Top Five Games of 2015

Well, its that time of year again. Another year another list of games that I got the largest amount of fun out of this year or made a huge impact on me. I missed making one for last year since I was busy with family issues, so there is going to be some overlap but I still think its fair to have them all in a single list here.

I'm not really going to be following any industry markers to pick my top five games though. I'm going to be a normal person and just pick the games that I've played the most, had the most fun with or keep thinking about despite the fact that I'd put them down such a long time ago.

Number Five: Dota 2

The sheer amount of time that I've put on Dota 2 pretty much means that I simply don't have the right to not put it somewhere on this list. Its been another year and still the sheer amount of rage and ecstasy this game can fill me with is simply undeniable and I just keep coming back to it over and over again be it alone or with friends. If you haven't attempted to play a MOBA then you really should, I don't care if its this one or LOL or something else, but you really should be playing these.

Number Four: Shadow of Mordor

People make fun of this game by calling its Assassin's Creed: Middle Earth, the thing that isn't an insult. Much the same way old insults were turned into badges of pride, I think Shadow of Mordor has done that with the insults its detractors have thrown at it. Despite me feeling the game was to easy and it took me less than thirty hours to beat it, it was an incredibley fun time trying to get through it all. The world felt alive, the battles and duels had weight and were surrounded by so much pomp and circumstance that I couldn't help but feel engaged and drawn into the game. This is despite the fact that I don't really hold the fantasy genre in high regard to begin with.

Number Three: Never Alone

Never Alone is flawed and it serves no point to pretend that it isn't. I feel it in fact strengthens is place here to acknowledge and show that despite them this game still deserves a spot on this list. I do acknowledge though that a big reason I am including this game is due to its uniqueness as a product as opposed to the game itself. Its success and quality in presenting a game that covered a story entire derived from the culture of the Inpiat people of Alaska shows that there are other narratives out there aside from the major European or Asian narratives. I hope that its success can inspire even more developers to look at more unique stories and give us some really refreshing experiences from some more under represented cultures like the Tuareg, the Amazigh, the Nubians, the Uyghurs, the Miao and hundreds of others it would take months for me to list individually.

Number Two: Hearthstone

Hearthstone doesn' get as much credit as it deserves in my opinion. The game was designed by a small team within Blizzard launched with very little promotional effort and has gone from a new player in the card battle genre in videogames to the most dominant game in it with not a single realistic challenger. The game took some of the best features of card battle games and eliminated some of the negatives to create a well balanced, easily accessible, competitive and yet extremely fun game. This all while maintaining a free to play model that is for the most part not exploitative, I feel that some of the prices can come down when it comes to the in game currency but I have no needed to spend a single cent in the game and I've unlocked most of the stuff in it. This is a game I can easily recommend and its perfect for everyone from those looking for a game that can give them short games that start and end in less than five minutes to those who want to competitively marathon game after game and maybe eventually go and play in an official tournament and win themselves sacks upon sacks of money. 

Number One: Europa Universalis IV

In all honesty, not picking this game as my number one game of the year would have been an insult to not only the game but to myself since I've played over 1000 hours of it. I was almost exclusively playing this game for months as I discovered it and realized that I had been missing out on one of the best strategy game franchises that is currently in existence. This game does so many things that no other strategy game does and on such a large scale not other game would want to try and challenge it on that ground. I understand that me being a massive history buff is also a huge reason I liked Europa Universaillis IV, but its not just that. This game is one of the most hardcore strategy games that is currently on the market. I've soured on it a bit since their last DLC pack called 'Common Sense' locked a number of game features behind a pay wall, but I'm eventually going to buy it and keep playing this game.