VideoGames posted:

Feeling the same way. Please, just add three more games, or number the ones you did not, please. Please.

Play posted:

I feel like all this commotion is just revealing the undeniable truth: that MMOs should be banned from the GOTY lists

Escobarbarian posted:

Speaking as a non-FFXIV player separating the expansions doesn’t really seem to me to make any sense at all?

Tosk posted:

Does anyone have a link or convenient reference for the last few iterations of this thread? I've picked up a lot of interesting new titles from reading this one.

Jerusalem posted:

I was so thrilled the year Sekiro won.... well, in my heart at least, even though the thread accidentally mixed things up and swapped its place with Disco Elysium (also a great game!)

Jerusalem posted:

Monster Hunter World was so great, I feel bad for never "finishing" it.

punk rebel ecks posted:

"Weak year" more often than not simply means "I primarily game on Playstation or Xbox." Nintendo and PC platforms had plenty of quality titles.

Escobarbarian posted:

drat that’s a loving good list. Really glad you loved Cyberpunk even if you hated Panam like an IDIOT I might be mistaking you for another goon, apologies if so

fridge corn posted:

Super list and write-up as usual BP. Our lists share 3 games in common! I'm gonna have to start writing mine up soon if I'm gonna have it posted by tomorrow

veni veni veni posted:

Also I just straight up forgot Diablo 2 on my list. I'd have bumped any of my last 4 off there and swapped it out I just totally spaced it lol. It'd be number 6 though

Rarity posted:

I'm a last minute voter type of girl

DemoneeHo posted:

Rarity posted:

My list is 60% written so its on its way

punk rebel ecks posted:

Do you want me to post my few years old "Top 100 Video Games of All-Time" post?

punk rebel ecks posted:

Here you go.

Here is it on NeoGaf in case Medium.com acts dumb: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-top-100-greatest-video-games-of-all-time-imo.1345553/

cheetah7071 posted:

AA and high-production value indies own

punk rebel ecks posted:

I agree that quality gaming isn't within the AAA space anymore (for the most part).

But if I made the list today people will be like: "Where is Fallout 4? Assassin's Creed: Valhalla? Fortnite?" These are the types of titles I largely ignore because they simply don't interest me. The only "major" cultural titles that aren't first party efforts that I've played is Call of Duty: Warzone, which I found to be mediocre.

fridge corn posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27pjs17sODc

fridge corn posted:

I honestly can't remember. Somewhere in the middle? I kept meaning to get back into it, but I never did. Guess were all waiting for a sequel now

VideoGames posted:

The Last of Us II

I played this back to back with TLOU and in every way possible this is the better game but only because of the foundation provided by the first game. Having seen the full story and learned all that it wants to tell me; I am stunned.

Somehow, despite being a mod of a busy Games forum, I was unaware of anything that happened in this game or the first.

I am truly glad for that because the narrative I experienced has been one of the most emotionally puncturing, resounding, distressing and hopeful that I have ever experienced. If the TLOU was about learning to reconnect then TLOUII was the opposite and learning to let go. It is a revenge tale but one with protagonists who are not cliches and can both be excused and understood for their actions due to 'The Sins of the Father'.

Ellie and Abby are victims of their father figures whose misdeeds and mistakes spur both on horrible quests in an effort to atone for things neither had a part of.

This game is a tragedy and it is told phenomenally.

TLOU was great, but it ended in such a way that I genuinely could not conceive of what a sequel could be. I thought the stories told were at a satisfactory end and I was content with that.

Looking at the box art, all I could ascertain about Part II was that Ellie looked extremely angry. Returning to it after the fact, I can see more than just anger in her face. I see the anguish and pain and I see her hopelessness.

To discuss the visuals; the game looks phenomenal. At various points in time I feel like I am watching real life. The attention to detail in both the look of the game and animation is unsurpassed. From start to finish I had my breath taken away by the visuals. Every aspect of the game is ND pushing the system to the limits. This does also mean that when it is brutal, it is harrowing. So many times I was taken by surprise and had to look away from the screen. All the way to the end I was gasping and half closing my eyes at what might happen next. This is an affecting game but as mentioned earlier, the story is where everything truly has the greatest impact.

The ending of this game left me unable to properly render words. I stammered and short circuited because I was overwhelmed. Very few games stick a landing so hard where I feel such a strong sense of completion, and here I experienced a powerful story with a lot to say that fully resonated.

I would place it alongside Nier:Automata in that it is something I only ever wish to experience once and have that playthrough as my ultimate memory of the game. Even if they release a TLOU III I will not go back to either this or the first game.

Ellie, after Left Behind, was my favourite female protagonist. Maybe my favourite protagonist ever. Going into this, she remained that way all the way up to a certain point and can I just say I have never been so worried for a fictitious character as I was her.



I was happy to leave it in the farm house. She had a life and love and she was on the road to starting to get better. Then Tommy comes along and knowing how much she is struggling with a deep loss, guilt and PTSD puts her sense of loyalty towards the one person who saved her over the world and uses them to make her give up everything she had somehow won.

I got so angry at him and so upset for her. I was genuinely worried. Someone on stream asked me 'Is Ellie redeemable' and obviously I like to believe everyone is and can be. There was a caveat though: If she killed Abby then she would have fully crossed a line that would have hurt me, especially after Abby let her go twice.

Up to the end of Day 3 everything that Ellie and Abby went through was understandable from both their points of views. They were both victims doing the wrong things because the world in which they were born into is a hideous mess of war and murder.

Joel, Tommy and Jerry were born before the infection. All three of them should know better and let them down drastically. Joel via his fatherly love for Ellie but dooming of finding a cure, Jerry by ignoring his hippocratic oath out of a desire to be the saviour of mankind and Tommy by preying on a young girl's severely damaged mental state. Goodness. You get why Joel and Jerry did what they did, even if you might oppose it. In this horrendous world these kinds of things happen. A desire to save everyone and a desire to save just one. They are mistakes made while hoping to do good.

Tommy though. Yikes. He came in and broke up a happy family for spite and revenge and continuing this destructive cycle that had claimed so many lives.

Switching the game to Abby midway through originally made me feel like the story had suddenly lurched back to the start but I have to say, the way it made me replay those three days and grow to find her to be just as compelling as Ellie was a risky move that worked out phenomenally. I originally did not want to play as her. Seeing what she did to Joel and how upset she made Ellie made me feel just as taken in as Joel must have near the end of his segment. I did not want to 'be' her and I wanted to see Ellie's story through. As I played through Abby's story though, everything slowly fell into place and you come to understand that in another time these two could have been good friends. Abby is not the monster Ellie sees, she has just done a monstrous thing for personal reasons just like Ellie.

I really grew to love Abby and felt so awful for her as the days went on. She essentially mirrors Joel from the first game in destroying an entire group just to save a loved one. She also grew to understand the fact that revenge does not make things better and this is why she twice left Ellie alive and even at the very end, emaciated and still trying to save Lev, she was going to let Ellie kill her. I mean man.

The moments where you, as Abby, were hunted by Ellie really hit home how much of a vengeful demon Ellie had truly become. She was terrifying and her unbridled anger issues were something Joel mentioned during the museum scene.

I was so, so happy that Ellie let Abby go. It was the right thing to do. She should never have been there in the first place, but she saved Abby and Lev without realising it. She let go of Joel and the painful memory and she was reminded of the good memory. Abby took her chance at a reconciliation away from Joel but there is nothing more Ellie can do to bring that back. It is gone forever and killing Abby does nothing to change that. Her only choice is to let go of Joel and let go of Abby.

Yes, this is a bleak game, but not all of the time and there are some truly joyous emotional beats that rival the Giraffe scene from the first game.

The acoustic version of A-ha's Take on Me was stunning and when it clicked what she was singing I was over the moon.

The museum scene is THE greatest scene in this game. Hands down from start to finish it is perfect. Every last section of the museum and dialogue of that event is a masterpiece. Ashley and Troy knock it out of the stratosphere and I feel enriched for being able to take part in it (as weird as that may sound).

Abby got the most intense action set pieces though, the royal rat authority scene had my heart pounding and me flailing around. The horseback through Haven scene as well was a mix of worry and awe at the surrounding area - some serious standouts in terms of visual prowess with the way that fire moved.

Then there is the epilogue. Ellie tries to play the guitar again and she cannot. She can, however, finally think of Joel as something other than a battered and bleeding mess.

That last memory with Joel where they both agree they will try to get past his choice I am just in awe and love with it. So much said with so little. Firstly if they had ended it after Ellie said 'Okay' with an upbeat tone I would have loved it in an incredible mirror to the first games 'Okay'.

Secondly that she went years before properly talking to him, making that last moment with him positive (despite what happens to him the next day final) was sorely needed. It provided the smallest bit of closure for me.

Thirdly I knew he would not be an awful homophobic dad. I said it as much way earlier in the game when they were looking for guitar strings that she should tell Joel and he would be OK with it. I knew it.

Fourthly when he says he would do it all over again that is when it truly hit me just how much of a Dad he is to Ellie. That is also the moment when she realises too. She wanted to die and wanted to mean something and Joel stating to her face for the first time she is properly speaking to him in years that what he did hurt her, and that him doing it led to where they are, and that he still confidently says he would do it again. Goodness. She gets it, we get it, he always got it. He might as well be her Dad.



I am so, so glad I played these back to back. In a way they are not really sequels, they are one long story and it is one that suckered me in wholly.

I shall be thinking of this game a lot in the years to come and the impact both have had have left an indelible mark on my heart.

Kull the Conqueror posted:

1. The Last of Us Part II (2020): This year sees me in the midst of my second play through of Naughty Dog’s latest earth-shaking entry into mainstream games discourse. The narrative is even more emotionally potent when you can see the full arc of it developing; there’s also a lot of incredible little story details I didn’t notice on my first go. And the gameplay, hoo. When you finish a nonlinear sequence, whether you stealth your way through everyone or things went bad and you had to go Rambo, at the end it still feels like the whole thing was choreographed, like you’re making the movie as you go along. It’s magical. They tell me I gotta get a PS5 but TLOU2 still makes me feel like I already arrived in the next gen.

Sir_Phobos posted:

7. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
I finally played all the way through this game recently, and man, it's got some frustrating sections as you'd expect from a classic Castlevania game, but it's also got a ton of charm. There's something wonderful about PC-Engine CD and Sega CD games with those animated pixel art intros and cutscenes, because they were exploring a new medium and working with what they had by using redbook audio and voice acting to create something impressive to people who were only familiar with SNES and Genesis games. I love the movement options that Maria and Richter have, and if you can get past the old-school difficulty hurdle, I think it's worth checking out 100%.


5. Contra: Hard Corps
I played the Japanese version (which gives you 3 hit points per life), so I wasn't able to read any of the dialogue, but I still had a great time. I wasn't aware that it has so many boss fights; it almost seems like an early version of Alien Soldier with such short levels, which I really appreciate. I'm a big proponent of games that are short and sweet, and this definitely fits the bill. It also has branching paths through the stages depending on what dialogue options you select, along with multiple endings, and four selectable characters that each have their own set of weapons. Very feature-rich, highly recommended.

Jay Rust posted:

Sadly ffxiv is not a game, it’s an mmorpg (the “g” in “mmorpg” stands for “groin”)

Jerusalem posted:

I'm sure there are helpful people out there and all that, but I can't relax/enjoy myself playing games if there are random other people involved, unless it's a close friend/partner and we're in the room together it just stresses me out. That's absolutely a me problem, but the brief time I spent loving about in WoW really soured me on any kind of MMO experience, it feels more like work than having fun.

Octatonic posted:

Does anyone have a link to the previous GoTY threads? I missed out on last year's, and I didn't see links in the OPs.