Indie games have become the new go-to for unique game experiences and revolutionary new ideas that AAA games once brought to the table. 2016 couldn’t make that statement any more clear with fantastic indie games that get as much attention as AAA budget titles.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Firewatch single-handedly had one of the most memorable stories this year. It sucked me in and I didn’t stop playing until the end. The murder mystery combines with being left alone, and the perfect pacing, add up to one intense adventure that you can’t put down.
This year saw many great blockbusters with fantastic voice acting, but it’s not just being good that gets it the award. The game has to bring characters to life and have a variety of voice actors that make the game feel compelling and interesting.
Uncharted has always had some of the best voice acting in any game. With Nolan North as Nathan Drake, there’s just no other character that you can love. It’s perfect and just comes across as genuine and natural. Uncharted 4 tops all of this with many new characters and old favorites that put a smile on your face.
With the next generation and the latest video cards in full swing, we are at some of the best visually impressive games ever created. With DirectX 12 and various other graphical architectures in place, we can now see games for the realistic beauty developers have wanted all along. Tomb Raider: 20th Anniversary Edition was included due to being the first game to support DirectX 12.
Battlefield 1 took the prize here thanks to its unique setting and amazing play on lighting and effects. The battlefields and battles are just brought to life with eye-popping visuals that can only be seen on the latest PC video cards.
The RPG scene was a little scarce this year, but there were still some great entries. A surprising amount of JRPGs didn’t quite make a splash this year outside of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, both owned by Square Enix. Western RPGs have been dominating sales charts for years and that trend continues this year.
Final Fantasy XV is a beast of an RPG with a long history. Starting out as Final Fantasy Versus XIII back in 2006 the game saw a huge following and for several years we thought it would never happen. While it is flawed, the sheer epic scale and revolutionary change for the series to break away from traditional JRPG tropes that it helped create it just amazing to see. That’s not to say other RPGs this year weren’t great with Tyranny being a strong second.
Tecknet is a British up-and-comer for gaming peripherals, and they tend to be on the budget end yet produce decent products. For a $40 keyboard, the X641 is surprisingly well built and feels close to a high-end keyboard from someone like Corsair or Logitech. The keyboard has a minimal design with just your basic keyboard layout. No fancy macro buttons, no extra anything, and no software. This is an easy-to-use plug-in-and-play keyboard with basic media functions, and that’s it.
That’s not to say this is a bad thing. A lot of people don’t need fancy software and macro buttons. The keyboard has a solid aluminum frame that will keep your keyboard still, and it weighs quite a bit. The keys themselves are Cherry MX keys, so they are very loud and clacky and have satisfying feedback from people who like them. Cherry keys are raised quite high off the keyboard and require a little more dexterity of your fingers to press down and type fast. After using a membrane keyboard for so long, my hands would cramp after only a few minutes of typing. The keys are spaced out quite a bit, and the keyboard itself takes up little desk real estate.
The keyboard is backlit with a button that changes to three different colors. This is a nice touch and will help your game and type in the dark. Honestly, this keyboard isn’t quite what I want, as the keys are much too elevated and typing feels like a chore. I would eventually get used to it, but I found my WPM to be slower because of how hard you have to press and how far apart the keys are. I also found the enter button for the traditional return key, and I kept hitting the backslash button all the time. Even after 3 days of use, I still did this, so that’s a problem. I found the light button to be in an odd spot and constantly pressed it when going to Shift or Ctrl. Overall, these can be compensated for in the end.
For what it is, the Technet X641 keyboard is a decent low-budget Cherry MX keyboard and gets the job done. It looks pretty decent and has lighting, but the lack of software features and exclusive buttons may turn hardcore gamers away. If you like membrane keyboards, stay away from this thing, as the Cherry keys will give your hands a serious workout. A few buttons were placed in odd positions as well. The keyboard is super sturdy and well built, and it doesn’t take up much room.
Like the puzzler genre, this was another weak year for platformers. It’s a dying breed of game that ruled the industry up through the early 2000s. What we did get this year were some unique platformers from indie developers that had a strong atmosphere and some good stories to tell.
Final Fantasy XV is a beast of an RPG with a long history. Starting out as Final Fantasy Versus XIII back in 2006 the game saw a huge following and for several years we thought it would never happen. While it is flawed, the sheer epic scale and revolutionary change for the series to break away from traditional JRPG tropes that it helped create it just amazing to see. That’s not to say other RPGs this year weren’t great with Tyranny being a strong second.
I can’t remember a year where there were so many disappointments, not just bad games. So many developers had promised such great products only to reveal a pile of garbage. Might No. 9 is pretty far up there as being a Kickstarter that saw many delays only to become the worst Mega Man game ever made. Star Fox Zero was the first console Star Fox game since the GameCube and turned into a heap of crap. Homefront: The Revolution took the gritty and gripping atmospheric story of the first game and stream rolled it. The Division was supposed to be a unique online multiplayer shooter but became a mediocre and repetitive Destiny clone. Lastly, No Man’s Sky takes the whole pie.
No Man’s Sky
While I personally despise the survival genre, No Man’s Sky showed some promise to bring meaning and a thoughtful experience to the genre. What we were promised was an unlimited universe with procedural generated planets that were expansive and massive. We’re talking about an actual digital universe, but what we got was the complete opposite. We’re talking about hundreds of alien species and vast rivers and oceans. What we got was a big fat nothing and the biggest issue was that it was shown in trailers. Yes, trailers seen by millions of people, and then when the game drops all that content is nowhere to be seen. It’s nearly criminal.
This year was the year of the shooters and in turn, was the year of multiplayer. Online play was dominated by shooters this year rather than MMOs. From Battlefield 1 to Overwatch there were so many great shooters that I still play to this day.
Overwatch isn’t just about iconic characters and perfectly balanced gameplay and classes. It’s literally the best class-based shooter since Team Fortress 2. This is the most fun I have had with an online shooter in years and I couldn’t stop playing it for months. I still play it to this day and the free characters and updates help quite a bit. It’s a phenomenon, not just a game. Battlefield 1 came in at a close second thanks to its unique weapons and setting.
Action games seem to get better and better every year and are usually one of the top genres that AAA titles try to claim the king of. This year saw many great action games from Watch Dogs 2 and Dishonored 2.
Dishonored 2
With all the games this year it was a tough choice, but Dishonored 2 takes the cake thanks to it’s tense stealth action and fantastic gameplay that draws the player in. Uncharted 4 came in at a close second thanks to its blockbuster set pieces.
I have only ever had two nice TVs in my life, and they were both 50″ plasmas. While plasmas are now discontinued and have faded off the market, a whole new scene of TVs is among us. 4K TVs have come down in price over the last few years remarkably, and now anyone can afford them. Even the larger and curved screens are much more affordable. For myself, I needed something that was future-proofed and could do everything the latest consoles can do today plus more. Samsung makes some of the best TVs out there, and they are at the forefront of 4K entertainment. Their KS series of TVs are some of the best you will ever see. Anyone who says there’s no difference between 4K and 1080p hasn’t seen this TV yet.
Let’s start with the overall features. 60″ is fairly large and 10″ larger than my previous TVs. This is a large cinema, but it takes an understanding of what a 4K TV can do and what 4K even is. 4K, or UHD, is a fancy term for four times the resolution of 1080p. 3840×2160 or 2160p is 4K. The dots are smaller, allowing more detail on larger screens, thus the 55″ plus sizes. Anything under 55″ and you won’t notice much of a difference between 4K and 1080p. Anything over 65″ and you start seeing pixels, and then 8K TVs are needed, which are rich man fantasies. Another feature for 4K TVs is HDR, or High Dynamic Range. This displays lighting effects in content that supports it, as the human eye would see it, and it has better blacks and whites, more varied contrast, and a richer tone.
This TV is just packed to the brim with physical features. 4 HDMI ports, 3 USB ports, Bluetooth, 2.4 and 5Ghz WiFi, Ethernet, optical audio, RF output, built-in quad-core CPU, dimming technology, OneConnect Ready, AnyNet+, eco sensor, TV to mobile mirroring, and vice versa, and the list goes on. Every single piece of technology available for TVs is crammed into this 50-pound piece of beauty. You won’t find a more advanced TV on the market.
Other features for 4K TVs are motion interpolation, or SOE (Soap Opera Effect). This TV is 240 Hz, which is as fast as you can get refreshed rate-wise right now, and some people don’t’ like it. For content that isn’t 60FPS or faster, the TV predicts the frames and adds some in to reduce blurriness and juddering in fast-moving scenes. With high-definition content, it looks fantastic to me. It looks lifelike and beautiful. A downside of these ultra-high-def TVs is that anything that isn’t high-def really stands out and looks bad. The TV can compensate in some ways, as there are settings for it, but if you don’t like smooth-moving movies and shows, then turn it off.
As a TV in general, this is a smart TV that has access to the internet and includes Samsung’s TV app store for streaming Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, news, and many other things to your TV. There’s no need for a set-top box, streaming device, or game console. It can all be done straight from the TV, which is amazing, and I never dreamed how convenient it could be. You can even stream 4K content straight from the TV without needing special cables or devices. I found setting up the TV just as easy as any other device, and using the UI is simple and a breeze. Samsung didn’t overcomplicate anything but kept the UI similar to what you see on other HDTVs, menu-wise. There are quick access features; switch your sources, and then your settings. Some apps, like Netflix, will show your last-watched shows right from this pop-up menu, and you can even surf the web! You can also mirror-cast your device and display it on the TV to watch videos or pictures, which is really neat and easy and eliminates the need for HDMI cables.
This TV will also recognize your game consoles and allow you to control the menus via the TV remote, which is really neat. Turning off the console will turn off the TV. Turn on your console, and the TV will turn on. The same goes for turning just the TV on. One of my favorite features is the voice-activated remote. Just say “Open Netflix,” and you go straight to the app. Sadly, you can’t use this voice search while in apps, which is really odd. However, it’s all down to the pixels and HD content, right?
Playing HDR games on this beast is something I will love forever. The games look so rich, beautiful, and pop with colors, unlike anything I have seen before. The downside is that neither the game manufacturers nor Samsung will tell you how to make an HDR display right on your TV. You must turn it on in the console settings first, and then you must enable UHD Full Color on your HDMI ports on the TV. After this, you must turn the game mode on, turn the backlight up all the way, turn on the Smart LED to high, and then you will have HDR. Sadly, this is a brand new technology, so only a handful of games support it. I’m not even sure if movies support it at this point, but I’m sure it’s coming. Another downside is that 4K content is brand new, and mainstream movie producers and game companies are just now starting to support it. It’s slow right now, but if you buy this TV, you will future-proof your digital entertainment for years to come.
I did watch a few 1080p Blu-ray movies on this TV, and I noticed details that I didn’t know were there before. Individual fibers and hairs pop with detail, and it’s amazing. Everything comes to life and jumps out at you. From the darkest scenes to huge, sweeping landscapes, every scene is beautiful and breathtaking on this display. 4K movies and shows are beyond human belief. They look so crisp and stunning that I can’t put them into words. Anyone who says there’s no difference between 1080p and 4K is lying, because there’s a stunning difference in quality and fidelity. Hell, even the speakers on this thing are pretty decent for TV speakers—some of the best I have heard. While not as good as a separate system, they will tide you over until you get one, for sure.
Another negative point that really bothered me was the constant adjustment needed for each source. Now, this doesn’t mean input, but the source of content, such as a movie, web browser, or each app. I didn’t get this at first and kept adjusting the TV from the Netflix app to the PS4, which was odd. Thankfully, the TV remembers settings for each input and source, but if you watch movies on your PS4, you will need to adjust it for games and then again to watch a movie. I don’t understand this, but that’s the downside of having a high-end TV. Not one set will look the same for different content. With my plasma TVs, one setting was fine for everything, but now you have HDR settings and movie settings; some shows look bad with Auto Motion Plus, some don’t, and this can really make the average consumer mad. The amount of research and knowledge I had to gain going into this TV was insane. I can’t imagine how many people have 4K TVs and don’t have them set up correctly.
Overall, this TV is one of the best purchases I have ever made. It’s huge, thin, and minimally designed; it has all the latest features going into 2017 and beyond; everything looks beautiful and gorgeous; and it will bring all your HD content to life.
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !