AWARDS SEASON: BEST GAME OF THE YEAR 2016

Overall winner

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
A great way to end a franchise, and my personal favourite of all the instalments.

Honourable mentions

Ratchet & Clank

The Last Guardian

Dark Souls III

Clustertruck

AWARDS SEASON: GAME OF THE YEAR 2016

2016 Game of Year

Please note that this list is not about what I claim to be necessarily the best game of the year but rather which games have had the most impact, good or bad.

#01: No Man's Sky

Incredibly controversial, people angry at “lies”, hate campaign against Hello Games, Complaints about too much communication then too little, possible redemption in updates

#02: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Single player transactions, ending-DLC fiasco

#03: HITMAN

Biggest game ever to try the episodic model, could be the first of many

#04: Overwatch

Taking a formula similar to TF2 and sprinkling in some MOBA elements, leading to plenty of clones

#05: Ratchet & Clank

Showing us that platformers aren’t dead and still have much to offer

#06: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Pay to win micro-transactions and PC release fiasco

#07: Final Fantasy XV

I understand that this is supposed to be goofy or whatever, but even so, do you really think that's how Cup Noodles want to come across in this game? The fact it's even in there though, it is really is something.

#08: Stardew Valley

Indie title by a one man team that many people enjoyed, especially as a call back to older gaming and has to be the surprise success of the year

#09: Pokemon Sun & Moon + Go

The most successful Pokémon launch ever partly in thanks to the Go craze

#10: The Last Guardian
After so many years of development it finally releases, and certainly divides opinion.

THE LAST GUARDIAN (2016) REVIEW

Tedious and frustrating at times, yet carries a very beautifully told story.

PS4 exclusive.

The Last Guardian is a puzzle-adventure game published by Sony and developed by Gendesign for the Playstation 4.

GAMEPLAY
It sounds strange to say it but I'd most closely pair this game with point and click adventure games as Trico takes the front seat in so many of the set pieces, if anything it's like playing as Clank all throughout a Ratchet game, meaning you just watch the action and get to do a few puzzles. Basically it's like a point and click with more platforming like puzzles, or something like that. I'll give them that it's a pretty bold move to essentially go with the companion of the story, rather than the real main character.

There is a section that involves Trico diving into water, and it is genuinely among the worst segments I've ever played in a video game. All you need Trico to do is dive down and emerge on the other side of an underwater passage, but he simply dawdles around before moving back to land. Something that should take a minute or two can end up taking ten or twenty minutes, and this is a common theme throughout the game. The specific water bit I refer to actually required restarting the game, so that's a bug to hinder progress, at least they seem somewhat rarer, but that's pretty bad. Something else worth I feel is worth mentioning is that once you get past this underwater part the game does improve a bit, Trico seems a bit more responsive and the game does at least seem to step up a bit.

I understand they wanted to make Trico more realistic but there should always be a sacrifice between realism and gameplay, I mean, that's why we all play games in the first place right? Trico's AI just makes the game frustrating at times and I often found, whenever I started to think the game was really getting good, the AI would find another way to ruin it for me. There was a specific segment where Trico kept having to jump from tower to tower and it was quite fun, but got bogged down by the boy flying off a couple of times, and another where Trico kicked the boy off the tower by accident.

The way the boy moves around can also be annoying at times, such as the way he rag dolls when he falling off things, or sometimes moving the wrong way when climbing things. Perhaps the best way to describe the boy would be like some kind of slime that sticks really well to things, but when it loses grip it slips and slides all over the place and is a pain to deal with. Sometimes he can even slip through holes that lead to areas you've already done, meaning you have to restart from the last checkpoint (Which to be fair, usually isn't too far away). Undoubtedly some of the game gets drawn out too much when it doesn't need to be.

Some of the set pieces are nice to look at, but almost every time you won't have to do anything as Trico will be doing them all for you.

Plenty of people complain about the camera in this game and sure it was a bit disappointing as I really liked Shadow of the Colossus' camera at times, and this one is difficult at times, but generally I think the game has bigger problems than the camera getting stuck on things every now and then. I also feel it could have been improved if perhaps they added in a zoom button so you could look around a bit better, something like the one the PS1 Spyro games had.

The game is also keen to remind you on the basics, explaining how to climb and grab things every time, but when it comes to other important information, such as being able to pull soldiers helmets off, advice rarely shows up. There's also no option to enable or disable this stuff, so you've got no choice but to be drawn out of the game a bit sometimes.

Also, the game has so many different interesting creatures on the loading screens and we never see any of them aside from Trico. I'm not putting it down as a negative or anything, if anything it at least expands the lore of the game a bit, it's just such a tease.

STORY
The story is sweet and from the heart, the way the boy and Trico interact is nice, such as how Trico cares for the boy, wants petting and does his best to both protect and stay with the boy, as well as the boy growing from apprehensive to caring too. Even if the game is incredibly frustrating at times you still can't help but feel a connection between the two and however annoying the game gets you'll still want to see their story through to the end. The game even got me feeling emotional, and that doesn't happen too often! It's just a shame that the good story couldn't be balanced out with the often lacklustre gameplay, as I'd say this was the best character driven story in a game since The Last of Us.

GRAPHICS

Frame rate seems to drop below 30 FPS quite often and it doesn't even look as good as some other games I've played on PS4. Of course the game looks nice, and I wasn't expecting amazing frame rate considering how Shadow of the Colossus was, but it's still a bit off putting at times. It does make you wonder how terribly the game would have performed on PS3 though.

SOUND
The soundtrack is very nice and it was refreshing to hear such an orchestral driven sound in a video game. It had lot of work to do, as so much of the story relies on the characters interacting without words, meaning a poor soundtrack could have really brought the game down, but it does a wonderful job of conveying both those and many other parts of the game such as the sweeping scores of relief when you escape danger. It probably ranks alongside the very best in gaming just like Shadow of the Colossus' soundtrack did.

VALUE FOR MONEY

I'm not really sure it's worth general retail price for games these days (£50) as it does certainly seem to share a lot of aspects with older games, it would have been nice if they did what Insomniac did for Ratchet & Clank, which was in a similar situation as it was based on an older game, but sadly not. If you're a sucker for a good story, enjoy puzzle games, or other Team Ico games (Ico at least, maybe not Shadow of the Colossus as this is very different gameplay wise) it might be worth a shot at full price, but if you're not certain about getting the game, or aren't a huge fan of character driven games then it's probably worth holding out for and waiting for a cheaper price.

OVERALL
I don't think I've ever felt a game be so heartfelt as well as incomprehensibly frustrating. Every time I thought I was really beginning to enjoy it it slapped me in the face with it's sometimes poor AI, awkward camera and annoying controls. If you enjoy story games then this might be for you, but I just can't bring myself to say that the game itself is outstanding with so much outside of the story that could have been vastly improved.

The game had a lasting impact and will probably keep you thinking about it once it's over. I think it's fair to say that there is a fantastic game somewhere in here but I'm just going to repeat what I've said already. This game has been receiving such wildly different reviews all round though, perhaps I'll change my mind on it further if I play through again in the future, or if it even just improves with further patches.

On retrospective I feel a little more forgiving of some the earlier frustrations in the game because it's actually supposed to be somewhat awkward and not quite right to start with, Trico and the boy start off on an uneasy alliance that blossoms into their beautiful relationship later on. Without the frustrating lows of the start the development between the two wouldn't have quite had the same impact as when it reaches such heights at the end, because there wouldn't have been that much struggle to begin with. Of course that doesn't fix every one of the problems within the game but it really did improve my opinion of it.

The Last Guardian really showed me how sometimes rating systems just don't work. At times I really would have described the game as poor, but at other times it really is outstanding. Part of me really wanted to give it a low score, while another part demanded a high one. The touching story pushed me to give it the rating I have, it could have been higher if some of the problems listed were ironed out, or it could have been far lower if the story wasn't so brilliant. Quite frankly I'd ignore the scores anyone gives them game. If you like story games then you'll enjoy this immensely, but if you're looking for groundbreaking gameplay then it's probably not for you. Perhaps it's even worth just renting to start with, it probably won't take that long to complete if you have the time and then you can purchase it properly if you really love it.

One thing I can say for sure about The Last Guardian though is that it is a great showcase to demonstrate how video games are indeed a form of art - something Fumito Ueda has a very good track record of producing.