So Mark, Amanda, and I (with Hayley to follow later today) have had our say. But today I’m putting the Big Question to you: what’s your favourite games of the year?
Mark figured that last year might have been the best since he started at Kotaku, but 2016 has been a pretty stellar year so far.
It’s been more of a multiplayer, FPS focused one than 2015 though. 2015 gave us some great RPGs and open worlds to explore, like Bloodborne, The Witcher 3, Undertale, Pillars of Eternity, MGS5, Xenoblade Chronicles and Ori and the Blind Forest.
This time the praise has gone more towards games like DOOM, Overwatch, That Dragon, Cancer, Titanfall 2 and SUPERHOT. The Witcher 3 got some superb DLC, Final Fantasy 15 was worth the wait, and people in the office were thrilled by The Last Guardian despite the control issues.
But what were your favourites? It’s time to vote.
Comments
42 responses to “The Big Question: Your Favourite Games Of The Year”
Overwatch. Hands down.
Yep that gets my vote.
It has consumed me.
I wish I could vote for more than one. There were a lot of good games this year… But yeah, I’ve been spending more time with OVerwatch than anything else.
Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse
Voted for DOOM because my favourite seems to be missing.
Haven’t even finished DOOM, not a big shooter guy. But it was an impressive return to form with solid visuals & a fantastic soundtrack.
Choice was tougher than I thought it would be. But I’ve finally narrowed it down to Doom or Forza Horizon 3. Both legit gave me feels
Dark Souls 3.
I feel like certain patch versions of Dark Souls changes how I feel about the game. My challenge runs have been affected by the patches. Trustworthy patches.
Serrels and Junglist surely know.
Encountered Patches for the first time the other night, during NG+. What a jerk.
Yeah, he’s the best jerk 🙂
Kinda like a bad santa
Yah it’s very easily DS3 for me. I don’t think anything else this year came close, and that’s even considering how much I loved Furi and Battlerite.
Just noticed your post time dude! Ha,
Put down the controller, the firekeeper doesn’t really NEED her eyes anyway..
Rocket League for Xbone. Have never had so much fun with a game for a long time.
A lot of games competing for second place, but Doom wins, hands down. It had me when it finished the amazing music as you ride the elevator out of the first area with a perfectly timed chambering of the shotgun. Final Fantasy, Watch Dogs, Pokemon S&M, Dark Souls 3, Uncharted 4… all great games, but Doom was pure, raw, visceral fun from start to finish.
heh heh
Overwatch was my favourite. It was super enjoyable until I got to a stage where I only win when RNGesus blesses me with an adequate team. Second would be Pokemon Moon. Then Pokemon Go. Even if it wasn’t what we all wanted from it, I still got plenty of fun out of it.
It is a really tough choice between Dishonored 2, Dark Souls 3, Battlefield 1 and Overwatch.
I would probably go with Dishonored 2 in the end.
Of the games I have played in that list, none were my favourites this year. That status goes to games like Salt and Sanctuary, Dragon Quest Builders, World of Final Fantasy and Odin Sphere: Leifthraisir.
Did you enjoy world of final fantasy I’m still hesitant with the purchase
Uncharted 4, Dishonoured 2 and FFXV… but I only finished U4.
So, Uncharted 4. You scrappy indie darling, you.
I mostly play fast-twitch, but oh man; The Witness…
The most elaborate IQ test of all time that gripped me like pneumonia. So many times I had to resist googling. But when I got to the end, it meant more than any any kill streak. I faced it down with with perseverance, logic and a piece of graph paper that would make a cracking front cover of a Stephen King novel. Unlike puzzlers before it – every solution made sense; always right in front of me. I never felt ripped off.
That takes vision and smarts to pull off. Admittedly out there at times but I regard it as a genre-topper. It’s super rare. It gets my GOTY.
I dunno really, I spent most of 2016 playing games released in 2015. Uncharted 4, Star Fox Zero and Shadow of the Beast were the only 2016 games I actually played this year.
A lot of good 2015 games to play this year.
I wish January was the big release period rather than October / November. It doesn’t leave me with much time or money to be in the GOTY conversation.
I voted for Dishonored 2 but my heart cried that there was no option on that poll for BoxBoxBoy.
None of those.
Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Star Fox Zero was great, but I sunk way more time into Fed Force and it kept me coming back til I’d gotten all the medals and everything. Then maybe third place would be Overwatch I guess.
This has highlighted just how little video gaming I’ve managed to do this year. 🙁
My picks are Doom and Overwatch.
Overwatch is great in a lot of ways. Needs more maps, but it’s a pretty exceptional standout among the rest of the games this year.
(And the story of it and Battleborn will be a cautionary tale for developers for the rest of time).
Doom 4 blew my expectations away. I am a die-hard Doom 1/2 fan: I play the community WADs, I’ve done some spriting, I’ve made my own levels, and it’s the bar that I hold all FPSes to, so I thought it was impossible for a Doom in 2016 to be even a shadow of the originals, but Doom 4 was really, really good. They got rid of the “Call of Doom” thing they were going for and brought it back to speedily killing demons and clever, occasionally labyrinthine level design, like it should be. The lack of a SDK was disappointing though, since that is what has kept Doom 1/2 alive all these years, and I don’t think the SnapMap thing will keep Doom 4 going 20 years later, but I digress. Solid entry in the series.
But sadly, I think my vote has to go for the “game” that fixed the problems of the previous game, promises to not make those mistakes again, and has eaten so many hours of my life already, despite its basically September release date.
God damn you, Legion.
FFXV. I can’t tell you why, I just really like it ok.
Your argument is flawless. Con-kweh-tulations
You know what, there is a particular summon (surely not a spoiler) that hits an orchestral crescendo right at the climax and I think I just threw my hands in the air and said “fuck it, goty.”
Dude the game is suitably epic love it so much. Every little detail involved in crafting the world and all the enemies couldn’t praise it enough.
Inside, Headlander, OXENFREE & Quantum Break my top picks. Only just started Doom and SUPER-HOT but they are top contenders so far.
I am baffled by the volume of support for Overwatch. How are people so into this? It’s a re-skinned TF2! I mean, it’s enjoyable enough for what it is, but I drained that well of enthusiasm dry several years ago.
Because we like re-skinned TF2?
I’ve actually now played almost 3x the hours I put into TF2 (admittedly I was a bit late to the party with TF2).
Also, I’ve met a bunch of new friends on there who I now regularly play with so thats great. Kept if fresh playing it approx 5 hours a day since launch.
I will never understand you lot. 🙂
Well, in my case there’s not much to understand. I like things that I like, and I dont like things that I dont like. Not sure whats complicated about that.
Just so happens though, that there’s so much stuff I dont like/rant about that most people think I’m some crochety old man who yells at punk kids being on my lawn and only likes music from the pre-cretaceous period…
No Overcooked on the list? Best couch co-op game of a generation!
Overwatch by a long long way. I rarely get this addicted to anything these days, but Overwatch just knocked it out of the park. There are some balance issues recently that I wish Blizzard would tweak back down/address, but it’s still super fun.
I enjoyed Hitman, although I can see why people dislike/are annoyed at the game. Civ 6 I’ve not had enough of a chance to play because of Overwatch, but it is shaping up to be a fine game. Uncharted 4 is very very good and I recommend people check out the whole series if they have not yet.
On the flipside. Final Fantasy XV is currently underwhelming me. Why are people fawning so hard over the graphics in this game? I’ve gotten frame rate drops, frames get skipped during animations, there are weird transluscent artifacts around EVERYTHING, including the UI. The hair on characters looks attrocious (jaggies everywhere), and a lot of the character animations look super derpy. In the time I’ve played, the open world has nothing in it. It’s had 10 years in development, one could argue it should be the most impressive looking game on the PS4, but it’s really not.
Deus Ex MD I couldnt really get into. I really liked Human Revolution, but so far MD is just more of the same. Forza Horizon 3 is arguably my disappointment of the year (wasnt on the list in the other poll). I was hyped for that, and it turned out to be super shitty ice rink driving, in that stupid middle ground between sim and arcade. It was nice looking, but god the performance problems on the PC (dont have an XBOX). There is a story behind how hard I had to work to get the game in the first place, so that adds to how annoyed I am with it.
Oh, and lastly, Pokemon Go was fun for a whole 5 minutes before I uninstalled due to how amazingly shallow and rubbish it is.
Titanfall 2 needs more love.
Dark souls 3 isn’t even the best dark souls but it still beats everything by a fair margin.
They ruined poise and made heavy armour fucking pointless. Booo.