Isometrics Awards: Best Game of 2015

So 2015 has been a fantastic year for video games on the whole, with fantastic games of all shapes, sizes and ideas being available. This list has changed repeatedly, being unrecognisable from a list of predictions I made last year. The long list had over thirty games on it at one point and whittling it down to ten has meant several games that deserve to be on this list are not, most notably The Witcher 3, which is essentially the unofficial number 11 on this list. I've tried to cover as wide a variety of games as possible.

Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then let us begin.

10: The Beginner's Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd., PC)

Depicted: The only spoiler-free screenshot I have.

A game by the makers of The Stanley Parable that is pretty much as difficult to describe without completely spoiling it, The Beginner's Guide is a game that will become more and more important as gaming spreads its literary wings and begins to move into mediums of metacommentary and creative criticism. It is at once a short playable experience but enters into much broader dimensions and ideas, asking some questions that are really profound and never asked before either in or about computer games. It will not be for everyone, as many of my recommendations are not, however this is a vitally important video game to understand other games, and absolutely worth the very short run-time. I will be covering the game in spoileriffic length in an Isometrics soon as well so play it before that... please?

9: Dirt Rally (Codemasters Racing, PC)

Depicted: Hot Note Reading Action!

Narrowly escaping the worst list was Codemasters' major release this year, the horribly buggy, limited in scope and incredibly disappointing F1 2015. Dirt Rally is basically the polar opposite. It appeared out of nowhere in staggering form for an Early Access game, blew pretty much every other racer this year away and was completed in December, thus guarenteeing itself a spot on this list. Dirt Rally is the opposite in many ways to Codemasters' increasing attempts to streamline and simplify their major franchises, with Grid Autosport and F1 2015 being the biggest victims of this. Dirt Rally does not; you get no tips, no aids and absolutely no mercy, and you will not place very well for a long time in the game, until you improve, build up your team and learn a lot about care and patience in order to maximise those sector times. Otherwise you will crash and see just how gorgeous and capable that damage engine is. The only fly on the ointment is how locked up most of the content is, with you stuck in a Mini Cooper until you get very good at the game but it makes progression so very rewarding. A massively fun experience if you're willing to sink your teeth deeply into a racing game.

8: Downwell (Mappin/Devolver Digital, PC)

Depicted: The only meaningful screencap I could take before being decimated by the game.

Now this is a shock. Technically a mobile port, Downwell is such an addicting little shooter game, with a twist that turns things literally on their head. A scrolling shooter in reverse, you play a young little blob thing wearing gunboots sending your bullets down the well, hunting for gems and trying not to die repeatedly. One of those things is kind of impossible, but that is the joy of games like Downwell, Spelunky and The Binding Of Isaac. You feel progression and forward progress, and the game rewards you for trying and failing. For the amount of fun you'll receive it's an absolute bargain.

7: Grow Home (Reflections/Ubisoft, PC)

Depicted: Welcome to Sunny Floating isle!

Ubisoft have a lot of issues and have made many many mistakes in the past but one of the things is their forays into art games. Last year provided the wonderful Child Of Light and Valient Hearts, and this year has the wonderful Grow Home. The basic premise is simply to grow a plant two kilometers high to reach your spaceship but the way to get there is equal parts Katamari-esque odd and complete charm, with a world growing upward and yet thanks to some delightful controls very easy to get around. It was a thoroughly relaxing game, and I have spent whole evenings gliding across the map trying to find one of the crystals or star seeds. Ubisoft have done better this year any way, but Grow Home will probably stand out as their best contribution to gaming this year.

6: Toren (Sword Tales/Versus Evil, PC)

Depicted: Drowning In Symbolism

Toren was part of a great influx of Brazillian games, which included the phenomenal Chroma Squad (a game bumped from this list at the last minute), and stands to be one of the most beautiful indie games made at least this year. You play Moonchild, a young girl who grows while climbing the titular Toren, a giant tower reaching to the sun, while exploring vivid worlds and enjoying an absolutely fascinating story without a single line of dialogue uttered. On a personal level, this game brought me back into doing Isometrics, as the first game of the year that truly felt like an incredible literary experience, swallowing you into its world tinged with mythology and metaphor. At times it feels like a 90's video game with an air of new-age surrealism, and the fact that a game can do that in 2015 gives me hope for the future.

5: Fallout 4 (Bethesda, PC/PS4/XB1)

Depicted: Low Hanging Fruit.

A late entry that completely messed up most of my rankings, I was going to leave Fallout 4 until the ultimate edition came out and the game was in a playable non-buggy state. Apparently I didn't need to wait too long because Fallout 4 was an incredible experience, improving pretty much every aspect that needed fixing, and adding a level of customisation I didn't realise I really wanted in gaming until I realised I could add a bayonet to a sniper rifle. Some have complained that it was too “streamlined” or “dumbed down” but most of those arguments appear to have been complaining about genuine improvements. Outside of the more limited dialogue options, almost none of the changes to Fallout 4 have been for the worse. Combat is better and feels more refined, VATS still has an element of threat to it, the settlement system is way more involved and delightful than it has any right to be, and you have a dog. What more is there to love?

4: Undertale (TobyFox, PC)

Depicted: A game after my own heart

Undertale is a game that completely blindsided everyone, and managed to create a huge cult overnight over what seemed from screenshots to be another retro-inspired RPG. Scratch the surface even slightly however and you have a beautiful, incredibly well-realised game about choice, authority, agency and font-named Skeletons. It is a world that is easy to be attached to with all the characters being rather unique in design, personality and witty dialogue, and that is as true for the random encounters as the main NPCs, which is where Undertale truly shines. Combat can be like a standard RPG if you want it to be, but there are options to not fight and still win, and it's as valid if not more so to spare an opponent as kill it. A spellbinding experience filled with wonder, humour and meta-commentary on gaming as a whole, and absolutely worth playing, then again, and again...

3: Rocket League (Psyonix, PC/PS4)

Depicted: True Sporting Joy

Here I am, and you're Rocket League! Possibly the best multiplayer game in recent memory, Rocket League is a concept so simple and so brilliant I'm shocked it hasn't become successful sooner. Effectively jet powered car football, where Rocket League shines is in the sheer controlled madness of everything. Anyone can pick it up and figure out the basics but there is a lot of hidden tricks and aspects to master that high level play looks very impressive and not entirely based on luck. It basically works in the same way other sports do, and tickles that bit of your brain that starts hollering, oohing, ahhing and whooping in delight as that shot curls perfectly past the other team's goalie and soars in, explosions and horns sounding off. Another game that came from seemingly nowhere and completely blew me away as a game that could have very easily been game of the year.

2: Life is Strange (Dontnod/Square Enix, PC/PS4)

Depicted: Meta-Hipster Irony

One more game that seemed to be a complete shock, Remember Me developers Dontnod's follow up, the episodic Life is Strange will stand as one of the best if not the best episodic game of all time, and for me personally the game that made me finally get how and why episodic games can work. The story of a backwater town in Washington state, the game follows Max Caulfield, a photography student who learns she has the power to turn back time after saving her best friend's life. The first episode, while very good and showcasing the beautiful hand-painted textures they used, was impressive but did not make this game the herald of great episodic gaming. However by the second episode myself and pretty much everyone I knew who played the game was absolutely hooked to the twists and turns in the story, with a story that moved people (read: me) to tears on several occasions. The genius of Life is Strange is the time travel mechanic, which adds weight to the choices you make and forces the player to live with decisions they could have changed had they chosen to. Where the story goes is incredible and I don't want to spoil it so this is another game I could not recommend highly enough. Tantalisingly close to game of the year as well.

1: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions/Konami, PC/PS4/XB1)

Depicted: Tactical Espionage Action! Also Dog.

Well, it was close, and at times I almost bumped it from the top spot, but ultimately Hideo Kojima's swansong for Konami had the top spot to lose. Much has been discussed, explored and described about the game and it's voyage into the deepest darkest patches of development hell, so I will stick with the fact that bizarrely enough, the narrative is one of the weakest aspects of the game. There is still some great strangeness and Kojima hallmarks but compared to MGS 4 there is definitely steps backwards in the way the story was told. The game feels like content was missing at times, odd for a game as long as The Phantom Pain is, and the DLC for the game literally includes Horse Armour, a gigantic in joke in gaming. All that aside though, MGSV is still a masterpiece, beautifully realised, brilliantly constructed and breathtaking in scope. Outside of the awful fee-to-pay FOB element, everything in the game is no worse than very good even with its flaws, which was ultimately why it ended up on the top spot despite my frustrations with a game that threw away the potential to be the best game of all time. Much of that can be ascribed to the bizarre business decisions made by Konami, and with their current mood swings about the future of the company, MGSV may well be the final swansong for them as well. For a game that has both the very best and very worst of 2015 in video gaming, MGSV encapsulates it all, and for that amongst many other reasons it gets the nod for Game of the Year.

One last thing to do is the Honourable Mentions, thanks for reading the Isometrics awards and feel free to let me know what you agree/disagree with.

Isometrics Game of the Year: The Top Eight Games this Year

2014 was a rather interesting year of near misses and near brilliance, ruined by inexperience with new hardware or incompetence with porting. However despite this there were some truly brilliant games, and so I had to trim my shortlist a lot to get to my top eight best games this year.

Again, as with the worst games list, the games had to be released between 1^st December 2013 and 31^st December 2014, cannot be freemium games, and remakes are allowed if they change enough stuff to almost be considered a game distinct from the original. The first release of a game in English also applies here. No beta or early access games here, which basically wiped off a good chunk of my shortlist.

In the end though, this is my shortlist, and I'll do my best to explain where the rankings come from.

Here goes!

8: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (Konami: PC/PS3/PS4/X360/XONE)

This was a game I really hoped they wouldn't screw up, but in a few ways it did so let me get the bad parts of the game out of the way first. The game is ridiculously short for its original price tag (£30!), clocking up at about an hour and a half for the main mission, though of course it contained a few side missions. There is only one map, and of course the story can't really get going, although we do get a lot of disgusting imagery which I won't get into which is a bit unsettling since none of the previous six or seven MGS games got anywhere near as visceral. It very nearly ended up on the end of the worst games list because of its length, and I'm not even kidding.

All that out of the way, the game was utterly magnificient. The control system, vastly improved from MGS4 onwards was absolutely joyeous to use. Graphically the game was spellbinding, using light and shade in a way I'd never seen in a next gen game, with some great details and amazing character designs. The AI is vastly improved and a legitimate part of the challenge, since they will call for help and go into alert if something logically untowards is discovered, reminding me a lot of the Hitman games in that regard. The story, such as there was, is evocative, expertly directed and brilliantly performed, particularly with regards to mental trauma and harm, obviously this will become a far greater part of The Phantom Pain. There are a lot of ways to handle each mission and a ton of weapons to collect to, so it is a case that if you enjoy the game there are plenty of reasons to replay.

Added to this is the phenomenal PC port, one of the best from a Japanese developer (and one of the most optimised Next-Gen games released on PC this year) and you have a brilliant game that only slightly disappointed.

7: Toybox Turbos (Codemasters: PC)

I agonised whether I was going to put this or BlazeRush on my list, and eventually it boiled down to a straight choice. While Blazerush was an amazingly fun game which really surprised me from a developer who hadn't made a game that good before, Toybox Turbos is simply a better game. It is a modern day Micro Machines, which is probably the greatest compliment you can give a party racing game.

The graphics are superb, there are plenty of cars and tracks to play and an excellent online mode. However the main star is the gameplay, which is as perfect as you can make a party racing game. Overall it is a little short in single player (3 hours, but the game was £11 new and of course there is the multiplayer) but get a few friends playing and you have a great party game.

6: Cloudbuilt (Coilworks: PC)

On the one hand, it's incredibly tough. On the other it's an absolutely gorgeous, fantastically designed joy to play. Coilworks' debut is amazing to play, basically getting to the core of what 3D platforming should be. Armed with a hover, a dash and the ability to run up walls, Demi can go basically anywhere, but the limits to all three of those abilities mean the game ends up becoming one of careful strategy and risk, particularly since there are so many routes you can take through levels, some unforgiving tough but very quick. Add to that an interesting story about journeying through trauma and a lot of interesting levels and you have one of the sleeper hits of the year.

5: Murdered: Soul Suspect (Square-Enix: PC/XONE/PS4/X360/PS3)

A game which scores a lot of its points with an interesting premise and an excellent adventuring mechanic. The best way to describe the game is Ghost Trick meets LA Noire, where you play a cop who has to solve his own murder in order to get into heaven. At times the game is complete nonsense but the game really does a good job of painting the ghost world as different from the real world. Add to that the interesting clue gathering and piecing together mechanics from LA Noire and you have a very good adventure game. The stealth sections, combat and the sheer amount of combat there is later in the game probably could have done with some balencing though.

4: South Park the Stick of Truth (Ubisoft: PC/X360/PS3)

Don't say I never give Ubisoft credit when it's due. For all the AAA problems they've had this year, they also released the touching Valient Hearts, the stylish Child of Light and The Stick of Truth, the single best licensed game released this year, and up on the list for being the best licensed game of all time.

Where it works is in the details. It looks like the show, and few games ever manage that. The writing is by the show's writers, the voice acting is by Matt Stone and Trey Parker and it is as hilarious, demented and absolutely brilliant as the show has become. The gameplay is akin to Paper Mario, right down to having patches, badges and extra abilities and may well be the most refined game Obsedian have made as well.

3: One Way Heroics (AGM Playism: PC)

There were a lot of RPGs in my shortlist, and again I was torn between the sublime Legends of Heroes, Trails in the Sky and this, and really both deserve to be on this list. One Way Heroics succeeds in having an excellent array of mechanics, a great pace to the game, lots of choices and customisation and really managing to do something new with the roguelike. The balance between getting experience and looking for items, as well as the potential for strategy is done excellently, along with one of the best soundtracks this year (in fact the only two soundtracks better than it are at #2 and #1 on this list). A sleeper hit in every regard.

2: The Binding of Isaac Rebirth (Nicalis and Edmund McMillan: PC/PS4)

I love the Binding of Isaac, but there were a lot of slight technical problems with the original game which meant I never really got the fullest out of it. If it didn't do quite as many improvements, modifications, engine changes and the like to the game it might have been disqualified for being a rerelease, but because all those changes improve and change the gameplay experience so thoroughly, it has to be here. Since I bought it a month and a bit ago I have sunk 75 hours into it, and it has become the go-to game I play when I'm doing other things. The amount of content in the game is staggering, almost as much as how much that affects the game, with good and bad loadouts really meaning the difference between a tricky game and an incredibly hard one. Despite this you never feel the game has made it impossible for you, and it manages that great rogue-lite sense of risk and reward perfectly. Add to that a great mix between adorable and abject imagery and an incredible soundtrack and you have one of the best games this year.

1: Transistor (Supergiant Games: PC/PS4)

The game world this year has been characterised by games that promise a lot and simply do not deliver. Many games I thought would be spectacular at the start of this year have by its end either been forgotten or are not quite as great. Transistor however is not one of them.

I went into 2014 thinking this would be my game of the year, perhaps having to battle MGSV and Watchdogs for the top sport. But it simply did not disappoint. If anything, the game was better than I had anticipated, with all its functions and form coming together wonderfully with an amazing aesthetic. I love cyberpunk, and this mix of cyberpunk and art deco made for an arresting hauntingly beautiful atmosphere, particularly as the work of the Process serves to swallow it up.

The soundtrack is one of the best of all time, a mix of genres along with some sensational vocals creates that tragic out of time sense for the game, which just works perfectly for every scenario. The game is short but with a New Game Plus option and a heartbreaking story.

There were many good games this year. A few great ones, but it turns out only one of them managed to do everything right this year and that was indeed Transistor.