1.
Metal Gear Solid V
I've enjoyed this game for an absurd amount of hours. MGSV has a lot of phantom pains, but is still everything I want, and makes it work on so many narrative and conceptual levels. Every other 3rd person game with any kind of stealth and shooting is just wrong. The control schemes are wrong, the movement speed and animation are wrong, and they just don't feel right to me anymore. There's a lot of things I wish it could have or do, but since the MGS1 demo days, MGS has always been a stealth action sandbox playground for me, where I'd repeatedly replay and master the games, linger in areas with the most potential gameplay possibilities, trying to see what I can do, what kind of approaches I can take, how I could troll the AI and cultivate scenarios... and this game is the absolute epitome of that. Best dog. Best horse. Best girl. Best actual Metal Gear. Also, there's all this interpretative, conceptual stuff going on that I love thinking about whenever I return to the game, and start sinking back into it.
2.
Dark Souls III
I revisited a previous entry just yesterday and realized how comparatively jank the older games look and feel relative to this one, despite their arguably advantageous tones, memorable moments, ideas and structures. I think I like this refined Souls feel more than I like where Bloodorne first hastened it to. What many have argued is a lack of impact from a reliance on callbacks, I would call an amalgamation of everything I remember, love, and dread... freshly arranged and presented with a lot of new heights, simply done in a better way. You've often seen gameplay get refined throughout the course of a series, but not often the thematic contents. Plays the best. Looks the best. Best fashion Souls. Best PvP (nothing like the cathedral with the giants still alive... that place is like a Quake III map wrapped in a 7 layer burrito full of Resident Evil 4). DBZ Bankai bosses take Pursuer to the next level. They're not making any more, and if I could only have one Souls game, it'd be this one.
3.
Bloodborne
Bad moon rising. What a wonderful night to have a curse. It's hard to really put my finger on what makes this one #3 rather than #2... it's not even theme preference, it's probably just that I have such strong memories associated with Demon's Souls and the other Dark Souls games, that being more evocative of those specific beats and themes really resonates with me more. Potentially the best bosses and enemy encounters in the series thanks to the hunter thread running through it... it's almost like a game where you're often fighting both a doppleganger and your superior. Possibly the best DLC in the series, though that could easily go to DS2, due to the imo arbitrary way in which the two halves of Old Hunters connect without rhyme or reason. This one went to some crazy heights and chalice dungeons alone could make it a desert island worthy game... it forced DS3 to step it's game up in controls and visual design, so really, it's also
because of Bloodborne that I enjoy DS3 so much.
4.
Helldivers
This game is polished to perfection and the most fun I've had with multiplayer since my Quake III days, despite being an entirely different genre. There's nothing quite like this game. The pressure, expectation and intensity it puts on you is unparalleled. Friendly fire and death everywhere keep you mindful like nothing else out there. Coordination with a team who knows what they're doing, or even solo runs on level 12 helldives on a homeworld planet... it's so satisfying. The whole galactic war, serverwide contribution thing is a great touch, and I almost forgot to say the pseudo-Starship Troopers motif was an excellent choice all around.
5.
Street Fighter V
The game that made me enjoy fighting games again. This one anyway. It's the reason I have Tekken 7 pre-ordered. The game is a joy to play, the focus on online made me finally get over my stupid aversion and mental block towards trying to compete and get a little better (never going to be close to pro anything, just willing to have fun), eventually win a few times and feel pretty good about ot. It looks slick, sound goods, plays sublimely, and just feels incredibly polished. So much fun. Street Fighter is the best archetype for a fighting game. Like MGSV, I double dipped on it digital, just to have it convenient, as a go to game, even if I'm deep into something else that's currently occupying the disc drive.
6.
Resogun
Game is just nuts. Housemarque is the best at what they do. It's even better since the HDR and Pro upgrade. I'm no beast at this game, but just zoning out in it with the stellar light show, crazy enemy patterns, movement feel, multiplier maintaining, the directional flow in how semi-fixed enemy seeding and human release distance rubber bands you around the arenas to simultaneously cue into the optimal direction you should pivot to or maintain, and be likely to encounter enemy/obstacle waves that challenge you in the most engaging manner along the way, from moment to moment... and staying alive during some of the craziest clutch moments with so much barreling down on you, while you're nailing everything how you want to, thinning the herd along the way? It's pure video games perfected. Possibly the best "arcade" game ever made. Can't wait for Nex Machina. Bonus points for custom ships... love playing as Ryu and Sackboy+Swoop etc.
7.
Dariusburst Chronicle Saviors
I don't know every shmup out there like superfans of the genre do, but I was always a big fan of Einhander, Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga... and I've really come to love shmups a ton these last couple years. This one is seriously cool, makes me feel like I've been playing Darius imports all my life with the way it's like a greatest hits mixtape on steroids. Love the way enemy swarms behave like schools of fish, I love how smart the projectile patterns and targeting priorities are, I dig the music (80's techno jazz from when anime was the best, just going all out and not even trying to sound like any other soundtrack styles, eras or sensibilities at all). The full arcade game is already a lot of content with all it's own modes, but there's so much more with CS mode, and this has more content and play value than any shmup I've ever played by light years. It's ridiculous. Way worth the $60 it refused to back down from. PS: I'll forever be envious of the people who ball hard enough to play this game on two side-by-side, 55" flat screens.
8.
Last Guardian
Beautiful, surprising, misunderstood. The apex predator of Eric Chahi's evolutionary tree. I'm a huge fan of cinematic puzzle platformers, and I love Ico + SotC like most people do... so I was weened to have the patience of a saint, the requisite understanding and appreciation, a good sense of design to see why this took so long... to get the navigation and recognition AI, musculature and emotive states to work, and then create compelling level design, scenarios, interactions and meaning to make meaningful use of it, keep it fresh and varied, and build a baroque, unified world that accommodates both you and Trico, while simultaneously housing and serving the gameplay potential. The technology and inspiration isn't always in your grasp, and muse is a tough bird to cage. Sometimes it flies the coop, and comes back later. It's not like creating a house with a basic floor plan, nice visuals, putting furniture in it, knocking it all around however, placing some enemies in it like it's an elaborate skinner box, end capping these set pieces with cut scenes and calling it a day. All I did was treat something different, differently, and the game made me feel something completely new in games. Nary a week goes by that I don't wish I was setting aside time to replay it from start to finish once again.
9.
Inside
I could almost say the same Eric Chahi lines about this. Heart of Darkness 20XX. This game thinks and plays like a revelation. Sometimes it was so intuitive to play and solve that it felt too easy, or the sense of epiphany felt unearned... but it just flowed, and felt like thinking on the fly, kinetically. The direction, ideas, surprises and interpretative vagueness is so good. It's also a strong leap forward in how people think about 2.5D visual and interactive design, in terms of depth and dimension. In many ways it's just pulp, you won't feel anything from it, but you don't need to. It's just one hell of a trip. I've gone back to it a few times when it's been long enough for me to forget exactly how everything will go, and it's still great. It's so well done, I almost resent it for making me wish some of my older cinematic puzzle platformer favorites were so fluid and intuitive. It takes more than standing on the shoulders of giants to be king, but you're making a strong case and on the right trajectory.
10.
Evil Within
I know everyone's got their own sense of horror, but this game unnerved me like nothing else that first time through, and I like it more than Resident Evil 4. I dig the grainy, high contrast filmic presentation and I do like that aspect ratio for it (it's just scene composition, calm down). I love that it's a shattered psyche you can barely make sense of as you play through it, and how it tries to intimidate you with it's unpredictable nature and aggressiveness as the game goes on. "You. Will. Suffer." - legit shook. If you let yourself feel the way it wants you to, every bone in your body is telling you not to proceed, to just find somewhere safe to hide, and never come out... but you must follow what you're drawn to something, compelled to face it, and fueled by the adrenaline rushes. I like this story, these characters, these enemy designs, these areas, these crazy events and scenarios. That safe room proximity music is etched in my mind. In an era where horror games were just becoming a let's players reaction video and the illusion of vulnerability or resistance being seen as mandatory evolution... and after Capcom got a little off the rails... this genuinely felt like Mikami coming back to recapture something, remind people of a very specific game archetype, do it masterfully and do it to the max.
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Shout outs to Nier Automata, Uncharted 4, Diablo III, Arkham Knight, One Way Heroics and Bro Force. Probably a few others too.