Johnorable Mention: Horizon: Zero Dawn

My affection for Horizon: Zero Dawn primarily stems from the love I once had for the CW’s excellent sci-fi young adult series The 100, a show which trafficks in the same kind of post-post-apocalyptic creole that at once relaxes me and grabs my imagination. It’s a reverse-fantasy situation, transforming advanced technology into a new kind of magic. The worldbuilding becomes a game where the player tries to guess which piece of fantastical terminology will map onto a recognizable piece of tech and what that could mean for the state of the world. Horizon’s depiction of 31st century Western America is well realized, and even a chance to spend more time in that world is worth any weaknesses this game might possess – but to be fair, those weaknesses are few.

10. Destiny 2

Destiny 2 brought games culture to an absolute standstill earlier this year in a way I had occasionally seen but rarely been able to participate in. This year, this time, I got to be a part of the zeitgeist. I got to be in on the joke, and I loved it. I understood the memes. I devoured every Destiny-centric news story and planned my weekend around the first Xur. I consumed. And sometimes that feels good for a while, only for you to remember how we all got into this hyper-capitalist mess in the first place and eventually you snap out, but for those couple weeks it feels so good.

It still does, not in the same ways, but in all the ways that count. The game plays like a dream and the loot is meted out in a way that feels like a legitimate loot game rather than an incomplete title. Almost every problem I had with the first Destiny has been fixed, which is really all you can ask from a game where the sum total of its appeal is watching some numbers tick up.

9. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

2017’s most delightful surprise, Resident Evil VII: Biohazard is both moderate reinvention and statement of purpose. The series needed to find its way home in order to start a new chapter. Back to the familiar sense of dread, to the more restrained location, to grossing out players with all the gore and violence a videogame-ass-videogame could muster. Biohazard’s dedication to its own mechanics and systems almost feels retro, with no desire to obscure the man behind the curtain. There’s an inventory-ass inventory. There’s a drink-based health system. There are over-the-top boss fights. There’s a chainsaw. You’ve seen this all before, but rarely executed quite like this. Resident Evil VII is all craft.

8. Emily Is Away Too

There’s an important distinction between people who grew up with the internet and people who grew up on it – I’m absolutely in the latter category. I didn’t go to a traditional high school, and I wasn’t exactly prone to making friends in a hyper-masculine sports-focused part of New York State, so I found that all-too-essential human connection online instead. I remember so much about my first online relationship: visiting her high school in Ohio, talking with my friends about my relationship troubles over the same program I used to chat with my girlfriend, and ending the relationship over the phone. I literally couldn’t do it in person, so my only recourse was the ultimate coward move. I know plenty of other people who have been through something similar. Even if we took different paths, there are just certain things you understand about your first online love.

Emily Is Away Too is built on that shared emotional language. These people and their lives feel recognizable, because how could you ever forget them? You lived those lives and met those people – at the very least you should be able to recognize the broad strokes. The scene where you’re trying to keep two very important chat windows going at the same time felt so authentic that I could believe I was replaying a scene from my own life. Emily Is Away Too’s sharp writing makes this game worth a look, but I suspect a fair number of my fellow millennials will find meaning in the game’s pitch-perfect mimicry.

7. Puyo Puyo Tetris

I’ve been playing Tetris for about as long as I can remember. For me, Puyo Puyo Tetris was a way to hone my block-stacking skills in front of my friends, who traditionally have been on the receiving end of a good thrashing. The campaign is a really fun way to explore both Tetris and Puyo Puyo, and the plethora of inventive arcade and multiplayer modes were enough to keep me coming back to Puyo Puyo Tetris in the months since release. But that core – that sweet, sweet Tetris – is a perfect realization of arguably the most iconic video game ever made.

6. Night in the Woods

This was a good year for games that spoke very specifically to Mike Cosimano. I guess if you’re going to release a video game about a self-loathing college dropout returning to their dead-end hometown, all the while dealing with unspoken parental disappointment and the very real specter of mental illness, you could pick worse years for said release than 2017. I don’t need to recap everything that bummed people out this year, especially when everyone has a completely disparate list of 2017’s worst moments.

Night in the Woods feels like a (capital g capital n) Graphic Novel, in that it has all the hard drinking, cursing, and existential dread of a first novel but with the extremely clean anthropomorphic animal aesthetic of an experimental modern-day Disney cartoon. One way or another, these creatures are gonna work though their emotional stagnancy via snark and band practice! If you’re in the mood for Night in the Woods’ particular brand of bittersweet, there’s a good chance this game will speak to you as well.

5. Heat Signature

Heat Signature feels like a really good sophomore album. It’s an artist coming into their own; synthesizing the pros and cons of their debut into a sort of road map for the future. Designed by Tom Francis, the man behind Gunpoint, Heat Signature is a strong follow-up to 2013’s best game, with the same emphasis on improvisation and failure state recovery that first captured my imagination when those tenets were stapled onto a man with super jumpy pants.

Although the transition from Gunpoint means Heat Signature loses my all-time favorite setting (sci-fi neo-noir), it still benefits from my all-time second favorite setting (grungy space), crafting a world so deeply lived-in that your very presence feels like a trespass. Finally, a game where I can truly become the scheme-ruining goblin I was born to be.

4. Persona 5

It’s a shame that 2018 has already been officially christened as The Year of Corky, because 2017 brought the video game stuff I do like. Games like Heat Signature or Zelda brought the open-ended improvisation, while games like Night in the Woods or Persona 5 fused genre trappings with larger thematic content in the most obvious way possible. I love a subtle message as much as the next person, but there’s something I truly adore about a work completely defined by its ideology.

From every angle, Persona 5 is about co-operative rebellion. In some way, it feels like a Japanese Watch Dogs 2 – this game taps into the unspoken fears, hopes, and beliefs that come hand-in-hand with growing up in the 2010s. Your weird friends will be the only hope and solace you have in the coming days. You don’t have to suffer institutionalized abuse. Take that hope and that solace and use it to shove your brilliance down your foes’ respective throats.

Aesthetically, Persona 5 is a curious hybrid of in-your-face punk and improvisational jazz, but like every other game in the series, it’s really about the scope of human connection, both on a macro and micro level. It may not be as fresh nor magnetizing as Persona 4, but it’s still one of the best games you can buy on a PlayStation.

3. PUBG

I have an anecdote from playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds that perfectly summarizes why I love this game so much.

I was moving towards one of my favorite hiding spots (a house on the right side of the map) when I heard gunshots behind me. The dirt exploded around my feet as I made a break for the house, only just barely making it inside. With several minutes left before the map was set to shrink, I figured I could regroup inside and come up with some plan of attack. I poked my head out quickly to get a grasp of where my rival had set up shop…but I didn’t count on another player in a nearby car spotting me.

I had only one choice. I hid inside the house. The car had managed to spot me, but not the sniper hiding in the grass with a rifle trained on my house’s front door. Of course the player in the car wasn’t going to get out when they had a rolling death machine at their disposal. Of course the other player hunting me wasn’t going to reveal their spot when there was a rolling death machine kicking around. Of course I was going to sit inside that house grinding my teeth.

The person in the car began to taunt me, driving in circles around the house and revving the car’s engine as a sort of Warriors-esque “come out and pla-ay”-style taunt. Eventually I had to get out of the house, or I would’ve been trapped outside the blue circle. I zigzagged it out the front door while the car was on the other side of the house, in the hopes that I could get some distance before my opponents had time to react.

My plan actually worked. The car rounded the house and made a beeline towards my future corpse, accidentally running over the prone sniper along the way. I popped two shots through the windshield, killing the driver. In my panic, I left the car abandoned and booked it over a nearby hill. PUBG rules.

2. Super Mario Odyssey

I could play Super Mario Odyssey pretty much every day of my life. Everything about this game is so finely crafted that I feel confident putting it at the very top of any sort of Mario ranking. The worlds in Odyssey are brilliant, constantly rewarding the player for experimentation and exploration at every skill level. If you’re just poking at Odyssey while you’re on the toilet, you’ll be entertained. If you’re sitting down for a multi-hour session, you’ll be entertained. I found Power Moons to be one of the most addicting collectibles in recent memory. I agonized over each hidden Moon and delighted in the Moons that I just kinda tripped over.

Games like Mario Odyssey are the reason why we still buy Nintendo consoles, no matter how wild the pitch. No other game company could make a game like this, because there’s an implied quality to major first-party Nintendo titles. You expect games from the people who gave us the unqualified classic Super Mario Sunshine to be good. Super Mario Odyssey is better than good. It’s great.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

A lot of people don’t understand exactly why we as a culture still talk about Citizen Kane. That’s fine! Not everybody should have to suffer through film school. If all you know about Citizen Kane is that it’s considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time, then you’ve at least nailed the broad strokes. What made Citizen Kane important – what made it formative – was its technique. It expanded American cinematography on the eve of the noir boom, popularizing and expanding a filmic visual language that people still use to this day. It’s not that Citizen Kane hit some objective checklist to become the Best Movie or even that it got people to take American cinema seriously.

Citizen Kane is Citizen Kane because its crew found new ways to use the tools they had been given.

We as an industry talk a lot about the Citizen Kane of videogames. At first some of us did it sincerely, now all of us do it ironically. I’m here to make an illegal u-turn and whip this discourse back into the sincerity lane. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the Citizen Kane of video games.

Breath of the Wild isn’t a literal 1:1 to Citizen Kane because it expanded game cinematography or something like that. Yes, the game looks gorgeous, but visual direction is not the primary language of video games. Interactivity is how games communicate with their players; Zelda redefines that interaction by creating a world where every aspect of post-apocalyptic Hyrule interacts with everything else. If you have enough patience and a solid understanding of the game’s mechanics, there is no limit to what your imagination can accomplish.

By giving players a box of easily accessible tools and a physics ruleset that feels recognizable and logical, the game actively encourages you to sequence break, hairbrained problem solving becomes the norm. There’s no more glitching around mountains trying to avoid another long trek like in Skyrim. Now you can just climb over that mountain, all the while looking for places where Link could rest when his stamina gets weak. That’s noteworthy because it feels real. It’s human. Breath of the Wild is the greatest fantasy simulation ever created because Link as a physical object starts with all the limitations and skills of your average person.

Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule feels like a real place, not because it’s populated with a horde of NPCs following a set path or because it’s got the best god rays, but because I can get those apples by chopping down that tree. Yeah, it’s still a beautiful game filled with whimsy and thrilling adventure, but its willingness to experiment with things we take for granted is what makes Breath of the Wild so magnificent. Zelda redefines the basics in order to elevate its ephemera, so obviously it’s gotta be my Game of the Year.

Congratulations to Kentucky Route Zero, 2018’s Game of the Year.

The post Mike Cosimano’s Top 10 Games of 2017 appeared first on Gamesline.

10. Danganronpa V3

It was tough to decide if I even wanted to put V3 on the list. There were numerous things I disliked about this game, but there were also some really fantastic aspects of it that surpassed previous games in the series. Most of the negatives were related to things outside gameplay like character personalities and especially the ending. However, the wild storytelling itself is what truly puts it on my top 10. The mystery of the trials, intense executions, twists, turns, and polishing of the trial minigames really make my heart flutter with excitement and make it notable, but I will still yearn for something better.

9. Emily is Away Too

I’m not gonna lie; I wasn’t greatly impressed with the first Emily is Away, so I didn’t expect much from the sequel. It was short and there was nothing particularly stunning about it, other than the fact that the story was a little depressing. One of the best things about Emily is Away Too was the creator’s ability to push his goal of the original game in a much more accessible way. The game immerses you into the world of early 2000s, expanding from the Windows ’95 sounds and graphics by allowing the player to change their desktop to one of the classic wallpapers from that era, saving chat logs to your actual desktop, bringing back early Facebook, Google, and—my personal favorite—early Youtube (with fully working videos!) 2017 was a year of nostalgia for video games, and I think Emily is Away Too does the best job of capturing those feelings from our younger years.

8. A Mortician’s Tale

I’m such a sucker for smaller indie games like A Mortician’s Tale. It was short and simple yet unraveled such a beautiful tale of the social aspects of working in a funeral home. Most of the story relied on reading the character’s emails, and in those emails you get to experience the real emotions of clients, your long-distance best friend, and coworkers. What broke my heart was the slow crumble of the family-owned funeral home as it’s bought by a large corporation and how it negatively affects the feelings of your clients. This game did a great job of de-stigmatizing the lives of morticians, and that’s something so rarely touched on that I can truly appreciate. Not to mention the art in this game is very cute, covered in such a soft lavender color.  It’s a fantastic game for when you need a relaxing, little distraction.

7. Doki Doki Literature Club

Doki Doki Literature Club appeared out of nowhere as a sort of satirical view on the typical dating sim. I came into the game knowing already that there was something messed up about about it, since the game was causing quite a stir on my Twitter timeline, but I never anticipated the creative use of creepy graphics and storytelling that would come about.  Unfortunately, the “delete this file” bit is a bit overdone at this point and only caused some eye roll. Other than that flub, I’d take my morbid “waifus” over those charming pigeon boys of Hatoful Boyfriend anyday.

6. Sonic Mania

Sonic Mania blends every enjoyable feature from old school Sonic games to create a modern masterpiece.  It simultaneously captures the feelings from playing Sega Genesis as a child and introducing a new game, which takes some skill. It also pulls in a bit of Puyo Puyo for one of the boss battles, which, after the release of Puyo Puyo Tetris earlier in the year, I have to give some applause.  

5. A Hat In Time

I was pleasantly surprised by A Hat in Time, especially after playing the Kickstarter disappointment that was Yooka-Laylee. The biggest difference between the two was that AHIT actually accomplished bringing back N64-esque platforming with proper controls and enclosed levels. I was mostly impressed with it, between the uniquely colorful worlds and the stories that were told through each one, particularly in Dead Bird Studios and its incorporated noir train mystery. This is definitely in my library of feel-good games due to its bright and cheery atmosphere, even in the darkest and creepiest of levels.

4. Night in the Woods

Many games in 2017 aimed to fire up your nostalgia, but NITW handles the “right here and now” recreation of today’s struggles that is feeling misunderstood and confused. Mae’s issues with college and living in the past when it came to her relationships with her pals and hometown was deeply relatable. I’m very thankful this game came out when it did because it helped me feel not so alone. I feel like the hype for it has died down immensely in the past couple of months, which is a darn shame, but it still has such a special place in my heart.

3. Breath of the Wild

I get why this was a letdown for a lot of people, but for me it was everything I could have wanted in a Zelda game. In my opinion, exploration is essential in a game like this, and BOTW kept me busy for hours trying scope out every unfamiliar area I can find or easter eggs and other collectables I could dig up.  As you can imagine, I’m still hunting for Korok seeds. Every bit of landscape is beautiful, Zelda herself is smoking hot, and the shrine puzzles are a refreshing stop in between your main adventures. I’m baffled that there’s still so much to do, and I have zero complaints about any of it.

2. The Sexy Brutale

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about The Sexy Brutale since I first played it. Being a murder-mystery game, it was bound to be in my top favorites, but it was more than that; the use of time travel and location in this game is just too brilliant to pass up. While you are solving the mystery of a murder, you can hear the sounds throughout the day of the separate homicides happening throughout the mansion, something that was eerily fascinating to me. The stylized designs and cartoony movements were also particularly endearing. In the end, The Sexy Brutale leaves you with an emotional twist to conclude the reasoning behind the unusual deaths. The entire game was unpredictable, satisfying, and kept me eager to progress through the story. To top it all off, its jazzy soundtrack is to DIE for.

1. Super Mario Odyssey

Ever since E3, I’ve been excited for Super Mario Odyssey, and boy, did it live up to all of my expectations. I can’t get over all the little details, not only in the textures of Mario’s clothing, but in the gameplay itself. The little homages to previous Mario games brought the biggest smile to my face, especially upon seeing the Mario 64 skin. I think the New Donk City festival was the cherry on top to the amazing use of nostalgia, though. I haven’t played through anything that gave me goosebumps like hearing Jump Up Super Star above rushing through the classic Donkey Kong event and seeing the fireworks light up the sky. The vast amount of moons scattered throughout the beautifully crafted levels left so much to do even after finishing, which makes it such a powerfully replayable game. There’s just too much to note about how wonderful the Odyssey experience was for me.

The post Trex’s Top 10 Games of 2017 appeared first on Gamesline.

Snow buries the leaves

The weight is gone from my heart

It’s finally done

10. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I had to buy Zelda when I picked up my Switch in May. Obviously, there wasn’t much else out, but I was also ready to try something new. Thankfully, Breath of the Wild is real fun, even if it didn’t stick in my heart like most of these other games.

My first Zelda joint

Gameplay fun but not perfect

The mood is the charm

9. Night in the Woods

Night in the Woods came relatively early in the year, and I was thrilled to play it after keeping up with the development process. While the dialogue is occasionally janky, the story of Mae is a dark, timely tale which hits too close to home.

I relate too much

A perfect world construction

Thank you for the gays

8. Resident Evil 7

Resident Evil 7 combines incredible level design with the exact brand of weirdo quasi-brutal horror I enjoy, so it’s no surprise that I ended up loving it. Everything in the first 2/3rds or so is totally perfect, right down to the discarded Whataburger cups.

Gruesome and wicked

Baker Estate masterpiece

Love it despite boat

7. Emily Is Away Too

I love experiences that show me something I’ve never seen before, and Emily Is Away Too delivers. An emotional story questions the way we make choices in games, all through pitch-perfect recreation of the Internet circa 2006. Log in and let yourself go.

Not too distant past

Making lots with a little

YouToob blew my gourd

6. The Sexy Brutale

Everyone dies like clockwork, but you’re the errant tic in the cogs. A murder mystery in which you prevent the murders from occurring, The Sexy Brutale is a short but essentially perfect experience that’s stylish, unforgettable, and wholly unique.

Death’s vivid cycle

We’ve (never) been here before

Drown me in style

5. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

This sure was something, huh? It shouldn’t exist, but it does, and for that I am eternally grateful. I played Mario + Rabbids more than I should have, or maybe exactly as much as I should have. Either way, I loved it and I need more. Thanks, Ubisoft.

Rabbids XCOM now

Finished one-hundred percent

Days glued to my Switch

4. Persona 5

I never finished Persona 4. I loved the story, but something about it just kept putting me off. Thankfully, Persona 5 is so wholly engrossing that I played it for eight to ten hours at a time without even noticing. It’s not perfect, but Persona 5 reminded me why I love RPGs.

One hundred hours

My eyes ears brain all thank me

Takemi best girl

3. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

I barely squeezed in Hellblade before making this list, but I’m glad I did. Hellblade is a deep, terrifying journey into literal Hell that pushes itself beyond current boundaries – narratively, technically, and mechanically. It destroyed me. I loved every second.

Harrowing journey

Beyond the veil of gaming

I can’t forget it

2. Super Mario Odyssey

Seeing Mario at E3 convinced me to buy a Switch, and it was the right move. 2017 was the most tumultuous year in memory, and Super Mario Odyssey was the life raft that got me through. It’s the only 3D Mario I’ve ever properly played, and it was great. Thanks, Nintendo.

Rihanna was right

Super f***ing Mario

I live for the fun

1. Nier: Automata

I have a more complicated relationship with Nier: Automata than any game ever. First I liked it, then I thought it was the worst game I’ve ever played, then I loved it, and then I was crying. Once I saw the whole picture, my life was changed. It’s that simple.

Never felt this way

First game tears since Undertale

Total masterpiece

The post Ryan’s Top 10 Games of 2017 appeared first on Gamesline.

2017 was packed with great games from top to bottom, so many in fact that I could easily make a top twenty list if I had to. It’s been such a strong year that games like Mainlining, Tokyo Dark, Wolfenstein 2, The Sexy Brutale and Divinity: Original Sin 2, all of which would be shoe-ins for high placement any other year all wind up missing the cut for me. It’s been a year like none other, one that’s catered to every possible conceivable taste and interest that a person could have, and one that will hopefully set the scene for an even better year in 2018. With all that out of the way, let’s get down to the brass tacks, nuts and bolts.

10. She Remembered Caterpillars

Sometimes after a long, tiring day at work, you just want to put your feet up and unwind with something low-impact, relaxing, and oddly heartwarming. For me, that game is She Remembered Caterpillars; an esoteric, chilled-out, yet still appropriately challenging fungipunk puzzler that boasts a subtle and underrated score, compelling prose and a gorgeous hand-drawn art style. I don’t know if there’s a single game this year that has quite mastered the art of charm in the way She Remembered Caterpillars has; it wins you over the minute you see it in motion, and it never lets you go.

9. Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

This was a tough one; for the vast majority of the experience, I loved Danganronpa V3. The game grabbed me early, and as the hours flew by, I expected V3 to easily crack my top five, if not come up just short of the top spot on this list. Unfortunately, the game’s cynical, botched ending forces me to knock it down a few spots, yet, as bad as it was, I still adore 95% of the game. While not as strong as Goodbye Despair, V3 still manages to ramp up the stakes amid some of the wildest and most over-the-top storytelling games have to offer. The mysteries are on another level here; with the fifth trial in particular being a real rollercoaster. If only they’d stuck the landing.

8. Yakuza 0

I’ve been a big fan of Yakuza since jumping on board with the third installment, and while that game still holds a place in my heart, it’s hard to argue that Yakuza 0 doesn’t set a completely new standard for the series. Yakuza has never been afraid to blend over-the-top wackiness with nuanced and genuinely sharp character writing, but 0 takes things to another level. Not only does the game keep the laughs coming – with the Miracle Johnson substories being particular highlights – but it also fleshes out the world in which Kiryu lives to amazing degree, and humanizes Goro Majima in a way that, prior to playing it, I’d have hardly believed. The love story at Yakuza 0’s core is one of the best games have told in a very long time, and I couldn’t be more excited to get my hands on Yakuza 6 next year.

7. Everybody’s Golf

Here’s my hot take; golf is for assholes. When I think about golf, I think middle-aged middle-to-upper class men wearing terrible clothes slowly smacking a little white ball around while projecting an air of smarmy self-superiority that, quite frankly, makes me gag. So for Everybody’s Golf to do away with all that; to demolish golf’s inherent sense of smug self-satisfaction and classism, and instead let me run around a course as something resembling Gollum with pink dreadlocks, screaming “X-GAMES!!!” as I drive a golf cart off a spectator stand into a pond below, I gotta give it credit. Clap Hanz deserve all the kudos in the world for turning the world’s worst sport into something that doesn’t completely suck, but the fact that they’ve actually made it fun is nothing short of a miracle.

6. Persona 5

I’m not sure if I’ve ever played a game the way I did Persona 5. I took the week of its release off work in order to quickly grind a review out, and wound up playing it for 12-16 hours each day to ensure I got it done in time. The thing is, though, that I’d never have known I was spending so much time with it; such is the quality of Persona 5’s writing, gameplay, music, and just general style. Sure, it’s not perfect, the game’s writing occasionally clashes with its themes of rebellion and self-identity, and I’ll never accept that my favourite end-game Persona, Scathach got busted down to the mid-game level, but even so, Persona 5 is a hell of a ride. Also, Tae Takemi.

5. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

I’m not sure there hass a more intense moment in my life than the first round I ever played of PUBG. I genuinely thought I was about to have a heart attack as my pulse raced, and yet I managed to win on my first attempt. It’s a high that’s hard to explain to those who haven’t felt it for themselves; such is how well PUBG ramps up the tension every time you play it. Every action is crucial, every movement could be your last. It’s such an intense, exhilarating, and often frustrating experience, but it’s all worth it when you get to tuck into a chicken dinner at the end. Please get rid of the aimbots, though, Brendan. 

4. Detention

Detention really came out of nowhere to be the best of a strong lineup of horror experiences in 2017. Resident Evil 7 and Observer may have been wider in scope, but neither comes anywhere close to matching Detention’s overarching sense of disquiet and unease. Throw in some truly messed-up visuals, distinct art-style and nods to some classic Asian horror staples, and Detention is a wonderfully unique and incredibly effective debut effort from Taiwanese studio RedCandle Games.

3. Pyre

I’ve never really connected strongly with any of Supergiant’s previous output. While I can see the value of games like Bastion and Transistor, neither one really ever held any lasting appeal for me, so I was pleasantly surprised by just how good Pyre is. From it’s drop-dead gorgeous visual stylings, to it’s wonderful music, Pyre’s presentation is immaculate, and combined with some incredible writing feats, it’s something special. With an overwhelming number of ways the story can unfold, Pyre manages to feel completely natural every step of the way; it never feels like the story’s been stitched together despite the granularity on offer, and every character feels well fleshed-out in a way that often makes it truly difficult to decide who to part with. The actual Rites themselves are also a lot of fun to play, and the atmosphere is aided by Logan Cunningham’s supremely good performance as The Voice. Pyre is a beautiful game. Play it.

2. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Much the way that I’ve never really connected with Supergiant’s previous output, I’ve had even less affinity for Ninja Theory’s work through the years. I’m not a big character action guy, and I expected very little from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice when I picked it up, almost more in service of supporting the concept of a return to the era of B-tier games than anything else. Colour me surprised then, when what I wound up getting wasn’t a fairly by-the-numbers piece of character action schlock, but a well-told, surprisingly sincere, mostly-narrative experience with a strong grasp of Norse and Celtic mythology at the core of a story about mental illness. Pushing the boundaries of game design on a purely technical level with bar-raising audiovisual work, and a stunning performance from Melina Juergens, combined with tight combat and a surprisingly solid script, Hellblade proves something incredibly valuable; that the mid-tier game can still work. It might be the most important lesson games have learned this year; as “Triple A” publishers continue to push the boundaries of ethics and decency in seedier and more manipulative ways, studios like Ninja Theory can, in fact, deliver high-quality experiences at affordable prices on sensible budgets without any of the bullshit EA, Activision and the like are pushing. Here’s hoping that Hellblade is a trendsetter in that regard.

1. Emily is Away Too

If I’m being completely real here, I don’t think Emily is Away Too is the best game of the year – that honor goes to Hellblade – but it is definitely my favourite game of 2017, and probably belongs up there with Mirror’s Edge and SSX 3 as one of my favourite games of all time. Emily Too brings me back to the one of the happiest periods of my life; a time of hope and optimism, of finding myself and finally fitting into my own skin. It reminds me of all the long nights spent chatting with friends around the world until the sun rose, of naive, doomed teenage relationships, of finally being a part of a subculture I wish existed where I was. Emily is Away Too hits me right in the heart; but it’s more than just a cheap nostalgia ploy, it’s a truly fantastic game in its own right. It makes me happy in a way that’s hard to put into words, and it’s helped me rekindle my fondness for a lot of things that I once felt pressured out of enjoying. I can’t stop thinking about it, and that’s why it’s my Game of the Year. 2006 for life.

The post Niall’s Top 10 Games of 2017 appeared first on Gamesline.

Day two’s winners include the “What the fuck” award, Best writing, and Best anthropomorphic character

What the fuck: Lootboxes

In theory lootboxes are mostly harmless, something you pay a couple dollars for and in return you get something small that adds to your game. In practice however, lootboxes have become something more akin to lottery tickets. You pick some up, hope for a big prize and, in many cases, end up buying more when you don’t win. It’s a slippery slope for a lot of people, and has caused very real damage to those who deal with gambling and addiction problems. With legislation being introduced in several nations across the world, it’s looking like 2018 will either be the year publishers find new ways to monetize games post-release, or the year they double down on a business practice that’s morally grey at best and predatory at worst.

Runners-up:

Pewdiepie’s Racism

Felix “Pewdiepie” Kjellberg went from Youtube’s biggest LP channel to total pariah seemingly overnight when he paid a couple of men on Fiverr to hold up an anti-semitic sign, and then again when he got caught on stream dropping the n-word. With fascism rearing its ugly head in 2017, it’s hard not to see such a public figure use hate speech and feel despondent, especially when that person has such easy access to an audience of children.

Sakura Devs Mistreating Workers

Many people see the Sakura games on Steam and brush them off as cheap, smutty shovelware that nobody should pay attention to. But human beings work on those games, and after a report dropped that the developers were being treated inhumanely so the publisher could make a quick buck, we were reminded that yes, even dumb anime titty games can have a dark side to them.

Best Writing: NieR Automata

Yoko Taro’s games have always been layered works of satire, analysis and philosophy, but NieR: Automata is not only his best work, but one of the best written games of all time. Automata’s is a story that works not only traditionally, not only allegorically, but also as one of the most effective and fascinating metanarrative experiences in any form of media. Automata’s writing proves why it needs to be a game, it shows us why it’s okay to need help, and it shows us that even in the darkest periods of our lives if we find the strength to go on, everything can change. Every interaction between 9S, 2B, and the world around them can be recontextualized in so many different ways with so many different meanings, that it almost feels like Automata is several stories on top of each other. Video games will be better off if they’re written even half as well as NieR: Automata, because its is a story that is truly unforgettable.

Runners-up:

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

With the way the past few years have gone it’s (unfortunately) not shocking that the latest installment in the Wolfenstein series is more relevant than ever. Not just for the catharsis of mowing your way through swaths of Nazis but with the way The New Colossus presents it’s world and the members of the Kreisau circle. Managing to inject enough levity into it’s bleak world with characters like Super Spesh, sneak some incredible satire into the world through incidental writing and tie it all together with a story about fighting for a better future when it seems almost impossible.

Emily is Away Too

Being a game that takes place entirely via an instant messenger, Emily Too’s writing is critical to the game working at all, and it delivers in spades. Emily does a tremendous job of fleshing out not just its characters and world, but also in capturing a moment in internet history just before social media became an unstoppable monolith.

Best Anthropomorphic Character: Bea (Night in the Woods)

Bea has an exceptional character arc, as she comes into the game as a (now cynical) friend from Mae’s childhood. Mae desperately tries to rekindle what they had, and if you choose to follow
Bea’s path, you watch as she slowly begins to drop her walls. Bea’s story is astoundingly real, from her hesitations toward opening back up to someone who used to know her so well, to her struggles and personal hardships that made her so bitter toward the world around her. Occasionally, she shows sparks of positivity, but upon catching herself she retreats back to her cold safety net of a shell. Bea’s progression back into becoming one of Mae’s closest friends again is a bumpy one, although mid-story she has quite an emotional breakthrough and spills her thoughts and feelings to the protagonist after running away. Her journey is incredible and exceptionally relatable, especially for a colorful alligator.

Runners-up:

Sir Gilman (Pyre)

It’s easy to dismiss Sir Gilman as a campy comic relief clown upon his first appearance, but it doesn’t take long to reveal his core as a deeply passionate and incredibly lonely soul searching for meaning and a place to call home. He’s also easily the most versatile character when it comes to the Rites, thanks to his blistering speed and strong defensive abilities.

The Sonic Forces OC

Sonic Forces finally delivered on many a Sonic fan’s long held dream: to be right there with their spiked blue buddy as he races along to some really good bad music. Thanks to a vast slew of customization options ranging from Gamer Hats to Robot Bodies, Sonic Forces’ original character manages to live up to some, if not all, of our wildest dreams.

The post Game of the Year Awards 2017: Day Two appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s 2017 and social media has well and truly taken over the world. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram may dominate the landscape, but nowadays, virtually every major website on the ‘net has some form of social tie-in, while great pretenders like Mastodon, Peach and Ello have all tried and failed to muscle in on “The Book’s” territory. But things weren’t always this way – a little over a decade ago Facebook was an exclusive club for college kids, Twitter irrelevant, and Instagram yet to even be conceived. Instead, MySpace ruled the world, and while sites like Xanga and Friendster held small, ever-declining footholds, it was hard to imagine anyone ever really competing with Tom Anderson’s social media monolith – at least, if you were in North America, anyway.

The year was 2005, and scuttlebutt around my high-school in the South West of Ireland centered entirely around a different social network, Bebo. I attended school in the country’s third-largest city, making a long commute daily from my home out in the middle of nowhere, with no one my age for miles, and where doing something as simple as visiting friends could result in an hour long round-trip for my exasperated parents, who always kept me on an incredibly short leash. Bebo was something different; nobody had ever seen anything like it, and it blew up in a big way. Like everyone else, I jumped at the opportunity to make a profile, interact with my friends in our own private online clubhouse, and share the real me with the world. But something happened not long after that – I drifted away.

I had never had all that many friends in school; I was a pretty sickly child who had always been the target of jokes and barbs due to a nasal issue that resulted in me spending most of my school days coughing, sneezing and loudly blowing my nose. In late 2005, I had just turned fifteen, and I, like everyone else, was changing. My sickness was subsiding a little, and now only plagued me in the mornings. My voice had already broken years before my classmates, I was the first among my year in the small, all-boys Catholic school to develop facial hair, and as more and more of us began to take those initial steps into adulthood, I began to realize that I was slowly meandering away from the guys I grew up with. It happened slowly at first, as it so often does. Minor disagreements in matters of taste: not liking that new Bell X1 album that was all the rage, or developing a taste for horror movies and arguing that we should go see The Exorcism of Emily Rose instead of The 40 Year Old Virgin were the early seeds of a split soon to come. The snowball picked up speed as it rolled downhill; my old friends joining a larger group, with myself often left literally outside the circle.

Eleven years later, 2016 was just coming to an end, and I had celebrated my 26th birthday in September. I was in the midst of some sort of episode – call it a quarter-life crisis, or maybe just a straight-up breakdown, but either way, things weren’t good. I was lost. I’d always had a plan for myself as a teenager – I was going to be somebody. By the time I was 26, I was supposed to be on stage, screaming my soul out to thousands of teenagers who were just like I had once been: alone, isolated, questioning why they’d been abandoned by the people they thought they could always rely on. I was supposed to headline Warped Tour, sell out minor-league hockey arenas across North America and get bottles of hot piss flung at me by drunks on the European festival circuit. I was supposed to be hanging out with the guys from Senses Fail and Underoath, a role model for a new generation of kids, just like Spencer Chamberlain and Buddy Nielsen had been for me. I thought the scene would never die; that the ridiculous haircuts and skinny jeans would never go out of fashion.

Instead, I had gone and gotten my degree in music production, picked up my whole life, packed it into a suitcase and moved from rural Ireland to Toronto, Canada in 2014. While in Canada, I dealt with a year of near-constant unemployment, save for a three month period where I had a part-time temp job that didn’t pay enough to live on, as well as deep depression and hunger as I barely scraped by below the poverty line. Now, I sat in my old room in my parents’ home on a cold night over the Christmas break from my job at a factory in a different, even more rural part of Ireland, bored and alone, looking through my Steam library for something to play. I stumbled across Emily is Away, remembering how unique and cool an experience it had been. I booted it up, and so much more of my past came rushing back to me.

In 2006, my life changed. I became popular. That popularity didn’t manifest itself in the real world though, but rather on MySpace. I became acquainted with the site through an online friend of mine, and set up a profile. One or two people I knew in the real world had MySpace accounts, but for the most part, it was a place to hang with my online friends, the vast majority of whom I met when my best friend from primary school moved to Canada. He’d already introduced me to MSN Messenger, but now I was on MySpace too. I didn’t use the site much, until one day I noticed a message being forwarded through a randomly added friend via bulletins. The bulletin contained what would become known as one of many MySpace “trains;” in essence a poorly coded piece of HTML with pictures of scene kids, each with their own respective “Add Friend” button. It was here that I realized I could finally be the person my friends, neither real or online knew existed, and that I so desperately wanted to be. In many ways these “trains” were the progenitor for “follow4follow” twitter accounts – friend requests that would be accepted no matter what, allowing users like myself to artificially inflate numbers well into the hundreds, and maybe, if you were lucky, you’d make a friend or two along the way.

I set up a second MySpace account – and did something I didn’t do on any other profile: show my face. This was a big step for me, as I had recently discovered the podcast Uhh Yeah Dude, and through it, To Catch a Predator. Pedophilemania was running wild online in 2006, and though the show didn’t air in Ireland, it was available through YouTube, Dailymotion, and Google Video, all which were still in nascent, lawless stages of their respective evolutions, and none had yet made the breakthrough that YouTube soon would. TCAP, for those unfortunate enough to not be familiar with it, consisted of an online vigilante group, Perverted Justice, conducting sting operations through AOL chatrooms, ensnaring would-be pedophiles, who would then be lambasted by the show’s host, Chris Hansen, and eventually arrested. I fell in love with the show as a kid (and indeed I still regularly rewatch it today), but I had always been nervous about showing who I was online, in part because of Dr. Hansen’s tremendous work. Turned out that stepping from the shadows was the best decision I had ever made, or at least, it would be for a short while.

But there was more to it than simply posting my picture online like any other kid would have. I was increasingly becoming an outcast in the real world, and had firmly settled into my angstiest phase. I was the only kid in school who got on board the “scene” bandwagon, and it wasn’t long before labels like “emo” and other, far less kind names were being derisively thrown my way. Now though, I had a whole new world, of kids just like me, where I could be accepted, and where I could find my place. For a while, I found just that.

I boot up Emily is Away Too, and the nostalgia I felt upon revisiting the original Emily months ago is quadrupled. The unmistakable sound of that Windows XP startup noise, the whirring that reminds me so much of the old Dell desktop that once sat upstairs on the landing by the window overlooking the garden, and which still sits in an old, now disused bedroom in my parents’ home. The boxy, ugly, yet warm and comforting interface that could only be an AIM stand-in, accompanied by the characteristic sound of doors opening and shutting lures me in. I’m prompted to fill out my profile – I do so, choosing Against Me! lyrics, and a quote from V For Vendetta, before a buzz tells me that punk4eva has contacted me. Casual “yoooo!”’s are exchanged between Evelyn and I, and suddenly, I’m a kid again, as the game guides me through a conversation about how Evelyn – who I’ll soon come to call Evee – is going to see Senses Fail at Warped Tour this weekend. I realize: this is an exact recreation of a conversation I had eleven years ago.

It was summer 2006, and my parents had given me what I wanted more than anything in the world: permission to stay at home while they and my younger brother left on holiday for two weeks. It’d be fine, I assured them; my grandparents would be stopping by every couple of days to check on me, I was too young to drive so I couldn’t just go get in trouble, and none of the few real-world friends I still held onto had parents dumb enough to leave them alone at my house for long periods. Besides, I always hated those family vacations. I wasn’t a fan of hot weather, and the budget holiday resort in Portugal my parents always took us to didn’t have any video games. Truth be told, I didn’t much want to see my real life friends either. Broadband internet had finally arrived out in the sticks, so all I wanted to do was hang out on MySpace, listen to the newly released Define the Great Line, and talk to my real friends. The ones who understood me.

We all wanna be, wanna be somebody, right now, we’re just looking for the exit.

Her name was Cheyenne, and I was terrified. I was alone in my house, save for the small cairn terrier we’d taken in as a stray a year earlier, and I was not adjusting well to having the house to myself. I was a couple months from turning 16, but I felt like a child, with every knock and bump in the night having me convinced I was about to die. I needed someone to talk to – Cheyenne was that person. We’d been friends for a few weeks on MySpace, commented back and forth a few times, engaged in all the casual, light flirting that every MySpace teen did. I tried to play it cool, as I left a comment on her MySpace page, the “Online Now!” signal flashing as I did so. She got back to me; we went back and forth, and I suggested moving the conversation to AIM or MSN. We did so.

We became close quite quickly, or at least what we, as stupid, naïve teenagers perceived to be close. Of course, as stupid, naïve teenagers often do, I fell for Cheyenne in a heartbeat. She was about a year older than I was, and she was everything I thought I wanted. We liked the same music, she was deep, yet open, and she looked like the scene queen every girl with ironed-straight raven hair wanted to be. We talked about how excited she was to go see bands like Underoath, Saosin, and Senses Fail, and about how next year, I was definitely coming to Phoenix to see Warped with her. I never told her I hated hot weather, of course.

My fears of putting myself out there faded away. I wasn’t worried about predators any more; all I wanted was for her to like me as much as I liked her. I bought a webcam on a trip to the movies with my real-life friends using some money my folks had left me. I quickly settled into a routine; staying up all night to talk with Cheyenne and my other MySpace friends across MSN and AIM, then logging out as the sun rose over the dew-lapped country fields to eat and watch some TV, before sleeping through the morning and early afternoon. Soon, we hatched a plan. We were gonna break a world record. Cheyenne and I were going to stay up longer than anyone ever had, and we were going to record it all thanks to the magic of MSN chat logs. We had just enough time to get it done before my parents got back, and figured that it’d be fine if she still went to Warped, because she’d have photographic proof of being awake, and I’d have chatlogs with our other friends to back myself up. We failed miserably; lasting barely a day, but it was fine. We were still making memories that would never leave us.

“You should be able to do whatever you want!,” I, xTOFINxFACEx assure emerz35, as she complains about not wanting to be tied down by her boyfriend Jeff after college. Emily craves exploration, freedom and adventure, and given that we’ve been friends for all of high school, I’m more than happy to back her up on that. She asks what I want to do after graduation, and I tell her what she wants to hear. I just want to take life as it comes. She’s glad I think the same way she does, even if I’ve already told her I’d rather be listening to more Senses Fail or The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus than indulge in some Snow Patrol or Sigur Rós with her. We promise that, no matter what, we’ll always be friends. Her mom needs to check her email or something, so she’s gotta go away. It’s cool, though, because punk4eva’s just returned, and wants to play 20 questions.

During the game, her relationship status comes up; she tells me about a recent breakup, and how she had plans to settle down after college and start a family. She asks me what I want to do after college. I tell her that settling down sounds nice. She asks if I’d ever date someone like her, and I say yes. I start to ask her the same question. I chicken out, and she calls me on my bullshit. “I saw you deleting something!” she scolds me. I muster up the courage and ask the question I want to know the answer to. Well, she tells me, you don’t drink, but we do have the same plan for our lives. The whole thing hits too close to home. She changes the subject. “Let’s give each other codenames!” Tofin and Evee. We’re swell, we tell one another. We say goodnight.

Not long after my parents got back, Cheyenne and I made it about as official as it got for two teenagers who had never met and who realistically, probably never would. We joined the many other “scene” MySpace couples who had never been in the same room; statuses were changed, undying love professed, and at every opportunity possible, chances taken to get on webcam and awkwardly smile at one another at 10 frames per second. Cheyenne wanted to learn guitar, and while I was already learning bass, I believed I had the voice and the words to match that would take us to scene superstardom. I didn’t, but that’s beside the point.

Maybe I didn’t need to go to college – we were both destined for great things anyway, so why not get a head start after high school? Sure she had a couple years, and I had one more on top, but our bond was unbreakable; we’d never leave one another, and neither would our crew of friends. Mark could shred – why would he lie? – plus, I’m positive drums aren’t difficult to learn, and who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be the first band formed on MySpace to hit it big? Most people had big dreams, but we had big destinies. If only we’d known that forever was already on borrowed time.

“Honestly, I’ve wanted us to be a thing for a while,” Evee tells me. “Can I start calling myself your girlfriend?” I tell her she can’t, but I can call her mine. Relief feels the air; the virtual 16 year old version of myself got the girl. Yet all’s not quite well, in the process of being here for Evee, I royally screwed up, upsetting a drunk Emily by failing what essentially functions as Too’s facsimile for quicktime events. I chose the wrong option as I frantically switched between the two girls’ chats, and Emily stormed offline in a huff. I don’t know if we’ll speak again, but the blow is somewhat cushioned by the budding officiality of my relationship with Evee. It’s been about a month since emerz35 stormed out of my life, and I start to wonder if we’ll ever patch things up.

Evee wishes me goodnight, and I offer a cheerful goodbye. One door closes, but the sound of another opening fills my ears. “Hey,” emerz35 begins. We sit down and have an honest conversation. We say our apologies, and mend our friendship. I’m glad we’re talking again, once again being transported back in time a decade, to an era where online friendships could disintegrate over trivial details in the blink of an eye, only to be reformed just as quickly. Emily’s taking a new class at school for the final semester. Some of my friends are in it, she tells me, including my “best friend,” Evelyn. “She’s my girlfriend now, actually,” I happily share. She seems happy for me. Evee is really cool, and really pretty after all; why wouldn’t she be? Oh, and Emily broke up with Jeff. It’s cool though; college is coming up soon.

It’s you and me on a Monday, the lies that we told, this is where we both go numb now.

The summer was over, and it was getting harder and harder to make time for Cheyenne. It was nobody’s fault – she had a life outside of me, and now that we were both back at school, the lengthy eight hour time differential was taking it’s toll. Yet to get my own laptop, I could no longer stay up until the sun rose, even at weekends, and couldn’t get away with it even if I had tried. I’d stay up until one or two in the morning on a Friday or Saturday night, but it was never enough time. Cheyenne was from the big city; she had parties to attend, a metropolis to roam at the weekends, and all the other stuff that I imagined American teens did, which left our relationship on the rocks as Halloween approached. This was my shot, I told myself: a week off school to end October and save the best thing that had ever happened to me. Yet, I couldn’t save it. Cheyenne told me it was over, but that we would always be friends. We drifted apart as the week off began, and, suddenly, I was alone.

I scrolled through my MSN contacts, noticed a friend of a friend was listening to The Black Parade, asked how he liked it, and whether he also felt MCR were losing their touch. Life didn’t just go on, it steamrolled ahead, as I pretended not to be heartbroken. Something that had been so strong just a few weeks earlier had turned to dust and been scattered in the cold October winds of rural Ireland, and I realized that the person I’d been calling my girlfriend for the past few months, and who I’d talked about moving to Arizona to be with after high school, was gone for good. There were a couple hundred other contacts spread out over MySpace, MSN, AIM and YIM. They were all just words on a screen, only some had a pretty face to go with the ones and zeroes. These relationships were disposable; “forever” meant “while it’s convenient,” and the world would keep turning.

Emily says hey. She’s been talking to Evee, and, funny thing, it’s like they know two different people! She can’t tell me what exactly she means, but it’s not really that big a deal, anyway. An insincere apology is tossed out; she was just being honest, as Evee sends me a message. “We need to talk,” punk4eva states. “I know, Emily told me,” I respond, still unsure what’s going on. Evee fills me in on the details – Emily’s channeled her inner Dr. Hansen, and showed Evee the chat logs of our conversation from months ago, where I told her what she wanted to hear, when I told her I’d probably just take life as it came. Evee accuses me of using her, of only pretending to be open to the possibility of settling down with her. I try to explain myself, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s too painful for us both. We break up. She leaves. emerz35 never contacts me again. “You can now log out,” Too prompts me. 62% of players got my ending. I kind of want to cry.

It’s 10 on Sunday morning, almost time for bed, thanks to my night-shift day job. The sun is starting to cast a glare on my screen. “Chungus is playing Emily is Away Too” pops up in the corner of my Steam overlay. I wonder how his story is unfolding. I boot Emily Too back up, and speed through the first two chapters. This time there won’t be any inconsistencies in what I say. This time I’ll get the girl. Chapter three, the speed round, is up next. I’m tired. I’ll do it tonight when I get up; when I’ll be sharper. I won’t fuck it up this time. I won’t.

I lay in bed wide awake for a few hours, as I do almost every day, and I begin to ask myself why exactly I want to “fix” things with Evee. Is this not how it’s supposed to be? Does it not say something more that, just like Cheyenne eleven years ago, a relationship that was supposed to be solid as a rock was so easily toppled? Man, virtual me was a shithead. So was the real me. I cast my mind over the past few months of my life; the existential crisis I’ve gone through, the search for meaning and feeling of directionless wandering that’s been plaguing me. Having not thought about her in years before tonight, I briefly wonder how Cheyenne is now. Happy, I hope. My conscience throws up all the bonds I’ve formed online over the past decade, and how sooner or later, they all faded away. I’ve still never been to Warped Tour. I let it all go.

Someday I will wake up, and realize I gave up everything.

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