It's been a banner year for inventive, mold-breaking shooters, and Superhot led the charge in early 2016. That it's also a really satisfying platformer and puzzle game on top of that is just kismet.
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That he's a work of code seems impossible the first time you call to him, see him turn, and then promptly go off to look at something else. Technical imperfections be damned everything in this game feels alive, either growing or decaying under a strange sky, and Trico most of all. Like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, though, The Last Guardian is a vibrant, living masterpiece. Trico ignores commands and you will miss multiple jumps that seem simple because of the main character's buoyant ups. Shadow of the Colossus positively groaned on the hardware, its stolid hero tumbling off the titular beasts after a 20 minute climb because nothing in the damn game worked. Ico was a stuttering mess even by 2001 standards, with herky jerky controls, tedious combat, and a camera content to show you a flickering wall rather than smoky demons kidnapping the woman you're supposed to protect.
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Andy Hartupįumito Ueda and GenDesign, his studio staffed in part by the legendary PS2 dev team once called Team Ico, have never made perfect games. It's sensational, and a must if you own PS VR. It's like being inside a dream where you're flying through space setting off fireworks and listening to your absolute favorite music. First time I played it, I did so - no joke - with my mouth open in sheer wonder. Even on normal, non-VR screens this new setting is wonderful, letting you maneuver yourself through a beautiful 3D space.
You feel the game on a much deeper, more intimate level. Being inside that '90s wireframe world, surrounded by alien-like craft and a thumping soundtrack that hasn't aged a day (well, ok, maybe half a day) is one of the defining VR experiences of 2016.
Firstly, it brings the original to VR, and that makes a vast difference to everything. So why is it on a Best Games of 2016 list? Rez Infinite is a stunning reinvention of the core game for two reasons. Even your Gran, who called you last week to ask how you "email the Googles" has beaten Area 1. Anthony John AgnelloĮveryone has played Rez by now. With fights this good, we can forgive the rest. It took 25 years, but Capcom finally made a fighting game that feels as good and as deep as Street Fighter 2 but is even easier to pick up for the first time. Beneath the gouging add-on content and amateur user interface lies one on one combat so perfectly balanced, so easy to learn, that it seems like it's been a foundational part of the genre for years. The misery of its adornments fade away the moment you start controlling any of the world warriors within, whether they're mainstays like the patient powerhouse Chun-Li or swift newcomers like Rashid. Capcom messed up Street Fighter 5 in every way it could be messed up save one: the fights themselves. That's on top of the delayed story mode and the complete absence of basic single player fighting game content like an arcade mode. Rough online matchmaking that's still shaky ten months after release, an expensive season pass that barely gives access to additional content, grotesquely expensive cosmetic DLC including alternate costumes and stages for $4 a pop.
There is no escaping the fact that Street Fighter 5's release was disastrous.