Game Of The Year

Dragon Age: Inquisition

No one who knows me will be surprised by a Bioware game being my GOTY, but this is more than that.

Inquisition checked off almost all of the things I have wanted from the franchise, Epic fights check, Deep conversations with characters who feel like old friends check, Morale ambiguous character missions that leave you feeling cold inside, double check.  I will say that the overall story is a little weak, (Aside from philysophical musings on the nature of Life, the Universe, and Everthing) but the character moments are the strongest of the franchise.

Runner-Up

Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition

Yes, this is the second time I beat Sleeping Dogs, and yes it remains the best example of a serious take on the open world GTA style game (The Saints Row franchise being a less than serious take) It is no small thing to say that I enjoy punching people in the face in this game more then I enjoy it in the Arkham franchise.  On top of rock solid gameplay, this newer version is simply gorgeous.

Surprise Of The Year

South Park The Stick of Truth

I have a confession to make, I only started watching South Park last year.  In that year however I watched the first 16 seasons in a mad dash, of laughter, queasiness, and a vague level of not being sure if I should be offended.  All of those things continued to greatness in SoT.  Confession number 2, up until SoT I had never really enjoyed turn based RPG’s. Holy $#!+ balls what a way to get into one.  I only wish we could get another.

Surprise Runner-Up

Wolfenstein: The New Order

When I watched the first WtNO trailer I was not impressed, and almost immediately wrote it off as a game doomed to fail. Boy, was I wrong.  Wolfenstein brought me back to a time when fighting Nazis was cool, and FPS’ were not cursed by short campaigns, and sequalities.  Back to the days of Halo: Combat Evolved, and Half Life 2.  In short Wolfenstein made me feel young again, and can you ask more from anything?

Biggest Disappointment

Watch Dogs

We all criticize Blizzard for the shiny lies that are their game trailers, but with Watch Dogs I feel that Ubisoft is equally guilty.  For a game that promised me freedom, and the ability to hack anything, the number of things I could hack was surprisingly limited.  For instance, some police departments are issued guns that can only be fired by the officer the gun is assigned to, why couldn’t I hack guns?  I could hack cars to start them, why couldn’t I turn off cars that were chasing me?  The year before Ubi gave me Jason Brody and Vas, before that Ezio Auditore De firenzi, and Altiar.  For this game they give me Aiden, and boring mob boss number 3 (Irish Pallette).  Now I will give them credit for creating the single best Johnny Gat knockoff ever (Jordi) but why was he not in more of the game?  In a story that is supposed to make me question the security of my data the only real question I am left with is; was that maybe French chick hot?  I am still not sure.

Disappointment Runner-Up

Destiny

The only reason these two are not switched is that Ubisoft lied to me about Watch Dogs, I lied to myself about Destiny.  I knew that I had not seen enough content from the trailers, I knew that the beta had looked boring as hell.  I knew (breaks into sobbing) I knew…

Honorable Mention

Minecraft (Xbox One)

There is too much.  For someone who loved the infinite possibilities of Minecraft, the upgraded version scares me on the inside.