Comments on: End Of Year Retrospective 2016

By: everblue

everblue — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 13:18:15 +0000

I’m still playing the original XCOM Long War mod. It is an unforgiving master.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 11:05:08 +0000

Firmly agree with that approach: I’m planning a replay of Torment this year, and will probably pick up the NWN 2 playthrough I’ve been working away at for the last year or two. After all, it’s difficult to put the boot into things like the new Torment quite as effectively if your recollections of the games you’re comparing them to are too nostalgia-tinged to be objective.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 10:57:19 +0000

You’re absolutely right about the publicity cycles. I’ve been increasingly seduced by them this year myself, and while there was an unusual quantity of really good AAA games that meant it actually paid off for once it does mean the blog got a little bit one-note – I intend to try and change that next year. After three years of trying I think my Steam account is finally game-neutral, though; I play one game for every game that I buy, even if they’re not the same game.

Also, I’m aware of the comments form being broken – it’s super annoying doing the whole post-edit-paste thing, I know. At some point I’m going to have to overhaul the site to fix bugs like that, but I don’t have enough web-fu to fix things directly and the last time I tried a simple WordPress update I broke it for a couple of hours and had to restore from backup, so am understandably reluctant to go tinkering again.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 10:49:04 +0000

I’m working my way through Shadow Tactics at the moment. It came completely out of nowhere and aside from a review from the always-reliable Tim Stone on RPS has had almost no publicity, which is surprising because while I don’t think it’s the best game I played this year it does neatly slot in behind those contenders as The Best Of The Rest.

The Warhammer DLC has been handled extremely well, with the possible exception of the Regiments of Renown: they’re a nice idea, but they’re also the one thing that the human player is handicapped by not owning as the AI will be able to field them but they won’t. It’s not a huge deal though.

By: Ninja Foodstuff

Ninja Foodstuff — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 11:14:05 +0000

Completely agree. I spent most of this year trying to break the habit of buying games I never get round to playing, and instead trying to crack through the best of the 800 or so games I’ve bought but not really played yet (and oh boy I have barely played the Witcher 3 yet). The one exception for me was Tyranny, which I played to completion more or less in a single sitting, and which was such a good time that it actually motivated me to go back and give Pillars of Eternity another try (still trying, but making progress). It really amazes me that mainstream games journalism (by which I also include Rock Paper Shotgun) really do have a lot to answer for in terms of creating hype on publishers’ behalf. Being on a gaming diet, so to speak, makes it easier to take a step back from getting sucked into the “must buy now” whirlwind that gets cooked up each time. The real eye-opener for me was Watch Dogs 2, which seemingly every publication fawned over relentlessly whilst simultaneously failing to communicate in any particular way _why_. And on that note, Hentzau thanks so much for continuing to write these weekly critiques. I think this is the only place on the Internet I can get a useful (and entertaining) perspective on new games.

There are two games you mentioned that I still need to check out- Dishonored 2 and Total War: Warhammer. The first because I still haven’t quite finished the DLC for the original, which I feel I ought to do. The latter was on my radar for quite some time, but you reiterating it here is significant. One of the things about not buying games as soon as they come out (and rationalizing that I’ll wait for a sale or whatever) is that I find my desire to play them later actually diminishes anyway. For example, I was really keen to play Doom after all the positive reports on it. Now a few months later and like 66% discounted fairly regularly, I’m not fussed. But Total War Warhammer- I may very well go for it.

(PS something is messed up with the CSS of your comments form for long replies like this)

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 26 Dec 2016 20:48:03 +0000

I agree with you on Warhammer, and I’ll go a step further and say that the DLC has been great because they’ve not gone the route of making you pay for stuff that should’ve been included already. There are no units that fill roster gaps, there are just more options. There are now subfactions that highlight unique attributes. Even if you don’t own the DLC you still get new enemies to deal with (although the AI doesn’t know what to do with the beastmen, while the Wood Elves get to cheat to the point they’re nearly unstoppable).

I don’t think I have anything substantial to add to this list, but I will say my most pleasant surprise of the year was Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. It’s pretty dang good, but it received next to no marketing.

By: ilitarist

ilitarist — Sun, 25 Dec 2016 09:31:57 +0000

This year I played/replayed lot of older games, mostly classic RPG games to really make sure that those were shit too. So I my library is full of great games I haven’t tried. I have Doom, Hitman, XCOM2 – and those look great but didn’t click with me. I don’t have Dishonored 2 but this is my GOTY in absentia. Or was it Dark Souls 3?..

I played Tyranny and loved it. I played Stellaris and loved the ideal version of it that will forever live in our dreams behind the stream of feature bloat expansions Paradox will give us. I played Europa Universalis 4 and it’s still great. I still promise myself to *really* get into the great games like Offworld Trading Company, Invisible Inc, Sunless Sea, Twilight Struggle, maybe even Gremlins Inc – those games beckon me with their cleverness and hardcoreness.

And now you add Total Total War War Hammer to the list. It should be worth it if you still like it, even with reviews being screwed up like that.