Favorite Games of 2017

So, I wanted to put together a list of my four favorite games this year. I am not saying that these were the best games of the year, merely the titles that I personally got the most out of. This is filled with bias from my own personal tastes in games, and what I consider important to the medium. Something like Super Mario Odyssey, which was a solid and enjoyable Mario title that delivered exactly what it promised, just isn’t enough for me anymore. I’m looking for unique experiences, or things that advance genres or the medium in general that were made with love, care, and quality.

4. Tales of Berseria

Probably the only game on this list you haven’t played, or possibly even heard of, Berseria came out at the beginning of 2017 and got lost in the hype train around releases like Zelda and Horizon. Having not really enjoyed the last two games in the “Tales” series, I really wasn’t expecting much going in. I was so happy to be proven wrong.

You are the villain of the story, you’re the character the nations and people of the world are in fear of. The person you’re trying to kill could have been the hero of his own game. The twist is that he did something so horrible and terrible to you that you feel justified in getting your revenge, no matter the cost. The game gives you full context as to why the main character, Velvet, is doing the things she is and it is incredibly engaging to see what transformed her into what she is, and how she changes along the way. Your party is made up of misfits and rejects, who all have their own motivations for journeying with you and stand as solid characters on their own. It is an amazing story.

While there are a few other games where you are the bad guy out there, most treat it with levity, or never really push the boundaries. In Berseria, you burn down towns, you murder people, you have some pretty fucked up shit done to you while being surrounded by enjoyable and interesting characters. It also helps the overall experience that the core combat and gameplay remains solid throughout. This was a unique story, and one I feel is totally worth experiencing.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I’ve been noticing a trend lately where people seem to be almost pivoting on their opinions about Zelda. Sure, it is getting GOTY awards left and right, but my conversations with people and what I see online seems to be turning around. The game had flaws for sure. There were like six enemy types, the dungeons were convoluted, inventory management was a mess, there was a lack of variety in the open world activities. You could nitpick the game for days, but the things it did to push the genre forward, and the things it absolutely nailed, cannot be ignored.

First and foremost, the game respected me as a player. I wasn’t bogged down with tutorial missions or explanations, I was given the keys to the car and told to just “Go”. So much of the game was just left for me to discover on my own and I greatly appreciated this. Did you know that all the shrines in the game had birds flying above them to help you locate it? The game never told you little things like this, but your experience wasn’t lessened by missing out. But if you did discover it, you felt clever and rewarded. The game has countless examples of this, little tiny moments where you feel smart as a player for figuring something out.

It also removes one of the biggest issues I have with 3^rd person open world games, and that is the “checklist” approach to content and collectables. You can’t open a GTA or Assassins Creed game without seeing the same 8 activities copied and pasted in every region, with some sort of counter or checkbox to track your progress. Even Horizon, as good as it was, suffered from this. These types of games are often plagued with tons of collectables and cluttered maps which serve no other purpose than ticking off boxes. Zelda had no minimap markers for shrines or seeds until they were discovered. All you had to go off was your own curiosity when looking at the map for unique landmarks, or your radar to give you an initial bearing. You do have a list for the memories, but that was to give you a clue as to where to go. You didn’t get a giant map marker or a dotted line trail to follow, in the end it was still up to you to explore.

This game moved the genre forward in a way that we will begin to see in 2018 as other open world titles begin to emulate it. If nothing else, it deserves recognition for that. It also helps that on top of it all, the game was a blast to play and was incredibly memorable.

2. Nier: Automata

I can’t tell you how many reviews I have seen over the years that have gone something like this:

“While the core gameplay is very fun, the story and systems aren’t very interesting. 8/10”

So, to see a game like Automata get scored in that range tells me that people played this game for eight hours, slapped a number on it, and moved on to the next review they had to rush out the door.

Nier is a game that doesn’t even take the time to acknowledge its amazing gameplay. It has too much personality, world building, and story to get through to spend time dwelling on how seamless it can transition from side scroller, to action game, to top down shooter. Combat is consistently thrilling and entertaining, as the game continues to throw incredible boss encounters and gameplay segments at you. There is a substantial amount of freedom in how you approach combat with different weapon types, and builds you can take for your character. Combat is every bit as thrilling as a “Devil May Cry” or “Bayonetta”, and it is just the ground floor that the rest of this masterpiece is built on.

The game is essentially three segments. You play as a specific character in the first and second, and bounce between two in the third. The second segment is the game’s weak point, and the point I initially walked away myself. It is a retelling of the first segment from your partner’s point of view. While there is some unique info you gain, about 70% of the playthrough is repeating the same things you did in the first segment. 

The second segment can drag on a bit, but if you manage to get through it and get to the third segment, you are rewarded with one of the most unique and memorable experiences in gaming. I say that completely free of any hyperbole. The game utilizes the medium itself to present concepts and emotions that wouldn’t be possible in any other form of entertainment.

Take everything I have described and add on an amazing story about free will and individuality, the best soundtrack in decades, and amazing art direction, you have a title that I feel everyone needs to play. This write up may feel a bit limited, but to expand on it any more would be doing you a disservice. Just play it.

1. Persona 5

As I was playing through Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I had quite a few people ask me if they should pick it up and I had to keep saying “No.”. Not because XC2 was a bad game, but because it was a very classical JRPG, complete with all the tropes you would expect, a very slow-going story, and a complicated combat system that punishes you for not playing efficiently. Unless you know what you’re getting into and have the patience for a game like that, I don’t think it is worth your time. Persona 5 on the other hand, is a JRPG I would recommend to absolutely anyone, and was without a doubt my favorite game this year.

This is a game that has its own identity and voice, with personality and style visible on every screen capture. You play a Japanese High School student in modern day Tokyo who moonlights as a supernatural vigilante, going into the minds of terrible people and forcing them to confess their crimes publicly. You must balance your limited time each day between your school responsibilities, personal relationships, or making progress in the mind palace of the adult whose heart you are trying to change. Should you ask Makoto out on a date, or should you progress deeper into the dungeon? What about mid-terms? Those are coming up and you haven’t studied! Along the way you pick up other broken and interesting people to join you on your adventures in what ends up being a very human and wonderful group of companions.

All the game systems are connected in this beautiful web that makes the time management piece so compelling. Increasing relationships in the real world makes those people stronger in combat, or grants a passive bonus. Getting better at combat allows you to progress faster in a dungeon by spending fewer resources, which in turn gives you more time to spend socially. There are so many choices you can make, and none of them feel wrong. As far as game design goes, it is an amazing feat to pull of something like that. The whole experience is wrapped up with the best UI design I have ever seen, a stellar storyline, and a brilliant soundtrack that only adds to the game’s personality.

The gameplay is an addictive loop, and I love every broken soul who joined me on this adventure. A general litmus test I run on myself to see how memorable a game is involves listing off all party members from memory and I can still do that for P5 in a heartbeat. This title is an absolute testament to amazing game design. You can see the thought and attention to detail that went into every aspect of this game. It is a complete package.

Game #40: Undertale

Undertale
Platform: PC
Duration: 8 Hours

What a unique, charming little game. The combat mechanics are very cool and the game keeps coming up with new challenges and twists. This title bleeds personality from every screen. I really don't want to go much into it because it will spoil things, but I completed the "True Pacifist" ending and was thoroughly entertained. By the way, this game is pretty damn funny. Something I think is hard in this medium.

It's ten bucks, and you can beat it in a few sittings. I hate "artsy" game critics who scoff at AAA titles and just praise indy games to no end that are filled with design issues. This though, this is a great game that really impressed me and I don't typically like indy titles.

Oh, this game is challenging as shit too. Hope you are good at bullet hells.

Game #39: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider
Platform: Xbox One
Duration: 15 Hours

There were multiple moments in this game where I felt it was just yelling "GRAPHICS" at me. Like, this is a beautiful game, particle effects everywhere, physics objects, solid 30 FPS, but I would be lying if I didn't think it felt excessive at times.

Seriously though, this was a very fun game. Story starts a little too fast but quickly slows down and hits a good stride. Pacing felt very solid between exploration, puzzles, stealth, action, and "run motherfucker!" segments.

Oh, and it has Tombs! That you raid! Actual clever puzzles!

I really like the direction the rebooted franchise has taken, and I genuinely believe they're better games than Uncharted. This one is definitely worth your time, but aside from your first playthrough you probably won't get much out of it. Grab it when it goes on sale.

Game #38: Xenoblade Chronicles X

Xenoblade Chronicles X
Platform: Wii U
Duration: 76 Hours

Probably my #2 game this year. This game did more to move the JRPG genre forward than any title I've played in years. I was talking a lot to Erika about this, and so many JRPGs just feel...like the same game. The past 3 "Tales" games have been mechanically very identical. Final Fantasy feels like it has been running in circles trying to find something new. Xenoblade though...they took inspiration from the Skyrims and Baldur's Gates out there. Hundreds of quests, and honestly the "filler" collect/kill missions are not the majority of the things you do in this game.

You explore, for hours upon hours this gigantic beautiful world. Exploration feels great, you constantly get rewarded with materials, money, map progress, experience. Story progress rewards you eventually with this badass giant robot, then suddenly even more of the map opens up to you. And then you hit that moment where you unlock the ability to fly with your robot and everything just feels...open. There are few games that can nail meaningful exploration but this one absolutely does.

Story wise, it is a very concise tale for a JRPG. It presents a very clear goal early on that you work to achieve throughout the twelve story missions. There are some great revelations, a few twists, but was ultimately very satisfying. The bulk of the missions in the game though either flesh out the backstories of your party members, or the citizens of the town. Some of them are very fucking cool though, and a few get really dark. Honestly I was very impressed with the quality of storytelling presented in the side quests.

As far as gameplay mechanics, combat was very fun. My robot was a fucking monster by endgame and on foot I was a badass Sniper. There were a few clunky systems like the sheer amount of crafting items and the awkward way you have to manage adding and removing people from your party, but as a full package I was happy. Online was also cleverly integrated into the game. Shared worldwide missions that everyone got rewarded for as well as some co-op raids. It was very clever.

This was a great game. After the letdown that was the Xenosaga games, I am happy the creator of one of my favorite game of all time has hit is old stride again.

Game #37: Magical Diary

Magical Diary
Platform: PC
Duration: 3 Hours

Was looking for something quick to beat while we had free play at work the other day. Decided to boot up this random dating sim I got in a humble bundle a while back.

Essentially, it's an anime dating sim in a knockoff Hogwarts. I ended up in an abusive relationship with a Demon who tried to take my soul. I kept trusting him though and eventually my roommates kicked me out and made us fail our group final because I wouldn't give up seeing him. I ran away from school to be his Queen in the underworld.

This game is weird. Here is my prom photo.

Game #36: Sword Art Online Lost Song

Sword Art Online: Lost Song
Platform: PS4
Duration: 32 Hours

The Sword Art games have nailed one thing, they portray the characters very accurately. In the absence of the show, they're a great fix for my SAO addiction. Game wise though they are just decent. Nothing particularly revolutionary, but solid game play that stays faithful to the show's mechanics.

I don't think I can look at this objectively since I like the show so much, but I enjoyed my time.

Game #35: Fallout 4

Fallout 4
Platform: PC
Duration: 69 Hours

Fallout 4 is a good game. I think with a few more months of development and some further iteration on some systems it could have been a great game, but that just isn't what was presented with the final product. What we got was a story that ends an entire act before the game does, an abysmal UI, a serious hit to player choice, and the trivialization of a number of classic Fallout themes. In short, it felt like a simplification of something who's complexity used to bring me a lot of enjoyment.

But I still had fun.

I've been trying to distill down why I still enjoyed my time with the game. I think the core gameplay is so familiar to me at this point that it is hard not to enjoy getting progressively stronger and blowing the crap out of mutants with my laser rifle. V.A.T.S is a fun system, that gets more rewarding as you invest perks in it. Crafting was interesting too, and it was cool putting the junk items to use. I mean, I don't think there has ever been a video game that made me excited to find an aluminium tray factory before.

I think this is like when I watched Star Wars Episode 1 as a kid for the first time. I enjoyed it, but I felt something was off. It was only later that I sat down and pieced together everything that was bothering me. Fallout 4 is the same. Well, not as bad as Jar-Jar of course, but still.

I think what bugs me is how this just doesn't feel like a Fallout game to me anymore. There's no way to play an evil character, just a sarcastic asshole. Power Armor, which took a herculean effort to earn in previous games, is now just given to you before the two hour mark and is just a glorified vehicle. Even joining the Brotherhood of Steel, which again took a lot of effort in previous games is now accomplished after completing a single mission and you get fast tracked through promotions constantly. Skills are gone. Creative solutions to problems are gone. The whole game just feels...simple.

It feels as if it was designed peacemeal across numerous developers and then just thrown together into one whole right at the end without a lot of integration testing. I'm sure the designer working on the Railroad quests thought it would be awesome to add in the ability to modify your clothes and hat slots as a quest reward, but I don't think anyone stopped to think if it would be a good idea to gate an upgrade that effectively triples your defense behind doing two side quests for an optional faction.

I mentioned it earlier, but the story? Ugh. It resolves way too quickly, the individual faction stories are incredibly weak, and the ending is a huge letdown. It completely killed my desire to replay this game.

Game #34: Call of Duty Black Ops 3

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
Platform: PS4
Duration: 7 Hours

So some people still call me a masochist, but I continue to play through the campaign for every Call of Duty. It's a franchise I have worked personally on, so I feel it almost as an obligation to see how my kid has grown up. I touch base every year to see what sort of life choices it has been making for itself. Well if Black Ops 3 was my son, he would be a 19 year old wandering around Europe for a summer, trying to find itself. I hope my boy gains a sense of identity soon, because I had precisely zero fucking clue what was happening.

I don't know who I work for. I don't know who I am fighting. The game throws acronyms for organizations at me left and right without explaining what they mean or why I should care. It seriously got to the point where I was making up my own names and backstory. There was one group called the "Winslow Accord" that I was convinced was just a peace treaty brokered by the actor that played Carl Winslow in Family Matters.

One minute it's all future battlefields with robots and smart weapons, then I'm inside my own head, then someone else's head, then it's fucking World War 2 because we haven't done that in a while, then it's the original zombies level in the middle of a campaign mission. Like, please CoD, stop for a second. Breathe. Figure out what story you want to tell instead of vomiting visuals at me. This didn't even feel like a Black Ops campaign. I counted, there were precisely two connections to the previous games that I came across:

The badguy from BO2 was mentioned in passing once.
NOVA6 gas shows up and the threat is removed TWO MINUTES after it appears.

That's it. No Mason. No numbers. Just some snowy forest and robots.

Me ranting about the story aside (sorry, Black Ops 1 was my favorite campaign and I was disappointed to see it fall so hard) I did want to mention the gameplay itself. Gunplay is still top notch, and I enjoyed the addition of a custom character and the level up system in single player. The cybernetic abilities were overpowered to shit though. Those silly fire bees pretty much won me every encounter. It was by far the easiest Hardened playthrough I've done.

There is a lot of game in this box, and while MP isn't my thing, Zombies was still fun to dick around in and I did enjoy shooting things with my robot arms in campaign. I just might be the only person in the world who still hopes for a good CoD story. If you just want to fight off waves of enemies until you move forward to trigger the script to spawn the next wave, you will still have fun.

Game #33: Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Game #33

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Platform: PS4

Duration: 68 Hours

(SPOILER FREE, as I would never take the joy of experiencing this game away from anyone)

Let me paint you a picture.

This is a game where I was able to do something as stupid as this:
https://www.facebook.com/trevor.page.90/videos/1128693890493326/
...and then turn around and bawl like a child 10 hours later and one of the saddest things I have ever seen.

A game where I can literally suck a donkey through a wormhole...

...and be absolutely terrified and on the edge of my seat as the world crashes down around me during the same play session.

This game is beautiful. Not in the visual sense (though it is a beauty in that department) but in the sense that it gives me great pleasure to see, hear, think about, and experience. This is what I hope for every time I launch a title, the thing that drives me to be a part of this industry. Let me come right out and say it. This is the best game I played all year, and is one of my top five games of all time.

I have played dozens of games this year which have felt somehow incomplete to me. Games that could have used more time to really refine and close the loop on some systems, or maybe clean up the UI just a tad (or at all, Fallout 4). Metal Gear felt FINISHED. Complete. Polished to a level I have scarcely seen. Everything you did in this game had a purpose and resulted in an increase in player power or was just plain fun. It presented a world where every situation was a puzzle and it was up to me to figure out the correct tool for the job. If I failed, I knew it was my fault and I just had to approach the scenario a different way. I learned from every mistake, every incorrect loadout, every triggered alarm. I got better because the game challenged me to do so without ever feeling unfair.

Success felt wonderful, and was incredibly rewarding. I still don't know how they managed to pull off providing such an amazing sense of increasing your player power while making sure I never felt overpowered. The game was just as balanced if I tried to complete Mission 2 after only a few hours of play as it was if I did side quests for 40 hours before starting it, yet in both scenarios I felt powerful in different ways. I can look back at the start of the game and think "Man, I am a badass." and have that same thought loading up my save now. Every system in this game feeds into a perfect progression loop, hell even the goddamn MAIN THEME of the game has different meanings depending on how far through the story you are.

Through the gameplay and your management of Mother Base, I essentially felt like I had created my own world. This was MY base. These were MY recruits. MY Snake was silent and brutal. MY helicopter played MY theme when I deployed. The whole game felt personal, which I think just served to pull me in even deeper to this experience.

Speaking of pulling me in, the story was incredibly satisfying to me, hitting some great highs and some incredibly saddening lows. I don't think I have ever experienced a game that tied the story in so well to game systems either. Sure some games may unlock new systems after progressing, but Metal Gear intertwines them so much that they never feel separate. I wish I could go into detail, but explaining it any more would give things away. Gameplay was not sacrificed for story, and story was not sacrificed for gameplay. They were both part of the same whole.

Look, if you're reading this you probably know me pretty well. I am a hard person to please with games and I really don't like riding hype trains. This is genuine, unbiased respect and admiration for the game. If it was shit, I would call it out, and being popular wouldn't save it (just wait for the Fallout 4 post.) If you have a love for games, you need to play this. It's that simple.

After beating this game, I felt a number of things. Pride in myself for finishing the journey. Satisfaction with what the last moments presented. But more than anything, I was sad. Like, REALLY sad, because I knew this was the end and I wouldn't get to experience anything like this again. I will miss Metal Gear terribly, but even through the sadness I was glad I went along for the ride.

Thank you, Snake.
https://gifsound.com/?gif=i.imgur.com/yUlM6WD.jpg&v=QiPon8lr48U&s=161

Game #26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32 MEGA Ketchup Post

Holy crap am I behind on updating! Don't worry though, because I've been busy! Instead of doing 7 individual posts, I think I will just do one big ass update, though I will break off MGS5 into it's own post. So here's the quick and dirty for the past few gaming months for Trevor.

Game #26
Fairy Fencer F
Platform: PC
Duration: 17 Hours

Never heard of this series before, but I saw the OT on NeoGAF for it and thought it looked interesting. Plus it was a JRPG for $15 bucks so I figured I would get my money's worth out of it. Honestly, it wasn't all that bad. The game didn't take itself too seriously, combat was decent enough, and the story wasn't the worst. The game did cut a LOT of corners though that probably saved development time and padded out the story significantly. Example: Halfway through the game you travel back in time and go through all the same locations again. There is also only one hub town that is all menu based and cutscenes are all 2D. Recycling!

Game only has 2 waifus though.

Game #27
Croixleur Sigma
Platform: PC
Duration: 2 Hours

Japanese indy game. Basically you climb a tower and kill monsters in arcade combat. Has come combos. Not a lot here but they want you to keep replaying to chase down better times and combos. Kinda fun. Again, 2 waifus.

Game #28
Freedom Wars
Platform: PS Vita
Duration: 22 Hours

Freedom Wars kicks ass. Seriously. It's a third person shooter for the vita where you play a prisoner with no memory in a post apocalyptic setting and a sentence of 1,000,000 years. To reduce your sentence and work off your debt to society like a good person, you go do missions against other cities that are given to you by a teddy bear by shooting robots, cutting off their arms, grappling around, and carrying scientists to drop pods.

You aren't even allowed to sleep laying down until you earn the right and doing so without the correct entitlement adds 50 years to your sentence. 10/10.

Game #29
Destiny: The Taken King
Platform: PS4
Duration: 10 Hours

I am counting this one because god damn it I got a credits screen and that counts. I enjoyed a version of Destiny with an actual story. Itemization definitely feels better, the new Hunter class is fun, and the raid has some very great mechanics for a shooter. Their ability to deliver unique encounters continues to impress me. I will probably stick with it until I clear the raid on Heroic (one boss to go!)

Game #30
Rock Band 4
Platform: XB1
Duration: 20 Hours

There were two ways to return to the music game genre: Keep everything the same (Rock Band) or completely reinvent yourself (Guitar Hero). Erika and I have so much invested in Rock Band that we went this route. This game is straight up a blast from the last gen and still as fun as ever. Our Band, Giant Enemy Crab, reached Rank 9 in the world on the launch weekend. That's something I'm gonna be proud of for a long time.

Game isn't without it's flaws though. The legacy adapter took an extra week to arrive and doesn't work very well. A number of features have been cut from the game including online and practice, though they plan to support the game with free updates instead of coming out with a sequel so we'll see. And finally not all of the DLC is available in the store. Large track packs like Rock Band 1, 2, and 3 are missing as well as Green Day and Lego plus hundreds of stand alone songs. There were also licensing issues at launch which prevented the game from recognizing that I owned specific songs. It's getting sorted, but is still a bummer.

Game #31
Persona 4: Dancing All Night
Platform: PS Vita
Duration: 6 Hours

Fun little rhythm game. I was actually impressed how much work they placed on the story to justify dancing to kill enemies. Game forced me to play through the campaign on Easy though, which is bullshit.

Game #32
Tales of Zestiria
Platform: PC
Duration: 30 Hours

A "Tales" game that is only 30 hours long?! I was as surprised as you are! Tales of Graces took me about 80 hours from start to finish and even Xillia was about 50. When I reached the point where all the characters started talking about the final battle I was like "Yeah okay guys. Now go ahead and reveal the second planet we have to explore." but it never happened. Stabbed the big bad with a sword and disappeared after touching a dragon, the end.

While the story wasn't too awful, it was a bit weak. Combat was fun though, but that's part for the course with Tales games. What WASN'T fun though was the most convoluted item system of any JRPG I have ever played. All items have base stats and affixes, the affixes fall on a gird, forming lines with affixes adds bonuses, you can merge the items to transfer affixes and make new ones, but you have to do it 10 times in an area where you have fought enough monsters to get a blessed item that you then have to merge another 99 times, but stores only sell one item at a time. It's a nightmare.

Well that's everything except Metal Gear. That game deserves it's own post! Planning out the rest of my year though, that 52 game mark is starting to look kinda scary. Planning it out a bit...
33 was Metal Gear 5.
34 will be Black Ops 3.
35 will be Fallout 4.
36 will probably be Tomb Raider.
37 will be Sword Art: Lost Song
38 will be Xenoblade Chronicles X

...and that's all the big titles I can remember right now that I am planning on playing. That's 14 more I need to figure out and beat and it is already November! Well, shit.

Game #25: Hatoful Boyfriend

Hatoful Boyfriend
Platform: PC
Duration: 1 Hour

So in this game, you play a Human girl who lives in a cave and goes to a Pigeon School and has to date one of them. I found the fanciest one I could find and helped him realize his dreams of being a musician even though his high society Father would never allow it. Pretty standard as far as dating sim plots go.

There was also some stat mechanic that I never really understood. Honestly once you get over the whole "you're dating birds" gimmick. there isn't a whole lot here. I guess I learned I am not sexually attracted to birds, which is good news I guess.

Game #24: BattleToads Arcade

BattleToads Arcade
Platform: XB1
Duration: 1 Hour

Erika and I blitzed through this a few weeks ago on a whim. I had no idea you grabbed wolfmen and then dick punched them. This game is brutal and still pretty hard. A lesser man than I would make a dick punching joke about that "hard" comment, but I'm better than that.

Penis.

Game #23: Story of Seasons

Story of Seasons
Platform: 3DS
Duration: 55 Hours

No, this isn't that Zelda game.

So this game is from the team that originally made Harvest Moon, but Natsume has the trademark for that now and they have been making...questionable games with it lately so these guys broke off and made this game. If you have any love for Harvest Moon at all, you will love this game. I fucking loved it. There's all the standard farm and livestock activities (though with tons of quality of live improvements) as well as a ton of waifus and husbandarus to get. Then, they added a completely customizable farm and house, tons of crafting and decorating, and even a bunch of clothes to craft including a bear costume because why not.

This game is great for killing time. I mean, seriously, 55 hours to get to the credits (which roll whenever you get married). By then, I had the biggest house in the game, was fucking ROLLING in money and had over a billion dollars from selling clothes from my fields of flax. I don't know how my magic sewing machine kept up with everything, but I hope it wasn't child labor. I also owned every public field in the town. Not because I needed them, but because I wanted to exert my dominance over the other shitty farmers in town.

I'm not even past Spring in the second year. I could keep going with this game for a very long time. Buy it, seriously.

Game #22: Watch_Dogs

Watch_Dogs
Platform: PC
Duration: 17 Hours

If you were to make a checklist of every AAA cliche and then made a game based on that list, the end result would be Watch_Dogs. Open world, side activities and collectibles, a dark and brooding protagonist, incredibly complex tasks reduced to a simple minigame, a mystery you have to solve, a betrayal from a close friend, it's all here. If I had to sum up the game in one word, it would be "safe". Don't get me wrong, in the end I did enjoy my time with the game. It was nothing groundbreaking or new, but I was not bored during the playthrough.

Aside from the blandness, I think the biggest thing that bugged me was the storyline. Well, maybe not the story it was trying to tell, but more of how it accomplished it.

Here's an example. Someone is kidnapped and you make a deal to trace an IP address to get them back. So when you try to trace the IP your base gets attacked, so you set off to find another base, which your only lead is a crazy hermit, who you have to beat at poker so he trusts you, so you can get the remote to a bridge, so you can go to the island, so you can turn on the generators, so that THEN you can finally have a new base. It has now been two hours and you have not even started the task yet. This is also not a one off scenario, the story does this CONSTANTLY. I think it was about 10 hours of gameplay before I finally found the kidnap victim because the game just kept adding more and more little tasks to complete before I could actually do something important.

The gun system could have used a little work as well. I completed about 90% of the fights in the game with a pistol. I don't think I ever even used a shotgun or submachine gun once because I know how to aim. Saints Row also suffers from this problem a bit.

Also, I get it Watch_Dogs, you have to set everything up for the sequel, but the ending didn't have to be a string of videos going "this group is still alive and is mad at you".

Game #21: LIMBO

LIMBO
Platform: PC
Duration: 2.5 Hours

Not once did I ever limbo under anything. 0/10

loljk. Anyway, I will say that I think the best aspect of the game is the style. It's honestly pretty unique. I think it got in the way of some puzzles though because it wasn't entirely clear that I could interact with some of the things in the environment.

I still am not a huge fan of this game, even after finally completing it. There were really odd difficulty peaks and valleys throughout the game. Sure the puzzles got more complex as you went along, but complexity does not inherently add difficulty. Some of these puzzles, particularly the more complicated physics based ones, were pretty interesting. Some though, were just boring. Also there were "puzzles" that were just simple GOTCHA moments that were pretty annoying to encounter. It's like, yeah, okay, you surprised me with that second bear trap. I now know about this "puzzle" and will just avoid it next time. That isn't very fun gameplay to me.

Also I may just not be "artsy" enough, but I had precisely zero idea what was going on.

Game #20: Silent Hill: The Arcade

Silent Hill: The Arcade
Platform: Arcade Cabinet
Duration: 40 minutes

Joe Floro and I beat the crap out of this shooter at Round 1 this past weekend. We got like halfway through the second act before we realized we hadn't died at all, so we steeled ourselves against the terrible voice acting and fought Pyramid Head like 18 times.

It was easy enough and honestly there were some cool little segments (we shot people in bunny mascot costumes while they rode a merry-go-round and shot at us with shotguns.)

I will never play this again.

Game #19: Ducktales Remastered

Ducktales Remastered
Platform: PC
Duration: 2 Hours

Pros:

• Dat music.
• I actually haven't played a platformer in a while and it was quite enjoyable.
• 2D sprites look great.
• OG voice actors. 
• Himalayas.
• I got really good at the last level...because I had to reply it 3 times since the final boss kept crashing. Had to disable all of my processors except one to get around a 100% crash with multi-core systems. Real edge case bug, I mean who even has more than one processor?

Cons:

• The controls weren't as tight as they could have been. Felt a bit floaty.
• The hit boxes in this game were abysmal.
• Cutscenes were longer than a Metal Gear title.

Game #18: Dragonball Xenoverse

Dragonball Xenoverse
Platform: XB1
Duration: 15 Hours

I made a girl Buu. She is kawaii as fuck. Vegeta was my mentor until I blasted the shit out of him with his own Final Flash. I then defeated the God of Destruction, which even Goku couldn't do, and then killed the God of Space and Time.

10/10

The first picture is just moments after saving Trunks' bitch ass.

Game #17: Pillars of Eternity

Pillars of Eternity
Platform: PC
Total Playtime: 33 Hours

I have been bad. I have a backlog of games I need to update but its been a crazy few months.

So. Pillars. I was really looking forward to this one. I grew up on CRPGs like Baldur's Gate and I am super happy that Obsidian was able to make this game. I am also quite happy that it turned out to be a really solid game.

Unforgiving difficulty? Check.
Correct and incorrect customization options? Check.
So many inventory items that you spend most of the game sorting them all? Check.
More reading than a college English class? Damn straight.
Bioware style romances? NO AND I'M MAD.

This game hits pretty much every box on the CRPG checklists (except romances which I'm not bitter about at ALL). This definitely isn't a game that the 14 year old who insinuated he had sexual relations with my mother on HotS would be able to complete, or even really comprehend. If you have a more refined taste in games, you will enjoy your time with Pillars.

By the way, make sure you do every side quest ever. If you don't, the game makes you feel like a gigantic asshole about any unresolved plot lines.

Game #16: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Platform: PC
Total Playtime: Umm, a lot

"An MMO?! But Trevor, how can you 'beat' an MMO?" - Everyone who reads this ever

Well, when the MMO has a dedicated series of story quests and over an hour and a half of cutscenes to end the base game, I think it is pretty safe to say I "beat" FF14. There were even end credits! Also, shut up, I can do what I want.

I say this at the start of this blog, but I think I need to reiterate here that although I am an employee at Blizzard Entertainment, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are ENTIRELY my own and do not represent the company I work for.

So with that out of the way, I just have to say that I love this game. Ever since WoW came out and changed the entire environment for MMO's forever, most (not all) major MMOs that have come out have followed a pretty standard formula.

I call it the "It's like WoW, BUT..." principle.

Rift is like WoW, BUT it has a ton more character customization options and classes. SWTOR is like WoW BUT it has lightsabers. Conan is like WoW BUT it has boobies. Now I know this is a gross oversimplification, but for the most part MMOs for the past decade don't stray too far from the basic formula of WoW but with a unique spin on a few things. Now the unique things that these MMOs introduce are often better than the way that WoW handles things, but the rest of the basics never seem to match up. I think that is a big reason why nothing has dethroned WoW in ten years.

I know I have experienced this myself. I play most major MMOs and I start to get frustrated when there are similar systems like dungeon finder that just aren't as good as WoW's. Or, more often than not, it functions identical to how the system did in WoW maybe 2 years ago but while it has been iterated on in WoW, it has just stayed the same in the competition. If I wanted to play something similar to WoW, I would just play WoW.

So how does FF14 come into this? Well, all the pieces of it that are similar to WoW, actually are as good as WoW's iteration of them. There's a great dungeon finder, combat is similar and functional, and the quest system is nearly identical. Add on top of that a heavy dose of Final Fantasy nostalgia and a very strong story line where YOU are the focus, not the heroes around you and, well, you got yourself a game I have kept playing consistently since it relaunched. It builds off of what Warcraft has established already works, but it also feels like a wholly unique game.

I seriously cannot wait for the expansion. I am thrilled that this game is performing well and it really is a result of the dedication that their Devs pour into this title. Keep up the outstanding quality, and I will keep playing.