PixlBit

Choice list, bro. I just started playing Dungeons of the Endless a few days ago. It just feels so good to play. Not an ounce of fat on it, it keeps you making moment to moment decisions.  People are having trouble defining the game, but I would call it a strategy game; you're planning and executing based on the environmental conditions and your resources, switching your perspective between macro and micro.  It may be my GoTY.

Wolfenstein is the AAA of the year, afaic. It's one of the few AAA games to bring together old and new design approaches into a successful, cohesive package.A surpise hit, I thought it would be a turd when I first saw it.

Or maybe DS2 is the AAA of the year. I still consider this series to be AA. It never has the best production values (actually looks worse than DS1 to me) or Hollywood names behind it.  It got a lot of flack for not living up to the standard set by the previous games, but the best-in-class action-RPG combat still carried it to the top tier of games released this year. Game is massive and it still puts you through the ringer. More than any other this year, you feel like you've gone on an epic and dangerous video game adventure.

Man, I was with Painters of the Tempest until the rough chili fart vocals came in. Not a fan of "harsh" it seems. Pantera is about as harsh as I go, and even then I'm not a big fan of theirs. More of a Dio type guy myself. Melodic I guess. Soen sounds too soft, on the other hand.

WAAAAY better implementation of loot. Better drops, better mods on drops. A mission mode that is more fun than the story mode and add tons of replay. It's Blizzard's apology to Diablo 2 players, basically.  On PC, vanilla D3 was considered a disappointing fuck-up by the Diablo faithful, or at least something that didn't offer the replay value and depth of D2.  I heard that the console vanilla version is superior to PC vanilla to begin with, and UEE just makes it all the better.

Your friend's parents have failed at their role, no offense to your friend. But unfortunately, blood is thicker than water. At least you got your woman by your side during these tough times.

That's the kind of music that's been missing for a couple of generations now, by and large. We've gone from the icon-making sounds of rock, pop, and classical to more ambient, low key, nondescript film score-esque sounds.   Maybe it's just me.

Hotline Miami owned in the music department this gen. That an indie developer was able to marshall this level of musical talent and create a soundscape unlike anything else that came out last gen is a positive sign of things to come for independent development.

Project Zomboid was a surprise to me in the soundtrack department.  I did not expect something so atmospheric and, dare I say, emotional out of an isometic zombie survival game.

Dungeons of Dredmor took me back to he 16-bit era. Shades of Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Shadow of the Beast and other Genesis games. Sometimes spooky, sometimes jazz, often memorable.

You are right. I didn't see it up there for some reason.

My salt > your salt.  Except for Dark Souls and GTAV (and only because the series wasn't particularly deep to begin with), all those games you mentioned were dumbed down version of games that came out in the 90s or early 2000s. Yeah, I said it. At least this year we had Divinity: Original Sin, which actually pushed forward within the CRPG genre a little bit. Edit: oh yeah, you said AAA; I go nothing.  Maybe Alien: Isolation. Not even Bayonetta 2 got me excited. Good for what it is, great even, but what it is isn't so special anymore.

Divinity and Elite: Dangerous spanked all AAA games this year.  Indies weren't amazing for the most part, but more interesting.

Mega Man is forever.  Capcom really created some icons.  There is a kick ass, rock and roll attitude that gaming is missing these days. It's like  mainstream games are over labored or something. Pretentious, heavy handed, lacking charm. Maybe it's just me.

Looks like some fun games. Hope you stick with lighter fare like this for your holiday sessions. I've had about enough of "realism," edginess, grimdark, etc. for a while.  Makes me want to fire up some Sims 4 and throw a bunch of parties in the new mansion I built. I need to find someone that owns Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. Guilty Gear Xrd is as heavy as I'll get this holiday.