Before diving right into my game of the year list for 2017 I wanted to reflect a bit about the games I’ve played this year. There is still one more week to go before new years eve, but I don’t expect anything drastic to happen gaming wise in that week. I’m planning to pick one nice Christmas game that will last me through the holidays, maybe The Witcher 3.
The statistics
This year I’ve played 43 games and I’ve finished 36 of them. The average score I’ve given during the year is 3.1, which means that most of the games I’ve played this year has been good. 11 of the games I’ve played this year, about one quarter, has been VR games and that is new for this year.
Since previous years
I have not played this many games in one year before. It is partly because I haven’t had one huge game that has taken up most of the year (Dark Souls, Bloodborne) but it is also because I’ve focused my gaming into playing one game at a time, finishing it and then moving on to the next one. I’ve carefully chosen games that are easy to finish and many of them are quite short experiences.
New found experiences
Apart from discovering VR I have also discovered walking simulators. I’ve tried playing a walking simulator called Ether One before and decided that I didn’t like it. This time I tried Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and I really struggled to get through it, but once I did, it was such an amazing experience I wanted to rush right into the next walking sim – so I ended up playing SOMA, What remains of Edith Finch, Gone Home and Dear Esther this year. All lovely experiences. I’ve fallen in love with the genre.
After hearing about it from Twin Humanities until I got bored about hearing about it, I finally tried Sky Force Anniversary. I’ve play my fair share of Shoot-em-ups on the Amiga growing up and I’ve always thought of them as too hard. Have you ever tried R-Type? I can seriously only survive 10 seconds in that game.
But Sky Force Anniversary is fun. Really fun. I played it with my son and we’ve completed all the levels and craving for more. Gladly there is a sequel Sky Force Reloaded that just came out.
This lead to me playing Sine Mora, which I’ve tried before but it never got stuck. This time I got really into it, and even if I understand nothing of the story, the boss fights in this game is really cool. Love it! and it just recently got a remake for PS4. I also discovered Housemarque. Wow! Just wow! They redefine the whole shoot-em-up genre with both Resogun and Super Stardust. Those are great games and I have Nex Machina on my backlog. Sadly the studio has decided not to make any more shoot-em-ups as too few people are buying their games. That’s a shame.
The last thing I’ve discovered is that my son is now old enough to play coop games together. We have played almost every evening most of the year and it has ranged from the Trine series, Sky Force Anniversary, Overcooked, Resogun and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. But the game we’ve played the most is without competition Towerfall Ascension. We’ve played over 1000 matches and he’s getting really good.
Surprises!
I was really surprised that Mass Effect: Andromeda reviewed so badly because I thought it was really good. The ending is by far the most epic of all the games I’ve played this year.
I am also surprised that so few have discovered Thumper. It is such a good game, but impossible to sell through descriptions or demos. It is something that you must experience yourself.
I was surprised that The Banner Saga 2 didn’t measure up to the first game, and the half arsed start of Life is Strange really turned by the third episode into a real nail biter.
Beyond games
And last I want to make a shout out to Steins;Gate which is not a game, but which I “played” on the PSVita on my way to work most of this autumn. It is a visual novel and wow! what a story. I’m still thinking of it several times a week.
El psy kongroo
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Replay 