It's only the midway point but 2016 is already looking to be a great year for gaming, filled with high profile successes, unexpected surprises, and a really strong lineup of indies. In fact, the first half of the year has delivered some truly impressive interactive experiences, many of which will likely stand out for years to come. And so, without further ado, here are the top 10 games of 2016 so

Many TTRPG fans would say Wizards of the Coast 's Dungeons & Dragons isn't just a roleplaying game. Rather, it's also an intense strategy game in its own right. After all, players need to decide what their characters have to do in different situations. Moreover, Player Characters have moral alignments that usually give insights toward their perspectives in life or even in battle. As such, it makes sense for D&D combat encounters to become extremely intense even without the stellar graphics of modern ga

Why You Should Play It: The Witness is not going to be for everyone, but those who do buy into its puzzle-focused world will become instantly obsessed. Taking a very simple puzzle concept and expanding on it nearly endless ways, The Witness is the epitome of a layered interactive experience. It also does a great job of teaching the player new rules as they progress, ensuring that the lack of a clear narrative never gets in the way. Most importantly, the game offers the most a-ha moments of any game in recent memory, and that sense of accomplishment is enough to make it worth play

Unfortunately, the biggest and most heartbreaking problem with XCOM 2 is from the technical side of things. For one, after almost every turn concludes and there are aliens on screen, the game will stall for upwards of a minute until finally giving you back control of the squad of characters. It could very well be unidentified aliens moving around in the background, but considering you don’t know how many there are, it will test your patience to an unfortunate degree. This combined with load times that hang for far longer than they should create an experience that will artificially extend your playtime clock. This isn’t even the worst part, though as we also ran into various crashes, enemies being able to shoot through geometry they shouldn’t be able to, out of the ordinary performance issues and some of the visuals going haywire. The controls can also be a little clunky at times when trying to select an enemy to fire at, although it’s far from the worst problem here.

It's the kind of tense, story-driven stakes that have kept couch-based players on the edge of their seats, and thankfully, the controls have been adapted to a gamepad with as streamlined and intutitive a control scheme as could be hoped for. The controls will be second nature by the second mission or so, maintaining the tactical-over-twitch sensations. The only real cost of conversion to consoles is nagging framerate drops and flickering during cutscenes, specifically. They're noticable, and a shame; but if the game adapts the feel of playing the game, it's a worthy trade-off (especially with the troubled history of trying to make complex strategy SLG Mobile SLG Games "work" away from a mouse and keyboa

Why You Should Play It: By now few underestimate the power of Blizzard, who has delivered nothing but hits over several decades. Overwatch is just another in a long line of success for the developer, but it’s also something completely new…well for the studio at least. A team-focused FPS, or hero shooter, Overwatch is as addicting as it is balanced, but the product is still growing. Truly, launch was just the beginning for Overwatch and it’s hard to imagine our addiction lessening any time s

This mod makes swapping out squadmates the matter of two clicks instead of several, making weapon swapping almost instantaneous, and even allows brave Commanders to send out more than six soldiers at once! Stats, health, willpower, and even skill information are all readily available without sifting through menu after menu after menu. Thank you, Robojum

Keeping the spirit of the Total War franchise, Total War: Warhammer 2 brings the same level of real-time tactics and turn-based strategy with the gritty world of Warhammer Fantasy . In this dark world, Humans and races such as the Skaven, Dark Elves, High Elves, and Lizardmen interact and deal with the Forces of Ch

In the end, the version of XCOM 2 available on either the Xbox One or PS4 is still, unavoidably, the second best crafted by the development team. The good news is that players who prefer their couch to their desktop won't be missing out on the quality of the experience, even if the level of polish takes a hit. And with every aspect of XCOM 2 contributing to the kinds of investment, tension, and stakes usually relying on players hunched over keyboards, glued to their monitors... well, being a couch potato may have never been a more stressful experie

In Dawn of War , gamers get a "converted" WH40 tabletop for the PC. Thanks to this game, players can experience the thrill of squad-based combat with units they can customize with unique weapons , abilities, and even appearan