My 2016 Games of the Year

For you longtime blog visitors (both of you), this will bring back memories. For the rest of you, here's a quick explanation.

I don't play new games all that often. So, rather than come up with my games of the year, evaluating the four actually new games that I played, I generate a list of the top ten games that I played during the previous year. That means that the games could have been released at any point in history (see #2), or are repeats from last year (see #1).

Anywho, here's my list. I spent most of the second half of this year playing D&D, and while I do love dungeon delving with the total freedom that D&D gives you, I kind of miss video games. We'll see how 2017 pans out.

I always put my lists in order, because I need to judge things.

10. Rocket League

Rocket League is an international sensation...which I find to be just decent. It's not that I dislike the game or anything. I get why it's fun, and I enjoy it from time to time, I just don't have the same excitement that it gets from a lot of other people. Specifically Scooter. Still, it's fun enough to round out my top ten.

9. Clash Royale

I'm not generally one who sticks with phone games. I get my fill and then move on, because none of them really ever have an "ending." You just keep going, keep building, keep leveling up, keep grinding, and never really "accomplish" anything.

Clash Royale has a lot of that same grind to it, but there's something gratifying about finding a deck that you can run well, and rolling over a couple opponents in a row. Combine that with a solid clan and regular splashy content, and I find myself consistently engaged by the Clash.

8. 4 Elements

So the funny thing about this game is that I only started playing it because I knew I wasn't playing many games, and figured I'd start towards the top of my games list. So, starting with the number "4" and 4 Elements, I fired up a new game. It's a simple puzzle game with its own twists of strategy. I wouldn't call it revolutionary on any level, but it's aesthetically pleasing and simple enough to pick up. I would just barely recommend it, if you're looking for something to kill a few hours.

7. Destiny

I bought Destiny basically because a friend told me to. I hadn't played an XBox One game in a while, and he had suggested it a few times. So I grabbed some pack off Amazon that included a couple expansions and fired it up. It's made by some of the same folks who made Halo, and it shows in a lot of the artwork and gameplay. That said, it doesn't really capture that certain something that Halo's campaign system had.

The game itself is fairly fun, it's essentially an MMO first-person shooter, but your experience is very rarely "massive," which is a good thing. You can do a series of solo missions (that you can bring friends along to complete as well), and you can also join a queue for dedicated multiplayer missions, missions that are considerably more difficult and require teamwork to complete. Overall, it was a pretty fun experience, and while I won't be paying $60(!) for a new expansion, I might pick it up down the road someday.

6. Dead Rising 3

I love Dead Rising. If I had to pick one franchise that I think defines all that I like about video games, it's Dead Rising. It's got great weapons, a somewhat open world, and the the ability to render massive numbers of zombies inert. Eddie got me Dead Rising 3 for Christmas last year, and I dove into it eagerly.

And it was good. It wasn't the perfect sequel like Dead Rising 2 was, and it wasn't a revolutionary advancement like Diablo 2. It was a solid game with some interesting characters, and enough of the classic material I enjoy to keep me entertained. The one caveat I would give it is that, while the graphics are an "improvement" over the previous games, the extra layer of detail is a bit difficult on my eyes over longer gaming sessions. It became too much eventually and I set the game aside, but someday I definitely plan to get back into it and finish the story.

5. Heroes of the Storm

A repeat from last year's list, it's still a very solid game that has developed a lot over the past year. There are a ton of new heroes, though this year's crop is a bit less revolutionary than last year's; there's no hero like Cho'Gall or Lost Vikings this year. In that regard, it's getting a bit closer to League of Legends, but with the solid gameplay, the introduction of a similar "brawl" system to Hearthstone's, and the fact that the game continues to be completely free to play, it's still a winner in my book.

4. Lifeline

Anthony told me about Lifeline when it was free on iPhone for a couple days (or maybe is still free? I don't know). It's essentially a choose-your-own-adventure book, put into the context of you being on the other side of a communication device, trying to help a stranded space traveler survive on a moon or asteroid or planet. I don't remember the specifics, but I remember really enjoying the game. The way it presented the story was insanely entertaining, and while the finish was clearly built to encourage you to purchase a follow-up game, it was satisfying. Very well done.

3. Sid Meier's Civilization V

So I was a little late to the Civilization V achievement hunter party, but I did get there eventually. Over the past year, I nabbed a couple dozen achievements through considerable playtime, as I figured out what settings I needed to use on my laptop to make it work without crashing...often. The game is just really, really solid. Every time you play it's a new experience, and the maps and different civilizations provide nearly endless replay-ability. It'll be a while before I get the new one, obviously, but that's partly Sid Meier's fault. He made the previous version just too damn good.

2. Total Extreme Wrestling

TEW is a wrestling simulation game. That's right. A wrestling SIMULATION game. The game puts you into the role of a head booker at a wrestling promotion, and your job is to put on the best product possible to increase your popularity, generate income, and keep your job. You manage rosters, contracts, locker room chemistry, pushes, and all of the business aspects of how you put on a show.

It's the kind of game that appeals only to a narrow group of people, but I'm one of those people. I freaking love this game.

1. Dungeons and Dragons

I mean, what else is there to say that I haven't already said? I play D&D 2-3 times a week, which when you compare that with the 4 times a week I work, it takes up the lion's share of my free time. It's complex, it's cooperative, it's creative, and it's social. I say again, D&D is the perfect game.

The Podcast I've Always Wanted to Make

As (hopefully) all of you know by now, I've done a few episodes of what I'm calling The GoodPointJoe Podcast, a variety show where I talk about whatever I want to talk about. So far, that's been exclusively sports topics. That's not to say that sports are the only thing I care about; far from it, in fact. I would say that my attention to sports is, overall, at an all-time low (discounting those first few years when my sole concern with sports was that I was being dressed in Washington Redskins apparel).

But sports are incredibly easy to talk about at a moment's notice, because so much of it is based on opinion. Just this week I mentioned in a blog post how I had an opinion on someone else's opinion on some sports topics.

It's also much easier to find people who are willing to talk about sports for a few minutes for a podcast, and much easier to frame a conversation about sports. It's no surprise that sports and politics have countless podcasts available to listen to on iTunes.

But the reality is, that's not why I got into the podcast game. Before I even decided to make it an actual podcast, I set out to create a series of audio recordings offering advice on various Dungeons-and-Dragons-related topics. I've been DMing on and off for several years, and I love it. I love doing it, I love prepping for it, I love talking about it, I love it all. And I think there's still plenty of space available for DM advice and discussion on iTunes.

(I also think Dungeons and Dragons is in the midst of a great period of growth, but that's a topic for another article.)

For the past few months, I've been putting together outlines for podcasts on a variety of DM-related topics: adapting pre-made adventures, dealing with problem players, useful DM books and accessories, etc. They're all built to be solo shows, each running between 15 and 25 minutes. I've test-run a couple of them, and they're improving, but they're not ready yet.

Anyways, I wanted to give you an idea of what to look forward to with the podcast. While sports topics will always be part of the equation, there's more variety on the horizon. Stay tuned!

2015 Games of the Year

A few years ago, I did my own "Games of the Year" list, where I talked about not the games that were released in that year, but those that I myself played that year. A friend of mine suggested doing the same thing in an email thread that we share with some other gaming buddies, and so a few of us shared our experiences from 2015.

But for those of you who aren't on that email thread, I figure I spent the time writing up everything, so I might as well share it. Here's my list for 2015. Also, you can see on the sidebar that I'm trying to keep track of the games I play this year, in the hopes that I maybe do this kind of post again at the end of 2016.

Honorable Mention: Rock Band 4
The newest iteration of the Rock Band franchise was...fine? I haven't gone through the whole campaign, but after advertising it as a "Rock Band RPG," it strikes me as being pretty similar to Rock Band 2; hardly a role-playing game. If you're interested, I wrote about what I thought a true Rock Band RPG could be like on my blog.

10. World of Warcraft
So here's the thing about World of Warcraft. Before Warlords of Draenor turned it into a glorified smartphone game, it was already a glorified smartphone game for me. I'm not good enough to raid or PvP, and outside of that, it's just gold-farming. I don't dislike gold-farming per se, but as I play it more, I'm realizing that it's less of engagement and more of a habit. I'm thinking 2016 won't have WoW on its list.

9. Heroes of the Storm
If we were considering sheer volume of time, Heroes would rate higher on this list. I played pretty often with Chip and Nick, the quicker matches being less of a commitment than games like CS:GO or League of Legends. The lack of items and summoner abilities takes a layer of complexity off the game, but it does have some unique heroes like Cho'Gall, Murky, and The Lost Vikings. Heroes is good for at least an occasional diversion.

8. Card Hunter
If I had only played the first 5 or 6 levels of Card Hunter by the time I wrote this up, it'd be higher on the list. It's a fun card-based game that functions like D&D. The problem is that the game kind of over-complicates itself over time. While you start out with a weak 15-card deck, as your characters advance in level, the deck gets stronger, but also bigger. Anybody who's played any Magic knows that the smaller the deck, the happier you are. Still, it's fun enough that I'll keep it installed at least.

7. Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal
There were, apparently, two previous Creeper World games, but I never played them. This was an impulse purchase for I want to say like $0.79 during one of the Steam sales. It's not an overly complex game, but it does offer a new take on tower defense style games. I enjoyed playing it as much as I did, and I could see myself getting back into it. Unconventional tower defense games are almost as much fun as...

6. Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten
...conventional tower defense games. Defender's Quest was another game I purchased during a Steam sale over the years. I began playing it before last year, but I jumped back into it when I had a stretch of regular Twitch streaming a little while back. It's a bit of a grind, but my kind of grind. I haven't finished the "new game+" yet, and it's an easy game to stream, so I expect to play it some in 2016 as well.

5. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
There was a stretch there in 2015 when CS:GO was my game of choice. Missions were an interesting addition, and it swayed my focus on a day-to-day basis. As always, I watched for interesting investments, though the time of quick profits has passed. I haven't played it in a while, but it was a huge part of my year, and I'd be surprised if I didn't get back to it at some point this year as well.

4. Magic: The Gathering - The Deckbuilding
So here's the thing about Magic. I didn't play a ton of matches of Magic. But "playing Magic" means different things for different people. For me, deckbuilding is far and away my favorite part of the game. I bought some sealed content and spent time all throughout the year building and rebuilding decks. I love trying to figure out the interplay between the various cards, and talking about it with other people or reading about it. Magic was definitely a big part of my gaming 2015.

3. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record
I remember playing a demo of the original Dead Rising and running out to buy a used copy at GameStop the same day. I played the shit out of it, and I continue to play the shit out of Dead Rising games. I didn't buy Dead Rising 2: Off the Record right away, because it's basically a remake of the original Dead Rising 2 with different cutscenes. Still, it was a lot of fun.

2. NHL '16
I'm always a fan of NHL games. I actually played a fair amount of NHL '13 this year as well, but it seemed silly to include two hockey games. NHL '16 was part of the bundle I got when I bought my Xbox One, because I knew I'd play it. I haven't tried Franchise Mode (or whatever it's called these days), but the Be A Pro, Hockey Ultimate Team, and just exhibition games are all crisp and fun. Hockey is great.

1. Dungeons & Dragons
D&D is the best game ever. I've always liked cooperative games with a lot of freedom, and no game satisfies that hunger like D&D. It's a fun game to play with friends, it's a great environment for humor and creativity, and it still incorporates battle-based challenges. It takes more time to set up a game than other games, and requires coordination with your group in order to make things happen, but with Tabletop Simulator and now (the superior) Roll20, it's a great time to play D&D.

Podcasts: Is there anything they can't do?

Several weeks ago, I decided to watch the Acquisitions Incorporated series from the beginning up to and including the most recent content. For those of you unfamiliar with the series, it's a quasi-celebrity game of Dungeons & Dragons. The core group of players consists of three online comic writers: Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, and Scott Kurtz, the writer for PvP. They have rotated in a few other "nerdy" celebrities, including Wil Wheaton of Star Trek fame, fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss, and former G4 host Morgan Webb.

As a guy who likes humor and D&D, this is basically right in my wheelhouse. I discovered it by accident some time ago while skittering around YouTube, and I was immediately enthralled. Obviously I enjoy the role-playing and fantasy aspects of the game, but what was most appealing about it was the way the players were able to play off of each other, and create not just a player-character but a true character in their roleplaying. And of course, these are all really, really funny people, so the humor is nigh-transcendent. I find myself laughing out loud more often watching/listening to them than with almost any TV show or movie I've ever seen. It's really, really exceptional.

Anyways, while I could go on and on about how great Acquisitions Incorporated is, there's a second part to this post. Acquisitions Inc. started out as a series on Wizards of the Coast's D&D podcast. The game was/is DMed by Chris Perkins, a longtime D&D creator and all-around nerd badass. So, in order to listen to these podcasts, I downloaded them through the Podcasts app on my iPhone.

Now, I've never been much of a "podcaster," or whatever the appropriate term would be for someone who listens to podcasts. There was always a lot of searching and file management involved, and I didn't want to to spend all that time and then find out whatever podcast I chose sucked. I am, by nature, very risk-averse. But now I had found a podcast that I already knew I would most likely enjoy, so it opened up my willingness to do the necessary work.

When I say "work," I mean such considerable tasks as finding an aux cable for my car, or searching for podcasts on my phone while I'm already sitting on my phone. You know, really challenging stuff.

So now we're circling back to the actual reason for this post: what podcasts am I listening to now? Well, there are four main ones I'm listening to somewhat regularly. Here they are.

Marek vs. Wyshynski
Hockey Talk

Every year, when the Capitals are eliminated from the playoffs, I find myself hungering for hockey discussion. As the playoffs progress, you get more and more invested and focused on what's going on, and then suddenly, when your team is eliminated, you're left with all of this focus and nowhere to direct it. I always end up diving into the upcoming offseason, looking at potential signings, releases, and trades that could fix whatever that year's "one big problem" was. This year, it was "skill right-winger," but that's not really important.

What's important is that there's a vacuum in my attention span, and a hockey podcast is the right thing to fill it. Local sports radio is 90% Redskins, 9% Nationals, and the remaining 1% is split between the Capitals and Wizards and whatever else is convenient that day. Marek vs. Wyshynski is a Yahoo-produced podcast that's run by a couple of die-hard hockey fans who manage to get some high-end guests to join them for reporting and discussion. It's a national show, but that's okay. I like to know what the national take is on the Capitals, and this is a perfect way to get it. They're fairly funny and pretty self-deprecating, a good entertainment combination.

The Dungeons & Dragons Podcast
D&D Talk

This was obviously going to be the first podcast I had exposure to, since it's the one where Acquisitions Incorporated could be found. But the reality is that D&D is one of the things in the world that draws my attention the most. It's cooperative, it's creative, it's got swords and spells and traps and dragons. There's a stigma out there, sure. But I'd venture to say that, with the success of the Lord of the Rings movies, Harry Potter, Felicia Day, YouTube, and Game of Thrones, we're entering a "golden age" for D&D. Or at least, that's what I like to believe.

Either way, it's got a fan in me. The D&D Podcast offers a behind-the-scenes look at all aspects of Dungeons and Dragons. Obviously this includes stories about the development of the game, the evolution of rules and classes, and general tips on DMing. But it's also got information about miniatures, marketing, cross-product integration, related products, and any other sort of secondary concept you can think of. As someone who likes the idea of board games in general, it's a great window into the minds of the people who made the world's greatest board game. It's very informative, and fairly entertaining.

Geek's Guide to the Galaxy
General Nerdy Media

I actually listened to a couple episodes of GGttG a while back, but forgot I had subscribed to it on my phone. Eventually, I had some update come down and my phone said, "You don't have enough storage space to download this update." After some searching, I realized I'd been downloading every episode of this podcast for like two years. So I went through and deleted the ones regarding topics in which I have little-to-no interest, and kept the ones that piqued my interest.

Anyways, the podcast. It's run by two authors who I know nothing about. They apparently do mostly short stories and anthologies, with some other composition mixed in there. They seem to have read most books between them, and obviously there's a lot of overlap as well. They're definitely nerds, and they have a style of laughing and talking that's somehow both awkward and condescending at the same time. It's like if you were to walk into a darts tournament and there were a couple of darts aficionados hamming it up for the general darts fans. It's like, okay we get it, you know a lot about darts. Maybe scale back the insane talk about release angles and whatever.

Anyways, while the guys are a little bit smug on certain topics, the topics themselves delve into a lot of content I love hearing about. From Game of Thrones to Star Wars to Left 4 Dead, there's a lot of stuff that's both nerdy and mainstream, and I enjoy hearing people tackle it. They are able to make a lot of nerdy references, many of which I get, and because it's a podcast, they can approach topics from creative angles if they choose. Overall, I do enjoy the podcast, though I think I'd enjoy it more if it were run by gamer guys instead of book guys.

Drive to Work
Mark Rosewater's Magic the Gathering Podcast

After I started listening to the other podcasts for a while, I knew there was one that I wanted to check out. Spoiler alert, it's this one. Many of my fellow "Good Point Bros" have mentioned the podcast in the past, and now that I was listening to some, it was finally time to check it out.

And I love it.

The basis for the podcast is that you're basically riding with Mark Rosewater (head designer of Magic the Gathering, basically the king of Magic) on his drive to work. He records the podcast literally on his drive to work, so every episode is about thirty minutes. Rosewater's passion for Magic is evident with every sentence, and his gift for working his passionate creativity into the structure of acceptable Magic cards has got to be one of the most important pieces of why Magic has grown so much over the years.

The content of the podcasts (at least so far, I've only listened to a few) focuses on Magic sets and concepts from the past, and talks a lot about the evolution of that particular set/mechanic/card. The second episode (which is when I knew I was hooked) was a quick run-through of the creation of Zendikar, possibly my favorite set. Rosewater talks about the original idea of the set ("lands matter"), and how that idea evolved into Landfall, full-art basic lands, Ally cards, and the specific equipment in the set. It's just amazing fun to hear the process from a guy who was there firsthand, and as someone who dabbles in game development, I find it inspiring.

What Else Should I Listen To?

Obviously I've only begun to scratch the surface of what's out there. A friend recommended RadioLab, a science-ey podcast that touches on a wide variety of topics. Another friend (or twelve) immediately suggested Serial. I know it was a phenomenon, so I suppose I'll check out at least the first episode at some point. And my cousin Mike is always trying to get me to listen to Comedy Bang Bang. From the few clips he's played for me, it does seem pretty funny, so maybe now that I've got the whole setup, I'll finally give it a whirl.

What else should I listen to? If you've got any suggestions, I'm all ears. Leave notes in the comments section below!