Top 10 Games of 2015

10. Splatoon

My reaction when making this list and admitting that I didn't like Splatoon
as much as I thought I did.

Splatoon was extremely fun for a while, but I got bored with it. I don't regret buying it, nor the time I spent with it, but at this point I don't see myself playing it much anymore. I do admit, however, that the inklings are absolutely adorable, and I'll probably purchase any and all merchandise that bears even a passing resemblance to them.

9. Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

I know this game gets a lot of hate for basically being nothing more than a poor imitation of a normal Animal Crossing game, but I'm having a lot of fun with. I've been sitting here for several minutes trying to come up with a rational reason, yet I can't. There's no scoring. There're no achievements. There's no real goal, per se. All that it has is a strangely cathartic interiour design element where you design the homes you want to see.

8. Super Mario Maker

Pipes. I love pipes. I must've created about six decent levels based entirely around pipes. I don't know why. They just seem to make sense to me structurally. Anyway, where was I going with this? I dunno. Super Mario Maker is a lot of fun, even if other users don't use nearly enough pipes in their levels to be any good.

7. Big Pharma

I was pleasantly surprised by this little, indie puzzle game. All you do is build conveyor belts and make money selling drugs! Okay, sure, there are other things, but that's all that matters.

6. Story of Seasons

I always have a hard time when trying to describe this game. I keep starting with something along the lines of "it's a Harvest Moon game...", and then I trail off. That opening is both true and false, and that brings my brain to a screeching halt. It's a great game and all, but I don't know what to do without the Harvest Moon moniker these games used to carry.

5. Just Cause 3

This game does not mess around. It gives you a huge open world. It gives you a means of traversing the world in a quick and satisfying way. It gives you the means (several, in fact) of interacting with (i.e. destroying) that huge world. Why, just last night I had a right ol' good time destroying a huge open-pit mining facility. It was glorious.

4. Assassin's Creed: Syndicate

Probably the prettiest game on the list, Syndicate does an amazing job of rendering the shit-covered streets of Victorian London. It also marked itself as one of the good Assassin's Creed games by remembering that the plot in these games is always rubbish and fills in that gap with interesting, unique characters.

3. Fallout 4

I never really got into the Fallout series. I tried playing the classics, and even tried New Vegas, but none of them really clicked for me. That changed with Fallout 4. I blame the romance mechanic entirely. I'm such a sucker for those things.

2. The Witcher 3

Speaking of game series I never really liked, I could never lose myself in the first Witcher game. No amount of sexy romance collectible cards could fix extremely boring gameplay. Fortunately, The Witcher 3 was fun to play and explore. I frequently had no idea what was going on, plot-wise. But, I eventually pieced together a few salient points. Specifically, I need to rescue pseudo-daughter Ciri, Yennefer is completely unlikable, and Triss is, like, way hot.

1. Cities: Skylines

At last, the horrible drought is over! We have an actual successor to the godlike SimCity 4! Long may it reign!

Honourable Mentions:

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Fun for a while, but a single, grating escort mission basically ruined the game for me. I haven't played it since.

Galactic Civilization 3

A dangerous game for the time-constrained, but it was so similar to its predecessor that I had a hard time losing myself in it.

Pillars of Eternity

A fun CRPG with interesting characters, but my overall distaste for CRPGs eventually won out, and I abandoned it.

Team Fortress 2

Sigh, once again, I have to acknowledge that, in spite of the hours I've poured into this game over the past year, it still came out all the way back in 2008.

2015 Reading Challenge Results

See? I was keeping track!

Well, I couldn't mark all of the boxes on POPSUGAR's reading challenge for last year, but I did the best I could. Without further ado, here are the results!

Total Books Read: 24

Total Pages Read: 7,922

Total Books Read For Challenge: 18

Boxes Checked 29 / 50 (58%)

Challenge Books

The Agony and the Ecstasy – Irving Stone (good)

• A book with more than 500 pages (776 pages)
• A book set in a different country (Italy)
• A book based on a true story (Michelangelo’s Life)
• A book with antonyms in the title
• A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit (Italy)

Dave Barry Turns 50 – Dave Barry (very good)

• A book with a number in the title
• A funny book
• A book from an author you love that you haven't read yet

Seventh Son – Orson Scott Card (good)

• A book that came out the year you were born (1987)
• A book with magic

Captive Paradise – James L. Haley (okay)

• A nonfiction book
• A book by an author you've never read before

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov (good)

• A banned book
• A book you started but never finished

Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton (very good)

• A classic romance
• A book by a female author

The Martian – Andy Weir (very good)

• A book that became a movie
• A mystery or thriller

Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster) – Dave Barry (very good)

• A book published this year

Pepper – Marjorie Shaffer (okay)

• A book with a one-word title

The Metamorphosis and Other Stories – Franz Kafka (okay)

• A book of short stories

Spam Nation – Brian Krebs (good)

• A popular author's first book

The Billion Dollar Spy – David E. Hoffman (very good)

• A book a friend recommended

The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddhartha Mukherjee (bad)

• A Pulitzer Prize-winning book (2011, general non-fiction)

So, Anyway... - John Cleese (good)

• A memoir

Behold the Man – Michael Moorcock (very good)

• A book you can finish in a day

Anya's Ghost – Vera Brosgol (okay)

• A graphic novel

4000 Years of Uppity Women – Vicki León (bad)

• A book you own but have never read

Ada's Algorithm – James Essinger (very bad)

• A book written by an author with your same initials (JE)

Non-Challenge Books

These are books I just read for fun, and have nothing to do with the reading challenge.

I, Claudius – Robert Graves (good)

The Orchardist – Amanda Coplin (very good)

Undeniable – Bill Nye (good)

Muhammad – Karen Armstrong (good)

God's Problem – Bart D. Ehrman (bad)

Physics for the Rest of Us – Roger S. Jones (okay)