Of 2017: The Most Played Games
Remember when video games used to show you all the data they had on your playtime? Just like Google and Facebook though, developers have decided to hide all those juicy stats over the last few years making this a hard category to research for 2017.
No Man’s Sky doesn’t have a counter on PlayStation 4 but I know without a doubt that it’s Number One on this list for me. There is nothing more engrossing than planet after planet of procedurally generated solitude. Sometimes that solitude is trying to kill you and sometimes it’s just a bunch of rocks that need names. That was captivating enough but I picked up the game just as its base-building and vehicle expansions released. It was a perfect time to deep-dive into the game’s rejuvenated reddit community and I even dragged Cazz back to the game where we spent a few weeks alternating livestreams of our latest findings. Once I picked it up No Man’s Sky in March is practically all I played between March and June which must’ve accounted for well over 100 hours.
What happened in June that dragged me away? Crossout! The game also lacks a counter but thanks to its daily grind the free-to-player, multiplayer battle-builder sucked up a ton of time through August. Believe me, there’s more to say about the game but that’ll come in tomorrow’s post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx2ju_E9MXE
Finally, a game with an hour-counter! Even after 81 hours with Final Fantasy XV I can’t tell you if I like it. Illogical anime bullshit and a confounding combat system grated on my nerves but somehow it won me over in the end. The camaraderie of the four characters — cliche and overwrought as they all are — combined with all the Final Fantasy trappings, and thrown into an open world game produced a combination that I couldn’t stop playing. And that’s not including the hours of supplementary content I soaked up like Kingsglaive, Brotherhood, A King’s Tale, Moonlit Melodies, and loads of subreddit theory-crafting.
I could probably tell you how many hours I spent with another Square Enix RPG in 2017 but I made the hardcore decision in NieR: Automata that erased my save file. As best I recall it was around 40 hours though. I’m happy that so many more people discovered Yoko Taro’s brand of weirdness but Automata didn’t hold a candle to the original NieR for me. I enjoyed its major twists and surprises but it didn’t propel me to go back through the game for all 26 endings and 100% completion.
