Rise of the Tomb Raider in spite of the story."
1. Stellaris - "Imagine that your favorite history professor has written a sci-fi novel. You’re intrigued. You read it. It’s dry, bereft of imagination, and misses the point of sci-fi by light years. It’s even full of typos and some of the pages are blank. But you still read all 912 pages. It’s flat. It’s lifeless. It’s terrible. You’re crestfallen. That’s Stellaris."
The Most Surprising Games of 2016
So if the most disappointing category is a list of games that should have been better, the most surprising category is the opposite. These are games that were better than they should have been.
10. Grim Dawn - "[Among Action-RPGs], only Grim Dawn offers a meaningful sense of place. It does what procedurally generated worlds will never be able to do."
9. Mirror's Edge Catalyst - "[T]his is the way to the take the previous Mirror’s Edge’s interesting traversal and build it up into an interesting game."
8. Gremlins, Inc. - "But like any boardgame, you have do two things to appreciate Gremlins, Inc: learn the rules and actually play it. Once you do those two things, you’ll discover a very good boardgame in a videogame format."
7. House of the Dying Sun - "The result: short sharp burst of space combat simming like you haven’t seen since TIE Fighter."
6. Homefront: The Revolution - "Although it’s got vaguely Assassin’s Creed style interludes, most of this Homefront can be characterized as “emergent Call of Duty”."
5. Forced Showdown - "Hearthstone as a model for an action RPG roguelike? Shorts fights, big colorful cards, a drip feed of rewards and progression? That sounds like a terrible idea. But it’s not."
4. Redout - "Wipeout lives! That same white-knuckle shiny hyperspeed maglev racing is now alive and well and fully fleshed out on the PC."
3. Steep - "Remember that level in SSX Tricky where you could just go wherever you want (as long as it was downhill, of course)? Steep is a whole game about that, scattered with Ubistuff to pull you around the map."
2. Seraph - "Of all the games in 2016 that I thought I’d “just try real quick”, this is the one that has provided my fingers the most gratifying exercise."
1. Doom - "The second biggest surprise of 2016 was this game not being terrible."
The Most Overrated Games of 2016
Overrated is a loaded term. It looks good in a headline. It’s often used for no purpose other than to goad a reaction. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. When I call a game overrated, I don’t mean it’s bad, that the reviews were wrong, that the people who liked it were dopes, or even that I didn’t like it. It just means I’m surprised more people weren’t more critical, that the conversation wasn’t more often about ways the game could have been better.
10. The Division - "JAMMO. Sure, a cover-based shooter, too. But mostly JAMMO."
9. No Man's Sky - "The developers probably didn’t mean to make a game about how the universe is vast and meaningless, but sometimes insight happens."
8. Final Fantasy XV - "As an excuse, “it’s a JRPG” can only get you so far. Final Fantasy XV is well beyond that point."
7. Firewatch - "Fantastic writing, heartfelt acting, and a unique story that combines mid-life crisis navel gazing with wilderness noir. Shame about the bits where you’re walking around in a lackluster game about being a park ranger."
6. Darkest Dungeon - "JRPG combat minus the JRPG but with brutally difficult “fuck you” boss gimmicks. Is permadeath really a good idea here?"
5.Team Fortress 3 Overwatch - "Blizzard is really good at what they do, especially when they’re doing something someone else already did."
4. The Witness - "One of the most egregious examples of puzzles for puzzles’ sake since Seventh Guest. Although, to be fair, Seventh Guest had a story. And varied puzzles. And it was less punishing. While I appreciate the braininess of The Witness’ extended lesson in self-referential grammar, 2016 should be celebrated as a banner year for mysterious puzzle islands for an entirely different reason: Cyan World’s haunting and memorable Obduction."
3. That Dragon, Cancer - "Can I be sympathetic to someone’s ordeal but still be critical of the game they’ve made about the ordeal? Without being a dick, I mean."
2. Planet Coaster - "Frontier Developments releases a promising game without any meaningful way to teach new players how to play, with significant swathes of actual gameplay still pending, and with fancy visuals to distract you from those facts. What a strange sense of deja vu."
1. Civilization VI - "Once again, Civilization gets 1UP’T. And once again, reviewers and neophyte strategy gamers couldn’t care less. “Look, I grew a city!” they beam proudly, like a six-year-old showing you a crayon drawing of a house."
The Top Games of 2016
I can think of at least nine reasons this list might be lacking: Gears of War 4, Uncharted 4, Titanfall 2, Salt and Sactuary, Kathy Rain, Virginia, Forza Down Under, Dead Rising 2, and The Last Guardian. All games I didn’t get to play this year. I’ll throw in Just Dance 2017 to make it an even ten.
But from among the game I did play this year, let me tell you about my ten favorites.
10. Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 - "In a year with solid team-based shooters like Overwatch, Battlefield 1, and Titanfall 2, this was the one that stood out."
9. Ratchet & Clank - "It’s pure Ratchet & Clank, distilled so potently that no subtitle is needed."
8. Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir - "It’s presented with such charm and color, vividly expressed in adorable overlapping stories that make me wonder why Vanillaware game director George Kamitani’s name isn’t as well known as Miyamoto’s."
7. Total War: Warhammer - "Sexy librarian and history nerd Creative Assembly takes off her glasses, lets down her hair, and DMs some of the most spectacular Warhammering you have ever played."
6. Oxenfree - "Interactive videogame conversations are terrible. Without exception. They are nothing like actual conversations. But then along comes Oxenfree, with its great writing, vivid characters, mysterious plot, and beautifully natural conversations."
5. Blacksea Odyssey - "Totally check out this cool top-down action game that’s like Asteroids had a baby with Shadow of the Colossus."
4. XCOM 2 - "It’s XCOM, but with everything better. And I mean everything. Seriously, name one thing about XCOM and I can explain how it’s better in XCOM 2."
3. Offworld Trading Company - "It’s not often a game design is something this new. And this old. By bringing the concepts of the 1983 Dani Bunten classic, M.U.L.E., into the world of modern game design, Soren Johnson has rescued real-time strategy from the creatively bankrupt gulag of MOBAs."
2. Shadow Warrior 2 - "What if the gleeful excess of Painkiller was supported by the open-ended tinkering of Diablo and the juvenile humor of a 90s 3D Realms game?"
1. Quadrilateral Cowboy - "In 2016, there was no game as unpredictable, memorable, or touching as Quadrilateral Cowboy. What might seem at first like a tragically underdeveloped version of Hitman turns out to be the intimate portrait of a life well-lived."
There are definitely a few games on here that I didn't know about which I might want to check out. I watched some of a gameplay stream of Blacksea Odyssey, and it seems pretty cool!
There are four lists this year. I've clipped a bit of his explanation for each game. For some slightly more complete explanations, you can follow the link and read the full articles.
The Most Disappointing Games of 2016
Calling a game disappointing arguably has more to do with me than the game itself. Disappointment isn’t an inherent quality. It can’t exist without some sort of expectation in the first place. In many cases, these games are sequels, or the creations of developers with proven track records, or entries in established genres, or games with promising beginnings. But for various reasons, a central fact about these games is that I had personally hoped they would be better.
10. Zombasite - "As much as I love Zombasite’s wrapper, the candy inside is past its sell-by date."
9. Watch Dogs 2 - "I think it was sometime during a go-kart race that Watch Dogs 2 started to fall apart for me. It was definitely after murdering a dozen security guards to expose the injustice of a — gasp! — kidnapping."
8. Abzu - "An ocean is probably the worst place to make an exploration game in which you just work your way down a corridor. That’s how Abzu plays."
7. Battlefleet: Gothic Armada - "I can’t find much tactical variety in here, which is a glaring problem in a game about tactical combat."
6. Clockwork Empires - "A textbook example of a bad interface utterly undermining what should have been a decent game."
5. Dead by Daylight - "At least in 2k Games’ ill-fated Evolve, the four players who weren’t monsters got to do the hunting."
4. Mighty No. 9 - "On June 21, when Mighty No. 9 was released, 67,226 people went from enthusiastic Kickstarter supporter to owner of a bog-standard platformer."
3. Killing Floor 2 - "Pretty much the same game as Killing Floor 1, but with micropayments and loot boxes."
2. Rise of the Tomb Raider - "I liked Tomb Raider because of the story. I liked Rise of the Tomb Raider in spite of the story."
1. Stellaris - "Imagine that your favorite history professor has written a sci-fi novel. You’re intrigued. You read it. It’s dry, bereft of imagination, and misses the point of sci-fi by light years. It’s even full of typos and some of the pages are blank. But you still read all 912 pages. It’s flat. It’s lifeless. It’s terrible. You’re crestfallen. That’s Stellaris."
The Most Surprising Games of 2016
So if the most disappointing category is a list of games that should have been better, the most surprising category is the opposite. These are games that were better than they should have been.
10. Grim Dawn - "[Among Action-RPGs], only Grim Dawn offers a meaningful sense of place. It does what procedurally generated worlds will never be able to do."
9. Mirror's Edge Catalyst - "[T]his is the way to the take the previous Mirror’s Edge’s interesting traversal and build it up into an interesting game."
8. Gremlins, Inc. - "But like any boardgame, you have do two things to appreciate Gremlins, Inc: learn the rules and actually play it. Once you do those two things, you’ll discover a very good boardgame in a videogame format."
7. House of the Dying Sun - "The result: short sharp burst of space combat simming like you haven’t seen since TIE Fighter."
6. Homefront: The Revolution - "Although it’s got vaguely Assassin’s Creed style interludes, most of this Homefront can be characterized as “emergent Call of Duty”."
5. Forced Showdown - "Hearthstone as a model for an action RPG roguelike? Shorts fights, big colorful cards, a drip feed of rewards and progression? That sounds like a terrible idea. But it’s not."
4. Redout - "Wipeout lives! That same white-knuckle shiny hyperspeed maglev racing is now alive and well and fully fleshed out on the PC."
3. Steep - "Remember that level in SSX Tricky where you could just go wherever you want (as long as it was downhill, of course)? Steep is a whole game about that, scattered with Ubistuff to pull you around the map."
2. Seraph - "Of all the games in 2016 that I thought I’d “just try real quick”, this is the one that has provided my fingers the most gratifying exercise."
1. Doom - "The second biggest surprise of 2016 was this game not being terrible."
The Most Overrated Games of 2016
Overrated is a loaded term. It looks good in a headline. It’s often used for no purpose other than to goad a reaction. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. When I call a game overrated, I don’t mean it’s bad, that the reviews were wrong, that the people who liked it were dopes, or even that I didn’t like it. It just means I’m surprised more people weren’t more critical, that the conversation wasn’t more often about ways the game could have been better.
10. The Division - "JAMMO. Sure, a cover-based shooter, too. But mostly JAMMO."
9. No Man's Sky - "The developers probably didn’t mean to make a game about how the universe is vast and meaningless, but sometimes insight happens."
8. Final Fantasy XV - "As an excuse, “it’s a JRPG” can only get you so far. Final Fantasy XV is well beyond that point."
7. Firewatch - "Fantastic writing, heartfelt acting, and a unique story that combines mid-life crisis navel gazing with wilderness noir. Shame about the bits where you’re walking around in a lackluster game about being a park ranger."
6. Darkest Dungeon - "JRPG combat minus the JRPG but with brutally difficult “fuck you” boss gimmicks. Is permadeath really a good idea here?"
5.
4. The Witness - "One of the most egregious examples of puzzles for puzzles’ sake since Seventh Guest. Although, to be fair, Seventh Guest had a story. And varied puzzles. And it was less punishing. While I appreciate the braininess of The Witness’ extended lesson in self-referential grammar, 2016 should be celebrated as a banner year for mysterious puzzle islands for an entirely different reason: Cyan World’s haunting and memorable Obduction."
3. That Dragon, Cancer - "Can I be sympathetic to someone’s ordeal but still be critical of the game they’ve made about the ordeal? Without being a dick, I mean."
2. Planet Coaster - "Frontier Developments releases a promising game without any meaningful way to teach new players how to play, with significant swathes of actual gameplay still pending, and with fancy visuals to distract you from those facts. What a strange sense of deja vu."
1. Civilization VI - "Once again, Civilization gets 1UP’T. And once again, reviewers and neophyte strategy gamers couldn’t care less. “Look, I grew a city!” they beam proudly, like a six-year-old showing you a crayon drawing of a house."
The Top Games of 2016
I can think of at least nine reasons this list might be lacking: Gears of War 4, Uncharted 4, Titanfall 2, Salt and Sactuary, Kathy Rain, Virginia, Forza Down Under, Dead Rising 2, and The Last Guardian. All games I didn’t get to play this year. I’ll throw in Just Dance 2017 to make it an even ten.
But from among the game I did play this year, let me tell you about my ten favorites.
10. Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 - "In a year with solid team-based shooters like Overwatch, Battlefield 1, and Titanfall 2, this was the one that stood out."
9. Ratchet & Clank - "It’s pure Ratchet & Clank, distilled so potently that no subtitle is needed."
8. Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir - "It’s presented with such charm and color, vividly expressed in adorable overlapping stories that make me wonder why Vanillaware game director George Kamitani’s name isn’t as well known as Miyamoto’s."
7. Total War: Warhammer - "Sexy librarian and history nerd Creative Assembly takes off her glasses, lets down her hair, and DMs some of the most spectacular Warhammering you have ever played."
6. Oxenfree - "Interactive videogame conversations are terrible. Without exception. They are nothing like actual conversations. But then along comes Oxenfree, with its great writing, vivid characters, mysterious plot, and beautifully natural conversations."
5. Blacksea Odyssey - "Totally check out this cool top-down action game that’s like Asteroids had a baby with Shadow of the Colossus."
4. XCOM 2 - "It’s XCOM, but with everything better. And I mean everything. Seriously, name one thing about XCOM and I can explain how it’s better in XCOM 2."
3. Offworld Trading Company - "It’s not often a game design is something this new. And this old. By bringing the concepts of the 1983 Dani Bunten classic, M.U.L.E., into the world of modern game design, Soren Johnson has rescued real-time strategy from the creatively bankrupt gulag of MOBAs."
2. Shadow Warrior 2 - "What if the gleeful excess of Painkiller was supported by the open-ended tinkering of Diablo and the juvenile humor of a 90s 3D Realms game?"
1. Quadrilateral Cowboy - "In 2016, there was no game as unpredictable, memorable, or touching as Quadrilateral Cowboy. What might seem at first like a tragically underdeveloped version of Hitman turns out to be the intimate portrait of a life well-lived."
There are definitely a few games on here that I didn't know about which I might want to check out. I watched some of a gameplay stream of Blacksea Odyssey, and it seems pretty cool!
