OK, let's choose our GOTY and our biggest disappointment of 2015

[pilouuuu]

Ok, gals and guys. I think it's a good time to say what we enjoyed and what we didn't enjoy so much this year. Share your opinions!

GOTY: The Witcher 3. They managed to make even minor quests interesting. They feel like mini stories and they put most gaming stories to shame. The open world is beautiful and massive, but the way the quests are structured makes it very easy to play it daily, complete one quest and then save and quit. The Witcher 3 respects your time. You never feel overwhelmed by its sheer scale. You never feel like grinding or bored.

Biggest disappointment: Fallout 4. I can say this is not an RPG. It's a mediocre FPS. They tried to copy Mass Effect and put some stuff from Minecraft. It feels like a dumbed down Fallout 3.5. The sense of discovery is gone.

Honorable mention: Undertale! A game with more choice and consequence and better story telling than most AAA can ever think about.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

GOTY: Witcher 3. Exceeded expectations across the board. Raised the bar. Exceptional game in any year.

Biggest Disappointment: XCOM 2 being delayed until 2016.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

GOTY - The Witcher 3

It's pretty much the single best video game ever made in my humble opinion. It's so good that I don't want anything better to come out because I don't want to admit that anything could be better. Unless it's another Witcher game.

Disappointment - MGS V

And not just because of Konami. The only person to blame for the "story" is Kojima. So fuck Kojima. It used to be when a new MGS is released the entire internet exploded and the story and everything was discussed for months. Not this time. Nobody cares. The ending killed the whole game. There's nothing to care about. Gameplay was fine on launch and then Konami had to take a dump on it with FOB insurances. I started a new playthrough just so that I wouldn't build a single FOB.

 

[Elfgore]

GOTY: One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3. Thy reworked the old characters, nerfing the mega-op ones(you'll always be in my heart Kuzan.) and buffing the pathetic ones(finally Zoro is useful). Not the mention the awesome new characters introduce and the amazing Dream Log mode. I've sunk more hours into this game than any other this year, I even bought the Japense version so I didn have to wait a couple months for the English translation.

Let-down: Mad Max. Repetitive, boring, and filled with pointless fluff. I gave up after playing this game ten hours. Characters sucked something major and combat was rather dull after a short time.

 

[Evonisia]

GOTY so far: Bloodborne[footnote]But I'm holding out hope for Rise of the Tomb Raider if I can play it before year's end[/footnote]

As somebody who was at best mixed towards the Souls games, I was really surprised at how much I loved pretty much everything about Bloodborne. The atmosphere, visuals, the energetic and yet still careful combat, the grim story were wonderful and I found something very calming and enjoyable about making my way through the decrepit streets and woods. The only parts I didn't like were the boss fights, but I hate the boss fights in all of these games and summoning a Co-Op partner can at least make those things fun.

Disappointment: Call of Duty: Black Ops III...'s campaign.

The Zombies and Multiplayer of this game are fantastic, a right balance of CoD's style with elements of Titanfall, classes and the like. A huge improvement over the mediocre multiplayer and co-op offerings of AW/Ghosts and a rightful successor to Black Ops II even if it doesn't surpass it. Dead Ops Arcade 2 is just a delight and makes DOA seem fresh again after five years of me playing it relentlessly.

Spoiler: The campaign is fucking atrocious (Rant incoming)

Treyarch's admirable attempts to change the formula such as more open level design, movement systems, new enemy types/variety, actual boss fights and cybernetic powers akin to BioShock's plasmids ultimately turn out to be the game's undoing. All of said features are either mishandled, underused, or better utilised in the Zombies or Multiplayer.

Even if these things were handled well, they're let down by how horrible the campaign is otherwise. Glitches are abundant, and crashes are frequent, and they're strictly campaign only. Co-Op is damn near impossible as it crashes during the cutscenes of some missions. Some of the cutscenes are unskippable for arbitrary reasons. A lot of the missions are relentlessly padded which undermines things like the boss fights. A lot of the set pieces are straight up copied from previous games, and they're not even the good set pieces from previous games[footnote]There's also a boss fight which is basically the last battle from Halo 4. A different franchise, but a terrible game to copy ideas from.[/footnote]. The story is just an incoherent mess consisting of 99% exposition and bored voice acting, and serves only to highlight the reasons why World at War and Black Ops II worked so well.

Ugh. I love Black Ops III on the whole. Hell, I'd say it was a great game on the whole but it's prevented from being up there with CoD 4, World at War and Black Ops II by its absolutely abhorrent campaign and I am left utterly disappointed because of that.

The only worse campaign in this franchise was Ghosts.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I haven't played many games from 2015...I don't even have Yo-Kai Watch yet and that may be my GotY (DBZ: Extreme Butoden certainly wasn't) Anyway, going strictly off of what I've played from this year;

GotY: Renowned Explorers: International Society

I've put more hours into more games from this year but this was probably my most satisfying game. I have a lot more to unlock and a lot more to do but anyway...RE:IS is a fun mix of FTL style map exploration, random instances and, strategy-based enemy encounters. Winning an encounter can be done violently, deceptively or, through charm. It's a game where you can defeat angry sheep by beating on them or making them really, really like you. There is a map that, towards the end, introduces a revived Goddess of War and when I first encountered her I defeated her by emotionally confusing her. It's a game that's fun and rewarding and my PoS PC can play it!

Disappointment of 2015: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D. This isn't a game I really liked to begin with but it wasn't a terrible game. The 3DS version put its best foot forward by giving me control of the camera. Unfortunately, that's about as good as it gets...The game itself is still unenjoyable to me. It feels like time has been sped up, Zora Swimming was noticeably slowed down and, boss fights were needlessly remixed by giving just about every major boss a Gohma-like eyeball. I didn't like this game on the N64 but playing on the 3DS made me want to give Skyward Sword another try...Skyward. Sword.

Fun games: Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, Viscera Cleanup Detail (finally off of Early Access!)

Game I thought I would have liked more: Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden

 

[kenu12345]

Oh my Game of the year is definitely Undertale. I can not tell you how many hours I sinked into that game just taken it all in, replaying it, and trying to discover new stuff about it. Definitely my favorite game of the year

As of disappointment, I will definitely agree with you on Fallout 4. As a huge fan of New Vegas, I can no begin to state how disappointed that the rumors for 4 turned out to be true. Worst thing is that Obsidian probably won't get another chance at it and this is probably going to be how the franchise keeps going

 

[The Madman]

You know, I can't really think of any big disappointments for myself this year. I haven't bought any games I didn't end up enjoying and there's little I can really think of that's put a damper on my gaming habits this year. It's been a pretty damned good year now that I think about it.

So guess I'll just echo BloatedGuppy then: GOTY goes to Witcher 3 because it's amazing, and disappointment to XCOM 2 because it also looks amazing but wont be out till next year.

 

[infohippie]

GOTY, Custom Maid 3D 2, definitely. Someone should tell Anita Sarkeesian about that game, I think she'd enjoy it. Lots of female characters at least.

Okay, maybe not. The Witcher 3 for me, that game is simply amazing. Looks beautiful, plays wonderfully, has fantastic story and characters, and is so huge! Took me about two hundred hours to playthrough the first time, and there was still a great deal that I skipped.

As for disappointments... Nothing really stands out that I can think of. I guess since I don't really play very many AAA games I'm not set up so much for disappaointment.

 

[FPLOON]

GOTY: Tales of Zestiria

Biggest Disappointment: I haven't played Tales of Zestiria yet...

Well, shit... This is [still] a conundrum... Uh... I guess you say 2015 was pretty uneventful for me in the realm of new video games...

 

[Windcaler]

End of the year isnt here yet so Goty votes are meaningless till after the 1st. All games should have an equal chance to hold that title

Anyway the good games of this year that I played include

PC

Grey goo: First RTS Ive seen in a long time. Its a shame we dont get more of those
Grim Fandango Remastered: A classic redone. Whats not to love?
Life is strange: If you like the episodic story telling of tell tale then youll probably like this
Pillars of eternity: A great CRPG akin to Neverwinter nights, baldur's gate, and more classics. So good that I really dont have any complaints about it besides its not some other better game
Divinity: Original sin enhanced edition: What can I say, my 2014 GOTY was Divinity original sin because it was a revelutionary game that was well put together and amazing. Having that game rereleased with added content is most likely going to put it on my 2015 list
Verdun: The trench warfare of WW1 taken to the extreme and made very realisitc. Amazing squad play
Chroma squad: A game where you run a TV studio who essentially makes power rangers with X-com like combat
Rocket league: Soccer with souped up hot rods, whats not to love?
Submerged: Reminds me of shadow of the collosus and Ico in a lot of ways but dont confuse it for those games. Its its own game that I find hard to explain
Shadowrun Hong Kong: Absolutely great, just like shadowrun returns and shadowrun dragonfall.
Blood bowl 2: Ok at first I said screw you cyanide because of the preorder stuff but over a few weeks I found out they had just communicated the situation badly. Im still not happy about it inevitably being a DLC machine but it could have been handled worse so I guess Im reluctantly dealing with it. All that aside its a good game if you liked the last one
Tales of Zestria: Another tales game comes out and sucks hours of my life away leaving me more then pleased

3DS

Monster hunter 4 ultimate: more monster hunter, and its great!

PS4

Bloodborne: More dark souls from Hidetaka Miyazaki! Yes please!
Destiny: the taken king: Bungie took a game I didnt really care for and then fixed everything to make it an enjoyable experience. Hell yes they deserve a place on my list even if the game didnt "release" this year
Until dawn: I figured this was going to be a rental at best but hey its got enough replayability to keep me coming back to it and try not to get those people killed

Note: I know a ton of people will probably cry foul about me not listing witcher 3 and fallout 4. Well first off, its my list not yours. Second off I played (forced myself to play would be more accurate) all the way through witcher 1 and 2 and I just do not enjoy that world, setting, or Gerald. I dont think that series is for me so it didnt make my list because I never bought and played witcher 3. In the case of fallout 4 its to early to tell. I already have major issues with the awful PC UI (once again bethesda expects modders to fix their shit UI) along with many other issues surrounding their settlement building (which was done 10 times better with the skyrim mod build your own house).

 

[The Madman]

Shadowrun Hong Kong: Absolutely great, just like shadowrun returns and shadowrun dragonfall.

In any other year this would probably have been my pick for GOTY as I really enjoyed Hong Kong. I've read some complaints that the story isn't as strong as Dragonfall, which is fair enough, and that the combat isn't as deep as it could or should be, again fair enough, but I still really loved the setting, world, and the characters that you encounter in that game. Some really good roleplaying as well which is something a lot of rpg are kinda lacking these days.

But alas Witcher 3 in my case really does win outright and I can't really see anything coming out in the next few months to change that.

 

[jhoroz]

Undertale's main gimmick is LITERALLY BioShock 1.

...Not really? Especially since what was done in Bioshock has been done long before it, but I don't really know where you're going with this comparison.

 

[shrekfan246]

I don't feel like I've actually played many of the new games this year.

Ones I have:
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
Dragon Ball Xenoverse
Homeworld Remastered
Ori and the Blind Forest
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China
Invisible, Inc.
Shadowrun Hong Kong
Undertale
Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced

Of the above list, the only games I've even played a significant amount are Ori and the Blind Forest (played twice when it came out and then a third time to record) and Undertale (which I'm also recording). I've got intentions of recording Divinity: Original Sin and Shadowrun Hong Kong, but I haven't even beaten Shadowrun Dragonfall yet.

EDIT: In point of fact, the games I've played the most this year are probably Dark Souls and Hearthstone.

Ones I want:

Spoiler

Life Is Strange
TellTale's Game of Thrones (and possibly Tales From The Borderlands)
Hand of Fate
Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines
Final Fantasy Type-0
Bloodborne
Pillars of Eternity
Xenoblade Chronicles 3D
The Witcher 3
Batman: Arkham Knight
Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition
Volume
Satellite Reign
Armello
Metal Gear Solid V
SOMA
Tales of Zestiria
Sword Coast Legends (maybe, haven't heard fantastic things about it since it released)
Chaos Reborn
Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void
Xenoblade Chronicles X

Being poor kinda means I'm being left behind.

 

[-Ezio-]

GOTY:
Witcher 3. A game that made me see how far gaming has gone, and how inferior it still is to literature. A cold but beautiful shower.

Dissapointed:
Fallout 4- Bethesda can not code for shit and their fans still defend the incompetence. Insulting really.

isnt that a bit harsh? far as i can tell fallout 4 has no more bugs than witcher 3 had at launch. hell witcher 3 still has quests i cant complete.

 

[RedRockRun]

Witcher 3 is GOTY - no contest. Here's a studio a fraction of Bioware's size that did a better job than Bioware has ever managed. The voice acting and writing are superb, and the gameplay has improved on Witcher 2 in every way. CDPR has not only made a masterpiece but set a standard for how developers should behave.

 

[DarklordKyo]

Thus far, my game of the year would have to be Yoshi's Wooly World. Really shows how good it is that I'm willing to claim that despite only playing it in a demo kiosk.

Tales of Zestiria would have to bee second place, hopefully Xenoblade Chronicles X ends up beating it to that punch at least.