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.

10. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

Look, Wolfenstein 2 is an incredible game. It’s well written, and it looks great, but if I’m being honest the main reason I liked it so much is simple: I got to throw like… 400 hatchets into hordes and hordes of Nazis. It was like getting an injection of pure catharsis: a healthy outlet for the anger I had with the state of the world. As much as that’s all surface level, especially when things get dire for the Kreisau Circle, it was the rage fantasy aspect of The New Colossus that made it one of my favorite games of the year.

9. Picross 3D: Round 2

A little disclaimer: this technically came out in December of 2016, but it would be disingenuous of me to not include it on this list. Picross 3D: Round 2 was consistently one of the most relaxing things I played this year. I feel like we spend a lot of time acting like games built purely for relaxing and taking up a short period of time are less important than games with narratives or challenging gameplay, but games like Picross 3D are important because they’re not that. It reminded me of the importance of calm, to take some time out of my day just to solve a puzzle or two so I could recharge my batteries, and I think learning how to do that is one of the most important things to happen to me in 2017.

8. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Breath of The Wild is one of those games that I’m probably never going to touch again. On the surface, that probably comes off as an insult, but I mean it in the exact opposite way. With how the game is made, it’s almost impossible to emulate the experience I had the first time I played through it. From the giddy excitement I had the first time I snowboarded down a mountain, to the quiet calm of wandering through a small forest tucked away from everything else, almost every minute I spent with Breath of the Wild completely enveloped me with wonder and joy when I found myself sorely needing it.

7. Heat Signature

The moment I fell in love with Heat Signature was a moment where I thought the game broke. Without reading the text for a mission I loaded in and found myself floating in space with no ship, slowly suffocating. I restarted a few times assuming it was a glitch, before I realized what I had to do: propel myself through space with my shotgun, land on a nearby ship, and take out every last guard onboard. It was exhilarating, and it was the first of countless incidents like that. It wasn’t just missions that had predetermined challenges, but almost every random mission I accepted had at least the opportunity for me to do some harebrained, hotshot stunts. With seemingly hundreds of procedurally generated roguelikes inundating games, it’s Heat Signature’s dedication to actually letting you do whatever buckwild nonsense you can think of that makes it so special.

6. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

As much as I can appreciate the anime ridiculousness of the Fire Emblem series, I’ll be honest and say I was getting pretty burnt out with it’s direction. I just wasn’t clicking with Fates and the new standard it was setting for the strategy franchise. Fire Emblem Echoes, however, barely feels like a mainline Fire Emblem game at times. Doing away with franchise staples like the weapon triangle and favoring systems that feel more like a traditional JRPG progression-wise did a lot to make the game stand out among the franchise. Not to mention that it’s got a surprisingly good voice cast,  and branching stories that feel different enough to keep things fresh, but not so much that you have to keep relearning the game. I truly think Shadows of Valentia is a hidden gem during a banner year for Nintendo, and I can only hope that they put just as much of it in future Fire Emblem games as they will with the pieces of the past few successes they’ve had with the series.

5. NieR: Automata

I don’t think I’ve ever had such an intense love-hate relationship with a game before. I’ll just get it out of the way: I’d say a good 60% of the time I was actually playing NieR: Automata I just straight up hated it. Combat felt clunky, and the hacking segments were a slog. All that said, NieR: Automata has one of the best stories I’ve ever experienced in a game. It uses the medium of interactive entertainment in a way that I haven’t seen since the original NieR, and although I didn’t have as much fun playing it as I’d hoped, I think it would be foolish to not recognize how NieR pushes the medium when it succeeds, and how, nine times out of ten, it’s trying something unique, even in failure.

4. Persona 5

I wrapped myself in Persona 5 like it was a cocoon and I didn’t emerge until I was a weird butterfly that spent way too much time trying to fuse Satan. Clunky metaphors aside, Persona 5 was a game that I was able to completely submerge myself in. There’s something comforting in being able to play a few days of Persona just screwing around with your doofus friends inside the bizarre world of palaces and Mementos that made the game special to me. While I loved the dungeon crawling and the main thrust of the plot, I found myself revelling in little moments. Whether it was getting ramen with Ryuji or going book shopping with Makoto, it was the tranquil, everyday mundanity of the friendships in Persona 5 that made it shine.

3. The Sexy Brutale

I’m a sucker for time travel shenanigans, and I’m also a sucker for murder mysteries, so Sexy Brutale letting me more or less play as the time travelling Columbo I’ve always dreamed of being was nothing short of a delight. Every single thing about this game oozes charm. From the swinging soundtrack to the bizarre otherworldly murders that you have to prevent, I found myself grinning at every twist and turn that got thrown at me.

2. Super Mario Odyssey

Super Mario Odyssey is probably the happiest game I’ve ever played, it’s like if someone took the concept of childlike wonder, and somehow made it into a physical object. That object is Super Mario Odyssey. I think if you zoomed in on my brain, much like a Jimmy Neutron “brain blast”, while I was playing you’d probably see little Cappys on every cell in my body. I’m not quite sure what sort of black magic Nintendo evoked to make something so fueled by nostalgia not feel like a cloying, boring rehash of the past, but they did it. Not only that, but they also managed to top almost every other 3D platformer out there with one of the most intuitive, fresh takes on the genre I’ve ever played.

1. Yakuza 0

Yakuza 0 owns.

That’s really all you’ve got to know. You should have already bought it after you saw that sentence, but seeing as how just writing three words won’t cut it, I’ll elaborate a little. Yakuza 0 manages to be one of the funniest games I’ve encountered, while balancing that with deeply heartbreaking moments throughout. Admittedly, part of this is because of my long running attachment to the series, but seeing the reaction that this game’s been getting from people who’ve never touched another Yakuza title before has me feeling pretty confident in recommending it. I spent so much time just inhabiting the world of Yakuza 0, not even advancing the main plot or my side businesses, instead just wandering around the two towns in the game, doing some karaoke, trying to learn mahjong (I’m still not great) and getting Kiryu absolutely blasted on way too expensive whiskey. It’s a testament to how full and vibrant Y0 feels, that I could spend a few hours and make, ostensibly, zero progress but still walk away feeling fulfilled. Couple that with a story that legitimately had me in tears towards the end and some of the most entertaining substories to ever exist in the franchise, and you have not just only my favorite game of 2017, but my favorite Yakuza game ever released.

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

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The post VGCC Episode 152: Switch Hits appeared first on Gamesline.

Trying to catch up to competing consoles, Nintendo has moved forward with their system technology in a lot of important ways. Firstly. Nintendo claims their online systems have been overhauled, to the point where starting this fall, online multiplayer will be tied behind a paywall, similar to Playstation Plus, or Xbox Live Gold, including one bundled NES/SNES game a month. Secondly, the Switch is a hybrid between a traditional home console, and a portable one, so it will feature many traits one would expect from past Nintendo handhelds, such as wireless multiplayer with up to 7 other Switches, and a capacitive touch screen. Third, the battery life of the console has been a hot point of contention for many people, so Nintendo’s given us a rough idea of how long one can play on the go by saying that a portable run of Zelda can last up to 3 hours before you’ll need to recharge the system. Lastly, Nintendo spent a lot of time talking about their new controller, the Joy-Con.

Joy-Cons can be detached for being used as a sort of Wii-style controller situation, with a built in gyroscope, and the ability to use one Joy-Con as a separate controller, making multiplayer less of a hassle. Each Joy-Con will also feature “HD Rumble”, which will allow for a more precise sensations, such as that of water being poured into a glass.

To showcase the Joy-Cons, two games were demonstrated: Arms and 1-2 Switch. Arms is a fighting game centered around using the Joy-Cons to punch forward as spring-loaded characters in multiple arenas. 1-2 Switch is a more Wii Sports style game, full of multiple mini-games focused on ease of access, letting anyone just pick up and play whenever they want. 1-2 Switch will be available at launch, Arms still only set to release in spring.

For more substantial games, the follow-up to Splatoon, Splatoon 2, will be releasing this summer for the Switch. Full of new maps, new features, and new clothes, the follow-up will be full of “new and exciting things that will be talked about later this year.”

The next Mario game, Super Mario Odyssey, was also shown off at the event. Super Mario Odyssey seems focused on Mario’s exploration of various diverse environments, including the real world. The core-mechanic of the game seems to involve Mario’s disturbingly sentient hat, which can be thrown in front of him as an attack, and used in mid-air as a new platform. Unfortunately, the game isn’t projected to come out until Holiday 2017, so it’ll be quite some time before we find out more about the plumber’s next escapade.

With several non-specifics, Nintendo also discussed their large third party lineup of games for the Switch. From Square Enix, several Dragon Quest games will be on the console, including the recent Dragon Quest Heroes 1 and 2, and a new original RPG project entitled Octopath Traveler. Atlus announced a new Shin Megami Tensei series game, running on Unreal Engine 4. The next game in the Xenoblade series will be entitled Xenoblade 2, and it sure looks like a Xenoblade game. Koei-Tecmo also announced a partnership with Nintendo to create a new Dynasty Warriors game based on Fire Emblem, fittingly called Fire Emblem Warriors.

Todd Howard came out in video-form to confirm that yes, indeed, Skyrim will be coming to the Switch at some point, and that Bethesda is “very excited” to finally be working with Nintendo. EA also represented by saying they’re dedicated to supporting the new generation of Nintendo hardware in a much bigger way than they have before.

Most importantly, Suda 51 came out on stage to enthusiastically announce a new No More Heroes game, even though he hasn’t figured out a title yet. The game will feature Travis Touchdown again, but the rest of the game is still heavily in-development.

Nintendo wrapped up the presentation with a trailer for the hotly anticipated Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which will be launching alongside the Switch on March 3rd.

All in all, its hard to make out how successful the Switch will really be. Between a lack of information about actual launch-window titles, and the rough history of the console’s predecessor, there just wasn’t a lot in this presentation to really sell a console in my eyes. A lot of the presentation seemed focused on trying to recapture the success of the Wii, right down to the Joy-Con version of Wii Sports. Hopefully Nintendo has learned enough lessons over the past few years to prevent another Wii U catastrophe, but unless they can pull out plenty of good games in a more timely fashion, I’m not too optimistic for a “Switch” in fortunes.

The post Nintendo Switch Reveal Round-Up appeared first on Gamesline.

As ever, E3 brought us games by the bucketload, some good, and some… well, not so good. Now that we’ve had a chance to breathe and stew on what we’ve seen over the last week, Chooch’s home team have convened to bring you our picks for the best and worst in show.

Niall:

Best:

Look, you read the site, you listen to the podcasts – you know your boy loves David Cage, and you’re probably expecting me to take the easy route here and give my Game of the Show honors to Gaming’s Messiah, and Detroit: Become Human. Or maybe you’re thinking that, hey, Niall loves snowboarding, so maybe Steep most tickled my fancy? Possibly We Happy Few, or Persona 5, could also be in with a shout, but even though all these games have me suitably pumped, there’s one game that I just haven’t been able to get out of my head since its unveiling, and that’s Gwent.

I played a lot of Witcher 3 last year; and a lot of that time was spent on Gwent. What initially seemed to be a tacked on mini-game bore itself out into a deep, frightfully addictive experience, and now that it’s going to be fleshed out and have it’s own single-player narrative, I simply cannot stop thinking about it. I’m no good at card games, but Gwent has me chomping at the bit to actually get out there and learn to play one at a decent level. At the very least, I wanna be able to beat Mike Cosimano at it, because who doesn’t wanna beat Cosimano at everything? Nobody, that’s who. Because he sucks.

Worst:

There’s a very strong compulsion on my end to take the easy road here, too, and just give this one to Bad Rats Show. I’m not gonna, though, ’cause we know already that Bad Rats is going to be a stinker, it’s not going to surprise anyone. Instead, I think it’s prescient to hang the dunce cap on the head of one of two Triple-A exclusive titles that stunk the show up this year, Scalebound and Days Gone.

As bad as Scalebound looked – and it did, indeed, look very bad – I think Days Gone just about edges things as far as the Worst of E3 goes. I mean, Sony closed the show with it, for Christ’s sake! I have no idea what was going through Shu Yoshida and company’s minds when they decided to close with that turd, but boy, did it take the wind out of Sony’s sails. How the hell do you trot out a major new Triple-A franchise and present it as nothing more than a mindless shooter in which waves of zombies run straight at you in single file? It’s concerning, and if this is the direction Sony’s heading in, I may have to hold off on finally buying a PS4 for just a lil’ longer.

Microsoft, Platinum and Hideki Kamiya can breath a sigh of relief; they only gave us the second-worst showing of the week.

Scott

Best:

Now, it might just be from the hours upon hours of livestream coverage Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild received, but that game is so goddamn cool. It’s like they managed to tap into every single thing in my brain that activates pleasure centers. They went above and beyond my expectations for that game and they only showed off the first area. I’m sure some of the mechanics they revealed (like the variety of different bombs you can use or the ability to pick up and move objects in the environment) will be spaced out more in the overworld and this was just a demo to give people a taste of what the proper game will offer, but I’m still excited. They give the tools to make the experience more difficult for yourself, and difficulty is something modern Zelda games have sorely lacked. All the fire effects in the game work more like real life fire than any game I’ve seen in recent years. It’s such an impressive sandbox and I’m hoping the NX winds up with sharing capabilities similar to the Xbox One and PS4, because even watching clips of the crazy stuff people come up with will provide endless entertainment. The tingles I get from thinking about this game are only comparable to kidnapping roleplay ASMR videos. I can’t remember anything that’s gotten me so stoked before.

Worst:

My body has a natural reaction to flush everything I hate out of my memory about one day after I’ve seen it, so there isn’t that much that sticks out in my mind as being aggressively bad. That said, everything I’ve heard about the Final Fantasy XV VR Experience sounds like a dumpster fire. So far, the demo they showed was about five minutes of you standing in one spot and shooting a gun at a big enemy and it’s not particularly interesting and engaging, and then you get to ogle a girl who’s half naked and driving you around. What is Final Fantasy XV anymore? I legitimately have no idea. Everything I’ve tried to parse from all the coverage that game has gotten seems like a poorly brewed concoction of ideas that’s gotten so bloated that they basically have to just release it into the wild and hope it doesn’t flop. It’s the MGSV of 2016. I still want to play it. I want to know.

Also, I know I talked about this in the Best and Worst E3 Conferences piece but I want to give an extra special fuck you to Days Gone, which caused me such frustration that I accidentally banged my already sprained ankle on the hardwood oak footboard of my double-king sized bed. Covering that game also caused me to cover my ankle with my hands, and while I bent over my head knocked over not only several individually picked and arranged doritos but also my entire Limited Edition Bray Wyatt 7-11 Cup full of kombucha onto said doritos AND my late great great grandmother’s New King Of The Jungle Authentic Hand Knit Persian Rug (the rug wasn’t hers, but the money from the inheritance certainly was). My dear, precious Bray Wyatt plastic cup also shattered upon impact of hitting the sogged up ‘ritos. Whilst trying the kombucha covered nacho cheese flavored dorries for myself straight off my gggrammy’s $92,800 rug, I swallowed a piece of Bray Wyatt’s plastic beard which also caused severe cuts on the roof of my mouth.

Days Gone has been a burden on my life, and I expect Sony to fully reimburse me for the wasted ‘buch and ‘rits, a replacement carpet of equal or greater value, my medical expenses, emotional damages, and sentimental value. That will also guarantee a review score of 4 stars or greater on Video Game Choo Choo dot com. Balls in your court, Sony. Also, I have already filed a patent for Kombucha Flavored Doritos so if I see any BULLSHIT from you, Frito-Lay, I WILL cry.

Ashley

Best:

I am not a Nintendo fan. I do not own a Wii U, barely played my Wii and haven’t played a Pokemon game since elementary school. When I talked about my E3 hopes I said I had some interest in the new Zelda game, but everything they showed of it blew me away. The look of this game is incredible and just how open it seems has me excited. This is something that feels familiar but also like a much needed change for a series that feels like it’s been spinning wheels.

It may speak to how stagnant the series was, but seeing Link change clothes, swap weapons  and throw weapons away excited me. Just the fact that Link never was seen wearing the trademark green tunic at any point tells me exactly what this game is. It’s Legend of Zelda, finally moving forward, finally throwing down things that held it back, while keeping what made it special.

Worst:

There were a lot of things I was bored by during E3. I don’t care for Fifa or Madden eSports. Days Gone looks just plain, well, plain. The only thing that really caused me to actually hate it though, was South Park: The Fractured But Whole. The first one was impressive in just how it captured the show’s look but with that feat old news, we’re just left with the unfunny bits from the show.

Having the most awkward stage show during a Ubisoft conference is an incredible accomplishment and Matt Stone and Trey Parker pulled it off. I get that there are people who like their comedy but asking around, it seems like no one liked what they were bringing to the table this year.

Ryan:

Best:

Naming a “best game” for this year’s E3 is something of a challenge, considering most of the actual gameplay we saw, be it for Days Gone or that one pirate game with the fake voice chat, came across as fairly mediocre. However, there was one dark horse that emerged from the fog, and that was Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. My interest in the series has always been tangential best, and I’ve never finished any of the few Zelda games I’ve bothered to pick up. However, I found myself being constantly impressed by the extended Breath of the Wild stream, particularly in how surprised I was that Nintendo would take such leaps with a well-established franchise.

Breath of the Wild offered up enough “wow” factor to get me interested in a franchise I’ve never cared about, and that’s “best game” material in my book.

Worst:

“Worst game” calls for almost more of a discerning eye than “best game,” requiring me to cut through the swaths of mediocre tripe like a machete-wielding Indiana Jones in the jungles of disinterest, in search of the game which can truly be considered “worst.” Despite South Park’s atrocious showing, I can safely say that game will have an appeal to fans of the franchise.

Therefore, the “worst game” baton gets passed down to Days Gone, a game with a trailer that looked inoffensively mediocre but gameplay that came across like a loud, soggy, ten minute fart ripped in an otherwise enjoyable baby shower. The visuals were bland and the gameplay looked terribly repetitive to the point of being a slog. Days Gone lost out to the incredible Dead Rising 4 in the zombie category, but that’s because it simply looks like hot trash in comparison to every other game showed at any conference. It’s also made by the creators of Bubsy 3D, so think on that for a while.

The post The Best Games of E3… and the Worst appeared first on Gamesline.