I've enjoyed other people's list, thought it'd be fun to make my own. 29M, my picks.
Favorite: Nioh 2. The fact it's both prequel AND sequel to the first Nioh is so cool. The story is great, if a bit hard to follow sometimes because of the historical aspects. The entire game is just so much fun. The final mission is just fantastic. I go into it more in the favorite antagonist section.
Best Story: The Last Of Us. It was a toss up between it and Cyberpunk, but the reluctant father figure/adoptive daughter trope always seems to get me. The hospital segment at the end always get a reaction out of me.
Favorite Art Style: Darkest Dungeon. Just looks... so cool. Any games that have a similar look always catch my eye. I wish I never stopped drawing when I was younger so I could more easily learn how to draw in a style similar to it, because I'd just draw everything to look like it was out of that game.
Biggest Personal Impact: Far Cry 2. One of my first challenging games. It's pretty tough all in all, with how lethal enemies could be and trying to navigate the world with a in-world map. It was also my first ever online game. I still remember playing my very first online pvp match on there and the first person I'd talked to over the headset. It instantly hooked me.
Best Combat: Nioh 2. The way you go about progressing not only your characters levels and equipment, but also your own personal skill and how it grows over time is amazing. You start playing it like a standard soulslike, where you get a hit or two in and then back away and wait for openings. Very defensive. Eventually when your build comes online and you have much more stamina, you are doing insane combos; normal attacks, attuned skills mixed in, yokai abilities, a blender of moves that looks nothing like your combat 100+ hours ago.
Overhated: Dark Souls 2. It's a good game. Gets too much flak for it's understandably ugly or undercooked design in some areas. Or the soul memory mechanic which realistically only really is annoying in the early hours when playing with friends. But it was trying new things, and has a great foundation and I respect the game a lot for what it does well.
Underrated: Lords of the Fallen (2023). I genuinely think this game isn't praised enough. It feels just like classic Dark Souls 1. And the two worlds, the living and the dead is super interesting and makes for much better world design and traversal.
Overrated: Alan Wake II. Look, it's a good game. I love Alan Wake- I play the first one through once a year, but the 2nd one just doesn't do it for me. It isn't that scary, it's tense sometimes, sure, but not scary. The flashlight's mechanics in this game is awful. Having to constantly jump into Saga's mindplace to fiddle with the case board is tedious and breaks the flow of the game for me. Alan's mechanic of rewriting the world around him is cool, but also gets tedious quick too. The overall feel of the controls takes me out of it too. Feels sorta janky sometimes, the dodging feels worse too. SPOILERS: >!Why am I supposed to be scared of Mr Scratch when he's just a dude with a fucking pipe?!<
Needs A Remake: Shadows of Doubt. Amazing foundation, it just needs more crimes, more varied clues, red herrings, stuff to sort through, just... more. I love piecing together clues to figure out the killer and what happened, but the game needs a lot more content to make things more dynamic and difficult to do so.
Criminally Overlooked: Mad Max. I love the movies and this game. It's a shame it came out on the same day as MGS:V. I love the metal gear games, and thought V was going to be my game of the year. But it actually ended up losing to Mad Max. The fighting, the car combat, all feels so good and impactful. All this game needed was just more. More regions, more car combat scattered about. More camps to clear.
Favorite Protagonist: Dead Space's Isaac Clarke. Just a regular dude stuck in a nightmare. Three times. I chose the 3rd game to represent him solely because of his sheer ability to show defiance at a fucking necromorph moon." You can't have us hits" so hard in that moment. He's got a lot of great lines.
Favorite Antagonist: Nioh 2's Tokichiro. Your once closest friend, slowly corrupted by the power of Amrita, eventually becomes your enemy. They get possessed by a yokai spirit of a ancient being who was sealed away. You are forced into killing him. In the final mission, someone is trying to bring him back and said yokai spirit tries to reinhabit his corpse. But you jump in front, to protect your once friend, trapping the spirit inside of you where you battle inside of your own soul. The now revived Tokichiro, who is no longer possessed, is able to reach out and help you in this final fight. You win the battle, and he uses the power of the spirit stones to bring you back and quell the rage the yokai spirit caused.
Best Soundtrack: The Flame in the Flood. Doesn't always play a song with lyrics, but when it does it goes so well. It's a lonely game, and the occasional song it plays when you're riding the currents of a now flooded world, helps break that up and give you some hype and hope.
Best Multiplayer: Dark Souls 3. I spent so much time on this game in co-op, doing invasions, fighting people in player-made arenas and the official arena the game eventually made. I loved invading worlds as a mad phantom, being a force of chaos where I could fight and kill the host and their allies, or kill any other invaders who'd show up. Being a wildcard was super fun.
Not usually my thing but...: I don't go in for a lot of Sim-like games, like store owners, gas station workers, etc. But being a guy up in space, dismantling space ships and how puzzling it can be, was pretty fun.
Turn My Brain Off: I love Elite Dangerous. I can just get on and do whatever I want. Kill criminals and claim their bounties? Sure. Go hop into an asteroid belt and mine resources? Sounds fun. Grav jump around the universe and it's like, billions of star systems the game has and scan planets, moons and other celestial bodies and sell that data for some money? Cool, lemme grab some snacks and vibe for a few hours.
Best With Friends: Deep Rock Galactic. I have a lot of great memories playing with a couple of people in this game. Badass clutches, funny moments so good that I was left crying or with cramps. Easily one of my favorite games solely for the memories it gave me with some people.
Best Retro Game: I wasn't entirely sure what is considered retro in 2026, but from what I could tell, anything 20+ years old could be, so I went with one of my favorite childhood games, Jak and Daxter. But specifically Jak 3 because I enjoy the gameplay the most there.
Nostalgic Childhood Game: Max Payne 2. I love the series, but MP2 is my favorite from them. I played this game over and over and over. And I still play it once in a while to this day.
Game Everyone Should Play: Cyberpunk 2077. Now that it's been updated, fixed and polished, it's an amazing game. Voice acting is great, the story is really good, and gameplay is very fun with all the ways you can tackle things.
