Year in Review 2015: 10 Best Games

10: Assassin's Creed: Syndicate

Assassin's Creed Syndicate sees the history-jumping series moving to Industrial Revolution-era London. Twin assassins Jacob and Evie Frye have come to the city looking to interrupt the reign of Crawford Starrick, an evil Templar industrialist who gives out marching orders to the gangs running the city's streets.

9: Star Wars: Battlefront

Star Wars Battlefront is one of the best games I've played this year; the visuals were stunning, the audio was fantastic and the immersion was perfect! Whether you fight for the Rebel Alliance or you walk the path of the dark side, this game will keep you entertained for a long time to come. I can honestly say that the force is strong with this game!

8: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Gone are the long Codac calls, the linear gameplay and awkward controls. The Phantom Pain is the least Metal Gear Metal Gear game, but it's by far the best!

7: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider takes everything that was successful in the 2013 reboot, including its stunning graphics and re-imagined Lara, and takes it one step further.

6: Rainbow Six: Siege

Rainbow Six Siege is already fighting a difficult battle trying to enforce a more methodical vision of a competitive shooter. It's a minor miracle that Ubisoft Montreal has built such a solid foundation in that regard. But the bizarre progression hooks Siege borrows from free-to-play games, its dearth of content and its network problems make for an awful lot of frustration to overcome in search of those rare moments of unit cohesion.

5: Call of Duty Black Ops III

How you feel about Black Ops 3 as a package will depend on what you’re looking for in a shooter. If your focus is on competitive play, then this will be your favourite CoD of recent years. If you and your mates love to smash things up in co-op, Black Ops III gives you plenty of opportunities, so get stuck in. Yet it’s hard to escape the nagging feeling that this would have been a better CoD had Treyarch focused less on the co-op and the extras, and a little more on delivering their best CoD campaign to date.

4: Bloodborne

Bloodborne is a significant evolution of the Dark Souls formula. The many changes From has made to its core gameplay — the very tenets of combat and customization that have driven the games from the beginning — feel like a direct response to the crutches that players came to rely on in past titles.

3: Fallout 4

Fallout 4 is one of the best games I've played this year. New players to the series may wonder how they went so long without Fallout in their lives, but it is not for the faint-hearted. As Bethesda's "Welcome Home" marketing campaign teases, when fans of Fallout 3 or New Vegas enter this new world, it'll feel strangely familiar. As one of the top games of the previous generation, this isn't a bad thing at all. Fallout 4 has all of the trappings that can keep you engaged for days on end.

2: Halo 5

If you’re growing tired of the franchise and were really hoping Microsoft and 343 would hold true to their promise to evolve the formula a bit, be wary that the newest stuff is where the game gets a bit shaky. However, if you’ve loved the Halo blueprint up to now and are looking for an updated current-gen version, there’s more than enough here to offer a solid recommendation. It’s not the best Halo game I’ve ever played, but it is good, delivering most of the Halo essentials without compromise.

1: Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

With commiserations to Bioware and Bethesda, Wild Hunt is the new RPG by which all other RPGs should be judged. Not only has CD Projekt Red delivered the largest and most convincing fantasy open-world we’ve ever seen, but a storyline, quests and systems that make it an incredibly compelling place to run, ride and sail around in. It’s the GTA 5 or Red Dead Redemption of sword and sorcery sagas and the biggest, most breathtaking time sink you’re likely to play this year.