Keyrock

It plays more like a puzzle game than anything else because, apart from levels being procedurally generated, there's no randomness, no dice rolls. Everything either works or doesn't work every time, so you know whether an action will succeed or fail ahead of time. In fact, the game won't even allow you to take an action that would fail. Anyway, fun game and with Klei's signature fantastic art style and animations.

I finished Gat out of Hell. Fun little game, but I do miss making my own character and being able to play dress up with them. Now I'm back to Sattelite Reign and Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Insurance fraud, or in the case of Gat out of Hell, Torment Fraud, is still the best side activity ever. Getting ragdolled around will never get old.

I'm recovering from all the drinking last night. I don't feel sick since I stuck to good Polish potato vodka and didn't drink any of the crap others were, but I'm still kind of in a foggy daze. This would be a bad day to play something that requires thought and planning, so Satellite Reign is out for today. I'll play some Saints Row: Gat out of Hell instead. Good goofy ridiculous fun.

I was lucky enough to see Iron Maiden twice live, once at Lollapalooza where they played exclusively songs from their first 4 albums. Obviously, Bruce Dickenson, who is a **********ing legend did all the singing, despite the fact that 2 of the 4 albums were Paul Di' Anno albums. Bruce did a masterful job, as expected, but it shined a light on just how amazing the 2 Paul Di'Anno albums were, particularly Killers. So, here it is. Enjoy the awesomeness and Happy New Year ********ers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVq7jpXlgPIz

I have 2 resolutions for 2016. By this time next year to be living in warm North Carolina instead of cold Connecticut (though this winter has been insanely warm so far). To be even more salty. Happy New Year **********ers!

The last great FF game is coming to PC and mobile. Don't **** this up, Squeenix.

There is talk of "toxic working conditions" and Chip having lost the team and whatnot, though I don't know how much stock to put into those talks. To switch sports for a moment, as a Red Sox fan, I still vividly remember how hard the owners threw Terry Francona under the bus when he was shown the door. If I were to believe everything that was said about Tito, I'd think he was the devil himself.

You think Gothic 2 is large in scope, wait until you see Gothic 3 . I'm still playing Satellite Reign. I'm happy to say that I've encountered greater challenges than at the beginning of the game, though my team is now equipped and armored enough that I can take on an extended firefight against superior numbers and win, so long as I'm fighting low level grunts and not trained soldiers with military-grade hardware. It's good too because, try as I might, the completely clean stealth run into a guarded facility is a bit of a rarity for me, so I either have to fight my way through or run away a good chunk of the time. Much of the time I can ghost my way in, but I often get spotted on the way out, though at that point I can usually just make a run for it. I still think it's too easy to lose pursuit in the game, especially if I only send in one person, namely my infiltrator, rather than the whole team of 4, but I'm having a good bit of fun with the game.

So, the Chip Kelly experiment is over in Philly. As a Cowboys fan, nothing delights me more than turmoil and failure for the Iggles, though that's only partial consolation after the year the Boys have had. I do feel, however, that Chip was fired too soon. On the one hand, he did get rid of not only his team's best player, but also their second best player, plus he put his eggs in the Sam Bradford basket, and while I think Sam is a decent QB, his body is made of papier-mache, so it's rather risky to bet your future on him. On the other hand, while this was Chip's 3rd year, this was the first year where he was given essentially full control over football decisions, and if you're going to give a guy that kind of power and he makes sweeping changes, as Chip did, you need to give it more than 1 year to play out. Either way, it's over now.

Maybe because it came out in 2014? Though I suppose it's new to folks on console this year. Fun game, I had a good time with it. The rock paper scissors system of attitudes and moods and the different abilities that put status effects on your party or the enemies was surprisingly deep. All the different "attacks", whether aggressive, friendly, or devious, all boiled down to different ways to take a health bar down, but it was still an interesting way to do it and the funny animations helped make it enjoyable.

I didn't include it on my list because I'm not confident about when it will come out, but I'm definitely very interested in the game.

R.I.P.

This definitely has my curiosity, but when I watched that trailer several months ago I kept asking "What do you actually do in the game? Are there puzzles? Climbing/Platforming? Combat?" and I couldn't shake the words "walking simulator" out of my mind.

I highly doubt it. I included a "still though don't preorder" tag for the thread. Clearly our views on the practice coincide.

What 2016 games are you most excited for? For me, in no particular order: Torment: Tides of Numenera Genei Ibun Roku #FE Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Steamworld Heist Cuphead Grim Dawn Darkest Dungeon Shadow Warrior 2 Dishonored 2

Maybe Breesus is juicin' like 5Head Manning?

Freedom Planet 2 is in development, and they're not even crowdfunding it.

Bruce gaining unlimited money and immortality sounds like the backstory to many a dystopian future movie.

I would become a nomad and travel the world, moving from region to region, country to country, and eventually, planet to planet, never staying in one place for more than a year or two. Also, I would behead all the other immortals because there can be only one. Any excuse to post a Queen song is a good excuse.

Keep in mind that I didn't play many of the mega blockbusters this year. Game of the Year: Xenoblade Chronicles X - Clumsy storytelling and poor (or non-existent) explanations of its systems are more than made up for by extreme customizability, extensive skill and effect interaction systems with almost limitless depth, and a spectacular and mind-bogglingly gigantic open world to explore. Really, the world is the star of the show, it's so phenomenal. Pleasant Surprise of the Year (aka The Outta Nowhere Award): Crookz - The Big Heist - Mediocre writing and less than stellar production value hold this one back a little bit, but the fantastic gameplay and level design, and the nearly flawless difficulty curve and game length made it easy to overlook those faults. A true gem that flew under the radar. RPG of the Year: Xenoblade Chronicles X Tactics Game of the Year: Crookz - The Big Heist Racing Game of the Year: Fast Racing Neo - It's not quite F-Zero and Shin'en had to use some clever tricks to get 60 FPS on the limited hardware of the Wii U, but it's nevertheless a great looking game and it completely nails arguably the most important part, the feeling of speed. The game absolutely lives up to its name. Action Game of the Year: Dying Light - Terrible QTE final boss fight aside, Dying Light is a thoroughly enjoyable parkour romp through a sprawling world filled with zombies. It's the game we wanted Dead Island to be. Adventure Game of the Year: SOMA - Nowhere near as scary as Frictional's previous efforts, SOMA is, however, their best effort in storytelling, even if it is a bit ham-fisted sometimes. It helps that the game is equal parts creepy as **** and breathtakingly beautiful, which really helped pull me into the game world. Nostalgia Award For Best Series Revival: Satellite Reign - While it doesn't actually bear the Syndicate name, it's the Syndicate game fans have been waiting for for almost 20 years. Far from perfect, it's nevertheless a good game that really nails the look of its dystopian cyberpunk setting. (Note: I almost put Shadowrun: Hong Kong here, but I feel that series had already been revived in 2013) Best Writing: Shadowrun: Hong Kong - While not quite up to the standard set by Dragonfall, the game nevertheless showcases the phenomenal storytelling and character writing that Harebrained Schemes possesses. The game pulled me into the story and it made me care about its characters, even the kinda scummy ones.

Damonta? You're nowhere near the end of the game, you're not even halfway through. Oh. Um... Ah. If it helps, I found the second half of the game to be more interesting than the first and there's more stuff to do there that doesn't (necessarily) involve combat.

Damonta? You're nowhere near the end of the game, you're not even halfway through.