15: Firewall: Zero Hour, developed by First Contact Entertainment Inc., played on the PlayStation VR for approximately 15 hours. "Dude, it's Rainbow Six Siege BUT IN VR!" Sold! Though it does lack the skills/abilities of the RB6 operators, the "contractors" have to either hack or defend a computer from an opposing team. The real selling point is the PSVR Aim Controller and how amazing it feels to hold a gun in your hand and having it appear in the game world in a 1-to-1 fashion. Being able to physically lean around corners, or hold out your weapon and blind fire is such a visceral feeling--if this is the future of competitive FPS games, count me in. It still has some proof-of-concept problems, such as the camera not tracking perfectly all the time and the game suffers from sever hosting problems (there's no host migration and I've probably spent more time searching/queuing for games than actually playing it); regardless, playing with a good team and flanking successfully as you aim down sights is a "high" that I don't get much anymore when playing competitive first person shooter games. Oh, and everyone is a PSVR is super friendly... it's weird.
14: Far Cry 5, developed by Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Toronto, played on the PlayStation 4 Pro for approximately 30 hours. Yes, it's another Far Cry game that feels just like 4, which feels just like 3. Yes, the story isn't great and pulls any significant punches that could have made a compelling narrative. That said, I made this game fun (for me) by turning off all the HUD elements, cranking up the difficulty, and making the game an extremely challenging stealth combat experience. I was forced to stealth, otherwise I would get destroyed by reinforcements or aerial attacks. Boomer was my buddy character, but I only had him around so I could pet him. I really had a blast exploring John's region, and felt super immersed in this cult-ridden county. The creepy inspirational evangelical songs really helped with that immersion, and the sound design was definitely a high point for me. Unfortunately, the game starts to feel repetitive after awhile, as Faith and Jacob's region had the same cadence/story delivery and the cracks of the game design became all too apparent. Messing around with my friends in cooperative mode helped overcome those lulls, though I wish the game could have lived up to the enjoyment I got out of John's region. I never finished Far Cry 4, so at least this game carried me all the way through--though I would love to see this franchise go back to the direction Far Cry 2 was taking them to.
13. Hitman 2, developed by IO Interactive, played on the Xbox One X for 13 hours. "It's more Hitman." It is. And, initially, I thought that's all I wanted. Turns out I PLAYED A LOT OF HITMAN, because I burned out on this one pretty fast. I still haven't completed the last map, and I'm not super pressed to do so. That said, these maps are some of the best Hitman maps I've ever played, and I had a blast playing through these situations on the hardest difficulty and the UI/HUD elements all turned off. It's nice just stumbling on inventive Hitman kill scenarios, juxtaposed to checking off a series of checklists and having autopilot turned on. It might be an unfair criticism to this game, but it's basically just the same game as the 2016 game, and this just feels like a "season 2" DLC pack. I put in so many hours into that game, that I felt like the fatigue set in pretty fast. There's really nothing incredibly new to separate this from its predecessor (the mirror visibility thing is cool) and purchasing this game on the Xbox storefront was the weirdest thing (you have to download each map piecemeal, even though they only sell one packaged game and you can't buy them individually). It makes NO SENSE! I feel like I'm being super negative--I'm not. I loved Hitman (2016) and that extends to this title, but it is unfortunately more of the same, even if that same is pretty friggen' great.