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The New Yorker: The Best Video Games of 2015

T

Tripon

Member
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/best-video-games-2015


When I was growing up, in the South London of the early nineteen-nineties, my local video-game store, Mad Andy’s, had enough space on its shelves to stock every new release. We young patrons may not have been able to afford more than a game a month on our paper-round wages—this was before the coffee-shop plague, when “barista” was merely what people from Birmingham called lawyers—but we were allowed to try them out on Andy’s fourteen-inch television, which dangled in a corner. If we wanted to splurge and take one home for the weekend, there was always Blockbuster. By December, we had played most of the annual crop.

No more. Anyone who claims to have sampled a majority of this year’s new games is either a liar or a shut-in. Each day, new titles appear on Steam, the foremost digital shop for P.C. games. On the equivalent stores for smartphone systems, experimental gems jostle for attention beside Candy Crush knockoffs and Clash of Clans wannabes. Who has time to pan these releases, especially when today’s games so often eschew traditional endings for the steady I.V. drip of new chapters, characters, and upgrades?

The democratization of game development, hastened by the availability of tools such as Unity and GameMaker, has swelled the number of annual releases to unchartable proportions. This is theoretically positive, in that it encourages a diversity of both creators and creations, broadening the medium’s scope and variety. And yet video games remain, principally, conservative and iterative. They advance mainly along the narrow axes of graphics and technology, rarely in theme. Expanding bulk has not been matched with expanding variety. Critics and players, in the main, go along with the pretense of progress. Here, instead, are what I consider the year’s truly inventive offerings.
Click to expand...
1. Sunless Sea (Mac, Windows)
2. Metal Gear Solid V (PlayStation 3 and 4, Windows, Xbox One and 360)
3. Her Story (iOS, Mac, Windows)
4. Splatoon (Wii U)
5. Bloodborne (PlayStation 4)
6. Kerbal Space Program (Linux, Mac, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Windows, Xbox One)
7. The Beginner’s Guide (Linux, Mac, Windows)
8. Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)
9. Downwell (Android, iOS, Windows)
10. Darkest Dungeon (Linux, Mac, PlayStation 4 and Vita, Windows)
11. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (PlayStation 4)

Honorable Mentions

Undertale (Mac, Windows)
Prune (Android, iOS)
Mushroom 11 (Linux, Mac, Windows)
Rocket League (Linux, Mac, PlayStation 4, Windows)
Galak Z (PlayStation 4, Windows)
Dr. Langeskov, the Tiger, and the Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist (Windows)

Please don't act like a crazy person when responding to Game of the Year lists.
 
M

Mushroomer25

Member
Glad to see The Beginner's Guide getting some attention. Extremely clever little work of art, that tells a very rough story in an inventive way.
 
R

Raging Spaniard

If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
All those games are quality. Great list. I can disagree with some entries but you can play all of those games and have varied, quality experiences
 
A

Anno

Member
Cool list. Not entirely sure this is the year to add Darkest Dungeon, but I guess it's more complete than a lot of games.
 
O

Omadahl

Banned
Who is this guy trying to impress with this list? I agree with most picks but at least toss Witcher 3 an honorable mention.
 
K

Kerned

Banned
Omadahl said:
Who is this guy trying to impress with this list? I agree with most picks but at least toss Witcher 3 an honorable mention.
Click to expand...
Maybe it's just the games he thinks are best this year? Or is the real problem that he's not trying to impress YOU?
 
A

Anoregon

The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
I have literally never heard of Sunless Sea.
 
Z

Zader

Banned
Can't take this list seriously without any mention of The Witcher 3 but include an early access title. Come on...
 
D

DrArchon

Member
Woo Sunless Sea! What a great game that deserves a lot more recognition. I'll admit that it's a pretty slow experience at first and it's certainly not for everyone's tastes, but I really enjoyed it.
 
M

MiniBossBattle

Member
Great. New Yorker has a top ten for videogames? Last thing I want to talk about to my college friends, parents and in-laws about are top ten game lists.
 
H

Hot Coldman

Banned
For Simon to put out yet another excellent write-up of his highlights of the year in games, and be met with "NO WITCHER 3???", it's just pathetic.
 
P

Pinky

Banned
So... Another 2015 list/thread where the author will be attacked and dismissed by some because his list doesn't perfectly align with theirs? Sounds about right.
 
P

Peru

Member
It's a guy's personal preferences. The offended responses in this thread are HYSTERICAL. Seriously rethink what you're doing.
 
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