Our top 5 video games of 2015 (Tomorrow Daily 292)

It's that time of year, our last show of 2015. We're talking about our favorite games. Oh man, so many great games coming right up. You're watching Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] Greetings citizens of the internet. Welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best geek talk show in the known universe. I'm Ashley Esqueda. I'm Jeff Cannata and today we give you our top five games of 2015, a year I think, that will go down as some of the best years in video games ever. Yeah. I think you're right. This was a year where there were so many good games that a top five list inevitably will make many of you extremely angry. So, Take a deep breath, and let's put this, oh first I should explain how we did this if you have not been watching our last two episodes. Our best of, you can check out our best of movies, that was our Monday episode. Tuesday was our best of tech, we put in all our favorite gadgets. Today was the same as the other two days. Each one of us, Jeff and I, and producer Logan all got Five votes, number one through number five. Yeah, we made out personal top five lists and then those were ranked according to a point scale. Yeah. That created our aggregate list. And this actually resulted in some ties. This got crazy, this got crazy. The points got out of control. This really did get out of control. So with that being said we are actually not going to start at number five, but we are gonna start at number three with there are five games Number three and number two were two way ties and then we'll do number one. Two ties for two numbers. [LAUGH] It's crazy. It's been a very interesting year. So, our very first game we're gonna talk about, number three, our tie for third, is going to be Rocket League. The Rocket League was a huge game this year. Yeah, it came out of nowhere. I don't think anybody saw this one coming. It seems like a silly idea. Oh, cars playing soccer? Futuristic soccer cars. All right, well that will be a a silly, dumb game. But no, It turns out it was one of the most incredible multiplayer experiences of the year, for sure. Yeah. Great mechanics, super fun controls, great moments where, I mean, so many sharable moments. Yeah. That was one of my favorite things, is this game Lent itself so well to social media. I love seeing animated gifts of people like making or missing shots. This was definitely one of my favorite parts of Rocket Leap. I wasn't even playing the game. I was watching other people play the game yelling at each other and freaking out. It was So great. You know I always describe Rocket League -- if FIFA is simulating an entire game of soccer Rocket League is simulating just your foot. Yeah. That's a really good way to put it. It's like if you had complete control over just your foot that's like all the little angles that you would put on your foot to kick the ball correctly. Beautiful. Beautiful. That's like the most genius Way I've ever heard someone describe Rocket League. Now, it changed my entire perspective on that game. I'm amazed, that is amazing. That's a great analogy. I'm glad I just blew your mind. You did just incredibly blow my mind. This was producer Logan's number one. That was his favorite game of the year. I mean, you have to admire it. It's a small studio that really took the world by storm. And surprised a lot of people. It's done very smartly as far as how they monetize all the DLC packs. Very much. All the fun tie-ins with Back to the Future and other stuff. But you don't need the DLC to be a better player, which is always great. Exactly. So, speaking of that. Yeah! Let's discuss your #1 game, but the tie for third, And that is Heroes of the Storm, which I put more hours into this game than any other game all year, so it had to be my number one game. Yes. It really is the game that convinced me that I could love MOBAs and made me fall in love with MOBAs and made me competitive and really love the skill Including my own skill, not like skills of characters in games. It was the skills of Jeff. I leveled me up. The skill of Jeff. I leveled me up this year. Skill of Jeff also the name of his 1980 synth band. Yeah. By the way, our first album was amazing. [LAUGH] I love it. Really excited for that. Yeah, so, it's free to play. I know a lot of people love League of Legends and DotA. I could never get into those games but somehow The Blizzard magic of making the game shorter. I was gonna say is this the shorter matches, because 20 minute matches seem to be a really good sweet spot for a lot of people.>> It has a lot to do with it, I'll be honest. Being able to sit down and go yeah I have 20 minutes, I can get in a game of Heroes, and I end up playing four. But I wouldn't do that if it was like 45 minute League match. Yeah. That's very true. I think it might be different. You can get in two for the price of one League match. I get it. And I really dig those characters. I think the game looks great, it plays really smoothly, the variety of heroes is fun. I'm hooked on it. Yeah. And I mean, first of all, that trailer is, the cinematic Four Heroes of the Storm is one of my favorite things of all time in gaming. It's so exciting and I get so cranked watching it. Full disclosure, my brother works at Blizzard He works on Heroes of the Storm. I play other Blizzard games way more than Heroes but Heroes is a really great game. I've. It's super and it's free. Free to play. I've almost played 2,000 games of Heroes of the Storm. That is an addiction my friend. That is a sickness. I'm not proud of it. [LAUGH] I think that you are full of it actually. A little I'm proud of it I'm not part of what it's done to my family. [LAUGH] Fair enough. Jack is just like a fall guy who is fusing Blizzard for his addiction to [UNKNOWN]. Very sad. Great game. Super great game. Okay, so let's move on to number two, which was also again a two-way tie because of all of our point distribution. I mean, I gotta figure out a better way to do these Points extra. [LAUGH] We need to have an [UNKNOWN] to come in and- We do. We need to have a final tie breaker. So, number two is a tie between Splatoon. Which we'll talk about right now and Rise of Tomb Raider. Which we'll talk about next. Well you love Splatoon. Just like you said, Splatoon was my number one game of the year and I know that Sounds a little wonky, but this was the game I poured everything into this year. Most of my time was spend in Inkopolis and splatting people, destroying them, crushing them mercilessly. [LAUGH] And I had such a great time doing it. There is nothing like Splatoon. There's nothing like it. Nintendo did such a great job creating a brand-new franchise, a brand-new IP. For us to love. I can't wait to see what they bring to the next console, the next Nintendo console. I'm already in on Splatoon. Oh, see what you did there? I already named it. You're welcome Nintendo. So yeah, they have done such a great job with no paid DLC, everything is just added tot he game. You'll log in and be like Oh, hey, we have a news update. There's a new gun in the shop, or there's a new level, like Mahi Mahi resort is absolute insanity. This game is so much fun, you guys, and if you haven't played it, if you have a Wii U, you're really missing out, if you don't have a Wii U, man, buy that Splatoon pack, because it's so worth it, and if you are super hesitant about getting a Wii U because you wanna wait for the next console, When the next console comes and there is a new Splatoon, just get it.>>It's pretty amazing>>Do yourself a..It's so fun>>They took this thing, first person shooters, which on a competitive level are very hard to get into. They have very intense communities and the barrier to entry is high.>>Very High.>>And they made a game that breaks down that barrier. That welcomes new gamers into it. I think that's to be commended for sure. Yeah and I love that they split it up into turf wars, so you can just go in and have fun. And there's no consequences, you're not gonna lose rank. And then there's ranked matches which are great and have so many fun modes. Rainmaker mode is awesome. I mean there's so many great things about Platoon that I could say. I could go on all day about it. It was my number one for sure. Let's talk about one of your favorite games. For sure. Rise of the Tomb Raider. Rise of the Tomb Raider I think is the best looking game of the year. It's beautiful. It is it takes what they set up with the last Tomb Raider game that reboot of the franchise and really takes it to the next level with really inventive optional tombs that I always feel smart when I figure them out. They're all different from each other and And really make sense in a, from a conceptual level. The combat is fun, the exploration is great, and the platforming feels super tight. By the end of the game, when you have gotten all her different modes of getting around the world. Acting Yeah. It feels like so powerful and cool. It's a fantastic experience. You really do feel like they're gorillas. Like, you are Laura Croft. That's the whole point of the game. And I thought that they did a really job. I didn't get to play through a lot of the optional tools. Like, I got to the first one and I was like, I gotta finish this game before the end of the year so I can talk about it. Yeah. I really love that by the end of the game, You felt like you grew into Lara Croft, the Lara Croft we know and love is the woman you are at the end of this game. Yep. And it's so hard to do that pitch perfect and they really did it right. I really wouldn't change anything about the game. I think the story is really well done. I I loved it. I loved this experience. It felt like the right length. I was in the world. There's tons of optional stuff to do, but the story itself felt as good as any uncharted game. Mm-hmm. Man, I really excited That this franchise is continuing, I can't wait to see the next one here either. The only reason it wasn't higher on my list, is because it was an Xbox One Exclusive, and I know a lot of people who only have Playstation 4s, who are waiting very patiently for that exclusivity window to end next year. I'm sure they'll really enjoy it. But I was really bummed. I hate those exclusives sometimes. Especially the windowed exclusives. BEcause you know it's coming and you've got to wait for it and you have to listen to all your friends on XBox like oh. I hope it sells like gang busters when it finally goes to the PC an to the PS4. PC gets it early. PC gets it next month. Yes. Which is great. So those are number twos. They are tied. And our number one gain, again just like mad Max the movie. It was a runaway win. Unanimous. Across the board. Yes. It was unanimous. Well it was unanimous that was all our number ones. It was all of our number twos. All of our number twos. That added up to the number one game. It's Fallout 4. It's gotta be Fallout 4. What an experience this game is. Just the breath of content. The sense of exploration. The fact that it feels like there's an actual location that you're investigating in this game. Yes. It feels real enough to where you, if you've been to Boston Right. There are landmarks that you see and it really kind of puts you in that place. But even if you haven't, you get a sense of what the city was. Yeah. And even in this sort of alternate universe version of Boston but It was so much fun being able to get out into the world, I found that in this game because of the crafting, I didn't feel as bad about scavenging everything. Right, everything actually had a use. Because I did that in Fallout 3 for no reason whatsoever and now with all of the really great expanded new settlement building like from New Vegas they've kind of expanded this Idea of building out and being able to do it in multiple locations which also is really cool. I really, really enjoyed this. It was so much fun even when you run up against legendary death claws [LAUGH] Yeah. It's frustrating but always fun. There are tools to take down things. You have power suits. You have big weapons. You have these Ways to manage those situations that's really clever and interesting too. But I love the storytelling. I love the fact that everything in a location tells a story. Yes. What trash is there. Details. Yeah. It's so good. Oh my gosh, it feels like a vibrant lived in place. Yeah. Like being able to go into a bunker, like a bonus bunker. You sort of see this office and then there is some clipboards and then you see some other stuff and then you read the terminal. You hack into the terminal, you get the story out of it and you're just like this was a place that something happened. Right. You really get that feeling and you don't see of any of it. It's not the main story. It's not the, but every place Has its own back story and that- Truly fills in so much detail. It's such a rich world, such a rich world. And really, I mean, endless, he could play it forever. I'm gonna play a lot of it over the break. I'm really excited about doing more and getting out into the glowing sea and Rad Scorpions. I can't wait to go find some legendary ghoul So that's our five games. We only got to number three, but it's five games that [UNKNOWN] two ties and that is a lot of really quality stuff off the list. We had a few. In particular. Yeah, we had a few honorable mentions. I wanna bring up the Witcher 3. Cuz you have to. It's a fantastic game that deserves the Discussion of game of the year for sure. On a lot of people's game of the year top of the list. I know it was Game Spot's top of the list it was their game of the year. But Rocket League oddly enough came in at number two. So again, totally varied year like people had really, there was so much choice. Yeah. That and also, Metal Gear Solid V. Which is an incredible game. Amazing. It I think it's a game that I admire more than I love. Because I didn't like the feeling of the tension. But man, you can't help but admire the amount of creativity that you're able to bring to the battlefield. The way that [UNKNOWN] blew open the [UNKNOWN] of [UNKNOWN] and it an open world game. I thought that was going to be an impossible task and it 3 And he really did the impossible. And now he's at Sony! He's gonna be making games for Sony. We'll see. Which is pretty incredible, let's hope, you think that Konami will let them have Silent Hill? No. [LAUGH] I think Konami is very angry right now. Oh, yeah, probably pretty upset. Other honorable mentions, I loved Her Story. Yeah. If you haven't played that, please play that, it's an amazing narrative that takes place in an old Nineties computer. It's very strange. It's FMV. I mean it's really an incredible experience if you're into detective work. Feel like. Do some work. It's unlike anything else you'll play this year. I will guarantee. Very true. And then also Producer Logan wanted to mention Batman Arkham Knight which he really really enjoyed. And also. So Guitar Hero Live, which he has been playing a lot of this season, he really likes it. [INAUDIBLE] me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but overflowing with great games, we could probably make a list of ten or twenty more that are worth it this year. Think of the Scrooge McDuck vault, but instead of coins, they're games, you could just Swim in them this year. Good games filled up that vault this year, like no other year before it, I think. Yeah, I love game swimming. But 2016 is shaping up to be pretty interesting. So I think you guys are definitely going to have some things to say about our top five list. Please feel free to share them down in the comments. We won't fight you on either because that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Cause we're all winners here. [CROSSTALK] We're all one great games all year long. That's right and no one's really wrong. Like your favorite game this year could have been Bloodborn. That's a great game. So there are so many choices. Please feel free to share yours. We're dying to read what you guys had for your top five down in the comments. You wanna find us online we are all over the Internet as individuals and as a show, and of course if you want to email us you can email us at tomorrow@cnet.com. This is our last show of the year. Oh but I'm excited cuz when we come back we're gonna be at CES. We're gonna be in Vegas, we've got some great guests. Maybe a little I Justine. Maybe Nick Cannon. Wow top tier. I'm just saying some great people are gonna stop by the show. There's gonna be all kinds of stuff to talk about because we're gonna be seeing all kinds of crazy new upcoming tech. That's right. The biggest show of the year. It's gonna be awesome. You guys are gonna love it. We will be back in Las Vegas [MUSIC] But until then, have a great new year, have a great holiday. And of course, as always, be a good human. Bye, guys. [MUSIC]