Friday, January 1, 2016

Episode 150: Echo Chamber GOTY Awards!

DOWNLOAD HERE!

So, I'm doing a separate post NOT on the blog, since usual those are just general things we all talk about that episode, and this GOTY stuff is more personal, so I'm going to keep that space as is.

My choices for GOTY weren't necessarily rhe ones I played the most or were the most "fun", it's the games that made want MORE. Like, despite all the meh in the AAA industry, these are the five games I'd put in a time capsule and preserve for the future:
  1. Undertale
  2. Her Story
  3. Until Dawn
  4. Rock Band 4
  5. Saints Row IV: Re-Elected Edition
On the podcast I already justified my choices, and I'm not listening to something over 4 hours long.

Instead, I'm going to discuss five games I enjoyed this year, but didn't make the cut:
 https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6SnIZgESm4c/maxresdefault.jpg

1. Guitar Hero Live- aka The Other Rhythm Game That Came Out This Year. It's an accomplishment that deserves accolades that, not that we have a new Guitar Hero (there was a period around GH5 where things got SUUUUPER wonky), but that it's good AND manages to differentiate itself from the new Rock Band.

The new guitar is satisfying to play, GHTV is a great way to discover new music, and I even got a few chuckles out of the GH Live mode (seriously, who brings a sign that say YOU MAKE ME WANNA DANCE! to a concert)

It's only off the list because the direction for the future isn't as clear as RB4s, which, while Rock Band 4 has plenty of ground to make up for, Harmonix has been way more open about where they're going.

 https://media.playstation.com/is/image/SCEA/borderlands-the-handsome-collection-normal-listing-thumb-01-ps4-us-27feb15?$Icon$

2. Borderlands: The Handsome Collection- Yes, a rerelease, but a rerelease in a universe I love to pieces. The wastelands of Pandora are filled with bright colors, crazy flora and fauna, and the perfect mixture of a society past the point of no return with the logical conclusion of capitalism. Every installment brings a whole new batch of weird with new undiscovered regions, new playable chacters, and seeing how old ones returned. It's 2 AM and I just beat BL2.

https://downloads.2kgames.com/2k/staging/datastore/1430-nba2k16_bg_5.jpg

3. NBA 2K16- Spike Lee's Ghost Adventures aside,I played the SHIT out of this when I first got my Xbox One. It might go without saying, but as I played more, I got progressively better at the game and becoming a better player. Yeah, no shit, but something about the perspective of playing a single person as opposed to a whole team, changed the way I view the game, and as someone who barely touches any sports games that can't be preceded by "extreme" anything that gets me in is a bonus.


The most interesting thing though, is that there's a decent community for this game. It has a couple online modes like MyLeague and MyPark, but it's one of the most streamed Sports Games on Twitch.

As I mentioned earlier, the reason this didn't make the list despite spending so much time with it is that it's still a basketball game. A good one that has pkenty to sink your teeth into, but a basketball game nonetheless.

http://media.wizards.com/2015/images/daily/New-Puzzlequest-keyart.jpg

4. Magic The Gathering Puzzle Quest- I play this game any place where I can get internet access but it's slow as fuck and came out THE DAY we recorded this podcast, so I'm going to combine it with Magic Duels and combine this entry since I sold my soul for cardboard rectangles.

http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/218a4a96cd4be72c2352d4ae141d8ece/202782411/maxresdefault.jpg

5. Shovel Knight- Came out on the Xbone this year, and it was last year's GOTY, so I'm counting it.


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