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| By AllTechAdvisor |
You
can tell 2015 was a great year for new video games by the titles that didn’t
make this list. It was a year that saw inventive new mobile games like Prune
and Alto’s Adventure, and much-anticipated blockbusters like Star Wars
Battlefront and Metal Gear Solid V. There were even plenty of wonderful
surprises like Until Dawn, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and Cibele. Those
games aren’t on this list but the titles we did choose show the breadth of what
games can be. Whether its massive open worlds, playful multiplayer experiences,
or small, personal stories, the medium can cover a lot of ground. These are the
10 best games from the past 12 months.
1. Batman: Arkham Knight
The
power fantasy at the heart of Batman: Arkham Knight remains one of the most
seductive in all of gaming: spend enough time brawling, blasting, and winching,
and you can liberate an entire metropolis with a single tool belt and tank.
(Seriously, you’re going to be doing a lot of winching.) You can spend hours
soaring above Gotham’s skyline, tuning into radio dispatches from friends and
foes alike. No one can touch you. If you hear a bunch of thugs wailing on a
captive or daring to insult the Caped Crusader, you can swoop in and show them
the cost of tempting fate. The city is your oyster.
The
combo-heavy combat system that birthed a dozen action-adventure knock-offs
remains fluid and physical, and the deep bench full of various Batman villains
helps to liven up what would otherwise be boilerplate beat ‘em up side quests.
Like its predecessors in Rocksteady’s Arkham series, Arkham Knight understands
that Batman’s toughest battles are mental; there’s no villain more dangerous
than the darkness looming in Bruce Wayne’s mind. Arkham Knight’s treatment of
that truth is heavy-handed, but that doesn’t make it any less satisfying.
2. Bloodborne
Bloodborne
isn’t like most modern games. It doesn’t ease you into the experience, slowly
teaching you the rules and giving you time to understand its complex systems.
It doesn’t put you in the role of a super-powered hero capable of taking down
dangerous beasts with ease. Instead, it casts you as a regular person and
throws you into a gothic world of violence and despair. And then it kills you,
over and over.
Bloodborne’s
unforgiving nature is a large part of its appeal. The spiritual successor to
the Dark Souls series, it’s a game where every victory feels hard won. The
bosses are huge, grotesque monstrosities that will take every ounce of your
skill to defeat, but even the standard enemies the plague-inflicted inhabitants
of Yharnam can kill you. Bloodborne forces you to learn how it works, and then
tests your knowledge in the most brutal ways possible. It’s a game where you
will die a lot but that only makes your eventual victory all the more
satisfying.
3. Destiny: The Taken
King
Telling
people, you liked to play Destiny used to feel a little like confessing you
smoked cigarettes: it was an addictive habit, one you couldn’t really justify
and were always trying to quit. That finally changed with the release of Destiny:
The Taken King, an expansion that built on vanilla Destiny’s solid gameplay
skeleton and fulfilled the promise of Bungie’s ambitious, galactic FPS-MMORPG.
When
you list all of the ways in which The Taken King improved the Destiny
experience, it sounds like you’re just finding another way to make fun of the
game. There are real characters and non-terrible dialogue, bosses that are more
than just bullet sponges, levels that ask you to do more than kill stuff while
you scan doors and platforms, a levelling and gear system that rewards normal
play instead of encouraging grinding, a robot companion with real personality.
Add up all of those potentially humorous additions and toss in dashes of space
lightning and flaming hammers, and the product is a game that’s better than
ever and continuously evolving.
4. Downwell
iOS,
PC
The
best action game of the year is about falling down a well. The aptly named Downwell
is thrilling in its apparent simplicity: your only real goals are to make it to
the bottom and not die in the process. The fact that it looks like a game from
20 years ago only makes it appear even simpler. But once you start
playing, Downwell slowly opens itself up and becomes something much more
complex. At the beginning it feels like a twitchy game, one where fast reflexes
are what will keep you alive, and where the best route to the bottom is the
fastest one.
The
more you play, though, the more you realize Downwell is about strategy and
planning. Knowing how different enemies react and can be killed, and upgrading
your character in just the right way, are just as important as pure speed.
Every item and skill is more than what it seems. Your main weapon is a pair of
boots that shoot bullets when you jump, for instance, but they also double as a
way to control your downward descent. Downwell eventually turns into a
never-ending loop, one where you’re constantly searching for the best possible
way to make it to the end of the terrible, H.P. Lovecraft-inspired well.
5. Fallout 4
Fallout
4 is a sprawling, complicated game, one whose greatest pleasures are simple and
plentiful. You stumble on a new, mysterious location, and you’re gifted with a
ping and a little experience bump. You target a foolhardy raider’s head in
V.A.T.S. and separate it from its body with a bloody, visceral snick. You find
a new piece of duct tape, the one you need to build the scope you’ve been
eyeing all weekend. Play it for a while, and you’ll feel like you’re popping a
sheet of bubble wrap piece by piece.
The
combination of these little details and a powerful narrative hook you’re a parent,
and you just want to find your child give Fallout 4 sturdy bones. That’s
important, because this is a game that occasionally groans under the weight of
its ambition. (Or maybe it’s all the junk you have to drag across the
wasteland?) The game’s demands might border on excessive, but they never
compromise the twin thrills of exploration and discovery.
6. Her Story
Video
games don’t do crime thrillers very well. There are lots of games that turn you
into a criminal, but few that let you experience what it’s like to chase one
down. Her Story is the closest the medium has come to a Law & Order-style
procedural. It’s a game that’s almost entirely about watching videos. In order
to investigate a cold case, one where a woman’s husband died under mysterious
circumstances, you’ll pore over her police interviews, pulling out key places,
names, and other terms that you can then search in the database to open up more
clues and leads.
What’s
so great about Her Story is that it’s a narrative that wouldn’t work in any
other medium. Its story is completely non-linear, letting you pick up on
threads and clues in any order, and the joy comes not from watching things
unfold, but feeling like you’re a part of them. In an age where much of our
time is spent on YouTube and Google, Her Story turns watching videos and
searching for words into a thrilling mystery unlike anything you’ve played
before.
7. Life is Strange
While
blockbuster games continue to imitate Hollywood with a focus on spectacle and
celebrity, another strain of games is doing its best to create a new,
interactive take on television. Series like The Walking Dead helped pioneer the
format, with games divided into episodes and released over a period of months,
but Life is Strange shows the genre’s potential to tackle themes and settings
that aren’t typical for games. It’s a series that takes place in a modern-day
high school, stars two teenage girls, and covers everything from suicide to
time travel.
Life
is Strange isn’t just refreshing, though; it’s also a fantastic game with
moments that will stick with you long after you stop playing. Like most
episodic games, Life is Strange is light on action but heavy on difficult moral
dilemmas, forcing you to make tough choices that can often determine if people
live or die. The time travel mechanic even adds an interesting twist, letting
you jump back in time to try to make things better though chances are when you
complete the game you’ll have at least a few regrets.
8. Rocket League
The
most exciting sports highlight clip I saw this year wasn’t shown on Sports
Centre or one of its competitors. It didn’t even involve humans, not unless you
count the ones operating the controllers. It was the final few minutes of MLG’s
first Rocket League tournament, a contest that included both a thrilling comeback
and a heart-breaking, gravity-defying gut punch of a game winner. I’ve seen it
a dozen times since September, and it’s still powerful enough to give me a
near-heart attack. ESPN has felt a little dry ever since.
Rocket
League gets in the door with one of the goofiest, simplest one-line pitches you
can imagine: it’s soccer, but with rocket-powered cars. It sticks in your craw
because the minute-to-minute gameplay is easy to learn, tough to master, and
somehow produces a handful of those heart-stopping moments every time you play.
That’s why people kept coming back and revving their engines even after the
game’s novelty wore off: once you’ve had the chance to play hero yourself, it’s
hard not to chase that feeling.
9. Splatoon
Online
shooters are among the most popular games around, and they’re also the opposite
of what Nintendo is known for: the company doesn’t make violent games, and has
been historically bad at embracing online gaming. And that’s what makes Splatoon
so surprising: it’s a multiplayer shooter from Nintendo that actually works.
More importantly, it’s a game that only Nintendo could make, a shooter that’s
bright and vibrant and playable by just about anyone.
Splatoon
pits teams of four squid-like creatures against one another, but the goal in
each match isn’t to kill your opponents, it’s to coat the stage with your
particular color of ink. Think paintball, not Counter Strike. The result is a
game that anyone can have fun with, even if they aren’t good at head shots, but
also one filled with depth that makes high-level play a lot of fun. And thanks
to a constant stream of free updates, which range from stages and weapons to
brand new game modes, it’s a game that keeps getting better over time.
10. The Witcher 3: Wild
Hunt
Do
you remember the moment you realized The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt actually had a
chance to fulfill its Novigrad-sized ambitions? I remember mine. I’
d
just spent 10 minutes riding around the hamlet of White Orchard and the
surrounding countryside. I wasn’t trying to advance a specific quest or find a
specific item. I was picking up herbs, battling the odd bandit, exploring the
game’s lush and detailed world. That’s when it hit me: I was drowning in the
depth of what was ultimately a glorified tutorial level. An entire world was
waiting for me. I couldn’t help but laugh.
The
Witcher 3 doesn’t change the gaming landscape with innovation or visionary
style, but it shocks you with its scale and wins you over with pinpoint
execution. You can roam the countryside on horseback for hours, passing by
ruined landmarks and abandoned settlements cast in gorgeous sunlight. Its
combat system is challenging and robust without inspiring the transcendent
frustration of a game like Bloodborne. The world is full of characters with
personality and perspective, many of whom could play the lead in games of their
own without a batted eye. And dozens of hours after you discover White
Orchard’s just a tiny piece of the game’s pie, it keeps fighting to impress
you. Games this generous are gifts.
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