Good at games

Hate 'em or love 'em, live-service games are here to stay that's kind of their whole shtick. In , five live-service games stood out above the rest, implementing substantial improvements to their existing formula or finding new ways to tell ever-expanding stories. Below, we list those five games and detail what it is about them that impressed us so much this year. These games aren't listed in order of best to worse or vice versa; we've simply put them in alphabetical order. They're all wonderful examples of how live-service games can be sustained over time, each accomplishing excellence in their own way.

Apex Legends continued to be a dominant force in the battle royale space in The year saw developer Respawn release four new seasons, four new playable characters, four new weapons, a new mode, new maps, and a whole host of balancing adjustments and changes. Plus, Apex Legends finally made its way to Switch--it's definitely not the ideal way to play, but it works.

The new mode, Arenas, is certainly the highlight for Apex Legends' year, expanding the game outside the battle royale space with an excellent mode that resembles Valorant. In , Respawn doubled down on promoting its own community, creating an intriguing new avenue for how live-service games can tell a story.

The developer hired members of the community to flesh out the stories of Apex Legends with traditional comics, animated comics, and 3D animated videos. In many cases, these artists were creating the first look and mannerisms of preexisting but unseen characters. Sure, Respawn had a guiding hand for every story, but most artists had final say on what they created, making Apex Legends into one of the few live-service games where its fans have creative ownership over aspects of the narrative too.

Destiny 2 has had an incredible year--the return of the Vault of Glass raid, new events, the best storytelling the game has ever seen, and so many balancing changes that we've had a nonstop stream of news to cover about patches alone. The PvE side of Destiny 2 is always being updated, so as incredible as the updates for it have been this year, it's a payoff of what Bungie has spent years setting up.

The same can't really be said for PvP, which doesn't get nearly as much regular love in comparison. That changed in , with Bungie implementing a new system to further balance team composition in Crucible when folks queue in solo. Trials of Osiris also relaunched with plenty of impressive improvements to help make the skill-based mode less exclusionary and more approachable for new players.

Even in a year where Destiny 2 had plenty of cool revelations tied to its PvE campaign, the PvP side shouldn't be overlooked. Portal was an instant classic, and remains so today. The sequel, Portal 2, was one of the most anticipated games of all time. It was bigger in every way, fleshing out the backstory of Aperture Science, adding a few new characters, and giving the player new tools to progress through the new puzzles. System Shock 2 is an undeniable classic among not just shooters, but video games in general, because of its engrossing story and the way it allows you to build out a character with skills in almost any sci-fi specialty.

BioShock was the spiritual successor to System Shock, trading the sci-fi setting for alternate history in an Art Deco Atlantis. The story is also pretty fantastic. BioShock 2 is best skipped—it was a disappointing sequel developed by a separate team.

But BioShock Infinite, a prequel to the original that is set on a floating city of religious zealots, is widely considered one of the best games of the last ten years. The setup of BioShock is expanded with a new swashbuckling mechanic for moving around the levels, and a useful AI character who can rip open holes in time and space.

The Fallout series takes place in an alternate future of the United States, where culture froze after the s and then blew up when the world was destroyed by nuclear war. Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 4 all share broadly similar elements, though New Vegas is generally considered the best by fans.

Technically, the Metal Gear Solid series are shooter games, in the sense that your character has a gun and can shoot people. The series became a classic way back on the PlayStation with the original Metal Gear Solid technically the third game in the series going back to the s , thanks to its unconventional sneaking around, rich and sometimes goofy characters, and a deep story about paramilitary conflicts, nuclear proliferation, clones, and giant robots. You might need multiple consoles to get through all of the games these days only the first and last games were released on the PC , but going all the way from one to five is a rich experience.

The storytelling can veer into the insane at times, but the sneaky, creative gameplay is always satisfying. Multiplayer games are the flipside of the shooter universe. They tend to eschew deep storylines in favor of pure, multiplayer fun.

Death matches operate like a battle royale, where your objective is just to kill everyone else. Team death matches work similarly, but you play as part of a team whose job it is to kill the other team.

You may also find various other team modes, depending on the game. Some offer conquer the flag scenarios, some provide objectives like setting or diffusing bombs. Overwatch is insanely popular at the moment, and not just because of its colorful character design and frequent content updates.

And I mean that in both the literal and figurative senses. Most of the support characters can heal their team members with lock-on or aura tools. Tanks characters can protect their team with shields or deal out damage with massive melee hits and lock-on weapons. Defensive heroes can build up turrets to damage and slow enemies automatically. Heavy characters with explosive weapons excel at splash damage and knocking enemies off the map. The point is, no matter what your play style, skill level, or preference, you can probably find more than one character in Overwatch that suits you.

Even players who are shooter novices can perform well in the competitive mode with the right hero and some practice. Nintendo has always leaned on the strength of its classic single-player franchises to drive sales. So when the company revealed Splatoon, a team-based online shooter set in enclosed arenas, it came out of left field.

The games turn conventions of the shooter genre on their head, and incidentally take advantage of the generally less-precise controls available on console. You might recognize Plants Vs. Zombies as a top-down tower defense game. Multiplayer is available in both player-versus-player and co-op arenas. Even as the game progresses closer to New Year's Day, the snowy backdrops maintain the festive feel.

The holidays may typically be a time for family and togetherness, but Dead Rising 4 uses Christmas as a backdrop for fighting near-endless waves of the undead. Every game in the now-seemingly-defunct franchise has emphasized using unconventional items as weapons, and Dead Rising 4 lets players utilize plenty of Christmas decorations as they help protagonist Frank West clear his name and investigate a zombie outbreak in Colorado. The game steers clear of most of the obvious "Christmas consumerism is like a zombie virus" analogies, but it's still good fun to kill the undead to a Christmas music soundtrack.

Duke Nukem Forever may be one of the biggest video game flops from a major developer , but the franchise was once a respectable if crude shooter series. In this game, aliens have kidnapped Santa, and Duke needs to go to the North Pole to set things right. On his mission, Duke fights such Christmassy enemies as evil snowmen, elves with shotguns, and even Duke Nukem look-alikes dressed in Santa outfits. In the base game, the Third Street Saints were granted superpowers in order to escape a simulation run by alien invaders.

This expansion sees the Saints heading back to the simulation in order to save Santa Claus after a future version of Shaundi travels back in time. She warns them about the evil Santa Claws that will terrorize the future if the Saints fail their rescue mission. Parasite Eve is one of few video games based on books , and it also happens to take place on Christmas. The game, based on Hideaki Sena's novel of the same name, is centered on a fairly bizarre premise: "What if mitochondria were actually part of a sentient being waiting to overtake the entire planet?

The narrative begins during a Christmas Eve opera at which almost everyone spontaneously combusts. From there, the player follows protagonist Aya Brea for a week following Christmas as she attempts to stop the villain Eve from using mitochondria to kill the human race.

The Yakuza and Christmas may not seem to have much in common, but several games in the series take place on or around Christmas.