I loved these games a lot, and hopefully you'll find something in here to love too.įirst up, here are six games I spent a lot of time with this year that just missed my top 10. Even the runners-up, which I'll list first, brought me a measure of solace in a year that was severely lacking in that particular category. I needed the games I've chosen for this list more than I'd really care to admit.

I needed to explore the nooks and crannies of Night in the Woods' small rust belt town, I needed to see every corner of Bayek's Egypt in Assassin's Creed Origins, I needed to consume every last detail in NieR:Automata's sprawling storyline, I needed to see what would happen if all the members of Giant Bomb fought in a giant battle royale, in both the gun-murdering and professional wrestling definitions of that term. I spent more collective hours escaping into the varied worlds of these games than I think I have in any year prior. But I also recognize that people need these frivolous entertainments in the face of overwhelming dread. Nothing could possibly feel less important, more utterly frivolous than these goofy fucking entertainments. It's been very strange trying to maintain focus on video games this year. Maybe we'll be able to get up and walk away with a few scrapes and bumps and only a totaled vehicle to worry about, and not a fiery ball of death from which there is no escape. My hope for 2018 is that at the bottom of that hill-a bottom which we most assuredly have yet to see-is a nice patch of soft grass that will minimize the impact, and not a yawning chasm, the floor of which can't even be seen from this distance. If you'd like it summed up in a metaphor, if 2016 was the feeling of veering off a road, 2017 was one long, protracted sensation of watching through the windshield as your car careens down a hill. I think you probably already know how I feel about the events of 2017. In the interest of not beating a dead shitty horse and also getting this list up in a semi-timely fashion, I'm going to keep this opening short.

Best games of 2017 list comparisons