by Chris Selogy
2016 has been a hell of a year for games, so check out our Top 10 Games for 2016.
Despite the many sore spots that 2016 has left on our hearts and minds over these past 12 months in terms of our real lives, the gaming industry has had a very strong year with many great games in nearly all facets of this industry. We saw the big budget retail games get back on track after a couple of rocky years following the launch of the new consoles. There were some really strong surprises and a couple of mainstays that nailed their landing. Indies kept their stride going with some incredible games and started their expansion into higher priced entries on consoles and PC, which had some big bumps in the road for some overly ambitious titles. Handhelds are in a weird standstill while waiting for the Nintendo Switch to fully reveal itself in early 2017. Mobile games had one bright star that captured the imaginations of the hardcore and casual alike for a few months. To top it all off, VR gaming got its big start this year with the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR that are very promising for the future while everybody is still figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
As we look back at our favorite games of the year, this is our biggest field of lists yet with nine staff members contributing to the overall list. That made for an overall list that is 43 games deep across every platform out there. To show where the concentration of our choices are at, 31 of the nominated games are on PS4, 25 on the PC, and 21 on Xbox One. The other platforms cover a handful each at best, so the expected platforms got the bulk of great releases this year. Only one game on the personal lists appeared at the top of two lists, which also happens to be our overall #1 game on this list.
Without further delay, here are SmashPad’s Top 10 Games of 2016.