When you have a strong year in AAA games like 2015, it's inevitable that certain worthy games will go by unnoticed - overshadowed by the brutish brilliance of the big guns. It's not easy to shine when you have the likes of The Witcher 3, Metal Gear Solid V and Fallout 4 to contend with, and it's natural that once reviewers have played these games, they'll use them as a yardstick to measure against all others. The thing is, there have been games out in 2015 that you can't honestly say are inferior to the year's big hitters, they just slipped under the radar due to a lack of marketing or name value. This year saw the release of an epic, critically-acclaimed RPG across all platforms that can be played in its entirety with a friend, an open-world sandbox adventure that no one loved as much as its movie counterpart, and an awesomely imaginative shooter from one of the world's greatest developers. Read on to catch up on the most underrated games of 2015, then hang your head in shame that you barely noticed them first time round.
10. Mad Max (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
You'd think that a game sharing its name with the biggest blockbuster movie of the summer would itself get a decent amount of attention (despite not being directly tied-in to the movie). But that just wasn't really the case with Mad Max, which seemed to appear then dissipate with the fleeting presence of a gust of sand over a desert dune. Which is a shame, because you'll find plenty of gameplay treasures in Mad Max's sand-blasted wasteland. As the eponymous Max (not Tom Hardy, for better or worse... but probably better), you drive around the open-world post-apocalyptic wasteland, helping out a group of tribal people liberate it from its despotic warlords. There are few video game moments in 2015 as sublime as driving through a raging, lightning-filled sandstorm with a group of raiders on your tail, outsmarting, outgunning and outmuscling your pursuers against the dramatic backdrop. Developed by Avalanche Studios (Just Cause 3), and published by Warner Bros, who are behind Shadow of Mordor and the Batman: Arkham series, Mad Max's creative influences are apparent. The environments are beautiful (in a bleak kind of way) and highly destructible, and combat uses similar free-flowing mechanics to Warner's other games. The story isn't half-bad either, making this a surprisingly solid package.
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
