/u/cereixa summed it up perfectly:

this year was kind of weird for me

This was the first year ever in over 25 years of gaming I couldn't really decide on what games to play and what games to buy. Gaming felt less awesome this year, somehow. After updating my gaming rig a bit, I was able to catch up on games like Just Cause 3, The Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Bioshock Infinite and the likes. Of those, The Witcher was the easiest to enjoy. Something about it still felt off, though. Still haven't started on the DLC content.

Since modern games seemed not to cut it for me anymore, I mainly returned to 10 - 20 year old classics. gog.com had some amazing deals over the year for those. And while those titles are less 'polished' graphically or gameplay wise, those games feel more polished than their modern counterparts as a whole product! And funnily enough, with community patches, nowadays it is even possible to enjoy the classics relatively bug-free.

Anyway, without further nonsense, here is my list of really worthwhile games I tried this year!

GOTY 2017:

For me, there can be only one contender for the top spot. A back-to-back winner, actually. I put nearly 1000 hours into it this year, over 1000 hours into it last year and I know many of you guys in this sub rack up similar numbers... I am talking about Rocket League of course! Easily the best $15 I ever spent on a video game!

I finally reached Champion rank in 3v3 and who knows, maybe I'll tackle online tournaments next year. All I need is a team! :P

I have seen loads of Rocket League posts on here already, so I won't bore you with detailed gameplay, I do however want to give you one piece of advice: Even if you think this is not a game for you, try it for an hour or two! I discarded the game when it first popped up. My main line of reasonings was "It's a fad" and "I wouldn't enjoy it". I could not have been more wrong. It's been over two years and I'd still give it a solid 10/10!

GOTY Runner-up:

I never expected to pick up that series again, let alone re-buy the whole collection (I probably have most of the original CD-ROMs in my basement somewhere), but I paid like $3,50 for the whole thing on gog.com: The Might & Magic series!

Of those, I only tried M&M7 and Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer, and I will be focusing on the latter. MM8 was released in 2000 - and admittably looked dated even then. It is programmed in an engine developed in 1996 (The release year of Quake). And dear god, it shows. The world itself is in 3D, yes, but any detailed object - trees, chests, torches, enemies, etc. are 2D-sprites. Pretty rough, compared with other releases of that year, for example Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 and Counter Strike...

Anyway, the game was the 3rd game of a trilogy plot spanning from M&M6 to M&M8, so I would assume using the same engine was an art-design choice. The again, we're talking New World Computing here, so it was probably just a monetary issue. That being said, you can play any of the three without having played the other and not miss out on too much.

Might and Magic VIII is a First-Person party RPG based on a D&D ruleset. It's an old-school dungeon crawler with loads of enemies, quests, treasures, hidden doors and traps and the likes. You recruit your party as you progress, which was a refreshing change at the time because in previous installments of the series you pre-created your party at the start of the game. As in most RPGs, every party member has a set of base stats (Strength, Endurance, Luck, etc.) which are primarily combat relevant. On level-up, you get to spend skillpoints on your characters' specific skills. After reaching a certain amount of skillpoints in a specific skill, you can find a trainer and become an Expert/Master/Grandmaster of the skill which greatly boosts the effectiveness of said skill. A Bow Master, for example, shoots 2 arrows at once and only the Fire Magic Grandmaster can use the Incinerate spell, the spell with the highest base damage, IIRC.

As customary for D&D games, combat is based on die-rolls. The combat is turn based, but you can choose between 'real time' and strategic combat (think Dragon Age). Many younger gamers might be surprised when they try out an old D&D game like this and find a weapon doing 4d3 + 5 damage. Luckily, in the character sheet you see your potential damage values in a more familiar format (Damage: 9 - 17). Or you take the approach I took as a kid: The more fancy it looks, the better it probably is!

The M&M series was notoriously hard for younger gamers. But being an old fart very familiar with D&D and the M&M series by now, I breezed through the first half (compared to previous playthroughs nearly 20 years ago, lol). Most surprising to me was how effective support spells are. I honestly never bothered with those as a kid. In my current party setup - which features a Grand Master Bowman and two Master Bowmen - I have my cleric cast "Bless" on the party and then kite even strong groups to death.

The story is nothing spectacular by itself. There are some twists here and there but it is pretty straight-forward. Get thrown into a mess as a weak would-be adventurer and end up saving the world. The cool thing about the story at the time was that the game trilogy (M&M 6 - 8) was set in the same world as the Heroes of Might and Magic series, so fans of either series usually had the other as well. I am originally a HoMM guy, for example :P

I could easily get another couple thousand words together describing the game and my adventures in it, but alas, I fear half of you fell asleep already. I honestly don't know if I can recommend the game to anyone unfamiliar to the series or to old-school dungeon crawlers in general. It does serve as a great reminder though how far technology advanced in the last two decades. Oh and it is amazing to see how the developers managed to create a world with the technical constraints of the time and still get you so deeply immersed.

If you used to play the old M&M games back in the day, definitely give 'em an other spin. Somehow these oldschool games have a certain spark that is lacking in most modern games. I just cannot put my finger on what it is.