Best and Worst of 2015 Game Awards

[bdoughty]

Best Overall:

Top spot is an easy one with Fallout 4. The addition of crafting and building were terrific. Better gunplay and while the vaults were underwhelming the exploring never is.

Honorable Mention: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, Destiny Taken King DLC and Dying Light


Best Sports game:

It came out in mid December of 2014 but Super Mega Baseball is my number one. Most enjoyable baseball game in some time. With better defense, more teams and customization the sequel would be out of this world. Best pitching interface ever. Batting is easy use but difficult to master once you move the EGO up to 50. Would prefer a zone batting option.

Honorable Mention: Rocket League, FIFA 16


Worst of 2015

Top spot goes to: Social Justice Warriors in gaming. Just shut up. Linkle, see what you did there. Nintendo made a female Link and named it Linkle. Just make every game have the option to play as a boy or girl, anything to shut these people up.

Not so honorably mentioned:

The state of Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR at release. Devs really deserved another six months to a year. Shame on you Peter Moore.
Lack of a Tennis game.
The combat in Witcher 3.
Everybody walks slowly to the rapture, to do nothing while dealing with a horrible framerate.
Sony and MS for allowing games like Just Cause 3 to be released in the state it was. Quality control?

[baseballplyrmvp]

What was wrong with the combat in The Witcher 3?

[bdoughty]

What was wrong with the combat in The Witcher 3?

Mind you it has been many months since I have played this but I recall the following.

Switching signs was a pain.
Did not care for the oils/weapons concept. Learning what oils worked against what, plus which sign to use. Required too much research on bestiality. ;)
The movement was really janky, though I recall it might have been fixed by an update?
Slash and roll, slash and roll. Like Zelda, minus the fun of the dungeons.

When it comes to fighting with a swords I actually prefer the simplicity of Skyrim, Elder Scrolls Online (until the special attacks using buttons became more important for survival) or even Dying Light's combat system.

I wanted to love Witcher 3, with the vast lands to explore and numerous quests to spend a hundred or so hours on. It is what I look for in a game but if the combat simply does not work for me, time is better spent elsewhere.

[Rudy]

I'm getting Witcher 3 over the holidays. I hope I enjoy the combat. Too bad those RPG games don't focus a little more on the combat controls. A game like Mordor was a blast. The biggest strength of the Witcher 3 is supposed to be a great main story AND meaningful side quests unlike DAI and the overly useless fetch quests. That game would have been better if it was shorter. Played that for over 100 hours in the summer and it could have been 50-60 easy.

I tried the Super mega baseball demo and I did like that pitching interface. It was new, fresh and fun. But I need real teams.

[CLW]

Best Game of 2015 - Until Dawn (honorable mention to Rocket League)

Worst Game of 2015 - Madden (due to its completely unplayable Franchise mode)

[steelerfan]

Best: MLB 15 The Show, FIFA 16, Star Wars Battlefront

I'd like to put Rocket League in this category but I won't because, just as I suspected after its release, it has no staying power. You play it for a couple weeks and you move on.

Worst: Madden (and I didn't even play it)



As per usual, my opines in this realm have to be taken with a grain of salt because I simply do not play many games.

[Rudy]

I have to go back and think about worst and best games I have played this year. I don't think I played a game that I felt was just flat out awesome. Definitely some fun games. Madden's bugs were a big disappointment.

[baseballplyrmvp]

Mind you it has been many months since I have played this but I recall the following.

Switching signs was a pain.
Did not care for the oils/weapons concept. Learning what oils worked against what, plus which sign to use. Required too much research on bestiality. ;)
The movement was really janky, though I recall it might have been fixed by an update?
Slash and roll, slash and roll. Like Zelda, minus the fun of the dungeons.

When it comes to fighting with a swords I actually prefer the simplicity of Skyrim, Elder Scrolls Online (until the special attacks using buttons became more important for survival) or even Dying Light's combat system.

I wanted to love Witcher 3, with the vast lands to explore and numerous quests to spend a hundred or so hours on. It is what I look for in a game but if the combat simply does not work for me, time is better spent elsewhere.

Switching signs was a pain? I liked the simplicity of it. To each his own though.

There was only one oil that I used and that was against one of the last bosses in the game. Other than that, I never used them. I'll agree with the bestiality/library thing. Was a pain to get into and find the monster.

I did like the variety of weapons in skyrim. It seemed like every sword offered the same perks. There could have been a lot of other unique weapons in the game. I thought the combat improved with button pushing once you unlocked certain abilities later in the game (holding down X gives this huge spinning attack...really cool)

I get your point though and I do agree with most of it. I still liked the game and the story was awesome. i got pissed as hell though when Yen and Triss pulled that prank on me. Oh that wasn't cool at all.

[JBHuskers]

I can't give Madden a worst game of the year because the gameplay is really good.

Best of the year is definitely Fallout 4 for me.

Honorable mentions are Star Wars Battlefront for the pure amount of great game modes and good gunplay. Only gripe is I wish there was an in-depth advancement and leveling up system with the guns.

Another honorable mention is Batman Arkham Knight. It was par for the course for Rocksteady and the addition of the Batmobile was a great one.

Another is Elder Scrolls: Online. I haven't gotten as much time with it as I want, but I still have put in a lot of hours. As a big fan of the series, I was happy with this game.

Give another honorable mention to Bloodborne, this game is fun and brutally hard just like the Demon Souls games.

Best PSN game goes to Super Mega Baseball, so fun and became a huge hit. Penarium is a close 2nd. It's like Super Meat Boy meets The Running Man in an old school 2D platform.

Underrated game of the year is Driveclub because of the disastrous launch, but it turned out to be a great racing game.

My favorite sports game this year is NBA Live 16. The game play is better than the previous best in Live 10, the addition of Summer Circuit and Live Run were great and run well. Just wish more people knew about it.

Surprise game of the year is Rocket League. I had zero expectations for this and it turned out to be such a blast with one-player or others.

Disappointing game of the year is Pure Hold'Em, was really hoping for an in-depth tournament system, or at least a ton of trophies to chase after like Pure Pool had, and it had neither.

[Rudy]

I'd like to try Bloodborne but the sheer difficulty and frustration to repeat areas would drive me crazy.

There's just something about Fallout 4 that isn't sucking me in. I'll have to give it a try in the distant future but the futuristic aspect of it doesn't entice me.

[souljahbill]

Here's something amusing. I wont be able to play my GotY until Christmas Day (Xenoblade Chronicles X). I've only bought 3 games this year (Splatoon, Animal Crossing:Amiibo Festival, and Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer). I've spent most of the year playing games from previous years (NCAA Football 14, Mass Effect series, Fire Emblem Awakening, Animal Crossing New Leaf, and Xenoblade Chronicles).

[bdoughty]

Completely forgot about Pure Hold'Em, it was really bad. Also left of Ubisofts version of Risk.

[bdoughty]

Since Pure Holdem was mentioned, there is a new Poker Casino MMO out on the PS4 and is free. Downloaded it (6gb) but have yet to try it. Has a ton of different games available, including Texas Hold Em.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/the-four-kings-casino-and-slots-ps4/


Edit: Do not recommend this. 15 minutes of a stuttery/jittery mess and that was mostly spent in the character creator. It's an amateur production at best, with excessive loading times to boot. Played two hands of blackjack and it was deleted.

[CLW]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us_aq8NQLOA

[CLW]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBVM5nzqKLY

[Rudy]

I like those Francis reviews. My one pet peeve is that he says "ultimately" too much.

[bdoughty]

Congrats to Ubisoft for getting this trailer in, just in the nick of time. Worst Trailer of 2015 for plenty of reasons. One being the live action part (waste of money), another the lyric changes are horrible and the rest you can see for yourself.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MGrnvx8NiE

[Rudy]

That wasn't good. Using silent night wasn't a good idea and we didn't even get real game footage.

[steelerfan]

Yeah, that was dumb.

[souljahbill]

Here's something amusing. I wont be able to play my GotY until Christmas Day (Xenoblade Chronicles X). I've only bought 3 games this year (Splatoon, Animal Crossing:Amiibo Festival, and Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer). I've spent most of the year playing games from previous years (NCAA Football 14, Mass Effect series, Fire Emblem Awakening, Animal Crossing New Leaf, and Xenoblade Chronicles).

Ok, so I hit the nail right on the head. I didn't even play 5 total games that were released in 2015. I'll do my top 3 of games released in 2015 and I'll do my top 5 of games released in 2015 or earlier but I never played them until this year.

Games released in 2015 only

3) Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival
2) Splatoon
1) Xenoblade Chronicles

Games released in 2015 and games released before 2015 but never played until this 2015

5) Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival
4) Splatoon
3) Game of Thrones (TellTale)
2) Xenoblade Chronicles
1) Xenoblade Chronicles X

[Rudy]

Not so honorably mentioned:

The combat in Witcher 3.


Have to agree with this after 15 hours. It's just hit and dodge, rinse and repeat with mixing in a magic sign. It's not very fun. I initially thought it would be cool but I just didn't look forward to fighting in this game because it was boring to me.

I'd rather replay DAI with a different class than continue with the Witcher 3 at this point.