That Was The Year That Was - 2015 Edition

Before 2016 turns into double digit dates, and because I haven't been keeping this blog up to date as much as I wished I had, I'm here now to do a recap of games I played in 2015. Why? I'm not sure, really.

A long time ago (ie, about 40 years), my parents made a weekly pilgrimage to my grandmother's house/trailer. Every Sunday, the "fam" would sit around the old RCA tube TV and watch first the national news at 6:00 pm, then the local news at 6:30, and finally, 60 Minutes at 7:00. (As best as I can remember, it was during one of these Sundays when, at the age of 8, I watched men first walk on the moon.) Toward the end of each 60 Minutes show, after their usual three segments of newsy features, an old curmudgeon by the name of Andy Rooney would come on and give a semi-comical old man rant about something that everyone usually took for granted but was inherently flawed - at least in his opinion. The only one of these crab-fests I remember had to do with the notion of "New Years" in the United States. His contention was that January 1st was a terrible day to declare anything as "new". Basically, nothing changes other than the calendar year. The weather is still winter, there's no astronomical changes, no religious significance, and even the sports teams don't end their seasons then.

The older I get, the more I see his reasoning. And in my gaming, the "New Year" hasn't changed much for me either.

But before I get into what will be carrying over into 2016, here's my rundown for what I did in 2015:

Notable Events:

• Joystiq dies - One does not get over losing their favorite gaming website easily. A year later, and there's still no good alternative.
• New consoles - Since I'm gifted with more money than sense, I felt the need to add two more consoles to my stable this year - a Wii U and an Xbox One. Did I need them? Probably not. Do I like them? Mostly yes.
• Stopped streaming - April was around the time I stopped doing the streaming thing. No reason other than it was another hassle to deal with and used up some of my already limited play time.
• Star Wars movie and games - An unpublished blog post of mine dealt with my excitement about the announcement of a new Star Wars movie, a new game, and my impressions of old Star Wars games I've played or was going to play. I never did enough with it to feel it was worth anyone else reading and I ended up not even seeing the movie when it came out. As of this writing, I'm planning on just getting the discs when they are released, probably around April. As for the games, I was mostly underwhelmed with how they held up or ran into numerous old-games-not-running-on-new-operating-systems issues.
• Began a new MMO - This year saw the start of a new MMO adventure for our Neverwinter Knights - Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. This is one of the things that crosses year markers and will be part of 2016.
• PS4 upgrade, P.T., and blog changes - Toward the end of 2015, I started to be less satisfied with the format my blog had taken - that of a sort-of-review of games I've played thing. I don't have the time or energy to put into a game to do anything even close to a real review. What I wanted to do was change it to be more about the experience of playing games, not the specifics of the games. Does that make sense? My best effort to steer my blog in this directions was one related to wanting to put a bigger hard drive in my PS4, the utter senselessness of Konami taking P.T. off the PlayStation store, my desire to complete the game, and how I got there. If you haven't read it, click HERE to read it now.
• Kickstarter games - Some of the games I backed on Kickstarter delivered this year, but with decidedly mixed results. Catlateral Damage turned out to be reasonably entertaining in small doses, but Dragon Fin Soup,  Dead Synchronicity, and Neverending Nightmares have given me little but a more jaded view of crowd funded games.
• Driving doldrums continue - Another year, another lackluster array of driving games. Need for Speed is becoming less interesting with each installment, Forza Horizons is adequate but not really exciting, and the others have all had too many issues (ie, bugs, online only designs) to consider.
• FPE's - First person experiences, or first person walkers. I played and finished three of them this year - Everyone's Gone to the Rapture, The Beginner's Guide, and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. The last one had some gameplay elements to it, but it was still odd "playing" games that had little to do but walk around. Scenery was nice though.
• Zombie heartbreak - One of my favorite games this year was ZombiU...until the "arena" sequence. This game was like being in an episode of Z-Nation but I got hopelessly stuck on this one section where they changed all the rules and it just sucks!
• Destiny 2.0 - A year usually makes no difference in the way a game plays, but the designers at Bungie pulled me back in with a revamping of the feel of Destiny. I didn't even mind them changing the Dinkle-bot's voice.
• Hard games - I seemed to run into more than my usual number of overly hard games this year. It's no secret I play my games on Easy, but even that wasn't enough to get through some of these. And these were games that I would have happily played more of as they were either very pretty (Apotheon, Ori) or funny (Bedlam).

Now for the games I played all the way through in 2015:

Dead Space 2/Dead Space 3 (PC) - Playing through these was an amazing experience!
The Order: 1886 (PS4) - The most maligned game of the year, but I really liked it.
Framed (iOS) - My only completed iPad game.
MonsterBag (Vita) - My only completed Vita game and a surprisingly heart warming tale!
Lego Jurassic World (PS4) - Had to play it, but was less than thrilled. Traded in to Gamestop.
The Unfinished Swan (PS4) - Not Brothers, but a touching adventure.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PS4) - Something like a biblical prophecy done by aliens.
The Beginner's Guide (PC) - A clever and manipulative lesson about the creative mind.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PC) - The creepiest game I played this year!
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zero (PS4) - Technically, I finished the main mission, at least.

These  are the games I tried and quit, for various reasons:

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3DS) - This game demands a bigger screen.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64 emulated) - Just can't commit the time needed.
Angry Birds Epic (iOS) - Actually played a fair amount of this. Good strategy game.
Hitman Go (iOS) - I bailed on this before Lara Croft Go. May give it another shot.
Aaru's awakening (PS4) - Too hard.
Bedlam (PS4/PC) - Too hard, even with a mouse and keyboard.
Apotheon (PS4) - Too hard and too much backtracking.
Ori and the Blind Forest (PC) - JUST TOO DAMN HARD!
Wrack (PC) - Just garbage.
Super Toy Cars (PC) - Well, it was a cheap Steam game.
Constantine (PS2) - My one retro game this year.
Dust: An Elysian Tale (PS4) - Too cutesy.
ZombiU (Wii U) - See above.

Contrast (PS4) - Interesting concept, but the game wasn't that fun.

Dragon Fin Soup (PS4) - Oh, what a mess this was.

White Night (PS4) - Really cool art style, but a so-so game.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (PC) - Not bad, but not good enough to keep playing.
Neverending Nightmares (PC) - I guess I didn't really connect with this one.

And the games that I started in 2015, but will be still playing in 2016:

Halo Master Chief Collection (Xbox One) - Trying to get through Halo 1.
Gears of War Ultimate (Xbox One) - Seems like I should get farther in this one.
Destiny 2.0 (PS4) - A nice space shooter to play now.
Neko Atsume (iOS) - Still cat hunting.
The Witcher 3 (PS4) - I played just a few hours of this. In other words, zero percent!
Fallout New Vegas (PC) - With the Fallout 4 hype, I started this one.
Bioshock (PS3) - I have this on 3 platforms, but never finished.
Dying Light (PS4) - Tried a rental of this and liked it. Bought later in the year.
Lara Croft Go (iOS) - One of the few iPad games I'm proud to say I play.
Catlateral Damage (PC) - Still haven't found Livy's pic.
Star Wars Battlefront (PS4) - A fun box of Star Wars toys to play with.
Rare: Replay (Xbox One) - I've got a few old ones I want to try again.
Mad Max (PS4) - Also an early year rental that I bought later.
Dead Synchronicity (PC) - I really owe this one a bit more time.
Fallout 4 (PC/PS4) - The Big One going into 2016. The first open world game I'll finish?

So, onward to 2016 with almost as many games crossing the calendar timeline as were left behind.