This year was chock-full of games that were bursting at the seams with artistic visuals. These aren’t necessarily games that will make your graphics cards sweat, but they bring about a visual statement and help create and carve a unique path through the game industry like no other games can.
The Last Guardian is by far one of the most beautiful games ever created. Like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus before it, the game paints a wonderfully atmospheric picture before us and the visual style is so unique to the series that anyone can recognize it.
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.
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !