Seems like the fashionable thing to do in the blogosphere right now is to make a list of planned games to play in 2016. Although I am not fashionable by any meaning of the word I still thought it might be fun to do. :p

Anyhoo, like any kind of list like this there is no absolute guarantee I will follow it. But these are definitely the games that have been in my mind lately therefore making them the most likely for me to play next year, even if it is just in the first few months of the year.

MMOs

I haven’t played any MMO for months. I just haven’t been in the right mood for them. This is also unlikely to change in the following months. Still there has been a few that have been swimming in my head in case my mood changes.

Final Fantasy XIV – At the time of Final Fantasy XIV relaunch I found it just wasn’t for me. To be fair, it isn’t like they lied or anything. A Realm Reborn was exactly what they were promising for months when the whole thing was announced. It just wasn’t the kind of game I wanted to play back then. Still I have a lot of respect for them for being honest and communicative about what they were playing. Plus it was exactly what the game needed, not to mention much better than it was before. Again, it was just a case of not being my type of cup of tea back then.

And despite all that I still miss the game world. There was a certain beauty and artistry to it that few other MMOs have managed to rival. So it makes me wonder if it isn’t worth just dealing with the parts that I don’t like much to partake in the parts that I do like.

Guild Wars 2 – My relationship with Guild Wars 2 has been complicated. I never really disliked it but I stopped playing for various reasons, part of them being a depression I was going through and my friends disliking the game and leaving it. So much time passed, so many changes went by that I just found hard to come back. But recently I have been reading “Sea of Sorrows” a novel based on the game that tells the period when Orr rose from the bottom of the ocean and Lion’s Arch turned into the place that it is today. This novel has been making me really miss my charr, my asura and other characters. So I think it is about time to leave behind all the complicated emotions I got associated with the game and move on with it.

The Repopulation – This is a game that I got more because my friends are interested into it. But there are some interesting features about it plus it is a Sci-Fi game. I am all for playing games just to check what kind of interesting, unique features they have. The fact it is also a Sci-Fi game might be a good change of pace from all the fantasy games I have been consuming the last years too.

Single Player Games

There aren’t that many games I am looking forward in the 2016 but these are all games I am drool just thinking about them.

XCom 2 – When the first XCom was announced I was apprehensive. There had been so many shallow and soulless remakes of classic games. I was afraid XCom would just be another one of those. Nothing could be further from that. XCom turned out to be able to keep the spirit of the original game as well as being its own thing.  And with XCom 2 it seems they are taking all the good parts of the first one, adding a bunch of new cool stuff and making it much bigger and better. I also like that the sequel goes from the premise that we lost in the first game, the aliens conquered Earth and now we are rebels that have to take it back. The only thing I find funny is that for some reason the XCom organization wants the same leader who lost everything to begin with to come back to lead them. I mean, doing such a terrible job does not lead much faith that this time things will be different. :p

In any  case, this is the game I am most looking forward to in 2016. 🙂

Deus Ex: Manking Divided – I loved Deux Ex: Human Revolution. It was a pretty fun shooter/stealthy game with a decent story and good characters. There were some parts the story just didn’t work out so well for me and the required boss fights were silly. But at least in the latter they seem to have learned their lesson and there will have a lot more freedom on how to deal with bosses in the second game. As for story… I am not sure I buy the premise of it but at I am willing to see where it goes before judging it.

Dinivity: Original Sin 2 – I kickstarted the first Divinity: Original Sin by a recommendation of a friend and because I liked what the developers said in their campaign and in interviews. Turns out this was a pretty good investment since the game was one of the best RPGs I played in quite a while. So when they launched a Kickstarter campaign for the sequel I backed it up without a second thought.  The day this game will be released can’t come fast enough! In the mean time I will just have to content myself with playing the Enhanced Edition of the first one and following every update of the development of the second one!

The Backlog

My crusade against my backlog of games may never end but there are a few I really want to get out of the way as soon as possible.

Dragon Age: Inquisition – When this one was released I was feeling a big fatigue of Bioware games, to the point I wasn’t even sure if their games were the kind I enjoyed anymore. So I decided to sit this one out, see what other people thought about it and if it turned out I liked what I heard then I would buy it whenever it had an Ultimate/Game of the Year/Super-Uber-Duper-Really-Complete Edition of the game AND it had a nice enough discount. Well, that happened and I Intent to play it… as soon as I recreate my first (and cannonical in my head) character for Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 since I lost those saves and I want to see what kind of impact their actions had for the third game. Yes, I know I could just use the Tapestry to set the major decisions but it is not the same thing. :p

Fallout 4 – Kind of in the same boat as Dragon Age: Inquisition. The difference being that I hated Oblivion and Fallout 3 to the point that Bethesda dropped of my list of “Developers That Makes Games I Enjoy”. Skyrim helped to regain my trust in them somewhat but I was still skeptical about Fallout 4. Even more so when they announced that the player character would be voice acted. Considering how Bethesda’s dialogue goes it just didn’t inspire me with much confidence. Still, from what I hear they did quite a few things right with Fallout 4 so I am going to do the same thing I did with Dragon Age: Inquisition: wait for a definitive edition, that contains the base game and all DLCs, to be released, wait for that to go on sale and just then buy it. The only annoying thing is to avoid all interesting discussions about the game until then. :p

Pillars of Eternity – I tried to begin playing this game a couple of times. Although I loved what little I saw of the story and characters I just had trouble with the “Real Time With Pause” combat. You see, I hate “Real Time With Pause” combat. It isn’t as good as actual real time combat, much less Turn Based combat. It is the main reason I was never able to get into the Baldur’s Gate games (don’t ask me how I got into Icewind Dale back in the days. I have no idea). Still, I think this is one of the cases where it is worth just sucking up the bad parts because the good parts are so good that you will be remembering them for years.

The Witcher – No, I am not forgetting a number in there. It is the actual first Witcher game. You see, I really want to play the Witcher 3. But before that I want to play the first and second Witcher games. And my problem with the first Witcher game is that the combat  mechanics are just clunky. I can see what they were trying and there were some good ideas in there. It is just the implementation is just not that good in my opinion. Still the story seems good, some of the characters are interesting and if Witcher 3 turns out to be just as 10% good of everything I hear then it will be more than worth to deal with any terrible mechanics its predecessors may have.

 

I think those are the major games that I want to play next year. There are a few others of course, but I don’t have as much strong feelings about those games as these ones. And to end this off, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a happy New Year and all the best in these holidays! 🙂