Everyone loves their lists. And I often forget, by December, which games were even released this year. Guess that’s part of playing games from decades ago in the mean time as well. Lose total track of time…plus I’m getting old so memory sucks at times hehe. For those who need help remembering check out https://www.vg247.com/2017/06/22/video-game-release-dates-2017/
What has everyone’s GOTY been thusfar? What were your biggest surprises? Biggest dissapointments? Best sound, best looking and even…the most atmospheric/immersive game you guys have played so far this year. Also which game(s) are you looking forward too in the remainder of 2017?
For me its only PC games so that narrows down the potential candidates. Seeing how the announcement list of games for all platforms was almost non-existent at the start of the year I was worried. We’ve gotten a lot of interesting game releases none the less. Made it a little bit more exciting this way as well in some cases. Getting stuff you didn’t expect yet was a lot of fun.
-Torment Tides of Numenera
-Expeditions: Vikings
-Battle Brothers
-Night in the Woods
-Mass Effect Andromeda
-Nier Automata
-Prey
-Hollow Knight
-Tales of Berseria
-Styxx: Shards of Darkness
-Has-Been Heroes
-Bayonetta
-Vanquish
-Wonder Boy
-Dawn of War 3
-Strafe
My GOTY candidate:
-Nier Automata
It has atmosphere, interesting story that really comes through after the multiple run throughs, great aesthetics and overall theme accompanied with some of the best sound tracks.
Surprise thusfar:
-Wonder Boy
I simply wasn’t even expecting this one untill a few days before release. Since I played it a fair amount on my Master System as a kid it was an instant buy. Gameplay still holds up and the art style is just really well made. Lots of fun to be had if you’re feeling nostalgic with some mild challenge here and there.
Other surprises were the Platinum ports of Bayonetta and Vanquish. They’re both awesome too play. Since I’m not a console gamer I never had the pleasure of going through them in the past. A welcome addition to the PC Master Race 
Biggest Dissapointment:
-It is easy to say Andromeda, but for those who read my “review” while playing through the game see that there are enjoyable aspects. It lacked a lot of fleshing out of those aspects making the game often feel incomplete. Other disappointment was Dawn of War 3 which didn’t really shape up to my personal expectations. Difficult to choose for me between the two of them.
Best Sound:
-Hands down that has to be Nier Automata. At times it was there very subtly adding to the overall atmosphere and other times full blown epicness to fit the weird alien feel of the world you’re in.
Best Looking:
-For me this doesn’t mean the most hyper realistic graphics, but overall aesthetics. Basically the graphical style and how consistent it is through the game and the way it all comes together. In that sense Night in the Woods just has a quirky style and looks amazing. Hollow Knight comes really close though.
Most Immersive:
That would’ve been Prey for me. The mimicks make you cautious and paranoid very early on in the game. Especially if you try a stealth/ghost run through the game. The eerie silent space station with the occasional sounds to get you on edge while you’re exploring every nook of the station.
Only problem I had was the death&respawn mechanic which takes you out of it all and breaks the immersion. Would’ve liked to see something more similar to the original pray where death gets you into a mini-game, depending how you perform you get some health/resource, before jumping back into the game. That would’ve given at least some repercussion to your “failure” instead of making everything seem pointless. You really have to force yourself across this hurdle to keep enjoying the game fully imo.
Games I’m still looking forward too in 2017:
-Pyre
-Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (already pre-ordered)
-Xcom 2: War of the chosen (Expansion Pack. a must-have for me)
-Divinity Original Sin 2 (already have it on GoG and going to co-op on stream)
-Cuphead
-Total War: Warhammer 2 (still need to reserve time for the first one)
-Battle Chasers (loved the comics, love turn based strategy…must have)
-Destiny 2 (maybe)
-Elex
-Wolfenstein 2 (the reboot series so far is awesome, but short. will definitely grab this however)
-Call of Duty: WW2 (I skipped almost all CoD’s after the third one. So seeing a new WW2 themed shooter might convince me to grab at least this one)
-Ni No Kuni 2
-Vampyr (will wait for some reviews before grabbing this)
- .hack//G.U. Last Recode (loved the hack// anime series, never enjoyed the games. so will watch for some reviews first)
-Agony (looks sick, but whether it will be also fun??)
-Call of Ctulhu: Official Video Game
-Frozen Synapse 2 (hell yeah. the first was awesome)
-Ori and the Will of the Wisps (if its anything like the forest count me in)
-Hand of Fate 2 (enjoy such card collecting games with ARPG mechanics, just hope it works smoother and it should be great fun)
A much longer list then expected. As said start of the year it looked like we’d get almost nothing this year. Was thinking about cleaning up my backlog instead. Oh well
