Every year the Push Square Team gets together to vote for the site's PlayStation Game of the Year. While we usually keep these polls secret, we're putting the spotlight on some of our authors this holiday so that they can highlight some of their personal favourites from 2015. Today it's the turn of Graham Banas, as he oils his blade with five smash hits.
Fifth Choice: Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
Hotline Miami 2 was not a sequel that I was expecting to happen when it got announced. I did however welcome it with open arms. The first entry in all of its hyper-violent beauty is a game that I had an absolute blast with and the chance to experience that again but with even more polished gameplay was too good to pass up. Toss in a killer meta-narrative and some of the greatest usage of licensed music this side of Spec Ops: The Line, and I did not walk away disappointed.
Fourth Choice: Until Dawn
Supermassive's love-letter to many of the tropes of horror films is one that I knew I would love from the moment the dev re-announced it for the PS4. The allure of getting a bunch of friends together to yell at the screen like we do for normal slasher films and the like was too strong to ignore. Amazingly, it didn't just bring a schlocky story to the table, but legitimately interesting plot twists, character developments, and payoffs. While its butterfly effect stuff may have merely created an illusion of choice, it'd be a lie to say I didn't love my first time through this game.
Third Choice: SOMA
SOMA is a game I spent a very long time being excited about. Granted, I was excited for it as a horror game. Unfortunately, it wasn't very scary – at least to me. But it made up for it with one of the coolest narratives I've ever come across. The game's questions about artificial intelligence and the line between consciousnesses left me thinking more than possibly any other game that I can think of. It also delivered one of my favorite endings to a game ever – the pre-credits ending anyways. Throw in amazing art direction and it was a no-brainer really.
Second Choice: Rocket League
Ah, Rocket League. One of my biggest surprises of the year. I thought I was going to have fun with it, but I had no idea just how much fun. The game's beauty lies in its simplicity: soccer – just with a big ball and cars instead of people. It's one of the most enjoyable online games that I've ever experienced, and it's in the elite class of games where sucking at it is as much fun as being good. This stands out as the best free game in my mind that came from PlayStation Plus this generation – on par with Resogun.
First Choice: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
CD Projekt Red obliterated my expectations with this game. I had actually never played the previous games or read any of the books, but I decided to dive head first into this release because I respected the dev's business practices too much not to support them. What I got in return was one of the most immersive open world RPGs I've ever experienced. A gripping story, some of the best writing I've ever seen in a game, and a fascinating world to explore made for not only this year's best release, but one of the best games that I've ever played.
Are you twitching over Graham's The Witcher selection, or do you reckon that his selections are bang on? Go hunting in the comments section below.
Comments 12
Strong list, surprised myself that I still haven't bought Hotline Miami 2 yet, will definitely get it at some point. SOMA looks interesting too.
Your top 2 would easily also be my choices, unfortunately I haven't touched the others (bit of a scarredy cat when it comes to horror), although SOMA sounds interesting.
Good shout with Hotline Miami 2! I almost totally forgot about it but I remember loving it back when it launched.
Some great picks here - Rocket League and the Witcher especially - but did anyone else find Hotline Miami 2 a little disappointing? I was a huge fan of the first game but this one just seemed to fall flat
This is a cool list and it's nice to see Hotline Miami 2 on there. I like when different members of a website put their own views forward as it shows the range of opinions out there.
@Anchorsam_9 It's funny, I get the sense that a lot of people found it disappointing. Personally, I thought that the first Hotline Miami was good, but not a great game or an indie classic. I think that Hotline Miami 2 improves upon it in many areas, but it also takes steps back in terms of some of the level design - the fact that you have particular levels with limited ammo without being able to pick up guns that lay in front of you can just be painfully frustrating. But at least everyone seems to dig the soundtrack!
@Churchy Yeah, pretty sure we can all agree that the soundtrack was excellent! I have no idea what went wrong with Hotline Miami 2, I think it's because the big levels made the game all the more frustrating. In Hotline Miami 1, every death felt like it meant something and that it was entirely your fault, but thanks to the bigger levels in 2 there were a lot of frustrating, cheap deaths that made the game less enjoyable.
Hotline 2 was hugely disappointing after the first, which I really loved. I went for the best ranks on most of the stages in the first but couldn't even be bothered to finish the second. The level design was so wonky and it was basically impossible to clear certain stages without guns.
@Anchorsam_9 Yeah, I would agree that it is let down by that. Sometimes there are just too many long stretches where you have to stay alive and it could've been fixed with a few extra checkpoints. However, I found the story much more fleshed out and engaging than the first game, and the fact that there are about four different narrative perspectives going on (and you're never sure what is real) was enough for me. It's a flawed game for sure, but for me the atmosphere is more potent. However, I can totally understand why it left others cold.
But then again, I did dress up as Richard for Halloween so I might be a bit biased on this!
I haven't played hotline Miami 2 but I have listened to the ost via youtube - man that soundtrack is brilliant.
@sub12 @LieutenantFatman SOMA's great! I didn't find it terribly scary, but man was it cool!
@Quintumply @Churchy I didn't find myself disappointed. Although I was late to the party with the first one. I didn't play it until like two years after it's release because my friend kept pestering me about it. And then I loved it. But I wasn't disappointed by the 2nd. I came away from it feeling like it had a greater depth to it. The gameplay at times practically felt like turn based strategy, almost like Transistor! Whereas the first one, I could get lucky and blindly stumble too. I came away loving both just for different reasons!
I'm loving that Hotline Miami is getting a lot of attention in these comments everyone! It feels like so long ago, it's almost as if everyone forgot about it!
Come on, Witcher again? Look I get it, it's an expansive open world rpg with some quality writing and graphics.
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