Anyone who has met Rick Lagnese in person can attest to his unbridled enthusiasm for gaming and showmanship at game demonstrations. We first met Rick at E3 2017 and hes’s proven to be a swell guy to work with for everything Kingdom Come: Deliverance related. And now a word from Rick.
Hey everyone,
My name is Rick Lagnese and I am the US Community Manager for Warhorse Studios. Being that I have been working heavily on Kingdom Come: Deliverance (while working a FT job and supporting my 5 kids and wife), I’ve been more limited to gaming then I’ve ever been.
However, I’ve still been able to play enough games for each platform. Please keep in mind that my GOTY’s are games that I have played, not want to play or haven’t yet.
SWITCH GOTY – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Having a Switch since day 1, this was an easy choice for me. My kids got to watch me play through the entire game, helping me out with the puzzles and letting me know if I missed out on anything while I was on an a quest, mission, etc. I absolutely love the Zelda series and BotW is an extraordinary game, even after putting over 130 hours into it.
PC GOTY – Dark Souls 3
The Souls series is one of my favorite series in gaming of all time. I love the difficulty and punishment that it brings and I like the length of each one of them. I enjoy getting my booty kicked around and I don’t want to know all the tricks-of-the-trade in DS. I appreciate the dark tone in the game, the music, the weapons, big boss battles, and the invasions that come from other online players out of nowhere! I can feel the intensity and excitement, not knowing where the online player is coming from. Are they better than me (probably), are they more experienced than I am? It’s crazy!
What else can I say? Demon Souls and Dark Souls has influenced many games that I also like or want to play: Bloodborne, Lords of the Fallen, The Surge, Nioh and many more). By the way, I’ve beaten Bloodborne, LotF and Nioh, and they are also in my top games that I’ve played within the last few years. Without both DS series, we probably wouldn’t be playing so many great and challenging game that are now available to play!
PS4 GOTY – Nioh
This has been a fantastic year for Playstation exclusives. I have the new Uncharted and Horizon: Zero Dawn, but I haven’t been able to play them just yet. Truth-be-told, I chose Nioh over Uncharted to play first, just because of the difficulty that I knew that the game would bring, plus the fact that I love anything Samurai related.
Nioh is Dark Souls-ish, which comes as no surprise to anyone who knows about the game, which is why I love it. I’ll admit, I’ve definitely gotten frustrated with this game, as I have found the boss battles to be equally challenging to the DS series. I never wanted help defeating a boss in this game, so when I beat the game on my own, I felt quite the accomplishment.
I also have more of an appreciation for the forging, the perks that come with the weapons and the more options that you can customize than that of Dark Souls or Bloodborne, which definitely adds more hours to your gameplay.
XBOX ONE GOTY – Ghost Recon: Wildlands
Now, I know what you’re thinking…why would I choose GRW as my Xbox GOTY? It’s because I prefer playing online more on my XB1. And quite frankly, I would have chosen this over any game this year, because I absolutely love the Ghost Recon series, probably more than any other.
I have always preferred a tactical shooter, like GR or Rainbow Six, or The Division. What I especially like the most about Ghost Recon Wildlands, is that it gives you the wildlife, the forests, a great campaign, and a great multiplayer.
I also prefer a game that has a survival type mode – die once and you’re out unless revived. Wildlands has a way of welcoming you to a new open-world environment of the Ghost Recon Series, while bringing back some of the more hardcore play that it use to have.
There is nothing more rewarding than taking over a Unidad base! It’s very challenging and it requires excellent teamwork, communication, stealth, and accuracy.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this! There are other games that I could have put up on here but these are the ones that I sunk most of my time into and enjoyed the most. I can’t wait for the new year of games, especially KINGDOM COME: DELIVERANCE!!! My apologies for the bias there….not really.
Rick Lagnese – US Community Manager for Warhorse Studios
https://kingdomcomerpg.com
