For everyone just joining us, this is Part IV of a four part series where I list and briefly talk about my favorite game that was released during a particular year. This time around I am covering 2010 - 2017 (2017 as of Friday April 21st mind you), and 1980 - 1989, 1990 - 1999, and 2000 - 2009 can be found in those links. Also I feel like I need to mention that while these games may not have been the best game or the highest selling game for their particular year, they all happened to find a place in my brain where they took root and I have never forgotten them, although I may have forgotten the year they were first released.
Something that had not occurred to me until I started doing Part IV of these lists, were episodic games, which I was not fully aware of (I think) until The Walking Dead: A Tell Tale Games Series came out in 2012. How do you decide on what year episodic games were released in? Is it the year the first episode came out in or the year the last episode was released? Well, for me and the purposes of my own list, I decided to go with the year that the first episode in the series was released, similar to how I decided to not count DLC as a stand alone game when taking into account when certain DLCs were released after if it were not in the same year as the main game.
So, now down to the last eight games (and who knows, in 2019, I may decide to revisit this last decade):
2010: Amnesia: The Dark Descent (September 8, 2010)
There were quite a few games released this year that I had also considered: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, BioShock 2,and Dementium II. And I think A:TDD ended up becoming my favorite game this year, sadly not while playing it, but after I had finished and I had time to think about the game; you can read some of my frustrations from my review back in 2012. What endeared this game to me ended up being the approach to how the story was told, the logical use of amnesia as a mechanic, and the futility of the characters in the story. I will admit though that I was a little disappointed by the "sanity effects" believing that they would be akin to those from Eternal Darkness, but once I figured that that would not be the case, I came to enjoy the game a bit more.
2011: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (November 11, 2011)
Ah jeez. Skyrim, Dark Souls, Portal 2, Radiant Historia, The Binding of Isaac, Dead Space 2, Rage, Dead Island, and probably others that I happen to be not including either. I landed with Skyrim because of how much time I have personally put into the game, something like 200+ hours with my first character, then probably close to another 100 hours with various other characters in order to play out story points that I didn't feel that one character would partake of. Additionally, I do not think that I could ever talk about Skyrim without mentioning the amazing score that Jeremy Soule wrote, and unbeknownst to me at the time when I first played Skyrim (December 2012), that I was already familiar with Mr. Soule's work from Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights.
2012: The Walking Dead: A Tell Tale Games Series (April 12, 2012)
This was my first experience with not only episodic games, but also games from Tell Tale Games and I feel that as long as like the subject matter, they have created a customer for life. Already a fan of zombie apocalypse stories and The Walking Dead universe, I quickly took to the story and the Choose Your Own Adventure format of how this game played out. By the end, I was emotionally attached to a lot of the characters and found my eyes becoming itchy as the final scenes played out in the last episode. I seriously love this game.
2013: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (August 8, 2013)
This year was a tough one too. It ultimately came down to either The Stanley Parable, Papers, Please, Path of Exile, and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. And what makes it harder is that each game is very different, although both A:AMfP and TSP are both point of view operated, but genre-wise could not be more different. I think what draws me to games like A:AMfP is the discovery of the story as the game progresses and then the emotional impact as the PoV character and the player discover major elements of the story about the same time. I had an easier time with this than Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but that could have been due to Frictional Games' more focused story telling along with The Chinese Room's attention to plot, atmosphere and level detail. (You can read more of my praise from my Full Review article from November 2013).
2014: The Elder Scrolls Online (April 4, 2014)
For 2014, I feel In some way how much I enjoy this game surprised me, only because I had mentally sworn off MMOs since I never liked the idea of having to pay for a game more than once in order to play it. Having already fallen in love with the Elder Scrolls games definitely acted as a gateway drug for me to signing up for the beta back in 2013, playing the beta in November and pre-ordering a copy for myself and Conklederp so that we could quest together online, something that neither of us had done. And while both Conklederp and I often go months without playing ESO, I am very much looking forward to the Morrowind expansion and exploring a more visually detailed land that I have not visited in a while.
2015: SOMA (September 22, 2015)
By this point, it should be of little surprise that I fell in love with another game from Frictional Games. I have already talked quite a bit about SOMA in my Game Review from late last year, so I will try not to rehash too much. Basically, SOMA gave me a major case of the philosophical questions and the feels. The voice acting was pretty amazing, which is something that I have come to expect from Frictional Games. The only hang up I had was that there were times the game ran slow, but that was due to my computer's capabilities, but it actually worked in the underwater sequences. Still a game that I would love to go through again, but I might need some time before taking such a taxing (but worthy) emotional journey again.
2016: Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS (December 2, 2016)
I was kind of amused by the fact that I had only played two other games that were released in 2016, Pokémon GO and Cluster Truck. I played a couple of demos though, but I am not counting those since, well, they are demos and not a full game. I also decided to count Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS as a separate entry from the Wii U game that was released in 2015 since it is almost the same game, but operates differently in how various tools are gained and I know that people were upset about the lacking online features.
2017: Fire Emblem Heroes (February 2, 2017)
I do not know if this means anything or not, but I landed on Fire Emblem Heroes as my favorite game this year, mainly because I have realized that I have played no other game that was released this year. But what Fire Emblem Heroes has helped do, is rekindled my love of tactics games and introduced me to the games in the Fire Emblem franchise, sadly none of which I have played to this date. And because of how much fun I have had playing this game, I pre-ordered my first game (let alone 3DS game) since. . .The Elder Scrolls Online back in 2014. I would highly recommend this game if you have a smart phone, enjoy tactics games and don't plan/want to spend any money.
So that is where I will leave you all. 30.4% into 2017 and I have no idea how many games I will get to that were published in the last three years that could possibly change the standing of any of the games I have listed in this series. And there could even be games released back in the '80s and '90s (Like if I ever get around to finishing I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream) that could possibly topple one of my earlier choices.
Hopefully this gives you some insight into me as a person and a gamer, but if not, then you have a list of games written by someone here on the Internet. One of the more interesting aspects of writing these articles was seeing when games were originally published versus when I first played them. For instance, I did not realize that there was only a one year gap between when the first Final Fantasy was released on the NES in 1990 and Final Fantasy IV was changed to Final Fantasy II for the North American SNES release in 1991. I like information, even if I never make anything out of it, at least that nugget is tucked away somewhere in my brain now. I will say that I very much enjoyed these last two weeks, even if some years were agonizing as I seemingly chose one beloved game over another for no other reason than I happened to love that one just a little bit more than the other, but that is sometimes all it takes.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Stuck In All This Madness
I was kind of amused by the fact that I had only played two other games that were released in 2016, Pokémon GO and Cluster Truck. I played a couple of demos though, but I am not counting those since, well, they are demos and not a full game. I also decided to count Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS as a separate entry from the Wii U game that was released in 2015 since it is almost the same game, but operates differently in how various tools are gained and I know that people were upset about the lacking online features.
2017: Fire Emblem Heroes (February 2, 2017)
I do not know if this means anything or not, but I landed on Fire Emblem Heroes as my favorite game this year, mainly because I have realized that I have played no other game that was released this year. But what Fire Emblem Heroes has helped do, is rekindled my love of tactics games and introduced me to the games in the Fire Emblem franchise, sadly none of which I have played to this date. And because of how much fun I have had playing this game, I pre-ordered my first game (let alone 3DS game) since. . .The Elder Scrolls Online back in 2014. I would highly recommend this game if you have a smart phone, enjoy tactics games and don't plan/want to spend any money.
So that is where I will leave you all. 30.4% into 2017 and I have no idea how many games I will get to that were published in the last three years that could possibly change the standing of any of the games I have listed in this series. And there could even be games released back in the '80s and '90s (Like if I ever get around to finishing I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream) that could possibly topple one of my earlier choices.
Hopefully this gives you some insight into me as a person and a gamer, but if not, then you have a list of games written by someone here on the Internet. One of the more interesting aspects of writing these articles was seeing when games were originally published versus when I first played them. For instance, I did not realize that there was only a one year gap between when the first Final Fantasy was released on the NES in 1990 and Final Fantasy IV was changed to Final Fantasy II for the North American SNES release in 1991. I like information, even if I never make anything out of it, at least that nugget is tucked away somewhere in my brain now. I will say that I very much enjoyed these last two weeks, even if some years were agonizing as I seemingly chose one beloved game over another for no other reason than I happened to love that one just a little bit more than the other, but that is sometimes all it takes.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Stuck In All This Madness
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