Top 10 Games of 2015

Honorable Mention

Let's be honest; Dying Light is more or less Dead Island 2 in all but name. Techland - developers of Dying Light and 2011's Dead Island - have learned from a lot of their prior game's mistakes and missteps, and Dying Light is the culmination of that. Take one look at this game and there's no mistake that it's woven from Dead Island's blood-soaked fabric but is sufficiently unique enough to avoid direct comparisons. Where Dead Island was over-the-top and campy, Dying Light is sinister and downtrodden. Where Dead Island was about finding new and interesting ways to smash zombies to pieces, Dying Light is about surviving.

It's not survival-horror necessarily, nor is it an all-out, balls-to-the-wall zombie kill-fest. It falls somewhere in-between the two, offering players a cohesive, interesting narrative, beautiful graphics, and a really innovative and enjoyable parkour mechanic. The parkour itself handles wonderfully. It's such a simple game play addition that changes the context and pacing of the game considerably. Dying Light strikes just the right balance between empowering players and making them feel genuinely vulnerable and fearful.

Until Dawn is to the horror genre what Heavy Rain was to the detective thriller. Although developed by Supermassive Games and not Quantic Dream, I wouldn't hold it against you if you weren't aware of that. Until Dawn is essentially a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. You, the player, will control a handful of characters over the course of a 10-hour story, guiding them through their own individual vignettes, successfully saving or killing them, and watching how the story plays out based on your decisions and actions.

I love movies, I love horror, and I love video games. Because of this, I loved Until Dawn. It takes the age-old horror cliche of a group of attractive young people stuck in the middle of nowhere with an ancient evil lurking in the shadows, picking them off one at a time, and puts you in the director's chair. It is both a tribute to horror films, as well as a slick, smart deconstruction of them and their tropes. What Scream was to slasher films, Until Dawn is to cabin-in-the-woods horror films. Aside from having a brilliantly twisty, turny, and well-told horror story, it's also sporting strong performances from its cast and gorgeous graphics. The many possibilities and decision combinations you can make also means there's plenty of replay value for your money.

To put it nicely, The Order: 1886 was not one of the critics' picks for 2015. The chief complaint was that it was too short and felt more like an interactive movie than a video game. All legitmate complaints and not without merit, but I don't care. The Order: 1886 knows exactly what it is and plays it to the hilt. What stands out most to me is the compelling story being told, one that takes place in Victorian era London with the new-age Knights of the Round Table (the titular Order) battling werewolves and the ever-impending threat of an all-out werewolf and vampire war bubbling just out of view of the general public.

It's such an awesome concept that Ready at Dawn obviously wanted to explore in future games. The foundation is here, and I want more of it. The Order: 1886 isn't everyone's cup of tea as the lukewarm public and professional reception proved. Its game play doesn't go far beyond watching a myriad of beautifully rendered cut scenes interspersed with very solid and well-paced third-person cover shooting throughout. While The Order: 1886's game play isn't breaking any new ground, it does what it does well. The Order: 1886 is backed by the kind of story I'd like to see more of in games. It's not a sequel, not a remake, not a reboot, and isn't derived from any previous works other than taking inspiration from real-life British history and literary fiction alike.

Mortal Kombat's storied rise and fall from grace has been well documented and isn't something I'm going to elaborate on here. Mortal Kombat 2011 got the franchise back where it needed to be; ultra-gory, ultra-fluid, and in glorious 2.5D. It was by far the best game in the series since Mortal Kombat II and revived it after dying a slow death at the hands of creator Ed Boon trying his damndest to transform his brutal 2D fighter into a 3D Tekken-like concoction. Boon stripped that 2011 title down to the bare essentials and totally renlivened the spirit of the games in the process.

Mortal Kombat X is more of the same, and not in a bad way. It carries over everything about the 2011 game that made it so much fun to play and simply adds more to it. More characters, more stages, more fatalities, the return of brutalities, a bigger and better story mode, and more single-player and online modes. The amount of content at your fingertips is overwhelming. Mortal Kombat X's fighting system remains largely unchanged, but that's just fine with me. It's not revolutionizing the series in any way, instead preferring to rely on its strengths and perfect what it's always been good at from the start: hilariously gory hand-to-hand combat.

Longtime Battlefield developers DICE sat out this particular entry. Visceral Games - developers of the Dead Space franchise - handled this promising, albeit misrepresented, spin-off title. This isn't a Battlefield game. There. It's been said. It's sporting ultra-pretty visuals courtesy of the always reliable Frostbite 3 engine and handles like any Battlefield game from 2011 on up, but that's about where the similarities stop. Hardline focuses on a different kind of war: the War on Drugs. Looking past the fact that this feels next to nothing like a Battlefield title outside of its base aesthetics, it's a well-made, compelling single-player experience in its own right.

You heard me right. While the Battlefield franchise has been the bread and butter of the online scene for years, Hardline feels a lot more like a single-player-focused affair with the multiplayer mode being more or less a cut and paste from past entries in the series. There's a lot more freedom here than we've seen from other Battlefield games with larger levels and a much heavier emphasis on stealth. You've got your prerequisite gunfights and car chases and double crosses - all the things you'd expect from a summer blockbuster cop thriller - delivered with admirable aplomb. It's big, it's bombastic, it's explosive, and it's one hell of a good time.

If this is to be Rocksteady's final Batman game, then the studio has gone out with a bang. Since Arkham Asylum, they've only gotten better. Arkham Knight is far and away the best title in their Arkham series due in no small part to the inclusion of the fan favorite Batmobile and a deftly written, engrossing story. Tear-assing through the streets of Gotham in Batman's signature vehicle is just plain, unadulterated fun. The campaign offers up some of the most impressively designed missions in the entire Arkham franchise, while the titular Arkham Knight himself - created solely for this game - proves himself to be the formidable yin to Batman's yang.

Truth be told, Arkham Knight won't be converting any non-fans. What we're given otherwise is absolutely incredible. Nearly every aspect of Arkham Knight is just about perfect, from pacing, to villains, to storytelling technique, all the way up to the big action set pieces and the inevitable conclusion. However, it looks and plays an awful lot like Rocksteady's previous two titles, and that's about the only thing truly wrong with it as a whole. Pervasive similarities aside, it does indeed end the series on a remarkably high note. Arkham Knight is a big, sprawling Batman sandbox that sustains its exuberant zeal throughout its duration.

2013's Tomb Raider reboot was a surprise commercial and critical success. What was once an innovative, paradigm-shifting platformer/shooter/puzzler had become a clunky and dated shadow of its former self. Sony's Uncharted series, which debuted its first entry, Drake's Fortune, in 2007, put the long-running Tomb Raider franchise to bed by succeeding in every way that franchise was failing. Given that, Tomb Raider's 2013 reboot was, unsurprisingly, very derivative of the Uncharted franchise. Tomb Raider's ace in the hole though was that, if Uncharted was a lighthearted PG-13 summer blockbuster, Tomb Raider was the gritty R-rated actioner that took itself seriously.

Rise of the Tomb Raider isn't a reinvention of the 2013 title, but rather a continuation of it. If you didn't like that game, you won't like this one. As expected, the scope of the game is bigger and the graphics are staggering, but the biggest improvements come in the form of bigger environments with multiple side tasks to complete, a better narrative, and more varied combat. The wow factor isn't quite there, however, since this isn't the surprise rebooting the 2013 game was, but just further refinement to the prior title's alredy established formula.

Personally, I was a fan of 2014's generally unliked Assassin's Creed: Unity. Not only was it quite the looker, but it brought back something I feel has been sorely lacking in current-gen Assassin's Creed games: a front-and-center emphasis on assassinations. Syndicate, on the other hand, doesn't share a lot of similarities with Unity other than running on the same iteration of the AnvilNext engine and that aforementioned focus on killing both stylishly and stealthily. Syndicate introduces - for the first time in the franchise's history - dual protagonists; brother and sister Edward and Evie Frye. What sounds like such a gimmicky concept ends up being the shot in the arm the series needs.

The missions are by and largely excellent. Because you have two assassins at your disposal at (mostly) any given time, missions are designed to be approached stealthily or just slashing and gashing everything in sight. Edward is the brawn, Evie is the brains, but each is adept at assault or sneaking. No one way feels particularly canon, so you're not penalized for going in and laying waste to every enemy in the area. If you were a fan of Unity's customization, then you're in luck; it's back in Syndicate with a vengeance. Edward and Evie are fully upgradeable with a bevy of abilities, tools, and weapons that can be purchased and upgraded as you play. In typical Assassin's Creed fashion, side activities are overwhelmingly plentiful. They're also lots of fun. Unfortunatley, the main story isn't all that great, but the characters are memorable and the mission design & structure is superb.

No surprise that this is on the list, huh? Fallout 4 is the best Fallout game ever made. Period. What you've come to expect from Bethesda is all here, perfected and in large quantities. A quality main quest, deep, varied side quests, lots of loot, gear to collect, places to explore, and things to discover. I had so much fun with this game and, for me personally, it is the pinnacle of the Fallout franchise. That doesn't mean that it's flawless, however. The engine is dated, for example. Also, despite the four in the title, it feels a lot like an extra polished, prettier, and better playing Fallout 3. Thankfully, Fallout 3 is essential, so I'd say that by association so is Fallout 4.

It's not reinventing the wheel, and that is definitely going to irk some folks. Bethesda have found a winning formula, one that fits in nicely with current-gen gaming standards, so there wasn't much need to shift things around and scrub out the kinks. Despite Fallout 3's technical problems (it's Bethesda, after all), it's still an impressively atmospheric, fun, and addicting game play experience nine years on. More of that isn't a bad thing, and Fallout 4 has plenty to offer.

Not a big Metal Gear Solid fan. I've tried my hand at them but just couldn't get past the seemingly infinite number of cut scenes, convoluted stories, and flat-out weirdness of them. I can recognize that they're great games for the audience they serve, but I'm just not the kind of gamer they're meant for. I wasn't looking forward to The Phantom Pain. Not really. Not the way an ardent fan of the franchise would be. The trailers, screenshots, and interviews were all very promising, but this was Metal Gear Solid we're talking about. What a shocker, then, that it ended up being one of my favorite titles of 2015.

Ditching the linear story-driven model of the other games in favor of an open-world sandbox game that encourages player autonomy worked wonders for the series. The combat is satisfying, the graphics are beautiful, and the game play as a whole is just so fun and well-rounded. Kojima, running true to form, can't stay all that grounded, though. One minute you're crawling through tall grass, taking out enemy soldiers with a silenced pistol and hiding their bodies, and the next you're running from a small floating child wearing an oversized shirt and a gas mask with telekinetic abilities. Much of that trademark weirdness has been toned down for the most part, replaced with pitch perfect stealth action and a sprawling, epic story spanning a multitude of different locations. In short, it works. I'm not sure how the core fans felt about these changes, but this casual player became a fan because of them.

CD Projekt Red began their Witcher saga some 10 years ago as nothing more than a tiny little blip on the radar. Oh, what their RPG series has become in the years since. The Witcher III: Wild Hunt is their biggest and most ambitious title yet, as well as the supposed final game in the series. And what an exit it is. Everything about Wild Hunt is A1 quality. The graphics are superb, the story is incredible, the characters are especially memorable, and the sheer amount of things to do, places to explore, and sights to see is mind-boggling.

In so many ways, The Witcher III is like the penultimate RPG. This could seriously be the last fantasy RPG ever made and it would scratch every itch one could have. Anything and everything that you'd want or expect to see in this type of game is there and done marvelously. The main plot is fantastic, the subplots are utterly engrossing, and the game overall has so much to say and so many themes to explore. It's also incredibly long. If you're fond of longwinded, absurdly lengthy RPGs, The Witcher III was made for you.