The first quarter of 2016 served up a diverse offering of small indies and Triple-A blockbusters, with Ubisoft delivering a pair of smash hits in Far Cry Primal and The Division. But the real big winner? Gamers. Here’s the best of the year so far. SEE ALSO: Catching Up With TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman
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Capcom, Dimps, Yoshinori Ono
Street Fighter V
For the true competitors out there, the action in Street Fighter V is as furious and technically exacting as ever. The character models look incredible and it perfects that indelible Street Fighter feel. However, we have to post a fairly major disclaimer: Unless you plan on taking the competition online, Street Fighter V offers precious little for the single player. While developers like Netherealm offer fully-fleshed out story modes in Mortal Kombat X and Injustice, there’s nothing of the sort here.
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Ubisoft
Far Cry Primal
While every other first-person shooter franchise wants to propel us further and further into the future, Far Cry Primal throws you all the way back to 10,000 BC, where you’ll have to craft your own bow and arrow and torches from raw materials from your environment and take on wooly mammoths, saber tooth tigers, and savage nomadic tribes hunting you down. The only thing more surprising than the meticulous level of graphical detail is how well the whole package comes together for a satisfying experience. Guns don’t make a great first-person experience. The little things do.
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Thekla Inc.
The Witness
This first-person puzzler starts out simple for all of 15 minutes before the challenges quickly ratchet up to maximum difficulty. Players who see this game through to the end will have earned it; there is absolutely no hand-holding or free hints for when you get stuck. You either learn to speak this game’s language or it leaves you in the dust. It’s a nice throwback to a time in gaming history when victory was never presumed.
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Ubisoft
The Division
Imagine Destiny in a real-world setting and you can start to wrap your head around the depth in this open-world shooter. Except, for a game world this expansive, it has no business looking this gorgeous or playing so clean. Set in NY after a nearly apocalyptic viral outbreak, you take control of a member of the Division, a secret elite fighting force assigned with restoring order to the Big Apple. Start by customizing your character’s looks, then customize every other conceivable aspect of the gameplay (The Division brings to bear all of the RPG elements that make Destiny so addictive) so you can fight through the outlaw hordes in the style that suits you best.
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Microsoft Studios
Quantum Break
My, oh my we’ve come a long way since Sewer Shark, haven’t we? Since CD-ROMs came into use in the early 90s, many video game developers have tried to fuse games and movies/TV to tell their stories. (In the early days, it was just called FMV, or full-motion video). Most of these attempts have failed, usually due to bad acting and poor production values. Quantum Break—an Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive developed by Remedy—succeeds where all of its predecessors failed. Following a time-travelling experiment gone awry, you’re a man on the run with a couple of guns, lots of bad guys to shoot, and an array of newfound time-altering superpowers. The introduction of the powers transforms an average third-person shooter into a memorable one, but the exceptional motion-capture performances and accompanying live-action show are what put Quantum Break over the top. Starring the greatly underrated Shawn Ashmore (The Following), Dominic Monaghan (Lost, Lord of the Rings), and reuniting Wire alums Aiden Gillen and Lance Reddick, Quantum Break moves along at a brisk pace, when you’re controlling the action and when you’re not (though the choices you make in-game dictate which episodes you’ll see). You’ll binge watch/play through the whole experience as quickly as you ate up the latest season of Daredevil. Gamers owe a collective thank you to developer Remedy for finally showing us all what a successful melding of the two mediums really looks like.
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Ubisoft
Trackmania Turbo
Seemingly crafted as a love letter to 90s arcade racers like Cruisin’ USA and San Francisco Rush, Trackmania Turbo is a shot of pure adrenaline. Realism is kicked to the curb; to start races, your car is usually dropped from a helicopter down a ramp and tracks feature long jumps and roller-coaster loops. Easy to learn but difficult to master, Trackmania lures you in and tempts you to spend the time it takes to become a master.
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Sony Interactive Entertainment
MLB The Show 16
Despite the fact that Sony has no one else to compete against in the video game baseball world (with EA’s MVP series still mystifyingly dormant) MLB The Show ratchets up the innovations every single year. This year’s installment doesn’t disappoint with the introduction of Showtime Moments, which slow down the action to give you more control over high-leverage junctures within a game. However, one note to Sony: You need to get Matt Vasgersian and the rest of the announcing crew back in the booth to record new dialogue. Snippets introduced four years ago are still repeating.
The first quarter of 2016 served up a diverse offering of small indies and Triple-A blockbusters, with Ubisoft delivering a pair of smash hits in Far Cry Primal and The Division. But the real big winner? Gamers. Here’s the best of the year so far.
For the true competitors out there, the action in Street Fighter V is as furious and technically exacting as ever. The character models look incredible and it perfects that indelible Street Fighter feel. However, we have to post a fairly major disclaimer: Unless you plan on taking the competition online, Street Fighter V offers precious little for the single player. While developers like Netherealm offer fully-fleshed out story modes in Mortal Kombat X and Injustice, there’s nothing of the sort here.
Far Cry Primal
While every other first-person shooter franchise wants to propel us further and further into the future, Far Cry Primal throws you all the way back to 10,000 BC, where you’ll have to craft your own bow and arrow and torches from raw materials from your environment and take on wooly mammoths, saber tooth tigers, and savage nomadic tribes hunting you down. The only thing more surprising than the meticulous level of graphical detail is how well the whole package comes together for a satisfying experience. Guns don’t make a great first-person experience. The little things do.
The Witness
This first-person puzzler starts out simple for all of 15 minutes before the challenges quickly ratchet up to maximum difficulty. Players who see this game through to the end will have earned it; there is absolutely no hand-holding or free hints for when you get stuck. You either learn to speak this game’s language or it leaves you in the dust. It’s a nice throwback to a time in gaming history when victory was never presumed.
The Division
Imagine Destiny in a real-world setting and you can start to wrap your head around the depth in this open-world shooter. Except, for a game world this expansive, it has no business looking this gorgeous or playing so clean. Set in NY after a nearly apocalyptic viral outbreak, you take control of a member of the Division, a secret elite fighting force assigned with restoring order to the Big Apple. Start by customizing your character’s looks, then customize every other conceivable aspect of the gameplay (The Division brings to bear all of the RPG elements that make Destiny so addictive) so you can fight through the outlaw hordes in the style that suits you best.
Quantum Break
My, oh my we’ve come a long way since Sewer Shark, haven’t we? Since CD-ROMs came into use in the early 90s, many video game developers have tried to fuse games and movies/TV to tell their stories. (In the early days, it was just called FMV, or full-motion video). Most of these attempts have failed, usually due to bad acting and poor production values. Quantum Break—an Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive developed by Remedy—succeeds where all of its predecessors failed. Following a time-travelling experiment gone awry, you’re a man on the run with a couple of guns, lots of bad guys to shoot, and an array of newfound time-altering superpowers. The introduction of the powers transforms an average third-person shooter into a memorable one, but the exceptional motion-capture performances and accompanying live-action show are what put Quantum Break over the top. Starring the greatly underrated Shawn Ashmore (The Following), Dominic Monaghan (Lost, Lord of the Rings), and reuniting Wire alums Aiden Gillen and Lance Reddick, Quantum Break moves along at a brisk pace, when you’re controlling the action and when you’re not (though the choices you make in-game dictate which episodes you’ll see). You’ll binge watch/play through the whole experience as quickly as you ate up the latest season of Daredevil. Gamers owe a collective thank you to developer Remedy for finally showing us all what a successful melding of the two mediums really looks like.
Trackmania Turbo
Seemingly crafted as a love letter to 90s arcade racers like Cruisin’ USA and San Francisco Rush, Trackmania Turbo is a shot of pure adrenaline. Realism is kicked to the curb; to start races, your car is usually dropped from a helicopter down a ramp and tracks feature long jumps and roller-coaster loops. Easy to learn but difficult to master, Trackmania lures you in and tempts you to spend the time it takes to become a master.
MLB The Show 16
Despite the fact that Sony has no one else to compete against in the video game baseball world (with EA’s MVP series still mystifyingly dormant) MLB The Show ratchets up the innovations every single year. This year’s installment doesn’t disappoint with the introduction of Showtime Moments, which slow down the action to give you more control over high-leverage junctures within a game. However, one note to Sony: You need to get Matt Vasgersian and the rest of the announcing crew back in the booth to record new dialogue. Snippets introduced four years ago are still repeating.
