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

[BloatedGuppy]

Thank you. Will re-download it and try that. I hope it works.

It should. The problems you're describing are well known issues with uncorking the frame rate on the Creation Engine.

Will set it to 7 000 at first. But do you mean to tell me that both Low and Medium are the same... value? So there is no difference between the two?@!?? LOL ! ...

Yep. I presume a bug, as usual.

The godrays are triggering me . The effect is decent, but Metro had it better and ran great on all hardware. These godrays here... they run terribly on Nvidia and EVEN worse on AMD. Why Bethesda chose to put them in... no idea. PhysX 3.0 would have been a much better feature to put in IMHO.

Fortunately for me, "low" Godrays are visually indistinguishable from "Ultra" Godrays, and they're worth the performance hit. Which is substantial.

Do you also know of any mods that help the UI a bit? As it is, I am finding it a chore to use it, especially (but not exclusively) in build mode.

Haven't looked into mods yet, I've been just living with the UI peculiarities. Outside of base building it's tolerably wonky, and I just grit my teeth during base building.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It was so... well simple. Thing is I thought the 30/60 switch is somewhere in the ini ... and spent time hitting my head where I would not get results it seems.

Still... why does it cap it to 30 on some machines and 60 on others? It capped it to 60 on my brother's Nvidia machine, but whilst decent, his computer is MUCH weaker than mine.

You can uncap frame rate in the .ini, you can't re-institute a new one of your own, though. You have to do that outside the application.

To my understanding it was frame-locked to 30 FPS for everyone.

Upon checking, I see that it is variably frame locked to 30 or 60 FPS on PC, rather randomly. Good show Bethesda! Five gold stars.

You can't fix the "game speed is tied to frame rate" issue, so there will still be times your frame rate tanks a bit and you'll FEEL yourself moving slower, but it's thankfully quite rare once you attend to shadow draw distance.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Anyways thank you, you were of great help. I hope this way I can finally start enjoying the game at last.

Good luck and let me know if it works out. Far from a perfect game, but like all of Bethesda's offerings there's plenty of gold to be mined from the river of turds.

 

[Zeraki]

I just realized I really haven't played any of the new releases this year. The games that would have likely been on my list got pushed back to 2016.

 

[Guffe]

Well I haven't played Xenoblade X yet... I'm somehow expecting that to be my GOTY.
So far though, I think it's Splat00n.

 

[MrCatchTwenty2]

These are extremely subjective but:

GOTY is MGSV: TPP
I'm not a foaming-at-the-mouth fanboy so even though I'm a huge MGS fan I can recognize that the story succeeds in what it was trying to do despite it feeling shallow and the new gameplay was different enough that I keep coming back to play it for hours and hours. A lot of fans wanted another MGS4 with 2 hour cutscenes and I'm just sitting here thinking "Thank god it WASN'T MGS4!".

Biggest disappointment: Witcher 3
It's an amazing game to be sure, and I plan on really digging into it this winter, but something about the game makes it hard to keep playing. The story's engaging to be sure, but until late game: your armor is gonna look silly, your not really gonna make any profit and you won't feel like your getting stronger. These are small issues but it made it to where there was no reward for playing it for me so I just stopped after a while. I'm more disappointed in myself than the game.

 

[vallorn]

For GOTY I'm torn between Bloodborne and The Witcher 3 like a lot of people here. But Bloodborne just about edges it out because I love me some Lovecraftian horror.

Fallout 4 wasn't a disappointment because I was telling everyone it was going to be a buggy mess of a game as Bethesda titles always are and that the new dialogue system was going to ruin the RPG aspects of the game. However, I'm shocked at how awful the UI on PC is, it might even be worse than Skyrim's default UI (Seriously the mouse controls on terminals and pop up menus are absolutely shoddy.)

So, instead my disappointment has to go to Mad Max, I actually like the game but a lot of it is really uninspired and shamelessly taken from the Ubisoft Sandbox Game formula.

 

[COMaestro]

Having not played very many games this year, I'm giving my GOTY to MGSV. While it was severely lacking in story compared to previous MGS games, I have not yet been bored by the game play. There's just so many options available to you when tackling a mission, between different routes to take, different weapons or tactics to use, hell even different characters to play as if you want to add to the challenge and use a lower ranked person, you can try so much. You can go in fully armored and guns blazing taking down all in your path, or go in with nothing but a water pistol and sneak through leaving no traces for almost EVERY mission.

Runner up is Arkham Knight, as though again it suffered in the story department compared to previous titles, I've never felt more like Batman in a video game. Even the Batmobile, overused as it was, had its moments. The lack of decent boss battles (or outright lack of boss battles that don't involve the Batmobile, excepting the final Riddler fight) pulled this out of the GOTY spot for me, I think.

No disappointments, as these are the only two games I've been playing since June, and just didn't have a lot of time for gaming before then.

 

[StormShaun]

Game of the Year:
Fallout 4

This... this was a hard choice for me.
Two damn giant RPGs came out this year (at least on my radar), The Wither 3: Wild Hunt, and Fallout 4. Many people were excited for both, and each have their pros and cons. The Witcher 3 was damn fun to play, and there is a lot of content in it, but I have to admit, I feel like I need more. Of course, the expansions offered that, but in the vanilla game, I just finished all of the contracts, and that just blew me away, in a annoying sense. so I turned to the expansion, and while the main quest was a damn paradise, there wasn't many side quests... at least that I've currently found. Anyway, to the point, I just feel that there should be more side quests, and funnily enough, that reminds me of Fallout 3.

On the topic of Fallout 4, yes, I know, it came out recently, and that can adjust the bias of things, etc, etc. Still, I can't dismiss the fact, that I'm loving the shit out of the game. Yes, it has its problems. The story is bad, I feel there aren't enough varied quest endings, and some of the programming/settlement building annoys the hell out of me. Yet, I'm still loving the fuck out of it. I feel that the gun-play is better, there are more quests than F3, the world is filled of more life, and the graphics are a leap (to me at least). But why this takes over The Witcher? I just have a preference for this type of game more. It feels more personal, the gameplay is more immersive, and I feel that the world is an oyster ripe for the taking. Basically, I'm having a more basic level of fun, and with the patches, mods, and expansions to come, it'll only become better in my eyes.


Biggest disappointment:
Undertale
'Cause I haven't played it.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Okay, don't get me wrong.
This was a darn good game. In terms of rank, this one was behind Witcher 3, and that means it's number three on my list. Yet, as the title of the thread says, disappointment. The gameplay was great, and I enjoyed the majority of this game, it's just that when I heard/found that a part(s) of the game were cut, thanks to Konami, it killed me a little bit. In the very end, I was just expecting more, yet, there was nothing. Finding about the cut chapter just annoyed me. So that makes it my most disappointing/sad game of the year.

 

[Dango]

GOTY: Uh... I've barely played anything that came out this year. If I were to choose from like the two games I got... uh, Warhammer: End Times Vermintide. If I were to pick games that didn't come out this year, maybe Fallout New Vegas.

Disappointments: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. It was a good game overall, but by the end I was drained of any patience for it. Constant padding, a terrible non-ending, some really poor story bits... but hell, it looked great and was optimized as fuck.

I can't say I'm "disappointed" in Fallout 4, since it's about as good/not good as I expected. The UI is a mess, characters and world are dull (this is especially accentuated coming off of New Vegas), It runs like total ass, the very convenient repair system is out, Bethesda doesn't know how to write games, the dialog wheel system is lacking... It's all the problems you would expect. The game isn't bad, it's just kind of OK. I'm not too too far into it, but it's just not pulling me in.

 

[Captain Marvelous_v1legacy]

So much hype, all of which lead to disappointment. I don't think I've ever been so bored with a game. I've enjoyed my time with Inquisition, even Amalur, much more than I have with this game. I'm probably doing something wrong, but holy hell I just cannot get into it. I even did the popular Baron quest and laughed by the end of it because I just did not give a damn about any of the characters. The combat, leveling, the MC, None of it does anything for me.

Funny thing is the reasons you dont like wither 3 are the same reasons that I didn't like Amalur and DA:I for.

I did have many of those same problems with Amalur, but I also have fond memories of summoning meteors, shooting lightning, ice storms, setting traps, stealth killing, and Chakrams. Gotta love Chakrams. I wish someone would make Amalur 2, or something like it.

The only thing I don't like about Inquisition is it's use of RNG. Damned Fade Touched materials are so hard to find. Damnit Bioware! I'm actually on my third playthrough. Nightmare difficulty. and I'm planning a fourth. Have yet to touch any of the DLC.

I guess the Witcher isn't exciting enough for me. Amalur and Inquisition both have fun spells and abilities that kept me playing. Making and naming my own armor and weapons, with different elemtents, crit chances/damage, and whatnot is fun. Witcher doesn't have what I want from an ARPG.

 

[Rip Van Rabbit]

Game Of The Year 2015:
[HEADING=2]Assault Android Cactus [http://store.steampowered.com/app/250110/][/HEADING]
[small][sub]^ Click. Subliminal messaging. Click. WoooOOoooOOooo. ^[/sub][/small]​

​

Nine playable characters each equipped with different weapons for wildly different playstyles. No two levels feel the same due to the dynamic nature of enemy spawns and environmental alterations/hazards. The boss fights are tense, creative and attempt to overwhelm you with sheer spectacle while teasing you with audible boss banter.

The combat is responsive, fluid and after the initial surprise of certain enemies or the sheer number of opponents presented --- a beautiful level of focus emerges when you find yourself weaving between a hailstorm of bullets, lining up enemies and prioritising your attacks to keep your score & combat chain up. Complemented with a ranking system, there's a lot of room for replay-value if a player wants to improve or try out different characters while perfecting their score. Easy to learn, a little harder to master...there's a surprising amount of depth for the moment-to-moment gameplay.

The better the score, the more credits you earn, these credits allow you to purchase "EX Options"/concept art/pieces of lore, the "EX Options" are mutators that can be toggled and stacked however you wish...(For example: You can toggle small heads for the characters. Increase enemy numbers. Add A.I. companions. Add a music mode which alters the pace of the gameplay according to the soundtrack. A few visual filters. Isometric & first-person perspective modes. And more...)

This was the biggest surprise of the year for me, next to the runner-up The Witcher 3, but I have to hand it to such a seemingly smaller game for catching my attention and drawing me in with it's satisfying gameplay.

[hr]

Disappointment Of The Year 2015:
[HEADING=2]Undertale[/HEADING]​

I don't dislike it by any means, but after playing it I had to ask myself "Is this what all the fuss is about?". Which is odd, because I like what it wants to do conceptually, but the execution is lacking, while the game itself is a chore to play at best and utter tedium at worst. There's definitely a story there, unfortunately it's buried under a slog of boring gameplay and excessive hype.

 

[laggyteabag]

Game of the Year: Heroes of the Storm

100% my most played game this year. I had high hopes for this game, and boy, did it deliver. It saved the MOBA genre for me, and it actually does something different when compared to League of Legends or DOTA 2, which I struggled to really get into. Also, Blizzard characters.

Biggest Disappointment: Batman: Arkham Knight

I was super hyped for this game, and in hindsight, I really shouldn't have been. Sure, the game is good, but it really isn't the conclusion to the Arkham series that I wanted. The biggest problem with the game was the Batmobile, and how overused it was. The majority of the fights in the story were based around the Batmobile, and so were the bossfights. Sure, the game was pretty, but as someone who played the game on the previously/currently broken PC port, I feel fucked over.

 

[endtherapture]

GOTY: The Witcher 3.

A truly incredible game, it wasn't revolutionary in any sense but it completely raised the bar. Atmospheric game with a simple yet deep combat system, incredibly well crafted world, tons of meaningful content and an emotional and personal story with real choice.

Disappointment: MGSV

I was expecting something like open world Snake Eater meets Spec Ops The Line. What I got was a series of repetitive missions, that played well but ultimately did not live up to the Metal Gear Solid brand name. It could have been called SOCOM: The Phantom Pain for all I care. The gameplay was good but certainly did get repetitive, and those who went in expecting a dark and emotional end to the MGS saga were left disappointed.

 

[Las7]

GOTY: Splatoon

First shooter since CS 1.6 that I've spend countless hours playing. There is simply too much depth in the game play and Gyroscope is the superior console shooter control method.
+ Reloading via swimming is genius
+ Platforming vertical walls, platforms, ledges etc is brilliant and provides far more depth to what might seem as simple mirror stages.
+ Being able to hide in your own ink and having specials and clothing specifically to either help or hinder sneaky squids
+ Weapons, Sub Abilities, Specials are simply out there - you can bring a bucket to the gun fight
+ The modes are alright and different personally I prefer SplatZones since it requires less team work and it's easier to carry bad team mates
+ SP is a very good introduction to basic mechanics and movement which are key in online battles
+ Final Boss fight can be replayed multiple times and is a very good mission to train your skills in offline environment
+ Clothes skills are pretty good but don't have a huge impact on gameplay, devs continually tweak anything that is overwhelmingly used
+ Stages have completely different feeling depending on the mode and the devs have gradually made stages and modes require more platforming
+ Getting Charger kills is quite satisfying

- No local multiplayer
- No build in Party communication
- Stage Rotations too long - can't choose ranked mode
- Most importantly for me No Spectator mode


Witcher is my runner up,

Biggest disappointment was MKX, just a mess on PC I played it with a friend at launch and had constant crushes, certain maps were bugged and it was just horrible. Good thing it was my friend who bought it.

 

[ObserverStatus]

GOTY - Undetale

- Great music
- Dogs
- I really liked most of the NPCs, they were great
- Best new game + features I've seen in any game ever.
- Had a cool sort of creepy pasta rom hack vibe to it.

DOTY - Knights of the Fallen Empire.

- Not enough new content to justify renewing my subscription
- You tricked, me BioWare.
- The NPCs cranked up the ass kissing to Dragon Age Inquisition levels
- I also had this problem with Fallout 4
- NPCs always have to be telling you that you're the specialest snowflake in the galaxy

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

GOTY for me: Tales of Zesteria/GTA V PC
Have to say, Tales of Z is my favourite entry in the series since Tales of the Abyss. I like the world, the story, and the characters. The battle system is pretty good as well.

GTA V on the PC is on the list for me because the port was so well done it shows that Rockstar actually gave a damn about it for once. Job well done, its the best version of the game by a long shot.

Biggest Disappointment- Batman: Arkham Knight (PC)

Easily the most broken game of the year, and that is an achievement because a Bethesda game came out this year. Its so sad because the ports of the first 2 games in the series were pretty good. That and the game isn't even that good outside of the bugs.

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.

I don't know If I can blame Kojima for the story considering how long before Komani's fuckery was announced he could have been dealing with that stress. I still find it to be miles better than a lot of AAA games released this year, which is sad because it's not the best in the series by a long shot. I still have to give it to Arkham Knight for biggest disappointment because at least MGSV works.

 

[marioandsonic]

Sadly, I've only actually bought two games this entire year so far. And I'm only counting games that actually came out this year.

GOTY: Undertale

I know it's gotten a bit overhyped, but I hope that doesn't detract from being a solid and fun title.

Disappointment: Arkham Knight.

I got the PC version at launch. Need I say more?

I'm also disappointed that games I wanted to play got delayed to 2016.