While fans of arcade-style racing games have always gotten to drive dirt bikes on off-road courses, there haven’t been many lately where they’ve gotten to take motorcycles on to city streets or designated tracks. But while the on- and off-road arcade motorcycle racing game Moto Racer 4 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) aims to fulfil that need, it’s somewhat undermined by a badly executed difficulty system and a generally cheap feel.
While 2016 wasn’t the best year for video games, there were a bunch that I had a lot of fun playing.
Here now, in no particular order, are the best games I played in 2016.
The third-person, underwater exploration game Abzu (PlayStation 4, PC) was one of 2016’s more interesting and immersive games. And one element that made it so effective was the music, which really made you feel like you were scuba diving in a serene, fish-filled sea. With the score for Abzu now available on CD and digitally, I spoke to its composer, Austin Wintory, about how he came to make the music for this game and what he did to his score to make it work as an album.
I have a confession to make. While I enjoyed the original Dishonored four years ago, and while I had fun when I got to play its sequel for an hour at an event about a month ago, my initial thought when my review copy of Dishonored 2 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) arrived at my house this week was, “Uh, okay.” But as I started to play it, as I grew confident in my abilities and got caught up in the action, my feelings for this first-person stealth action game grew well beyond just “Uh, okay.”
Earlier this years, fans of car combat games, myself included, were deeply disappointed by the supremely subpar Carmageddon Max Damage (my review of which you can read here). Now we have Gas Guzzlers Extreme, which is now available on Xbox One, and coming soon to PlayStation 4, after years of being on PC. And while it’s far from perfect, it does have enough going for it to satisfy the itch that a certain something failed to do.
Since the Call Of Duty games moved from World War II to modern times with 2007’s Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, I’ve been hoping that this first-person shooter series would go full-on science fiction (as opposed to the cyberpunk but still near future sci-fi of Call Of Duty: Black Ops III). Well, that time has finally come, and that game is…Titanfall 2. But it’s also Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), which takes this series’ patented fluid controls, frantic firefights, explosively cinematic action, and addictive multiplayer where no Call Of Duty has gone before.
Like Star Wars Battlefront, Evolve, and Rainbow Six Siege, the original Titanfall was a multiplayer game that kind of had a campaign. While it had a story mode, it was really just a loosely connected string of multiplayer matches. But with Titanfall 2 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC), the good people at Respawn Entertainment have given this sci-fi shooter a real, no-foolin’, story-driven, single-player campaign. With this sequel not out yet, and thus the multiplayer servers not yet populated, here’s my assessment of the game’s campaign to tide you over until I’m able to shoot real people online.
With Dishonored 2 on track to be released November 11th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, the good people at Arkane Studios and Bethesda Softworks held an event at The Edison in Los Angeles, California, where they gave members of the media a chance to play a somewhat elaborate mission from the game.
Suffice it to say, spoilers follow.
Though it’s only been out a month or so, the cyberpunk shooting adventure game Deus Ex Mankind Divided (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) is already getting a story-driven expansion. But while Deus Ex Mankind Divided System Rift (also Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) isn’t a radical departure from the main game, it is a short but challenging one-off mission that has all of the elements, and all of the engagement, of the main game.