This is the big one, ladies and gentleman. For most of you out there, this is where Kingdom Hearts jumped the shark. Fortunately for you, Sam and I are here to explain the plot, make some bad jokes, and occasionally let a good joke or two slip into the mix.

It’s really tough to go through this tutorial/intro segment of Kingdom Hearts 2. As I said in the primer, for the story Square Enix wanted to tell with this game, it was necessary to introduce Roxas in a low-impact, mundane way, and do it early. That said, this is, was, and has always been a really rough segment of game to go through.

Not because it’s particularly difficult. It’s the tutorial, and generally pretty easy. However, it’s 3 hours long and unless you know what’s going on in the lore through outside sources, not much here will make any degree of sense to you.

It’s disorienting, and I understand that it’s intended to be. But for people who just wanted to play as Sora again, the anger they must have felt makes sense.

A shame really, because Roxas is easily one of my favorite characters in the series once we get into who he is and what motivates him.

It’s that time again. Once again, Sam and I are delving back into Kingdom Hearts to help solve the mysteries within.

This is going to be the big one, taking up most of the run-time for the Primer series. At the same time, now that a lot of the big ideas and concepts are out there for discussion, this is where Sam and I can also truly begin to start hacking away at what most confuses most people about Kingdom Hearts.

I hope you guys enjoy what you are about to experience. 🙂

Another day, another Elusive Target. This time: The Chameleon.

This is another video where, like The Chameleon, I had the right general idea, but didn’t execute correctly because I had lacked situational awareness.

One thing I have noticed about my performance in these recent Hitman videos is that I seem to have developed a general reluctance to take out people around or near the target. I could have turned in a much more solid performance in both Elusive Targets had I been more willing to take the risk and take out some guards before going in for the kill. Just because Silent Assassin forbids players from killing non-targets, they can still be dealt with using non-lethal force.

Since missions can still be restarted up until the point where an objective is completed (or failed), I could still make a second attempt even if I had failed to take out the hackers in the room. I didn’t have to try to poison him between the routes of the two hackers.

Again, failure isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s important to learn from what went wrong. At least the escape attempt was entertaining.

Let us talk about Elusive Targets, the internet, and Hitman as we take on The Food Critic.

I spoke in the episode of The Guru about how the Modern Lethal Syringe isn’t the completely worthless item that I originally thought it was, but only outside of story missions. It is a silent weapon, so no noise will be generated when the player uses it. It’s faster than choking someone out and snapping their neck. Furthermore, poison kills are treated as accident kills, if the body is discovered later, it will not count as a body being discovered for the purpose of calculating the final score. This makes it possible to get Silent Assassin without having to worry about hiding the body.


That said, it is still a weapon that players can only use up close, when standing directly behind the intended target. When going in for the kill with the Modern Lethal Syringe, it is important to be cognizant of the surrounding area. Otherwise, Agent 47 can still be blindsided by someone watching the kill and triggering the alarm as a result.

I had the right general idea when going for distractions to lure away the guards. My mistake was in lacking the situational awareness to know that the guard to my side would still see me, even though the bodyguard was turned away.

Secondly, I forgot that players can lure guards away from their posts by dropping weapons in their patrol routes. When a guard picks up a weapon, they will immediately walk it to the security room. This gives the player a window to either take care of the guard in a discrete location on route to security room, or to act on a target/objective while the guard is busy.

I may have screwed up this one, but sometimes failure is more valuable because of the lessons it can teach…

I was so *close*…

What kills me most about this target is that I very clearly had the Silent Assassin solution thought out, but I just missed a few details.


At the end of the mission, you might notice that I didn’t just lose the bonus for “No Evidence”, but I also lost the bonus for “Never Spotted”. I’ve been over this recording several times now, to create my commentary, edit the video, and now to make this post, and I never saw a point where I got detected during my “canonical” run.

This leads me to one conclusion, the only person who could have seen me… was the target. I strongly suspect that since he was turning to face me as I injected the Modern Lethal Syringe into his flesh, he saw he perform the deed. This might have been what triggered the point loss from never getting spotted.

If that is indeed the case, I would find it quite interesting that the system doesn’t factor in whether or not the person who saw detected Agent 47 was still alive at the end of the mission. 90% of the time, that wouldn’t matter because if the player is killing witnesses, they already lost Silent Assassin and score no longer matters. This is only important in the edge case where the people who detect the player are targets.

I don’t think it’s a big problem, but given that players only have one shot at Elusive Targets, any technical problem or punishing design decisions get severely amplified. It’s one thing when the player can trace their failure to their own mistakes, it’s quite another to lose a Silent Assassin to a technicality in these cases.

As I said in my highlight reel of 2016, this has been one of the best years in gaming in quite a long time. That said, no year is free from games that didn’t live up, and this is no exception.


The same rules as last year apply. Just because a game made this list, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily bad. All it means is that when I played it, it had significant problems that really hampered my enjoyment of the overall experience.


So without further ado, my disappointments of 2016 are…


Firewatch


I’m not about to sit here and say that Firewatch is a bad game. I enjoyed the interactions between Henry and Delilah. The idea of hiking in the wilderness was appealing, and the game looks gorgeous.
That said, the game just didn’t have the emotional impact for me that it seemed to have for so many people. I wanted to really like this game as I have with others like Gone Home. While I intellectually understood how good the acting was and how the script should have elicited emotions, I just felt one degree too far removed from the experience to feel the connection.
I could also bring up the ending here, since it’s so divisive among those who have beaten the game, but honestly I was checked out long before the unreveal.
To me, that is Firewatch. It’s a good “walking simulator” that never worked for me.


Tom Clancy’s The Division


I’ll preface this by saying that I didn’t play even a tiny bit of The Division after its most recent update. All of my playtime in The Division stems from the first month or so after it was released.


That said, I was really excited about playing The Division when it came out. I had played the Beta and while the story seemed forgettable as hell, I fell in love with the idea of the Dark Zone, where players could fight alongside/against each other in order to claim better equipment, and extract it.
When the game came out, my opinion dropped dramatically. The story stuff that was inoffensive, but otherwise okay, was ultimately so bland that I couldn’t be bothered to even get halfway through before I stopped. Being an Ubisoft open-world game, it’s also bogged down with a ton of pointless collectibles than I had zero interest in looking for.
The Dark Zone was still fun, and a concept I would like to see revisited in a different game, but all the things players need to do in order to get there are so not worth my time that I have no interest in going anywhere near it.


Mighty No. 9


I pre-ordered this piece of trash and forgot about it until Amazon sent the copy to me. I played it for a few hours, had no fun, and sent it right back. ‘Nuff said.


XCOM 2


XCOM 2 occupies a similar space to Firewatch, where I don’t think it’s a bad game. Unlike Firewatch, I had a great time playing XCOM 2 and I considered putting it on the highlight list.
The reason that it sits on the disappointment list is that sometime during my playthrough, I sat and realized that I didn’t feel like as much of an actor than I did when playing Enemy Unknown. During my time with Enemy Unknown, I felt less like the game had a story and more like it was a vehicle for players, like me, to create their own stories within its framework. I remember my friends and I talking and writing about these stories and having a great time doing so.
As much as XCOM 2 improves on the last game, this is one area where it takes several massive steps backwards. The experience felt more like it was directed, that the game had a story it wanted to tell and I was just along for the ride.
That’s not necessarily a problem, and many linear games made it on my highlight reel. XCOM is different. With XCOM, it’s important to me that I feel like I am directing the experience, and not the other way around. The fact that the story wasn’t “my story” soured me on the game, which is why it rests here in my disappointment list.


Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness


Though I never touched The Last Hope, I love the first three Star Ocean games. They had a unique Fantasy meets Sci-Fi aesthetic and a focus on crafting/item creation that set them apart from others of their ilk.
SO: IaF has these elements too, but it pisses away everything that made them charming in place of the most boring, irritating, and rote story that I have played this entire year. The voice acting fell completely flat for me. With the gimmick that most cutscenes occur in real time, the animation was flat and I couldn’t skip any of it. I spent almost every cutscene begging most of the cast to just stop talking because of the terrible script.
Of course, even if could somehow ignore all that, the combat mechanics would be my unjust deserts. Unlike other JRPGs, SO:IaF allows all 7 combatants in your party to take part in the fight at the same time, in real time. The player controls one, while the AI controls the other 6. This sounds like it should be chaotic, but the AI is so stupid that they might as well be out to lunch. In almost every single boss fight, I remember just switching to the healer and constantly casting healing spells because the AI just couldn’t handle that job in any meaningful capacity.
I wanted an awesome Fantasy/Sci-Fi JRPG to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Star Ocean. What I got was most vapid, generic, obviously low-budget game that I’ve played in years. “Faithlessness” is an appropriate subtitle for what this game instilled in me.


Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst


I was really hoping that EA and Dice would learn from the criticisms that were levied at the first Mirror’s Edge as they made Catalyst. One of the most common complaints was that the last half of the first game was bogged down by a lot of tedious combat that broke the flow of movement.
Sadly, Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst makes the exact same mistake. The game breaks up really fun and fluid parkour action with mandatory combat breaks regularly enough that it becomes a nuisance.
I also strongly feel that the “open world” elements of Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst fall flat on their face. Instead of navigating a rich and interesting space in order to get to the next destination, side mission, or objective, the “open world” feels like a bunch of connected lanes.
When I should be acting as a traceur, analyzing my surrounding and figuring out how to best move through space in the moment, I am instead just running through similar-looking, yet bizarrely shaped linear corridors.
I want to like Mirror’s Edge. I love the franchise’s stunning use of color palettes, and there are few things that feel more liberating and fun than seeing oneself gradually master the mechanics of motion. I just wish the game focused more on that.

And that’s my list to the disappointments of 2016. Hopefully next year’s list is as light or lighter than this.

I know it’s late, but now’s still an excellent time to celebrate the season of hitting, with Hitmas!

One of the things I love about Hitman, and its the same reason a mission like this can exist, is that it really doesn’t take itself seriously. And because of that, it’s completely willing and able to play around and poke fun at both itself and others.

There’s not much to this mission on a superficial level. It’s pretty easy to just find and murder the two targets. But there’s so much too it when the player explores the map to its fullest. As I stated in the episode, the player can take down Santa and take his outfit. What I didn’t say in this episode is that if the player is wearing the Santa suit, they can escape through the chimney.

I’m not kidding, take a look at this (around the 2:30 mark):

The fact both 47 and the world play the straight man to shenanigans like this is such an important part of this game’s charm that it’s hard to understate it.

But as for what I was talking about in the episode, it will be difficult with the Elusive Targets, but once more main story/bonus missions start to come out again, I promise that I will follow through on what I said and begin to start improving through the game a lot more.

And now, we finally kill a sweet old lady!

I admit, when I looked up the solution to see what I was missing, I kicked myself for not realizing that the soldiers would move on their own if the player just let’s them talk. This is something that I probably would have known if I watched/played more Marrakesh play. I’ve never cared much for this map, so I don’t know as much about it as I do the others.

As I mention in the video, it’s very often that getting Silent Assassin has almost nothing to do with the player’s ability to execute their plan. Usually, the steps to get a Silent Assassin rating are pretty easy to perform. The tricky part is usually in figuring out what exactly the solution *is*. It’s often very deceptively simple.

If I had stuck to my original plan, this contract would probably been over in a single episode. I saw the differences between the normal map and the variant for the target. At the time, I even knew about the pipe, and how to use it as a way to sneak up to the roof silently. The only thing I didn’t realize was that letting those two guards talk would give me the opening I needed. And that comes strictly down to map knowledge.

There’s always a way. You just have to find it.

If you talked to a bunch of random strangers on the street today, they’d probably tell you that 2016 hasn’t been a great year. There are all sorts of reasons why that might be, but gaming isn’t one of them.


No matter how crappy everything else was, 2016 has been a fantastic year in gaming. So many great and wonderful games game came out this year that we gamers were drowning in really good experiences throughout.


As usual, this is a list of games that I present in no particular order (it’s decided by a random number generator). And just because a game doesn’t appear on this list does not mean that it is a bad game. All it means is that either I didn’t play it, or it didn’t leave a strong impression on me.


With that said, my highlights of 2016 are:



Salt and Sanctuary


It’s hard to tell if it was poor or excellent timing that this game came out shortly before Dark Souls 3. Either way, it very accurate translated the feeling and mechanics of Dark Souls onto a 2D plane better than I had even thought possible.
Though I only spent about 10-15 hours with the game, bouncing off to play Dark Souls 3 when it came out in the weeks afterwards, there’s no denying that it both left a strong impression and helped me transition back into the “Souls” mentality.
With a host of varied enemies, clever setups, and tough but fair bosses, Salt and Sanctuary deserves mention as one of the highlights of 2016.


World of Final Fantasy


World of Final Fantasy is one of those games that almost feels like it has no right to be as charming as it is. On the surface, every single thing about it makes it look like a cheap cash-in on the nostalgia of Final Fantasy fans.
And while it does indeed rely on that nostalgia to draw people in, there’s a solid JRPG at its core. The monster capture/stacking mechanics of the game aren’t the easiest things in the world to explain to a friend over lunch, but it’s the kind of thing that players understand once they see it in action. There is a lot of depth to the customization and combat in World of Final Fantasy.
The story is a little bland, but it serves as a good excuse for characters from many different Final Fantasy games to get together for some crazy antics. I found myself genuinely laughing very frequently with the game’s sense of humor. The occasional fourth wall breaking moment and lampshade hanging goes a long way towards this game’s undeniable charm.
While flawed, World of Final Fantasy is a gem that shines through its blemishes. I would be remissed if I didn’t give it at least a mention on this list.


Overwatch


I normally hate multiplayer shooters with a ferocity that borders on irrational, but after I played an hour or so of the beta for Overwatch, I was instantly hooked. I don’t really have to explain to why Overwatch is on my 2016 Highlight List, but let’s do so anyway for the sake of it.
Overwatch takes the greatest mechanics of class-based hero shooters and polishes them to a mirror shine. The game places a heavy focus on working together as a team to complete the objective. Blizzard also made a very smart decision to put a heavy focus on positive feedback, opting to obscure the negative. Combined with the genius “Play of the Game” system, Overwatch always feels like it’s encouraging players, rather than putting them down.
And something has to be said for the cast of characters. If there’s a reason why Overwatch has transcended beyond being just an excellent team-based shooter and become the sheer phenomenon it has today, it’s the cast. No matter who you are or what you like to play as, there is a character(s) that represents you somewhere in the cast of Overwatch. I have to commend Blizzard’s commitment to diversity in Overwatch, and I look forward to seeing how the game will develop over the next few years.


Superhot


“You should try Superhot. It’s the most innovative shooter I’ve played in years.”


There’s a reason people say that… beyond the fact that the game commands players to tell their friends that once they beat the game. Superhot is one of those games where once I played it, I was honestly surprised that no one had thought to do something like it in a shooter before.
Superhot makes the player feel awesome in a way other shooters tried, but never came close, to. I have very clear memories of punching a gun out of a dude’s hand. Then, letting his friend, who was aiming for me, take him out with a single shot. As the body started to drop, I fired a shot towards the second guy, then threw the gun at him, took *his* gun, then fired another shot at a third target, who was coming in with a shotgun.
No other game out there lets players perform the kind of choreographed ballet of death and destruction that Superhot’s “time moves only when you move” mechanic sets up all the time. Whenever I finished a stage, and saw the full playback in real-time, I just smiled at how absolutely badass I looked.
On top of how insane the game’s story can be, Superhot deserves mention as one of the biggest highlights on 2016.


Dishonored 2


My love of the first Dishonored is no secret. It’s the first (and only) video game that I have done a text LP for. So when a sequel was announced that was “more Dishonored, but better”, I squealed.
And there’s no doubt that Arkane Studios put out a good product this year with Dishonored 2. A lot of gripes I had about the first game and its DLC have been addressed. From the ability to still keep to a non-lethal playthrough even when going in loud, to a lot of new powers in new protagonist Emily’s kit, and the ability to play the game without powers altogether, there are many more options to approach the game then the first Dishonored.
That’s before you go into the nature of this game as an “immersive sim”, as Mark Brown from Game Maker’s Toolkit calls the genre. It’s always a treat to watch how the AI responds to me when I fumble something. Even better, it’s great to catch them in traps of my own creation, from a simple and quick ambush to truly devious Rube Goldberg machines.
With the latest update to Dishonored 2 enabling one of the smartest New Game Plus modes I’ve seen, to the promised addition of custom difficulties later on, I’m eager to jump back in the moment I get a chance. Dishonored 2 earns it’s spot in my 2016 Highlight Reel.


Bravely Second: End Layer


Bravely Second and its predecessor, Bravely Default, are what would have likely happened to Final Fantasy if they had stubbornly stuck to their roots instead of going the direction that of high production values and big budgets that it did. And do not mean that it a way the denigrates either style.
With a surprising amount of genre savvy, Bravely Second presents itself as a love-letter to the JRPGs of yesteryear, and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the NES/SNES-era Final Fantasy games.


Titanfall 2


I know I said in the Overwatch highlight that I rarely play multiplayer shooters, and that’s true. But it’s a testament to both the quality of that game, and Titanfall 2’s multiplayer, that I’d gladly play either of them any day of the week.
I had never played the first Titanfall game for a host of reasons, so the game felt completely fresh to me. The two factors that set it apart from other shooters also change the game in very refreshing ways. The titular Titans change the dynamics of the fight, forcing players outside of Titans to stick to the alleyways and rooftops to look for places where they can platform on top and sabotage enemy Titans.
And speaking of, just moving around in the map feels so much less restrictive than any other shooter I have played. I’d go so far as to say that Titanfall 2 outshines Mirror’s Edge in terms of parkouring around the environment, maintaining momentum while evading enemy fire.
Topping the package off with the second best shooter campaign I’ve played all year, a campaign that is significantly better than it had any right to be: Titanfall 2 is a strong contender as one of the best shooters this year.


Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse


If you’ve been reading my material for a while, you might know that I have some history with ATLUS. I tend to enjoy their takes on Urban Fantasy, mixed with demons and deities from various mythologies.
At first, I didn’t think I would care much about SMT IV: Apocalypse. The story of SMT IV fell flat for me so hard that going back to that world was completely unappealing. On top of that, the protagonist (pictured above) gave me the impression that the developers were going for a level of edginess that was silly even by ATLUS standards.
As a played it, the game slowly won me over. It’s not the best JRPG. It’s not even the best JRPG that came out this year, but it’s a solid game that fans of SMT and/or Persona shouldn’t overlook like I almost did.


Darkest Dungeon


I’ve never seen a game intentionally nail the feeling of dread and discontent quite as well as Darkest Dungeon. I love and hate Darkest Dungeon in equal measure, and I’m sure that’s exactly what it wants from me.
There’s nothing more harrowing and terrifying than watching in vain as my valiant team of heroes slowly unravels under the stress and pressure. Every dark cultist, reanimated skeleton, or eldritch horror is a tense struggle for life and death.
Armed with a verbose and grim narrator and an eerily macabre presentation, Darkest Dungeon isn’t for everyone, but it is very good at what it does.


DOOM


Do you remember earlier, when I said that Titanfall 2 was the *second* best shooter campaign I played this year? Well, as amazing as that campaign was, it pales in comparison to the campaign in DOOM.
DOOM knows what players want to do: Kill demons with implausibly awesome guns. And it delivers that in spades. Every single area in the game is so tightly designed for maximum murder potential that I couldn’t help but smile and laugh for most of the campaign. Every element, from enemy layouts, weapon design, secret locations, and even the health/ammo systems add to the experience of being this badass “Doom Slayer” out for demon blood.
And that’s before I begin talking about how well-written the actual story to DOOM’s campaign is. Id managed to give DoomGuy more personality than I could ever imagine, without having him utter a single line of dialogue throughout the entire game. The way he plays off the other characters is genuinely funny, and effectively as selling the game’s mood while tying it to the previous DOOM games.
Despite a forgettable multiplayer and the underwhelming SnapMap system, DOOM was hands down my favorite shooter of the year.


Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir


A remake it may be, but Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir is still an extremely polished and impressive package. As pretty as the original game was, translating it’s artwork in high definition graphics gives it a truly breath-taking, awe-inspiring look of its own. There’s no denying how much love and care went into this update to what I consider to be one of the best PS2 games.
But Vanillaware wasn’t content to just stop there. Leifthrasir is more than just a visual upgrade to Odin Sphere: It is a refinement. Taking all the lessons learned from Dragon’s Crown and Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Vanillaware stepped up their game to provide updated combat systems, improved leveling and upgrade mechanics, and a much smoother game on the technical side.
If you ever thought that you might be interested in giving Odin Sphere a try, you’d be hard pressed to find a better time than now to take the chance.


Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End


I did not want another Uncharted game. The third game wasn’t the masterpiece that Uncharted 2 was, but it did a pretty good job at ending on a note that I thought was good for the series as a whole.
But holy hell, Uncharted 4’s story one of the best I’ve played this year. I was afraid that with Amy Hennig no longer writing for the series, that it would lose the charm that it had for me in the past. Fortunately, Neil Druckmann and Josh Scherr penned a great final chapter for the series. The game has a gravitas and finality to it that I cannot deny.
I might not object to new adventures in the Uncharted universe, but I think I’m content to let go of this cast of characters once and for all.


Final Fantasy XV


Final Fantasy XV is one of the most bizarre games I have ever played. There aren’t many things that compare to the feeling I had when I started my journey, only to have 4 Japanese boy band members push their car in what looks like an American desert, to a really good cover of “Stand By Me” as the phrase “Final Fantasy XV” fades onto the screen.
This game is far from perfect, and has a number of deep-seated flaws, particularly in the final chapters of its story. That said, I can’t deny how much enjoyment came from “hanging out with the boys” as we went of the road trip of a lifetime. The world of Eos is this fascinating mixture of medieval fantasy, mild steam/future punk, and the American west that I couldn’t help but want to inhabit and learn more about. It’s surreal to drive your car to a rest stop to refuel on gas, stop by the convenience store to buy Potions and Elixirs, then stopping by the diner for a quick bite to eat as I hit him up for information about the latest monster bounties.
This surreal east/fantasy meets west/reality extends to the game design. While it’s obvious that this is a Final Fantasy game through and through, it owes a lot of it’s game design to western RPG influences, like The Elder Scrolls and The Witcher. It’s something that I found compelling enough to spend 50 hours in, and even though I keep telling myself I’m “done” with the game, there’s always a voice in the back of my head compelling me to reinstall it and keep questing.
As strange as it is, and as tortured a dev cycle as it went through, Final Fantasy XV has stayed with me long after I finished playing it, and that can only be a good thing.


Far Cry: Primal


As someone whose YouTube collaboration began by expressing harsh critique of Far Cry 3, and as someone with a storied history with Ubisoft, I felt compelled to play Far Cry: Primal out of some moral obligation more than anything else.
Despite its over-inflated price point, Far Cry: Primal’s open world felt more core to its design than any other Ubisoft open-world game I’ve played since the original Assassin’s Creed. In a very real way, the act of growing stronger by participating in side missions and option objectives is the main mission of Far Cry: Primal.
As the leader of their tribe, players are tasked with taking out the leaders of the other 2 warring tribes and securing their position in this harsh, unforgiving world. That’s all there is to the story. Everything along the way exists only to prepare players for the mission to take out the other faction leaders. With no main narrative hook fighting against it, Ubisoft’s patented open-world format was finally free to get its hooks in me for the first and only time.
Even if you’re sick of Ubisoft open-worlds, Far Cry: Primal is a small enough dose executed well enough that it might let you enjoy it more than you ever have before.


Dark Souls 3


I wouldn’t call Dark Souls 3 the best game in the Soulsborne collection. At the same time, it feels like a proper sendoff to the series after being in the spotlight for so long. It’s a nostalgic game, rooted in the lore of its forebears, but it is still an impressive piece of work.
It’s a testament that aside from Salt and Sanctuary, no game out of those who tried has really been able to imitate the Soulsborne formula with any form of success. From Software truly is the best and what they do, and that’s weaving worldbuilding and level design together in a frighteningly cohesive package.
That said, like with Uncharted earlier in the list, this marks the point for me and many of my close friends where fatigue has started to set in with Dark Souls. I feel quite strongly that if they want to continue with this formula, they will need to revitalize it in some way.


Ratchet and Clank (2016)


Ratchet and Clank is a series that I grew up with. I have many fond memories of the franchise, and how I connected to others with it.
This reboot of the first, that exists to tie-in with the movie, is a love letter to all those fond memories. Ratchet and Clank has never felt as tight and polished in terms of gameplay as it has here, in the 2016 reboot. The movie may have been forgettable, but the game shows that this franchise still has life in it, so I feel it deserves to at least have a mention here.


Hitman (2016)


I was wondering how long it would take for the random number gods to give me a chance to talk about this beautiful game. If there is a game to define my past year, it would be Hitman (2016).
I’ve played through every single Hitman game that has ever come out. For years, Blood Money, with its sheer openness and vast array of options in how to approach targets, was undisputed as the best game in the franchise by a landslide. After Hitman: Absolution, where it seems that IO had lost their way, it seemed like things would stay that way.
When this game was announced, it didn’t seem like it would change that either. With Absolution the most recent memory, and the weird announcement that it would be episodic, few people thought this next entry in the franchise has much of a chance.
But lo and behold, IO managed to blow all expectations out of the water and make not just a game, but this weird critical phenomenon. It’s hard to find a gaming outlet that doesn’t have a dedicated fanbase for the new Hitman somewhere in their ranks, and there’s a good reason for that. Hitman (2016) has captured the feeling of creative, improvisational murder better than any of its predecessors could have ever hoped to. And the episodic model we all thought would fail ended up being a huge benefit to the game.
I’ve gushed about this game for months now, so distilling every single thought into a couple of paragraphs feels cheap. I feel that this is the best Hitman game that has ever been released. Needless to say, if I had a Game of the Year, this would be it.


Watch_Dogs 2


Like a fair few games on this list, Watch_Dogs 2 came in with some baggage. It’s no secret that I was immensely sour on the first Watch_Dogs. When they announced the sequel, I could only feel trepidation. “Sure”, I said. “They’re saying all the right things to get me excited, but so did the last Watch_Dogs. Look how that turned out.”
While Watch_Dogs 2 probably won’t win any Game of the Year awards, it is stronger than the first game in, quite literally, every single possible way. The protagonist has a much more interesting backstory and comes off as so much more likeable and charismatic than Aiden Pearce could ever hope to.
I also had attachments to the supporting cast than I would have never expected after watching them in the trailers. Even the character with “emoji-goggles” found a way to endear himself to me.
They’re a personality here that just wasn’t present in the original Watch_Dogs, and it makes me hopeful that Ubisoft can turn around what I previously thought was a sinking ship.


And there you have it. These games form my Highlight Reel of 2016. There might be a lot of games on this list, but that’s only because of how wonderful 2016 has been in the gaming space. Judging by the next few months, it looks like 2017 is shaping up similarly.


Well, we can only hope. 🙂

Today, we lay the groundwork to kill a harmless old lady.

The more I play these Elusive Targets, the more I realize something I’m not sure I like. They do a great job and being the closest thing one can get to being a Hitman. There’s no denying the thrill that comes from making your attempt and knowing that if you screw up, it’s over. I won’t deny that in the slightest, and I overall enjoy my time attempting them, success or failure.

That said, the large opportunity cost for failure, where you can no longer attempt the target if you die, and cannot restart once objectives are completed, discourage players from playing the game in the way that is the most fun.

I have a problem I spoke of earlier in stealth games, where I restart the moment I am detected and try again. I’m trying to break myself of that habit for a good reason. A lot of the fun of playing Hitman comes from letting a mistake occur and just rolling with it. The game’s systems encourage players to improvise and figure out how to take a bad situation and salvage it so that they can still kill their target.

The Elusive Targets, as brilliant as they are, severely discourage this kind of play. When the player is detected during an Elusive Target, they have every incentive to immediately restart and make a fresh attempt. You see this occur several times in this episode alone, and it’s partly because the high risk discourages any form of risk-taking. The fact that bonuses are awarded for Silent Assassin kills during Elusive Targets further disincentives it, because you cannot even be detected when going for that ranking.

I’m not sure how you solve that problem either, because the draw of an Elusive Target is that it’s such a high risk environment. At the same time, this high risk prevents Hitman from being the tense and exciting game of improvised murder that it wants to be at its core.

Tough problem. Worth thinking about.
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