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 Joey Thurmond, as horror rules the roost.
Fifth Choice: Destiny: The Taken King
Although it's a cliché, Destiny excels in many categories, like with its gunplay and lore, but sorely lacks a good narrative, writing, and characters. The first two DLC packs shamefully glossed over these concerns, but The Taken King didn't with impressive results. With actual character development and great humour, the story was far more entertaining. Doubly so due to more challenging variants of existing foes, diverse mission objectives, reconfigured levelling systems, and more. While Destiny still has much to do to realise its full potential, this was a huge step in the right direction that demonstrates Bungie is listening.
Fourth Choice: Until Dawn
With regards to storytelling, horror games have a commendable inspiration with Until Dawn. Supermassive Games subverts the genre's tropes by defying and even using them in unpredictable ways that will genuinely surprise you. A cast of stereotypical characters completes the B-movie feel, but they're such a diverse crowd commanded by great actors that you can't help but love them and their goofy dialogue. With the 'Butterfly Effect' narrative structure, you'll also be on edge with every little decision you make. It all makes for a cleverly crafted love letter to teen horror flicks, which is arguably a cut above Telltale's adventure titles in some ways.
Third Choice: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
MachineGames created one of the best first-person shooters I've played in years with Wolfenstein: The New Order, and it had the magic touch yet again with this standalone prequel campaign. While the level design was more linear and boss fights were less impressive this time around, these cons don't detract from the impact of this substantial DLC. Captivating backdrops and art direction complement well-written dialogue and characters once again, backing up a great balance of satisfactory stealth sections and shootouts that coincide with a more gloriously over-the-top story than its predecessor. It's among the best DLC of 2015.
Second Choice: Resident Evil: Revelations 2
Resident Evil 6 left a sour taste in my mouth, but I knew Capcom was on to something with Revelations, which is why I was ecstatic about its commendable sequel. Boasting what I believe to be the best story in the franchise, this is the highest point it has hit since the legendary fourth instalment with a more appropriate control scheme, simple but fun puzzles, and a toned-down story with great scares and twists. Classic and fresh characters have awesome interactions, and new additions like upgradable skills and handling two characters meaningfully move Resident Evil forward without compromising its identity.
First Choice: Bloodborne
I've been a fan of From Software's games for some time, but have sadly never finished a single one due to an abnormally tough boss or simply losing the will to press on. Somehow, Bloodborne hits the sweet spot of being exceptionally hard by inducing countless deaths while still making me feel like I'm always making progress. It draws you in with this and its more offensively-tuned gameplay. The monolithic Gothic visuals, excellent enemy behaviour and designs, profound lore, enthralling open world that begs you to explore, grand soundtrack – I couldn't perform enough "Approval" gestures to emphasise that this is the PS4's best exclusive yet.
Does Joey have a legitimate list of contenders, or should he be ashamed of having not played games like Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3 yet? Eviscerate or praise his choices in the comments section below.
Comments 11
As I said before, I consider the Taken King as a DLC expansion rather than a 'game' and I kind of feel the same way about the Old Blood too. After all it was supposed to be 2 DLC packs that ended up being merged into 1. The Story is also very much 'split' into 2 parts too. Its good fun but hardly better than the majority of other FPS games - At best its got a better story than SW:BF Although you could argue that SW:BF's story was told through the films...
I am sure Resi 6 left a very sour taste in many peoples mouths. 5 was bad enough!
How you doin'?
@BAMozzy I really liked 5!
@get2sammyb 5 gets a lot of unfair hate I noticed. It's a very fun game. It's no Resident Evil 4 but its still a good game in its own right.
@get2sammyb 5 wasn't a bad adventure/action game but it was hardly a traditional 'Resi' horror game. I also thought that Shieva was terrible in AI - What ever weapon you gave her, she always used the worst, got herself killed with her stupidity - really annoyingly too - particularly the conveyor belt part. Her inclusion stopped the game being a survival horror as that AI companion became your pack horse, medic and supporting firepower. It stopped the game being as scary and also took a lot of the resource management away too. As long as Shieva had 1 weapon and some ammo, she could carry all the health stuff to revive you and spare ammo for your arsenal so took a lot away from that survival horror.
That's not to say I didn't think it was a fun action game but its not really what I expect from a Resident Evil game.
Good picks, TTK and Resi Revelations are both really good. I do need to finish Revelations off, though. The raid mode is great.
The Old Blood was a bit of a let down after The New Order but it was okay.
Edit: Resi 5 is one of the best co-op games I've played, loved it.
I had a ton of fun playing Res 5 in Co op. I couldn't get into Res Rev 2, I think it was something about the controls and level design I hated.
I still pop old blood and new order in occasionally to get my fill of brain hole'ing nazis:)
Like these picks. I honestly didn't think Wolfenstein would get some love. Also glad to see Revelations 2 here, as I think that'll be the last good Resi we'll get for a while.
@BAMozzy Ha, it does have a better "story" than what Battlefront had. But no, I understand what you're saying. TTK walks an interstitial line between DLC and a "full" game. It brings forward a new 6-hour campaign, plenty of new missions and quests, weapons, armor, and improvements over the original game. I'm critiquing TTK as a stand-alone game though; I don't need to take the original in consideration...but I am, so yes, perhaps I'm being hypocritical. :/ But for the sake of being close, I just went with it being a game. As for RE5, @stevie85 and @get2sammyb know what's best! (ha ha) I actually liked RE5 and believe it gets a lot of unfair hate, too. However, you're right when you say it fails to convey a sense of horror and atmosphere like the previous games. Those are things RE5 is lacking. And while I don't think Sheva is as bad as people make her out to be...yeah, she has her problems!
But like the other guys said, I think it's a dang solid game in itself as a more action-packed title, especially since the gameplay manages to accomplish this even with similar controls to RE4. It plays nicely, looks great, has a dumb, fun story, and has great co-op. RE6 is where things went wrong where they essentially made RE a complete third-person shooter. That didn't work. -_-
@Boerewors I'm doing fantastic! How are you?
@kyleforrester87 Thanks! And yeah, TOB may not be as good as TNO, but I still thought it was fantastic. I just think people had their standards set too high after playing TNO, but what it doesn't do as well can't be ignored for sure.
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi Really? Those are things I loved more about R2 compared to RE6. RE5 was good, but...I don't know, I think I liked R2 better! The toned-down action, gloomier, disturbing atmosphere, and so on really helped R2 to be something the franchise hasn't had for a while.
@SonyInfinity Oh yeah, gotta do that every now and then! (ha ha)
@AnubisLK8T2 That's a debate for another time. But yes, I get what you're saying. It is DLC, but it technically is quite a large thing in and of itself with a new 6-hour campaign. But believe me, I debated with myself about whether or not to include it as well!
@DerMeister Thanks! And I agree: TOB didn't get as much love as it deserves, and R2 was SO good. Best RE I've played since RE4 in my opinion.
@DrJoeystein I still think that the Taken King is DLC albeit a large expansion, its still just an expansion and doesn't offer as much as 'Destiny' itself did. It does offer a bit more campaign and strikes as well as the new area than the previous expansions but overall it isn't as big as Destiny was. Despite this, I still included it in my Top 5 though - purely because it was my most played and thought it deserved some credit.
Tap here to load 11 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...