My Top 10 Games of 2017
It was 12 months, but it felt like it was a lot longer than that. When thinking back to last January, memories can feel like they are two or three years old. Every week there was some major news story or event taking place that normally would be the talk of the town for the next month or so, but 2017 was relentless.
However, this mirrored the world of gaming in 2017 perfectly — in a much better sense. A nice counter-balance for people who felt like the world around them was going from bad to worse. From January onwards, there were amazing games competing for time.
It started with the likes of Resident Evil 7 going back to its roots and Yakuza 0 going back to the 1980’s. In February, Horizon Zero Dawn came out after a couple of smaller hits had made their splash on the scene in Night In the Woods and Hollow Knight. There were still big releases such as NieR:Automata and Nioh, if that wasn’t enough for one month.
March saw the launch of the Nintendo Switch and with it the launch of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Mass Effect Andromeda made its return in incredibly underwhelming fashion, but April picked up with another few smaller surprises such as The Sexy Brutale, Flinthook and What Remains of Edith Finch.
The Summer lull wouldn't quite arrive. While May was quieter, it still featured games like Prey and Injustice 2. June had Tekken return with what some consider the best in the series with Tekken 7. Another trip down memory lane was released as the Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy had people re-living some of the fondest moments of their childhood.
In what should have been the quietest month of the year, July turned out to be pretty busy thanks to the releases of Splatoon 2, Pyre and The End Is Nigh. Three games all released by teams with such pedigree behind them, it is crazy to think that they could all come out in the space of a week in the middle of the Summer.
Getting into the business end of the year, the big hitters were going to start coming in thick and fast. One day in August saw the release of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Everybody’s Golf and Sonic Mania. This wouldn’t even be the busiest single day of the year.
Arguably the biggest game of the year came out in September, Destiny 2, but it also saw the release of Steamworld Dig 2, Golf Story, Cuphead and of course Star Fox 2 — because it was that kind of year.
October 27, 2017, went down as one of the biggest days in gaming history with the release of Assassins Creed: Origins, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Super Mario Odyssey. November and December rounded off the year with big, but controversial launches of Star Wars Battlefront II and Need For Speed Payback.
It was a great year for games — as long as you weren’t looking forward to anything made by EA. Even still, through this exhaustive rundown of the year, there were many games left off the list in the interest of time because otherwise we’d be here all day.
So, with that, I thought it would be a fun exercise to try whittle down the 10 games I enjoyed the most from 2017. Unfortunately, there wasn’t that much whittling down to be done. My failure to finish Horizon Zero Dawn, Pyre as well as playing some more Breath of the Wild can be blamed on playing far too much of Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 — turns out it’s much better than previous entries in the series!
Without further adieu:
10. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
The announcement of this game is one of the all time bafflingly great moments of E3. Shigeru Miyamoto coming out on stage at a Ubisoft conference with a plastic gun is not something I could have possibly predicted at the start of 2017. Yet, there we were and it was glorious.
Each step in the announcement of this game was crazier than the last. For it all to culminate in the revelation that this would actually be a game closer to X-Com than Mario was insane. For it to be any good, was even more unbelievable.
I've never played an X-Com game, so this felt like a good entry point to the genre, but the humour of the writing as well as the fact that it starred all our favourite characters from the Mushroom Kingdom really sold me on this game. While the battles were usually interesting, if they hadn’t involved Mario and made Luigi into my team’s sniper then I doubt I would have enjoyed it as much as I did.
I couldn’t bring myself to finish the game, it just ended up being too long and the stuff in between the battles wasn’t as engaging, but overall I still had a great time playing it and would very much like to see what the developer could do with a sequel.
9. Injustice 2
Now normally I wouldn’t be interested in touching a fighting game. It’s just not a genre I’ve really ever enjoyed, but Injustice is the one exception. Considering how bad the DC movies have been in the last couple years, having a great story involving my favourite DC characters means I’ll likely play the game no matter what genre it is.
While the fighting in the game still wasn’t really my thing, it was still fun enough for me to want to get from cut scene to cut scene.
Meanwhile the story was excellent, I was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns while also being glad to see a good story that didn’t rely on the presence of the Joker to see it through to the end.
My only selfish wish is that this wasn’t a fighting game, but who knows what the fine people at Rocksteady are cooking up? Hopefully they’re working on their own take on what in-fighting within the Justice League might cause.
8. The Sexy Brutale
In 2016, my game of the year was the new Hitman game. In 2017, I ended up really liking a game that was essentially its opposite. The Sexy Brutale was a game that I didn’t hear about until the week it came out, but once I saw what it was about I was immediately into it. The whole concept, mixed with the design and music was enough for me to want to try it out for myself.
But while the gameplay loop was interesting, what really blew me away was how much I enjoyed the story. The game itself is only a few hours long, but once the story becomes a little clearer and gets a little deeper, I became completely invested in everything that was happening.
Once I reached a certain point, a couple of hours in, there was no way I was putting down the controller until I had beaten the game.
7. Nier:Automata
Nier:Automata is a game that I never really felt like playing until it was all I wanted to play. It’s the video game equivalent of something like Breaking Bad. You’ll tell everyone you know about it, how much you loved it but you’ll have to preface your recommendation with three words: “stick with it.”
The first 8 or so hours of the game are rough, but if you can get passed that into the next 15 or 20 hours, then it is simply incredible. The act of actually playing Nier:Automata is not one of my top 10 gaming experiences in 2017, but the world that Yoko Taro has created is incredible.
The story, mixed with the music and the characters makes it one of the most unforgettable gaming experiences I’ve ever had. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s ever a fun game to play, but it has so many breathtaking and brain-melting moments that blew me away. However, the first hour or so is definitely one of the worst introductions to a game I’ve ever played.
Nier being this high on my list speaks to how good everything but the game play is. If you haven’t already, play this game.
6. What Remains of Edith Finch
2017 ended up being one of the great years not for just video games, but video game stories. What Remains of Edith Finch is one of the best examples of that. Not necessarily for the overall story, but the vignettes you play through are all unique and interesting.
Each vignette is a showcase of how the Finch family is cursed and this is how each member of the family died throughout the years. Many are touching, some are even kind of funny in a weird way, but there is one in particular near the end of the game is simply incredible.
People who have played the game will know what one I’m talking about and those who haven’t played the game simply must play it.
5. Wolfenstein: The New Colossus
When I bought Wolfenstein: The New Order in 2015, I didn’t think it would take me two years to actually finish it, but boy am I glad that I did. Playing both of these Wolfenstein games back-to-back was an amazing experience.
People may have gripes with the level design and the uninteresting shooting, but they never really ruined my experience of playing Wolfenstein.
There are so many moments in Wolfenstein that are simply amazing. I won’t delve into such moments here because frankly anyone who hasn’t yet played — or at the very least seen what happens— in The New Colossus needs to see what they do with BJ Blazkowicz in these new games.
It is incredible.
4. Steamworld Dig 2
Few game announcements in recent years have excited me as much as the announcement of Steamworld Dig 2 at the Nindie treehouse event. The original game was perfect for playing in bed on my vita.
Explaining the game makes it sound extremely dull, but there was something so unexplainably satisfying about just digging, collecting loot and cashing it in for money to upgrade my tools.
So, when Steamworld Dig finally launched I was delighted to find out it was significantly longer than the original — which was maybe a couple hours long — and that the game was no longer randomly generated. Instead the world was hand crafted and filled with dozens of puzzles and collectibles for me to find on my digging expeditions.
The addition of a new upgrade system was exactly what this sequel needed. It built on everything that made me enjoy the original game and left me wanting more. It was also a perfect game for my Switch.
It also had a surprisingly engaging story, with a few particular stand out moments, but it is the puzzles that I found down in those caves that made me really fall in love with this game.
3. Night in the Woods
The reason why this list isn’t actually being published until 2018 is because of Night in the Woods. It is a game that I ended up finishing at half eleven on New Year’s Eve and I just knew it would do well on this list from the very first hour.
Writing characters who are going through the early years of adulthood, struggling to grow up and take charge of their new responsibilities is something that writers have struggled with in general, but in recent years even games have had a few attempts that just missed the mark, such as Life Is Strange and Oxenfree.
But Night in the Woods absolutely nails it.
However, the story of Mae is even more touching because Night in the Woods deals with mental health issues in a way that most games don’t. It was done really well — for the most part, no game is without fault — but the way the characters dealt with it felt so real.
The entire game felt real in a way that I can’t remember other games doing — which is incredibly impressive considering all the characters are actually animals. The way it uses choices in such a subtle way really puts games like Life Is Strange and any Telltale game to shame.
The world is also so well crafted. It feels so lived-in and every character is fleshed out and means something by the end of the game. How you interact with the people living in Possum Springs is something other games should be taking note of.
2. Nioh
When I first heard of Nioh, it was described as “Samurai Dark Souls” and that description really doesn’t do it justice. While a lot of the games on my list are story-heavy games, Nioh couldn’t be further from it.
The combat is so deep and satisfying that even at 60 or so hours I still felt like playing. There is so much to experiment and mess around with that you could easily play for 60 hours and still be trying out different play-styles or mechanics.
I really enjoyed the mission structure of the game and it lent itself to boss design spectacularly. Some of the boss fights in Nioh are some of my favourite boss fights ever. There was a variety of bosses that all played differently, but each one felt beatable after a certain number of tries.
While the main criticism of the game I have would be the lack of variety at enemies that are littered throughout the levels in general, it still doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of this game because of just how much I enjoyed the combat of the game.
If you mixed the combat of Nioh with the story of Nier:Automata you’d probably make one of the greatest games of all time, they really are the antithesis of each other.
1. Super Mario Odyssey
As someone who never really enjoyed the Mario Galaxy games — though I would love to go back to them now that a few years have passed — I was excited for SMO the second it was announced. It looked so different to previous Mario games.
Mario with people?? How could this be?
But Nintendo made it work. Super Mario Odyssey is a complete joy. No game has left me grinning from ear to ear quite like this has. The level design, the music, the character design, the costumes, the collectibles, the little touches that went into this game, everything about it is amazing.
What an incredible launch year for the Nintendo Switch, it’s hard to think of many better for other consoles. It started with Breath of the Wild and then Odyssey capped it off spectacularly — heh, get it?
While I may not have put much time into Zelda, I played so much of Odyssey that I thought I might actually have burnt myself out on it within a week of release.
But then I remembered the joyous times I had at New Donk City, the Luncheon Kingdom and Bonneton to only name a few. Plus, the fact that I still look up the soundtrack on YouTube whenever I want something to listen to — seriously, Steam Gardens is one of my favourite tracks from a video game ever.
How could this not be my game of the year? No game gave me greater joy than Super Mario Odyssey in 2017 and let’s hope whatever Nintendo does next with everyone’s favourite plumber isn’t too far away.
