GZ Roundtable: Best Games of 2016

It's January and that means one thing, 2016 is officially over and we can move on with our lives. The year brought a number of highs and lows, but we aren't here to talk about any of those things – we are here to chat about the year's best games.

Everyone looks for something different in a game, each players reason for playing a game is as diverse as the games that exist. One game might be considered utter trash to one person, but that trash is another's treasure.

With that in mind, we cannot call a single game 'Game of the Year' (GOTY), but we can say which games we liked the best (and so can you!). Below, you'll find a pretty eclectic list of GOTY choices, but it's a list none the less!

Tatiana Morris

GOTY choice: Stardew Valley

When I had more time to dedicate to gaming for fun, I spent hours upon hours playing World of Warcraft and League of Legends. When I had less time, I played Dishonored, Call of Duty, and other games in a similar vein.

This year saw plenty of great releases, Dishonored 2, Overwatch, Battlefield 1, FFXV and more – but the best was Stardew Valley.

Stardew Valley hit consoles this past December with a pretty decent port of the game that was originally housed on Steam. If you've played Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon, you already know what you're getting into with Stardew Valley. Sure, it's a farming simulator, but it's also a dating simulator, fishing simulator, mining simulator and even has some action elements in it. It's the life-sim game that the Sims never gave you.

The game certainly offers quite a bit, including the luxury of picking up a game, playing it for 20-minutes and putting it back down without having to hone in on your skills again every time you decide to play it. It's a great game for someone who was punched in the face with responsibilities or work, but still wants to unwind with some gaming.

Cade Onder

GOTY choice: FFXV

While recently released, Final Fantasy XV is my favorite game of 2016. It blows my mind that this game is as good as it is after going through so many different changes throughout its 10-year development.

The combat is amazing, fast, fluid, and fun, the dialogue between the four main characters (Noctis, Prompto, Ignis, and Gladiolus) is great and you never feel bored or lonely on your long journey. There’s so much content for you to get lost in and the story is super enjoyable – even though it has its faults!

I can’t recommend Final Fantasy XV enough to both long-time fans of the series and newcomers. This is a game that you will get lost in due to its captivating world and fast paced combat. If you have some time off for the holidays, this is the game you’re going to want to be playing.

Jason Lopez

GOTY choice: Titanfall 2

Titanfall 2 is a game that had a lot going against it. It was released just days apart from other major shooters like Gears of War 4, Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare/Modern Warfare Remastered, but the game managed to pull me in with its mech vs. pilot warfare, and I haven’t looked back since. The futuristic first-person shooter may draw comparisons to Infinite Warfare, but doing so would be very dismissive of what’s truly a great gaming experience, and one that I think deserves to be called Game of the Year.

Titanfall 2 has some of the most fluid shooting and traversal mechanics I’ve ever seen in a first-person shooter. Running and leaping across walls feels faster and more enjoyable than the first game, and Respawn’s ability to create variety and strategy with each Titan class is a blast. Do I go quick and nimble with Ronin’s sword? Or cumbersome, yet powerful, with Legion? Each Titan contains something enjoyable for every player type, whether you’re a sniper or a heavy weapon aficionado. And if you happen to be a meager pilot going up against a brute Titan – there are ways to even the fight thanks to an impressive anti-Titan arsenal at your disposal.

Titanfall 2 has everything I want in a game of the year contender. A balanced and addicting multiplayer that’s been improved in every aspect – plus a surprisingly enjoyable single player campaign that packs an emotional ending – and you have the makings of my game of the year.

Daniel Miller

GOTY choice: INSIDE

Game of the Year 2016 is something I've kicked around a lot in my head over the last few weeks. While I agree that Overwatch was the most sensible winner at The Game Awards, I'm having a hard time calling it my personal GOTY. I will no doubt keep Overwatch as a part of my regular multiplayer rotation for years to come, but I have to say there was one game that engrossed me from start to finish without ever relenting or wasting my time, and that was Playdead's INSIDE.

Indie games can be a tough sell, but I felt like INSIDE’s design was so masterfully condensed that it kept its momentum going non-stop. It told a story without words, and subtext always resonates better with me than a game that outright tells me what is happening. Uncharted 4 IMO went a little too long, DOOM’s single player was elite but lacked the complete package with its “meh” Multiplayer mode, while Overwatch nailed multiplayer, but my fun factor with multiplayer games has a tendency to be hot and cold. But INSIDE knew what it wanted to be, trimmed the fat, and delivered an epic 2D Adventure that was an authentic evolution on LIMBO.

Overall 2016 for me was a year that didn’t have that one complete game. It had a number of very good ones, and really I can make a case for any one of the games I mentioned above to be GOTY. But none of them have stayed with me quite like INSIDE.

Travis Amores

GOTY choice: Overwatch

While 2016 was a great year for a lot of new titles, one stands prominently above the rest. ‘Overwatch’ is by far the leading contender for game of the year. Blizzard’s newest game has given fans the perfect blend of tactical awareness, creative gameplay, customization, teamwork, and above all, something addictively fun. Offering fair competition and a strong relationship with the community, ‘Overwatch’ has quickly garnered a loyal following of more than 20 million active players as of mid-October, with the numbers still growing. In a year filled mostly with sequels and remasters (original AAA titles being few and far between), ‘Overwatch’ dwarfs them all having managed to engender a new kind of love for competitive multiplayers and first person shooters in both myself and an enamored community at large.

Atle Williatham

GOTY choice: Civilization VI

A Game of the Year game should be complete at launch, a game that doesn't need any DLC to complete it, it should innovate its genre, it should excel at what it tries to do, and the gameplay and graphics should be top notch. One game that fits all of those criteria is Sid Meier's Civilization VI.

Firaxis really hit the nail on the head with the latest installment of Civilization VI. Few games have ever managed to innovate, improve, and even perfect their respective genre in the way that Civilization VI managed. It still has that familiar Civilization feeling but so much, if not every aspect of it, has been improved. Everything from how buildings to spying to wars to districts to religion have been changed and all of it for the better. The new science and civics trees completely change how the game is played, players can no longer rely on their old tactics.

Civilization VI got a 10 out of 10 in our official review for good and long reasons. It is the best strategy game in 2016 – a year that saw a lot of great strategy games released. Civilization VI is also the best game out of all games due to how it improves and innovates its genre and how complete of a game it was at launch, something that's rare these days. There were a lot of great releases in 2016, but as a long time fan of strategy games Civilization VI tops the list. It has everything players could ask for and more. Civilization VI is one of few fully satisfying gaming experience of 2016 where it did not feel like something was missing or was cut or taken out to later become DLC.

Civilization VI is a worthy winner of GameZone Game of the Year 2016.

Mike Boccher

GOTY choice: Oxenfree

I chose Oxenfree because how can you pick a shooter when it has a new setting but the same premise, or RPG with only a simple twist on crafting? I’ve begun looking at games with great narrative, storylines, and messages, so this year I chose Oxenfree as it offers brilliants combinations of all three

The official description of their game Oxenfree does not do it justice. The game is detailed as "a supernatural teen thriller about a group of friends who unwittingly open a ghostly rift", which is technically accurate, but it misses out on so much more of what the game has to offer.

The game's premise is your typical high school story: A senior trip to Edwards Island leads the kids to all of your standard touristy type areas. Of course, being high school kids, they quickly toss that idea out of the window and decide to drink around a campfire telling spooky stories instead. The kids decide to explore the caves of the island in order to test out one of the theories found in a story they shared. It is here that Oxenfree really begins.

Oxenfree's story allows the player to see the characters come together as friends through stellar conversation which invokes a reminiscent feeling about one's childhood that no one should forget. At times it's quirky, silly and in many cases hysterical – it's about 18-year-olds after all. I imagine most of you reading this are over the age of 18. Being that as it may, you understand that although at the time you thought you sounded mature and worldly, in reality, you were as clueless as you ever were about life in general and didn’t know a thing. After all, if you're under the age of 30 you don't know much of anything about life anyway. It is this feeling that Oxenfree is built on. It's a feeling of honesty. It's open, pure and quite simply – it's human. The emotional innocence of a teenager is something that can't be quantified because it's different for each individual. What Krankel and Hines implement with Oxenfree is the ability for each player to tap into their own, individual emotion.

It's the only game of the year I’d give a perfect score to.