My not 2017 game awards list of notable things that happened in gaming this year.
For various reasons 2017 has been quite the year in video games. I was thinking of doing a list of my top games but I think that format and awards in general have become pointless the more the medium has grown and it can be quite limiting when trying to talk about the year in general. Which brings me to this list; a list of things related to gaming that I felt really warranted some discussion.
Favourite game of 2017.
This one should be obvious if you're reading this, there is one game I have talked about more or less nonstop since playing it near the time of its release and I will continue to so do for many years. Guerilla came out of nowhere in the open world genre with Horizon Zero Dawn and showed everyone else how it's done. I've already spoken at length about my enjoyment of this game so this is really just its final layer of frosting on the best cake of the year.
Game I played in 2017 that I really shouldn't have waited to do so.
This one is actually pretty tough but after thinking about it the one game I really regret not playing at the time of its release and buying day one was Titanfall 2. The single player experience in T2 is one of the most enjoyable shooters I have played through in a long time and ranks alongside DOOM in terms of pure mechanical driven fun. The control you have over your player is so finely tuned it highlights just how far behind most of the genre still is. It influenced the instincts I have for shooters so much that I found myself wondering how Halo 6 would be if they put wall running in it or a double jump. Things that when you think about them are aspects that make little sense to still be absent in Halo until you realise the likely outrage that would ensue from "old school" Halo fans.
There is also an incredibly well told story in Titanfall 2 and character exchanges and development I just did not expect. While it's a shame BT is so far in front of everyone else there are several moments both big and small that make your journey through the game so much fun and at times even a little emotional.
Speaking of Halo; that Halo 5 is still pretty damn fun.
This year marks the longest I have stuck with a multiplayer game that isn't a fighting game since getting burned out on them around the time Gears of War 3 had run its course; which for me was around the end of 2012 in case anyone wanted a date. Halo has had a rocky road since leaving Bungie in many ways but the multiplayer saw a noticeable dip even under their control. It's actually quite astounding to think how Halo 5 shipped and the game it has turned into. I played maybe 10 matches when it came out and never gave it a second thought; this was largely due to my commitments regarding fighting games at the time but there was definitely a sense that Halo 5 didn't feel ready to release when it did.
Fast forward a few months and firefight had been added, new weapons, the loot system had been adjusted and they actually included proper play lists. While it's just as much a problem that this stuff was the way it was at launch come January I will have been playing Halo 5 for two years straight. I'm not entirely sure how much of my enjoyment is due to the significant time away from shooters in general but 343 has built a great starting platform for Halo 6 and they would have to try pretty hard to sabotage things for that games launch. I can only hope the lessons learned are not forgotten.
EA
This doesn't really need a subtitle does it? EA have had a pretty bad name for the most part and it isn't without justification. This year though they just might have gone too far; from pushing the boat over the dam when it comes to micro transactions to outright killing one the most beloved franchises in the last ten years and simultaneously make me even more tired of hearing about Star Wars than usual it's hard to imagine what they could do to get some good will back. That sentence was already too long but add in the closure of Visceral games which was pretty killer for someone who loves Dead Space as much as I do I can only hope they have learned their lesson.
Micro transactions got a little crazy this year huh?
I don't know if this is the elephant in the room for the year but it's a contender for sure. While EA get the credit for pushing everyone over the edge let us not forget the heavy lifting that Warner Bros. did earlier in the year. Shadow of War definitely got the lion share of the blame but people tend to forget about Injustice 2 much earlier too. I think these two along with Battlefront 2 was the slam dunk needed to shine a light on this but unfortunately it did so in a way that made more or less everyone look bad.
Contrary to what larger news publications and youtube would have you think not all games supported or designed around in game purchases are pure evil that will corrupt everyone's children. There are games that do these systems well and that are in no way as offensive in their boldness as the year's biggest offenders. It will be interesting to see how this influences the following year of big name releases though. No doubt this has been taken notice of but people are much quicker to shout loudly about something that should change than they are too quietly change something themselves. Money talks a lot louder than twitter or youtube and all the hateful content in the world won't change a thing if this time next year Red Dead Redemption 2 makes more money through its in game purchases than other game company's entire year end profit.
Ninja Gaiden Black for the new generation.
So NGB came out this year for a lot of people and a lot of people had the very rude awakening that they weren't quite as good at video games as this last decade of has made them believe. Seeing NGB release on Xbox One was really a shock to me, it wasn't something I would have ever imagined that could happen and I was at least a little hopeful people would rise to its challenge.
Sadly this was not the case. There was definitely a boom, relatively speaking in the attention the game was getting and people taking attempts to get the usual day one release viewership that typically accompanies it. But those people were in for a bit of a shock, NGB is a game that is actually, really difficult and not in the grind focused ways that is more common these days. NGB expects you to notice things, to learn from mistakes, to incorporate multiple different approaches in a single situation and perhaps the most important; to be good at actually playing video games.
High execution is something that is quickly disappearing from games and it is no surprise this is the aspect that made many people fall when it comes to NGB. There are no shortcuts for the game, even when you have all the knowledge that is required you still need the execution to make use of that knowledge. It's not a game that makes you think you're good at it really quickly which has become very common over the last few years. You don't get a gold star for taking part, you don't get a pat on the back for trying really hard. You either succeed or make excuses as to why you aren't good and blame the game. It was strange to see the same hollow arguments and excuses made that were thrown around back when the game released. Anything but accept the fact that you are in fact the problem and not game.
For what it's worth I feel this is the exact same thing that holds Horizon Zero Dawn back from more praise. If NGB is chess then Horizon is a notch above checkers and even that has proven too much for the majority of people nowadays. The need for instant gratification and skill ceilings so low they are achieved in days is quickly ruining my long term enjoyment of most larger games these days and I won't sugar coat how refreshing it was to see an older game come along and give the majority a reality check.
Xbox One X and the next generation of consoles.
Taking a grain of salt with the numbers here but the latest Xbox is around 4 times as powerful as the vanilla console that originally released. That is a substantial increase in power yet the generation has not moved away from the current platforms. This makes me wonder just when the true successors will be announced and the current line up for big releases is a key factor here.
Do these current systems really have enough power left in them to get us to Naugthy Dogs next big game, or Rockstar and as of 2017 I'll add Guerilla to that list? I was thinking about the likely release of Halo 6 along these lines too and my initial thought was 2019 for that game but the more I began to break that timeline down the less it made sense. 2022 seems like much too long of a generation even if the vanilla consoles are abandoned and it's becoming more and more clear that raw graphics horsepower is not the one size fits all problem solver it might have once been.
I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of whomever is designing the follow up to these current systems. In many ways the PS4 and Xbox One feel like less powerful, closed box PC's than they do a traditional console and that's why I think the task of designing the successors is so daunting. The industry has changed drastically over the last few years and trying to anticipate whatever changes are around the next corner is something that could go horribly wrong.
Sales, sales and more sales! It's changing the way I determine value and I doubt I'm alone.
This feels like an odd thing to bring up as a potential negative but bear with me. Just how many games have you purchased in the last two years for full price? I am talking 100% price tags here, even if you save five or ten percent off a brand new £15 or £50 game. I can tell you my personal number is less than 5 and the consistency at which sales pop up is largely to blame for this.
This year my only day one big box purchase was Wolfenstein 2; which I do not regret in the slightest. I got Horizon Zero Dawn 10% off due to some PS+ promotion and even Nioh was discounted by 10% the week it came out. Why is this? I'm not going to pretend I know the answer but this pattern is quickly becoming something that makes me question just why game pricing has not changed yet.
The most obvious reason for a game going down in price near its release is low sales, this was unfortunately the case for Wolfenstein 2 but the pendulum goes just as far in the other direction. GTA5 for example is still £45 most places; why? Because people are still willing to pay that price tag for it despite it being an older game. Even smaller games which rarely go above £15 are regularly discounted by up to 33% less than a few months after release and it's really changing the way I look at a games value.
More and more I am thinking about what I want to support rather than what I want to play at the time of release. There are quite a few examples this year but the most notable were Nioh, Horizon and Wolfenstein 2. Granted Wolfenstein 2 is a sequel but the shift that series has taken since the reboot more than qualifies it as a new IP in my book and that's what I'm choosing to spend my money on more and more. I haven't played Nioh nearly as much as I would have ten years ago but I don't care. It's always there and I'm not worried about getting the next open world game or the tenth shooter or the next barely functional RPG because I know I'll be able to pick them up for next to nothing at some point during the year.
Vanquish is one of my favourite shooters of all time but I waited for it to be on sale before picking it up. I like Killzone more than the average person but I was extremely hesitant to put down over £50 on an open world RPG developed by that team that I knew virtually nothing about. I think the constant abundance of sales is making it more and more feasible to take risks when it comes to new IP but on the other hand it makes me wonder what the long term effect of this will be. To an alarming number of people (it seems) the idea of buying a game day one regardless of your fondness or anticipation of it is totally crazy so this is definitely having a negative impact as well.
Games coverage is all the same.
This year is the first one since 2012 where I have followed games coverage and news on a regular basis. Not to the level at which I used to but keeping up with regular news and recent releases was something I made a point to keep up with. I wish I had got around to starting up a regular podcast much sooner than I did but it was impossible not to notice how almost every single gaming website that has survived is a mirror of what most popular youtube channels are doing.
Seeing movie trailers and those awful "ten things you missed in superhero trailer X" videos pop up and what was once pillars of games coverage is a sign of the times and how they have changed and it's clear that in order to keep the doors open then certain compromises must be made.
With that said, news coverage has become virtually standard issue now. Every single site has the same stories posted and it really makes you wonder why there are still more than one news focused site sticking around. The only gaming site I frequent for things other than news used to Giant Bomb but they have gone heavily down the lets play style route for content other than quick looks and podcasts and I always thought of them as the last bastion of the old ways so to see them follow the same pattern as Johnny Youtuber's gaming channel is disappointing to say the least.
There are definitely some forms of light in the tunnel though. The introduction of things like No Clip and Cloth Map are superb entries in the field and I really hope more people are inspired to create things like that. They are a much bigger risk but I think the rewards for supporting them are much higher than what the vast majority of games coverage has become.
Looking forward to 2018.
This year has been my favourite in a long time, between catching up on the couple of 2016 hits I missed and the onslaught of greatness 2017 produced I haven't felt this good about the gaming industry in a long time. Sure there are few thorns in the rosebush but there have been more than one example where just creating a great game has proven enough for most people. I still have a backlog from this year to finish and next year is already looking pretty amazing and hopefully the right lessons will be learned going forward.
Having to wait for that Horizon sequel is painful though. I just hope with all my being it doesn't join DMC2 and Ninja Gaiden 3 in pit of hell that is disappointing sequels.
Favourite game of 2017.
This one should be obvious if you're reading this, there is one game I have talked about more or less nonstop since playing it near the time of its release and I will continue to so do for many years. Guerilla came out of nowhere in the open world genre with Horizon Zero Dawn and showed everyone else how it's done. I've already spoken at length about my enjoyment of this game so this is really just its final layer of frosting on the best cake of the year.
Game I played in 2017 that I really shouldn't have waited to do so.
This one is actually pretty tough but after thinking about it the one game I really regret not playing at the time of its release and buying day one was Titanfall 2. The single player experience in T2 is one of the most enjoyable shooters I have played through in a long time and ranks alongside DOOM in terms of pure mechanical driven fun. The control you have over your player is so finely tuned it highlights just how far behind most of the genre still is. It influenced the instincts I have for shooters so much that I found myself wondering how Halo 6 would be if they put wall running in it or a double jump. Things that when you think about them are aspects that make little sense to still be absent in Halo until you realise the likely outrage that would ensue from "old school" Halo fans.
There is also an incredibly well told story in Titanfall 2 and character exchanges and development I just did not expect. While it's a shame BT is so far in front of everyone else there are several moments both big and small that make your journey through the game so much fun and at times even a little emotional.
Speaking of Halo; that Halo 5 is still pretty damn fun.
This year marks the longest I have stuck with a multiplayer game that isn't a fighting game since getting burned out on them around the time Gears of War 3 had run its course; which for me was around the end of 2012 in case anyone wanted a date. Halo has had a rocky road since leaving Bungie in many ways but the multiplayer saw a noticeable dip even under their control. It's actually quite astounding to think how Halo 5 shipped and the game it has turned into. I played maybe 10 matches when it came out and never gave it a second thought; this was largely due to my commitments regarding fighting games at the time but there was definitely a sense that Halo 5 didn't feel ready to release when it did.
Fast forward a few months and firefight had been added, new weapons, the loot system had been adjusted and they actually included proper play lists. While it's just as much a problem that this stuff was the way it was at launch come January I will have been playing Halo 5 for two years straight. I'm not entirely sure how much of my enjoyment is due to the significant time away from shooters in general but 343 has built a great starting platform for Halo 6 and they would have to try pretty hard to sabotage things for that games launch. I can only hope the lessons learned are not forgotten.
EA
This doesn't really need a subtitle does it? EA have had a pretty bad name for the most part and it isn't without justification. This year though they just might have gone too far; from pushing the boat over the dam when it comes to micro transactions to outright killing one the most beloved franchises in the last ten years and simultaneously make me even more tired of hearing about Star Wars than usual it's hard to imagine what they could do to get some good will back. That sentence was already too long but add in the closure of Visceral games which was pretty killer for someone who loves Dead Space as much as I do I can only hope they have learned their lesson.
Micro transactions got a little crazy this year huh?
I don't know if this is the elephant in the room for the year but it's a contender for sure. While EA get the credit for pushing everyone over the edge let us not forget the heavy lifting that Warner Bros. did earlier in the year. Shadow of War definitely got the lion share of the blame but people tend to forget about Injustice 2 much earlier too. I think these two along with Battlefront 2 was the slam dunk needed to shine a light on this but unfortunately it did so in a way that made more or less everyone look bad.
Contrary to what larger news publications and youtube would have you think not all games supported or designed around in game purchases are pure evil that will corrupt everyone's children. There are games that do these systems well and that are in no way as offensive in their boldness as the year's biggest offenders. It will be interesting to see how this influences the following year of big name releases though. No doubt this has been taken notice of but people are much quicker to shout loudly about something that should change than they are too quietly change something themselves. Money talks a lot louder than twitter or youtube and all the hateful content in the world won't change a thing if this time next year Red Dead Redemption 2 makes more money through its in game purchases than other game company's entire year end profit.
Ninja Gaiden Black for the new generation.
So NGB came out this year for a lot of people and a lot of people had the very rude awakening that they weren't quite as good at video games as this last decade of has made them believe. Seeing NGB release on Xbox One was really a shock to me, it wasn't something I would have ever imagined that could happen and I was at least a little hopeful people would rise to its challenge.
Sadly this was not the case. There was definitely a boom, relatively speaking in the attention the game was getting and people taking attempts to get the usual day one release viewership that typically accompanies it. But those people were in for a bit of a shock, NGB is a game that is actually, really difficult and not in the grind focused ways that is more common these days. NGB expects you to notice things, to learn from mistakes, to incorporate multiple different approaches in a single situation and perhaps the most important; to be good at actually playing video games.
High execution is something that is quickly disappearing from games and it is no surprise this is the aspect that made many people fall when it comes to NGB. There are no shortcuts for the game, even when you have all the knowledge that is required you still need the execution to make use of that knowledge. It's not a game that makes you think you're good at it really quickly which has become very common over the last few years. You don't get a gold star for taking part, you don't get a pat on the back for trying really hard. You either succeed or make excuses as to why you aren't good and blame the game. It was strange to see the same hollow arguments and excuses made that were thrown around back when the game released. Anything but accept the fact that you are in fact the problem and not game.
For what it's worth I feel this is the exact same thing that holds Horizon Zero Dawn back from more praise. If NGB is chess then Horizon is a notch above checkers and even that has proven too much for the majority of people nowadays. The need for instant gratification and skill ceilings so low they are achieved in days is quickly ruining my long term enjoyment of most larger games these days and I won't sugar coat how refreshing it was to see an older game come along and give the majority a reality check.
Xbox One X and the next generation of consoles.
Taking a grain of salt with the numbers here but the latest Xbox is around 4 times as powerful as the vanilla console that originally released. That is a substantial increase in power yet the generation has not moved away from the current platforms. This makes me wonder just when the true successors will be announced and the current line up for big releases is a key factor here.
Do these current systems really have enough power left in them to get us to Naugthy Dogs next big game, or Rockstar and as of 2017 I'll add Guerilla to that list? I was thinking about the likely release of Halo 6 along these lines too and my initial thought was 2019 for that game but the more I began to break that timeline down the less it made sense. 2022 seems like much too long of a generation even if the vanilla consoles are abandoned and it's becoming more and more clear that raw graphics horsepower is not the one size fits all problem solver it might have once been.
I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of whomever is designing the follow up to these current systems. In many ways the PS4 and Xbox One feel like less powerful, closed box PC's than they do a traditional console and that's why I think the task of designing the successors is so daunting. The industry has changed drastically over the last few years and trying to anticipate whatever changes are around the next corner is something that could go horribly wrong.
Sales, sales and more sales! It's changing the way I determine value and I doubt I'm alone.
This feels like an odd thing to bring up as a potential negative but bear with me. Just how many games have you purchased in the last two years for full price? I am talking 100% price tags here, even if you save five or ten percent off a brand new £15 or £50 game. I can tell you my personal number is less than 5 and the consistency at which sales pop up is largely to blame for this.
This year my only day one big box purchase was Wolfenstein 2; which I do not regret in the slightest. I got Horizon Zero Dawn 10% off due to some PS+ promotion and even Nioh was discounted by 10% the week it came out. Why is this? I'm not going to pretend I know the answer but this pattern is quickly becoming something that makes me question just why game pricing has not changed yet.
The most obvious reason for a game going down in price near its release is low sales, this was unfortunately the case for Wolfenstein 2 but the pendulum goes just as far in the other direction. GTA5 for example is still £45 most places; why? Because people are still willing to pay that price tag for it despite it being an older game. Even smaller games which rarely go above £15 are regularly discounted by up to 33% less than a few months after release and it's really changing the way I look at a games value.
More and more I am thinking about what I want to support rather than what I want to play at the time of release. There are quite a few examples this year but the most notable were Nioh, Horizon and Wolfenstein 2. Granted Wolfenstein 2 is a sequel but the shift that series has taken since the reboot more than qualifies it as a new IP in my book and that's what I'm choosing to spend my money on more and more. I haven't played Nioh nearly as much as I would have ten years ago but I don't care. It's always there and I'm not worried about getting the next open world game or the tenth shooter or the next barely functional RPG because I know I'll be able to pick them up for next to nothing at some point during the year.
Vanquish is one of my favourite shooters of all time but I waited for it to be on sale before picking it up. I like Killzone more than the average person but I was extremely hesitant to put down over £50 on an open world RPG developed by that team that I knew virtually nothing about. I think the constant abundance of sales is making it more and more feasible to take risks when it comes to new IP but on the other hand it makes me wonder what the long term effect of this will be. To an alarming number of people (it seems) the idea of buying a game day one regardless of your fondness or anticipation of it is totally crazy so this is definitely having a negative impact as well.
Games coverage is all the same.
This year is the first one since 2012 where I have followed games coverage and news on a regular basis. Not to the level at which I used to but keeping up with regular news and recent releases was something I made a point to keep up with. I wish I had got around to starting up a regular podcast much sooner than I did but it was impossible not to notice how almost every single gaming website that has survived is a mirror of what most popular youtube channels are doing.
Seeing movie trailers and those awful "ten things you missed in superhero trailer X" videos pop up and what was once pillars of games coverage is a sign of the times and how they have changed and it's clear that in order to keep the doors open then certain compromises must be made.
With that said, news coverage has become virtually standard issue now. Every single site has the same stories posted and it really makes you wonder why there are still more than one news focused site sticking around. The only gaming site I frequent for things other than news used to Giant Bomb but they have gone heavily down the lets play style route for content other than quick looks and podcasts and I always thought of them as the last bastion of the old ways so to see them follow the same pattern as Johnny Youtuber's gaming channel is disappointing to say the least.
There are definitely some forms of light in the tunnel though. The introduction of things like No Clip and Cloth Map are superb entries in the field and I really hope more people are inspired to create things like that. They are a much bigger risk but I think the rewards for supporting them are much higher than what the vast majority of games coverage has become.
Looking forward to 2018.
This year has been my favourite in a long time, between catching up on the couple of 2016 hits I missed and the onslaught of greatness 2017 produced I haven't felt this good about the gaming industry in a long time. Sure there are few thorns in the rosebush but there have been more than one example where just creating a great game has proven enough for most people. I still have a backlog from this year to finish and next year is already looking pretty amazing and hopefully the right lessons will be learned going forward.
Having to wait for that Horizon sequel is painful though. I just hope with all my being it doesn't join DMC2 and Ninja Gaiden 3 in pit of hell that is disappointing sequels.
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