Honorable Mention “Final Fantasy 15”, “Batman: The Telltale Series”, “The Division”, “Dishonored 2” and “Watch Dogs 2”
10. “Overwatch” This pick is not a personal one, but more of a sense of acknowledgement to a great game. “Overwatch” delivered a fine mix of first-person shooting and the heroes and lore of MOBAs such as “League of Legends” or “DOTA”. “Overwatch” does lack a broader appeal due to the lack of a campaign, but has gained mass popularity. The winner of Game of the Year and Best eSports Game at the 2016 Game Awards, “Overwatch” is well deserving of a spot in any Top 10 list. 9. “Quantum Break” Many would question this pick. “Quantum Break” takes the player on a time traveling adventure as Jack Joyce. The game fuses gunplay and Jack’s time manipulation powers in a smooth and easy to learn way. “Quantum Break” goes an extra step past typical computer rendered cut scenes, and creates a live action television that runs along parallel to the main game. The television show mixes wonderfully with the main game to form a truly unique experience. 8. “Firewatch” Many have called “Firewatch” a walking simulator, and they are not entirely wrong. “Firewatch” does lack in the gameplay department, but delivers and captivating narrative as the player hikes through the wilderness in Wyoming. Art style, story and voice acting all come together to help this indie game to compete with these games from bigger studios. 7. “Battlefield 1” This is another pick that might have people scratching their heads, especially in the number 7 slot. “Battlefield 1” was a unique game this year. It broke the recent trends of big budget shooters by stepping back in time to WW1, and telling a series of separate stories from multiple fronts of the war. “Battlefield 1” is a game that sticks with the player well after their done with it. The overall experience earns itself a spot on this list. 6. “XCOM 2” “XCOM 2” is simply a good game. Delivering not only a good story and fun gameplay, “XCOM 2” does not pull punches in terms of difficulty. “XCOM 2” built wonderfully off of the original and has great support from the modder that will keep players with this game for a long time. 5. “Civilization 6” “Civ 6” is the second game by Firaxis on this list. Winner of Best Strategy Game at the game awards, “Civ 6” has something to offer both new players and experienced veterans. “Civ 6” has made changes to win conditions that force players to alter past winning strategy. These gameplay changes along with the adoption of a new art style has helped this game extend its appeal compared to past installments. 4. “Ratchet and Clank” “Ratchet and Clank” came out in conjunction with an animated film this April. A reimagining of a 2002 classic, “Ratchet and Clank” brings back all the great characters for old fans and a new younger generation. The game is a playable Pixar movie. It looks absolutely gorgeous and strong gameplay backs it up. The entire game is a blast from the past that easily ends up high on this list. 3. “DOOM” “DOOM” brings back old slide and glide style of shooting in this brutal game. The original “DOOM” helped establish the first-person shooter genre, and this iteration is a wonderful fruition of those labors. Bloody, brutal and fast paced, “DOOM” is not for those with a weak constitution. 2. “Gears of War 4” “Gears of War 4” is the first Gears game by the Coalition. The Coalition built on Epic Games framework of gameplay with a more emotionally focused narrative. “Gears 4” is not groundbreaking in terms of originality. “Gears 4” just delivered an amazing experience in terms of both gameplay and narrative. 1. “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” “Uncharted 4” delivered the perfect ending to the story of Nathan Drake. “Uncharted 4” achieves high levels of success in almost every level. Captivating narrative, building on an already strong cast with the addition of Troy Baker and even an enjoyable multiplayer. “Uncharted 4” easily stands on top of this list and should be a strong contender for anyone’s Game of the Year.
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Originally created by Cliff Bleszinski and Epic Games in 2006, “Gears of War” redefined the third-person shooter genre.
Now, ten years later, Rod Fergusson and The Coalition have tried their hand at the latest instalment in the franchise with “Gear of War 4”. “Gears of War 4” takes place 25 years after the events of “Gears of War 3”. Players now get to play as James “J.D.” Fenix, the son of the original trilogy’s protagonist Marcus Fenix. The game picks up after J.D and his best friend Del have deserted the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) military and have joined up with a group of people who disagree with COG policies and have formed their own society called Outsiders. The world is in a state of chaos. The COG have instituted a martial law policy that leads to them keeping their citizens in walled cities, by force if they have to. This and the use of mechanical soldiers is what led J.D. and Del to leave the COG. Tensions continue to rise as the COG believe that Outsiders are behind the abduction of COG citizens. After an attack on the Outsider’s settlement by new enemy the Swarm, an evolved form of the Locust, J.D. and his friends Del and Kait must set off to rescue the Outsider leader and Kait’s mother Reyna. J.D. and company end up teaming up with the former members of Delta squad Marcus Fenix, Damon Baird and Augustus Cole to fight the Swarm and rescue Kait’s mother. “Gears of War 4” Keeps up the brutality and gore of the original trilogy in amazing fashion while also delivering a more emotional and character based narrative. The original “Gears” games were eventually able to deliver this emotional narrative, but “Gears of War 4” does it right off the bat without sacrificing the gameplay that made this series so popular. There are pacing issue scattered throughout. There are points in the game that grinds the story to a halt and becomes redundant. On the violence side there are only two words that need to be said- chainsaw bayonet. It is still one of the best things in gaming to watch the characters charge an enemy and cut them in half with the chainsaw and watch the blood and gore fly. This game does not change much of the core gameplay. Shooting and cover mechanics remain the same. As the old saying goes “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. The Coalition did add a combat knife to the arsenal of the players. These knives can be used to save ammunition and perform brutal takedowns. There is also an addition of weather called windflares. When a windflare hits, the player’s vision is reduced, grenades are blown off course and debris can kill enemies and allies alike. This is somewhat similar to razorhail in “Gears of War 2”, but windflares are present throughout “Gears of War 4” almost to the point of overuse. Multiplayer is enjoyable, but uninventive. Players go through a simple progression system by simply playing multiplayer. Win or lose the player gains experience based on their stats form the match and completing side challenges called “bounties”. As with many game’s multiplayer, certain weapons reign supreme. In “Gears of War 4” that weapon is the Gnasher shotgun. While other weapons are effective, the Gnasher has decent range and deals decent amounts of damage even at longer ranges. Popular game modes such as king of the hill and team death match make a return. The overall experience if “Gears of War 4” lives up to its predecessors. As with any game there are minor flaws, but none that severely detract from the game as a whole. “Gears of War 4” is easily one of the top games in 2016. Rating: 10/10 The “Call of Duty” (CoD) franchise is a long running war game series that has worked its way into the heart of our culture.
CoD is a first-person shooter that has taken us back in time to World War II and Vietnam, as well as giving the players a look through the eyes of a modern soldier in the aptly named “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare”. Recently the franchise has been taking player further and further into the future. This year’s version of the annualized franchise, developed by Infinity Ward, takes players beyond the stars in “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare”. In “Infinite Warfare” the player takes the role of Nick Reyes, a Lieutenant in the Special Combat Air Recon (SCAR). The world of “Infinite Warfare” is in the midst of Turmoil. The SDF, or the Settlement Defense Force, is a rebel militia who believe that they should run the solar system. After a sleeper agent causes the destruction of a majority of Earth’s fleet, Reyes is promoted to captain of the Retribution and sent to fight the SDF in all corners of the solar system. As a SCAR Reyes is not only a trained ground operative, but is also a highly killed pilot. Part of this games combat takes place in the air in fighter jets called Jackals. Jackals are an aircraft that can operate in both space and in atmosphere. They mix the speed of a jet and the hovering capabilities of a helicopter for more fine control and precision movements. Air combat on the whole works well, but is not without its faults. The first-person perspective in the cockpit makes maneuvering difficult, especially when there are obstacles in the field of engagement. There also is not a sense of speed when piloting as a jet. It lacks the sheer adrenaline rush of high speed dog fights. “Infinite Warfare” brings a sense of openness that does not exist in the rest of the franchise. In between main missions, Reyes and the Retribution can take on side missions to take out SDF ships or VIPs. A majority of these missions are small mini stories that take place within the main narrative. They have no impact on the story as a whole, but players can find more weapons and gear upgrades in these missions that they could not find sticking to the beaten path. Throughout the game, the player can pick up and scan weapons of defeated enemies. After a weapon is scanned players can select the weapon and customize it to take out on their next mission. Every mission begins with players picking out their weapon load out. This allows them to pick their preferred guns and attachments, as opposed to being stuck with a load out they do not like and have to scrounge to make it through the mission. The narrative is full of emotion. It keeps hitting the player with the sentiment that, in war, everyone cannot always get home safe. That sometimes the mission takes priority to everything else. There is not much to say that would not spoil the game, but “infinite Warfare” does not pull punches and keeps hitting right up to the end. The CoD franchise has been suffering from a stagnation in terms of multiplayer. The competitive multiplayer is mostly the same as it has always been. As always there are small changes, but remains the same at its core. It is still a fast paced twitch shooter, but this is the problem. It is always the same just with a new skin. The iconic Zombie mode is the same way. “Infinite Warfare” took a chance with a new style in its narrative and it saved this game from being a forgettable experience. Good writing and well-designed characters, along with an emotion packed story, allows this gem to shine through its faults. The future of the franchise is unknown, but hopefully the next developer in the cycle takes notes and builds on the base that “Infinite Warfare” laid down. Rating: 8/10 The sequel to the 2014 multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) “Titanfall”, “Titanfall 2” attempts to draw new players to the franchise with its fast paced gameplay being applied to a single-player narrative.
“Titanfall 2” takes place well in the future, during a war between a guerilla resistance fighting for their freedom against the tyrannical IMC. The player takes the role as Rifleman Jack Cooper. A member of the militia being trained to be a Pilot, an extremely skilled soldier that controls massive mechanized units called Titans. Early in the game Cooper’s trainer dies and passes control of his Titan, BT-7274 or simply BT. Jack and BT then set out to stop an IMC super weapon and a mercenary corps called the Apex Predators. One of the most interesting things throughout the story is how it humanizes the massive machine BT. BT is bound by three protocols: link to pilot, uphold the mission and protect the Pilot. To link to their Pilots, Titans must connect themselves and the Pilot through a neural link. This link bonds the two and creates a deep friendship. BT is written so well that he comes across as human. Sadly, the wonderful writing does not extend to Cooper. Cooper feels a tad robotic, which is also ironic. There are moments where the player can choose what to say to BT, setting up some of the funniest moments in the game. As cooper, you can use sarcasm that is completely lost on BT. You could also be more serious and, while not being as funny, shows the bond the two have. The single-player gameplay is solid, but more old school than typical modern FPSs. Movement is a big part of the game. As a Pilot, you have access to a jump kit that gives you the ability to make long slides, double jump and wall run. You need to stay on the move and chain the different aspects of traversal or die. It is more of a slide and glide shooter, similar to the recent iteration of “DOOM” that released earlier this year. Controlling the Titan is fun. You can squish tiny infantry units under your hulking frame, but the real fun starts when you come face to face with enemy Titans. Their Pilots will taunt you during combat as you clash in a mass of steel and bullets. Titan battles would have been more enjoyable had the game made certain Titan loadouts trump certain types of enemy Titans. The way it stands. Is that there is no real reason to change your loadout as you fight, because it comes down to personal preference as opposed to a tactical advantage. “Titanfall 2” is, to put it simply, hard. It throws a lot of enemies at you and as the difficulties get harder you can take less and less damage. Titan battles are also effected. The stages when the Titan boss fights take place are to small and cramped. This hinders mobility and strategy, basically turning the battle into a mud wrestling match. The multiplayer in “Titanfall 2” is boring. It is not a fast paced shooter like the single-player, but just becomes a confusing pushing match between Titans. This is funny, considering the original “Titanfall” was a multiplayer only game. “Titanfall 2” is a solid game and fun to play. Its fast paced action and lovable robot BT, lets it stand tall in the fall release lineup. It does seem to have been a bad decision to release this game in the week between “Battlefield 1” and “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare”. These two games are the big heavy hitters in the FPS genre, but “Titanfall 2” has earned its place. Rating: 8/10 “Battlefield 1” charges head first into new territory as a first-person shooter (FPS) set in World War One.
The game tells its story in a unique way compared to similar games in the genre. The main focus of this is the stories- individual stories of the forgotten who fought and died in the war to end all wars. “Battlefield 1” tells its stories through a series of five smaller vignettes called War Stories. These stories let you live through the experience of individuals throughout the war. Some characters include an English tank driver, an Italian Arditi, a loudmouthed piolet in the Royal Air Force, an Australian message runner during the offensive against the Ottoman Empire and an Arabian freedom fighter allied with T.E. Lawrence, the famed “Lawrence of Arabia”. These stories are well written and feature distinct characters. It would have been nice if the stories were longer and gave a deeper look into these fascinating characters. It would also have been interesting to play as a character on the German, Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman side of the war. This would have given a deeper look into the minds of soldiers on both sides of the conflict. The stories do a wonderful job of portraying the brutality that was World War I. Each story opens and closes with factoids of what was going on in that location during and after the war. To quote the third war story, “Avanti Sovoia!”, “Families were changed not only by those they lost, but also by those who returned.” Multiplayer also smacks the player in the face with the brutality of the war. Matches are all about capturing territory. As a team captures and holds flags, they gain points. First team to 1000 wins. This seems simple enough, but it is not that easy. Maps are massive with many open angles. The player constantly need to watch out for snipers lurking in the distance waiting for that one clean shot to take their head off. Other than that the player needs to watch out for opposing players charging them with bayonets, poison gas, planes, tanks or on horseback. Multiplayer matches are absolute insanity with bullets flying in all directions with matches supporting up to 64 players. This means that matches can be up to 32 vs.32. This furthers the game’s depiction of the insanity of war. One map in particular, Argonne Forest, exemplifies this perfectly. The map is set up so both sides can easily take two flags before clashing in the middle. The map funnels everyone to a bridge in the center. This is where things get complicated. Players can lob bullets and grenades across the bridge in a full-frontal clash, or run bellow the bridge and charge the other side before they know it or circle around through the trees and flank the opposition. Pandemonium ensues as you can get hit from anywhere. As opposed to typical FPSs, the multiplayer in “Battlefield 1” is rather tactical. You get divided into squads in the beginning of a match. Squad mates provide more tactical respawn points and tighter cooperation amongst the mass amount of players in the match. In “Battlefield 1” players cannot equip whatever weapon you want. Before every respawn, they choose a class to play as. The medics are equipped with self-loading rifles and are all about healing and reviving teammates. The assault class focuses on automatic weapons and striking hard and fast. Support class soldiers resupply ammo, can fix vehicles and are equipped with larger machine guns. Finally, the scout class is the run of the mill snipers. They focus on long range shots, but are weak in up close duels when they need to rely on their side arm. “Battlefield 1” is a back to basics FPS. This is a return from future war to a grittier shooter set in the past. It was surprising to see World War I as opposed to World War II, which made this genre so popular. “Battlefield 1” is a fantastic experience with an addictive multiplayer. If you love history and shooters, you owe it to yourself to play this game. Rating: 9/10 Keiji Inafune is most known for being the mind behind “Mega Man”. 29 years later Inafune released his latest project, “ReCore”. Many critics taking issues with the games poor construction. Gamers reactions are a complete 180.Fans are loving the old school feel of the game.
The game takes place in the distant future. The Earth has long since been hit by a pandemic referred to as the Dust Devil Plague. This plague leaves the Earth uninhabitable, and mankind must search beyond the stars to find a new home. This leads humans to the planet of Far Eden, the closest planet with an Earth-like atmosphere. This is where the player takes control of Joule, an early visitor and technician on Far Eden. Joule’s, along with the other technicians, job is to assist with the terraforming while everyone else remains in orbit in cryogenic sleep. The technicians are aided by a mechanized workforce called corebots. Corebots are powered by a colored core that is not only their power source, but their personality as well. The corebots were given different personality traits to provide a balance between them and create a more cohesive unit. Joule and her trusty corebot dog Mac stumble across the Prismatic cores at the beginning of the game. The Prismatic cores are a source of great energy and hold great significance to the story, but revealing anymore would be entering into spoiler territory. The cores need to be collected to access challenge dungeons, as well as portions of the end game. The specifics in the narrative’s backstory are explained through audio logs that can be found through exploration. This makes the story hard to comprehend at times. In the end, there are still questions to be answered and things left unexplained. This can turn off players who enjoy a strong story. “ReCore has a borderline incoherent story, but not completely confusing. There is just enough to string you along to the end, but leaves the players disappointed and unimpressed. “ReCore” controls wonderfully. The platforming is reminiscent of old school platforming games. Maneuvering is exclusively focused around precision and timing. Combat is based around colors of enemy’s cores and your gun’s selected ammo color. The main colors are red, yellow and blue. It is easy to pick up. Just match ammo color to core color for increased damage. There are core colors like purple that you can use either red or blue ammo to do more damage. “ReCore” is a game that mostly anyone can play and enjoy. There are extra levels of complexity, such as crafting, to hook and keep more seasoned gamers intrigued. This is up until the end game. This section pushes your platforming and combat skill to the limit. This challenge feels slightly unbalanced compared to the rest of the game. The game seems to scale nicely. It gives you just enough push back that you steadily improve. Then in the end you hit a brick wall of difficulty. There are gamers, primarily old school gamers and fans of FromSoftware games, who enjoy this but can turn off the more casual players. The game’s biggest faults center on quality of life. It becomes a major pain to move between the different areas of the world. It would have been better to have one, more compact overworld. As it stands there is too much empty space in each area. ReCore’s long load screens pull you out of the game and punish you for dying. This problem is consistent throughout the game. It becomes overly frustrating when you need to swap Corebot frames and have to sit through three long load screens to do a necessary modification to continue in the game. “ReCore” is not perfect. It has flaws in storytelling and its construction. This does not take away from its strong gameplay. At the cost of $40, “ReCore” is well worth your time despite its flaws. Rating: 7/10 What do you get when you fuse a cyberpunk world and the segregation of 1940’s America? You get Eidos Montreal’s newest game “Deus Ex: Mankind Divided”.
The critics have rated this game 9.2 out of 10 and 8 out of 10 on IGN and GameSpot. This game is a great one for fans of the franchise or genre. However, it is not the fit for those looking for a new game to play. “Mankind Divided” is set two years after the events of “Human Revolution”. The player takes control of protagonist Adam Jensen. Working for Interpol’s TF29, Adam finds himself in Prague after a terrorist bombing. The suspected perpetrators of the bombing is the Augmented Rights Coalition (ARC). This causes Prague to segregate its augmented and non-augmented citizens. Adam is tasked with investigating the bombing. With the help of TF29 and underground hacker group, the Juggernaut Collective, Adam once again stumbles on a plot by the Illuminati (that’s just lazy). Overall, the plot of the story seemed to be poorly constructed. It is a solid and complex story, but it has little and poorly placed payoff for the player. The story tries to confuse the player and keep them in the second-guessing. It does a fine job of this, but with little emotional pull the characters feel two dimensional and boring. It is filled with a rich cast of side characters that the game does not utilize for the majority of the game. This kills any opportunity at an emotional connection for the player. The narrative in the end has little to no resolution. The end of the game leads the player to the true bomber, but the root of the problem is still at large. The best part of the story comes from the post credit scene that sets up a third game. Until that point I was not going to play it, but they drew me in. Holding this scene to after the actual ending is cruel, and up to the ending, the story seemed dull and boring. Mankind Divided is a solid stealth game with a solid skill progression system. The game world is filled with multiple approaches that the player can take advantage based on play style and selected augments. My main issue is that there was not much of a difference between this game and “Human Revolution”. Edge Magazine scored the game 9 out of 10 describing it as “Stronger, Deadlier, Deeper,” however, the game did not seem to have that aspect. The biggest problem seemed to be from the game’s setting. The three main chunks that are apparent in the game take place in the city of Prague. The city is small enough to make it easy or the player to find their way around. However, the most irritating part was the tram ride between the poor and the rich districts. If you do not ride the right train car on the tram, the natural passengers look at you with unease and you could get stopped by the police at the end of the ride. This was interesting in the beginning, but got annoying near the end. Quests were particularly annoying when they would require the player to frequently travel back and forth from each district. “Mankind Divided” has the potential, but does not fulfill the players’ expectations. This game would be perfect for fans of stealth games, cyberpunk or RPGs. Although its entertainment is something any player can enjoy, it is good but not great. Rating: 7/10 |
AuthorI am A.J. Goelz. I'm a gamer first and a writer second. I hope you enjoy the content on this page and check out the rest of my content on YouTube. Archives
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