Greetings, and welcome to the end of another year on LGR!
2017 was a bit of an odd year in more ways than one, and that certainly included gaming,
at least for me personally.
I don’t know if it’s a result of just getting older, or games evolving beyond my tastes or
what, but I found myself not wanting to make a list of the so-called “best games”
as I have in previous years.
Instead, I’d rather just talk about the games released in 2017 that I played which
stood out for one reason or another.
That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re all 100% great games, but simply that
I’m glad I played them and I feel like sharing my experiences with you.
That being said let’s get to it in no particular order whatsoever, starting with:
Yakuza 0! As a long-time fan of the series, I’m so
glad Sega finally got this one localized.
Not only is 1980s Japan a setting I was dying to explore, but the Yakuza games have too
long remained an underground success.
Yet with the release of Zero it seems to have finally and deservedly caught more of the public eye,
convincing many to dive into the series for the first time.
And it makes sense as a starting point being a prequel to the original PS2 game from 2005.
In fact, that got an HD remake this year as well, in the form of Yakuza Kiwami.
And while I enjoyed both, Zero stands out to me as the more memorable experience.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Man, what a lovely game.
If you’re looking for an expertly-crafted CRPG experience with a ridiculously dense
world of characters, side quests, and strategic approaches,
DOS2 is where it’s at.
Whether on your own commanding a party of four, or playing with others over drop-in,
drop-out multiplayer, Larian Studios’s particular blend of role-playing
herbs and spices goes down smooth.
I kinda wish it didn’t have you spending so long in the starting area, but whatever.
It’s packed with enough content that I’ve happily played through that three times now.
It's good stuff!
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild All right, lemme get this out of the way:
Breath of the Wild is the first Zelda game I’ve played through since the originals
on the NES. Yeah.
So bearing that in mind, it may not be surprising that I found
this to be the best Zelda title to date.
But you know, even after talking to my friends about the other games that I missed over the years,
it’s hard for me to imagine my opinion would change on this one.
Cuz as far as sandbox-y open worlds go, this is the most fun I had
with that kind of gameplay all year.
And minus a few qualms I have with weapon breakage and camera controls, Breath of the
Wild is easy to completely recommend.
Super Mario Odyssey Speaking of games that I cannot recommend enough!
Yeah, I enjoyed the past few mainline Mario games on the Wii U well enough, but Odyssey made
me go “holy crap, this is special.”
Of all the games on my list this year, this is probably the one where I have the fewest
complaints or critiques or any kind of nitpicks.
In fact, at the moment I can’t think of anything I’d change except...
wait, nope, nothing.
It’s pretty darned ideal for what I want in a sprawling collect-a-thon
3D platformer like this.
Incredible visuals, music, level design, controls, pacing, just the whole nine yards.
Fantastic.
Cuphead Heh, see, I personally can’t stand Cuphead.
Yet I sure do respect it!
Studio MDHR has put together a side-scrolling action platformer bullet hell boss battling
obsessive perfectionist simulator that is a wonder to behold.
The hand-drawn craftsmanship that went into every aspect of Cuphead is off the charts,
the controls are ridiculously tight and responsive, and the soundtrack is thing of beauty.
But the gameplay?
Ehh.
Yes, it’s insanely satisfying when you finally beat a level, but it drives me crazy spending
30 minutes to an hour replaying levels countless times just to beat one, much less master it.
So it's not exactly for me in the long but I'm glad I got a chance to experience it for what it is.
Persona 5 Yeah I’m one of those that didn’t play
a Persona game until this year because frankly, I didn’t think this kind of
JRPG would appeal to me.
But I was wrong.
From the instant I booted to the main menu and was blasted with that art style and that incredible
soundtrack, I was sold.
Atlus has crafted the kind of experience I did not know that I wanted.
Even with like, the first entire half of the 100+ hour game effectively being a tutorial,
I loved the story, the characters, the weird side activities, even the grinding to a degree.
Since playing P5, I’ve gone back and started playing the previous games in the series,
and dang it I guess I’m a fan now! And I never saw it coming.
This Is The Police I missed this one when it released for PC
in 2016, but I’m putting it on this list since
it released on all the major consoles in 2017.
This Is The Police is a strategic resource management sim with an adventure game-like
narrative, set in the crime-riddled fictional 1980s city of Freeburg.
You play a police chief, enjoyably voiced by Duke Nukem himself Jon St. John, who’s
180 days from retirement and wants to earn a nice nest egg however he can.
And man, the ethical quandaries you’ll navigate are intense.
Its handling of sensitive topics is hit and miss and the gameplay is darned repetitive,
but it’s based on police procedures so that kind of makes sense to me.
Thimbleweed Park Full disclosure, this is a crowdfunded game
that I backed financially so I had more than one reason for hoping it would turn out well.
Thankfully, even if I hadn’t paid for it back in 2014, I can easily say this latest point
and click adventure game by Ron Gilbert and Terrible Toybox is wonderful.
Think Maniac Mansion meets a little bit of Twin Peaks and you get the idea.
It’s a murder mystery adventure where you switch back and forth between various characters
at multiple points in time, and it all
revolves around solving the mysteries of Thimbleweed Park.
If you like classic LucasArts adventures and you were kinda disappointed in stuff like Broken Age,
is the game for you.
And hey a little tip: if you find a phone and dial 3537,
you’ll get a recorded message from me, aw yeah.
Prey Don’t let the name fool you, this Prey has
almost nothing to with the 2006 game by Human Head Studios.
Prey 2017 by Arkane Studios feels more like a spiritual successor to System Shock.
And I wanted to love this game, but it kind of left me feeling
indifferent about halfway through.
I really dig its aesthetic, its shape-shifting enemies, its alternate history sci-fi stuff,
and the non-linear progression.
It has almost all the RPG and stealthy elements that I dig,
and yet I just wasn’t compelled enough to finish it.
I don’t know, it kind of bored me.
But now that it's not full price, it’s good enough to be worth a look
if you’re into the various Shock and Dishonored games, and maybe you’ll have a better time than I did.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds So here’s the thing with PUBG: it’s technically
a bit of a mess.
On PC it’s inconsistent, on Xbox it’s an abomination, and even though it’s finally
left early access title it still currently just kind of sucks in terms of optimization.
And yet, it’s the most heart-poundingly captivating game I’ve played since, well,
since DayZ back when it was still an ArmA 2 mod.
It says a lot about the core gameplay that despite its numerous shortcomings, PlayerUnknown’s
Battlegrounds currently has over 30 million players
and was the single most-played game on Steam.
So I have no doubt we’ll be seeing an awful lot more from this
and other battle royale-type games in 2018.
Horizon Zero Dawn So here’s a game I didn’t love.
I liked it, don’t get me wrong, just not as much as I thought I would.
Still, I feel compelled to include Horizon on my list because it deserves it.
It truly stood out as one of the most instantly captivating worlds in games this year.
The lush post-apocalyptic Earth overrun with robot dinosaurs is my aesthetic,
and the backstory of how things got that way is truly compelling to explore.
But I felt a bit frustrated by the combat, bored with the repetitive item collecting and crafting,
and uninterested in most everything outside of the main storyline.
I seriously wish Guerilla the best with the next Horizon game, because
the foundation here is solid.
Assassin’s Creed: Origins Yep, didn’t see myself putting an Assassin’s
Creed game on my list this year, but here we are.
I’m just a sucker for an Egyptian settings in games, and Origins is the most
vividly detailed rendition of that so far.
Now, the story itself?
Aergh, it’s okay.
The gameplay? I mean, eghh
It’s an improvement from past games in some ways, and just par for the course in others.
There's a whole lot of busywork and I don't care about the side stuff at all.
I am also not a fan of the copious microtransactions,
but thankfully none were necessary to enjoy what it *did* offer.
So I was just happy to explore such a gigantic and well-made map of ancient Egypt, and I
cannot wait to play the educational/exploration mode whenever Ubisoft finally releases it.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus The more I think about it, the more I’m
not sure how much I actually liked this one.
The New Order and The Old Blood were unquestionably fantastic in my mind, but The New Colossus
made some questionable moves.
Bold, but questionable.
I never felt like going full stealth was really much of an option in this one,
barring a few levels where it was required.
And the whole mid-story twist in gameplay, while awesomely campy,
meant the first half of the game was a slog to play.
Still, as far as middle chapters of an FPS trilogy go, Wolfenstein II is worth experiencing,
if only to listen to BJ’s growling poetic monologues while blasting endless Nazis.
And finally...
Sonic Mania Man, if you told me at any point in the past
twenty years that a new Sonic the Hedgehog game would become one of my
favorite platformers again?
Yeah I don’t know what I would say or where I was going with that but holy crap,
Sonic Mania is stupidly good.
Go figure that it would end up being ROM hackers and freelance programmers
to make a truly great Sonic game again.
I cannot believe how much fun I had with Sonic Mania.
I ecstatically played through it one sitting, grinning from ear to ear the whole time,
wishing that it wouldn’t end.
Sadly it did, and I cannot wait for more.
And that is it for this particular list for this particular year!
Thank you very much for watching this and throughout 2017.
Very much looking forward to getting back to my normal routine in 2018 so, stay tuned!
New videos every Monday and Friday as always here on LGR.
Thank you very much for watching!