GOTY 2015
BackLoggd are currently doing a 2015 GOTY throwback event, and you can find my picks up top. Because I have the crushing desire to type all my thoughts out and I can't on the website, it'll have to be here.
- Pillars of Eternity and PoE2 are my favourite modern PC RPGs so the first one was an easy pick for GOTY. I can't remember the last time I was so sucked into the world of a RPG in a way that made me want to unravel all its mysteries and where every new revelation or twist just twisted that dagger of intrigue in further. Combine that with a great classic PC RPG style gameplay (after the turn-based combat mode was patched in, of course) and a brilliant, intricate plot and overall writing (as is Obsidian tradition), and you've got the easy makings of the year's clear stand-out. These will maybe one day get their own article in the hit new series "Cornerstone Games".
- Armello is such a beautiful game, with a really wonderful visual flair of its own. It's a shame that the game itself is, decidedly, what it is - a virtual board game with little beyond repeating the matches over and over again. It's a good board game admittedly, but what I wouldn't give to have this world and this design in a tactical strategy or kingdom management kind of game... The world and the visual flair cry out to be in something more.
- The soundtrack for the first Life Is Strange game is such a Flintbait indiecore soundtrack - they had me sold at Bright Eyes and Sparklehorse, and then drove me in further with more of the other fantastically selected picks (which also worked perfectly in the scenes they featured in). The 12-odd track compilation of just the licensed songs still regularly gets play in my library.
- Jackbox 2 was the peak of the "OMG Jackbox party!!!" excitement. The next few iterations would have some of my favourite games of the series (the updated You Don't Know Jack, Trivia Murder Party, and much later on down the line Blather Round), but this seemed to capture that wave of giddiness (and novelty) that came with the premise of a bunch of people getting together in someone's TV room to play some fun games together; when "Jackbox Party" was a real incentive to crash someone's place (or hotel room) rather than the thing we default to when there's a bunch of people over.
No comments box for this one because I simply don't have the energy tonight to set a new page up for such a tiny, ad hoc piece.