2016 games

Alli Grant Est. 3 minutes (601 words)
2016 games year in review
A year in review of the games I've played in 2016.

Games! After a few years of being out of gaming, I got back into a bit of a groove in 2016 thanks to Rare Replay and an early purchase of an Xbox One. Being able to replay Blast Corps and Jet Force Gemini after more than a decade, running at a full frame rate? Sunset Overdrive was similarly almost everything I wanted out of Dead Rising originally. Ori and the Blind Forest didn’t get beat, so I need to revisit it, but it was also incredibly impressive.

Factorio sucked up tons of my time. That game is addictive–endless optimizations, programming things to work better, management of resources.. I’ve not quite got all of the achievements in it yet, but I’m remarkably close and still intend for it to be my second game that gets 100% on Steam. I’m only really missing the speed run achievements, other than being 4 million circuits from the last Mass Production.

What Factorio didn’t eat up, Dwarf Fortress and Starbound did. Revisiting modern versions of both games, I’m really happy with how they’ve both developed. Dwarf Fortress adding more crops resulted in some hemp-based economies that survived really well–until I learned that climbing has been added to the game, resulting in much Fun. For those not in the know, Fun is dwarf for “losing.” Starbound’s release version changed up the pacing of the game and the focus to prioritize exploration and colony building. Mixed with the Survival mode, farming as part of a colony is actually a lot of fun.

Of course, farming in Starbound doesn’t come close to the other Chucklefish game that I spent hours on this year after finally waiting for its release–Stardew Valley! It completely lived up to the hype, which probably puts it above Back to Nature, Magical Melody, and Rune Factory DS. I’ve not gotten around to playing the update with new farms yet, though I might pick it up on the Xbox One as well to do so.

I wish I could easily call Stardew Valley my personal game of the year, but some last minute competition came from Final Fantasy XV. I’m sure that Square Enix didn’t mean to make such a queer game, but most of the cast can easily be read that way. FFXV had amazing callbacks to the other games, a battle system that wouldn’t be out of place in a Kingdom Hearts game, great voice acting, good pacing… Even its weakest moment felt purposeful to the story, so I’m a bit sad to hear they plan to revisit and tweak Chapter 13. Florence + the Machine did some of the soundtrack, Mambo de Chocobo got lyrics, and all of the prior games were available to listen to in the car.

This could easily become the longest post of this series because of how happy most of my gaming experiences in 2016 made me, but I’ll stop here.

  1. starbound
  2. creeper world 3: arc eternal
  3. stardew valley
  4. blast corps
  5. jet force gemini
  6. kingdom
  7. sunset overdrive
  8. ori and the blind forest
  9. crypt of the necrodancer
  10. terraria
  11. factorio
  12. rocket league
  13. final fantasy ix
  14. monster hunter 4 ultimate
  15. dynasty warriors 8: xtreme legends complete edition
  16. legacy gears of time
  17. love letter
  18. little dungeon turtle rock
  19. euphoria
  20. 7 wonders
  21. hanabi
  22. factory idle
  23. titan souls
  24. mighty no 9
  25. dwarf fortress
  26. pokemon y
  27. tomodachi life
  28. monster hunter generations
  29. boss monster
  30. magic the gathering
  31. katamari damacy
  32. final fantasy xii
  33. orochi warriors 3 ultimate
  34. mage knight
  35. thomas was alone
  36. pokemon go
  37. pokemon sun/moon demo
  38. ingress
  39. warhammer quest
  40. final fantasy xv platinum demo
  41. yooka laylee toybox demo
  42. final fantasy xv
  43. lovers in a dangerous spacetime