I swear half of these awards I'd have accidentally given to Firewatch if I'd not played this just in time - it actually beats Firewatch for dialogue and acting. Best Dialogue, Best Acting, Best Animations, Best Sarcasm, Best Use Of A Radio, Best Use Of Player Choice. It's a game so completely stunning that I want to start an awards ceremony so I can start handing them out to it. I am just bowled away by how utterly brilliant this game is. Wow, I wish I hadn't, because I'd have spent the entire advent calendar planning time yelling at everyone that it should be right near the top. I don't know how or why I missed it, especially after Pip's review, but I think I ended up mislabeling the game in my brain and forgetting about it. I didn't play Oxenfree until this holiday. The game is currently a ridiculously tiny £1.31 in the Steam Winter Sale. It's stunning, preternaturally cruel, and at one point turns into a text adventure. There's a curse to releasing too early in January (I guess devs think the release schedule looks clear and it'll get them more attention - there's a reason it's clear: your game will be forgotten by February), but Pony Island has stayed with me despite this. Chuck in some eloquent Brechtian Estrangement, meta commentary on the nature of meta commentary, and repeatedly changing direction without warning.
OXENFREE PERFECT ENDING CODE
It's another layer to its multiple deceptions, the code screens themselves closer to an 80s Spectrum game than anything requiring three years training in C++. I was really worried Pony Island would do that too when I saw those screens of code, but if you're with me on this, fear not. Coding puzzles have been everywhere, and invariably lose me minutes in when it becomes apparent that a penchant for programming languages that I'll never gain is necessary for pursuing progress. Along the way it messes you about, from its opening muddle of broken menus to its complete collapse at a code level, incessantly throwing ideas at you while making you feel really fucking uncomfortable.Ģ015-16 has been drowned in games unwittingly made by developers for other developers, where their own passion for the crafting of a game is conflated with the player's interest in playing it. What it really is, is a battle for your soul. Pony Island is, on a surface level that it barely even shows, a game about jumping a cute ponycorn over some white sticks. And in a year of so many very smart games, few were. Because I wasn't really sure how any game was going to be smarter. I called Pony Island " the smartest game of 2016" back on January 5th.
Just to note, I've put links to the games' Steam sales for each entry, which has ended up making me worry people might think there's shenanigans here - I just want to make clear we have no referral deal with Steam (they don't do them), so that's purely my saying, "LOOK! Great game is cheap atm!"Īll that said, gosh, here are some good games. (What about the missing advent games? It's the democratic nature of the calendar that sees such worthy games not qualify into the top 24 - take it up with Horace.) And just as the advent calendar leaves people screaming, "BUT WHAT ABOUT DARK SOULS 3/STAR DEW VALLEY/SUBNAUTICA?", even making my own list leaves me wanting to shout such remarks at myself. Nelly Cootalot was hilarious.Īnd then there are the games I now feel guilty for not listing even here! We are spoilt for entertaining games, is my point. I spent a ridiculous number of hours playing The Division this year. There was a superb single-player mission in Titanfall 2, even if I think it perhaps stood out more due to its sheer competence in an incompetent genre. Owlboy reminded me of the joy of playing the first Mario & Luigi game on DS. I loved Kathy Rain for instance, as much for what I thought it did well as for where I disagreed with its choices. It's worth adding, even here there are games missed off that were fantastic in 2016. Still though, it leaves me wanting to say, "But! But there are THESE games too!" So below is my list of my favourite games of 2016, far less useful to far fewer readers, but goodness me, a collection of games that deserve adulation. And because it's driven by nothing other than what we've all enjoyed that year is equally likely to be filled with the tripliest of As and the most obscure of indies. It makes for a list that's far more broad and useful to the largest number of readers. They're a compromise between us all, an erratic, uncoordinated vote where consensus sees games of real worth rising to the top and filling our annual advent calendar. One of my favourite things about end of year lists on RPS is they never match the personal list of any individual writer.
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