My 2017 in Games

It's Christmas next week!! Which means your social media will be filled with 'best of the year' lists, in between Star Wars debates, Donald Trump and cat gifs. I want to join in, mainly so I can talk in a sensible, reserved and unbiased manner about how Nintendo have created actual magic and changed my life forever...


Yeah ok, I do love me some Nintendo but I promise I'll talk about other games too. Should also point out that I haven't played all of 2017s releases because I'm not doing this for a fricking living. I haven't even bought a game since the end of October, which in internet time was a lifetime ago.

I started the year playing Christmas and birthday presents, so sorry to bore you with talk of 2016 games... Ratchet and Clank was a fun and technically pretty charmer. Dishonored 2 was superb and the only game I've played through twice this year. The level design is second to none and the toolkit of powers it gives you encourages investigation and experimenting in each perfect playground.

Lets cut right to March time and a big ol' paragraph on the tiny release that was the Nintendo Switch. I've said it in about five other blogs and I'll repeat it till my keyboard battering fingers fall off, I bloody love this machine. The shape of it, the speed of it, the ease with which I can play two player Mario Kart on a train... and of course, the games.

Zelda is my game of the year. There was that one weekend in which I doubted it, caused by a binge play of Mario Odyssey, but I've been revisiting Hyrule in the past week and it is just magnificent. No game matches it for sense of exploration. It takes the open world design and removes the usual map markers to leave you just going. Go up there, go over that way, go anywhere you want. You will find something. It's a huge and incredibly detailed world that can be tackled anyway you want. It manages to be both charming and challenging and it somehow recreated the same sense of awe that I hadn't truly felt in a game since I was about 14 and playing Ocarina of Time. It is has overtaken that now as my favourite game of any year ever.

It did have some blooming competition though. Mario Odyssey is weirdly similar in that it asks you to poke around and discover new joys. It's more condensed however with the power moons (the games reward/currency) being crammed in to every nook and cranny. You'll be jumping platforms on your way to one moon before dressing up a pirate for another then turning in a stack of ten Goombas in order to impress a lady. It's a non-stop grin fest of creative genius.

Enough Nintendo? Ok then... Horizon was pretty good eh? I t took me a little while to really get in to it, but when I did I fell in love. The combat in that game, taking down robotic versions of wildlife and dinosaurs, is thrilling and rewarding in a sense barley matched in a game of that size. I completed a bunch of the unnecessary side quests just because they usually led to a fight and those fights never got dull. The games narrative was the biggest surprise though in that it somehow made robot wildlife in an empty world make sense. It also presented us with the one of the best leading characters this generation, the feisty and committed Aloy.

If narrative is your thing then I can't recommend strongly enough the beauty that is What Remains of Edith Finch. It takes you through the stories of a family who have nearly all passed away and with each one we are presented with changes in gameplay and visuals. From a cell-shaded walk through a horror comic, to being a baby in a bath or out with your dad in the hills getting photography lessons. It is a short experience but filled with ideas and carefully crafted moments. I've no shame in saying my eyes watered twice. There is little as moving as having to do something you don't want to do, of having to push the buttons that will create a result you don't want to see. Damn you game, I'm thinking about that scene again...

I played a lot of games this year and I can't write a paragraph for each. I've really enjoyed Splatoon 2 and ARMS on Switch. Both have kept me coming back due the constant free updates Nintendo treat us to. I liked Shadow of War for its core basics and nemesis system but the mission structure was weak and it got a little repetitive.  I'm getting Nier for Christmas and I'm excited by its regular occurrences on everyone else's end of year lists. Haven't played any of the big FPS games or Persona or Assassins Creed because I just don't have the time or money. All are supposed to be great though so my January and February should be pretty fun.


In summary: 2017 was an utterly brilliant year for this hobby. Barely know what's coming next year but Spider-Man should be on a similar blog post around this time in 2018. Maybe Metroid? Please give me Metroid. Till then its back to Zelda.