2015 Wrap-Up GOTY and BOTY

Twenty-fifteen. It was a heck of a year for video games. Here are my picks, the absolute cream of the crop.

My Game of the Year: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Honorable Mention: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

There were a number of other great games this year, such as Fallout 4, Invisible, Inc., Her Story, and more, many more, I haven't even played. Games as a hobby just keeps getting better.

Past years:
2014: Elite: Dangerous/The Banner Saga
2013: Spelunky/Hearthstone
2012: Dota 2/Diablo III
2011: The Witcher 2/SpaceChem
2010: Mass Effect 2/Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
2009: Demon's Souls/Red Faction: Guerilla
2008: Metal Gear Solid 4/Gears of War 2
2007: BioShock/Halo 3

Backlog-wise, I added fewer by far titles to my list than in any other recent year, having (probably) shrunken the list along the right side of this web page over the last year, at least by a few titles.

I didn't complete a whole hell of a lot of games this year, rather focusing on discrete goals within a smaller pool of at times very large games. Here is my list of 26 accomplishments, in reverse chronological order:

Game of Thrones (Episode 6)
Fallout 4 (Institute)
Game of Thrones (Episode 5)
Game of Thrones (Episode 4)
Game of Thrones (Episode 3)
Game of Thrones (Episode 2)
Game of Thrones (Episode 1)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Chapter 2)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Chapter 1)
The Taken King (Destiny)
House of Wolves (Destiny)
The Dark Below (Destiny)
Old World Blues (Fallout: New Vegas)
Dead Money (Fallout: New Vegas)
Her Story
Lonesome Road (Fallout: New Vegas)
The Price of Neutrality (The Witcher)
Monk to 70 (Diablo III)
Side Effects (The Witcher)
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China
Damn Those Swamps! (The Witcher)
Crusader to 70 (Diablo III)
Assassin's Creed Rogue
Warcraft III (Humans)
Journey
Witch Doctor to 70 (Diablo III)

Past years' totals:
2014:32
2013:33
2012:23
2011:21
2010:23
2009:19
2008:26
2007:15

I have a prospective list of 2016 plays worked up, in a post below. We'll see how that plays out, of course. I have already played some Skyrim and KOTOR, for what that's worth.

Reading-wise, 2015 was a pretty dismal year. I spent nine or ten months not reading Moby Dick before finally buckling down and getting through it, and enjoying it, after all. Otherwise it was just a year of Warhammer 40K fiction, mostly Horus Heresy books. The list:

Deathwatch: Xenos Hunters
Moby Dick; or The White While
Fear to Tread
Shadows of Treachery

I'll finish Angel Exterminatus (another Horus Heresy novel) soon, and then go for something a little more... literate, I suppose is the word. My 2016 reading goal is merely to feel better at the end of the year about what I read than I do this year.

Book of the Year: Moby Dick
Honorable Mention: Shadows of Treachery