The A.V. Club hasn’t traditionally structured its year-end round-up with some authoritative ranking, choosing instead to look back at the myriad experiences we had in games over the year and sorting for the ones we really, truly liked. The result is a list that’s as true to our writers and their own predilections as it is to the year that was. There isn’t a clean-cut narrative to the games that stuck with us in 2018—which span massive superhero extravaganzas, elliptical horror experiments, and psychedelic VR rhythm games—which is, truly, proof of how rich and exciting games can be.
As always, you’re invited to write your own retrospectives in the comments, following the rubric laid out here. Feel free to overlap with our own picks; we’re interested to hear why you liked these games, too! We’ll collect some of our favorite responses for our annual Games You Liked round-up on Wednesday.
Beat Saber
I liked Beat Saber because it actually got me off my ass. As an internet writer whose primary hobby is video games, I have to confess to a certain, let’s say, sedentary lifestyle in my day-to-day existence. But that’s changed ever-so-slightly since virtual reality sensation Beat Saber came into my life, filling the work-up-a-sweat-while-playing-video-games hole left behind when I got too fat and old for Dance Dance Revolution. It’s absolutely nuts that a rhythm game with a little more than a dozen songs to its name can be so compelling, but that’s a testament to how damn good it feels to slash colored blocks with my virtual lightsabers. Out here, I might be a hunched-over word-miner with carpal tunnel and perpetual blogger’s stoop, but inside my headset, I’m a swashbuckling musical ninja, bouncing around the room and pulling off totally sick moves. If I have to do a little light cardio in order to tap into that feeling, well, that’s a price I’m willing to pay. [William Hughes]
Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon
I liked Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon because it shamelessly imitates something great. I still think about parts of Castlevania III—the sickly green timbers of the pirate galleon; the hellacious ascent to the source of the Outer Wall’s electric blue waterfall; the powerful name of my sidekick, Grant Danasty—all the damn time. The world is overrun with Metroidvanias, but the NES Halloween aesthetic of an old-fashioned Castlevania can feel as distant and dreamy as the era of silent film.
Until this year, at least, when Bloodstained reproduced the mossy backdrops and shuffling staircase battles of Castlevania III so perfectly that it might have been grown from a lost flake of Grant’s banana-colored skin. It has the same pokey, yardstick-like weaponry, the same surreal washes of color, and the same awful giant toads, which should be attacked as soon as they appear, when their movements are least random. Only the flashy bosses and weather effects remind you that we’re all 30 years closer to a fat gray 8-bit tombstone. (Its soundtrack also maybe, outrageously, improves on the original.) The game is short, but its lovingly illustrated levels stick in your head with the power of a false memory. [Chris Breault]
Celeste
I liked Celeste because it didn’t let challenge get in the way of kindness. Celeste should qualify for every best-of-the-year list for one simple reason: It’s the best, most impeccably designed 2D platformer since Super Meat Boy. But what makes it transcend such hoary plaudits is its personality. Celeste is tough. Its gauntlets require pinpoint precision and timing, doubly so if you’re tempted off the main path by collectible strawberries and triply so if you’re going to test yourself in its uber-difficult hidden levels. But while it won’t ever pull its punches, the game doesn’t just throw you to the wolves and mock you for failing. The mountain you’re tasked to climb is the real enemy here, and Celeste is your greatest cheerleader. It wants you to succeed and delivers messages of encouragement any way it can, like the precious loading screen messages—“Be proud of your death count! The more you die, the more you’re learning. Keep going!”—and Lena Raine’s quietly triumphant score. That understanding spirit informs every ounce of the game, from its ingenious difficulty options to its tender fable about mental health and the acceptance, love, and perseverance needed to overcome it. [Matt Gerardi]
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes Of An Elusive Age
I liked Dragon Quest XI because it knew what it was and didn’t bother trying to be anything else. After 14 years of spinoffs and remakes and numbered entries chasing after Japanese gaming trends, DQ11 stripped this series back down to its genre-defining traditions. You battle. You travel. You level up. You get charmed by the wacky monsters and motley allies and fairy-tale vignettes. That’s it, and you sink into that comfy, frictionless rhythm for dozens of hours. It’s a familiar formula excellently executed, down to an incredible English localization with multiple accents and dialogue spoken in haiku and iambic pentameter. Outside of that subtle achievement, there’s very little about DQ11 that screams out for attention, but that’s the beauty of it. At a time when more and more tentpole releases are mutating into sprawling, unwieldy genre chimeras, making a game this confident in its quaint comforts is a radical act in its own right. [Matt Gerardi]
God Of War
I liked God Of War because it didn’t ask me to forgive or forget. It’s easy to imagine a far less ambitious God Of War revival than the blockbuster miracle Sony Santa Monica delivered this year. It could’ve gone the straight reboot route, building a game that looks and feels like God Of War 2018 but happily starts from scratch with a new, less damaged star. Instead, the studio boldly took on the task of modernizing this outdated series while also facing down the horrific nature of its monstrous main character. The Kratos here is the same immature, rampaging rage beast that drove Greece to the brink of destruction. The game takes every opportunity to remind us of that past—with every overly aggressive ax swing and angry glare—and terrify us with the possibility of it violently erupting into the present. Like the Spartan-turned-Viking looking inward during whatever self-imposed exile predated this latest adventure, the developers must have spent a long time reflecting on the series’ history, and they recognized the one essential truth for creating not just a successful reimagining but also a worthwhile one: Kratos can never forget or forgive himself, and neither should we. [Matt Gerardi]
Into The Breach
I liked Into The Breach because, while it seems like a game about giant robots fighting giant bugs, it is not. It is a game about time travel—perhaps more singularly obsessed with this theme than any game ever made. The concept pervades everything, from the way enemies telegraph their moves to the player’s continuously looping, tragic quest for victory against the insectoid menace. In its terse, tweet-length blasts of narrative, characters muse over their fate in alternate timelines, ponder the paradoxes they’re creating, bemoan the nausea created by all these localized rifts. How astonishing, then, that the game would think so deeply about the player’s own time, fitting the tactical depth of much longer games into battles that rarely last longer than four turns. A single botched move can shatter an entire play-through, sending an adorably animated universe howling into the ever-expanding abyss of abandoned timelines. The small team at Subset has taken a galactic jump beyond its previous work, the beloved roguelike FTL, packing even more information and intrigue into the stylish, throwback animations of Into The Breach. Perhaps the greatest time paradox of all is how they could make something so charmingly retro feel, simultaneously, like a glimpse into the future of the medium. [Clayton Purdom]
Jackbox Party Pack 5
I liked Jackbox Party Pack 5—the latest in an annualized series of group-friendly minigames—for one specific game, “Mad Verse City,” which shows how far friends and family will go to win. Like most Jackbox party games, Mad Verse City involves typing things on your phone as the game plays out on your TV, but instead of answering trivia or coming up with wacky responses to silly prompts, you’re writing lines for a rap battle. It gives some prompts, you come up with the rest, and then robot characters recite your verse with silly digitized voices. That would be a fun toy on its own, but Mad Verse City’s smartest twist is that it tells you beforehand who you will be facing in the robot rap battle, giving you a chance to tailor your lines to your opponent. When your fellow competitors are judging you based on how well you construct your robot’s raps, how long will you be able to go before you start throwing in personal insults to get a laugh? In my experience, the answer is “maybe one round.” Not all of the games on Party Pack 5 are as wild as Mad Verse City, but—like all of the best Jackbox stuff—you can’t find anything like it anywhere else. [Sam Barsanti]
Marvel’s Spider-Man
I liked Marvel’s Spider-Man because it was made in the wisecracking, web-slinging spirit of its source material. Spidey was everywhere this year—weathering the fallout of a secret-identity reveal in the comics, getting a tearjerker send-off in one of the year’s biggest blockbusters, swinging into an acclaimed new animated movie. (He was a no-show in Venom, but maybe that was for the best.) But the masked crime-fighter’s most satisfying adventure may have been the one that let fans themselves soar between skyscrapers and hurl manhole covers at goons. Insomniac’s PS4 superhero smash is blatantly derivative of the Arkham Batman games, especially when it comes to its button-mashing combat system. But Spider-Man did more than transport that sturdy gameplay formula from a perpetually nocturnal Gotham City to a bright, bustling New York. It also invested it with a top-to-bottom love for the character, staying true to his values and conflicts—that eternal tug-of-war between the responsibilities of Spider and the more mundane chores of Man—while sprinkling half a century worth of Marvel lore on top of its original, operatic story. In a great year for the wall-crawler, Insomniac turned Spidey fandom itself into a vast sandbox, as fun to navigate as its sprawling facsimile of The City That Never Sleeps. [A.A. Dowd]
Minit
I liked Minit because it’s concise. Most games like it, that do the whole swords-and-dungeons deal, are long-winded affairs, taking hours to set up narrative, seed mechanics, and just generally get going. Which is fine and all, but sometimes I want to get some cool items and fight some bosses, y’know? Sometimes you just want to get to the point.
Which is where Minit’s brilliant premise comes in: Every 60 seconds, your character dies, and you have to restart from a checkpoint. That means that every bit of progress you make has to be achievable in 60 seconds or less. In other words, Minit is a game about constantly getting to the point. There’s not space for dillydallying in this Zelda-like. Get the item. Talk to that weird guy by the lighthouse. Beat this boss. What are you waiting for? The clock’s ticking. Minit has plans later, and it’s not going to waste time waiting for you to keep up. [Julie Muncy]
Monster Hunter: World
I liked Monster Hunter: World because it makes me incredibly hungry. Holidays are the time to return to Monster Hunter, gaming’s horn of plenty, filled to the brim with grumbling little Deviljhos and Kirins. Every day in Astera is a feast day: Lordly cuts of monster steak and grilled fish arrive steaming, hoisted over the ears of the smiling cat-servants (Is their service voluntary? Don’t ask) who prepare the hunter’s banquet. Thus fortified, you track the New World’s titanic beasts, a cornucopia of dinosaurs and dragons, all bulging with the good meat and bones needed to continue your endless celebration. Sometimes you capture one alive, humanely, allowing your researchers to somehow extract even more of its hide and skeleton (don’t ask).
It’s best not to question the irrepressible good cheer of Monster Hunter World, where many beasts have the distinctive intelligence of an old family pet, but should—and must!—be bludgeoned and stripped for parts. MHW is by far the most welcoming game in the series, and it’s not until you hit the later hunts that you understand it as a game of inches, where you need to know the reach of your hammer’s swing from a neutral stance to catch a monster square on its stony chin. But the sunny outlook of the Fifth Fleet never fades. It’s a world that always feels like a party, where everyone arrives dressed in their best bony carapace to find the guests of honor already breathing fire and electrocuting each other in the living room. [Chris Breault]
Moss
I liked Moss because its affection for its main character is as fully realized as its world. In it, you take control of a small heroic rodent named Quill, leading it through a virtual reality fantasyland in an effort to defeat an evil snake and save your little mouse uncle from its clutches. But from the moment you don the headset, the game is invested in your connection with your diminutive hero. This is most evident in the way it makes Quill cognizant of your presence (rendered in-game as a sort of ghostly masked giant there to help Quill on its journey), creating a more direct bond than normally exists in such games. As Quill enlists your help, the bond between you grows, leading to your sense of protectiveness over the mouse and increasing the emotional stakes. A lot of VR games sacrifice heart in the effort to deliver technological gimcrack, but Moss wants you to care about its hero because you care, not because you’ve got a futuristic helmet on your head. It’s fun as hell, but when you finish, your thoughts aren’t on the puzzles or fights, but the lingering affinity for your plucky little companion. [Alex McLevy]
Overcooked 2
I liked Overcooked 2 because it captures the joys of controlled chaos. Remarkably light and fun for a game that also feels like an ongoing, escalating panic attack, Team17’s sequel to its beloved cartoon cooking simulator only amps up the heat in its goofy-serious kitchens. The adorable animations and panda-heavy roster of playable characters belie a whole host of new complications for you and your fellow chefs to deal with, navigating crashing hot air balloons, ornery conveyor belts, and zombified sandwiches in order to serve up perfect-looking fictional meals. The controlled chaos makes Overcooked 2 this year’s best couch co-op game, but it’s the aftermath of those culinary crises—high-fiving your partners after plucking yet another three-star victory from the hangry jaws of defeat—that lingers well after the fact. [William Hughes]
Paratopic
I liked Paratopic for the way it seems to kick open a back door in the player’s head. The game’s images of VHS tapes and surreal violence recall the work of those beloved Davids of film—Lynch and Cronenberg—but they don’t seem to revolve around some grand central idea about technology or culture, as those directors’ best films do. Its brief, vignette-like scenes feature a few recurring locales and modes of transport but buck linear narrative conventions, instead documenting an assassination, a lonely car ride through an industrial nowhere, and interstitial moments in some hellish city. And yet the game has proven much more enduring than similar experiments from the alt-games space, forcing players to connect its disparate threads into some darkly comic horror odyssey. This is certainly thanks in part to its striking aesthetic, which looks like like the art deco labyrinth of Dark City recreated in the Syphon Filter engine. But I think the game gains its power mostly from its unique curiosity about video game editing: the way its hard jump-cuts force the player to ask where they’re going and why. It’s in those gaps in between that our brains must wander through dark territory, followed by long car rides to rue how quickly and easily we knew what to do with that gun. [Clayton Purdom]
Red Dead Redemption 2
I liked Red Dead Redemption 2 because it never ran out of surprises. Did you know, for example, that strangers can visit your campsite? It happened for the first time about 60 hours into my game, when the ritual of cooking alone was as familiar as Arthur Morgan’s battered black hat, and the sudden appearance of a wild-haired woman by his fire at night was a genuine jump-scare. An hour later I came across a rival gang of outlaws robbing a train, which I had never seen in all my hours of stick-up artistry.
Red Dead Redemption 2 holds more surprises in this vein than any game I can remember. It overflows with ideas that deepen the impression of life in its world and characters, whose fates turn on minor incidents that play out between the game’s occasional Uncharted-scale set pieces. Arthur’s friends sing and bicker in layered, Altmanesque parties back at camp; they stay up all night playing poker; and they die brutally in a story that is never shy to spend its narrative capital. We get some of Rockstar’s finest missions along the way, which see us soaring over the game world in hot air balloons or hunkering down to run security at a hanging. But RDR2 is best during lulls in the action, in fleeting moments when the designers choreograph weather, wildlife, and music to make Arthur Morgan’s world suddenly beautiful. Enjoy it while it lasts. [Chris Breault]
Return Of The Obra Dinn
I liked Return Of The Obra Dinn because it shows how much more impressive a good aesthetic is than good “graphics.” To my eye, no game in 2018 looked better than Lucas Pope’s 18th-century “insurance adventure,” which tasks the player with investigating a gloriously monochrome sailing ship to figure out how its crew members met their various grisly deaths. The core gameplay—which expands on the detail-heavy document hunting of Pope’s previous Papers, Please—is certainly engaging, but it’s as a treat for the senses that Obra Dinn truly thrives. The soundtrack (which mostly confines itself to the flashbacks you get of the crew’s death, lending jaunty accompaniment to each individual’s various sad ends) is beautiful enough, but it’s the look of the thing that lodges it in the memory: Pixel-perfect and designed to look like the best game ever released on the old Macintosh platforms (sorry, Shadowgate), it’s beautiful and deliberate in a way that a bunch of hundred-person teams toiling for big-budget studios couldn’t hope to match. [William Hughes]
Sea Of Thieves
I liked Sea Of Thieves because it was as freewheeling in its design as the open seas. Sometimes fun is the only reward you need. No, I’m serious! A lot of the systems the game launched with were kind of light and overly dependent on doing the same basic tasks—carry this thing from one island to another—over and over again, which meant the core novelty of operating a pirate ship by angling sails and manually loading cannons wore off very quickly. However, sailing with a crew of friends turns Sea Of Thieves into a game unlike anything I’ve ever played before. It’s easier to complete more lucrative missions with friends, getting money and new hats more efficiently, but the most entertaining moments in Sea Of Thieves came when we cut out the bullshit and just played like pirates. For example, we didn’t get any in-game rewards from the time another team of players demanded we stay away while they tried to clear a fortress of skeletons and we snuck on board their waiting ships to toss their supplies overboard, but it was a blast to interact with people online in a way that I never had before. That’s thanks in part to Sea Of Thieves’ theme, and in part to the loose way it lets us play-act. [Sam Barsanti]
Tetris Effect
I liked Tetris Effect because it made me wonder: Could one of the best games of 2018 be from 1985? It takes the framework of Alexey Pajitnov’s ported-to-everything classic and updates it with luminous, evolving backdrops and extremely-PS4 blasts of neon particles. Of course, Tetsuya Mizuguchi—the psychedelic-gaming wunderkind tasked with this reimagining—couldn’t help but tweak the formula a little bit. Newly structured levels feature climaxes that occur at a truly punishing speed, a challenge made palatable by the generous wiggle room you have to reposition each block after it lands. The result feels a bit like the work Mizuguchi has been building toward his entire career, from the Tetris-inspired Lumines to the more abstract, action-oriented Rez and Child Of Eden, in large part thanks to the transportive power of its music. In passing, some of these ecstatic J-pop tracks and percussive freakouts can seem as over-the-top as the blissed-out landscapes in the background, but a magic alchemy occurs when it’s all combined with the tension and satisfaction of Tetris. (Your favorite intoxicant won’t hurt either.) The game is named after the sensation in which one continues to think about falling tetrominoes long after playing, but Mizuguchi uses this psychological power for good—to reach deep into the player’s subconsciousness and instill a sense of beauty and calmness there. When’s the last time a game did that? [Clayton Purdom]
Unavowed
I liked Unavowed because it puts characters first—even in the face of the apocalypse. The latest love letter to old-school adventure games from indie vet Dave Gilbert and his Wadjet Eye Studios (The Shivah, The Blackwell Legacy), Unavowed has its share of clever inventory puzzles and dialogue conundrums. But the game’s real draw is its characters, especially the members of the titular clandestine magical protection agency, who go far beyond their simple log lines (wisecracking fire mage, tough-bitten New York cop, badass half-genie) to feel like fleshed-out people. Taking some tips from Bioware’s approach to gradually unraveling party member narratives, Gilbert’s characters have plenty to say as they roam NYC by subway, trying to stop a demon-assisted Armageddon. Full of funny dead kids, gloating evil trees, and menacing fae, Unavowed is the rare piece of modern gaming where every new piece of writing and interaction the player stumbles onto is its own reward. [William Hughes]
Valkyria Chronicles 4
I liked Valkyria Chronicles 4 because I love a stylish war story that is also an over-the-top anti-war parable. The long-running Sega series is a strange one to scratch my Metal Gear Solid itch, but it does an excellent job making up for the end of that series. Its tactical warfare is broken up with so much exposition about why the game’s central conflict (basically a fantasy-flavored take on World War II) is pointlessly destructive and how the higher-ups on both sides couldn’t really care less about the soldiers doing the actual fighting and dying. There are also wild tonal shifts between war drama and soapy relationship stuff that works way better than it should thanks to the stylized anime aesthetics. In between, it makes XCOM-style combat more tactile by forcing you to physically move your soldiers and aim their shots—just deep enough that you feel clever for setting up a perfect flank, but loose enough that you can just drop into a scenario and react to what the enemy sends at you. Just remember that war still sucks, even when you win. [Sam Barsanti]
241 Comments
The Unawowed was a really neat surprise that felt like it came out of nowhere and managed to do a really ambitious old-fashioned adventure game with really neat innovations. It’s also really nice to be reminded of how varied top level games we’ve gotten this year.
SPOILERS FOR GOD OF WAR (2018)****I find it amusing that it’s now canon that Kratos’ grandson will be an eight-legged horse (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleipnir)
And he’s already met one of his grandchildren in Jormungandr.
“I liked Marvel’s Spider-Man because it was made in the wisecracking, web-slinging spirit of its source material.”Does that include the time Spider-Man made a Faustian Pact with a Lord of Hell to save the life of his aunt who was dying from a bullet wound that, for no explained reason, nobody else in the Marvel Universe could heal? /sOr the time Peter was turned into a giant spider, died, and then hatched out of his own giant-spider corpse; effectively giving birth to himself?
Yes
The aughts were a rough time for Spidey
Especially during Brand New Day, where there was an ever revolving staff of writers on the Spider-Man books who were constantly trying to push their own new love interests for Spider-Man that nobody cared about because they were pissed about OMD.Eventually they settled on a bland forensic scientist with hair that changed colors inbetween issues and who was named after Joe Quesada’s daughter.And later said love interest broke up with Peter because he didn’t tell her he was Spider-Man, even though he had been dating her for at least a month and not even his own family knows he’s Spider-Man. I think the final straw for Carlie Cooper was how she was the only one who knew SpOck wasn’t Peter even though both Aunt May and MJ could tell when someone was impersonating Peter. Thank god she was written out of the plot.
I loved the reviews of Superior Spider-Man on SpiderManCrawlSpace.com talking about how the “stupid” Avengers were guest-starring in the book when they confronted SpOck about acting out of character but said “Oh well, you’re killing people but we’ll let that slide this time, I’m sure you haven’t been replaced by an imposter.” Because every supporting character in that book had to take stupid pills not to realize that Peter/Spidey was not acting like he had been for the past 12 years (in comic-book time).Unfortunately Nick Spencer has brought Carlie back in a recent issue of ASM. But if he could make me care about Boomerang, Shocker, and the other Superior Foes, I have faith in him that if he can’t at least make me care about her, he can at least make me not hate the book for her being included in it.
Did they ever officially reverse OMD?
Not really, outside of an issue of Spider-Man/Deadpool where Mephisto taunts Peter, its never been really addressed. Though as of Nick Spencer’s run Peter and MJ are back together again. It seems like Marvel just wants to pretend it never happened. Frankly it’d be better if they did address it.
Are they married again though, or just together? I know the whole idea of have Spider-man get married has never been popular with Spider-man writers. It was a publicity stunt birthed from the news paper strip(which had its own continuity) and they had to jump through hoops to set it up in comics because Spidery had not been dating MJ for years at that point. The whole idea of undoing it was silly as well. If they wanted to make Peter single again, then just have them divorce, or kill her off or find out she is a really a Skrull. The whole “Deal with the Devil” felt way to much like a backdoor way to undo it if they ever got tired of it.
The 90s weren’t that great for him either. Paging Ben Reilly, the Jackal, Kaine, Spidercide, Judas Traveller, etc.
No but it did have a sequence of him tripping balls on a toxin Scorpion game him pushing him on a bad trip. When he woke up in the lab he was in not but his knickers.
That sounds more like Mysterio’s schtick than Scorpion’s.
It truly was ridiculous how NO ONE was able to save Aunt May after she was shot. Peter literally knows a mutant(s) who has the ability to heal other people. He knows super-smart people like Reed Richards who can invent any machine to do anything. But nobody can save May’s life. She was like Amidala at the end of Revenge of the Sith, dying because she lost the will to live.I both groaned and laughed during One Moment In Time when they explained how May was brought back to life from Mephisto’s deal – Peter literally performed chest compressions on her after she was shot. As one reviewer said, “Chest compressions do not fix bullet wounds!”
“Listen Pete, you know I’d love to help you out here, but that would just be unprofessional… Soon everybody would be asking me to heal their loved ones, sorry.”
I think years ago Angel (?) of the X-Men developed a secondary mutation where his blood could cure people, so he basically set himself up so that anyone that was sick could come visit him and he’d heal them (although I may be mixing up 2 or 3 different X-Men characters here).Comics get into trouble when they start having real-world life-or-death problems in their comic book universe. Having someone critically shot but no character in all of Marvel is not able to heal them makes no sense, especially when May was in the hospital for weeks. Spidey had time to go around the country and ask everyone for help. It would have made more sense if she had been shot and would have died in a few hours. Then Spidey wouldn’t have had time to go ask every other Marvel character for help.Also, another real-world problem Marvel comics should stay away from is global warming, because Reed Richards could probably invent something that would fix it in a day.
Have Iceman just chill in the ocean for about a week every year.
Storm should just go to Africa once a month and make it rain over the entire continent.
Seriously, I guess the mundanity of using super powers to actually fix real world issues doesn’t make for riveting reading
I read OMD, and he visits Dr Strange, the most powerful magician in the world, who’s just like, “Woah, bullet wounds, that’s a bit out of my area of expertise.” They just kept adding more people who couldn’t help, straining the credibility further each time.
I always thought that even May herself, if Peter explained what he did to save her, would be like, “Dude, you sacrificed your marriage, which could have brought you decades of happiness, to a literal demon to save me when I’ve probably got at most another ten years left in me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I liked Octopath Traveler because every one of its battles feels fresh. Despite the clockwork nature of the game’s main quests — Honest Game Trailers wasn’t lying when they said you travel to a town, watch some cut scenes, visit a labyrinth, defeat a boss, and repeat up to 32 times — I was always primed for the next random encounter. By spelling out each enemy’s weapon and element weaknesses and counting down the hits required to break their spirits, fights can be both tactical and chaotic. This goes treble for the game’s boss battles, some of whom can easily turn into half-hour-plus marathons while Octopath’s oversized foes switch up their strategies in novel and challenging ways. Add in eight main characters with compelling stories to follow, SNES-style graphics with some current-gen upgrades, and a lovely, folksy soundtrack, and you have the Switch’s best game of 2018.
So many great games this year i honestly do not think i could pick a favourite.
Its Red Dead and God of War and then everything else a distant 3rd
I haven’t played it, but looking at over sites, I get the impression that Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey has a solid bronze medal placement.
I haven’t been able to finish an AC game in a long time now. I tried Origins since everyone was saying it was so good and a step forward for the series. Ended up getting bored. Ditto for Odyssey. For me they still struggle with waaaay too much samey stuff to do while lacking compelling enough worlds, stories or characters to keep me interested.
Yeah, cause it’s not on this list I really want to give Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey a shout out. It got overshadowed by Red Dead 2 coming out a couple of weeks after it, but it is honestly my favourite game of the year.It does an incredible job of recreating Ancient Greece, and I’m a big fan of the story and the addition of RPG elements to the AC franchise. It’s a very different style game to Red Dead 2 (which can be very slow and deliberate) but both styles are equally valid…because sometimes you want a fast-paced game where you can run across rooftops in Ancient Greece and dive off cliffs without taking any damage.
I am about 30 hours in, and while it is scratching an itch I had after sinking so much time into RDR2, so far I enjoyed Origins more.
I am about 30 hours in, and while it is scratching an itch I had after sinking so much time into RDR2, so far I enjoyed Origins more.
Assassin’s Creed is great for people who like to do the same thing over and over again.
Spider-Man has to be in there too, unless you don’t have a PS4
Bro, how do I play God of War w/o a PS4? I didn’t care to play Spider Man
Your loss
Clearly you haven’t played Spider-Man then.
I have, and it’s a very solid third place choice for the year.
Yeah, between those and Spiderman, it was a good year to own a Playstation 4.
Last year was the year of Nintendo. This is definitely the year of Sony.
No Dead Cells invalidates the list.
Few thoughts. 1). I love Through the Breach but I wish the company that makes it would invest some time into either getting or becoming mobile developers. Both it and FTL would play amazing on a tablet or even phones. FTL did get a IOS release but it only supports iPads. 2). Spider-man is great. Got it in Black Friday and having a ton of fun with it. I’m so glad “Arkham style Spider-man” translated into Arkham-like combat and not into Arkham-like “gritty and dark” character redesigns. I don’t hate that look in the Arkham games because it works for Batman but it would have been odd in a Spider-man game. 3). Was the Switch Zelda game out last year? I guess it was. My son is getting a Switch for Christmas(it’s currently sitting in a box in my closet) and he and the rest of the family sans me are going to be driving down to see my Wife’s very sick Grandmother this week. So “Santa” is gonna have a week to test out the Switch and I’m hoping I can get through all of “Breath of the Wild” before they get home.
You have a week to beat BotW? Good luck, my man. Enjoy not sleeping 🙂 Seriously, though: I’m jealous of you being able to experience the game for the first time.
It’s theoretically possible to “beat” the game very quickly. It takes a very long time to “get through”, though I think in the best possible way.I put about 400 hours in before my WiiU version started crashing constantly, and I was still seeing new caves, valleys, mountaintops, enemy camps, etc.
Breath of the Wild came out March 2017… but play it with your kid! I have 10 and 7 year olds and playing through the game with them was such a joy, they each completed their own adventures too and my older son picks up the game often.
Wow, I guess I forgot how long the Switch has been out already. I was thinking it was last holiday season but it came out in March last year, so it closing in on two years old now. I think I may hold off and play it with the kids. I got Spider-man to get through and been debating getting myself Red Dead Redemption 2, So I got other things to occupy me for my surprise week of bachelorhood
buddy – botw is my fave game of all time. everything is so lovingly crafted and systems that i normally hate (weapon degradation, weather, cooking, crafting) were a delight. i’ve never been compelled to go back and do little things like collect all clothing or whatever, but i absolutely devoured everything.
Pick up Dead Cells and The Messenger, too. They are both wonderful.
I have Dead Cells on a few other platforms. Since I don’t see myself using the Switch mobile much I probably wont get that, unless my son wants it
I can see your reasoning, but BotW is such a delight, it seems a shame to try and beat it in a week. It’s a game you want to sink into slowly and revel in. I actually had a little trouble getting into it at first and put it down for a long time, but started playing again about a month ago and I’m obsessed with it all over again. It’s also a game that’s almost as fun to watch someone else play as play yourself.
See, I thought the most “Arkham” like thing about it WAS the terrible villain redesigns. Just like Arkham I thought most of them were ugly, stupid, or boring. It wasn’t as try-hard “gritty” as the Arkham designs, but it definitely felt like they were trying to find some medium between more “realistic” and more video-gamey, while losing the charm and style of the comic designs.
Into the Breach is on Switch. You can play that mobile. It’s a perfect mobile game to play while you’re watching TV or something.
Thats cool, I did not know that. I still wonder why they have not adapted either to Android or IOS. I know Switch is popular but those two markets are huge
Fallout 76 is no where on the list, not surprising but still so sad. Can’t believe Bethesda shit the bed so bad on that game
Bethesda is in a very rapid decline. They need a massive overhaul in talent and a change in leadership.
Lets hope that happens before the next Elder Scrolls game comes out. Could you imagine how bad Skyrim would have been with micro transactions. It would have killed an awesome game
Well, you have to remember – first they have to port Skyrim to the Apple Watch and old HP calculators to finish it’s takeover of every platform in existence and then they will get to work on the next one. And by then microtransactions will be SO 21st century.
Its not so bad, Skyrim for my Grandpas pacemaker is a lot of fun
You haven’t played Skyrim until you’ve played it on the LCD display of a microwave.
Remember horse armor from Oblivion? Remember how we all laughed? Simpler times, then
You realize the current release in the Elder Scrolls franchise is near-exactly equivalent to “Fallout 76”, right…?
It’s amazing how much consumer goodwill that Bethesda lost in such a short period of time. They used to be the studio that could do no wrong (despite, janky coding, gamebreaking glitches etc.) because Elder Scrolls and Fallout were so immersive and groundbreaking.I was so excited for Fallout 4, because I loved 3 and NV, but as soon as I saw the early reviews I was like “meh… I’ll wait for a sale.” Pretty telling that I still haven’t bought Fallout 4 despite numerous sales, and I have had absolutely zero interest in 76.
I mean, it’s “telling” insofar as Fallout 4 made a gigantic amount of money and got fantastic reviews, “telling” us that your decision not to buy it isn’t representative of anything Bethesda would ever have reason to care about
Wow, do you own Stock in Zenimax? You seem very invested in defending Bethesda.
Of course Fallout 4 made a gigantic amount of money. It was the hugely hyped successor to Fallout 3. There’s no way it couldn’t. The critic reviews were not “fantastic.” Most of them were middling as far as a AAA title is concerned. Metacritic has Fallout 3 at 91% and Fallout 4 at 84%. For a hugely hyped successor to a Game of the Year title, a score in the mid 80’s is not fantastic.
Although to be fair, review scores and meta critic mean very little.
For the most part, public consensus is that Fallout 4 was a misstep. I don’t think anyone is saying that it’s a bad game, but it certainly did not live up to it’s predecessor. You’re free to like it as much as you want, but you’re deluding yourself if you think it was as well received as Fallout 3.
Perhaps the true mark of the quality of a title is not in how well it sells, but in how well its successor sells. That will tell you if the previous title was enough to maintain confidence in the franchise. While, arguably, the online survival aspect of Fallout 76 may be a factor as it is a departure from the series, the sales for Fallout 76 are not good at all. To wit:https://www.unilad.co.uk/gaming/fallout-76-sales-down-82-percent-from-fallout-4/The point is that Bethesda has certainly lost some of their credibility after Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 is not helping in that department at all. You can refuse that as much as you want, I really don’t care, but you know that it’s true.
Honestly, it (unfortunately) isn’t that uncommon anymore for a game to review poorly and then to see it “fix itself” in a year or so.
Not that I’m counting on it, because I’m not getting any good impressions off of Bethesda over this.
The issues run more deeply than Bugthesda prematurely releasing a game that has barely completed beta testing. The deceptive marketing and abusive refund practices can burn away any good will with the fan base faster than a Scorch beast teleporting itself across the playing field due to lag.
Hopefully they can fix it, Diablo 3 was a train wreck on release then after years of patches it was excellent. The best comparison is FF14, upon release it was unplayable. SE pulled it from the market and spent a year rebuilding it from the ashes. They rebranded it (A realm reborn) and from then on it was highly successful.
Even a “good” version of F76 wasn’t going to make the list. Short of a total overhaul, the Fallout series is a tapped well at this point. They can make more Fallouts but at this point they’ll all just be expanded F4 DLCs.
I used to be pissed off about KOTOR 3 getting scrapped for a shit MMO version.
Now I get to be pissed about FALLOUT doing more or less the same.
I dunno whether this will finally turn the tide against trying to turn great single-player games into MMOs, but I hope so.
They did the same with Elder Scrolls. Sure Skyrim is old now but it’s sales number and constant ports show the staying power of a well done single player RPG.
It’s certainly interesting that everyone whining here is making the same whines as a bunch of people made about Skyrim, only here they’re deployed to try to argue that Skyrim was good and the new game is bad. It leads me to believe that most video game players are mental children who can’t articulate what they do or don’t like about things, and just copy other people’s assessments of them whether or not what they’re copying makes sense
i took it back to trade at EB already, it had a huge update release day, then another less than a week later, downloaded that, tried to play the next day and it crashed within 15 minutes of starting…. i have never played such a broken game before…. its really terrible, and ive loved all the other fallout games….
It’s the Fyre Festival of games at this point.
You can’t believe that an attempt to turn a narrative-focused NPC-driven game into a NPC-free MMO “shit the bed”
Yes I can
If it wasn’t for RDR2 then GoW would easily be my favorite game this year. MHW and Spider-Man would probably be tied for the next spot.
It’s great to see that there are still high quality big budget games out there.
Great list. I’ve played or are playing a good five of those games and love them all for very different reasons. I also enjoy them when I am in different moods, there has been something for everyone for this year.
Too bad about Red Dead Redemption 2 Online though. What a shit show. I was so excited for it, but it turned out to be a scam with most of the bits and pieces that made RDR2 great gutted out, everything else butchered for profit, and not much to do other than fight random people in towns.
RDR2 was one of my favorite games, but the disrespectful online release really soured it for me.Dragon Ball FighterZ is unmentioned here so I’ll mention it. I don’t normally like fighting games, but it’s damn incredible. Bought it on my PC at launch, and bought it again for my Switch on Black Friday.Also, Total War Warhammer Curse of the Vampire Coast DLC was really really well done and deserves a mention. I’ve wanted playable pirate factions in 4X games for a while, and this is the first time they’ve been done well. At first I wasn’t interested because vampire and zombie pirates sounded dumb, but the intro video got me interested, and it being TW Warhammer I was compelled to get it anyways. Glad I did because it has all the pirate fantasy bits and bobs a pirate faction needs to be fun. There was weirdly a lot of pirate themed stuff this year in gaming, so imo this was Year of the Pirates in gaming.
God of War is a genuine masterpiece to me.
It’s a genius story that manages to be both epic and intimate. Strip away the Norse Mythology and immortal Spartans and it’s a beautifully told story about a father and son trying to connect as people after the loss of the matriarch of the family. Add the Norse Mythology and plenty of refreshing humor, references to past games and a willingness to actually mature a ludicrous franchise without outright losing the ludicrous elements and you have a winner.I’m also a massive fan of spider-man. It didn’t remote try to do anything new, but it borrowed the best aspects from the Arkham and ps2 Spider-Man games and added likeable characters and a surprisingly heartfelt story. Detroit Become human was deeply flawed but it actually had a sense of humor and shined brightly when it was a buddy cop comedy about grizzled Clancy Brown and hid robot partner.
I also love hitman 2 on every level and hereby demand that everyone give IOI their money so that I can have more!
I don’t play too many games these days (who has a spare 60 hours to play Red Dead Redemption?). But retro adventure games pretty much hit my sweet spot, so I ride and die with Wadjet Eye games. Still The Unavowed really showed that they’re interested in doing more than just recreating the experience of playing Lucasarts games from 20 years ago.
I liked „Where
The Water Tastes Like Wine“ because it’s an exciting scavenger hunt
for people who are deeply in love with folklore, made by people deeply in love
with folklore.
WTWTLW is a
strange game, and not only because it’s acronym sounds like the sound a rake scratching on concrete might make. It is at once a small game – very much a niche thing, for people
who like to read their games as much as play them – and downright lush: Its heart are small stories, spread around a
sprawling map of a post-Great War, post-Great Depression U.S.A, in which neither
of those things is really past yet. You walk around that map at leisure pace, as the
soul/skeleton of a tramp, collecting those narrative vignettes, and watch them
grow, over time, from a casual anecdote told by somebody at a bus stop into a
truly TALL TALE. If you’re even a bit familiar with American folklore, this is
very much a supremely entertaining form of „Where is Waldo“ or „Spot-That-Folktale-Whack-A-Mole”: You might want walk into the woods near
New York, expecting to encounter a haunting presence, and you will find it
there. You might scan the woods of the Northeast in search of a particularly
skilled lumberjack, or go to Texas, where you’ll be certain to meet a death-defying
cowboy who is not afraid of some ghastly weather conditions. And there is so,
so much more there.What makes
the game downright lush is not only the sheer number of those mini-stories –
there are hundreds and hundreds of them –, nor the overall quality of them
(there are some clunkers, especially in the fireside exchanges you do have with
other lost souls, but the vignettes themselves are of surprisingly good quality
– which is not that surprising once you know that some really interesting
game-related writers, like Duncan Fy or Kevin Snow are their authors). What
is downright absurd, though, is the fact that each and every one of those
stories is narrated by Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, aka STING HIMSELF, who
must have spent god-alone-knows how many hours in the recording booth to make
them all come to life.“Where The
Water Tastes Like Wine” is, in a way, an impossible oddity: The elevator pitch would make you think of a passion
project, something that you could imagine finding one day on Itch.io, or maybe being published by Failbetter Games or Inkle as a mobile app. Instead, it turned out to be bigger than that, and way riskier: it was, not surprisingly, a
spectacular financial failure for its creator. I’m all the more grateful that it exists. And for a game all about tales, ending up
as a cautionary tale itself might not even be the worst fate one could imagine.
I liked
„Where The Water Tastes Like Wine“ because it’s an exciting scavenger hunt for
people who are deeply in love with folklore, made by people deeply in love with
folklore.WTWTLW is a
strange game, and not only because it’s acronym sounds like the sound a rake
scratching on concrete might make. It is at once a small game – very much a
niche thing, for people who like to read their games as much as play them – and
downright lush: Its heart are small stories, spread around a sprawling
map of a post-Great War, post-Great Depression U.S.A, in which neither of those
things is really past yet. You walk around that map at leisure pace, as the
soul/skeleton of a tramp, collecting those narrative vignettes, and watch them
grow, over time, from a casual anecdote told by somebody at a bus stop into a
truly TALL TALE. If you’re even a bit familiar with American folklore, this is
very much a supremely entertaining form of „Where is Waldo“ or
„Spot-That-Folktale-Whack-A-Mole”: You might want walk into the woods near New
York, expecting to encounter a haunting presence, and you will find it there.
You might scan the woods of the Northeast in search of a particularly skilled
lumberjack, or go to Texas, where you’ll be certain to meet a death-defying
cowboy who is not afraid of some ghastly weather conditions. And there is so,
so much more there.What makes
the game downright lush is not only the sheer number of those mini-stories –
there are hundreds and hundreds of them –, nor the overall quality of them
(there are some clunkers, especially in the fireside exchanges you do have with
other lost souls, but the vignettes themselves are of surprisingly good quality
– which is not that surprising once you know that some really interesting
game-related writers, like Duncan Fyfe or Kevin Snow
are their authors). What is downright absurd, though, is the fact that each and
every one of those stories is narrated by Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, aka
STING HIMSELF, who must have spent god-alone-knows how many hours in the
recording booth to make them all come to life.“Where The
Water Tastes Like Wine” is, in a way, an impossible oddity: The elevator pitch
would make you think of a passion project, something that you could imagine
finding one day on Itch.io, or maybe being published by Failbetter Games or
Inkle as a mobile app. Instead, it turned out to be bigger than that, and way
riskier: it was, not surprisingly, a spectacular financial failure for its
creator. I’m all the more grateful that it exists. And for a game all about
tales, ending up as a cautionary tale itself might not even be the worst fate
one could imagine.
PS To be honest, it’s also one of my favourites games of 2018 because it’s one the few games from 2018 that I actually played this year. After my travels in 2017, which put much distance between me and gaming as a hobby, I spent most of 2018 catching up: I saw two main-endings of Nier: Automata, played and finished The Last Guardian (which I got in a Christmas sale), prepared myself for Kentucky Route Zero’s last chapter and finished the main quest in The Witcher 3 (a game I started playing in early 2017, but then treated as 4 different games – Velen, Novigrad, Skellige, and the rest -, because it sure is long enough to be played that way). With that, much of my overall gaming time for the year was used up; time that was a bit reduced anway, because I spent more time than in the last few years watching series and movies, studying, and reading. (And following the comédie humaine that is your country’s politics way, way too close.)
I doubt that 2019 will be much different, but for the best possible reason: I have become a father 2 weeks ago, and am much looking forward for what that will bring to my life. (I will buy myself a Switch for Christmas, though, since it has turned into the de facto best platform to play all the indie games that are all I’m interested in these days anyway — West of Loathing! Dead Cells! Into The Breach! Hollow Knight! Minit! Bloodstained! Iconoclasts!…as well as all the games that I already love and own, from Cave Story to Hyper Light Drifter to Kentucky Route Zero, but am more likely to play if I can do so in 30 minutes-sprints on the couch.) So: it was a year with not many games, but a lot of other good things. Which is alright with me.
Hey, congrats!
Congratulations on becoming a father!
That’s a fascinating description, and now I need to play this. I recall being intrigued when it came out, but the reception was so ‘meh’ that it fell down in the infinitely expanding list of ‘to do’ that makes up the modern game backlog.
This sounds amazing. It was such a failure that the failure is mentioned on its wiki entry?? Shit I’ll spend money on it
I liked Yakuza 0 because it’s a complex, emotional, and well-acted crime saga which also offers you the option of wearing shoes that squeak like a cat when you walk and make other pedestrians want to fight you.This split personality should be jarring, but somehow it seems like the most natural thing in the world to go from teary-eyed family drama and macho angst to missions where you protect Thriller-era Michael Jackson from zombies or reluctantly get wrangled into buying a dirty magazine for an innocent little boy. And the cabaret club minigame may be the most addictive side activity I’ve ever come across – for a game that’s ostensibly all about kicking people spectacularly in the face, I spent far more time than I’d like to admit fetching towels and training my hostesses in how to make small talk with lonely sad-sack salarymen.
Menu desu.
I really need to wrap up Yakuza 0 – now that I’ve done the Cabaret Club and Real Estate sidestories I think I could power through the story missions in an afternoon.
Yep, if you’ve done those you’re probably overlevelled for the last parts of the story. That game is really easy to cheese via outlevelling compared to some of the others. Put all your points into beast mode and you’re basically able to blindly flail everything to death as Kiryu.
Yakuza 0 was 2016. BUT, Yakuza 6 and Yakuza Kiwami 2 both came out last year in the US!! Kiwami 2 is just as good as 0, if not better. They’re neck and neck for best of the series. 5 is probably third. Kiwami 2 is definitely my vote for best game of the year.
(I realize you might just be saying it cause you first played it in 2018)
It just came out on PC this year, though – leave me my tenuous relevance, for pity’s sake! The first Kiwami is meant to be along for PC within the next couple of months too, looking forward to that.
Ohhh, I forgot about a PC release. You can have your tenuous relevance!Kiwami 1 had a couple actual hard-hitting emotional moments in it, which I was not expecting, and it was all because of the groundwork laid in 0 that fleshed out some of the characters that are pretty cardboard in 1. It’s one of those rare cases I’d recommend playing the prequel first. You’re in good shape!
I LOVED Yakuza 0! Seeing Majima’s backstory was so awesome! And the facial capture for Kuze, Awano, and all those guys was fantastic! It’s bonkers to see their real faces and think, “Holy crap, those guys are real!”
Really surprised Deltarune didn’t get any sort of mention. This is a good year for games, though. I’m not sure it’s as good as 2017, but still a very good year.
Monster Hunter:World broke me in two. Much like the Dark Souls game, it may have been my work schedule, but I could only take five or so 30-minute battles, only to have me get KO’d by the sometimes wonky gaming controls (and my own clumsiness). As a contrast, and I know it couldn’t be a more different game, but Red Dead Redemption II was almost anything you’d want it to be. First off, it had a list of characters you genuinely cared about, and the voice talent is first rate. Secondly, it you wanted to turn it into a Metal Gear Solid V like quest to get the best ‘S’ ranking for a mission, you could do that. But if you got stuck, there was always hunting you could do to calm your shit down. And if you wanted to go all Skyrim, Witcher 3, or Zelda:Breath of the Wild, you could do that well, and just roam the countryside and admire its beauty, especially its amazing sunrises. In short, unlike Monster Hunter: World, where I know the grind and the “get good” rule is of the utmost importance, I never felt like I wasted two hours of my time playing RDR 2.
You sound like someone I need to hear from about MHW. I really, REALLY want to play it because of the character customization and overall cool setting, but I also have a stressful work schedule and play in relatively short increments. When I do, I’m looking to relax more than challenge myself to git gud. Is Monster Hunter just not going to work for me?
I will say this as MHW – the online community, for the most part, is very fun, accommodating, and helpful. I just feel guilty as hell, because when there’s a challenging hunt, and you have 3 other players joining, I don’t want to be the one where 2 of the three ‘faints’ (e.g. the monster KOs you) is wasted on me. There’s enough beautiful scenery where you can do side quests, and just farm materials. And there’s some mercifully easy monsters you can kill at first – so it’s not like Dark Souls, where they throw your inexperienced ass into the deep end of the pool in the first 10 minutes. And there’s enough ‘missing’ pieces of monsters where you’ll need to revisit them again to get the specific piece you need. So, I’ll say this – there should be enough to do if you’re stuck. But overall, I’m just not a fan of those types of “one hit and you’re dead” zero margin of error-style games.
It’s been a fallow year for gaming in 2018, personally.I haven’t purchased any games for my PS4 at all this year (and I cancelled my subscription to PS+), I sold my Switch because I was no longer using it and of all the games on this list I have only completed one, Unavowed. I did actually play Monster Hunter: World for twenty-four minutes, before refunding it on Steam.But I have been playing games and even finishing some, mainly older titles on GOG and Steam. I checked my purchases on Steam this year and there’s nothing that really sticks out at me, so I guess I’ll go with…I liked FAR: Lone Sails because it was Limbo or Inside without the existential horror.I completed this game in one sitting and no intention of ever going back to it but the few hours I spent in this little world were really cool. With no dialogue or explanation of who you were, I set sail on my landship, exploring the ruins of a society and that had apparently left you behind.Sure, the mechanics of the game weren’t exactly thrilling but there was a definite sense of freedom as I whizzed across the plains, my sail filling with wind as the relaxing music played. I get why people enjoy sailing, now.
“I haven’t purchased any games for my PS4 at all this year (and I cancelled my subscription to PS+), I sold my Switch because I was no longer using it… I did actually play Monster Hunter: World for twenty-four minutes, before refunding it on Steam.” Yikes. I hope you’re not one to regret decisions. Smash Bros. comes out this Friday. Also, there have been some fantastic PS4 releases this year. I couldn’t get into Monster Hunter when I tried it on 3DS, but I gave World a chance and it was incredible.
Cool.
I haven’t played much this year either. I think I finished a game or two, and even things I liked languish there, in my backlog. And for the first time in many years, I will have a relatively short vacation, so I won’t have time there
I liked 428 Shibuya Scramble because it tells a complicated story about how our decisions affect those around us. 428 Shibuya Scramble is a visual novel that follows five protagonists through an eventful day. Each protagonist has their own goals, but their stories intersect in various ways. Seemingly innocuous decisions made by one character (such as where to eat lunch) can have drastic effects upon another character, leading to a premature bad ending. The game has only two “good” endings (one basic and one perfect) but 85 “bad” endings which run the gamut from hilarious and surreal to bleak and apocalyptic. Like a lot of visual novels, 428 Shibuya Scramble has a mix of wacky humour and serious emotional moments, and it balances them flawlessly. Despite the game’s central novelty being its use of real-life photographs instead of illustrations, what really makes it work is the sound design. The score shifts seamlessly as it goes from moments of tragedy to moments of levity.(Technically, this game came out in Japan for Wii in 2009, but 2018 was the first release for the English version.)
/cheer to you! I enjoyed that game too! It’s my guilty pleasure of 2018 (even though, as you mention, it’s a remaster/re-port of a 2008/2009 title we only just now received). As you state, 428 Shibuya Scramble at its best is about EVERYONE in Shibuya and how all these insane mini-plots escalate outward to involve each denizen just going about their daily lives. The insanity of treating simple just-trying-to-get-by plots with the same reverence and Flash Gordon go-for-broke sincerity as the batshit crazy anime trope plots running parallel achieves this apex of well honed pathos. I wish they’d stuck the ending a little better, but I gotta say, this gem really won me over, /cheer!
I thought the ending worked fine. I was a little disappointed that Maria and Minorikawa’s stories ended before the main climax, though.
Yeah, me too on Maria and Minorikawa. I really wanted there to be a 4/29 Epilogue section that showed how everyone went on with their lives. I feel like they game shifted from EVERYONE’S stories being equally vital to the tale to quickly honing in on the central three once more in that final section. Wasn’t bad as a climax by any means, but was a bit of a letdown after the rest of the 20+ hours had done such an exemplary job of making me care about DOZENS of characters. And hey, at least they used Chekhov’s ice machine to best effect. That was a thing of beauty.
The highlights of this year were God of War and Spider-Man, so I’m glad to see them on this list. I used to think that a video game story could never make me cry, because I never really gave a damn about the stories and was just in it for the gameplay. These two games proved me wrong. I’ve rarely been so moved by and invested in a couple of video games. To say Sony knocked it out of the park this year is an understatement.
Did you play The Last Of Us? That’s the game that first smacked me in the tear ducts. Still unrivaled in that realm, actually, though a certain spoileriffic event near the end of Red Dead 2 also just about did me in.
Yep, The Last of Us (and the DLC) got me in the feels on more than one occasion (including the giraffe moment obvs…).Weirdly, another moment that got grit in my eye was the end of Halo 4, when – SPOILER ALERT for a 2012 game ;-)- Cortana kind of sacrifices herself to help Master Chief defeat The Didact.
Nier: Automata was the first game that made me bawl. During the end credits. Those were some end credits, for sure.
Just finished Nier last week. I made the mistake of looking at spoilers after my first three endings, so the conclusion was spoiled for me… but still really good. That’s gotta be the most ambitious AAA game I’ve ever played, as far as narrative and gameplay go. I don’t think it pulled all of it off (especially the gameplay), but man do I appreciate the attempt.Games that have choked me up, at least as far as I can recall offhand: Papo y Yo, Bastion, and the ending of Braid. Maybe Undertale or Final Fantasy III? Probably forgetting something…
Limbo choked me up a little, too. Also the very, very end of the Witcher, but not for sad reasons. Just wistful.
Hollow Knight had a couple moments, too. I just bought Little Nightmares — looks like the colorful, horror version of Limbo. We’ll see if it’s as good…
Hollow Knight had more of a general feeling of sadness. I was too busy being flooded with relief after finishing the last two bits to feel emotional.
On my second playthrough, when the final DLC came out, I found some things I hadn’t found before (or just hadn’t existed) that really hit home. [SPOILERS!]
The end of Cloth’s storyline was so unexpected and affecting. And this might be strange, but the discovery of Joni’s Repose really moved me — it was just so goddamn pretty and peaceful.
The FFIII that’s not a good game, or the “FFIII” that’s a fantastic game? Because I’m trudging through the former right now and I’m crying as well, but because I’m wasting my life away in that god damned crystal tower…
Ha, the FFIII that’s a fantastic game! I know that I should be calling it FFVI and all that, but that just isn’t how I grew up with it.
No, you’re good! I just wanted to make sure, OG FF3 is a nightmare and a headache for me! haha
Did you continue over and over until the ending of Route E? Lots of people I know stopped after ending A and thought they were done.
Oh, of course I did!
I finished God of War this morning and it was up there with the series finale of Scrubs and Iron Giant in the stupid amount of tears it made me produce. I’M NOT CRYING YOUR CRYING IT’S JUST REALLY DUSTY IN HERE.
I teared up at the beginning chapter of The Last of Us and again at the end. Another one that had me tear up was, strangely, the last sections of the final stage of Journey. It’s magical. It’s definitely the music, it’s so powerful right there.I think to this day, the hardest I’ve ever cried during a video game was during the final moments of The Walking Dead’s first season. MAN. Fuck that game and all it stands for. (I loved it so much)
Yeah, the ending of TWD’s first season was a heck of a gut punch too. I still haven’t played another Telltale game, though I’ve downloaded half of them from Humble Bundle at one time or another. Any recommendation for another one?
I haven’t played too many of them, but I will say that it’s gonna be hard to top that TWD first season in terms of quality. I played season two and it was pretty good, teared up a bit at the end but not like in season one. Although I think the ending might be able to be drastically different depending on choices so idk how other people’s experiences are. I played The Wolf Among Us, that was an interesting one. I didn’t actually finish that series, I need to do that sometime. But it was cool, kind of like a fairy tale collection of characters in a dark and moody setting, definitely recommended. I heard that Tales from the Borderlands is also good, but I need to finish the core series first before I play that one.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater made me cry at the end.Spoilers for an old ass game!I absolutely loved Boss, and got a couple game overs trying not to fight her in the final battle. It wasn’t the beauty of the last fight that made me cry, or her final moments where she sacrifices herself. It was as the credits rolled, and the Snake Eater theme plays again. It got to the line “I give my life/ Not for honor, but for you” and I realized the song is from Boss’s perspective, singing to Snake, and I started blubbering.Spider-Man got me almost misty-eyed, but the execution and aftermath all felt lacking to me. The design, performance, and dialogue for THAT character were so good throughout the game that I was genuinely saddened at their loss, but the actual moment didn’t really land for me.
I don’t think Spider-Man packed any kind of real emotional punch. Was just a fun game. And for how well produced it was, how great the voice acting was, some of the story beats just didn’t have any weight behind them. Like the aftermath of the bombing when Peter finds out who the villain was all along, he basically didn’t react. I found that such an odd choice.
The major event at the end of Spider-Man is what hit me emotionally, though I don’t want to say what it is for fear of spoilers. I thought it was unexpected and very well done. I do agree the bombing didn’t quite have the necessary emotional impact.
Ah, I forgot that scene! Yes, that one was handled really well. Which makes the villain reveal even worse. The game did such a good job with the story, the voice acting was amazing. And then you get to the aftermath of that bombing scene, when Peter finally learns who the bad guy is, and he barely seems to care that it was someone he knew and liked a lot. It just felt rushed and took me out of it for a bit.
There’s a scene in FFIX that, upon a replay, caused me to burst into tears. The scene on the airship with the Black Mages and Black Waltz 3 really upset me for some reason.There were a few games that I cried about being finished with, games that took me a long time to actually finish because I explored every single inch of them and the finality of it affect me. Like Meagan Legends, Persona 3 (Which just had a downer ending in general), Super Mario RPG, and FFIX. All of them were pretty formative gaming experiences.
I find your lack of Forza Horizon 4 disturbing…
Man, what a boooriiing year for games. After a great 2017, this year had nothing I truly loved.I suppose the best ones were Celeste, Return of the Obra Dinn and Fist of the North Star. Not amazing, I wouldn’t easily give any of them my GOTY, but pretty great.
I am playing Spider-Man PS4 (still below 50% completion), and I really like the game, but I think the moment that changed to really *loving* the game was during the first (?) Shocker fight where you’re chasing him around the city and Spidey won’t stop quipping at him, asking why he won’t talk to him, how they never talk anymore, telling him that he’s too stupid to come up with this plan on his own, etc.Anyone can make a Spidey game where you swing around and fight bad guys. But that level of quippage is what I wanted out of a Spider-Man game.
Tetris Effect is my game of the year. It’s so well done.
I’m not a big gamer, and the only thing I actually played in 2018, aside from my apparently endless Bloodborne addiction, was Red Dead Redemption 2. This game is pretty much perfect for me. I’ve always loved westerns and was a huge fan of the first game, and this one has improved on it in every way that matters to me. Just roaming around on my horse looking at stuff is so rewarding in and of itself that I don’t even feel any particular urge to move forward in the story. I spent damn near three hours last night just riding around, checking out abandoned cabins and hunting for perfect animal pelts.Perhaps part of the reason I’m in no great rush to move on is that I know very well that things end poorly. Knowing what we know about how Dutch and the rest turn out, the conclusion of RDR2 is a foregone conclusion. So for now I’m content to wander and be a cowboy.
I’ve done this exact thing so often that Dutch has taken to chiding me for shirking my duties whenever I’m back at camp.
Dutch is such a dick. I make a point to antagonize him every time I go back to camp and can find the slippery bastard. He’s the only one I do that with. I used to antagonize the Reverend as well, but he’s so pathetic it felt like kicking a puppy.
I treat everyone in camp with respect. Except for Micah, who I am disappointed that I cannot shoot on sight and save us all a lot of headaches. The quintessential “Why do we keep this guy around, again?” character
Micah feels like he got teleported in from the GTA universe. Maybe that’s the point: in any era, in any setting, there’s always going to be a Micah to fuck things up.
I put off doing main story missions for so long at a point where they were supposed to be your main focus that Dutch sent Javier out to find me and ask me to ride back to camp with him but I kept hunting because I knew no good was coming up from the next few missions and I was right, some people died and made me sad. Damn those Pinkertons!
Been a bummer of a year for Switch owners TBH. I feel like Smash coming out at the end of the week will be a redeeming factor in an otherwise stagnant 2018 for Nintendo fans. Hoping 2019 will be better. Animal Crossing and Metroid Prime 4 will be promising. Finally bit the bullet and got a PS4 bundled with Spiderman on Black Friday along with a slew of stuff i’ve been wanting to try that were marked down to as low as like $20 each. Wonderful thing about hopping aboard a console late into its run is the huge backcatalogue of quality games that are still new to you but also cheap.
It’s the indies where the Switch has shined for me. Having Into the Breach available on the go, alone, has justified the purchase, even outside the other excellent (but released last year) games.
I don’t know, I’ve bought a ton of games for my Switch this year, all of which came out for it this year. Much more than I’ve bought for PS4 this year even.
I’ve played Into the Breach more on my Switch than I played Spider-Man on my PS4, so I was happy. That and Celeste have eaten up so much of my time that I still haven’t bought Dead Cells, Hollow Knight, or a bunch of other games I want to play on my Switch, and Smash Bros. looks like it is going to be incredible. The amount of content in that game looks staggering.
I liked Dead Cells because it reminded me of some of my favorite video gaming experiences from my childhood, but updated and feeling fresh and new with element of genres that didn’t exist back in the day. It was super challenging, but similar to the “Soulsborne” series of games, no death felt unfair or anybody’s fault but my own. The only problem with it was how every death resulted in a super long trek back from the beginning of the game again. I get that checkpointing would have destroyed much of the intended effect of the experience, but man, for a game this hard, there needed to be some kind of gameplay element that allowed it to be a bit more respectful of the gamer’s time available for playing. Overall it is a consistently hard, entertaining, exciting experience full of the moments that make you feel like the most skilled player in the world as much as it is full of those frustrating moments that make you want to throw your controller through your screen.
In Red Dead 2 I decided to play dominoes to waste time before the stew was ready. I don’t need the stew—the game’s not that hard, but I wanted it. So I expected Tilly to sit down but Abigail did, and during the slow, watch every domino be picked up and dropped off way it does, she mentions that Arthur used to play dominoes with Mary Linton, and unlike everyone else who’s given an opinion about her in the camp, she liked her. Then she beat me ruthless twice (in dominoes).It’s the only original dialogue in that mini game, so it’s a kind, great moment almost lost in all the material, but it was nice one to wander into.
The amount of incidental dialogue in this game that is never heard by most players has to be insane. So many weird little vignettes you can stumble upon in camp with those characters. Also Abigail rules.
I swear I saw an offhand mention in some pre-release article that RDR2 had close to a half million lines of dialog, which I guess might include each ‘line’ said by opposing sides in a conversation, since those can often be interrupted and restarted. When I first read that, I didn’t believe it, but after experiencing some of the things like hcd4 mentioned, I’ll believe it. You have to wonder how much goes unheard, and how much of the map the average player never passes within 50ft of, in one play through.
Is there anything as frustrating as walking into camp and hearing that two unique character conversations are occurring simultaneously? The eternal debate to choose one and completely ignore the other, or split your attention and miss out on both in equal measure.
Turn on subtitles and try and parse them out that way
I honestly think the only game I played that actually came out this year was Reigns: Game Of Thrones, which I find infuriating, but also difficult to put down.I have such an enormous backlog that I pretty much never play games the year they come out. I’m in no hurry.
Too much trouble to include the platforms these games are available on?
Too much trouble to Google them?
Kind of. It’s a robust list. Some folks (me) might have just gotten back into gaming and are not familiar with a lot of these titles and their respective platforms.
But… how hard is to type the name of a game into your browser?
It’s not. I said ‘kind of’, like it’s a minor inconvenience. I just don’t want to have to scroll, copy/paste, pick a link, etc. Dude’s already done all the work of playing the games and writing the reviews. How hard is it to go ahead and include the platform? Kind of? Not even.
Yeah. They could have easily added notes at the end of each summary so I wouldn’t have to individually look up each one to see if I can play it on my equipment. Sorta like the year end “Best Movie” lists on this same site will include which streaming platforms a movie is available on.
Huge kudos to the VR representation in this list. Beat Saber and Moss both show the potential of the medium in very different ways.
As someone who likes platformers, and the retro aesthetic of games like Super Meat Boy and Celeste, but who doesn’t have 92 hours a day to spend gitting gud enough at them to not put them down after half an hour to spare my sanity… Are there any good platformers whose main gimmick isn’t, “It’s the hardest hard that’s ever harded!”?
Same. Is a “not super impossible” platformer too much to ask for? Apparently it is.
The old Mario games are still decent. That’s why I keep Retropie around. I sure wish I could play something new and fresh, though. Super Mario 3 is only fun so many times…
this but for metroidvanias
Coming to this comment weeks later, but it sounds like the upcoming Switch port of New Super Mario Bros. U would be right up your alley – fun platforming that’s not extremely difficult.
I don’t think the main story arc of Celeste is that hard. It actually has a shockingly good story and thematic elements wrapped up in it, that it wants most people to see. I mean, it’s tough in that you’ll die a lot, but each ‘room’ takes maybe 30 seconds max to do a perfect run-through, so you’re never ‘stuck’ for long. For the main story path, I think you’ll be dying but typically getting further and further each time. I never felt hung up on any one obstacle long enough to get frustrated.. I just felt like I was learning and progressing.
It’s the optional content and collectibles that will really eat you alive.
See, people said the same thing to me about Super Meat Boy, and I gave up on it. I have respect for that level of challenge, but I don’t want to play one at that level of challenge.
Celeste has a very unique and robust difficulty system. You can slow the game down in increments of 10%, get extra jumps or infinite stamina, invulnerability, and more. They can all be turned on an off individually at any time. It’s really great
Awesome, I haven’t gotten around to Celeste ywt but I will want to try that out. One thing I really love about one of my favorite games that I played this year, Transistor (which, of course, came out several years ago), was that you can add “Limiters” to set up your own à la carte difficulty setting. Other Supergiant games are like this too, but they all start from a base difficulty setting and let you make it harder. I like that Celeste lets you go the opposite way too, tweaking individual sliders to make things easier, instead of just “Easy vs. Normal vs. Hard” in a more global sense.
Someone else mentioned the difficulty customization in Celeste, but I just want to re-iterate that it really is incredible how many options they give you to find your own perfect difficulty level, and you can adjust them all on the fly so if it ever gets too easy/too hard you can just pause it and fix it. More games should follow its example in this regard, it would really open up more games to kids, novices, people with physical limitations, etc., while still allowing the “hardcore” gamers a satisfying challenge.
I think it’s definitely easier than Super Meat Boy. SMB existed purely for the platforming (and therefore the challenge)— Celeste has a story and themes relating to the characters and, interestingly, the gameplay itself that it wants you to see. It gives you whatever tools you want to in order to tailor that challenge for yourself — even to the point of slowing down time, etc, if you want to just get past a particular section. There is just SMB-type challenge in addition to that, for people who want it.
I think its reputation got a little exaggerated because the challenge is what people want to show in Let’s Plays.. but what I would recommend it for is the base, reasonable game and the story it tells.
I’ve enjoyed the latest Kirby game but have found it somewhat lacking compared to the last sidescrollers on 3ds and Wii.One excellent retro game I’ve loved is Save Me Mr Tako. Its a Gameboy style platformer very influenced by lesser known platformers and its s rare retro influenced game where its not stupidly hard.Its a big complaint of mine that when developers make a game akin to the late 80s early 90s that it has to be hard…its as if theu dont know that not all games of that era were like that. We had Mario, Kirby, Wario, Yoshis Island even Sonic etc that had great difficulty curves.
I enjoyed Kirby: Star Allies, but I found it incredibly easy and underwhelming. It was good, but definitely a one-and-done kind of deal.
Early word on the platforming in Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is pretty good. It releases tomorrow.
There’s an incredible catalog of Mega Man games available on the Switch now! 1-10 and X-X8 are in collection bundles, and Mega Man 11 just recently released, it was pretty good! Mega Man X is the best one I’ve played so far, it’s amazing. They’re all pretty challenging, but nowhere near as hard as some other games.
I have the same issue with platformers where the goal is simply surviving each challenge. I enjoyed Guacamelee 2 recently, and it has a charming story and the fighting is really fun. It’s only really challenging if you feel like unlocking everything (which I did not).
It’s for that reason Cuphead is my favorite game I’ve ever owned that I’m not even going to try to beat.
I don’t know if it fits your interests, but Dead Cells had some of the best platforming in recent memory. Just don’t expect to “win”
The difficulty is really what turned me off of games like Hollow Knight, Celeste, and Super Meat Boy. I just have no desire to die a hundred times while I struggle to get on with the game. One retro-inspired game that got the difficulty just right is Shovel Knight. It’s challenging but never frustrating.
You gotta multi-task. Play them while you’re watching a show and they don’t seem so damned infuriating
I actually tried that with Celeste. I was watching Outlaw Star (got the box set on a killer deal, thanks Kinja! XD) while playing. I think I’m about 6 or 8 screens in, frustrated enough to put it down, and I still haven’t seen any of the vaunted “story” everyone has been cheering. Not one word of it…
Obra Dinn is a goddamn masterpiece. It’s been years since I’ve played (or read/watched/listened) anything that has engaged me so fully.
I both love that it’s so unlike anything else, and also desperately wish that there were a thousand more games just like it.
I see no love for Dead Cells anywhere. It’s ridiculously difficult, but the random maps, and random loadouts make for refreshingly, and frustratingly, unique runs each time you start over. I’m usually a monogamous gamer, one game at a time, but I’ve been switching between Dead Cells, RDR2, and AC Odyssey. RDR2 is slow but beautiful, ACOd is similar to ACOr but still a lot of fun.
I was really excited about RDR2. Bought it the day after it came out. In the weeks since, I have maybe spent 2 hrs actually playing it. I should add that my career doesn’t really leave me a ton of time to play videogames in extended sessions but even so, I found it to be incredibly boring. Traditionally, I am drawn to big RPGs and love good stories. AV Club, should I persevere and things will eventually turn around? Or are a lot of you having similar issues with the game?
RDR2 is a bit of a slow burn at first, and the controls can be frustrating. But the world and the story are worth it. Just put off doing any missions for Dutch or Micah as long as you can.
I’d say stick with it. It is a very deliberately paced game that sometimes actively works to slow you down to absorb the characters and atmosphere, but in ways that pay off as the story progresses.
With only 2 hours in, are you still in the mountains? That opening chapter is by far the worst part of the game with the most egregious examples of that “deliberate pacing.” After you move camp, the world opens up and things feel less ponderous. Though I’ll also say that if you don’t have a lot of time for games, you may still be playing it a year from now – it is staggering just how vast this thing is.
Out of the mountains. In the makeshift camp now.
I’m finding this game to be boring the hell out of me. I’m about 50% done with the story. It just seems that none of it matters. Cores, eating, appropriate clothing, hunting. I just decided to ignore it all and none of it matters. It has no effect on the game.And that sucks that you can ignore it all.
It gets progressively better, each chapter more interesting than the previous one. It’s good all the way through, but end of Chapter 4 through to the end is where it really flies. It’s a weird game because it wants you to take your time, it wants you to spend 10 minutes riding your horse to another town, it wants you to run off and do a bunch of side missions for hours at a time. It wants you to live in the world. That can be tough when you don’t have a good chunk of time to play it, but if you let it keep doing it’s thing you’ll find it’s rather miraculous.
The first chapter up on the snow covered mountain isn’t the most exciting introduction to the game and it’s fairly linear unlike the rest of the game’s open world. Things are much more interesting once you leave that area. After you get off the mountain you start meeting all kinds of strangers with unique personalities and stories, start getting interesting missions and all the mini-games become available. If you played RDR1 this is definitely a better game by far and RDR1 was a great game. I usually play a variety of games because I have too much free time but I have only played RDR2 since its release and probably will continue to do so until it’s finished. At the very least you should play until you trigger the camp’s first party, which is in the second chapter. That was one of the most unexpected delights of the game, watching all my fellow ‘family’ members celebrate the return of one of our own. You really feel like you’re at an actual party. You can even sing along to songs if you want, which I loved.
I’m ENTIRELY in the same camp. I spent years looking forward to RDR2 and couldn’t wait to jump in , and yet after having it for a month I’ve only played 3-4 hours. I really WANT to keep playing but it’s hard when I find an hour to put into it and still feel like I’m in a tutorial.
EXACTLY!But I also remember having the same issue with the last GTA. It came out during my last year of law school and I hated it, probably because the game does not lend itself well to hour increments. Then, later, when I picked it up and gave it more attention, it really took off for me.
same man. i’ve put about 7-8 hours in and thinking about playing it kind of stresses me out. haven’t touched it in weeks.
You’re probably still stuck in the snowy section. It’s a very slow burn to start. Once the world opens up, it picks up the pace.
For me, RDR2 towers miles above anything else. Even though the finale left a little bit to be desired, those 60 hours before that were so full of marvel and wonder from the breathtaking vast sceneries to the littlest of details that I got my moneys worth tenfold. And RDR will always hold a special place in my heart because the first one was the reason I got back into gaming after years of hiatus. It is so good and so gigantic, it even feels weird to complete a Top 3, but here goes: I also liked Guacamelee 2 a lot and Unravel 2 was lovely, as well.
I played the new Jackbox games this weekend actually. Overall, wasn’t a huge fan — we started with the one where you have to design and pitch a product, and it was just too much. We all just wanted something snappy to play while drinking, and this one just asks for SO MUCH INPUT before it goes to the other players (and then you have to actually pitch the dang product). The rap battle one was pretty fun, not really suited to our group but I can appreciate it, and I set up a couple of very goofy rhymes I was pretty proud of in the moment.Far and away our favorite though, was Split the Room. Its quick and snappy like the previous games tend towards; the premise is setting up a “would you rather,” but the winner is the one who gets the most split response from the room.
It’d be much closer between RDR2 and Game of War for me, but the mechanics of RDR2 are pretty much straight up broken, it’s taken me out of the game often. I’ve strangled countless people trying to get on my fucking horse, pulled out my gun on people I’m trying to greet, and fallen asleep to trying to walk briskly through camp.
I’m a crap video game player and I didn’t even know it was possible to accidentally strangle somebody while attempting to mount your horse let alone do it multiple times. The pulling guns on people instead of greeting them is down to you pushing the wrong buttons not a broken game, it happens to me every now and then when I push the wrong button but that’s my fault not the game’s. I have no idea how you fell asleep while walking through a town. You can only sleep near a bed or a camp fire, neither of which would be available to you without you initiating it by holding down the sleep button then picking a length of time to sleep. Are you sure your character didn’t pass out or fall asleep due to it being a part of a story? Or did you never ever have your character sleep and he passed out from exhaustion? Did the colors change somewhat and the sharpness get set to blurry because that’s what happens your stamina is nearing zero.
No, I physically fell asleep because he walks so damn slow in camp.The left trigger is aim+target to interact. So if you haven’t remembered to holster your gun, which happens automatically occasionally, and sometimes doesn’t, you draw your gun.The upper button (triangle for me) is mount+grapple, so if you’re in a busy area and someone coincidentally is near your horse as say, you’re rounding the corner and you don’t see them, and hit the button, you’ll grab them instead of mounting.I will take my blame for certain things during a game, but a button mapping scheme that can cause direct conflicts isn’t really my fault. For a game that’s supposed to be the ultimate in immersive realism, it’s not favorable. It’s not like I’ve ever tried to get in a car and suddenly I’m strangling my friend next to me.And don’t even get me going on having to remember to draw my guns every God damn time I get off my horse and switch the ammo back to what I want. JUST CACHE THAT SHIT AND DO IT AUTOMATICALLY.If it seems like I’m bemoaning the game, I apologize, but for something so good, there’s minor grievances that can really piss me off, and I didn’t have issues like that with GoW. I was just doing a direct comparison as to why I’d choose one to be #1 and one as #2.
So still the issue is “I forget the controls”?
You got it bud, not the “aura” of things you’re near that suddenly cause the context to change, mostly when they’re off screen and unseen.My apologies for daring levy a legitimate criticism to sully Rockstar’s immutable perfection.
That’s just realism. It’s well known that the biggest cause of death in the Old West was accidental strangulation during horse mounting.
“Everybody stay back! I’m about to try and get on my horse! Don’t make me hurt you!”
This year had a ton of great games. I honestly don’t know which one I’d call the best, but I know the game that I’ve most come back to throughout the year: Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire.
Building on the strong foundations of its predecessor, Obsidian took some refreshing chances with its isometric RPG sequel. Out goes the traditional, vaguely European setting in favor of vaguely Polynesian opulence. Less emphasis on small villages and more on politicking in a bustling metropolis. Four factions, each with their own divisions, to sift through to determine the fate of the archipelago. A fun take on multiclassing.
The pacing was thrown off a bit by the short and somewhat underdeveloped main quest, but Obsidian did something I didn’t expect: they made an Elder Scrolls game with the gameplay of Baldur’s Gate. And they supported it throughout the year with DLC and significant updates. I’ve logged nearly 70 hours into my character and am itching for the final big update to come out so I can justify rolling something new.It apparently sold very poorly, and with their recent acquisition by Microsoft I’m concerned that we won’t have a final game to truly wrap up the tale of the Watcher of Caed Nua. But if you’re a fan of the genre, you owe it to yourself to try it.
This has been on my list, but the Elder Scrolls comparison worries me.. I don’t like the weak, vague stories of those games. Is there an in-depth story in addition to just.. stuff to do?
In The Elder Scrolls, the story told to your face is pretty lacking, I agree. But I gotta tell you, the lore you can discover in those games is AMAZING! It’s so much fun to read up on the world and stuff.
It’s not that the story is weak or vague, it’s that it feels rather slight. Five or six quests and you’re done. The bulk of your time is spent doing sidequests that almost all relate to one of the four factions vying for control, and the game strongly pushes you to commit to one of them before you head past the point of no return.
I compare it to the Elder Scrolls series because of its structure: you can go where you want, do (or not do) what you want, and the game largely accommodates you. And while I think it does hurt the main narrative to be so short, the game’s big question is whether or not the people of Eora (the world of the game) really need the gods they worship, and literally everything you do is about taking a long look at the motivations of people, as individuals and as members of specific organizations, and frequently as followers (or victims) of capricious deities.
I was a little underwhelmed by the length of the main quest, but when presented with the final choice, I felt that I had more than enough experience to make an informed and nuanced choice, and I was very happy with the outcome I got. I think that’s a testament that despite having some missteps, the developers still had a clear idea of what their narrative was and delivered on it.Also worth noting that the DLC for the game, much like the original Pillars, directly and indirectly addresses various plot points and themes, and it may feel slightly more cohesive to play the game with them in place than to load up a pre-endgame file and do them piecemeal.
the ritual of cooking alone was as familiar as Arthur Morgan’s battered black hat, and the sudden appearance of a wild-haired woman by his fire at night was a genuine jump-scare.Holy shit, I had this happen to me, but when she approached me she glitched out and came towards me at warp speed. I don’t think I’ve ever jumped so bad from a video game.
Great list, but y’all really have to check out Astrobot: Rescue Mission. Moss was my VR GOTY until I got Astrobot. It’s legitimately my third favorite game of the year, possibly second.
Superb list from this blessed site as always, /cheer! ^^ Covered almost every one of my top titles for this year (God of War, Unavowed, Spider-Man, etc.). So I’ll just single out a space here for a personal favorite—I loved Yakuza Kiwami 2 because it completed the reflective trilogy that started with Yakuza 0. It’s The Undiscovered Country to Yakuza 0’s The Wrath of Khan. And it completes Kazuma Kiryu’s early journey from headstrong good-doer mixed up Worf-style in the corrupt organization to which he has sworn allegiance into the world-worn, reflective soul he is leaving Yakuza Kiwami 2. He started off trying to hold all this weight alone, all these sacrifices fulfilled by his own shoulders, and he ends this trilogy with friends to help share that burden without ever forgetting the COST of all that’s happened before him. He won’t foolishly go it alone again, but he won’t act like this life is ever something to relish either. It’s just the path he’s chosen and he’ll see it through (“like a dragon”). The conversation with the bartender, all his cigarette breaks staring out into the dusk, his attempts to help Kaoru Sayama from delving too deep into her past, and his wishes for Haruka to find a lifeline away from the ever-present bullseye on his back. The well honed pathos on display, knowing when to show and when to scream is what makes this series so memorable. And I’m very much looking forward to where it all goes from here, post Yakuza 6, /salute.
I’d nominate Civilization VI on the Switch. Unlike the last time I saw a Civ game on a console (Revolutions, bas in the Xbox 360 era) we got a stripped down version. Civ VI is not that – it is the full version reproduced on consoles. Just for the technical achievement alone, that ought to have it make the list. The fact that it is just as fun and addictive as any PC version is gravy.
All of the Jackbox games have gems, and they keep getting better with each new box. The great downside is having to have a critical mass of people to play with.
There’s still some 2018 games I need to play/finish but off the top of my head right now my list would be:1. Red Dead Redemption 22. Deltarune3. Spider-ManSo many moments from RDR2 are sticking with me already even just a bit after beating it. While it’s pretty clunky control wise, the highs of the story and everything else made up for it for me. I still have some of the songs stuck in my head from the late chapters.Not sure if Deltarune counts as only the first chapter is out and it’s basically just the demo, but we won’t be seeing any more of it for years so maybe it’s fair? I just really loved it and can’t wait to see where it goes next as I’m already very invested in the characters.Spider-Man was great also, just a fun time pretty much all the way through. The subway mission was one of my highlights and you weren’t even playing as Spider Man in it.
Wow, this list. This is good list.
I was totally prepared, upon reading the title, to wax on about various PSVR games or perhaps Obra Dinn, since that would be the niche where I’ve been spending the most time that would probably be overlooked. And yet it wasn’t, and now I have nothing to say!
I will add one thing to the bit on Moss, however. Not only does the personality apply to the relationship you feel with the main character, but it also applies to the environments. I don’t know how, and I can’t accurately explain why, but the environments feel REAL in a way that other games (including other VR games) don’t evoke. I really honestly feel like I’m looking down on a forest floor panorama in front of me, with a tiny mouse running around it. What do they do to evoke that? Is it a trick of the camera — its placement, perhaps? Did they focus intently on getting the scale of everything in relation to everything else JUST perfect, so that it taps into some commonly unused part of the brain? I don’t know. But I want more of it.
Into the Breach was fine, but how can you say it’s a galactic jump beyond FTL? There was so much happening in FTL. So many weapons, so many different strategies, so many achievements to unlock a huge number of different ships. I played hundreds of hours of FTL to unlock everything, get higher scores, try different difficulty levels, or just come up with a different way to win.Into the Breach is much, much smaller than FTL. There are a few enemies, a few small boards for battles, and a fairly small set of playable teams. I played it for a few weeks until I’d unlocked everything that seemed unlockable, and then gave up. It doesn’t have nearly the depth or replay value of FTL. It’s a fine game in its own right, but as a followup to one of my favorite games, I was disappointed in Into the Breach.
Dragon Quest XI finally gets the love!Kotaku’s top PS4 games list still doesn’t have Dragon Quest XI on it and it’s still missing Axiom Verge and Shovel Knight!
i liked west of loathing because it made me laugh.
I haven’t had a chance to play much anything new this past year except Divinity II: Original Sin. I appreciate this game as it feels entirely familiar to the original, yet, I’m still trying to understand and test the nuance of conversation and battles. Very excited to pick through and learn the finer details of this game that was made with so much love.
I liked various games from like five years ago because my PC is bloody ancient and I should really upgrade it one of these days so I can play anything remotely modern.
A lot of these look great. Will add them to my backlog. The good thing about my backlog is that I haven’t actually purchased most of the games in it. But I finally got around to reading the Witcher books after immensely enjoying the whole series closer to when the games came out and now … I’ve gotten myself sucked into a replay of the Witcher series. The good thing is that I’m already on the 3rd game. The bad thing is that I’ve decided I want to be a bit of a completionist about the 3rd one which means at my present pace I won’t be playing any other single player games for the next … six months.
Bloodstained was amazing, and came out of no where. We knew it was part of the kickstarter, but it was basically an info blackout till just before release.
And it nailed what it was trying to do perfectly. It was NES castlevania with some modern additions.
Tetris effect is dang impressive, more so in VR, which is not something you’d think with tetris. Even in flat mode, it’s a must have for any tetris fans.
I’d also add Astro bot: Rescue missions to this, which is another phenomenal VR game that absolutely nails presence. The moss/Astrobot bundle is a killer bundle with two fantastic games that really needed to be pushed more during black friday.
I liked Guacamelee! 2, because it was Guacamelee!, but again. Hard to make a better case for it than that.I think that covers it for things I played this year that didn’t make the list. God of War is so great, like they took The Last of Us and traded stealth and skin-of-your-teeth escapes for some of the best combat and hugest setpieces I’ve ever seen. Looking forward to RDR2 for my birthday, and Celeste someday after I finish Hollow Knight and Ori and the Blind Forest.
I really like Moss, but I was ultimately disappointed it with how short it was. It was expecting 10-15 hours of gameplay and it was only about 6 hours.
I dig the indies on here. I’d offer that The Hex deserves a place on this list. I put it up there with Obra Dinn as a game that does something new and does it very well.
This is a good list.
Games not from 2018 that I most enjoyed playing, because older games need love too: Day of the Tentacle, Remastered: this was goofy and insane in all the best ways. The cut scene that kicks off the climax is utterly bonkers.
Doki Doki Literature Club: Creeped me out enough that I had to stop playing for a while.
Fallen London: Far too addictive, but probably the best text-based brower game currently going, with a very friendly fan base.
The Dream Machine, Chapter 3: Still can’t believe games like this and Lumino City, where the entire game is crafted from hand from raw materials and then filmed, exist.
Fallen London is free. And massive. Everything else is on Steam.
I loved Spider-Man for the transcendent swinging. Granted, it had to be that good to transcend the fact that much of the game is generic mediocre open-world monotony (among other big flaws I will get into). Just getting around is so much fun that I collected shit and powered up towers and did all the other crap that I have gotten tired of and skip in other games like this. Hopefully a sequel will figure out side activities that are actually fun in themselves and not just errands to run while I enjoy thwipping around the city.
The combat is fun, but I would trade every single gadget for one or two extra moves in Spidey’s fighting repertoire. Except for breaking up absurdly large groups of thugs, I didn’t use any of them other than regular webbing and impact webbing, and it felt like if I used the other stuff more often it would make the fights absurdly easy.The voice acting is impressive in both quality and quantity. I loved getting a line or two about each backpack item. I loved every new dispatch from JJJ’s radio show. I loved finding Octavius’ tape recorders. BUT the game ends up depending too much on stuff like those recorders. I thought I had missed a whole cutscene between when Peter pulls the device out of Otto and when Otto shows up at the Raft break out. It was a really jarring jump in the story after carefully building up Peter and Otto’s relationship and Otto’s characterization, and it was only slightly mitigated when you return to the lab and hear some of his increasingly crazed recordings. I felt this way about a lot of parts of the plot, we should have had more actual conversations or comic-style cutaways to other locations and events. So much of the information was relayed through recordings or Spidey looking at plans and lairs that it went from an interesting device to an irritating one.The most Arkham-like thing about this game isn’t the combat, its the fact that just like Arkham I hated nearly every villain’s unnecessary re-design. Some are boring, some are ugly, Rhino looks egregiously stupid. Why are the huge gaps in Rhino’s armor? Why lose Shocker’s classic mask for a stupid helmet? Why does Scorpion look like Kamen Rider reject?
In terms of big-budget visual polish this game looks amazing, but as soon as I got the awesome comic/animated looking “Vintage Spidey” costume I realized I would like it much more if we traded all the technically impressive details for a simpler but more stylized look in that vein that reflected the comics or cartoons. And even with all the money they threw at this thing, Peter’s hair is still weird looking.The stealth missions weren’t irritating. But they weren’t fun either. Felt like unnecessary filler.
This game has some major tonal missteps and some really gross implications. Spidey helps the police set up a surveillance state, and the game never seems to realize this could be a bad thing (that’s not a real-Spidey move, its literally what Doc Ock-as-Spidey did in the comics!). Any questions about law enforcement or abuse of power are all safely confined to the mercenary army occupying the city at a future super-villain’s behest. The full-on Arkham City segment at the end of the game does not work at all. I know comics and games can be simplistic and have a very black and white/good and evil approach to things, but its ridiculous that hundreds of criminals escape prison and instead of hiding or running away they act like an occupying army and build fucking forts and terrorize whole neighborhoods.Also, the ending sacrifice felt pretty hollow and didn’t have much impact. Maybe its because up until it happened I thought there was no way it was going to happen, and even AS it was happening I thought it wasn’t going to happen, but it didn’t really feel necessary and there wasn’t enough afterwards to make it sink in. The only reason it was at all affecting was because the voice-over/character design/acting for the character up to that point was so solid.
The tl;dr version:Spidey gets an 8 out of 10 score, but that’s only because the fantastic swinging and a few other elements being 10 out of 10 pulls up the average when much of the game is really a mediocre 6 out of 10.
Now that I have ranted at length about Spider-Man’s positives and negatives, the other stuff:I love Into the Breach because it is a marvel of design. A bad UI would have sunk this game completely, but about 99% of the time it is completely readable and user friendly. Reducing randomized elements lets them make the game punishingly difficult at times without feeling unfair. I have played for dozens of hours and still only have two victorious timelines (one 2 island, one 3 island). Going for that 4th island gets into nightmare territory, but I will keep trying. I was pissed when my brother got a victory his first run (with some assistance from me, but still). I told him he got super lucky and had a cake walk run, “Yeah sure,” he said. Then he bought the game and lost his next dozen or so attempts. As the article mentioned, its also impressive how much flavor and world-building you get from the few lines of dialogue in the game.
I love Overcooked 2 for being more of the same. The first one was pretty much co-op perfection, and the sequel smartly just makes it prettier and crazier. The throw mechanic is a seemingly tiny addition that completely opens up how levels can be designed and is great for adding even more moments of hilarious frustration and zen-like co-operation. At one point my brother’s brain momentarily shut down from stress and exhaustion, and I am just throwing raw chickens at him that are bouncing off his stationary character into the river between our rafts while I yell “CHICKEN! CHICKEN! CHICKEN GODDAMMIT!” Then we laughed like maniacs. Overall it felt a bit easier than the first one, I wish there was a little more balance between 3 stars that we attained after just a few tries and 4 stars that seem impossible. Still didn’t stop it from being some of the most fun co-op gaming I have ever experienced. My brother is coming to visit again this weekend to play Smash Bros., and even with all of our excitement for Smash I have a feeling we will take at least a short break to play some more Overcooked.I love Celeste for managing to make a whole game out of Towerfall’s double jump/wall jump. Towerfall was masterfully designed fun, but Celeste manages to some how strip away most of the mechanics yet still feel like a richer game. And that’s just from the gameplay perspective. The graphics are beautiful, the music is fantastic, and the writing is charming. Even the simple gibberish audio that accompanies dialogue text is charming.I love One Strike because I got it on sale for $2 and its the closest thing to Bushido Blade I have played in years. Bushido Blade is one of my long-lost loves from my gaming youth, and playing this re-ignited that passion. I will probably soon be combing Amazon for a used copy of Bushido Blade to play on my dusty PS3. I’m still pissed that they never released it on the Playstation Network in the West, but Japan got it! Hell, I would have SERIOUSLY considered buying the crappy Playstation Classic if they had included it on there.
2018 has to be one of the absolute worst years for gaming. Valkyria Chronicles 4 is likely my GOTY, and I’ve yet to play AC Odyssey… But it’s really been ho-hum otherwise. Normally, I do a Top 5 for releases every year, but VC4 is the only one that would make that list. Detective Pikachu, Mega Man 11 and Spiderman were all in “good, not great” territory. Decent honourable mentions, but not great highlights.That being said, I haven’t really dove into 2018’s indie games at all, and games like Albino Lullaby, Near Death and Valley have been phenomenal stand-out titles… So I’ll have to spend a few hours with the Steam Queue and see what comes up.
I liked Deep Sky Derelicts because it takes the art style and some of the roguelike aspects of Darkest Dungeon, along with the exploration and turn based team combat, but applies it to Sci-Fi and also has a neat card based combat system and also leveling up is fun. So it seemed like Darkest Dungeon in space, which I already would have loved, but has some unique wrinkles of its own that help it stand out. Not much story, but still very addictive.
Wonder if Smash Ultimate would have made it onto the list. Would it be dinged a bit for being too similar to its Wii U predecessor despite its many improvements and additions? Or would those improvements and additions place it there for its stacked content – a lot recycled which is another con for them – as well as Spirits in place of Smash Tour?
Phew! I was afraid we wouldn’t get a Dowd feature without him using “fascimile”!
I liked Frostpunk because it’s been a while since I felt I earned a win. Frostpunk at first seems unreachable. I picked it up 4 or 5 times, each time telling myself I was done, before I finally figured out how to play – at least how to survive; I’m still figuring out its more obscure systems today. The first time I played, I was exiled 8 or 10 days in. Then 15 days. Then 25 days. I’d get a little further before I became frustrated with how opaque the rules and systems worked. But then I’d try again a day later, and figure something else out. Then, one day, it clicked. My city made it to the end. The final hours of play were a revelation. I turned the music up – which is excellent, by the way – and let myself, like I haven’t been able in a while, completely immerse myself in the experience. I was lost in the game, and when it was over, I looked around in a haze, reorienting myself to my real life house, which had faded away for an hour or two. This was my win. I had to figure it out on my own. I had to learn how to manage resources and buildings. I had to learn which of my morals should be sacrificed to survive, and which I could stay true to.I can’t speak to how well Frostpunk holds up in its genre. I haven’t played a city management game since the original Sim City. I was drawn to the game because of its graphics, dreary and beautiful and industrial. But it stayed with me because of its refusal to hold my hand, and so when I finally survived long enough to “win” the first scenario, it really felt an accomplishment.
Glad to see VC4 made the list…because that somehow came out while I was too busy trying to find time to finish Zelda: BoW, and play Octopath Traveler while feeding my Overwatch habit. The lack of fanfare for the game – to the point I didn’t realize it was out in the wild – had me a bit concerned….it’s on my to-play list, right after Spider-Man and Monster Hunter World. (I’m not counting Into the Breach, since I’m hoping for a iOS version, like FTL received.) 2019 games better suck, so that I can finally start to pare down my backlog.
Dead Cells should be on this list. That is all.
I’m sad that Octopath Traveler hasn’t gotten any love this year. I’ll admit the game does have structural issues and a lack of cohesiveness, some mediocre plotlines, but it still had the ambition to try a somewhat new way of story-telling for the JRPG genre. The combat system is what put it over the top for me, especially in the last half of the game. The difficulty of battles took a sharp turn upward after chapter 3 of most characters, and the boss fights especially presented a great challenge. The music was a treat, and I loved having the option of flexibility with my characters and their jobs, and that fact that this flexibility was presented relatively early in the game (I had unlocked the original eight jobs as secondary jobs within the first 20 hours of the game). God of War is my favorite game of 2018 so far, but Octopath Traveler is definitely near the top of my list as well.
Well, shoot, not only am I super-late to this party (by Internet posting standards), but my two top games of 2018 are already covered in the main article. What the heck, here I go anyway for my top 3— or at least, my favorites released in 2018, since my favorites played this year were all a few years older.I liked Into the Breach because it was like a chess match against Godzilla, only with even more challenges and greater complexity. As mentioned above, the amount of depth and interactions that this game packs into its bite-sized matches is truly incredible. Obviously, a core part of every match is the situation where you have, say, 5 Vek (monsters) on the board against your 3 mechs, with one aiming at the “Must Protect” power plant, one tying your best mech up in webbing, and so on. A certain percentage of the time, you will find the ultimate brilliant solution to these conundrums— like a perfectly placed shot that knocks one enemy into nearby water to drown, while pushing another aside to a position where it will no longer shoot that power plant, but instead kill another bad guy who would have badly damaged or killed one of your mechs— but a lot of the time, you have to choose which loss is least unacceptable and plan your move accordingly. So you learn the art of cutting your losses. But there’s also a larger metagame at play where, once you manage to get out of an individual mission, you choose which sorts of power-ups you want: stronger weapons so you can take down the baddies faster or from farther away, vs. reinforcements to the power grid so you can feel safer allowing an attack on a building because the odds that it will “resist” the attack is higher, etc. And the article above doesn’t even mention all the different types of mech squads there are, each with their own attack types and of course their own sets of achievements, which (as I recall) are not “just” achievements but also earn you points towards unlocking even more new types of squads. The number of options and play styles you can develop is astounding, and yet the gameplay itself is utterly simple to learn. Truly an amazing achievement, and even better in my opinion than FTL (which is really saying something— I played well over 100 hours of FTL even before I managed to beat the damn thing).I liked Return of the Obra Dinn because it trusts you to figure out its mysteries for yourself. There’s about a 2-minute tutorial segment at the beginning to show you how the log book (a few resources about who is on the ship, how the decks are laid out, etc.) and its “who died how” hypothesis-building system works, and after that, you’re on your own. The first few “fates” to be solved are easy ones, but they provide a brilliantly concise introduction to how people’s fates intertwine in ways that continually turn up tidbits of new information that eventually allow you to solve more and more fates. And other than saying “keep your eyes open!” or words to that effect once at the beginning, it offers virtually no explicit clue to the depth and detail you’ll need to watch out for— but the information is all there, just waiting for you to discover it. I should mention that this is our current Game Revue Club game over in the Gameological group on Steam, so if you feel like discussing it, head over here (or the equivalent spot inside your Steam application):https://steamcommunity.com/groups/gameological/discussions/2/3104564981110211258/I liked The Red Strings Club because it felt like an open-minded philosophical discussion over drinks… and was also a damned stylish ode to classic point-and-click adventures and cyberpunk themes. So much of this game is dialogue, much of it about the philosophy of modifying the human body and mind with technology, but made exciting through a well-executed “gamification” of the dialogues (where, after mixing an appropriate mood-orienting beverage, you are trying to collect information to help with the larger narrative and also prepare for a pop quiz offered by your mysterious android companion after each conversation). More interestingly to me, even when the game seems to clearly be staking a strong opinion on this or that point (e.g. with your character’s overall goal), it works hard to undermine and question whatever assumptions and “certainties” you may have on any of the topics that come up. By the end, I wasn’t sure about much of anything anymore, except that I (as the barkeep) loved my old friends who had joined me on this adventure, and the crazy city we had experienced it in… but the game definitely got me thinking, in its own laid-back, charming way, and for that it’s definitely one of my top games of 2018.
In Valkryia Chronicles is an awful, awful, awful game. For God’s sakes, you play as an innocent Germany cruelly invaded by the evil allies for no reason. (Gallia is a central European country faced on the east by big red empire equipped with KV-2s, using soviet calibers. It’s faced on the west by the “United Kingdom of Ediburgh” and the “United States of Vinland” who come with Sherman Tanks, oh excuse me “minute man” tanks.Your character’s name is Gunther. His tank is a Panzer 4 called fucking Edelweiss. It’s one long, ugly, dumb apologia for Nazi Germany.
I Liked Donut County
because it was a tactile joy to play with and experience. The core of the game, dropping things into your ever expanding hole, was satisfying and the story and writing around it just made it all the more fun. Best compliment I can give the game is I wanted more of it, bigger levels, more Katamari Damacy-like scale and chaos. I Loved Red Dead Redemption 2
for giving me a great character whose story and character were compelling and a world that is still fun to explore and like the main article states, never ceases to amaze with all the discoveries to be made. I took my time role-playing this game and enjoyed the simulation aspects a lot. And the sheer beauty of it, after 50+ hours, I still stop and stare at the vistas.
Where 👏 Is 👏 Astro 👏 Bot 👏 Rescue 👏 Mission 👏
I liked Detroit: Become Human for pushing choice-based games. I was a big fan of Heavy Rain back in 2010, and though QuanticDream’s followup Beyond: Two Souls was a misfire, I think they got back on track with their newest title. Man vs machine stories are a dime a dozen, and while movies and tv often contemplate what it means to be “human”, video games on the same subject, rarely do. There’s a lot in this title I’ve rarely experienced as a gamer. In one scene, a cop is at my door, and I’m hiding evidence in the house that might give away that I’m harboring fugitives. That’s the chapter. And it’s nail-biting. In another scene, I’ve gathered my brethren for a peaceful protest against police, and public opinion (key to getting the “best” ending) hinges on my actions. Find me another game where I can do that.Detroit wants to make metaphors and talk about the disenfranchised, and though it can be on the nose, I appreciate that they’re still going for it, when a lot of other games won’t touch the subject at all. As someone who loves branching narratives, the sheer number of possibilities here is the most impressive I’ve ever seen. You’ll get a Telltale game that pays lip service to characters “remembering that”, or you’ll get a Mass Effect that offers the illusion of game-changing decisions, but Detroit: Become Human is the real mcCoy, and to prove it, they even show you. In the genre of choice-based games, Detroit is the best of it’s kind.
I’m surprised AC Odyssey isn’t on the list anywhere, simply because Melissanthi Mahut’s Kassandra was the most impressive performance I saw all year, in any medium. She took video game mocap voice acting to a level of grace, nuance, and subtlety I didn’t even think was possible (kudos to whoever directed her, too). I guarantee you that whoever wins Best Actress this year won’t have as good of a performance behind her as Mahut’s was in that game.
Love seeing Wadjet Eye Studios get a shout out. Their games are old school adventure bliss.Even though it wasn’t as good as The Room 3, I’d throw The Room: Old Sins on the list too. And Smash Bros which is as fun as ever.
Sea of thieves LOL
I am thoroughly surprised the AV Club and, as far as I can tell, most gamers in this thread haven’t talked about The Hex at all. It’s developed by the same man who made Pony Island and has much going on the background as that previous title did. The Hex doubles down on its critiques of gamers, self-righteous developers and predatory practices in the gaming industry. The game tends to go more negative on its reflection of gaming history, calling out particular games like Fortnite and Fallout for its shoddy and manipulative approach to its audiences, but it also notes how toxic gaming communities can be. Having just played hours and hours of Super Smash Bros Ultimate (which really acts as a love letter to some of gaming’s greatest achievements) it’s a breath of fresh air seeing solid critiques of video games come from the developers themselves. But I also think it pushes a little too hard on the creep factor, and the ghost-in-the-machine style freakouts worked a little better in Pony Island. It may get a little heavy-handed at times, but I think The Hex offers a wholly unique experience in gaming this year, one that is sure to divide gamers.
RE: MossThis is the only game is YEARS that I IMMEDIATELY wanted more of as soon as the credits began to, figuratively, roll..The thing, beyond what Alex already laid out above, that I really loved about this game was the co-op feel I had going with Quill. The first time we high-fived, my cold, black heart thawed and grew three sizes.Polyarch killed it, and I can’t wait for the next Polyarch game…be it Moss Chapter 2 or not.