Games in December: 2016's last update

Last week, I guest starred on my friends Zack and Damon's 100th episode of their podcast, Videogames and Sushi. During the show, we talked about memorable gaming moments in 2016. At the time of this post, the episode is still in editing, but it will come any day, now! That means I can spill the beans. My favorite titles of the year were Doom, Overwatch and Final Fantasy XV. Doom scratched an itch that was building over the years. If Halo is too corny, Destiny is too boringly desolate, and Battlefield is set too far back in history, then Doom's gritty setting, fast-paced gunplay, and minimal story exposition worked to make it stand out among the flood of FPS games on the modern systems.

♪Movin with the payload♪

Blizzard doesn't make bad games, and Overwatch is no exception. My passionate gripes have simmered down a bit since November. An overhaul to the still-kinda-sucky loot system upped the frequency of treasure boxes to unlock content faster. I still feel that some characters need some reductions (Mei and Junkrat), and the game is old enough now that everyone you play against is a master at playing it. That's not a technical issue; it just makes the game harder, and less enjoyable for me, personally.

Final Fantasy XV was such a fantastic experience, and I really felt like the product met its ambitious plan. I would have liked to see more diversity in humans and even some other races, and there were some questionable gaps in storytelling, but the positives so completely outweigh the negatives that this was one of my most enjoyable parts in a great year for gaming.

My 2 games in, 1 game out policy came out to a shameful 1.4 games completed for games bought. This should of course be as close to 2 as possible. A few things influenced this: completed is only counting games I can confidently sell, as I've finished storylines and extra accomplishments to get the platinum trophy or 100%; and the flash sales where I just couldn't resist buying indie titles that were $3-7. In reality, for the 1000 hours I spent gaming this year, I played more like 50 games and spent about $300 total.



I would also like to thank my readers for taking me to 3,000 views at the beginning of the year, all the way to almost 6,500! In terms of blogging 2016 was gaming-centric because there really weren't many positive things to say about the year. Next year has a promising video game lineup, but I also hope to find other things that make me happy to write about, and make you happy to read about. Peace out yall!