Nakama’s personal top 3 of 2017
2017 has been a year that started off great with releases being postponed, then after lots of attention, polish and fine-tuning, they were finally released. A year that bolted out of the gates in the first couple of months, only to crap its pants right before the finish line when the shitstorm about lootboxes in single player campaigns and rampant microtransactions hit. With the latter still fresh in every gamer’s mind, let us look back at the great releases –or at least three of them- of the past year and hope 2018 is at least equally kind on the game releases yet to come.
The list will be in chronological order of release as these three titles have equal merits and demerits, but for the sake of not having all three entries with a single number, this is the way they are put into order.
Horizon: Zero Dawn
This is the first title that had me excited for several months before its release.The developer behind the game was Guerilla Games. The same developers behind the madly succesful Killzone series. The first game in quite a while with a female protagonist, the game didn’t fall into the overly ‘feminist’ tone pitfall, story-wise. It was a PlayStation 4 exclusive and was patched for the PlayStation 4 Pro. Though the game looked astonishing, and with the patch the game looked even more ravishing. It’s often difficult to have a developer switch genres and still make a decent coherent game that keeps its focus. Horizon: Zero Dawn is an example of the contrary. It’s like ‘The Witcher III’ only not in a purely fantasy setting. It has this futuristic steampunk setting with a very prehistoric feel to it. It sounds weird, but those who have played it will know what’s meant with that statement, and those that haven’t really should give it a whack if they loved ‘The Witcher III’. Want to know what you are getting into exactly? Read up here.
Tom Clancy’s: Ghost Recon: Wildlands.
A title with more colons in it than you can shake your fist at. Although if you are a gaming proctologist, that might become a messy business. Apart from the very elaborate title, the game –though massively advertised- went under my radar, having not paid attention the ads about it. When I did have the pleasure of playing it, I tried it out with friends and it has to be said, that this was the absolute most fun I had in 2017 gaming wise. It was a hoot and a half. The setting has this kind of serious setting, which later on got watered down as the kind of tomfoolery you could do with the co-op didn’t quite mesh with the serious tone of the game. It was more fun running your friends over, hunt down chickens to shoot, or scaring the crap out of your friends as you switch seats in a helicopter mid-flight sending it spiraling down to the ground to certain death, only to get back in the driver’s seat at the last second. The fact that it looked gorgeous was just an added bonus. You can read the full review here.
Assassin’s Creed: Origins.
The final entry in the series was the game that hit only two months prior to writing this. After the downward spiral of the Assassin’s Creed franchise that started off with Assassin’s Creed: III –this is a personal feeling, though it’s up for debate. I mean, pirate assassins? Sneaky and bellowing out choruses whilst drunkenly wandering on the beach, no thanks.- The game took it back to the very beginning, to where the very order of Assassin’s started. It has to be said, the game looks beautiful, has some really nifty details and has some addictive gameplay to it. Every corner you round has a new adventure, the map is still littered with icons and activities, because of the setting and the way it’s presented you don’t feel like you aren’t ticking off a chart, but are spontaneously wandering from one adventure to another, with the horizon constantly edging you on for just another hill, just another quest, just another tomb. The combat has been revamped from the ground up, with a more ‘Dark Souls’ feel to it, making it a really smooth experience. Ubisoft tried to cater not only to the hardcore fans and they managed to come out on top. Find out what the game is about here.
Nakama's personal top 3 of 2017,
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