Benny

13. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe

How long can Mario Kart 8 keep dominating awards lists? Forever that’s what. It’s a title that is just so Nintendo. I may criticise Assassin’s Creed for not messing with the formula much over the years, but Nintendo know how to do this in the right way and to polish their games to within an inch of their life. If Arms is Nintendo being playful and inventive, Mario Kart 8 is them refining and perfecting. I already wrote much about Mario Kart in the top 100 awards, so this time I’ll let you lot take the floor:

Womblingfree: “The best game of the other year was still one of the best games of 2017, now with a lick of paint and some extra gubbins.”

Jolly: "Mario Kart 8 is The Best Looking Game. It’s ridiculously gorgeous. It’s the kind of game that would be formed out of a union of Don Draper and Joan out of Mad Men; such is its effortless sex appeal. It also sounds simply magnificent. Deep, rich and warm, jazzy, funky and vibrant, it’s a soundtrack so good that frankly I don’t want to consider how much I’d pay to hear performed live, but should the opportunity arise I’d like to forewarn my children to keep an eye on their kidneys.

Fortunately, alongside all this, Nintendo have crafted what is not only easily the best game in the series but also my absolute favourite game to play online. It’s just so fucking good and whatever mad magic there is going on in the background to ensure that every race is close but fair (arguably the first time Mario Kart has ever truly nailed this) it results in a game in which it seems borderline impossible to have a shit race. A banana skin on the final bend or a red shell on the home straight not only act as a neat metaphor of what it means to be alive in 2017, but also keep the races insanely close and the tiny seemingly inconsequential tweak from vanilla Mario Kart 8 on Wii U which allows you to carry two items rather than one adds a welcome layer of strategy.

Go offline, strip it all back and start to try and beat the ghosts in the excellent time trials and you’ll gain a true appreciation of what is surely one of the finest collection of tracks in racing game history. I often find myself playing racing games and referring to the tracks as “The One With The Bridge”, ” The One With That Corner”, “Oh, This One” and “Oh No, Not This One”. So often they just become one indistinct blur, partly due to the lack of memorable design and partly down to who gives a fuck. Not here. With one or two exceptions, there’s something special, unique or magical about each location. The music, sights and design all melding perfectly to create the exceptional. Melody Motorway and its plinky-plonky powerslide across the keys of a glockenspiel. Super Bell Subway and its weird marriage of the Mushroom Kingdom and Beastie Boys Brooklyn (MY. WHAT AN INTERESTING IDEA. I WONDER IF ANY OTHER GAMES WILL TRY THIS). Electrodome and its euphoric jump after pounding down a set of stairs; each step being followed by an increasingly punchy, synth blast; all taking place under the gaze of a bunch of Shy Guys and Koopa Troopers completely off their tits on 1-Ups. Mount Wario, a track with a name that only gets funnier with time, and its billion, million brilliant bits.

I haven’t even mentioned the fact that they’ve brought back Battle Mode properly and it’s easily the best version of the mode since the N64 days. I thought perhaps Mario Kart was sending itself down a creative cul-de-sac over the years. I’ll admit to rolling my eyes when they revealed the anti-gravity mechanic and driving across the ceiling to the bits in the air and bits underwater. Consider these eyes well and truly swivelled back into place. This is ridiculously, obscenely good. An absolute belter."

Some of you were not as enamoured though:

stardonkey: “"The moment-to-moment in Mario Kart 8 is sublime, but absolutely fuck that single player mode. Fuck off"

dreamylittledream "Obviously Mario Kart 8 is amazing, but it was amazing on the Wii U, several years ago.  Sorry Nintendo but would adding some courses have killed you? Splatoon 2 showed effortlessly how to both bring a franchise between consoles and add enough to make it as essential to new owners as to those who played it a lot before.  This is just a port. So yeah Mario Kart 8 on the toilet, in bed and on the train is essential stuff but damn it some extra content would have made it essential. As it stands just a port is lazy"

14. Assassin’s Creed: Origins

Ah, Assassin’s Creed. What started out as a promising series, with interesting ideas and mechanics and an intriguing premise, rapidly descended into one of the biggest victims of Ubisoft’s production line approach to game publishing. Each update introduces a few little changes, a few more differences to the gameplay, but the basic formulae has now been exactly the same for endless years of interminable sequels. The environments may change with each new historical setting, but the game itself remains stubbornly and resolutely the same one that originally impressed all those years ago. Have I said Assassin’s Creed is samey yet?

Anyway, easy criticisms aside, the series does have a lot of fans, stockholm syndrome or not, and the execution of each title is solid and workmanlike (which is to be expected when so little changes between releases… Oh sorry have I made that point already?)

As you might have guessed, I don’t have any time for the Assassin’s Creed games any more, but I have to say with Origins, for the first time in years, it has generated a flicker of interest. Whether it’s the beguiling nature of its setting or the very impressive visuals, it does seem to have carved out a distinctive new feel for itself over the previous games and, as far as reboots go, looks to be going in a nice if not entirely radical direction.

I’m not convinced, but many of you loved it. Here’s your thoughts and reasons why:

alexander: “Assassin’s Creed with sand. A phenomenally beautiful setting, new game systems and the best bits of other Creed games make this a brilliant prequel to the series. The stuff is nonsense mainly, of course, but what beautiful nonsense. The open expanses of desert are just as well constructed as the winding and gloomy tombs and pyramids, and I have enjoyed exploring the world (and indulging in photo mode) for many, many hours”

Pinholestar: “It's easy to take the Assassin's Creed games for granted as the annual release schedule became stale & the template too well-worn to muster much enthusiasm. But in concept, if not always execution, the idea of sprawling stealth action games set in authentic historical settings & threaded through with ancient conspiracies has always been incredibly compelling. With that said, Black Flag was the last game in the series I played as Unity & Syndicate just looked like more of the same & I didn't fancy pouring another 60-odd hours into yet another 'tick the icons on the map' trudge.

The year off has done Origins wonders though & it's a quite brilliant return to form. Perhaps the first game in the series to really nail the core gameplay systems (combat and traversal finally feel right & although not as fully-featured as other games' examples the new gear & weapon loot system is a welcome addition that opens up possibilities) I spent 70 joyful hours exploring its world. And what a world it is. Ancient Egypt was an inspired choice and in a year that will surely go down as one of the greatest ever for open-world games, in some ways Origins has the best of the lot. There was just something beautifully evocative about creeping through the dusty, long-abandoned passages of a pharaoh's tomb deep below the Great Pyramid with only a flickering torch to light the way & thundering across the Sahara on a camel as eerie mirages faded from view behind sand dunes on the horizon at the hallucinatory height of the searing midday's sun.

Bayek & Aya are great characters & have the potential to forge a series of tales worthy of Ezio's best. Ancient Greece & Rome are probably next I would have thought & I can't wait. Welcome back, Assassin's Creed.”

Footle: “I’m a bit astonished by this. Unity was a frame skipping mess, and Syndicate just felt like a dark brown mess. Origins I’ve actually completed the main quest line (first time ever), then *continued playing*.

Some of this will be because it looks *spectacular* on the Xbox1X (and presumably on the PS4Pro): an absolute showcase for HDR and 4K upscaling, and the advantages the new set of consoles have over PC’s broken 4K support. Some of it because the levelling system allows you to play at your own pace,  switching between mass murderer and stealthy sneak, depending on the levels of the guards around you (in many ways, absent alternative ways of performing an assassination a la Hitman, this is the game they originally promised the best part of ten years ago). Some of it is just because Egypt in the time of the Greeks and Romans is just realised so well, and is far more diverse than I ever expected.”

BabelRich: “Another exploring words vote. Gorgeous and interesting, best Creed since Apollo.”

15. Sonic Mania

Pity the poor Sonic fan, for those still loyal to Sega’s gotta go fasting blue mascot it’s probably been an endless exercise in frustration and loathing, while the rest of us tutted, shook our heads at each terrible attempt and got on with our gaming lives.

Rejoice then, for a game that seems to have finally taken Sonic both back to its roots as well as introduce new and exciting gameplay. But not entirely from Sega themselves, who seem to have realised that as they have long since lost the art of making whatever magic they originally created, that most of the hard work should be left to dedicated fan developers who actually remember what made the series great in the first place.

I’ve long since fell out of love for the Sonic series, but I'm sure this game will pull me back soon… But in the meantime here’s what some of you thought:

MW_Jimmy: "Sonic Mania - the best Sonic game, a game that is the only game this year that you can categorically state was made with lifetime passion for the series - Christian Whitehead, Stealth and Tee Lopes have lived this stuff almost forever. Sonic Mania is Sega giving their biggest IP to what is effectively an indie studio and from all accounts, a small budget to match. It would be easy to praise Mania for it's nostalgia and beating the low benchmark of recent years games - but the team delivered more than that. It's a Sonic experience that knows all the lessons of it's game design - it rewards patient platforming with sections of speed, or shortcuts, or extra lives. And it revels in subverting your expectations - the old Sonic levels open out in clever ways and introduce mechanics that a both a logical fit for levels, and thematically relevant. The brand new levels fit expertly within the framework too - keep the first stage simple, second stage more complex - that they never feel out of place either. To summarise, Ghostbusters III has just come out, Michael Jackson is still alive, and the Sega Saturn was the most successful console of the generation - all thanks to Sonic Mania!"

Qazimod: "Okay, it’s time for a little confession – this isn’t higher up in my list for the simple reason that I haven’t given it the time and attention that I should have. It came out in the same week as Undertale – a game which I hadn’t played before, but the PS4 release seemed like a good opportunity to try it out – and I stupidly bought both, tried a bit of Mania, and then lost days to Undertale before clearing my schedule for more PS+ and eventually Destiny. Anyway… Sonic games have a bit of a hard time – personally I’ll defend bits of the Adventure games and I thought Rush was great, but most people seem in agreement that Mania is a welcome return to form. Sonic doesn’t speak, colourful pixels are everywhere, and there’s no pesky lock-on homing attack. Outside of those essential improvements, there are also a bunch of great original levels and remixed classic levels, not to mention an amazing soundtrack that fits the levels and the era without sounding too cringey today. I did find that one or two levels got a bit too elaborate for their own good, and I’m still not sure about the into-the-screen chase sequences for bonus stages, but the good bits more than make up for those little question marks."

16. Arms

One of the things I love about Nintendo is their willingness to take a wacky sounding and untested concept and just run with it, constructing a fantastic game around it in the process. Sadly, I have not yet had time to try Arms, but it appears to be an example of this exact design philosophy. Far be it for me to make assumptions without some opinions to back it up, here’s a very good write up from HarMGM who rated it number 1:

“Am I the only one putting this in their list? Oh well, might as well make it number 1 then. In any case: "Dreamcast-era Arena fighter, I resurrect thee!" So it was spoken by ARMS producer Kosuke Yabuki. Well, that's how I'm imagining it went, anyway. Had you shown images of this game in 2016 and told anybody this was a Nintendo game, they’d have laughed you in the face. “Nintendo doesn’t make games like this!” They’d say. “They make games that are easy. Games that aren’t hard. No this type of game is more like something from SEGA or Capcom.” Yet here we are, the latter two publishers stuck with 3D Sonic and Monster Hunter whilst Nintendo has gone ahead it reminded everybody of how bloody good arena fighters can be.

And, oh my, is ARMS good. Easy to learn, hard to master has never been more applicable. Most who play will prefer the motion controls to regular pads as it gives far more precision to land those punches. But even without motion, ARMS controls are tight. Preferring regular pads with this, I’ve loved my time with the game. Spending over 35 hours in it so far. Sometimes the A.I. can be incredibly unfair, but if you keep at it and experiment with different ARMS, you can push through just when all hope seems lost.

The mileage the game manages to get out of its base mechanics is something else as well. Want something intense? Play single-player or online(where you will find a very active community full of bastard Ninjara’s waiting to be punished for using that stupid jump-dodge).

Want to play for fun? Play some Hoops or Volleyball and spend your lazy time with that. Want to improve your skill? Training mode is ready to test your mettle and when you’re in a collecting mood, go to the ARMS Getter and spend your earned ARMS points.

Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give is that ARMS has rekindled my interest in the fighting genre. Games that weren’t on my radar are now very much on it. I now cannot wait to get the SF 40th Anniversary Collection and I’m very much interested to see what the Neo Geo has to offer up in terms of fighters. All because of this beautiful little gem Nintendo decided to push instead of making another bloody Mario Kart.”