Warning: The following post contains spoilers for Wolfenstein 2 and The Evil Within. If you don’t want to see them, turn back now!
This was one of the best years ever to be a gamer. On par with the ridiculous holiday season of 2007. We have a few other posts at FANDOM to recognise the best games to come out throughout the year, so this is all about those individual moments that we’ll remember for years to come.
It also gives some games the chance to shine even if they didn’t make other Top 10 lists.
‘Resident Evil 7’s Escape Room
Coming out right at the start of the year, Resident Evil 7 was hailed for getting back to what the original games were all about. True, atmospheric horror. Its first act was far more memorable than its climax, and while you were still kicking around the derelict house of a country family, the Baker boy decides to lock you in a room.
Thanks to previously watching a VHS of someone in the same predicament, you know exactly what to expect. The scenario is meant to play out a bit like Saw, but with no possible happy ending — completing your objective only lights you on fire. But with your secret knowledge, you might be able to swing things in your favour.
Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner
There’s one game that dominated 2017 hands down, and that’s PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. PUBG kicked off the Battle Royale style of game which is quickly becoming a genre in itself. If you’re able to be the last player or team standing in a PUBG, a chicken dinner is your reward. That, and not dying I suppose.
Despite being a huge year for time-consuming triple-A and indie games, many PC gamers spent their hours chasing that glorious hot protein falling from the sky.
The Upside-Down House in Nioh
Upon reaching the end of a particular hallway in Nioh, you trigger an event that shifts the whole house upside-down. Holes in the ceiling are now holes in the floor. Enemy spawn points take on new meaning. New areas are accessible.
Not only is it cool, but getting to the new end of this level does require some puzzling out. It also finished with one of the cooler bosses in the game, a giant toad smoking a pipe.
‘Evil Within 2’s Epic Climax
The end of The Evil Within 2 is one of those endings you leave very satisfied with. It’s great when an action game finishes on a suitable high note.
After being stuck in a virtual world nearly all game, communicating with your ally on the outside via radio, the time finally comes to break out and save your family. The friends on either side of the radio finally trust each other, and will need to work together to make it happen.
This action sequence cuts back and forth between the real world and the virtual, with some clever cutscene editing to make it seamless, and your actions in either place affecting what’s possible in the other.
‘Nier: Automata’: The Opera Singer Fight
This occurs quite early in the game, before a lot of spoilery things we could say. But it’s one of the game’s best fights, and gets the player further acquainted with Nier: Automata’s crazy combat style.
Switching back and forth between camera angles, Automata effectively switches genre. From top-down schmup to 3D platformer and then a whole bunch of other styles, there are points in the game where you cycle through about five genres in as many minutes.
The Opera Singer has amazing design, and the patterns of bullets she sends out are quite pretty, but they’re also intelligent. Some of these bullets are destructible, and some aren’t. When things get hectic, you have a choice. Do you try to avoid everything, or do you slow down to clear some of these hazards and expose an easier formation of bullet hell?
Killing Your Dad in ‘Wolfenstein 2’
Wolfenstein 2 is a game with surprisingly solid pacing. There’s crazy action, but it’s punctuated with genuinely worthy humour and drama.
When you confront your father in your hometown, you get insights into the troubled childhood of B.J. If things were bad before, now he’s sided with the Nazis and sold your mother out for being impure. That, plus having a shotgun aimed at your head, means he had to go.
‘Super Mario Odyssey’s Ruined Kingdom Boss Fight
What about this game wasn’t fun? It’s hard to pick a specific part.
Taking on the Lord of Lightning became almost like a schmup at times. Bullet hell without the bullets. You had to avoid trickles of lightning coming from a massive dragon’s mouth, and then get on top of its head for a good ol’ fashioned stomp.
It was one of the bigger fights in the game, even if you mostly just saw its head.
‘Life is Strange BTS’: The Finale of Episode 1
In one last meaningful scene for the first episode of Before the Storm, Rachel opens up to Chloe about her dad’s affair, and then how important their friendship is to her.
The two decide to burn a photo of Rachel’s dad. They put it into a brazier, which tips over and lights a tree on fire as Rachel lets out one hell of a scream.
