Game of the Year 2015

Its that time of the year where I get to look back over the year and let you all know what my game of this year has been.

This has been a very difficult year to pick a single game as number one, there have been many excellent games released this year, and I think that shows the excellent work that the developers have done with their games. We have seen a lot of delays with games, but I think the extra polish that this time has given the games, has been worth it, and if this is what can happen with a few weeks to a few months delay, then i’m all for it.

As I said above, this has been a very difficult year to pick an outright winner, and I have picked my Game of the Year, and will give my explanation to this, but I want to go through some of the other games which have missed out.

Some of the games in contention for Joon’s Game of the Year are:
Forza Motorsport 6
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Batman Arkham Knight
Fallout 4
Destiny: The Taken King
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
Star Wars Battlefront
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
Halo V
Lego Dimensions
Lego Jurassic World
Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited
Dying Light
Evolve
The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

Well, the time has come for me to let you know which game I think is the Game of 2015. As you can see from the list above it has been a very good year for games, the quality of storytelling and game design has been excellent.

This is why I am not going to select a best game of the year. Every game I have played this year, has had its charms in one way or another. Whether it was from the visually stunning in Forza 6 and Rise of the Tomb Raider to the downright addictive in Elder Scrolls Online and The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt.

Every single game has brought something to someone, and not just the games I’ve listed above, if you think of the ID@Xbox Program and the games that has brought to us there is much quality out there that has been released this year.

I have to give credit to Ubisoft with their Assassin’s Creed franchise, when Unity came to us last year, it was a mess, there were bugs galore and the gameplay wasn’t smooth. They’ve come back fighting this year with Syndicate and have learnt from their mistakes last year, which is very refreshing to see, and i’m hoping that next year’s iteration (if there is one) builds on the work done on Syndicate and continues to take the franchise further, as it is one of my favourites to play.

One of my surprise packages for the year, and a game that I occasionally go back to every now and then to finish off the side missions and play some of the DLC is Dying Light. The trailers leading up to this game looked amazing, the whole premise of that the game was as brought across brilliantly, and for me this was an awesome game, I got hooked into the game and I think it only took me around 10/12 hours to finish the main story line. I am really hoping for a Dying Light 2 announcement at some point as I would love to see a second one of those. Until then I have the following DLC coming up which I can’t wait to get my hands on it as it seems like a brilliant expansion.

The changes that were made to Destiny for Year 2 and The Taken King expansion to be excellent, and the changes to certain areas such as XP and how light was used to be a lot more clearer than it previous was, and for me, this is how I felt it should have been released in the first place.

Another game I’m going to give credit to, and may get some stick for, it Treyarch and Call of Duty: Black Ops III. This year Treyarch decided to do a beta in the summer, just to get an idea of how the game was. Sure, they could have done this through internal testing, but decided that who better to test the game and give feedback than their community. I thought this was a fantastic way to get the game more balanced before launch. It was the first time a Call of Duty game has done this, and I hope that it continues with future releases, as my overall thought was that when the game launched it was in a far better position than it had been in previous years.

One game I was disappointed in when it launched was Star Wars Battlefront. The initial content for me seemed to be lacking, and I found it very confusing to navigate and understand. That could be down to me not being a Star Wars fan and lacking knowledge of it, but to me the game played and felt like a Battlefield game in Cosplay. I know that you don’t have to buy a season pass for a game and can enjoy the initial content on it, but if you wanted to get the most out of Star Wars Battlefront, you were going to have to stump up the cash to get the extra content, which for me is a no no. Why should I have to pay up to and maybe over £100 to enjoy a game to its fullest. I shouldn’t. This is why with games like Assassin’s Creed etc the season passes and DLC don’t bother me, because i’ve got plenty to play and do with the initial content to keep me happy. So to kind of force people’s hand to get the season pass or DLC I personally think it’s rotten business tactics.

There maybe people out there who have read this and thought it was a cop out answer, but it wasn’t, far from it, it was a celebration of all the gaming goodness that we have been brought this year by brilliant developers.

Every game is going to have its good and bads, that’s how it works, everything will have its up’s and down’s, that’s life, we just have to get on with it and know that our games are in the best possible hands, and be thankful for the age we live in.

So I urge you all to raise a glass with me and toast to the fantastic developers out there, the teams at Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo who have made this possible by bringing us fantastic consoles and everyone in between that’s made 2015 a fantastic year for gaming.