Alphabetical
Chronological
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Here's my problem with the Assassin's Creed games: stealth. I've been a devoted nonfan of stealth in video games since Metal Gear Solid (1998), but at least the Metal Gear games have good controls. So I have two problems, really. Stealth and bad controls. Assassin's Creed IV requires you to hold down R1 to run, but that's also the button you need to hold if you want to climb up a wall or a building or anything else. This means that if, as you're running away from a bunch of guards (or whomever), you get too close to a wall then your character will suddenly try to climb up that wall--even if said wall is just inside an alcove and not actually climbable. As a result, your character starts jumping in place like an idiot while a dozen men with swords and muskets descend on him. But the opposite situation--when you're trying to be stealthy--is no better. Despite the amount of sneaking around this game involves, there is no stealth mode. You're either walking slowly or running crazy. Controlling Edward Kenway is like controlling a spastic rag doll. He refuses to sneak around like Solid Snake, preferring instead to stand tall and proud, even if you're on a rooftop surrounded by guards who are looking for you. Spoiler alert: they're gonna see you. So not a perfect game, but I did enjoy battling ships and boarding them. All the pirate-related stuff is loads of fun.
BioShock Infinite - This game is fun to play and beautiful to look at, but, most importantly, it has a great story. You know how most movies based on video games are bad? There are a lot of reasons for this (e.g., Paul W. S. Anderson), but the primary reason is that while video game narratives are usually serviceable from a gaming point of view, often they don't hold up as compelling stories on their own. BioShock Infinite sets itself apart in this way, as it would've made a great movie (not that I'm recommending that it be made into one). It has the absolute best story of any video game I've ever played.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - The leveling, dear god, the leveling. This game would be perfect if it weren't for the totally oddball leveling system it uses. On paper, the system sounds fine: obtain ten skill points in any of your attributes (including three of your major attributes) to level up. But the problem with this system becomes apparent after you've leveled up a few times because, unless you have gained skill points only in the major attributes you raise, leveling up actually makes you weaker than your adversaries, not stronger. (Learn more about "the leveling problem" here.) The first time I played this game, by the time I'd reached level ten I might as well have been using a sword made of cardboard for all the good it was doing me. Once I learned about the leveling problem, I started over and made my least-used attributes my "major" attributes and kept a flowchart of my skill points earned (since there's no way to keep track of them in-game) so I'd know when to level up three of my "major" (i.e., rarely used) attributes, at which point I could level up in a way that actually made me stronger. But one does not want to maintain a flowchart when one is playing a game in which hacking away at monsters is the primary goal. SimCity or Civilization, sure, I'll make a flowchart if I need to. But Oblivion? No thanks. (And yet, OK sure.) Anyway, a great game--except for the leveling.
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - The load-screens, dear god, the load-screens. The leveling system in this game is much better. Ditto the graphics. And yet I preferred Oblivion in pretty much every other respect: the setting, the story, the characters, the missions, the DLC, etc. Comparatively, Skyrim felt smaller, somehow. And by the time you've logged several dozen hours, the load-screens in this game can take several minutes, even if you're just walking into a sparsely populated shop. It gets old, and I hope that in the next console iteration of the Elder Scrolls they find a way to reduce the load times. If Rockstar can do it for GTA, so can Bethesda! Still a great game, though.
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - An above-average platformer, the highlights of which are the significantly varied environments, the character designs (this game really looks great!), the character interactions, and the mostly satisfying melee combat between the hero, Monkey, and his nemeses, the mechs. (The combat reminded me a lot of Beyond Good and Evil, in fact.) The combat can sometimes be a drag when the camera doesn't point where you want it to (and this kind of problem is doubly irritating when playing a third-person action game), but Monkey is generally resilient enough to take a beating while you rotate the camera to a more effective position. Riding the Cloud (Monkey's glowing hoverboard) is also pretty fun. I found only one section repeatedly frustrating: Monkey's first battle with a Mech Dog. Going into that sequence, Monkey had far too few ammo cartridges for his staff/blaster, meaning I had to whack the Dog with a stick, then run away, then whack it again, seemingly ad infinitum, dying at least a half-dozen times before I succeeded. Other than that, the gameplay was a nice blend of difficult (but not too difficult) and enjoyable.
Journey - If you've never played Journey, you're missing out. But whatever you do, don't read about it before you play it. Just play it and let it wash over you. I don't want to oversell it and call it a religious experience or anything like that, but it's very good, and unlike any video game you have played before (at least in the last twenty years or so--I'm sure someone could point to some obscure equivalent from the earlier, weirder days of video games).
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