Games I Finished in 2015

Finally, with great difficulty, I managed to beat the post backlog I've struggled through the passing year. I spent a good portion of December writing all those posts. Maybe not having one again would be a good new year's resolution, eh?

I beat a huge part of my games backlog, too -- 14 out of the ones I listed almost a year back. The three last ones I decided not to be worth my time. At least not yet. I bought a handful of games this year as well (as is apparent from the list on the right), and finished four of them. Thus the total number of new games played comes up to the original 18. I wasn't actually aware of that. Pretty cool.

I also replayed the first two Witcher games in preparation for The Witcher 3 -- that I still haven't bought -- and the Mass Effect trilogy in a playthrough where I had the fewest squad members possible alive. The worst leader ever that Shepard was.

Since I can't really make a top 10 games of 2015 list, I made some sort of top list of all the new (for me) games I played instead. You can click the names for the game's respective blog post. (Note that the games are in alphabetical order inside the tiers.)

Great

BioShock Infinite
FPS. Great graphics and gameplay (on Medium difficulty). Story so and so.

Crysis 3
Sci-fi FPS. Amazing visual fidelity. Interesting characters. Focus on stealth on the hardest difficulty.

Dishonored
The premier whalepunk first-person assassin simulator. Incredibly dynamic gameplay.

Fine

Bastion
Reasonably fun indie action RPG. Great music. Colorful.

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
Jedi action game. Less annoying than Jedi Outcast.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall
Isometric turn-based fantasy-cyberpunk RPG. Tactical but not too engaging. Some stability-related bugs.

Tomb Raider
Third person shooter. Reboot of the series. Good visuals. Strong gameplay overcomes other shortcomings.

Mediocre

BioShock
FPS. Shaky PC port. Somewhat awkward to play. Great atmosphere.

BioShock 2
FPS. Same as BioShock with few improvements.

Far Cry 3
FPS. Great looker. Fine gameplay with lots of repetitive activities. Story- and character-wise dreadful.

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Jedi action game. Puzzly levels make progression tedious. Dated graphics. Lightsaber combat tricky but potentially rewarding.

Spec Ops: The Line
Third-person military shooter. Strong narrative. Terribly uninspiring gameplay.

Thief
First-person stealth game. Boring all around. Looks great, though.

Transistor
Indie action RPG with a twist. Didn't quite manage to create another Bastion.

Venetica
Third-person RPG. Tolerable. Serious game-stopping bugs.

Bad

Blackguards
Isometric turn-based RPG. Tactical but eventually tedious combat. Horrible writing.

Divinity II: Developer's Cut
Third-person action RPG. Okayish combat and mechanics don't make up for extremely boring world and story.

Fallout 3
Post-apocalyptic RPG. Dull graphics, gameplay, and world.

--

That 12 games in 12 months challenge they are starting on reddit doesn't seem too hard. I'll probably manage to succeed at it (and more) next year too. Currently I have only 10 games on the list but I'm sure I will pick a few more along the way. Or dig up some from the list of hidden titles in my Steam library.

Next year actually looks quite promising for upcoming big titles: Dishonored 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and maybe even Mass Effect Andromeda among others. Though I guess I'll be playing them in 2018, if my habit of buying only discounted games continues. However, if MEA has multiplayer, and it seems to have as good gameplay as ME3, I might buy it on release.

Here's to another year of gaming.