These are the ten best games of 2016 (at least until someone else at DigitalChumps creates a competing list).
VIRGINIA
Variable State
A perfect enigma is a perpetual struggle between tenable doubt and informed speculation. This is difficult to produce in any creative medium, let alone one that relies on personal interaction. Videogames almost never attempt to do this. Virginia does. The fallout could have been an obtuse curiosity, but it succeeds in throttling tension through subdued parlance, laying out a series of clues and challenging the player to organize them into a cogent (and personalized) picture of the story. My review.
DOOM
id Software
When it comes to first-person shooters, the last ten years informed gaming’s collective unconscious of a false identity. Shooters either need to be tightly scripted walks down carefully controlled environments in order to make you feel like The Man. Doom proved that all you really needed to do was never stop running and blow a ton of shit the fuck up with a shotgun. The concept of “throwbacks,” the definition of a first-person shooter, the necessity of rocket launchers—every step Doom took was a march toward a calculated revolution. Steven McGehee’s review.
SUPERHOT
Superhot Team
Superhot’s novel premise is an emphatic transition to its promise; playing Superhot actually feels as awesome and energizing as it looks. Plenty of shooters (and plenty of games) have played with bullet time, stopping time, or some otherworldly manipulation of time, but none have married its passage to movement quite like Superhot. It not only adopts and plays with this idea; it pushes and refines it to its logical extremes by discarding anything that might get in the way. My review.
FIREWATCH
Campo Santo
Firewatch distinguishes itself through integrity of its structure and preservation of its characters. Allowing control over Henry and Delilah’s perilous connection provides a sense of ownership over the narrative and creates an important bond between action and place. Other story-focused games suffer from a damaging disconnect between agency and intention, almost as if they don’t trust the player to act reasonably in accountable situations. Firewatch proves this dynamic not only to be valuable, but necessary to go forward. My review.
FURI
The Game Bakers
Furi becomes essential by identifying and removing what it declares expendable. There are no exotic mechanics, insatiable combo chains, or compulsory battles against waves of time-eating sycophants. Instead, Furi trusts the player to process a tiny allowance of raw actions into a dazzling exhibition of refined skill. With a Murderer’s Row of bosses perfectly apt to oblige this exercise, Furi helps define a new aesthetic of rarefied action. And it has a Carpenter Brut soundtrack. My review.
INSIDE
Playdead
Inside’s quiet confidence is a maneuver invented to not only disarm the player, but also destabilize assumptions that seem inseparable from an entire class of games. Plenty of games have pulled the curtain away to thunderous applause. Only Inside has room for shock, panic, and the inconceivable notion that the nightmare isn’t yet over. My review.
DARK SOULS III
FromSoftware
Dark Souls’ tenacious pursuit of gaming idealism, even at three (or five) entries deep, remains a virtuous enterprise. It’s also a show that, no matter how well executed, loses potency with each consecutive performance. I love the series, and Dark Souls III gets by on the raw surge of emotion I feel being in its world. It’s old and creaky, but still second to none when it comes to keeping the player engaged one hundred percent of the time. My review.
THUMPER
Drool
Thumper wraps a trip through spectral hell, the sensation of travelling down an interminable barrel of a gun, and a pounding rhythm game into an articulate package. It condenses to a sensory rampage that feels as concerned with survival as it is as consumed by perfection. Hitting notes on highway isn’t a new concept, but performing it under the threat of phantasmal horror, and somehow empowering progress, positions Thumper as a modern apex. My review.
REZ INFINITE
Enhance Games
The death of the Dreamcast. The birth of PlayStation VR. Rez’s singular orbit stays outside of a mercurial industry and remains as powerful and as relevant as it was fifteen years ago. By its architecture and through its nature, there isn’t a time when Rez won’t be beautiful. PlayStation VR, as it happens now, is the best way to experience it in 2016. My review.
THE LAST GUARDIAN
genDESIGN
The Last Guardian is a meditation of trust and patience. The eight year wait after its 2009 unveiling is a conspicuous illustration of this thesis, but a clearer picture develops by persisting through its meticulous operation. A lingering touch of melancholy and deep suspicions of malevolence—both synonymous with ICO and Shadow of the Colossus—are now complimented by enduring senses of companionship and devotion. In these moments, and The Last Guardian has many, it’s hard not to feel captured and taken by its ability. My review.
Past year’s top ten lists: 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015
(Links and/or images may be broken during DigitalChumps’ ongoing server migration)
Other games I greatly enjoyed this year:
SuperHyperCube – Do you know how satisfying it is to perfectly fit a nightmare shaped block through an extremely specific dream hole? My review.
Owlboy – Owlboy’s impression upon 2D platforming parallels the comfort of a handmade blanket or the pleasure of devouring made-from-scratch cookies. My review.
Quadrilateral Cowboy – Quadrilateral Cowboy is all of the fun and experimentation of retro-future cyber heists without all of the existential horror that comes with most definitions of mortality. My review.
Oxenfree – Before Stranger Things popularized the wistful sensation of youth, Oxenfree showcased an adolescent tale that reveled in the supernatural but instantly felt relatable. My PC review and Nathan’s PS4 review.
Job Simulator – Being a witness is fine, but becoming a participant is better. Job Simulator, perhaps more than any other PlayStation VR launch title, neither dwells in abstracts nor resides in stasis. Its cartoony confines are genuine, and player agency, however modest, feels authentic. My review.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – I thought Uncharted 4 was going to be one of the most unnecessary games of the year, but if that were true I wouldn’t have finished it three times and earned a platinum trophy along the way. That’s logical, right? My review.
Back in 1995 – Distorted textures and hulking polygons may not feel as chic or romantic as pixel art, but Back in 1995’s paean to the 32-bit era extends beyond aesthetic cognizance. It’s a vehicle for the sentiment and devotion of its author, and approach may be limited to a shared fondness of that time and place. My review.
Alone With You – Alone With You’s eagerness to sidestep conventional challenges with singular objectives, however, will last longer than some of its prosaic mechanics. Valuable science fiction maintains a crucial element of humanity, a facet of storytelling Alone With You embraces with, of all possibilities, relatable human beings. My review.
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor – Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is a hallucinogenic merry-go-round of oddities operating at dangerous speeds. Some passengers will be bored to tears at its perceived mundanity while others will find themselves charmed by its stylish construction and otherworldly performance. A select few may be eaten by the ride. My review.
Kentucky Route Zero Act IV – After a two year absence, Kentucky Route Zero returns and continues to present the only Venn crossover between interactivity, entertainment, and meditation. Act IV also weirdly non-linear, essentially composing two different games, which is literally twice as much as anyone expected.
Gravity Rush Remastered – After abandoning a play-through four years ago on Vita, I was happy to return to and completely annihilate everything in Gravity Rush. My only criticism is combat felt like a blueprint for bigger and better ideas, which, thankfully, will be embraced on January 20th, 2017. Steven McGehee’s review.
Final Fantasy XV – The game’s a mess, something cobbled together from lingering Versus XIII concepts to form the vague shape of “Final Fantasy,” but I loved it anyway. My review.
Sega 3D Classics Collection – THIS IS THE FIRST TIME POWER DRIFT HAS BEEN RELEASED ON AMERICAN SOIL. Galaxy Force II, Fantasy Zone II, Puyo Puyo 2, and Thunder Blade are also good. M2 is the best port house in the business.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions – In the continued absence of Persona 5, Tokyo Mirage Sessions provided a nice injection of Shin Megami Tensei immunization. Better than it should have been on a platform that was significantly worse than it should have been.
Kirby Planet Robobot – Is it possible for a Kirby game, either following its mainline 2D origins or its more dangerous spin offs, to disappoint? They put Kirby in a mech.
Games I regrettably missed this year: Shin Megami Tensei: Apocalypse, Hyper Light Drifter, Dragon Quest Builders, Dragon Quest VII (3DS), The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, Let it Die, Dishonored 2, ReCore, Pony Island, I Am Setsuna, Kholat, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, Enter the Gungeon, Salt and Sanctuary, Assault Suit Leynos, Bound, Grow Up, and Dead Rising 4.
Greatly looking forward to in 2017: Persona 5, Kentucky Route Zero Act V, Yakuza 0, Resident Evil 7, Gravity Rush 2, Nintendo Switch shenanigans, Nioh, Ys Origin, Nier: Automata, Yooka-Laylee, State of Decay 2, Cuphead, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Tekken 7, Oddworld: Soulstorm, Outlast 2, Rime, Pyre, Sonic Mania, ToeJam and Earl: Back in the Groove, Vampyr, Tacoma, and Scalebound.
Guaranteed Turd 2017: Detroit: Becoming Human. As a reformed Quantic Dream evangelist, I am confident that David Cage has learned nothing and games with 1/50th’s of Detroit’s budget will be more effective at creating a human, relatable experience.
Mild Turd 2016: No Man’s Sky. I didn’t care about the prerelease hype and I firmly disagree with the internet hate mob. With that in mind, after about thirty hours, I realized most of my time with No Man’s Sky was spent firing laser beams at rocks and flying my ship looking for more rocks to fire laser beams at.
Bad but Not as Bad as Everyone Said: TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan, StarFox Zero
