Metacritic crowns Metal Gear Solid V 2015’s best game, PS4 best console

The annual ranking at reviews aggregator Metacritic has named Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain as 2015’s highest reviewed game.

However, the site’s takeaway message is thus: For the past several years, our year-end report on the year in games has contained a note stating that if the newest generation of console hardware was going to bring about an explosion of great new games, it hadn’t happened yet. Well, guess what: it still hasn’t.”

Metacritic’s report lamented the number of triple-A titles pushed back to 2016. Only 14 games scored 90 per cent or higher, matching 2014’s record low.

Only nine of these were console titles, falling short of last year’s 11. And of those nine, only three (yes, THREE) were new games – MGS V, Bloodborne and The Witcher 3.

The highest rated game of the year was in fact the PC port of Grand Theft Auto V, but that’s not eligible for the 2015 title, hence Metal Gear’s victory.

The PS4 just edged out Xbox One to win the highest average review score (70.5 per cent versus 70.4 per cent), ahead of Wii U (67.1 per cent).

PS4 also had the highest number of 90+ titles (six), which was one better than 2014, although the overall average review score was down and point and a half. 130 more games hit that platform in 2015 than the previous year, with 11 PlayStation exclusives scoring 75 per cent or higher.

Xbox One’s average review score was down by two points, with just two 90+ games being released on the platform – and neither of them were exclusive.

Only one Wii U game hit 90+ last year, and that was the DLC pack for Mario Kart 8, although more games were rated for the platform than in 2014.