Top 5 Video Games of 2015 - Editor's Picks

The year of 2015 did offer a lot of great titles. A few very good compilations came out as well. It was a good year, but not quite a great year for gaming. Still, a few great games were found and playing in this rare leisure time. Here's what has been taking up my free time and is very much worth your time and money.

 

This does not reflect the stance of GameShampoo any affiliated website as a whole. It is the personal take of those who work for the website.

 

 

#5 Armello

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This game is a great example of how a board game can be adapted fully into the digital realm. You play as one of four heroes trying save the Kingdom of Armello from the twisted King who has been corrupted thoroughly by the ultimate evil, the Rot. This is the kind of game that would be much harder to successfully execute within reality. The mix of invisibility mechanics, various card mechanics and the lots of random chance are all elements. While some of these elements would work in a tabletop board game, they simply would not work nearly as well in it. Mix in the newer option to speed up the off-turn play when going against an AI opponent and it is very possible to get through a single player game in 10-20 minutes. Have 3 friends to play with? It will take an hour but worth all of it as you compete for Prestige, fall to the corruption of the Rot or collect the Spirit Stones to banish the corrupted King.

 

You can collect all the cards and look at them in a gallery. You can unlock new gems and other boosts by completing various objectives within the game itself. Each game presents its own challenges. Will you take the throne? How will you get there? Each game will gives its own answer to the path.

 

#4 Splatoon

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It's hard to place such an unusual game from Nintendo down toward the bottom, but there was little space for it elsewhere. It offers a quirky mix of 3d platforming, over the shoulder shooting and one of the most unique multi-player battle modes known to me. The mix of puzzle elements within the game itself make you use your abilities to the fullest. There is some great humor and a surprising number of puns. The few collectibles in the game are a lot of fun to chase after as well. The stages for multi-player are mixed up regularly and encourages familiarity with all of them and learning the stages quickly. It offers a lot of fun for various kinds of players. Nintendo has offered up a surprising amount of free content to expand the various weapons, play modes and multi-player stages available in the game.

 

It is a different style of game from what Nintendo has traditionally done. It is very well worth the investment for the WiiU.

 

#3 Assassin's Creed Syndicate

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This is a favorite series of mine and I enjoy a lot of what it has to offer. Black Flag was a lot of fun but Unity kind of coasted through. It has some great moments, but was not quite the same experience. Syndicate brought it all back. This time, it more successfully implemented a leveling system and two different protagonists in one game. The differences between the Frye twins are notable and make for some great moments.

 

They have a lot more going for them then Arno did. It is the most modern Assassin's Creed game and takes full advantage of it. They look at the appropriate elements for the Assassins and do a great job conveying not only the real world of Assassin's Creed with the conflict between Asbestrgo and the Assassins but the digital one of the Frye Twins and their different goals. The twins offer a very believable sibling relationship.

 

 

#2 Super Mario Maker

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This was very hard to figure out the placing of. Super Mario Maker not only offers a traditional Mario experience but also a very customizable one. You can build any number of stages from most versions of Super Mario Brothers: The original, SMB 3, Super Mario World and the new Wii/U. It expanded on the Mario Universe and gave some very new options to the classic mario games that had not previously existed. If you have friends with the game you can favorite them and easily be able to find their levels. In this game you can find anything from endless remakes of Super Mario Bros 1-1, Kaizo Mario with its pixel perfect timing and precision, Auto Mario levels with a lot of music to them and so much more. You can build all that and so much more. Glitches in the game have been put to great use to create even more devious levels that anyone thought could be made.

 

More recently, Nintendo introduced a Portal Website that will let players use a Web-based search engine to find just the right kind of level that they are looking for to play. If you needed another reason for the WiiU, this is probably it (if you know some people with it).

 

#1 Undertale

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This game. It offers something for those who enjoy classic 16 bit RPGs of the Super Nintendo era and PC games of that time (like the Original Fallout). This game looks into so very much. There are a lot of different real life things addressed in this game. You have same sex relationships, a very hard look at consequences of ones actions and a game that does not take itself overly seriously at times. It knows how to much fun of itself. It has a surprising awareness of itself and becomes a very unique gem in the process. The music, the graphics, the way combat and dialogue work very well together. You can talk your way out of battle, you can spare everyone you fight or just kill them all.

 

This is the hardest game to talk about because the less you know going in, the better the experience itself becomes. Even with some to a lot of knowledge, the experience can still be very emotional. There is just so much to the game it is hard to sum it up without rambling for pages and pages. This is easily one of the best games to come out in years. It is very much worth watching through a Let's Play or playing through yourself. It is only a couple of hours long but there is a lot to be found in the re-playability of the game itself.


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