best videogames of year 2017

early access doesn’t mean anything anymore, it’s a way for people to charge you money for a game while taking away your ability to complain about 15 day one patches and broken balance

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im lucky in that i play with someone who understands the game pretty well and kind of just follow his lead. id be pretty screwed in solo mode. but generally speaking i think it’s better when the meta has been worked out to a certain extent.

I would argue Candy Box is also worthy but I’m not sure it’s single-sitting-able, which, at this point in the life of clickers, is the moral high road.

It means plenty to me, it means I’m not buying or playing it.

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I’m pretty sure I remember you posting about Dead Cells before. Don’t try this holier-than-thou shit you’re on the same terrible video game drip feed the rest of us are on!

I didn’t buy a lot of new games in 2017 and the games I did buy I didn’t play a lot of. So this is mostly freeware or donationware.

One. Nier Automata
Two. Hanano Puzzle 2
Three. Baba Is You (expanded/much more complex version coming in 2018, but I really adore the original game jam version too)
Four. Subara City (released a few years ago for mobile but released on 3DS in 2017)
Five. Tiny Heist (released A YEAR AGO TODAY)

The game’s I’ve probably played the most are–and will continue to be, likely, forever–Spelunky and Downwell. Spelunky is my game of the year all years.

I also am still playing Persona 5, but I have a lot of complaints and am actually struggling to get myself to finish it. I don’t love it enough to throw on a top games list.

Also, I released a game called Explobers and it’s my best game to date, so I’m plugging it here because I’m shameless.

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yeah, it’s definitely a better game now. making it more skill-based creates compelling reasons to play it for more than a few hours. all i’m lamenting is that it used to be more fun play with no skill and no ambitions.

this sentiment applies to other games as well – in another multiplayer thread people were complaining about how Overwatch and RSS started making their casual modes closer in ruleest to the ranked modes, and took out fun but ‘unbalanced’ maps, to the detriment of the variety of casual play.

on the plus side CSGO now has a 2-on-2 first to 9 mode, and it’s kinda dope

My friend bought me Dead Cells as a gift. Then I had to play it.

My god, my “games to buy” list is disgustingly long and full of non-early-access games already, what would I need to play games that even their developers say aren’t finished yet for

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Look, Cookie Clicker is actually a good clicker as well. It’s not Universal Paperclips but it does have that sense of unknowable horror that should accompany uncontrolled exponential growth. Plus you can lose at it, IIRC. More clicker games should let you lose.

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Was A Dark Room a clicker because if so it’s the best one

I’ve been thinking about that. I think no?

I’ve been playing Everybody’s Golf since Xmas about as much as Trump has been playing real golf. So I’m gonna go with that (aside from all the obvious ones already mentioned)

Best golf game ever?

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kingsway is a really fun little diversionary pc game. it’s a simple rpg that looks like a cartoony version of windows 95, with battles taking place in msn messenger windows and so on.

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Maybe it’s like, the Frog Fractions of clickers

I was working most of the year and I couldn’t really find a huge time for games so here’s a list in no particular order

Snake Pass
Making a platform without a jump button is pretty impressive, but the way you contort and slowly grasp your way through Snake Pass is like a constant, pleasant gratification of the mind. It’s game jam roots are evident and the concept is one note, but oh what a wonderful note it plays

Shadow Of War

I love living game worlds. Assassin’s Creed Origins has a pretty good one as well but I can’t seem to set the time down for that one. But a game where the game is constantly, actively conspiring against you in a way that can seem unfair but makes sense is amazing. Tagging an Orc to go kill or dominate only to be greeted by him once I go back in game. Shaming an Orc to bring his level down only for him to be a constant menace, sabotaging my ambushes and making my life a misery. Jumping out of a bush to clear out a camp, scaring the other orcs so badly that one runs into a fire and burns the camp down. There’s maybe too much of it, I haven’t seen a more dragged out Act 1 since Sunset Overdrive and Batham combat please, please retire. But it’s just fun to see how hard you can push it and how the game pushes back.

NASCAR Heat 2
F1 2017

I’m not sure what I would prefer. F1 2017 is just a glorious “Honda Engines and All” comprehensive sim and the best F1 game since Grand Prix 3. Everything you do on a Race weekend means something and having to manage your car properly is introduced in a very natural way. NASCAR Heat has a brilliantly intelligent and reactive AI system that changes the complexities of races where the AI players can even get angry at each other and cause a potential race changing caution. It’s an ugly game visually but it’s a pleasure to play. I can’t really pick which one is better. It was just a good year for racing games.

What Remains Of Edith Finch

I just about snuck this in on the new year and I’m glad I did. It’s a wonderful story, told elegantly through gameplay and I’m still thinking about it. I think the creator of “Her Story” called it “Narrative WarioWare” and you can’t get a more concise summary than that. The Cannery sequence will be dissected for years as one of the greatest narrative triumphs of the medium.

Prey

I don’t like Immersive sims. I love Prey. I love its atmosphere. I love it’s encouragement to improvise instead of just reloading saves. I love how it draws you into its world. I also no longer trust toilets as they may contain mimics.

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I thought 2017 was the year I learned to love games again but I’m looking at the new shit I played and it was all big budget Japanese sequels and anime fighters. I needed comfort this year! These games gave it to me!

1. YAKUZA 0

Here’s a short list of modern works that I’m envious of:

  • Nathan For You
  • That Yakuza 0 sidestory where Kamiya undertakes a sneaking mission to help a kid buy a porno mag from a vending machine.

I’m pretty sure this game kept me from going 120% loco post-inauguration. The pacing still sucks and the main crime story would be so much better if it had a good dub and was half as short but everything else is so good…! It is so funny. It is fun to punch dudes. I love making money and seeing numbers go up, which I’m not proud to admit but that hostess club minigame is better than anything Sid Meier or Will Wright ever made.

OK, except Pirates! Pirates! was cool.

I’m currently really sick and in a real black mood. Nothing was soothing my body or soul but I booted up Yakuza Kiwami in the dead of night and it helped. Just a nice relaxing game, even though it’s too violent and not nearly as good as 0. But fuck, I love finding things and going on fetch quests and helping people. I don’t wanna be a violent badass! I just want to help people who have been inconvenienced, or have fallen on hard times, or who are really horny. That’s what a real hero does.

2. PUYO PUYO TETRIS

This is new to the USA, okay. It also counts as an anime fighter. I used to be the #8 ranked Switch player in New York state. That probably doesn’t sound impressive but New York has lots of people and the Switch is very popular so I bet I could beat, like, Daigo or fatal1ty.

I am going to rip off Love Theme From Puyo Puyo someday soon. Gonna write a vocal version, all about like…driving a car and thinking about a cutie while sipping a melted milkshake. Just a nice lazy rock tune.

3. TEKKEN 7

I somehow dumped 100 hours into this over the course of…2 weeks? This came out while I was moving/my life was completely going to hell so I really have no clue how I managed to play it so much.

During my first trips to Japan I played a bunch of Tekken. I had no clue how to play so I picked Akuma and just played SF4. I won sometimes. Usually against people who seemed to walk away from the machine cuz they weren’t having fun dealing with constant DPs and hadokens. I wanted to practice prior to my latest trip but the one time I played the game I got so stressed out that I stopped cuz it was clearly very bad for my health.

I still played it a bunch in Tokyo arcades though. It still stressed me the fuck out. I lost a ton with Jack but went on a few winning streaks with Kazumi, even though I totally forgot most of what I’d learned back in June. It was so much fun. I’m so glad I don’t live in Japan. I’d go broke playing arcade games. I’d also probably be totally unbeatable and an esports genius cuz if I’m this good while barely remembering how to play the game…damn.

Tekken 7 didn’t have enough Go Shiina songs but I don’t wanna link to the High School Musical tune from Tag 2 (even though it’s great) so here, he wrote this I think. I didn’t even listen to it but I bet it’s cool enough.

4. ZELDA AND MARIO

They were both top tier and I don’t want to write about them.

I’m sorry for linking that video but I know I was talking about it to someone the other day. I don’t wanna talk to you unless you have at least one memory of downloading a mislabeled mp3 off a file sharing service, preferably over dialup.

I would never download a fucking System of a Down song. Not even a fake one. They fucking sucked. But someone did upload it to an on-line dropbox of mine, thinking maybe I’d like it, which is maybe one of the greatest burns I’ve ever been subjected to.

I cried twice playing Mario. I’m really embarrassed by that but sorry, that Sonic song was really great and further proof that Mario always, always, always does everything way better than Sonic. Sonic sucks.

5. PLAYING FIGHTERS WITH SELECT BUTTS

Playing Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 and shit with @ferrets was the only time I played games and didn’t feel 100% guilty about it. Also the handful of occasions when @botagel, @drem and I got together to play UNIEL and Nitro Plus Blasterz, which are great games with horrible netcode which makes them even greater games because I was able to land all this super unsafe braindead shit and, occasionally, win with it. That fucking Nitro Plus hammer girl’s overhead may as well have been an unblockable with all that input delay! The only time in my life I was happy to play without rollback netcode.

6. FIRE PRO WRESTLING WORLD

I’ll confess: I don’t really know how to play Fire Pro but I buy every fucking release and pretend I do.

Earlier in the year I was considering becoming a professional Fire Pro gamer streamer. Figured I’d buy a green screen. Design a mask. Just develop this whole persona and stream Fire Pro Returns fourteen hours a day. But then like 2 weeks after planning began they announced a new FPW and I lost all interest in doing pro-graps gamer streaming. Why bother if I’m gonna have competition!?

But I still bought the game when it came out and I did play it a bunch, but only during late night casual gamer streams while incredibly drunk. So it was just lots of me blathering on about old timey wrestling gossip while failing to play the game properly. Like “…and THAT’S how Abdullah the Butcher lost his Chinese BBQ restaurant cuz he gave a guy hepa – oh shit I forgot how you kick out of pin attempts. Fuck this game!!

It was a lot of fun.

7. SPELUNKER PARTY

I’m the #1 Spelunker Party player on Steam. This may be because I’m one of 5 Spelunker Party players on Steam. This game isn’t as good as Spelunker HD (The Demon’s Souls of 2D Platformers) but it’s good enough to be the last game of 2017 that I can remember liking.

Thank you.

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**GAMEST OF THE YEAR 2017**

BEST STG
Wolfenstein 2

BEST FTG
The Fighting EX Layer beta

BEST ACTION GAME
Soldam

BEST VGM
Nier Automata

BEST ALBUM
JET BUSTER Original Soundtrack

BEST GRAPHICS
Cup Head

BEST ENDING/CUTSCENES
Nier Automata

BEST DELUXE CABINET
Super Hot VR

MOST POLISHED
Super Mario Odyssey

MOST FLASHY
GUILTY GEAR Xrd -REVELATOR-

BEST ATMOSPHERE
Rain World

BEST STRESS RELIEVER
Bennett Foddy’s Getting Over It

BEST BOY
Jonathan Blow (Getting Over It)

BEST GIRL
Mae (A Night In The Woods)

BEST NON-HUMAN CHARACTER
Bullet (Wild Guns Reloaded)

BEST POWER-UP
Moai Mario

BEST MECHA
Bugatti Veyron 16.4 (Gran Turismo Sport)

BEST SPORTS GAME
Gran Turismo Sport

FAVORITE COMPANY
Nintendo

BEST ADVERTISING
Sonic Forces x Hooters

FRONTIER SPIRITS AWARD
Fire Pro Wrestling World – Steam Workshop

MOST CHALLENGING AWARD
Getting Over It

PURE SHOOTING AWARD
Player Unknown’s Battle Grounds

SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARD
a-cho

EDITORS CHOICE AWARD
Culdcept Revolt
Million Onion Hotel
the only games I actually played for even 1 second that came out in 2017, because all I got is a 3ds and an iphone. Yep!

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retroactively move everything down by one, and number one is ni-oh

I missed this thread. I am the Thread Misser.

Talking about games I remember playing in 2017, in no particular order:

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is pretty bad by most criteria, but I have a vulnerability to games with a very limited lifespan. It’s only been out a couple of months, yet the progression of seasonal holidays/weather and the periodic updates have given this a strong sense of time and place, much like other AC games. Joking with Julie about this mobile time-waster has made it all worthwhile.

Speaking of Julie, the games she has most enjoyed playing are things like GTA and Saints Row, so I got us Watch Dogs 2 back at the start of the year. She bounced off of the combat immediately, but I wound up playing through it all. For being a completely by-the-numbers open-world game, I had fun. It kind of reminded me of Saints Row 2 in that the tone went all over the place but was still an improvement over the first installment.

I liked NieR: Automata a great deal. I can’t disagree with arguments that the game is more interested in structural tricks than in respecting the player’s time; both the sidequests and the A/B loops set expectations deliberately low so that they can then surprise the player with unexpectedly important quests, dynamic character switching, and other startling developments. Personally, I loved this and am more than willing to forgive the game some low-key monotony in service of the goals it’s pursuing.

Night in the Woods is triple jumps: the adventure game. I agree with what everybody else has said about this so far, so I’ll just mention a little thing I liked: it turns out that one of those nameless folk you eavesdrop on by the bar disappears after the story climax. I thought that was a nice and spooky touch.

Watching Joseph Anderson play through Super Mario Odyssey and then exhaustively categorize the available moons to explain why he disliked the game makes me think history may not be kind to Mario’s newest outing. The game will always have its fans, and I am among them, but I expect more pushback to appear from players who miss the more demanding challenge and platforming complexity of levels like Tick-Tock Clock and the Fluddless challenge rooms of Sunshine. I have to agree that Toadette’s achievement moons are similarly pretty indefensible. I still had a blast.

Hearthstone is the game I played more than any other, but it’s difficult to justify any recommendation for it.

I can’t wait to talk about Breath of the Wild in the 2018 thread!

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