GameSpot's Top 25 Games of 2015: The Witcher 3 Is Gamespot Game of the Year 2015

I thought the game paced itself fine between needing to use Batmobile and getting out for other more traditional activities. You're still perfectly capable of gliding around the map like City if you want. If you only used the Batmobile where you needed too it's not all that intrusive on the gameplay. IMO one is only going to need to get in the Batmobile more often to earn those points needed for some challenges which help unlock skills and it's not all that bad IMO, not entirely mandatory but more for the 100%'ing a game type gamers. If you were one of those players who did the Riddler challenges in the previous games no problem I don't see anybody having one here.

I find people nitpick the Batmobile being in the game. After all it could have been a lot worse and there's probably not many other ways they could have done it better. Frankly, I think reviewers are lazy and just regurgitate each others criticisms. Hell, a while ago they blew the lid off that Google group of industry journalists who basically agree beforehand to stick to key criticisms of some games and toe the line to their own narrative of the industry and the games that release rather than offering their own unique individual perspectives like they're supposed to. Frankly, Iv'e heard the Batmobile hate so much if it's not one it's the other. Knock it all you want for the shit PC port all you want, fine, that's an honest criticism at least; but be consistent there as they let Just Cause 3 sit at 18 and they dropped the ball on consoles for that.

If one wants a more brawler Batman experience that can best be served by going back and playing Arkham Asylum or even City, Asylum being my favorite in terms of best balance of stealth and fighting, as well as best paced in both gameplay and story. City did a lot of things good but one area it fell flat was on story and villains feeling like they weren't given the proper attention they deserved. At least as far as Arkham Knight goes I thought they gave the villains their fair shake here. Plus, so much attention to detail went into every nook and cranny in this game it's kind of sad to see people so dismissive.

Not with this game, you know that :p

Man, you change your mind on a weekly basis.

List is getting juicy

Haven't changed my mind on Fallout 4 ever though.

im gonna LOL so hard if Arkham Knight is top 5. What a shit show of a game

Yet.

Not going to. Game is trash. Witcher 3 FTW

So Witcher, Metal Gear, and Bloodborne are all a lock for top 5, what am I missing?

Rocket League and Super Mario Maker , probably.

Really? Tales of the Borderlands at 8? Really?

Jeez, what the **** is wrong with people, trash-talking Arkham Knight and Fallout 4?

Sure, they had issues, but stop being so harsh and try and appreciate the fact that apart from their flaws- which they admittedly have plenty of- they're still good games that are loads of fun to play, which is what playing games is about in the end. You can't expect every game to be GOTY level quality, sometimes you need to look past the flaws and appreciate the games for what they are. The cynicism and extreme criticism is only hurting your enjoyment of games in general, nothing else.

The Matchmaking in Rocket League is good. There will always be kinks in the system where you would have to consider queue times and accuracy, but I think the game strikes a good balance, even during off hours.

There's a difference between rank and your rating. The game used the latter to match you up with other players. Being a Veteran didnt exactly mean you were better than a Pro Ranked player. That just meant you played more. Sure, you'll run into the odd twink, but that was quite rare. There were countless of games where a less experienced player outperformed a more experienced one. If this was Unranked and you got matched up with some pre-made wanting to Pubstomp, then you had it coming.

MMR, Glicko, ELO or whatever mathematical algorithm the game uses took into account the quality of wins and even your losses, obviously the rank gains and losses will never be accurate as that's just incredibly hard to quantify contribution in about any game, but it was good in a way that it wasnt aggressive if you somehow got hard carried by a player on your team to beat a tough opponent that puts you at a rating that you shouldnt be. For the record, for those of you that dont know, Matchmaking is working as intended if you're win ratio is at .500. And I'd say Rocket League pretty much hits the mark. I'm pretty sure people that played the game or any other competitive game for the amount of time when your rating settles and is not volatile has run into that odd win streak, only for your MMR/ELO/Glicko to bump up, only to hit a losing streak playing better players.

But I'd agree that the biggest issue with Rocket League at launch was dealing with player forefits. How it handled punishment should have done a strike system to separate frequent leavers from legitimate disconnects. It also lacked the encouragement mechanic to keep playing - which didnt bother me as it was only 5 minuite games and the mechanics alone were enjoyable enough to keep me playing (I've legit won a 1v2 and to my embarrassment actually lost a 3v2). There's also an argument for the lack of Solo/Team queue split, but I'd say that the game communicates well enough with the format and the in game quick chat to even risk splitting the player pool.

Persona 4 DAN is number 1. I'm really feeling it!

Seriously though, here's WatchMojo top ten.

10. Rise of the Tomb Raider ( 1 month timed exclusive)

9. Splatoon

8. Super Mario Maker

7. Batman Arkham Knight *console version*

6. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

5. Undertale

4. Metal Gear Solid V

3. Fallout 4

2. Bloodborne

Honorable Mentions: Cities:Skylines, SOMA, Pillars of Eternity, Rocket League, Xenoblade Chronicles X

1. The Witcher 3

That's what I'm guessing the top 5 will be as well. I feel like TW3 is incredibly overrated though but the games journalist seem to love it. I would take out TW3 and put Xenoblade Chronicles X in the top 5. I would even put OlliOlli2 over TW3. People seem to love that game though so whatever. It just better not win GOTY here.

Batman: Arkham Knight tends to get trashed because it was the game that made PC gamers look bad this year.

Bethesda is Bethesda. I honestly dont know why people bought Fallout 4 for full price at launch, if you enjoyed the game and felt that what you got was enjoyable, good more power to you. But there are people here that were shitting on the game/studio leading up to the launch, but still happened to buy the game instead of something else for some stupid reason.

Or because the Batmobile is shit, and is basically shoe horned into every other fucking thing, and it gets annoying. I don't want platform with a fucking car if this isn't Banjo Nuts and Bolts, because that games vehicles didn't suck ass through a garden hose. I don't want to solve see-saw puzzles, I don't want see-saw puzzles video games anymore. Valve used up video games quota on that, we good for life now in that department. I also don't want to do a fucking stealth segment with the batmobile, the cobra tanks are some of the stupidest fucking designed enemy encounters in a video game that I've had the pleasure of sitting through. I don't want to do Riddler time trials. Puzzles sure, keep those coming, time trials? Save that for flash.

Also where as Arkham Asylum is more Metroid, and City was more in Zelda's routine of open world, Knight is full on open world. Clear out towers, do 10 bitch work quests, have a big ass space with all these hours of ridiculous amount of filler, have gameplay areas that aren't actually built to make the systems shine the way Asylum and City did on a consistent basis.

**** it being a broken mess on PC, the game just isn't that good. It fails the Pootie Tang test. I mean there aren't 25 video games better than Arkham Knight this year, but that's besides the point. There aren't 25 games this year better than Pootie Tang.

Sure Fallout launch wasn't great, sadly it was still the best of Bethesda so far, in 140 hours I've come across one bug that made me use the console, had exactly 0 crashes as well. So ye people bought it for full price and got more than their moneys worth. Console version is another pickle tho, runs like shit, looks like shit and is essentially half the game w/o mods vs the PC one.

I LOVE the TW3. I'm waiting for all DLC to drop, I'm buying all that sum'bitch, starting a new character over and beating the game again. I rarely do that to RPG's, once I beat them I'm done since the play time is usually 40+ hours.

TW3 is incredibly overrated?

More like underrated.

I hope it gets GOTY.

Top 5 should be Witcher 3, Bloodborne, Rocket League, MGS5 and Super Mario maker.

Yeah, TW3 is lulz, but it wouldn't be Gamespots worst goty winner.

I wonder if Pillars of Eternity has any chance for the top 5. I wouldn't put it in the top 5 myself, but it's pretty odd that it's not even in the top 25 so far.

happy dying light is on that list, it deserves the praise. calling bullshit on halo 5 being at #23 though, its heads and shoulders better than the other games i've played on that list including the amazing dying light.

@ConanTheStoner: I don't think Pillars even made the PC Top 5 list, so it's definitely not going to be on an overall Top 5

@charizard1605:

Ah, gotcha, haven't even seen the PC list. Yeah, I wouldn't expect it in top 5 overall. Not being in the top 25 is weird though.

@ConanTheStoner: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of weird omissions. Like, Gamespot loved Life is Strange iirc, and it's also a game right up their alley (story focused interactive narrative with a strong female protagonist), so you'd think it would be on this list somewhere, but it hasn't shown up yet. So unless there's some major last minute upset in the Top 5, it's not in the Top 25 at all, which is... bizarre. It's certainly better than like half the games that have shown up on this list so far, if what I have been given to understand is correct.

Super Mario Maker or The Witcher 3. Which one will be GOTY?

I hope the crown goes to Super Mario Maker, because it's FUN and that's what games are supposed to be!

Not to mention the massive amounts of arse pain that would ensue! Make it happen GS.

So here we are:

5. Super Mario Maker
4. Bloodborne
3. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
2. Rocket League
1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

How did Evolve beat out Pillars of Eternity? lol. Gamespot pls

Props to Gamespot for the Rocket League love. That makes up for the lame ass TW3 win.

Rocket League and Mario Maker in the top five make the year look worse than it really was

And Witcher 3 winning GOTY is so boring and predictable

Glad TW3 won. Also nice to see 2 top 5 games for PS4. :D

It's the most accessible of the the top five, other than Rocket League, while providing enough engaging solid content in a currently popular genre, which Metal Gear Solid V did too. It'd be easy to think lots of editors played it.

Add that to its obvious quality and I had little doubt it would win.

The title has gone to worse games. Not my personal pick, but Witcher 3 is a mighty fine experience.

4 of the top 5 games are on PS4, I can see why Gamespot said the PS4 has the best lineup of 2015.

W3 is one of the best RPG games I've ever played, but I consider it a hardcore RPG game that is absolutely not for everyone. That is the problem with these lists, people wholeheartedly recommending games to anyone because of the GOTY label.

W3 requires a heavy commitment from the player, almost an emotional investment. Not everyone has the time to experience games like that, and during the time it takes you to go through it and depending on your lifestyle, you may be missing out on tons of games more suited to your preferences. Anyways, like I said I love the game and it is nice Gamespot recommending it so much throughout the year, but just be careful knowing what you are getting yourself into if you follow these lists to the letter.

It's a very solid top 5 list. I have issues with the later game (or there lack of it) of MGSV but the stealth gameplay is awesome. TW3 is something truly special and I enjoyed the hell out of platinumming it.

Well at least their goty is a lot better than the previous years like Journey and Shadows of Boringdor

Can't say I disagree with their GOTY.

MGSV bummed me out tho.

Congratulations to CD Projekt. Witcher 3 deserves to be Game of the Year.

Yeah congrats to CDr, Witcher 3 deserves all the awards. I'm not shocked whatsoever. Yes, a lot of games were good this year but Witcher stood on top.

I can't wait for the new DLC

booooooooring

GS has no balls, they've been gushing about Rocket League non-stop since it came out.

How is it that Evolve made the list, but Pillars of Eternity didn't? I feel PoE not being in the top 25 is a huge disrespect to a great game. Only rpg I thought was better this year is TW3.

I can't believe Life is Strange didn't make the list.

Deserved win.

Yeah well the 21-25 are kinda of the "let's not piss off any potential high paying advertisers by excluding them" section. Pillars was pretty good and should have made it in somewhere.

Now that GOTY is picked, I have to say I really don't like this format. After a certain point the choices simply become far too predictable, there was no suspense at all for what was making the top 5 and what was the GOTY.

Life is strange not in the list, I'd put it in the top 5.

Same goes for pillars

Ofcourse TW3 wins. Deserved.

No PoE is bullshit though,.

Pillars and Total War Attila are notable exceptions.

they did get the top two right though