Death Bat's Top Five Computer Games of 2015

As always this is the list culled from what I played and enjoyed, and not necessarily suggestive of ALL that was worth playing and enjoying. This year I'll go by category:

#5. Best Shooter: Star Wars: Battlefront

I would not have called this one two months ago, and in fact was expecting to be all Halo 5 all the time in this slot. Instead, I am an enormous number of hours in to playing what is the most rewarding and compelling multiplayer experience in the Star Wars universe I've played in ages, and the only shooter I can actually play with my family, thanks to the fact that it provides the cleanest play environment out there of any shooter, period. Tight game play, a progression system that works well for my needs (even if it has been criticized by the hardcore for not emulating the other shooters out there) and a variety of maps that remain fresh, with a ton of unique, emergent gameplay that encourages even the most solo-minded players to try and coordinate actions in the game make for my favorite shooter experience of 2015.

Runner Up: Destiny: The Taken King which moved the series in a new direction, brought back old fans, kept the new, and provided a dramatic improvement in the boss encounters.

#4. Best MMORPG: The Elder Scrolls Online

There really weren't any new MMORPGs of note this year, but in terms of existing games with new support and expansions there's no contest. This was the year Elder Scrolls moved first to free to play and then appeared on consoles. It subsequently introduced The Imperial City and Orsinium expansions. The real money transaction store remains full of cosmetic stuff, pets and mounts, while generally shying away from game-affecting purchases other than boosts. Having been playing since almost day one I, and many others, feel that the game today is remarkably more fun than it was a year ago, and continues to show effort at polish. It remains one of the few MMORPGs on the market today that appeals to gamers looking for more of the "RPG" side of the equation while appreciating the "MMO" part should they so desire to explore it. I am incredibly slow in this game, and still have yet to reach level cap on my dozen-odd characters, but once they introduced controller support for the game I found my enjoyment increasing a great deal over just sticking with the keyboard.

Runner Up: Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, which has sucked me back in and has some clean, innovative improvements that have made the game more enjoyable for me.

#3. Best Open-World Sandbox Game: Batman: Arkham Knight

Outside of the tank levels which some have found tedious, Batman: Arkham Knight was a fantastic finale for the series and remains a genuinely fun experience. I did not expect to like it as much as I did, but I guess the Batman fan in me was really craving a chance to drive, glide and swing around Gotham for hours on end. Still playing it, and the only other negative I can say is that yes, some of the DLC isn't worth paying for, but luckily I didn't buy the season pass and have been picking and choosing only the good stuff. Still, the core game is robust and well worth playing even if you ignore the season pass. Get it on console, as they never did seem to get the PC release right.

Runner Up: Mad Max, an impressive sandbox experience built (I am told) from the same engine used for the Arkham games and Shadows of Mordor, but now with 100% more apocalyptic car madness. Only failed to get top billing because the overall story is not quite as long.

#2. Best CRPG: Fallout 4

Fallout 4 annoys me a little bit because it doesn't quite feel like it's predecessors (Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas), and it gave me the "cool stuff" way too early on, all while still delivering on the atmosphere and exploratory fun that made me such a dedicate to the series in Bethesda's hands. It adds a lot of additional content to the mix that I haven't even bothered exploring in depth, especially the crafting and settlement building which is all very cool and tells me I'll have many more months to enjoy the game; it's mechanical process is incredibly tight, and the Fallout 4 universe is as rich and interesting to wander in as ever....and the graphics (while not up to PC Master Race standard) are worlds better than Bethesda fans are used to. Thanks to Star Wars: The Force Awakens the never-ending hype cycle of people playing Fallout 4 and blogging/promoting it was lost in the Star Wars madness, which means it's safe now to get into the game without having too many spoilers randomly popping up online.*

Runner Up: Pillars of Eternity, which is an isometric RPG of the finest form, and also got it's first major DLC expansion, The White March, just recently. Some of the isometric CRPGs out there are hit-or-miss, but Pillars of Eternity is very much the game we wanted to see following in Baldur's Gates' footsteps.

#1. Best Overall Game of 2015: Metal Gear Solid V

So how to talk about this one...it's a bat-shit crazy tale told through a menagerie of very, very damaged soldiers and their victims/support/compatriots and enemies. It fits into a weird corner of the Metal Gear history, which if you try to comprehend will force you to make Sanity checks. The true hardcore fans of Metal Gear Solid have issues with MGSV and it's revisionist canon, but if you've only experienced portions of the story like I have and have never really been able to follow the series in it's entirety, then you'll be very impressed with this game: it's story is dramatic and well-told (even if incomprehensible at times). But the thing that is most amazing is how incredibly fun it is to play, with open-world missions that let you tackle them any way you like, with a ridiculous number of weird tools and allies at your disposal. When I'm not playing Star Wars: Battlefront I am playing MGSV...and then there's all the other games I just mentioned.

Runner Up: Star Wars Battlefront was a close second, although throughout the list I really felt like I needed to put Destiny: The Taken King in somewhere.....but I just couldn't justify it. Destiny's second year is full of improvements, but it's still at core the same game I played last year, but now with more missions and less Peter Dinklage.

Honrable Mentions:

Best CGI Cutscenes: Halo 5 Guardians because seriously this game's cutscenes are amazing. Also, Halo 5 is a great deal of fun, just not innovative enough to claim any special honors.

Best Revamp: Destiny: The Taken King which kept the old fans, mended wounds with others, and brought in new thanks to some very clear efforts to bring story to the fore.

Best Effort at Reviving an Aging Franchise: Look no further than Call of Duty: Black Ops III which really does bring some interesting new elements to the game, but I fear a bit too late. CoD's only hope feels to me like it needs to find a source of players who want this sort of game yet inexlicably haven't already been saturated by the market...even I, a guy who has played every CoD since Modern Warfare came out, feels it is getting old and stale, despite their best efforts.

Best Henchman: Chumbucket from Mad Max. Nuff Said!!!!!


NOTE: I might have included The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt on this list but only recently purchased it on the Xbox One during  a Black Friday sale and STILL haven't had time to even start it. So keep that in mind....this list is based on what I played, not everything actually out there.

*Sometimes it sounds like damning with faint praise, and Bethesda fans can be like that, but it's because these games are so good and we spend so much time with them that they are scrutinized. I mean....imagine if you didn't play, say, Witcher 3 because you saw one of the levitating horse videos on Youtube. It's a smart thing if you need an excuse to keep you from spending precious cash you don't have, or time you don't have....but if you've got both, and you love good (modern) RPGs, then you'd be a pernicious fool not to play Witcher 3 or Fallout 4.

Warlords of Draenor - early impressions

What I tried playing this weekend

It's probably worth noting before I (or anyone) talks about World of Warcraft that I may have played this game a little too much back in the day,* because alas Warlords of Draenor isn't really grabbing me like I had thought it might. Part of the problem is that I think I used my "Warcraft nostalgia" energy slogging my character out of Cataclysm and through Pandaria to get ready for the new expansion. Even though this is the best time to level (leveling speed accelerates dramatically for older campaigns right before the new expansion comes out) it was still apparently all I could manage.

That's not to say Warlords of Draenor isn't worth checking out. Rather, I'd suggest that if you are not burned out on WoW (or the concept of it) then WoD is worth your time. But if you might be on the fence, here are a few things to consider:

1. The graphic overhaul on the characters is incredibly nice and about six years overdue. This would have looked impressive in 2008 (for an MMO). The cartoony look and exaggerated environments remain, however. It's a WoW style, but if you're tired of it this is not the expansion to make it go away.

2. The talent/ability mechanics in WoW got a serious overhaul. They are now so simple and free of any real decision making that I am finding it hard to not wax nostalgic about the good  old days, when I used to think WoW was ridiculously simplistic with its three unique talent trees with their own branching progression paths. I miss the odd stuff too, like weapon training, feeding your pet to improve its mood (for hunters) and other flavor elements that have been utterly purged from the game.

3. The fights just feel stale and there's no drama: you're either gonna clobber your foe  (99% of the time) or you know you need an extra buddy or a couple more levels. Whatever skill used to be involved....it's gone now. Example: my son can play the game and manage to both stay alive and level somehow. He is not quite 3 years old, and his priorities include swimming wherever he can take his character, hiding in odd places and smashing spiders (not big spiders; tiny imaginary ones in bushes and on walls0....and he's somehow able to stay alive and advance.**

 I think playing too much Elder Scrolls Online has screwed up my ability to enjoy older classic-style target and click MMO mechanics...especially the WoW style of this genre.

4. The new storyline is dropped on you without enough preamble (in my opinion). Not least of which is why current-era game world is being invaded by the orcs of pre-Outland era Draenor from 35 years earlier. It is possible that I did not play some raid/group endgame content I should know about, but that said, this seems like an important detail that bears explanation. Also note that it's not the time travel issue that concerns me....WoW already has had time travel events (Caves of Time). Rather, it's the lack of any sort of explanation....even somebody like Khadgar telling me, "This is very weird and we need to find out why this is happening" would be nice. Maybe he says it later on....I only got about as far as building the fort when I developed this gnawing feeling that I'd rather jam hot pokers into my eyes than play anymore.

5. Although this expansion pumps a lot into trying to make it all feel very serious (in a summer action blockbuster sort of way) which is appreciated after the shoddy joke so much of the revised world post-Cataclysm turned in to....it's still got that sort of super-cartoony "Saturday Morning Cartoon Logic" thing going for much of the storytelling. Again....I think I've maybe been too spoiled by other MMOs that actually took themselves seriously (cough Elder Scrolls cough). The idea of going back to wasting time on a game that perceives itself as a joke narrative with moments of semi-seriousness is hard to conceive of.

Anyway....I'll play for a few weeks until my sub runs out, see how much time I can spend leveling up and exploring it before interest wanes. Or maybe I'll just keep playing Elder Scrolls Online, which after it's fifth update is shaping up to be a very tight game. Speaking of which, I was really surprised to see that Elder Scrolls' weekend population did not dip perceptibly despite the WoD release this week. (Yeah, yeah....I actually played more ESO this weekend than WoW. Says a lot about how much WoD grabbed me.)

What I actually played this weekend

*According to some of my old WoW cohorts (around BC era) I was a "casual" since I played less than 30 hours per week. Dumbasses. 

**There's a whole different article worth exploring that points out which games have control schemes or operate in such easily-grasped/identified conceptual space that a three year old can play. The game my son is "good" at as he approaches age 3 are really interesting.....and WoW is one of them (fyi Sunset Overdrive is another). Yes, at the rate he's going his Tauren will be level 5 by the time he turns 5, too....but it's letting him learn how to maneuver with a mouse, which is really interesting seeing him learn to do.

Elder Scrolls Online - Latest Trailer

Fresh for the beta announcement, the following "Alliances" trailer is all FMV but nonetheless I really like the decidedly distinct Elder Scrolls feel to this. I grow increasingly interested in this game and look forward to when it is officially released (I learned long ago to avoid beta testing):

MMOnday Madness: SWTOR F2P, Elder Scrolls Online, dead internet tales, and more!

Still chillin', didn't watch any movies this weekend, hardly got any gaming in either (a short run in Gears of War with a friend who is a bit behind the times; and the Saturday evening AD&D 1E retro game, about which I'll talk more another day) and other than that my kid is rapidly polymorphing from a baby into a sprinting, climbing, insatiably curious little daredevil. Marcus is learning new stuff every day, his favorite thing his hanging with dad and doing stuff, and so like 90% of my weekends are spent trying to keep up with him. Whew!

Still, eventually he goes to sleep and then dad gets a little game time in. So this weekend in the MMO world I noticed the following fun bits:



First, Star Wars: The Old Republic is going free to play Thursday the 15th. This is a good thing, I guess! There's going to be a cash shop (and a positive overview on it can be found at the Imperial Intelligence report). It sounds like the cash shop is taking a few hints from the Mass Effect 3 supply pack shop, which gives you mixed random bundles of loot, and the cost goes up proportionate to how many uncommons or rares you are guaranteed. Although I am eternally annoyed at the ME3 shop because I dislike the randomness, it still lets you buy them with in-game currency, so I tolerate it and enjoy the "surprise package" nature of it. I wonder if SWTOR will let you buy random packs with in-game currency...?

Either way, I plan to resume playing SWTOR on Thursday. I didn't really want to stop playing the game, if only because I'd like to see how the spiritual KOTOR 3 successor concludes in some of the storylines. For me, SWTOR was a great single-player game with multi-player options and a monthly fee. If I'd been able to wrap up a storyline or two in a month or three at the most, I'd have been content. As it is, I've got a long way to go. Hopefully I can find a speeder bike or something in-game soon, because running around Coruscant was getting very, very tiring.

On other news, Bethesda's looming Elder Scrolls Online now has some detailed videos on its development available for viewing. I have to say, it looks pretty nice, and I'm kind of excited to see it. I imagine someone who's been drinking from the MMO kool-aid for far longer than I might be a bit jaded at ESO, but as I only occasionally drink deep from said kool-aid (i.e. this last six weeks or so with Rift), I think I'll be ready to check it out when it arrives next year...hopefully.



Sunday night the internet went down and forced my wife and I to consider the realm of single-player offline gaming again. It's always amusing when this happens (amusing being pirated by "annoying and painful" in this case) because you get to see what games do and don't work when the internet dies. Some choice bits I noticed, when trying out games linked to Steam, Origin and others:

Steam's Offline Mode: it worked this time; it hasn't always in the past. However, a number of games still wouldn't work, namely those which still required another agency to authenticate activation (Fallout 3 thanks to GFWL and Max Payne 3 thanks to Rockstar's Online Pass, I guess). However, all the other Bethesda title which were Steam-only without another authenticator worked fine (Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, Hunted: The Demon's Forge, Wolfenstein, Rage and Doom 3 BFG Edition). Thanks Bethesda, you get a gold star!

Origin: For some reason I have Kingdoms of Amalur linked through Origin (must have been a sale). As such it, along with all other Origin-linked titles freak out when you can't log on online, removing access to DLC and also preventing you from starting save games that depend on said DLC. This remains bizarre and concerning as always, and is one of the reaons I will continue to only use Origin in those cases where I absolutely have no choice.

GFWL: as usual if you don't have internet access GFWL has a heart attack and limits or shuts off access to titles and saves linked to this "service."

All the Cool DRM-Free Games on Gamersgate and GOG: Of course, pretty much any game that I purchase through, say, GOG and Gamersgate with DRM-free or one-time activation requirements worked just fine.

Ubisoft: I recently gave up on Ubisoft and deleted everything related to it on my PC, chiefly under the expectation that I lack the fortitude and determination necessary to plow through three Assassin's Creed II games to get the story to the point where I can see AC III, which in turn is getting reviews that suggest it's probably a bit weaker than I was expecting, not to mention I don't look forward to watching Ubisoft spend the next two years milking this iteration of the franchise. I like the AC storyline, plan to buy the books instead.

Luckily, the internet was back up this morning. Disaster averted! Just in time for Rift: Storm Legion to hit...tomorrow!