My reflection: I ended up playing a boatload of games this year. I beat almost 60 games and started many others without finishing them. Games were of varying quality, but I had fun across the spectrum. I'm glad I can still enjoy gaming, appreciating games for what they are and not expecting everything to be a masterpiece. If I was limited to buying games, especially at $70, I'd have a different outlook. I've recently borrowed some of these nominations from the library.
Gotham Knights: My initial impression was that internet reactions were unfairly negative. This was a fine Batman game. As I progressed further, I felt the jankiness and got annoyed by the massive amounts of spongey enemies. General gameplay design lacked. Why do I have to fight 3 man-bats to progress? I took more screenshots and videos than most games just to capture the bugs. However, the optional case files were good. I did generally enjoy the journey and the ending, but I wasn't interested in grinding for achievements and collectables after finishing the story. As a free game from the library, it was solid, but definitely not worth $70 for me.
Saints Row: This made a terrible initial impression. WTF is the opening mission (or three)? I almost quit early on. The more I played, the more I enjoyed it. It's a good game in the sense that B-movies are good movies. I appreciate its dumb-fun nature and think that lines up with other Saint's Row games. If you're expecting GTA6, don't bother. If you want some outrageousness and silly physics, it's worth a shot. Once again, thank you library.
Evil West: Bonus game, since no one mentioned this yet, but it didn't get great reviews. This game is awesome! It's like a modernized Xbox360/PS3 game in all of the right ways. The mild GOW-style exploration is fun, the combat expands in very interesting ways, and the story is bananas. If you happened to like games like Bulletstorm and The Club, check this out!
Stray: Another library game. I actually thought this was a ton of fun. It captured the feeling of being a cat, wove in a reasonable story, and had great gameplay elements and pacing. It seems odd as a GOTY inclusion given the mass-appeal factors of that particular award, but I do think it's a great game that anyone remotely interested should try.
My biggest disappointment:
Gran Turismo 7: I love racing games. I've been playing GT since Blockbuster offered the free GT1 demo with any rental. GT7 is the only game I paid cash for this year since I knew continued content would come and I always look for excuses to use my steering wheel setup. The single player campaign was poor, forcing you into certain cars and races. That's not the freedom that GT traditionally allows. You start at the back of the pack every race and have to deal with passing terrible AI with huge headstarts. How is this racing? The economy is egregious. I can't buy the cars I want unless I dedicate all of my gaming time to this game. The systems turned me off to the game more than they encouraged me to keep playing.
