5. Ghost Of Tsushima Such a great new IP, cool characters, amazing sword play, amazing environment. My only cons where the Story was just awful and predicable and even almost campy for horrors of that event, the stealth might as well not even be in the game, its that bad, like the AI gets to be PS1 level shit of person looking 1 direction and turning to walk away like a robot suck on a set path, it feels like an afterthought and that the main focus was the sword play stuff. I can forgive this for it being a new IP.
4. Horizon Zero Dawn Easily one of my favorite new IP last gen, amazing world, characters, factions, lore ROBOT DINOS lol I loved exploring and finding all the old war junk, though not to a level of Fallout, I feel the series can get to those levels in the future. My cons might your arrow seems to be the biggest element in the game with combat and the melee feels horrible lol (like Falco entering Coronaria horrible)
3. Spiderman My favorite new IP period...Insomniac did a masterful job with this title. Combat is flawless, from just the melee attacks, to web attacks, to grabbing enemies, to tossing objects at enemies etc, it felt great and the swinging and movement is pretty much unmatched. Without those elements, this game dies, that element was so fucking important it sounds like the only way that game was getting greenlit was if they can show that proof of concept and it feels great. The story was also great fighting all the villain's and hearing the back story thur lore exploring the world and the random crimes you stop allow you to really LARP the shit out of it and just have that random fun and really deeply puts in the narrative that you are Spiderman all the time and its not just a collective of missions you go thru, but you are actively him between those missions still. Cons, not much, I'd like to randomly go from Spiderman to Peter in real time, like if he has a normal life during the day like Persona or something and he has to literally choose from normal life to superhero lol but this is minor and maybe too much to ask out of the first Spiderman game from this team.
2. God Of War Is as perfect as you get a game. Combat, puzzles, open world design, lore, story, narrative, characters, boss fights, the fucking game is FLAWLESS! lol I went into this game dead ass expecting normal God Of War shit, he gets killed, goes to Viking hell, fights a couple of fuck boys and brings his wife back from the dead lol That shit was nothing like that and I'm glad it wasn't. The story was much deeper and the character has aged, grown and has so much more depth then we've ever see prior and the combat becoming much more complex pars well with the character aging and becoming more layered as well. All the wild God Of War shit still there like talking heads and snakes that take up the whole level having some wild ass intro lol I never expected a God Of War game with such deep puzzles with the axe or dungeons that give you meaningful items, narrative info like lore stuff etc. I expect that from Zelda and it now feels like God Of War is the IP for that vs some copy and paste tower shit that BoTW is, but I digress. I didn't expect them to switch places and got that adventure with meaning feeling more in God Of War, 2 will be most hype knowing that. Cons...none bitch the fuck lol damn near perfection.
1. The Last Of Us 2 Masterful rollercoaster of emotions like I've never felt in a video game. Let me start by saying I respect the developer for offing a main character in the fashion they did, sudden, violent, without warning, no fucks given and no speech necessary (Joel's character even saying for them to say the speech that they have seems to be nod of how fucking cliche that is). Someone coming to do you in in real life had no ode to make it fast and give you the reasons they are doing it for, they came to make you suffer, not give you some CW drama lol. I love reading the lore and about the war between WLF, FEDRA and the Fireflies and kept wondering how people can even become so savage and turn on neighbors so easily, I loved hating Abby's character and screaming "FUCK WLF" thru the first half of the game, I made them suffer every chance I got.
....then we play Abby and realize what actually happened and that this person has a justified reason for their actions. Then...you realize that thing you didn't get with WLF vs FEDRA, you now understand because you just saw the other side of the grass. The "fuck WLF" chants start have me realize the game is purposely making her mysterious, giving no good reason at the time for the murder and showing her to be the enemy to even show how that tribalism concept even starts. For all we now, if I was in WLF my ass would be chanting" fuck Jackson and fuck Joel" all I know about him is what he did to Abby's father and Mel's mentor, all we knew about Abby was she killed Joel. Twas an amazing masterpiece and I'd argue even the debates going on around who would do this or that or how someone would react and who was good and who was bad shows how deeply engaging this story was. We've never given a fuck about a story to this degree years later citing it, I expect us to likely keep talking about it even up to The Last Of Us 3.
Gameplay....amazing and I never expected it to get to MGS levels of epic. From dogs smelling you and you able to get off their tracks by going in water or running away or killing someone and their friends looking for them noticing they are gone, or even shooting someone in the throat, or blowing their head clean off their shoulders, or blowing knee caps out with a shotgun and watching the person drag themselves away from you, the gore was amazing and how an M rated game should be with such weapons. THAT is what a shotgun does to you folks, never mind LOOKING real, show what it really does to humans as we need more like Red Dead 2 and The Last Of Us 2, its not enough to look it, it must behave as such lol The exploration like hunting in old houses and buildings was also amazing and told its own little narratives, like going into a place looking for ammo, reading that it used to be bank and that someone was trying to rob it as the fall happened, killing all the clickers and finding a shotgun as your reward.....it feels most good.
Cons..none, I want more of it thats my con lol