Honorable Mention: Alienation
It’s award season here at Twinfinite! Starting with a few runner ups, let’s look back at the best Sony games from this year and our 2016 winner!
The twin stick shooter genre has a storied history filled of lots of classic games, both from yesteryear, and recently as well. In 2016, we were fortunate enough to see another great one released in the form of Alienation.
The folks at Housemarque have openly stated that their game is influenced by Dark Souls-style titles, and it certainly shows. While it’s not as crushingly difficult as Souls games can be, it nearly gets there at points, for both good and ill, such as not being able to pause your game. Even with that though, the smoothness of the controls and blasting away aliens with your friends online is a blast. It’s just too bad that couch co-op didn’t make it in.
There are plenty of games full of four player co-op, sure, but Alienation’s brilliant design and leveling system make it one of the best to own.
Honorable Mention: Bound
Typically speaking, games about dancing tend to be exactly about that, dancing. For Sony to release Bound, a dancing game that’s actually about a ballet dancer revisiting her childhood memories wherein she’s a princess set out to destroy a monster, was certainly an eyebrow raiser.
It’s not every day that a dancing game also becomes a puzzle platformer, which is what ultimately makes Bound as fun as it is. The dancing is appropriately elegant and well in line with the Princess’ personality. To watch her and the rest of the world in motion is one of the game’s highlights, because it feels like you’re watching a ballet performance right before your eyes, an experience that’s heightened if you play the game on the PSVR.
Is Bound perfect? No, but it has its charms both visually and in its story, and is a unique experience. If you’ve ever wondered how a game starring a ballerina would be, this would most certainly be your jam.
Second Runner Up: The Last Guardian
2016 ended up being a really weird year overall, but for games, it got even weirder with the arrival of both Final Fantasy XV and The Last Guardian. The latter title from Sony and Team ICO was often snarked at for believing to be quietly dead before suddenly reappearing at E3 last year, intended for the PS4. After a decade of waiting, fans were ready to be taken in by the story of a boy and a giant bird-cat-dog thing called Trico being paired up together.
It’s a tricky gamble for Team ICO after a decade of development, and fortunately, they delivered. Whatever else one can say about the game, it can’t be denied that they absolutely nailed the bond between the Boy and Trico. If you can imagine being a kid again who just discovered that they got a kitty for Christmas, that’ll put you in the right mindset here. Trico is, simply put, one of the most adorable video game creatures to ever exist, and he’s so lifelike and precious that it becomes hard to not feel the pain that he does when the story decides to put him through the wringer. What also helps is the art design and music, which make the wise decision to show you a story instead of outright telling you.
After a decade of waiting, Last Guardian is indeed another feather in Team ICO and Sony’s cap. There’s camera and control issues to be sure, but when looking at the success of its lead characters and stunning art direction, they’re minor. If you thought Colossus and ICO were works of art, then TLG is sure to be right up your alley.
First Runner Up: Ratchet & Clank
Insomniac has been hard at work making Ratchet & Clank games for nearly 15 years. Through games both good and bad, the series has never lost sight of what it ultimately is: two dudes with a bunch of ridiculous guns exploring the galaxy and shooting everything that wants them dead. Into the Nexus in 2013 closed the door on the franchise rather effectively, but the prospect of a movie was more than enough to remaster the original 2002 game for the PS4 audience.
Only, that’s not what we got here. While Ratchet 2016 hits on most of the same story and gameplay beats as the very first game, Insomniac and Sony went above and beyond to turn it into a remake, turning the game into a love letter for everyone who has stuck by the duo all these years. The shooting mechanics from the sequels replace the floaty camera from the original, several weapons and leveling systems from later entries arrive to spice things up, and it’s all presented in beautiful new graphics to make you feel like you’re truly in the game…based on the movie…based on the game.
Admittedly, there’s some flaws; while the story is largely the same as the original, there are cutscenes and beats from the film inserted in that feel largely engineered to get you to see the actual movie. In doing so, it sadly makes the game feel less open in terms of worlds and weapons at your disposal, and the Clank sections are all over the place in terms of entertainment value and quality. Still, those are minor flaws for an excellent update of one of gaming’s hardest working duos.
Winner: Uncharted 4
Naughty Dog’s accent from lovable mascot creators to god-tier game developer can can be traced back to the Uncharted franchise. Despite originally being known for creating the excellent and cartoonish Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter games, the studio took a gamble with the first Uncharted that paid off immensely, creating what is essentially the best Indiana Jones-like game that one could ask for. And of course, nothing more needs to be said about either follow up, because they speak for themselves as fully realized and polished cinematic experiences that deliver some of the craziest and fun set pieces of games in recent memory.
Uncharted 4, then, is a grand finale for the series, one where they shoot off all the fireworks. The story of Nathan Drake’s domestic life being uprooted by the sudden return of his brother Sam and the way it creates a schism among his makeshift family with Elena and Sully is compelling and well written, something that Naughty Dog is well known for at this point.
And “grand finale” is the key word here. The set pieces this time around amp up the ridiculousness, some will lead to frustrating deaths more than others, but the ebb and flow of the story mode makes it so that once the crazy moments are over, you can rest easy and kick back with the characters, who have the same great chemistry that they’ve always had.
Uncharted 4 is celebrating its own existence, sure, but there’s no denying that it’s more than earned the party it’s throwing. Even when the main villain is sort of dragging things down and the set pieces sort of kneecap themselves by throwing too much at you, there’s still a lot of fun to be had with Drake’s final adventure. If nothing else, it’s nice to see a series go out on its own terms while also making sure to give some emotional closure for the cast of characters that we’ve come to know and love over the years.
Congratulations to Uncharted 4, our pick for the best Sony game of 2016! Be sure to visit throughout the month for more award announcements including the big one, our game of the year for 2016!
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