Nick’s GotY 2017 List Extravaganza

or Everything Sucks but Games are Great

I’m going to state the obvious: 2017 was a hard year for a lot of people. I won’t go into the details, because I couldn’t do them justice if I tried. Fortunately, some of the best games of the decade released in 2017, and they kept me going through some rough weeks. I’ve had to adjust to a lot of changes, including a new job that has solved a lot of my financial problems. It’s also left me with less time than I would like to do creative, introspective work like this. But I still managed to crank out eight episodes of a new podcast I started and play in more tabletop RPG sessions than I have since high school. Music-wise, I’m in a weird spot where I still want to play trombone, but I get increasingly diminishing returns from it. I decided not to perform for free again unless I have a very good reason to, and I encourage all artists to adopt a similar policy. I also discovered that I enjoy the study and craft of tabletop RPG products a hell of a lot, so I’m making it a high-priority goal to self-publish an adventure or two in 2018. All of this to say, play more games, don’t let people take advantage of you, do what makes you happy, be exceedingly kind and patient with others, and keep moving forward, especially when it seems like there’s nothing to look forward to.

Let’s get to it.

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SPOILERS ABOUND FROM THIS POINT FORWARD

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Top 10 Games of 2017

10: Gorogoa

I’m growing more and more appreciative of short games that do something unique, and Gorogoa is exactly that. You can finish it in the time it takes to watch a long episode of Black Mirror, but the level of craftsmanship is staggering. I don’t want to think about how long and painstaking the process must have been to create art and lenses that lined up perfectly but remained gorgeous from every angle. Gorogoa isn’t particularly difficult, but it does force you to think outside the realm of the four frames and juggle between different time periods, places, and perspectives. There are even some real-time challenges in this unassuming puzzle game, but they’re crucially neither punishing nor strenuous. The story, too, is brilliantly-paced, and you’ll find yourself piecing it together subconsciously even as you spy another hidden connection and watch everything fall into place.

9: Divinity: Original Sin 2

I almost didn’t play Divinity in 2017, and the only reason it’s not higher on this list is I’ve only put a few hours into it at the time of this writing. I fully intend to finish the main campaign and make my own adventures for it, though. Even more than the first game, it near-perfectly nails the feeling of playing a tabletop RPG. It features turn-based combat, fully-voiced dialogue, intuitive mod tools, and a high level of interaction that, in some ways, make Obsidian’s and inXile’s isometric RPG’s look archaic by comparison. Larian Studios has even created a separate Game Master mode for the game that I’m dying to try with a full group. The few gripes I have with the UI, the camera, and the party options will likely be addressed by future updates, either from Larian themselves or fan-made mods. Like CD Projekt Red, Larian has proven they understand their audience and that mid-sized studios can do amazing work when they’re not beholden to the whims of another publisher.

8: Super Mario Odyssey

I’m not in love with Mario Odyssey, but I did love the first 12 hours I spent with it. My enjoyment of it petered off after the end of the main story, until it felt like I was wandering aimlessly from world to world, searching for the same magic behind every pointless Moon that compelled me through what originally felt like pure joy. I appreciated it more after I started watching speed runs and learning some of the harder movement tricks myself. As fluid and inventive as Mario’s new hat moves feel, though, I don’t think they hold up in the game’s most difficult challenges (certainly not with Joy-Cons). I could just chalk this game up to being another victim of the inherent clumsiness of 3D platforming and call it a day. But Odyssey’s highs are so high (the New Donk City Festival sequence, Metro Kingdom, ending Bowser sequence, and Mushroom Kingdom chief among them) that it’s a must-play for Mario fans, and it’s easily one of Nintendo’s best efforts.

7: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I appreciate what Breath of the Wild has done for games more than I enjoy playing it. Nintendo took a massive gamble by going back to the roots of what makes Zelda great and fully embracing and exploring modern open-world game design. For a company that notoriously keeps its head in the sand regarding so many issues, they took pages from so many developers’ books that I would likely fail to list them all. Clearly, Nintendo has listened to its devoted fan-base this generation and delivered in spades. Where Mario Odyssey comes apart at the seams, Zelda succeeds through a world that feels more alive than Skyrim and combat that builds and capitalizes on the years of work From Software did refining the Dark Souls formula. Like Minecraft, Breath of the Wild for me has become a meditative game I turn to when there’s nothing else I feel like playing and just need another world to drift in.

6: Cuphead

Cuphead is the rare example of an indie game that actually met the immense hype that built up around it for years. It also sparked the tired conversation about difficulty in games anew and suffered for it. So many critics failed to look past Cuphead’s amazing art and sound and see the nearly-as-good level and enemy design that props the whole game up. If Cuphead still looked the way it does but didn’t play so well, I have no doubt it would have failed and been lampooned like Mighty No. 9 before it. The King Dice RNG boss rush feels more oppressive than the rest of the game, surely, but mastering it and beating it effortlessly was one of the most rewarding things I did in 2017. Taking into account the Simple Mode and unlockable extra hearts and creative weaponry, Cuphead’s learning curve is far more forgiving and generous than the mainstream has given it credit for.

5: Opus Magnum

Everyone on Twitter is showing off their incredibly efficient solutions in Opus Magnum. I prefer taking a different approach… pic.twitter.com/iaSZmdohnj

— Mark Brown (@britishgaming) October 22, 2017

Plenty of games make me feel stupid, but few ever make me feel like a genius. Even when I’ve made an alchemy machine that looks a little silly or isn’t worth its weight in salt, I still love the act of creation in Opus Magnum. It’s the first Zachtronics game I’ve felt smart enough to even attempt to play well. Constructing a new apparatus and orchestrating every precise movement reminds me strongly of the time I spent in music theory classes, trying to compose figured bass or analyze exactly why a particular harmonic motion sounds pleasing. The ability to create GIFs of your working mechanisms is itself a genius feature, and watching them on Twitter becomes almost hypnotic. Even the story, setting, and solitaire mini-game are charming, in a puzzler that’s really just about transforming alchemy Skittles and putting them together over and over and over and over and over…

4: What Remains of Edith Finch

What I didn’t get from Tacoma, I found in Edith Finch. For some reason, crawling through the secret passages and abandoned stairwells of an old, impossibly-large, possibly-haunted house is extremely enjoyable for me. The real joy of Giant Sparrow’s game, however, is in the variety of gameplay vignettes they’ve managed to include in this 2-hour storybook tale. Some are much better than others, but each has something to say about mental illness, death, family, and memories. Other than that, I’m not really sure what it’s about, but I don’t think it has to do anything more than make the player reflect on their own mortality and the value of stories we pass down through generations.

3: Prey

Equal parts Soma, System Shock 2, and Half-Life 2, Prey scratches an itch for me that not many developers dare to. Because it’s damn hard to make immersive sims, let alone ones that are so cohesive or play with expectations as well as Arkane’s latest endeavor. Mimics and the ability to turn into a baseball glove or desk chair sell the game, but what I remember fondly from my 16 hours on Talos I are the character stories I witnessed and the times I was left to my own devices. Exploring the station and managing health and ammo became an act of tactical planning driven by playful curiosity. How much raw material can I realistically expect to gather from this office with my Recycler Charges? How can I gain access to this elevated space shuttle without fighting through a dozen Military Operators? Who are these people that left the remnants of their D&D campaign scattered throughout the station, and why do I feel so attached to them? I didn’t always find satisfying answers to these questions, but Prey gave me the freedom to inquire and learn on my own terms, a dying art that I truly cherish.

2: Doki Doki Literature Club

If I had to pick a game that hit me in the gut the hardest this year, Doki Doki Literature Club would be it. I’d never given visual novels much of a chance before, because they’re mostly hentai fan-service fair if Steam is to be believed. But I found a real appreciation for them after playing this weird, free story by Team Salvato. I grew to like each character (though Sayori is undoubtedly my favorite), and each death had a profound effect on me, enough that I couldn’t stop thinking about the game for days after I finished it. The icing on the cake though, is how meta this game gets in terms of design and subverting the player’s hard-wired expectations. Even if the act is superficial, I was astounded the game made me manually delete a file in order to progress. Though we see the rest of the girls die horribly, the really tragic figure is Monika, who is obsessed with the player in a way that mirrors the slavish, perverted, clinginess of sexually repressed fanboys. The game ends with maybe the best credits song since Still Alive. It’s more than worth the $10 to get the Fan Pack and support Salvato in whatever he does next.

1: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

As much as I adore this game, I may never get beyond this point, and that’s okay.

For a year of pain, anguish, and setbacks, Getting Over It seems like an apt allegory. But Bennett Foddy’s real achievement is not merely creating a game about frustration, but making the player value or even seek it out as something intrinsically useful. Falling from a great height at first seems like a huge loss, and Bennett reinforces this feeling through quotes, music, and personal anecdotes. But you quickly discover that you can regain that lost ground faster as you get better and better at controlling one of the weirdest video game avatars I’ve ever seen. This is also the first game I’ve played that’s explicitly an expertly-crafted homage to a B-game. I went and played Sexy Hiking because of it, though I don’t necessarily recommend everyone do that. Getting Over It is truly for those people that can’t resist climbing a mountain just to see what’s at the top. It’s meant to hurt them and teach them that not every obstacle need be surmounted. But to those that can and do meet every challenge, good for you. Reach down and pick up the rest of us, eh?

Top 5 Honorable Mentions of 2017

5: West of Loathing

West of Loathing is a delightfully-funny little RPG I still need to finish from some of my favorite people in the industry. Check out their podcast at http://videogameshotdog.com/ – it’s a must-listen for me every week.

4: Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth

Somehow, Atlus still has the capacity to make these games. And I still love creating my own party, drawing my own maps, and fighting through endless hordes of dangerous dungeon denizens. If Nintendo never makes another dual-screen handheld, we may never get another of these games made in quite the same way.

3: Tacoma

It’s not Gone Home, but there’s enough interesting storytelling going on to satisfy any fan of the walking simulator genre. The AR recording mechanic is uniquely impressive.

2: Thimbleweed Park

I admire most point-and-click adventures more than I enjoy playing them, but I was touched by Thimbleweed Park’s reverence for the past. I’ve barely played Maniac Mansion, yet I still felt nostalgic for it during Delores’ intro section.

1: Resident Evil 7

Maybe the best Resident Evil game ever? I’m not a fan of most horror games with Slender Man DNA (I found Outlast fairly tedious), but RE7 hooked me despite the clunky controls and the sharp difficulty spikes. It’s another great case of a cleverly-designed space with an interesting setting.

And that’s it for the meat and potatoes of this article! But feel free to read on for more thoughts from me about games and stuff, and I’ll be glad you came.

Top 10 Games I Didn’t Get Around to Playing in 2017

10: Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

I’m not sure why I’m intrigued by this game, but I am.

9: Splatoon 2

There’s a lot of great stuff on the Switch, but I just haven’t played Splatoon yet!

8: Nioh

In a year without a From Software game, it seems like Nioh adequately filled the Dark Souls gap for a lot of people.

7: A Hat in Time

This little 3D platformer has gotten a ton of buzz recently, and it has a level editor to boot!

6: Nier Automata

I know, I know, it’s probably sacrilegious that I haven’t seen everything this game has to offer yet. I did play a few hours of it, wasn’t impressed, and haven’t played it since. But I know why people like it, and, for the sake of my partner and the rest of the gaming community, I’m planning on coming back to it. It has one of the best soundtracks of 2017 for sure.

5: Torment: Tides of Numenera

I’ve owned this for several months now, but after my previous gaming computer died, I didn’t have a great way to experience it. Now that I have a new PC, it’s only a matter of time before I get through it and the other isometric RPGs sitting in my backlog.

4: Night in the Woods

This seems like a game that is directly up my alley; I just haven’t made myself buy it yet.

3: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

I enjoyed what I played of the first game, and I hear you get to shoot even more Nazis in this one. Count me in.

2: Dishonored 2 and the Death of the Outsider DLC

It’s a real shame I didn’t get to this last year. Arkane is one of my favorite studios, and Prey only made me like them more. We need more good Thief games.

1: PUBG

I mostly missed the PUBG hype train in 2017. But I don’t expect that train to be slowing down any time soon, so I’ll get around to trying it eventually. That goes for giving Fortnite a real shot as well.

Biggest Let-Downs of 2017

Destiny 2

It’s weird to say this, but I’m pretty disappointed with a game that I played for 60+ hours. It seemed like it had so much promise at first, but Destiny quickly became a grind I wasn’t interested in going through anymore. For an MMO to run out of interesting things to do after such a short time is a major sin to me.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

As much as I respect Ninja Theory and the time they put into this game, Hellblade missed the mark for me. The voices in Senua’s head were just annoying, and the puzzles were boring and buggy. I love the idea of a game about anxiety, but Hellblade doesn’t pull it off. I do think the combat has potential, and I’d like to see NT make a more serious God Hand-like game in this engine.

Persona 5

I was probably looking forward to Persona 5 the most last year, but it just didn’t have the same magic Persona 4 did for me. That and the soundtrack got really old really fast after I listened to my partner play through the game for 90 hours.

Battlefront 2

I can’t say I was expecting all that much from this game, but I did have a glint of optimism for it that comes with virtually every Star Wars product. What EA did to it turned out to be far worse than release a bad game, though, so I opted for Call of Duty instead and had an okay time with it.

Top Tabletop RPG Products of 2017

XCrawl: New Year’s Evil

My friends and I had a blast playing through this bizarre adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, check out our actual play recording!

Blades in the Dark

Blades in the Dark combines the Thief/Dishonored aesthetic with an inventive role-playing system that I like quite a lot. It leaves most of the decision-making up to the players, as it should.

Hubris

Probably the best setting book I’ve ever read, I love how Hubris uses well-written random encounter tables in place of boring lore and mind-numbing backstory.

DCC Quickstart Rules

DCC has needed an easier point of entry than a 500-page tome for a while now, and we finally got the quick start rules on Free RPG Day 2017! The Gnole House introductory adventure that comes with it is quite good as well.

Tales from the Yawning Portal

Of the three WotC books released for 5th Edition D&D this year, Tales from the Yawning Portal is my favorite. It’s not for everyone, but it’s perfect for the DM looking to pit their players against some of the most classic dungeons the game has to offer. It’s also a useful guide to converting older content to 5E and a great history lesson for those of us that weren’t slinging dice in the 70’s.

Starfinder

Paizo’s new core rulebook is big, beautiful, and maybe just the right fit for a group in need of a sci-fi system with some crunch. It’s nothing if not a tribute to 3.5’s staying power.

Top Doom Mods of 2017

I didn’t play a lot of Doom mods from 2017, but here’s some of the better ones. Be sure to check out the full Cacowards list on Doomworld for even more Doom goodness here: https://www.doomworld.com/24years/. There are many other WADS from 2017 that are almost or just as good as these, and I’m making an effort to play the bulk of them in 2018.

 lilith.pk3 by anotak

I think lilith.pk3 has to be played to truly be believed. I know there’s been some controversy over it winning the Cacowards, but it’s much more than just a glitch exhibition for ZDoom. In some ways, it’s a swan song for that engine. It’s fun to play, and it manipulates bugs and glitches to create things I’ve never seen in my handful of years playing Doom before. It looks impressive enough, but the fact that it’s at all an enjoyable, nuanced experience is deserving of high praise.

Shadows of the Nightmare Realm by Alexa “YukiRaven” Jones-Gonzales

This is a very well-made WAD that felt more like Quake than Doom. The textures and lighting effects are stunning, the many new enemy sprites look fantastic, and the level design shows hints of real innovation. While I’m not a fan of fighting a Cyberdemon in a tiny room and had to cheat to finish it, the last level delivers on the promise of the earlier ones completely. Played on one of the easier difficulty settings, SotNR is one of the better entry points for newcomers to Doom in recent years.

Saturnine Chapel by dobu gabu maru

I’m not at all sure how well Saturnine Chapel is designed, because I haven’t survived long enough to really tell yet. But I had to include it here purely based on how the opening of the map looks. You’re dropped into this green, glowing hell-scape of dead trees and acid towers, and how you approach entry to the Chapel is left up to you. The Chapel draws the player in, because it’s the only non-green architecture in the level. Progressing through it becomes a puzzle, one that you’ll have seconds to figure out before you’re ruthlessly slaughtered by Revenants as you fire weakly at them from a corner with your starting pistol.

Also of Note…

Overwatch – Esports and More

We finally saw progress on the Overwatch League project this year, and I’m really excited to see how the experience fairs for pro players. The World Cup was great to watch, due to new commentator tech and some smart UI choices. The new characters we got, while not always viable in competitive matches, have been a blast to play and still feel unique in the game’s ever-growing roster of misfits and monkeys. Overwatch remains my favorite Blizzard game to date, and I couldn’t stay away from it for very long in 2017, despite dumping 200+ hours into it across two platforms already.

Hearthstone: Dungeon Run

I was mostly over Hearthstone shortly after Knights of the Frozen Throne released. But Kobolds & Catacombs brought me back in a big way. Suddenly, classic D&D monsters had cards in the game, in a rare case of Blizzard actually calling attention to one of their biggest influences. And Dungeon Run is so close to being an amazing mode that it pains me to see ActiBlizz not exploiting it more. Arena is a dismal experience right now, and the game is still too inaccessible for new players. But anyone with a Battle.net account can hop into Dungeon Run at any time for free and have a mostly great time. Please make more content like this, Blizz, and give us better rewards for it!

Elder Scrolls: Legends

The Elder Scrolls: Legends came out of beta in May 2017, and it’s a great game. Like, probably better than Hearthstone great. What it lacks in production values, it makes up for with some innovative new card game mechanics and mercifully little RNG. The Rune system is a great way to give the losing player a chance to catch up, and it turns the normally rote action of attacking the other player into a dynamic decision that can completely change the state of a given match.

Twin Peaks: The Return

Twin Peaks before 2017 was a hit in the 90s and a cult classic, sure, but The Return season elevated the show to one of the best cultural artifacts we have. I can’t say enough good things about it, and if I tried, it would only sound like hyperbole. It’s a show that everyone should watch and appreciate, especially in a landscape dominated by shows and films that merely pay homage to the past without really knowing why.

Waypoint Radio Podcast

http://aca.st/530a37

Most games podcasts stay away from difficult subject matter like politics and current events, but Waypoint in 2017 addressed both games and the state of the world in equal measure. There were weeks I needed to hear Austin Walker and the gang talk through what had just happened, because I didn’t have the capacity to process things as well on my own. As much as we like to think of ourselves as isolated and separate from the outside world, games and the people who play them have a huge role in the current cultural and political zeitgeist. Waypoint dared to tackle some weighty subjects in 2017 and did so with enough tact and grace to justify doing so on a podcast purportedly about video games.

 

Looking Ahead to 2018 and Barely Cringing

 

And that’s it for now! If you stuck with me this far, thank you! And I do apologize for the word count on this one. But I haven’t blogged in a year and a half, and it felt good to get all of the above out in a tangible way. That’s one of the things I aim to fix in 2018. More blogging, more videos, more podcasts, more art, more music, and generally being me to a fuller extent. That includes participating in the world more than I have in my adult life, and, while that scares me, I think it’s necessary if I want to change things for the better. I hope you find success and happiness in 2018 and find ways, however small, to give back some of the prosperity you’ve gained. It’s the only way forward.

Happy New Year!

And if you want to keep up with what I’m doing in 2018, you can follow me on Twitter and Google+.

@NCBurnham

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+NickBurnham1