2016 was quite the memorable year — often for deeply unpleasant reasons, yes, but it was unforgettable nonetheless. As things got worse from every angle, I often threw myself into my work — which, thankfully, involves playing a lot of video games. I’ve burned through quite a few games this way, and while I’m always more likely to remember a multiplayer experience I shared with a friend or a wild emergent gameplay moment I had on my own, there were plenty of well-crafted sequences and levels that I kept coming back to this year, long after I had stopped actively playing the game in question.
In the gallery below we'll talk about the five best gaming moments of the year.
Top 5 Best Gaming Moments In 2016
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4. Prologue - Battlefield 1
When Battlefield 1 assigned a name and birthday to the first soldier who died under my control, I knew this game was ready to treat World War 1 with the reverence it deserves. The game’s marketing and social media presence was another story, but Battlefield 1’s campaign justified its own existence, feeling at times like a prequel to Band of Brothers.
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rnThe prologue did what it had to do mechanically, introducing players to most of the game’s core mechanics. But it also had to establish a tone, one that let players know Battlefield was ready to throw dark this year. Although the rest of the package had a spot of trouble balancing fun moment-to-moment gameplay with reverence for The Great War, the game’s refreshingly grim prologue is certainly worth experiencing on its own.
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Top 5 Best Gaming Moments In 2016
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3. Elevator - Superhot
Superhot’s time manipulation gimmick (time only moves when you do) was pushed to its limits in the game’s killer elevator puzzle, where players had some time to consider their options, but also had zero room for error. I must have spent a good chunk of my playtime in that elevator, trying to find the perfect mixture between character movement and offense.
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rnWhen I found my rhythm, it was a delight to play out that scene from every other action movie on the market. Superhot’s post-level realtime playback is a particularly inspired addition in this case, making me look like a badass assassin, when in reality I took far too long to nail down the formula -- but then again, that’s kind of Superhot’s whole M.O. -
1. Time Travel - Titanfall 2
This is it. This is “that level,” the one you’ve heard everyone talking about since Titanfall 2 launched. With the press of a button, you can jump between the past and the present to avoid obstacles, deal with enemies, and gather information. It’s emblematic of Titanfall 2’s idea-a-minute campaign; in any other game, this would be the gimmick -- sort of like Superhot! Here, it’s just a slice of a fantastic shooter campaign.
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rnWith the knowledge that none of these mechanics will come into play once the sequence is over, Titanfall 2 throws all of its ideas for time travel into this one 90-minute sequence. It ramps, and ramps, and ramps, until you’re done jumping around the timestream and you’re off to see the next big idea. Like most of Titanfall 2, the time travel is best experienced on your own, but you can take my word for it if you want; it’s easily the best level in a video game released this year. -
2. Alien vs Predator - Watch Dogs 2
Unless you’re a sociopath, you didn’t kill anyone or engage in combat during Marcus’ drive up north -- rather, you listened to Marcus and Wrench debate the oldest question of our time: who would win, Alien or Predator? It’s a passive moment on the part of the player, but it tells you everything you need to know about these characters, and (on a larger scale) Watch Dogs 2. You would expect the conversation to skim over the movies, maybe have another character jump in with a third option.
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rnBut Marcus and Wrench put the discussion through the wringer, going as specific as possible and even bringing in outside battles, like the Batman vs Predator short film or the Archie vs Predator comics, as a sort of pop-culture geometry proof. The DedSec gang are smart, pop-culture literate millennials -- of course they’d have a conversation like this. It easily could have been some Big Bang Theory-lite garbage, but the game’s writers have clearly had this conversation already, hopefully with the same amount of detail. -
5. Hokkaido - Hitman
If this was a top 10 list, every Hitman level would have a spot -- but since we only have five entrants, I had to narrow it down to the Hokkaido medical facility. Each level in this game is rich with detail and dripping in atmosphere, but the medical facility feels unique -- a full realization of the underground science facility in Sapienza and a clear mission statement on the part of Hitman.
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rnThe series has always had roots in science fiction, and it’s nice to see that heritage represented in the best Hitman game to date. Hokkaido offers plenty of unique, entertaining kills, all juxtaposed against a beautifully stark landscape. It’s a beautiful level, one that is certainly worth exploring if you’re fine with putting off your kills for a few minutes. Plus, being able to crush a man’s heart in your bare hands is all kinds of awesome.
