KBMOD 2017 GOTY Staff Picks
Resident Evil 2 is one game from my childhood that I remember very fondly. I played through it numerous times (with cheat codes because I am a trashlord) and I even had RE2 action figures. My love for this game led me to other titles in the series, such as the original and Resident Evil 4. After numerous subpar entries and spin-offs in the RE series that I, along with most of the world, loathed, I was curious to see how the new first-person perspective would translate. Was it even possible for them to convey the same tone and feeling that made the first few titles so haunting?
Fortunately, within the first hour of the game, it became very clear that despite this new spin, this was a game that harkened back to a time when the series was a survival horror series, not “MICHAEL BAY’S RESIDENT EVIL: NOW WITH MORE ACTION AND EXPLOSIONS”. From the puzzles feeling like classic RE puzzles, to the pacing of the story, and a reliance on suspense and tension, rather than action, Resident Evil 7 felt like a near-perfect take on a childhood favorite, and with free DLC dropping in December (which is probably out by the time you’re reading this), I had to pick it as my Game of the Year for 2017. As an added bonus, I had RE7 inspired nightmares for weeks after I finally finished the game!
Honorable Mention(s): Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, Yooka-Laylee
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Doki Doki Literature Club. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of proper visual novel writing most of the jokes will go over a typical player’s head. There’s also Monika’s nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into her characterisation- her personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of the writing, to realise that they’re not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Doki Doki Literature Club truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the humour in Monika’s existential catchphrase “Only Monika,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev’s Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Team Salvo’s genius wit unfolds itself on their computer screens. What fools.. how I pity them. ?
And yes, by the way, I DO have a Doki Doki Literature Club tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for Monika’s eyes only- Nothin’ personal kid ?
Mario Kart Deluxe 8 – Real racing games are for losers. This game is perfect for travel. Super easy and fun
Mario kart is for nerds and kids, FM7 is for big boys
I haven’t played a game on console since building my first PC in 2010 and I hadn’t regretted that decision until I played Horizon Zero Dawn. HZD has justified purchasing a PS4 (on sale) all on it’s own – it is literally the only PS4 game I own. The story, graphics, mechanics, and core game elements make for an absolutely amazing experience that can only be rivaled by The Witcher 3 when comparing single player titles. I have been one click away from buying a PS4 pro just to play HZD with better visuals and I would happily pay full price for the game if it was released on PC.
I’ve played a lot of unreal releases this year – Legend of Zelda, Yooka Laylee, Mario Odyssey, and Mass Effect: Andromeda… Unfortunately, due to my inability to actually finish anything (books, games, shows, etc), I can’t provide a comprehensive review for any of them. Otherwise, it has been a relatively uneventful year for me – I also tried out For Honor (which was a dumpster fire, not worth the money), PlayerUnknown’s Battleground (which is still not finished and is an unoptimized dumpster fire), Fortnite (which was decent but not the best battle royale out there), Rainbow Six: Siege (which has turned out to be an amazing title but not originating from this year) so my game of the year has to go to…
Hand Simulator. Yep, you read that right: Hand Simulator. A $2 cluster fuck of a game. I bought the game yesterday and had more frustrating fun with that game then I have with any other titles released this year. In the game you control three things; your head, your left and right arm. Then you can do silly things like pick up a fidget spinner and spin it, or hold a grenade pull the pin and throw it. Sounds easy, right?
Wrong. It is one of the most infuriating and funniest gaming experiences I’ve had to date – because you have to control each individual arm’s height, rotation, and then your individual fingers. If your character could actually grasp on anything or if rotation of your arm made any sense – it’d be easy! But the challenge of figuring out the system controls along with attempting to accomplish the goal in hand is what makes it so much fun.
There are a few modes in multiplayer, one of my favorites is this mode that sits you up in a room, looking across the room from your other friends – and everyone has a gun and a magazine on the table. Once everyone is ready, the objective is to simply load the gun and then shoot the person across the room. Trying to get your gun loaded moments before your friends did puts this insurmountable pressure on you to succeed – but once you can do it, there is such a huge sense of accomplishment that it makes those 10 minutes of utter frustration worth it.
If you’re at a LAN, hosting a party… Or just bullshitting with your buddies online, do yourself a favor and have everyone pick this up for some night. It is seriously only $2.
I’m a horrible person, and I’m not sorry for my opinion. Don’t @ me.
Surprise! I picked The Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild. It’s the Zelda game I’ve wanted for a long time and I’m not going to say anything you don’t already know about it. It’s huge, you can go anywhere, you can climb anything, the combat is great, the world is a joy to explore, the cooking is fun. What made it even better for me however, was the advent of CEMU, the WiiU emulator. Now I can take this game that I love so much, and play it on my PC, with any controller I like. I can scale the resolution up, I can tinker with shaders and mods and graphics packs. I can get a stable framerate over the WiiU version. It’s everything I wanted in a Zelda game, and I have absolutely no idea how they’re going to top this one.
Honorable Mention – Dead Cells
The game I’ve dumped the second most amount of time into this year. I know, it’s still early access, but it does it well. It’s the perfect combo of Metroidvania and roguelite gameplay. With fantastically tight controls, branching paths that change as you progress, unlocks to search out, and a learning curve that’s just the right amount of steep, it entices you to keep exploring. 30 hours in and I’m still discovering new things and testing how much I can take on at once, and dying a lot of the time. It is well worth your time and money if you like concise, fast, and deep platforming.
This year I had some serious fun with some games, but for new releases it was a bit underwhelming for me. Forza Motorsport 7 wasn’t nearly as fun as Forza Horizon 3, F1 2017 made a big splash with the official esports series but admittedly I haven’t actually played the game yet, and the most hours I put into a game this year are probably with Diablo 3 on account of season 12 being absolutely amazing. With that said I’d have to give my Game of the Year choice to Unfortunate Spacemen. It’s a super fun game that’s best spent with close friends, and I’ve really enjoyed every minute I spent with the game, but the problem is finding groups to play with. It’s a game that’s best suited to six people or more and it was difficult to find that many people to play, but if I had to pick a game that was released in 2017 that I had a lot of fun with and would like to spend more time with, that’d be Unfortunate Spacemen.
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Yup, my game of the year for 2017 isn’t Destiny 2. It’s a surprise to me too. Breath of the Wild was an experience I just wasn’t expecting, and shame on me for that. It wasn’t because I thought it would be bad, I just genuinely forgot about it and didn’t plan to own the console it would be on. I ended up buying a Wii U two months before BoTW released just so I could play Smash 4 with friends. Then I simply bought the new Legend of Zelda because it was a Zelda game, not because I was hyped. I think that’s what made my time with it so great.
I went into Breath of the Wild’s beautiful open world without a clue about what was going to happen or what I would encounter. I had to figure things out on my own, and while doing that I ended up getting lost in amazement simply exploring the various areas. No game has made me feel that way before.
Almost all of the puzzles were cleverly designed with many different solutions available, making them very satisfying to complete. The story took a bit of a back seat, but that was perfectly fine because the gameplay made up for it in spades. Being able to do things in whatever order the player wanted in some ways gave them control over what their story was, and sharing that story was honestly one of the best parts. Hearing about how a friend got lost in a corner of Hyrule I hadn’t even seen yet made me all the more excited to pick up my gamepad and start my next play session.
There was so much to do in Breath of the Wild and none of it felt tedious. Even the smallest step was something added to your grand adventure. Slap some beautiful music on there, visuals that look amazing even on really old hardware, and an atmosphere so rich that you never want to leave and you’ve got yourself something deserving of Game of the Year.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild gave me a whole new world to explore and a journey to write home about. It was a brand new experience that took risks while avoiding treading on old Zelda fans. That meant I got to learn how it felt to truly be worthy of the Master Sword after spending hours doing activities never seem before in the series, AND I still got to feel the nostalgia of sitting at home on cold winter days listening to music that transported me to a place where I could smash as many pots and slay as many beasts as I damn well please.
Since I know Hex is going to pick Zelda (and because I haven’t put nearly enough time into it yet), I decided to throw everyone for a huge loop this year and pick an indie platformer as my GOTY. And not only that, but it’s a game that has the word “Knight” in the title, which to my knowledge has never been done before. That’s right, my GOTY is Hollow Knight, the ~buggy~ bug-infested metroidvania set in a deep, dark, dank underground insect kingdom full of formidable foes and friends alike.
As with many exploration-based games, Hollow Knight was a bit slow to get started, primarily because I had no idea what I was doing. But gradually, as I got to know the characters and enemies, and as I unlocked the main character’s abilities, both the gameplay and story opened up in an incredibly satisfying way. The game is certainly challenging, and every new area I unlocked stuck fear into my heart. However, the challenge was never unfair, and there was always a fitting reward after a new challenge – whether it was a new ability or simply a hot spring where I could recharge briefly and chew the fat with some of the natives (and save the game).
I can’t recommend Hollow Knight enough if you’re into exploration platformers. The art and music are gorgeous, the gameplay is tight and rewarding, and the atmosphere is just so well fleshed out that you’ll keep going back over and over to uncover more secrets and surprises.
If you follow me on Twitter or watch my Twitch streams then you already know my choice for GOTY. However, since no one does my choice for 2017 GOTY is Horizon Zero Dawn. In an era of gaming where open world RPGs are flooding the market, it is tough to find a game that sets itself apart from the rest. Instead of finding a gimmick to try and sell itself on the developers at Guerilla Games decided to take the best aspects of different open world games and implement them perfectly into Horizon Zero Dawn, with their own take on them of course.
You can especially pick out different influences when it comes to the combat of Horizon Zero Dawn. I got strong vibes reminding me of The Witcher 3 and Monster Hunter, especially when coming up against some of the larger machines. The Witcher 3 because of the planning that goes into each battle with each machine. Monster Hunter, because each battle is a war of attrition, chipping away at the machine’s weak points to take them down as quickly as possible.
The storytelling was what really impressed me when it came to Horizon Zero Dawn. With an open world RPG there is bound to be side quests and activities for players to dive into. The biggest issue that most games have is that these side quests often feel like a chore, and in turn makes the game no longer fun. Horizon Zero Dawn heads off this issue by building up a story that gets the player to care about the conflict the characters are facing. It gives these tasks a sense of purpose. A simple kill quest turns into quest for revenge, taking down a machine that has been terrorizing an innocent village that just wants to live in peace.
Without getting into spoilery details, the main story of Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the best paced campaigns I have ever played. I went into this game asking myself the questions “Why are these humans so primitive, but these beasts are so technologically advanced?” and “What happened to this world?” These questions were methodically answered as the campaign progressed. Revealing just enough to keep me wanting more, all while keeping the mystery until just the right moments.
I could go on and on about all the great things about this game but because this is a shared article I probably should not. I’ll end it with if you have access to a PS4 then I urge you to play Horizon Zero Dawn as soon as possible.
Some of my honorable mentions for the year are Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Tales of Berseria, Final Fantasy 12 Remastered, and Cuphead. All of those titles are fantastic for various different reasons and deserve immense praise.
stafunoob
TimHost of Rough Tims & Waking Up w/ Stafunoob. Broadcaster and Content Creator for KBMOD. Hot Cheetos, Takis, and Gushers are my lifeblood, feed me them so I know it's real.
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