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« on: December 31, 2016, 06:01:42 PM »
These all ended up singleplayer so first a couple of multiplayer shout-outs:
Videoball is a competitive multiplayer game that will make you like your friends.
Overcooked is a cooperative multiplayer game that will make you hate your friends.
5. Quadrilateral Cowboy
The latest in Brendon Chung's line of brilliant FPS vignette things (Gravity Bone, Thirty Flights of Loving) except this one has a lot more Actual Gameplay. You execute a series of heists using gadgets and rudimentary programming. The game gives you a marvelous sense of actually using your tools rather than your player character just automatically performing actions. Quadrilateral Cowboy dwells on things most games skip and skips a lot of things most games would show. The puzzles could have gotten WAY more complex but the mechanics never really get fully explored. This isn't a tight Jonathan Blow game or anything. But it IS a Chung game, and his story methods and style are the real reason to play this. Sidenote: This game taught me how annoying it is to type the word ‘deploy’ repeatedly.
4. Firewatch
I can think of a few games that have firewatch towers in them but this will certainly be history's only game about WORKING at one. Partly about investigating wilderness goings-on, but really about a connection between people, superb writing and acting combined with the unique setting deliver a lovely videogame story. This year's Oxenfree (which would probably be somewhere 6-10 if this list were longer) may have had the best videogame conversations of all time, but I still liked the experience of Firewatch better.
3. Inside
I was never as enamored with Limbo as many of my friends/the world was. It was cool to see an old-school 2D slow-paced action puzzler rise to success in the modern day but having played Flashback, Out of This World, Abe's Oddysee, etc. – Limbo brought nothing remarkable to the table. It was worth playing once, barely. So several years later the developer releases their next game. It's the exact same genre and stars a boy again and looks depressive again. I figure it's been long enough so I'll have a go at playing "Limbo again but different" except... HO-LEE CRAP, turns out it's the best game ever created in the genre. I couldn't believe the quality jump over Limbo. Phenomenal atmosphere, puzzle progression, everything. Insanely good. And that final act...
2. Rhythm Heaven Megamix
If I had never played a Rhythm Heaven before, this would without question be ranked #1. The problem is that this entry consists of 1/4 content from the GBA game, 1/4 from DS, 1/4 from Wii, and 1/4 new. So I was pre-inured to 3/4 of it. Still, it's awesome seeing remixes that combine games from across the series and even a quarter of a new Rhythm Heaven can easily beat 99% of things that come out. It's not called Heaven for nothing. Truly the best series that Nintendo has ever created.
1. Thumper
This game is like the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey ****ing a bass drum. This game punched me in the stomach while French kissing my eyes. This game is how you win Lizard Dude's heart. I love you Thumper.