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Let It Die – Games of 2016
I had no idea how much I missed a Suda51 flavor in my video games. Let It Die came out of nowhere (because I forgot about it) and all of a sudden I’m playing a better-than-it-deserves-to-be tough as nails roguelike with a skateboarding Death that’s trying to break down the 4th wall. I was tripping…
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Overwatch – Games of 2016
Could Blizzard pull off a first person shooter? Even with its track record, it seemed like a valid question. Hoo boy, what a waste of energy that question was. I should have been asking, "How will first person shooters change after Blizzard makes one?" That’s a much more interesting question. Overwatch is certainly a landmark…
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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Games of 2016
It had been a long time coming for me to experience my first Pokemon game. You see my childhood ended just outside the reach of the original and it wasn’t until recent years where I really felt I was missing out on this cornerstone of gaming. Even when confronted by that realization, it wasn’t exactly…
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FIFA 17 – Games of 2016
FIFA 17 rewrote the book on the sports game ‘Story Mode.’ I bought the game on the chance that there might be some fun multiplayer football action during the lull in late summer, but ended up getting engrossed in Alex Hunter’s tumultuous journey into professional soccer. Easily glanced over, but still very impressive, is how…
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AM2R – Games of 2016
Whenever I go down the rabbit hole of Metroid fanboy self pity, I inevitably lament the lost genius of Metroid II, a game that should have never worked on the Game Boy and ended up working so well that it deserved a more powerful home. I wasn’t the only one who realized that the vision…
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Stardew Valley – Games of 2016
Growing up I was friends with a lot of farm kids, but somehow I avoided working on the farm myself. It always looked like hard and repetitive work with very little daily gratification. You know, the kind of work that wouldn’t make for a fun video game. That’s why it took a lot of convincing…
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Virginia – Games of 2016
I knew as soon as I saw the trailer that I was going to play Virginia. Something in the press about “a very X-Files meets Twin Peaks vibe,” and I’m interested. Go ahead and throw in a ‘narrator’ who was almost immediately recognizable as unreliable (my favorite kind), a MILD SPOILER AHEAD case of the…
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No Man’s Sky – Games of 2016
Unforgettable. What a ride. What a legacy. No Man’s Sky delivered on its promises. I can’t think of a new franchise that has generated this type of passion from its players. It’s all true, but I’m done being cute here. There was a small amount of time where I enjoyed No Man’s Sky in a…
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Mafia III – Games of 2016
Mafia III is a bit of a departure from its predecessors in that you don’t actually play for the Mob. It’s a personal revenge story, one in which a young and slightly gruff African-American man named Lincoln Clay strikes back against some criminal big-shots in the Mardi Gras town of New Bordeaux. Lincoln isn’t dealing…
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XCOM 2 – Games of 2016
The last thing I’d ever want to do when being occupied by a superior alien race is to get up close and personal with them. We’re outnumbered and out-teched so we have outsmart them. I’m not saying I outsmarted any of them, but that didn’t make killing aliens with swords any less satisfying when it…