My Favourite games of 2015.

By Sam Coles:

It’s that time of year again where I express my opinion on my favourite games that came out in 2015. I’m not going to do it in any particular number or any order. Remember this is my opinion if you don’t agree with me that’s fine but be mature about it or go home.

The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt:

I’m a huge fan of The Witcher series even down to the books that the game are based and I was so excited when they revealed the third game in the series at E3 of 2013 that I couldn’t wait to get a new gen system. It’s nothing short of amazing what they have achieved with this game; they took the extremely detailed world of The Witcher 2 and presented it in an open world. The characters are well written and are likeable and hateable, you really engage with the characters because they have interesting back stories and origins. The combat is extremely visceral and much better than the combat from The Witcher 2. If you haven’t played this game then stop what you’re doing and go out and buy this game.

Battlefield Hardline:

Now I know that this game got a lot of flak with its campaign because everyone was saying it was clichéd, but that was the point it was meant to be clichéd because the game is taking the piss out of all these cop shows. You can tell on the actors faces that they were taking the piss because they’re almost grinning when they’re delivering their lines. The campaign is over the top and ridiculous and people were stupid to take the game seriously, hell it even carries over into the multiplayer with it’s over the top nature. People in the gaming industry need to laugh and lighten up and stop taking everything seriously.

Rainbow Six Siege:

I know this game is somewhat controversial because of the lack of singleplayer and the price point, but that doesn’t mean that game is bad, no not at all. Rainbow Six Siege is tense, fun and exciting with a fresh take on multiplayer shooters where you have no regenerating health and one headshot will put you down. The AI in terrorist hunt are on the ball where they actively hunt you down for example if they know you’re in the next room they won’t walk round and go through the door they’ll breach the wall or shoot through it. I would say pick this game up in a sale as it doesn’t warrant its full price.

Mortal Kombat X:

Mortal Kombat X was my most anticipated game of the year and it lived up to my expectations, the big elephant in the room was the fact you had to pay for Goro if you didn’t pre-order it because he’s already on the disc. Besides that MKX is a fantastic fighting game with tons of content with a cinematic story mode which all fighting games should have to stay relevant on home consoles. NetherRealm have done a fantastic job making fighting games relevant still.

Mad Max:

There was a lot of hate towards this game and too be honest I don’t understand why because I rather enjoyed it. This is exactly what I expected from a good Mad Max game with a beautiful yet destroyed open world to the car combat and ridiculous physics with the cars. The characters are engaging because they’re all very unique and psychotic; they’re characters you would expect from the source material. The combat is bone crunching and satisfying especially when you nail that perfect counter and you break their arm. Great game I would highly recommend picking it up and plus it’s made by the same guys who made Just Cause.

Batman Arkham Knight:

The final instalment to the Arkham series where they finally introduced the ability to drive the Batmobile, which is fun to speed around the streets of Gotham. The graphics are absolutely beautiful such as the rain effects on Batman’s suit you can see every rain drop rolling off his face. The combat has been tweaked and feels the tightest out of the series; the difficulty is certainly higher especially in the later stages of the game as they through different enemy types in greater numbers.

Halo 5 Guardians:

Halo is one of my favourite franchises but this one had a bit of a lacklustre campaign with underwhelming results with a cliff-hanger ending, but it was well performed with awe inspiring visuals. The gameplay is great with a fast pace almost similar to Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. The new multiplayer modes like Breakout and Warzone are fun additions to the series and I keep going back to them over and over.

Until Dawn:

Until Dawn was a game that came out of nowhere because I had no idea that game really existed because there wasn’t too much marketing behind the game, then a review copy dropped through the post from Sony. I started it up and the first thing that caught my eye was the motion capture of the actors which is outstanding. The gameplay is similar to games like Heavy Rain, but unlike Heavy Rain choices have real consequences where you can get the entire cast killed if you want to. The game really does emphasise choice and it is fun to replay and do the different paths to see what happens.