MY Top, however many, games of 2017. Plus, some arbitrary awards

MY Top, however many, games of 2017. Plus, some arbitrary awards 

Well, there it is, another year come and gone and what a year it was; in America they had... Wait let's not talk about that. In Hollywood there was... Actually, let's not. And, in good ol' Blighty... Ah, yeah, never mind. I kid of course, not entirely, but it is important to remember that every year there are ups and down, there was in 2016 there was in 2017 and there will be in 2018, every year has its positive and negative and thanks to the negative you can really appreciate the positive; even if it would be nicer if nothing bad ever happens (which won't happen). In the world of gaming we had the same thing, positive and negative, so it's with great pleasure I introduce my top {place number here of how many games I have because I haven't finalised this when I'm currently writing it} and a few awards I have just made up, when I was sitting on a bus to college and had forgotten my book, that mean literally nothing but it's the thought that counts. 

Best games honourable mention: 

Horizon Zero Dawn. The way this game was described as "like other open world games but done really well" 

2017 was a pretty damn good year for top quality video games coming out, so much so that any other year HZD would have made it on the list, however, there were so many other games that just took up my time and pulled me in so much more. Plus; there were a few issues I had with HZD: including the combat being very hit and miss for me, and the climbing and overall movement feeling a bit to clunky. Those little issues aside HZD is a damn good game that just didn’t hit me enough to get into my arbitrary list.  

The "Why" Award. 

Parappa remaster, because Knack has an award later. 

There are things that happen in the word that just make you think ‘why?’ ‘why did we need this?’ `why would people want this?’ and so on. My question simply is why Parappa? Did anyone really want this cartoon paper dog that can’t actually rap? Whether or not people wanted this, we got it and it leaves me asking why? 

Sixth Best Games: 

Dreamfall Chapters PS4 

“wow, the first entry on your best games of the year list is a game that is just a port?" Yes, because it's a game that I love and now it's on PS4 and I had to put a game here that I like and came out this year so that the numbers are even. M'kay? Also; I really do love this game I was meant to do a review of it but I never had enough time. I love this game series so much that I have it permanently etched onto my skin, that aside the PS4 port is good but it is a shame that not many people who get the PS4 will understand it because they probably haven’t played the first two games. Then again; you probably can just watch them on YouTube.  

Best Soundtrack Award: 

Persona 5 has the best soundtrack of the year; and that’s not just a game theory, it’s a definitive opinion. The reason being, is that the soundtrack is filled with songs that just get in my head and not in a ‘this is so annoying, I literally want to drill a hole in my head to let the demons out.’ Instead, it’s more of a ‘damn this song is so jazzy I can’t stop dancing.’ Plus; the soundtrack does also help you get through the hundreds of hours you need to put in to finish the game, that’s not a bad thing but a bad soundtrack would make that unbearable and with Persona 5 the music is still enjoyable to me after those hundreds of hours listening to it.  

Sixth Most Mediocre games: 

Before we start talking about the bad games let’s take a moment to celebrate the truly mediocre games, the games that make you think ‘wait, that came out this year?’ the games so unbelievably meh for one reason or another that make you feel... Well nothing really. The sixth most mediocre game this year is: Skyrim {yes, all of them}. Years ago Doom was the game you’d look at when someone bought a new calculator, you’d say ‘nice calculator; however can it play Doom?’ soon that question will turn to, can it play Skyrim? This isn’t what makes Skyrim mediocre. No, what makes it mediocre is that every time the game comes out its exactly the same, there’s no improvements, sure people don’t want the game to be completely different but surely people would want Bethesda to, at the very least, fix some of the issues that have plagued the game since its first release- instead they prefer to just shovel it on to any platform that’ll have it. And that’s completely ignoring the fact that Skyrim wasn’t too great anyway, and this is from someone who spent just as much time playing it as everyone else.  

The Fuck off Award: 

This is the award for the game that just won’t leave us in the morning no matter how many hints we drop, it keeps starting up the same conversation but we’re too polite to tell it that we need space. And that game is: Skyrim.  

Oh, for shit sake.  

Sixth Worst games: 

Bulletstorm: Full shit edition is an example of a publisher just putting out a game that everyone forgot about simply because they wanted some money and maybe enough people have forgotten about the game that they might actually think it’s better than it was. They also shoved in a new character, because why not? The new character was Duke Nukem, why? Well Gearbox own Bulletstorm and Duke Nukem and people used to like Duke Nukem so why not just put him Bulletstorm because then people can’t complain that it’s the same mediocre game but at a premium price which makes it more like Gearbox.  

Best Battle Royal Game Award: 

Fortnite is the only battle Royal game that I’ve actually enjoyed and in a year where the two biggest parts of gaming were loot boxes and battle Royal it seems important to mention a battle Royal game. While Fortnight isn’t in my main list it is still an enjoyable game with a nice base building mechanics that adds a bit more depth to the game (especially team based matches), the art style is fun and nice to look at, and finally the matches are quite short meaning you can win or lose then jump into a new game and there’s less downtime than other games in the same genre.  

Fifth Best Game: 

Resident Evil 7, in my opinion, is the best Resident Evil/Biohazard game. Even though it got some backlash for being first person, although in my opinion first person actually works better for horror because it makes you feel more connected with the character and the atrocities happening to them whereas third person feels like more of a disconnect, but it also makes sense for the game to be first person because the mansion feels so cramped that it seems easier to play with that camera perspective. My point is that Resident Evil 7 is the only game in the series that I believe to actually be successful at horror so if that’s not an achievement I don’t what is.  

Sony, Please Just Let It Go; Like You Did with The Vita Award: 

It’s pretty obvious that most of this awards are kind of jokes. This one, however, is entirely serious. This is the award for the game that Sony should just give up on and drop, just like what they did with the Vita: but unlike the Vita Knack 2 isn’t good. Knack was a completely boring, not at all underrated, game. Knack 2 is an improvement- not that it means much- its still an absolute slog of mediocre gameplay and story that seems out of place for a kids game.  

Fifth Most Mediocre game: 

1-2 Switch isn’t that bad of a game I’d say, definitely not bad enough to get into the worst games. The game is here not because of the gameplay but because people who bought a Switch got nothing with it, a games console with no games, 1-2 Switch should have been a pack in game with the Switch so that players actually had something to play and didn’t have to pay around £40 to play a tech demo for the Switch.  

Fifth Worst Game: 

CoD: WWII is a game that claimed that it was going to be true to World War II but what came out was an unbalanced game with an absolutely tedious and lacklustre campaign with the normal CoD multiplayer and egregious microtansactions that lead to players opening loot boxes on Normandy Beach that also rewards other players for watching people getting their shitty loot drops.  

Wait, I Thought It Was Already on That Platform Already Award: 

This award isn’t necessarily negative, it’s simply that I genuinely thought Dragon’s Dogma was already on PS4 and Xbox One. I don’t really have much more to say about this, it’s a pretty good game.  

Fourth Best Game: 

I fucking adore Persona 5, the more I think about it the more I come to this conclusion. “but you say you adore it and you’ve put it fourth.” Yeah, I have so that shows you just how much I liked the other games on this list. Persona 5 is a fun little, I say little but the game is just over 100 hours long, game about being an average schoolboy who has to go into another world and fight a lot of, often phallic and rude, monsters in order to save the world from itself. Even though there is a series of these games, the fourth is the only other one I have played, and although that one is good I’d still say Persona 5 feels like the definitive “play this Persona game to see what you think of the series” and I’ll be damned if the Persona 5 dancing game isn’t one of my games of the year in 2018.  

Fourth Most Mediocre Game: 

In the years we’ve seen this happen over and over, most recently with Battleborne (I did actually debate whether to put this as the Battleborne award but then I realised I needed another mediocre game). Lawbreakers is a game that was mediocre in the sense that it was an OK game that just sort of died. Like, it didn’t slowly die it released people played it then it was gone. As of writing Battleborne has 78 players and Lawbreakers has a measly 18. What’s that a few games and some people desperately waiting for a couple of people to join. Lawbreakers is so very forgettable.  

Fourth Worst Game: 

CoD: Modern Warfare. Is this a cheap cheat? Well if people can have early access games as a GOTY then I can have remasters as worst games of the year. Morden Warfare is a good game, it’s one of the best CoDs there has ever been. Modern Warfare remaster is a disgusting piece of shit that shows what is truly wrong with the gaming industry. The best way to describe Modern Warfare remaster is by simply calling it a cash in, it’s publishers trying their best to get as much money as possible from a game that they know people liked. A cynical man could argue that this is what all remasters are; however Modern Warfare really pushes the boat out then sank it with all its microtansactions and modern day bullshit. It even had DLC. A remaster of a really fucking old game.  

A Game That Came Out the Same Time That Skyrim Came Out And Has Also Not Changed At All Except For The Platforms it is Now on Award: 

I don’t feel I need to explain this award, simply because the title is so long and descriptive. Basically the winner is LA Noire because the remaster looks basically the same and this category is a throw away to draw this whole thing out. Next!  

Third Best Game: 

What Remains of Edith Finch is a beautifully sad experience that I think everyone should play. I am actually loathed to describe the plot of this game because the game is so amazing in its visual design and its story. You play as a woman who revisits her old family home; as a side note the design of the house is honestly astounding; and she re-lives the stories of her family. That's all I really want to say about it. It is honestly a beautiful game that I loved every second of it. 

Third Most Mediocre Game: 

Agents of Mayhem is a game that follows Saint's Row but it also wasn't related to it but it was, to be honest it was just an entirely unmemorable game so much so that I've got nothing else to say about it. 

Third Worst Game: 

Shadow of Mordor was a title that a lot of people really enjoyed, I thought it was ok, then Shadow of War was announced and pretty much everyone was so excited for it so Warner Brothers thought "Hm, how do we run this into the ground. That’s it! Let's be as greedy as possible." (disclaimer: Warner Brothers did not in fact think or say this; Warner Brothers does not need to think about being greedy for it is simply second nature to them). I feel like I'm going to be saying the same thing for this category. The game is alright but it has so many microtransactions, loot boxes, late game that has more grind than an MMO, and a sexy not so spider.  

Could Have Been So Much More Award: 

Assassin's Creed: Origins is a game that I really want to love, I really do find Ancient Egypt fascinating and would love a game that realistically portrayed what Egypt was like back then. The reason the game is so disappointing is because there is so much in the game that shows how good it could have been, on one side you have the people who made the world that filled it with Egyptian traditions and beliefs that make the game worthwhile, then you have the people wrote the "main story" which isn't that great if I'm honest; it plays out like the standard Ubisoft plot- possibly the only thing that is iconic about Ubisoft.  

Second Best Game: 

Hellblade is an audio-narrative visual experience. That may sound like the sort of thing a smart person might say, but I assure you I just made it up. Hellblade is a game about Senua, a woman with psychosis who hears voices as she is tracking someone to try and save them. I won't say anymore as it is slowly revealed thought-out the story. The gameplay is simple but the story is engaging and the sound design is fantastic; as someone who is very interested in sound and how it can be manipulated this game is a journey. You'd be at a disservice if you didn't play this game with headphones.  

Second Most Mediocre Game:  

The first Outlast started out promising then became a tedious slog fest of hiding in lockers and seeing dong, the second game is even more of that but then also add in an obsession for the word "cunt" and a lot religious imagery and edginess and you have Outlast 2.  

Second Worst Game: 

Battlefront 2 (take the things I said about every other game in this list but replace the skin with Star Wars). 

Best Mobile Game Award: 

If you played Reigns then you know what to expect because it's the same concept, that's not a bad thing by any means it's just more of a game that I have never finished, probably never will and I don't care because I want its weird, crazy, just what you’d expect from Devolver, bizarre experiences to never end.  

Most Mediocre Game of The Year: 

Wait For HonoUr came out this year? Yes, and that’s one reason that it’s so mediocre another reason is simply {RECOVERING NETWORK CONNECTION. PLEASE WAIT.} 

Best Title Award  

South Park The Fractured But Hole. Yet again, another award I don’t really need to explain, but I will anyway, this is the award for the game that has the best title. In a world where there’s so many games in the market a title is a way to ensure your game stands out and is noticed by the hoards. Plus, the connection to a well-known franchise and following a very successful game helps too. I guess, but the title is more important. The fractured but whole is a marvellous play on words. Look again I bet you didn't even spot it. That's right it sounds a bit like bumhole; but don't say that because it ruins the well-crafted joke.  

Worst Game of The Year: 

Everything That Has Been Thrown on Steam This Year has been an absolute shit-show, I know that this isn't the first year Steam has been like this and that other people have already put this on their lists before but I don't care. This is a perfectly valid winner because Steam Direct was released this year which has led to just more and more shit that is poorly made, asset flipped, offensive and all-round bollocks; so much so that some indie developers have decided that Steam isn't even worth the effort of trying to get your game noticed because for every good game there are thousands of hastily made asset flips, memes, RPG maker games, and poorly written visual novels.  

Best Visual Dating Novel: 

"But... Butt... you just complained about visual novels!" Yes, well spotted; I complained about badly written ones but Doki Doki Literature Club is a quite well written one. Plus; it is not completely filled with the disgusting exploitative smut that all other visual novels are made from. Although I have only played a few hours of this game I have to say it is such a nice and innocent game where you play as a nice guy who knows a cute girl, who is the sort of person who if you offered a high five to she wouldn't keep you hanging around, and you join a nice club where everyone has to prepare for the upcoming festival. You meet nice people such as Yuri who just has some piercing commentary and views on different types of literature, or Monika that is just... Well, just Monika, Y'know. It is a lovely game and I can't wait to see how the festival goes for them.   

Best Game of 2017: 

I asked myself what the best game of the year was, cause that's the whole point of this, and it was really hard not because there wasn't that many games but because there was so much that I just loved. I haven't even mentioned the new Life is Strange, Little Nightmares or any of the other games that were amazing this year. But, really when I finished this game I knew straight away that this was my definitive game of the year; I even thought that this might have been one of my favourite games of all time because damn Nier: Automata was a journey. Every time I played through the game there was always multiple points where I think about how crazy this was and how I my mind was ultimately blown. It even took something that I don't like, bullet hell, and made me enjoy it so much that I just didn't want to stop playing it. Nier is indescribable, Nier is perfect despite its flaws, Nier is 10/10, never have I felt so many emotions in one game. 

Nier is fucking bonkers.