The 2016 Player 2 Video Game Fantasy Draft – Round 1

The 2016 Player 2 Video Game Fantasy Draft

Every year people sit down with their favourite sport and begin to look ahead at the season to come. Be it Football, AFL, Rugby League, Basketball or Baseball fans go through the annual ritual of a Fantasy Draft and try to put together a team to beat the the entire competition. Well here at Player 2 our favourite sport is…. well video games and we didn’t want to miss out on all the fun. So welcome to the 2016 Player 2 Video Game Fantasy Draft.

Here is how it works. Six of our writers sat down and picked 5 video games plus a wildcard. Each of these games were picked in a round with the writers taking turns. The catch being that if the game had already been picked by another writer it was off the table. The goal is to have the highest score at the end of the year earned by adding together the writer’s group of games Metacritic scores. The wildcard is used as a substitute if one of the chosen games performs poorly or is delayed until 2017. Games chosen have to be released in 2016 and at the time they were chosen couldn’t have already been released.

So basically 5 rounds + a Wild card round (one game per round). At end of year each of the 5 games metacritic score is added together. Person with highest score wins. Wild card can come in to swap out a delayed or low scoring game.

Clear as mud? Well luckily Paul put together this great video to explain it better.

Ok so now you have the gist of it let’s kick things off with round one.

Round One

Paul James – Uncharted 4

There are two things in 2016 that you can count on, that Geelong will win the AFL premiership and that Uncharted 4 will be one of the best received games of 2016. Naughty Dog is one of the premiere developers in the industry and it’s hard to deny that Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End won’t get scores similar to their last three projects (Uncharted 2 – 96, Uncharted 3 – 92, The Last of Us – 95), and if it succeeds in this, then it’s a fair chance of being the best reviewed game of 2016. I may also be a little biased as I share an unrivalled love of the series and developer.

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Sarah Ellen – Hyrule Warriors Legends

Hyrule Warriors was a particularly divisive game on its release in late 2014, with some hailing it as Team Ninja’s first successful collaboration with Nintendo, and others criticising the fan service as a way to mask the repetitive fighting style. Despite this debate, Hyrule Warriors managed a overall average of 77%. I genuinely think that Hyrule Warriors Legends provides enough content to be considered a game in its own right rather than a direct port of the original Hyrule Warriors content, and will manage to beat this score. This is not only based on the introduction of new mechanics (character-changing on the fly), but also Nintendo’s thorough hype with the introduction of Linkle. I am more confident of a top score for Legends than I am making any recommendations on AFL premiership contenders (what is sports).

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Adam Rorke – Street Fighter V

I didn’t pick SFV from a purely biased perspective. Everything Capcom are doing with this game is signalling its vast success in 2016. Making sure the netcode is solid, a diverse and interesting cast of characters and more importantly, an emphasis on being an approachable game for the masses. This couldn’t come at a better time with eSports alone having a sharp increase in the last few years, you only need to look at the crowds at EVO to realise the scene is strong with a dedicated community. SFV’s success is a no brainer.

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Matt Hewson – Xcom 2

There are two types of people in this world. People who like Xcom and people who are wrong. Luckily for me the people who review games are generally in the first group making this strategy sequel a sure thing. Everything Firaxis has shown me indicates that this game is going to improve in every way over its amazing sequel. This should lead to super high scores and the loss of huge amounts of my spare time. Can a “Game-of-the-Year” be released in February? When it is Xcom it can!

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James Swinbanks – No Man’s Sky

On the face of it, I know I’ve taken a risk with this being my first pick. But, if you’re anything like me (which I hope for your sake you are not) then you have been feeding any scrap of information, any screenshot, any interview with Sean Murray, who is no doubt at this time pouring over his team’s new game. It’s a hefty undertaking, with apparently everything within the game being procedurally generated. Each player will start on their own planet, and there is no guarantee you’ll ever find anyone else. The overriding question is rightly “What the hell do you even do?” and despite some more details coming out last year, there is still a question of motive. Is it enough to simply have a vast universe to explore? Or will there be more? I think there certainly will be, and it’s my first pick of our 2016 draft.

Diplo

Stephen del Prado – Persona 5

Want to know a little secret? I haven’t finished Persona 4: Golden, or Persona 3 Portable, or even Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth (I did platinum Persona 4: Dancing All Night though, which to be fair takes about 8 hours). None of this prevents me from being very excited about a Persona game coming to the PlayStation 4 this year, at least to Japan and North America – Bless Sony for making the PS3 and PS4 region free. I spend more time on my PS4 than I do on any of my handhelds, so this may be the first main series Persona game I manage to complete which pleases me to no end. In my mind the team at Atlus have done a great job refining the gameplay of the Persona series over the past decade, promising a few new twists to spice things up in Persona 5. Add a Shoji Meguro soundtrack to that mix along with anime cutscenes by Production I.G and you’ve got a recipe for JRPG bliss and hopefully some high Metacritic numbers!

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And that is round one over! Come on by tomorrow to check out round 2!

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