Topic: Your Games of the Year in 2016

@Octane I wholeheartedly agree.

Some of the 'whole game is just one big line puzzle' comments are from those who probably only put about ten minutes into the game, or watched somebody play it on YouTube or something.

You have got audio puzzles, colour-filters puzzles, environmental puzzles, hedge-maze puzzles, light-beam puzzles, orientation puzzles, perspective-shift puzzles, shadow puzzles (in the shady trees area) symmetry puzzles, Tetris-shapes puzzles and sequence-break puzzles within puzzles.

60+ hours spent playing a £30 game, and I still haven't seen everything that the game has to offer!

Some have described The Witness as a 'perfect' game, and I certainly don't see any problem labelling it as one.

I'll pick up The Witness when the price dips into a range I'm more comfortable with ($10 - 20). I won't disparage a game I've yet to play, but the impression I got from footage, interviews, etc. is that it's a clever puzzle game surrounded by an aura of nearly unbearable pretentiousness (which is actually a pretty good way of describing Braid as well, now that I think about it).

@Ralizah I actually googled to find out what people meant by pretentious. It's just another point of view of course, but I never felt that way. There's a plethora of quotes from famous and not-so-famous people spread over the island. Some are philosophical, some religious, some more scientific. Never considered them to be pretentious, more like food for thought. I'm sure that you can handle that though!

Just finished The Last Guardian, and here's my new top 10, don't think a game will get much better than TLG this year:

@Octane It's more about the way the game handles the material, imo, that determines whether I would consider it "pretentious" or not. In the case of Braid, it felt pretentious because Blow never really did anything to connect the increasingly overwrought narrative to the gameplay in a way that felt organic or substantive. There are some veiled gameplay hints in the narrative blurbs, but that's about it. Moreover, Braid never really explored its own ideas in a clear-eyed way. If an artist is obfuscating the themes in his or her own work, it's probably because there's not much under the surface.

My problem with The Witness is that is just sounds boring. I like puzzles, but I also like things in my games that break up the tedium of going from one puzzle to the next. I suppose there's an exploratory element here that makes it more engaging?

@Ralizah Let's just say that the puzzles are the main drive. Solving a puzzle means confirmation that your knowledge about the puzzle was right, and that's the reward. Don't expect a narrative in this game. There's indeed exploration, most of the time you'll be exploring to find new puzzles or more knowledge about them. It's not a game for everyone, but if you like puzzle games and you like to be challenged, then this is something you may like.

I thought Braid was a little bit 'up its own bottom' towards the end, but The Witness? Pretentious?

Throwing one or two philosophical quotes into the mix does not make a game pretentious. In fact, they are more scientific than anything, which is perfectly fine given that there's some science-y elements to some of the environments and puzzles in the game!

The Witness is only 'boring' at face value; playing the game provides an enriching sense of your very own personal satisfaction, providing you are able to figure the puzzles out for yourself. There are more clever 'ah-ha!' moments in this than any other game in a comparative genre that I have ever played.

I think I have said my part about The Witness.

You can go ahead and make your own mind up if you have actually played the game. In any case, I wholeheartedly disagree with all this 'boring', 'pretentious' and 'just a big line puzzle' talk.

Using quotes you don't understand, with no context or interconnection, just because it "sounds nice" is pretention 101. :/ It's adding an aura of self-importance at best, and confusing the ones engaged with your work so they look for connections that aren't there at worst.

This was my original list:
1. Forza Horizon 3
2. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
3. Ratchet & Clank
4. Gears of War 4
5. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
6. MLB The Show 16
7. DOOM
8. Watch Dogs 2
9. Titanfall 2
10. The Division

Played a couple more games so this is my updated, final list for the year...
1. Forza Horizon 3
2. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
3. Ratchet & Clank
4. Gears of War 4
5. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
6. Lara Croft Go
7. MLB The Show 16
8. DOOM
9. Watch Dogs 2
10. Final Fantasy XV

have to quote myself here

i will get Picross 3D Round 2 tomorrow and play it through the holidays.
so there you go. my favourite game of 2016 (released in 2016). no competition. literally no competition

Here´s my top-9 of 2016. Would have made a top-10 but having JoJo´s Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven or either of the Star Fox games just wouldn't have felt right. Now don´t get me wrong, I like those games, they just aren´t so good I´d want to have them in my top-10 lists.

9. Ratchet & Clank PS4
8. Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice
7. Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero
6. Kirby: Planet Robobot
5. Pokkén Tournament
4. Street Fighter 5
3. AM2R
2. Pokémon Sun
1. Uncharted 4

Undertale was propably the best game I played this year and would have been my number one choice if it´s release date was 2016 instead of 2015. Beyond Good & Evil and The Last of Us are worth mentioning too. I played a lot of older games this year and listing all of them would take quite a while so I´ll just wish everyone a great new year and good night!

I'll let you know by the end of 2017.

I won't, but who knows what Nintendo will do.

A game is a game is a game, though. AM2R isn't somehow not a real game just because of controversy surrounding its use of a well-known I.P.

My top 10 are as follows:
1. Hyrule Warriors Legends
2. Paper Mario Color Splash
3. Forza Horizon 3
4. Halo Wars Definitive Edition
5. Overwatch
6. Star Fox Zero
7. Twilight Princess HD
8. Star Fox Guard
9. Modern Warfare Remastered
10. Amplitude 2016

Hyrule Warriors Legends and the 2015 game Rock Band 4 completely dominated my handheld and home console usage respectively this year especially in the 2nd half so things like Nintendo delaying FE Fates by 3 months in Europe and the poor release timing for TMS#FE meant that while I do own those games (and others I haven't played much of), I haven't played enough to form a reliable opinion.

IGN has a "best remaster" category in their GOTYs this year. did they have that before? says a lot about the state of the industry...

@6ch6ris6 Hmmm... not really, given that 99.9% of new games that were released last year are exactly that, new games.

You may well be surprised to know that there's actually been fewer remasters this year than both 2014 and 2015 combined.

Just spent ten minutes tallying all the games in this thread, and the order for the top ten Games of the Year in 2016 goes a little bit like this:

01) Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
02) Fire Emblem: Fates
03) Overwatch
04) Pokémon Sun and Moon
05) Dark Souls III
06) DOOM
07) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

The 8th place game(s) were all tied with three votes each:

Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice, Firewatch, Hyper Light Drifter, Kirby: Planet Robobot, Pokkén Tournament, Ratchet & Clank, Titanfall 2 and The Last Guardian.

It is safe to say that we all have pretty good taste!

Played more of Color Splash and its rank has increased to 2nd. Absolutely fantastic game so far and whether BotW comes to Wii U or not (there's more cancellation rumours), Color Splash feels like a good end to the console's lifespan.

@Grumblevolcano I remember getting stuck in one part, after I did the pirate ship thing. I forgot about it, but maybe I'll play some of it today and use a guide if I can't figure it out. Need to do something with a train, a giant fossilised Captain Toad dragon and something else... Also playing Blood & Wine, so I don't know if I want to put the controller down for that, but I do agree, Color Splash is actually pretty good.

It's cos they admire things that are taking risks and trying things that you're not allowed to do when your budget is in the tens of millions.