[Question] The Gamingforce Game of the Year 2015: Too many massive RPGs - voting edition

What, you were expecting this thread a few days earlier? Well someone might have gotten a little caught up in Xenoblade Chronicles X and forgotten when he usually posts this, but no judging OK.

Anyhoo, it is once again time for the Gamingforce Game of the Year to make its return! Another year's worth of gaming hopefuls have come and gone, all vying for your attention and, more importantly, your votes. This thread, the arena of combat and popular choice in which they will do battle to become our Gamingforce Game of the Year 2015. That is if you can find 10 minutes away from any of the thousand massive RPGs that seemed to come out this year.

So yes, the year that is 2015 is done and 2016 is now upon us, another year full of hope, promise and more games to pile onto the backlog. For those brave souls who return to GFF to vote I salute you, now is the time to look back at the year that was and all the games we played. As ever the question we ask and look to answer is: what does Gamingforce consider the best of gaming experiences of 2015? No gimmicks again this year, as ever I'd simply ask for you to take part and encourage others to do so.

As with the previous years' voting here's how this is going to work: each person has 100 points to vote for games released in 2015 (doesn't matter where, but games have to have been commercially released in 2015) and you can allocate them to as many games as you like as long as it totals 100 in the end. The only rule is that you can't award any single game more than 40 points. So you could vote two 40s and a 20, or a 40 and six 10s, or any other combination of points as long as it adds up to 100.

To vote all you have to do is post a reply with your top games of 2015, how many points you're giving each, and a brief explanation of why you feel the game deserves your points.

Example:

GAME A - 40 points
Man I loved game A because...

GAME B - 20 points
I ended up playing so much of game B that...

GAME C - 15 points
Game C gets some points because...

GAME D - 15 points
I couldn't decide between this and C, so gave both points, but D rocks because...

GAME E - 5 points
Good, but not necessarily great, but I figure E deserves some points because...

GAME F - 5 points
Like E, F gets a few points because...

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Voting will close on Saturday 23rd January at 18:00 GMT (that's Englandland time), at which point I'll add all the points together and work out GFF's top 20 games of 2015, posting the results in a new thread for discussion/people to complain about. I'm allowing a little extra time again this year so you've got a chance to go try and squeeze in any contenders you wanted to try before voting.

So, go on, get voting.

Oh, and get other people to come vote too.

Disclaimer/Rules:
1. If you allocate any game more than 40 points your vote won't be counted.
2. If your points allocation totals more than 100 points your vote won't be counted (totals less than 100 are fine).
3. Votes for games not released in 2015 will be ignored.
4. Only official commercial releases in 2015 count.
4a. No 'Early Access', 'Alpha', 'Beta' or other pre-release titles will be counted.
5. No negative points. I'll point and laugh and then ignore your vote.
6. Whole integers only. Fractions and decimal places will also lead me to ignore your vote.
7. Any other such idiocy will also probably lead your vote not being counted.

And as ever, I take no responsibility for Skills fucking with stuff, which if you ignore these points he almost certainly will do somehow.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

So once again I've taken my sweet time, taking the opportunity to try and play a few more of 2015's highlights before settling on my picks. But here finally are my points for this year's GFF GotY thread. The quotes are highlights from my full write up, which can be found here: linky link



Transformers: Devastation - 5 points
Platinum Games continue an absolute winning streak as far as I'm concerned.

If anything about this game appeals do yourself a favour and just go buy and play it now. Do it. Oh and stick around for the end credits music when you beat the game.


Splatoon - 5 points
Who would have thought it'd take Nintendo and the Wii U to deliver one of the most refreshing and fun shooter games for years? Splatoon is just a pure joy.

If it wasn't for the next game on this list it'd be hands down the best game released on the Wii U this year.


Xenoblade Chronicles X - 15 points
Given how much I loved Xenoblade Chronicles the idea of a spiritual successor was already going to appeal, but throw in transforming mechs and you've absolutely got my attention.

After Monolith Soft achieved absolute wonders with what they did with Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii I was excited to see what they could do with more grunt, and they did not disappoint. Mira is an absolutely wonderous place to explore. The game is full of stunning vistas and on more than a few occasions I found myself stopping to just look around. And all against a fantastic soundtrack. I didn't think they could match the quality of the predecessor's soundtrack, but I was wrong.

What a game.


Bloodborne - 15 points
Bloodborne instantly just looked appealing to me, particularly something about the art style. Having played it, I now get the appeal and Dark Souls 3 is suddenly on my radar, because oh boy what a game. I loved this experience.

Whilst you get Blood Echoes and can use those to level up, the real meaningful progression is in your experience, your understanding and ability to deal with what's in front (or behind) you. A fascinating game that respects your intelligence and ability as a player? Loved it.


Rocket League - 20 points
What to say about Rocket League? This game has been a source of incredible highs, and incredible frustrations. I don't know how they got this is as good as it is, but I applaud the laser focus on simplicity in delivering this 'football with cars' game (which as a fairly common descriptor for Rocket League seriously unsells this game as an experience). Looking at the predecessor game you can see how they could easily have overstuffed this with nonsense, but they pitched it at exactly the right place and boy did they deliver.


The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 40 points
This game, oh man this game. The Witcher 3 is an incredible game that I've not been able to stop thinking about.

The level of detail in this world, from visuals to sound to how much character is infused into even the most mundane looking quest. This is an RPG in which I wanted to pick up any and every job because you never knew where they'd lead. And even in the simplest of cases there's usually an interesting character to interact with, or some curious little story to what's going on. Never did anything feel as simple or boring as "Go kill/collect X number of Y, just because".

For me there was no choice, as soon as I started thinking about my top 10 of 2015 The Witcher 3 was always number 1. Stunning game.

There's nowhere I can't reach.