2016 Gaming: Year in Review
Intro
2016 has been one hell of a year for games. There has been some real highs and lows of 2016 in the gaming scene. I honestly believe that 2016 has been the most dramatic year ever in gaming.
We have had releases of games that have finally made it into our hands, after several delays and doubts that they would ever make it to release.
The Last Guardian had so many delays it would make British trains look reliable. The game was supposed to come out in 2011 after debuting at E3 2009… yes 2009 but then was delayed, and then delayed again in 2012 to make way for the PS4. Then in 2014, it was announced that the game was in fact cancelled, to only then later reveal that the game was not cancelled anymore. After so many years of disappointment and uncertainty, the game finally made it to stores in November 2016.
Then we have Final Fantasy 15… a game that has had several development shake-ups. With name changes, game engine changes, director changes and essentially a game that was completely changed throughout its development time with a whole new vision. This is a game that has been in the making for 10 years. Again, long waits and uncertainty hit this franchise, except this time the 10 year wait had a bigger impact with FF having such a big and passionate fan base.
What about the other huge drama’s that 2016 entailed? 2016 marked a few milestones with Call of Duty Infinite Warfare becoming the 2nd most disliked video in YouTube history behind Justin Bieber’s baby, making it the most disliked gaming video in history. On the flip side, the Battlefield 1 trailer became the most liked game trailer on YouTube in history.
We have had releases of games that have finally made it into our hands, after several delays and doubts that they would ever make it to release.
The Last Guardian had so many delays it would make British trains look reliable. The game was supposed to come out in 2011 after debuting at E3 2009… yes 2009 but then was delayed, and then delayed again in 2012 to make way for the PS4. Then in 2014, it was announced that the game was in fact cancelled, to only then later reveal that the game was not cancelled anymore. After so many years of disappointment and uncertainty, the game finally made it to stores in November 2016.
Then we have Final Fantasy 15… a game that has had several development shake-ups. With name changes, game engine changes, director changes and essentially a game that was completely changed throughout its development time with a whole new vision. This is a game that has been in the making for 10 years. Again, long waits and uncertainty hit this franchise, except this time the 10 year wait had a bigger impact with FF having such a big and passionate fan base.
What about the other huge drama’s that 2016 entailed? 2016 marked a few milestones with Call of Duty Infinite Warfare becoming the 2nd most disliked video in YouTube history behind Justin Bieber’s baby, making it the most disliked gaming video in history. On the flip side, the Battlefield 1 trailer became the most liked game trailer on YouTube in history.
Lead developer for No Mans Sky Sean Murray got exposed for lying about the game causing him to disappear, which became a talking point for a very long time. Valve were involved in drama to do with a huge CSGO lotto YouTuber scandal that stunned YouTube.
Who remembers when Pokémon was a very big deal in the 90s? Oh and in July 2016 when Pokémon Go completely swept the world and became a huge phenomenon in society. Arguably the biggest craze I have ever seen in my life. 100s of people of all ages and sizes walking around, some even running to catch Pokémon with their phones was not just amusing, but incredible to see a video game have that much impact on society.
2016 has been a rollercoaster ride for games and I have loved it, I think it will be one to talk about for years. Even right now, the impact of of the year is still with me as I still have an overwhelming amount of games to play, because of the crazy fall/autumn game release window in 2016. There are still games that I have yet to check out.
I think there is no denying that 2016 has been one of the most dramatic years ever, but has it been the best year ever for games?
Who remembers when Pokémon was a very big deal in the 90s? Oh and in July 2016 when Pokémon Go completely swept the world and became a huge phenomenon in society. Arguably the biggest craze I have ever seen in my life. 100s of people of all ages and sizes walking around, some even running to catch Pokémon with their phones was not just amusing, but incredible to see a video game have that much impact on society.
2016 has been a rollercoaster ride for games and I have loved it, I think it will be one to talk about for years. Even right now, the impact of of the year is still with me as I still have an overwhelming amount of games to play, because of the crazy fall/autumn game release window in 2016. There are still games that I have yet to check out.
I think there is no denying that 2016 has been one of the most dramatic years ever, but has it been the best year ever for games?
No Mans Sky
Oh No Mans sky… if this doesn’t set an example on why not to pre order games, I don’t know what will. This game was promised to be an epic space exploration game with endless possibilities.
No one person will ever have the same experience was the message hello games delivered to us, but in reality, everyone had the same barebones underwhelming experience.
The more I played the game, the more I struggled to understand what the hell is the point of any of it. Many games are fun without needing a purpose, but this game was boring almost instantly. The game had no story, no life, no actual ending and was a game packed full of broken promises from the developers.
The core foundations of what this game had seemed promising. Being a space explorer that gets to travel the galaxy across 1000s if not millions of planets seems exciting.
No one person will ever have the same experience was the message hello games delivered to us, but in reality, everyone had the same barebones underwhelming experience.
The more I played the game, the more I struggled to understand what the hell is the point of any of it. Many games are fun without needing a purpose, but this game was boring almost instantly. The game had no story, no life, no actual ending and was a game packed full of broken promises from the developers.
The core foundations of what this game had seemed promising. Being a space explorer that gets to travel the galaxy across 1000s if not millions of planets seems exciting.
The space exploration and the sheer amount of planets and solar systems you can travel to sounds staggering. That’s until you realise that everything you are experiencing is exactly the same as the last place you went to.
The tech behind the game is that the worlds are generated and created through mathematical algorithms, which is what is supposed to make way for infinite variations of environments to explore in.
That in its self sounds mind blowing, until you realise that in the reality of it, it’s really not. What actually happens is you will visit 100s of planets, and notice a very similar pattern. Each time the world will have a different colour palette. The terrain will be shaped differently, but that’s it. That’s all the difference is to each planet.
On top of that, every planet is lifeless with no meaning to it. Even the planets that do have “life” have no personality or depth. It’s just some weird dinosaur looking creature or some lone alien guy standing in a little room. Where are the alien civilisations and colonies? Where are the secret societies of races you can find?
I followed three space ships for 15 minutes. I was flying in a straight line directly behind them for 15 minutes. Nothing happened, we didn’t go anywhere. What’s worse is that the terrain didn’t change at all. Nothing changed. It just felt like I was looping around a tiny map over and over for 15 minutes.
The impression I got was the game constantly generates as you are flying but would hold onto the same statistical variant or number rules that kept the planet the same consistent colour and planet theme.
The tech behind the game is that the worlds are generated and created through mathematical algorithms, which is what is supposed to make way for infinite variations of environments to explore in.
That in its self sounds mind blowing, until you realise that in the reality of it, it’s really not. What actually happens is you will visit 100s of planets, and notice a very similar pattern. Each time the world will have a different colour palette. The terrain will be shaped differently, but that’s it. That’s all the difference is to each planet.
On top of that, every planet is lifeless with no meaning to it. Even the planets that do have “life” have no personality or depth. It’s just some weird dinosaur looking creature or some lone alien guy standing in a little room. Where are the alien civilisations and colonies? Where are the secret societies of races you can find?
I followed three space ships for 15 minutes. I was flying in a straight line directly behind them for 15 minutes. Nothing happened, we didn’t go anywhere. What’s worse is that the terrain didn’t change at all. Nothing changed. It just felt like I was looping around a tiny map over and over for 15 minutes.
The impression I got was the game constantly generates as you are flying but would hold onto the same statistical variant or number rules that kept the planet the same consistent colour and planet theme.
In a nutshell, every planet was the same but with different colours. Every planet had no actual life.
The game essentially is about collecting resources in a tedious boring way, to fuel your ship, so that you can travel to 100s of the exact same planet but with different colour pallets for no actual reason.
The latest patch removes this grind by giving us a creative mode where you have infinite resources. That’s great and all, but all that does is strip away a really boring obstacle that stands in your way, essentially allowing you to get to the other boring parts of the game quicker.
Look, the foundations are great, the idea of being able to explore this endless void of space with an endless supply of planets in such a free way like this game does, is a good idea. The space exploration part of the game is actually not bad and arriving to planets is an awesome feeling. It’s only until you actually expect something once you arrive, where the game doesn’t give anything back.
It’s almost like shouting in an empty wasteland of nothing expecting to hear a big group of people to shout back, only to not hear anything back apart from the echo of your voice in the huge space of emptiness. This game is empty.
They have the flying controls nailed, they have the core basics of the game that make it functional, and then everything else is just this completely empty packet that’s disguised as a packet full of sweets.
If hello games can actually hand craft some actual content into the game rather than having a computer generate the whole world in such a generic way, maybe this game could have potential in the future. As of now though, this is honestly one of the worst games I have played in years.
Conclusion
The only positive I can draw from this is that, the gameplay is functional and the first hour was cool Other than that, I don’t even know what this “game” is.
You could say that the art of this game is that the game doesn’t have to have a purpose it’s about the journey of exploration. What exploration? If exploration means travelling around the same open space that’s basically exactly the same as the last one, then ok I guess that’s the purpose of this “game”.
The game essentially is about collecting resources in a tedious boring way, to fuel your ship, so that you can travel to 100s of the exact same planet but with different colour pallets for no actual reason.
The latest patch removes this grind by giving us a creative mode where you have infinite resources. That’s great and all, but all that does is strip away a really boring obstacle that stands in your way, essentially allowing you to get to the other boring parts of the game quicker.
Look, the foundations are great, the idea of being able to explore this endless void of space with an endless supply of planets in such a free way like this game does, is a good idea. The space exploration part of the game is actually not bad and arriving to planets is an awesome feeling. It’s only until you actually expect something once you arrive, where the game doesn’t give anything back.
It’s almost like shouting in an empty wasteland of nothing expecting to hear a big group of people to shout back, only to not hear anything back apart from the echo of your voice in the huge space of emptiness. This game is empty.
They have the flying controls nailed, they have the core basics of the game that make it functional, and then everything else is just this completely empty packet that’s disguised as a packet full of sweets.
If hello games can actually hand craft some actual content into the game rather than having a computer generate the whole world in such a generic way, maybe this game could have potential in the future. As of now though, this is honestly one of the worst games I have played in years.
Conclusion
The only positive I can draw from this is that, the gameplay is functional and the first hour was cool Other than that, I don’t even know what this “game” is.
You could say that the art of this game is that the game doesn’t have to have a purpose it’s about the journey of exploration. What exploration? If exploration means travelling around the same open space that’s basically exactly the same as the last one, then ok I guess that’s the purpose of this “game”.
Pros:
Functional Gameplay Overall: 4.8/10 |
Cons:
Empty game that’s disguised as a packed game No purpose to anything you are doing No story |
The Division
This game had a lot of promise. The open world apocalyptic New York was cool and reminded me of the movie I am Legend a little bit. The atmosphere was great and the dark zone, essentially the PVP area of the game was very creative.
It reminded me of Runescape’s Wilderness funny enough. The MMORPG idea wrapped around a 3rd person shooter in a modern setting is an interesting idea and innovative.
There are some moments in this game that I have never experienced in another video game before, and I really applaud what this game gets right. This is another game that had some very creative and unique core foundations. Maybe this is why both this game and No Mans Sky didn’t deliver but still sold remarkably well. The original core idea of the game is what sold it.
It reminded me of Runescape’s Wilderness funny enough. The MMORPG idea wrapped around a 3rd person shooter in a modern setting is an interesting idea and innovative.
There are some moments in this game that I have never experienced in another video game before, and I really applaud what this game gets right. This is another game that had some very creative and unique core foundations. Maybe this is why both this game and No Mans Sky didn’t deliver but still sold remarkably well. The original core idea of the game is what sold it.
The Division is a typical Ubisoft game that just didn’t deliver. The idea was great but it was executed in such a generic way. The game became extremely repetitive and grindy, even more so than Destiny at times. Not only that, most of the actual content like the missions were very uncreative.
The gameplay was very cheap and bland. Rather than actual gunplay and tactical cover based shooting, the game was just about sitting behind cover whilst your enemies were behind cover, and then just popping up and unloading as much lead into them as possible until they dropped.
With the RPG element kicking in, you were essentially unloading more bullets into “tougher enemies”. Higher level enemies dealt more damage, and took more damage, that’s it. There was nothing different on how they actually played.
The average gameplay wasn’t actually a huge problem for me in the end, it was the extremely repetitive nature of the content and boring content that was scattered across the game world. The Division has that typical Ubisoft open world syndrome. Just like Assassins Creed Syndicate and The Crew, great open world aesthetically, but with generic uncreative repetitive content scattered around the dull and lifeless open world.
The travel time to places because of the dull lifeless world was so boring. It was cool to look at and had an authentic atmosphere to it, but you spent so long doing nothing. Maybe the apocalypse was too authentic in this case.
Something that also does not sit well with me is that the game world that was shown at E3, was not the same as what we saw at release with the map and playable areas being significantly smaller than what we was supposed to have. Later on DLC was added to fix that problem, and straight away I felt like we were being nickelled and dimed.
The gameplay was very cheap and bland. Rather than actual gunplay and tactical cover based shooting, the game was just about sitting behind cover whilst your enemies were behind cover, and then just popping up and unloading as much lead into them as possible until they dropped.
With the RPG element kicking in, you were essentially unloading more bullets into “tougher enemies”. Higher level enemies dealt more damage, and took more damage, that’s it. There was nothing different on how they actually played.
The average gameplay wasn’t actually a huge problem for me in the end, it was the extremely repetitive nature of the content and boring content that was scattered across the game world. The Division has that typical Ubisoft open world syndrome. Just like Assassins Creed Syndicate and The Crew, great open world aesthetically, but with generic uncreative repetitive content scattered around the dull and lifeless open world.
The travel time to places because of the dull lifeless world was so boring. It was cool to look at and had an authentic atmosphere to it, but you spent so long doing nothing. Maybe the apocalypse was too authentic in this case.
Something that also does not sit well with me is that the game world that was shown at E3, was not the same as what we saw at release with the map and playable areas being significantly smaller than what we was supposed to have. Later on DLC was added to fix that problem, and straight away I felt like we were being nickelled and dimed.
The base game story also had a lot of potential but wasn’t executed properly. Some of the cutscenes were very interesting. Understanding why the apocalypse happened was intriguing and the collectables and unlockable videos were interesting to watch. It’s a real shame the actual storyline doesn’t go anywhere, with very generic characters and a story campaign that I learnt absolutely nothing from. The story could have pushed the boring content forward, but instead the story ended up feeling just as bland as the missions.
I don’t know what they have done to the story now with the DLC, but they really could of built on the foundations of the story, because it had some promising elements. The story isn’t actually bad, it’s more that they didn’t really tell the story properly.
Conclusion
The Division overall is a disappointing game. It’s an original idea that’s executed generically. It had some good things about it, but overall the game is a pretty bland and average game.
I don’t know what they have done to the story now with the DLC, but they really could of built on the foundations of the story, because it had some promising elements. The story isn’t actually bad, it’s more that they didn’t really tell the story properly.
Conclusion
The Division overall is a disappointing game. It’s an original idea that’s executed generically. It had some good things about it, but overall the game is a pretty bland and average game.
Pros:
The Darkzone plays well Concept is Original |
Cons:
Tedious grindy gameplay Uncreative generic missions |