My Game of the Year--2015

At the turn of the new year it's nice to look back and reflect on the year that was 2015.  When I think about the games I played in 2015 they were a mashup of many different genres.  The games that stand out to me fall into two distinct categories--RPG's and episodic story games.  It was an exciting year...PC gamers finally got to experience Grand Theft Auto V in all its splendor.  We also saw the expansion of episodic story games into many different areas.   I spent the year anxiously awaiting new entries into two very different story games--Life is Strange and Tales from the Borderlands.  Starcraft II saw it's last entry in the three part series with Legacy of the Void.  Fallout 4...well, it brought more Fallout to the world.  Yep, I played them all (and probably many more that I can't remember).  I enjoyed most of them and would definitely recommend them to other gamers, but they aren't my pick.

For me, one game really stood above all the others.  The Witcher 3:  Wild Hunt was such an enjoyable journey that I played it completely through (120+ hours?) and then immediately started another playthrough.  There are very few games out there that can hold my attention the way that The Witcher 3 did.  It's a game that just does so many things right.  I usually struggle with games that describe themselves as "open world."  Unless there's a good story that ties in with a huge, sweeping world it's easy to get bored very quickly (not to name any names *cough*Fallout 4*cough*).  The story and characters made it easy to spend hours riding around on Roach and investigating the monster infested countryside.  The world is gorgeously detailed (remember the whole "graphics downgrade" controversy?) which made you want to wander around and view all the scenic vistas.

Love him or hate him, the Bloody Baron is an interesting character.

The biggest strength of The Witcher 3 is it's brilliantly written characters.  These characters are memorable because they are highly flawed.  Most of them can't be lumped into groups of "good" or "bad" and you want to find out more about their stories.  The Bloody Baron is the best example of a very complex character.  In your quest to find Ciri you stumble across the leader of a mercenary band.  He acknowledges that yes, Ciri was at his castle, but draws you into his own plot and machinations.  Before long you find yourself mired down in an investigation into the disappearance of his wife and daughter.  As the story unravels you learn that the Baron is not the helpful savior that he initially appeared to be--he is a career soldier who has experienced many wars, he is a father who cares deeply for his daughter, he is a drunken fool who beats his wife--in short...he's human with all the flaws that stem from his good and bad decisions.  Even Geralt himself has very complicated motivations and his actions can be difficult to categorize as heroic or villainous.

Plus, there's Gwent.  The other Witcher games featured plenty of mini-games to provide some sidequest fun but nothing that compared the the card collecting mania that is Gwent.  Perfecting your Gwent game proved so much fun that I found myself neglecting whole quest lines to seek out the next gwent challenger or a certain vendor who sold cards.  Card games are a hot fad in gaming right now and adding gwent as a mini-game was perfect.

There were/are just so many things I love about The Witcher 3.  Cool cutscenes, highly detailed armor sets, challenging combat, memorable characters and places....no other game from 2015 drew me in quite like it did.

I think it's encouraging that the episodic story genre is growing and that other developers are entering the scene.  I genuinely enjoyed TellTale's Tales from the Borderlands and TellTale still holds a commanding lead as the developer that does episodic story games.  Dontnod entered into the fray with Life is Strange which wasn't perfect but was very emotionally captivating.  The old-school King's Quest franchise has also been reborn in episodic story fashion (I haven't played it yet, but have heard that people have enjoyed it.  Buyers need to beware because you cannot buy the entire series an episode at a time and must buy the entire collection in order to have access to the entire story.  As a consumer....this strategy sucks!  Some people have only discovered this after purchasing a single episode--the first episode was featured in the recent Steam Sale for only $.99).

There are several titles slated to come out in 2016 that I am looking forward to--notably Rise of the Tomb Raider (PC!) and XCOM 2.  Maybe 2016 will bring something even better than The Witcher 3?