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I rarely buy games at release, so I don't have 10 or even 5 games that came out in 2018 and I also never had a writing class in my life so I'll try to at least make this tolerable. I'll also limit myself only to games I finished or played long enough to realize they affected me in a special way. With that prelude of bullshit gone, the list: 1)Yakuza Kiwami 2:  There's no way I wouldn't have a Yakuza in my first spot, the series enraptured me in a way that I never felt before and, at this point, I figure I'll keep playing any game that Ryu Ga Studios releases. It was only a matter of which one would take the lead; 0 seems the obvious choice: The game is the introduction to many new players to the series and is a spectacle of drama, humor, and action that no other game can even compare to. There are some flaws that can't go unnoticed, such as the archaic save system, but even then it still shines brighter than any game about a criminal organization should. Kiwami 1...was rough. Several mistaken decisions turned the gameplay into a chore - and it already wasn't very fun for some people - and it shows that it is the first game that was released before they had any idea of what to do with the characters, as the world feels very devoid of life. The high stakes dramatic main story is still there, but not much else. And then there's Kiwami 2. The Dragon engine is a breath of fresh air, not only for the improved graphics but for the QOL upgrades, the seamless transitions between battles or when entering shops, making the trips around Kamurocho much more entertaining. The combat was revamped and is now much more focused than the multiple styles you previously had and the blows Kiryu land now feel as heavy as they have been described in the previous games. The substories variety is also outstanding, equaling and even surpassing 0 at times; even the Cabaret Club has a climactic finale. And the main story not only picks up the dangling plot threads from 1 but also adds some of its own and goes as far as dealing with some unfinished business from 0. It is amazing on its own, but even more in how definite it feels regarding the previous entries; obviously, there are still four more Yaks to come, but it would not feel out of place at all if this were the conclusion of the series, as bombastic as it could've been. 2)The Return of Obra Dinn:   I adore Detective games and am always disappointed at how few of them come out regularly and how little effort is put on their mysteries. So it is no surprise that Obra Dinn feature so high in this list; the game might as well already be considered a masterpiece of the genre, the puzzling fates of the passengers of the ship, the scattered clues that are never straight up pointed to you but instead slowly make more sense as you get to know each of the pieces of the complete picture and the order of the events, with the game beginning literally at the very last one, plainly named "The End", and moving backwards, sometimes making you more confused, sometimes making you more intrigued, until you hit the beginning of the story, look back - forward? - and the details begin to fit together. I am extremely pleased that not only such a meticulous work was released but also that it garnered its much-deserved accolades. 3)Masquerada - Songs and Shadows:  I feel like putting this in such a high spot compared to the others that will come next might confuse some, but it expresses my feelings towards the game more than my words can. Masquerada is a fantasy RTwP game that by its own description does not stand out from many other indie games in the now bloated Steam store. But actually playing it changes everything. The gameplay is carefully planned, with dynamic battles that are aided by the RTwP system and not entirely based on it. The abilities that each character earn and upgrade feel significant and not a "0.1% chance to earn a critical strike" type. The characters themselves are a colorful - literally - cast, each with their own demons and mysteries that slowly unravel along the plot, with Cicero, being the detective he is, taking notes on both, watching them grow and growing himself. And the world of the game is fabulously unique and also with a wide-ranging lore, all of it which feels alien at first, but the drips of information along the way paint the picture of a city being formed, a mysterious power being discovered and used, the growth of the city itself, its reputation and the change of its citizens, all in a very natural and unlikely pleasant way, when compared to most fantasy fiction. It is a hidden gem among hidden gems and a shame that only word of mouth is what may make people notice it. 4)Detention:  This is a very special case. First, a horror game that me, an unrepentant wimp, played to its completion. Second, a setting that is very rare in video games: A real-life dictatorship occupation, in this case, Taiwan in the 60s. And third, that it executes both of those aspects in a marvelous and terrifying way. The fantastical horror has its ghosts and rituals and the real horror leaves its mark to be seen in every corner of the game. A short experience makes very hard to describe without delving into spoilers territory, but it is notable that they did not let the genre they chose to crush the personal story that is the crux of the game. 5)Pyre:  Trapped in a prison dimension, you gather a group to perform a rite that may grant freedom to those who exceed at it: Basketball. And it is also a visual novel. And a goddamn masterpiece. Pyre is another radical change from previous Supergiant games and another darling. Once again the Soundtrack is phenomenal and the writing filled with heart, this time with a cast of characters betrayed by a corrupt world, fated to conduct a nebulous task together or perish to the hellscape they were banished to. The game is surprisingly open with choices, with defeats not ending the journey, just being a different way to reach your path and the teams you play with drastically changing how a match will unfold. The story is also a remarkable tale of redemption, forgiveness, and rebellion, although it takes a while to kick into high gear and lay out all its cards on the table. I did not find it as heartrending as most players, but it still is a tale to behold. 6)God of War:  There ain't much I can say about this that others won't say better. Fancy camera shot, pretty graphics, neat story. Along with all that, it stood out to me the character of Kratos. There are a lot of discussions whether he is a bad or good dad, if he can or not redeem himself, if he will let his rage take over again, but, to me, there is one particular stance that I enjoyed very much: He wasn't a good person, and he still isn't. He made mistakes that will never be fixed. He was a monster, and deep inside he still is. But whatever happened during all this time changed him, even if just a little. He genuinely loved Faey and is in a deep state of grief. He genuinely loves Atreus and the fear of losing him terrifies him and he does not know how to cope with this, but, in his own broken way, he tries to prepare the boy for the horrors that live in this world, where living or dying is decided on a single misstep. And, for both of them, he braves this land unknown to him, unaware of its dangers but willing to face anything that appears to fulfill his quest. He cannot unmake the failures of the past but he is trying to avoid making as many as he can in the future, for the future of others, which might be the most selfless act he has ever done, and, as little as that means to a monster, it is a good beginning as well as it may be a good ending. 7)Odin Sphere Leifthrasir:  Going with a couple that I have not finished but seen enough to recognize their value. First, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. The original Odin Sphere on the Ps2 was...interesting. The artistic style was a one-of-a-kind, but the gameplay was painfully dull and the console struggled to handle a crowded fight. Leifthrasir on the other hand is a live demonstration of learning from experience. Vanillaware applies what it learned over the years, especially from Muramasa, and delivers a frantic combat experience where even a normal encounter is a rollercoaster, improves the quality of its graphics and audio, creates entirely new mechanics that differentiate the characters and their playstyles and polishes a number of QOL changes. While, at first, I mistook this for just another cheap change remaster, it is one of the most robust upgrades to a mediocre yet deserving game I've seen. 8)Tales of Berseria:  I'll excuse myself for not being done with this one because it is a jRPG, which are not known for being brief, but it deserves a spot here because it is a jRPG that I am enjoying. After the blunder that was Zestiria and my disappointment with Persona 5, I just assumed the genre wasn't for me anymore; but stubbornness and a lack of economic planning ended up with me buying yet another game of the genre, which much to my surprise ended up being a gamechanger. The gameplay is much more solid than Zestiria or other Tales Of games I can remember and it is not an undecipherable mess with its equipment or abilities. It actually tends to be far too easy, with me constantly attracting as many enemies as possible to a single fight to have a challenge, but it is also very entrancing how the battle keeps going and going, with more and more of them barging in and making everything more frantic. The characters are also special, in more than one way. The party is often described as a group of idiots, each with a different kind of stupidity, but, despite being a funny description, I feel they are more like a group of pariahs with conflicting personalities that yet find a point in common with one another and slowly bond together. It feels very organic how each of them opens up and grow personally, even as they are still goofing around while also being on a near-suicidal vendetta against the "hero" that saved the world. 9)Watch_Dogs2:  I've been playing and enjoying Assassin's Creed since the first one so, at this point, I might as well brand Ubisoft logo on my skin and accept my terrible taste but WD2 is something special. Dropping the gritty, dull setting of the first game, we now follow a plucky bunch of rebel hackers fighting against the man. Despite handling some very relevant topics, the game does not pretend for one second that it is not absolutely ridiculous, with missions involving stealing a KITT-like car or scamming NotShkreli with a fake NotKanyeWest album. The actual hacking you do in the game is also a delight and it truly feels like the city is your toy to do as you wish, especially when you have drones available making it so you don't even have to be near somewhere to turn it into chaos. Despite having a black mark that sullies a bit of the experience, the game is, IMO, the top open-world sandbox crime game available, a full package for anyone who wants to hang out in SanFran and have some fun, maybe explode some stuff. 10)Dragon Quest Builders:  As someone who enjoys the allure of crafting game but would prefer one with a focused quest, Dragon Quest Builders was a full course meal. As the Builder, you are the last human in the world that still has the knowledge to build structures in the world and, as such, is tasked to rebuild the cities that were devastated by the Dragonlord after the Hero failed his mission to defeat him. Oozing with charm, this game manages to not make the gameplay loop into a dull, repetitive sequence of events, as even when you go to a new land and lose all your recipes and equipment you realize that the place is facing an entirely different problem than the previous one and adapt accordingly. It also somehow manages to have a heartwarming twist of a word by the very end, culminating into a creative bossfight, cementing the entire adventure as what most games of the genre fail to be: A relaxing, simple but gratifying experience. Hell, that ended up being much longer than I expected, I thought of posting some runner-ups but I guess I'll leave that to another opportunity.
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Dec 3, 2018 19:24
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Smash isn’t something I love enough to put in a top 10 and I’m making an assumption I won’t like Kiwami 2 as much as Y0 so LIST INCOMING
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Dec 3, 2018 23:07
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1. SoulCalibur VI Game of the year by far for me, it hits the spot so well. Been playing this nonstop with friends for the past month and a half, it's been like the good ol' days, have not been this into a fighting game in a long time. They just nailed it, so addictive, I could pretty much play this nonstop, especially local. I don't even have Playstation Plus. Masterpiece, also Ivy is the best. There are always things to try, to learn, so many variables to mess around with when playing with somebody, local versus mode in SoulCalibur VI is pretty much a perfect game to me. 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 About four weeks of playing this a ton more days than not, great great game. I love Rockstar's style of games, I like Hauser's writing, and Arthur is a really well done character. The world is fun to explore, running into weirdos etc, blasting fools, learning a thing or two along the way. Really impressed me all around, thumbs up. 3. Yakuza Kiwami 2 I've played more of Yakuza than anything else this year, so much great stuff. While 0 is my fav of the bunch, I weigh stuff released this year a little higher on the list, but more on that later. Kiwami 2 is my fav right after 0, though they're all close, this game continued a great thing, keeping a similar formula fresh after hundreds of hours of it. Though I shouldn't be surprised, this game was even better than I expected being a remake. Has a really well done story, Kiryu is one of my favorite characters ever, just a joy to play. And the combat and running around is all so well done, fun side quests too, overall just a tad better than Yakuza 6 on the same engine. 4. Yakuza 6 But I did love Yakuza 6, really great game. I did play about a third of the other notable dad game released around then (will get back to that, good stuff), this one kept me glued to it a bit more however. Because it's freakin' Kiryu, and he's back at it, compelling story, fun, clever writing, smooth combat. And even more than previous Yakuza games, this one is a gourmet eating simulator. Since that helps with leveling up too, so just running around beating up fools, getting good grub, helping people, what more do you need. 5. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Now this would be game of the year 2017 for me, but I did beat it and play more than half of it around February this year. My goal was to beat the game by the day it came out a year later, March 3rd, and I did beat it right on that day. Not that I rushed it or anything, it took me well over 200 hours. A lot of fun, not many games can make just traveling around and exploring fun for that long, but this game kept my interest, captivating stuff. Really well done example of the open world genre. That said, I wouldn't mind if the next one was a tad smaller, with quicker travel, but for this one I did not mind taking such a long time. Longest game I've ever played (on the Wii-U clock it was well over 250 hours), and also one of the best. 6. Yakuza 0 Much like BOTW, this is one I started in early 2017, loved, played nonstop for a few weeks, but then put it on the backlog for about a year before jumping back in. Another one of the longest games, over 140 hours for me, and I didn't even quite complete the Cabaret and Billionaire side bosses. But a pleasure to play this for so long, one of the best games ever. Introduced me to the series, and to Kiryu especially who is such a terrific character, props to Majima as well, Kiryu is just the man in my book. A great mix of action RPG, open city exploring, side quests, crime story fun, anime/manga and John Woo style honor, Kenshiro style burning manliness (gotta play FoTNS), manly tears, and stoic epicness. Also the combat rules, and the humor is top notch. Masterpiece right there. 7. Yakuza Kiwami A fourth Yakuza write up, you drat right. Played an endless amount of Yakuza this year, also played Kiryu's opening chapter of Yakuza 5 (about 20 hours), and this game too is fairly long. But that it kept me coming back goes to show the series is terrific and addictive. Was very cool to see what happened next with Kiryu, and also where the series began, and more excellent combat, though a bit grindy at times. Felt a bit more gritty and oldschool, like you could feel the PS2 roots of it, I can see why it wasn't quite as popular as 0, but for me it's right up there, really really cool game. Well worthwhile to anybody interested in kicking rear end and honorable excellence on the streets. 8. Dragon Quest XI Great game, love the series and had been hoping for something like this since DQ 8 back in 2005. I'm only about halfway through it, maybe forty hours in, it's currently in that backlog spot I seem to put these really long games I love in of late. But I'll get back to it soon. Even what I've played is one of the more fun and well done RPGs I've played in years. Likable cast, fun world, fun turn based combat, lot of nice little touches, very cool. 9. Mega Man 11 Mega Man is back! It's fun, it's forgiving with lots of things to mess with, can buy Beat uses to pull you out of pits, but it's still classic NES inspired platformer action with all the madness you'd expect. Well done, smooth feel, and hits that classic nostalgia buzz real well. 10. Ion Maiden Really well done retro shooter, some of my favorite style of game. It only has a preview campaign so far, which is about an hour, but that's the equivalent of maybe four oldschool shooter levels combined, enough to know it rules. On an updated version of the Duke Nukem 3D engine (build/eduke32), I love that style of map design where you have a few areas and directions to explore for keys and objectives, but it's still relatively tight and focused. And the combat is great. Lot of potential for the full release.
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Dec 3, 2018 23:52
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Hello gamers! 1. God of War Wow I played this game twice in a row when I got it. I never do that. I'm not going to pretend it did anything all that exciting outside of single take and being really, really expensive looking but the story was great, I loved all of the environments and the combat was stellar. I loved that the game felt like a greatest hits anthology of game design that I've enjoyed over the PS3 and PS4 period. The fact that we've got two more coming is so exciting. Can only get better from here and it's already the best of the year to my mind. Fun, flashy and great gaming. I will return to play this one in the future for sure. 2. Assassins Creed: Odyssey This game has no right to be this good. I hadn't played AC since doing maybe half of Syndicate and calling it quits. I played this game like a maniac and enjoyed every minute of it. The reduction in goofy modern day poo poo and the Grecian setting (which is my favourite subjective place for adventures) just made this fun end to end for me. Being in Greece a month before release probably took it up a notch since it's so fun looking around mini Acrocorinth and poo poo. I really liked the ARPG design choices despite being worried about not being able to assassinate anyone I wanted by using skill and stealth. It's a very different game to the AC I remember and I am all for it. I'm really disturbed that this is so high on my list, but I just loving loved this game. It pushed all the right brain buttons for me from a gear, exploration and story standpoint. Even though some of the systems and some of the writing frays and weakens at points I never felt like I was playing a dead eyed open world ubi game and that was a pleasant surprise indeed. I played as Kassandra and have to say, what a protagonist. I just wish they'd had time to put the voice actors in the same room because some poo poo comes out sounding extremely goofy, almost like they were given different direction (or more likely none). 3. Red Dead Redemption 2 I thought this would be higher but I play games for fun and I've got to say as fun as this game is, it's not as fun as the previous ones. The story, world and everything is amazing. I really enjoyed playing as Arthur and I think the entire ensemble is brilliant from animation, voice acting and writing perspectives. The controls were a little finnicky at first but once I got used to them it was a breeze and I enjoyed saying hello to people in town then stabbing them in an alley and stealing .70c from them. I've got to say the big mission gunfights get kind of tedious. The game shines most brightly in sudden, extreme bursts of violence like a real western, but spending ten minutes blasting mooks is pretty boring. I shot down three men in a swamp and one of them writhed in the mud and I think he might have drowned in it. I shot down a man running down some stairs to kill me because I was in his home and when I shot him he fell down the stairs and finally staggered out the door at the bottom, fell in the mud and then I finished him. More of that poo poo, less of shooting 50 guys please. Let me enjoy what you did here, rockstar. Riding around with your camp buddies is really cool and I started playing the game a second time to do the collectathon and explore (wow the exploring is good, there is so much weird stuff) but now I'm just kind of camped in chapter 3 and haven't gone back to keep playing. this is primarily because of 4. motherfucking TETRIS EFFECT HOLY BRICKS, MY EYES AND EARS. SMOKE WEED. DECAHEXATRIS  5. Divinity Original Sin 2 Superb CRPG meets XCOM in a light and fluffy setting with enough meat and darkness to keep it interesting. I really loved the characters in this game and the character creation system owns bones. I chose to play as an origin character with a story, but you can choose to make your own guy as well. I will definitely come back and play this game as a big jerk skeleton at some point. The combat system is great and I really enjoyed being able to combo up spells and abilities. The options for character development, spell choice and skills are really robust and take the best bits of CRPG history, while doing away with some of the more onerous parts. I'm sure this might bother a few very hardcore players, but for someone who likes a more moderate spreadsheeting challenge, but generally is more interested in being in the world and enjoying the game it was a wonderful system to play with. 6. Spider-Man I got the plat on this game in record time and it is a wonderful experience. I don't know what's holding it back for me in terms of ranking, but I feel like it's just outside my top 5 games. It feels like a big budget Marvel movie jammed into game form. Looks great, story is entertaining and has the feelings inside it and it plays great on a mechanical level. I feel like there is some little, inconspicuous element missing from Spider-Man to make it an all time great, but I'm not sure what that element is. That being said, god drat I enjoyed playing this game, swinging around and doing Spider things. Great sense of humour and really captures the world of spidey. I think there is an Avengers game with a similar budget and team behind it and I'm really excited to see how that pans out after this game. 7. Horizon Zero Dawn So I burned myself out on this when I first tried to play it and I really thought little of it. Heading back and just beelining the story really changed my mind though. I didn't think the story was all that good, but it did open my eyes to just enjoying the environments and the interesting combat. I don't think the combat in this game is perfect by any measure, but its loving different and it works. Trapping a robodino and shooting poo poo off it with tearblast arrows is so fun. The game is also beautiful to look at. My stars it is so attractive. Solid gaming and really pleased I returned to finish it. 8. Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire Classic RPG gaming. I don't know what to add. Great setting, crunchy mechanics and very nostalgic without letting that hold the game back. Perfect modern take on the western CRPG and it's only beaten by DOS2 because Divinity's combat gelled a bit better with the lazier gamer brain I have these days. Big ups for the wild colonial setting as well. poo poo this was good I am thinking about changing the numbers but I won't. EDIT 9. Soul Calibur 6 What the gently caress am I doing. Got distracted by Tetris Effect from this one too, but man it's great to have a real SC game back. Also the character creation mode! Game is so much fun. Great new SC game and I am all for it! 10. Dragon Quest XI I've added this late but I already know this is going to be one of my favourites this year. So much colour, so much nostalgia and great JRPG stuff happening. I really like the story moving you along and the linear structure after about ten hours. Feels like an absolute classic in so many ways. Comfort food gaming at its absolute best. I dont want to go to bed because of this! honorable mention thank to including DQXI: Spyro: Reignited My girlfriend is bad at games generally but she is loving this and you know what, I like it too. Really good remaster with great nostalgia value. The gameplay is tight and fun. I really like the flying missions. We are having a great time passing the controller on deaths and she is always very impressed when I use my trained gamer brain to second guess where the developer has put the last few crystals. I'm not saying this is some groundbreaking feat or anything, but it's a really sweet addition to the library next to Crash. I think that's it for me, can't think of anything else I played that I want ranked. Special thanks to all the other games I played this year that I hated and made me angry! JBP fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Dec 8, 2018 |
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Dec 3, 2018 23:58
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Astro Bot Rescue Mission is probably my GOTY. It's short and simple, but really just blew me away. Such a great use of VR and so charming. It really recaptured this sense of wonder that I haven't had playing a game since I was a kid. Red Dead Redemption 2 Pretty obvious choice. Definitely a genre defining game in a lot of ways even if it has some glaring flaws. God of War great reboot that turned a series I didn't care for into a series I do care for. COD BLOPS 4 I can't believe COD is in my list but it's undeniable how much fun I've had playing Blackout. Hollow Knight Managed to be one of the best Metroidvanias I've ever played. Overall I thought 2018 was a real solid year for games, especially AAA stuff but not the most exciting year either. Most of the stuff I'm dying to play is slated for 2019 or tba (TLOU2, Sekiro, Death Stranding) I think ABRM and RDR2 stood out to me the most. Honorable mentions that I played in 2018 Dead Cells Bayonetta 2 Deracine' Firewall Zero Hour Moss Shadow of The Colossus Remake (still a great game and a great remake but I think that was the third or 4th time I've played it) Soul Calibur 6 is also a lot of fun but I've only played it for a few hours and need to play it more. Bonus game I wanted to love but could not stand: Monster Hunter World veni veni veni fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Dec 4, 2018 |
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Dec 4, 2018 00:24
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10. Titanfall 2 (2016) Just one of the best FPS campaigns I've ever seen with a wealth of ridiculously fun and awesome set-pieces and level designs. Too short for sure, but those several hours are never anything less than massively satisfying. 09. Astro Bot Rescue Mission (2018) A great VR twist on a classic 3D platformer, the amount of personality and charm put into every model is incredible, while the level design and use of VR are consistently impressive. One of the most enjoyable games in the genre in years, up there with recent Raymans for me and not all that far below recent Marios. 08. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (2018) Origins was a mild return to form for the series but Odyssey improved upon it in basically every single way and is one of the more enjoyable open-world action RPGs maybe ever? Kassandra is a loving awesome protagonist and there's so many awesome islands and side quests/characters actually have personality and you can fight mythical beasts and also take down an entire cult and cleave ships in twain and it was just so rad. There are several billion different mechanics butting up against each other and it's loving incredible that it can balance them so well 07. God of War (2018) Some of the best graphics of all time and satisfyingly weightly combat made me like this game a lot but the incredible storytelling and character work made me adore it. I'm so glad the devs got over their dogshit bro attitude and managed to make such an emotionally resonant storyline, and the one-shot presentation definitely adds to it, ensuring you always feel close to Kratos. 06. The Last of Us Remastered (2014) I finally, finally got round to playing this through this year, after some HD issues stopped me in previous years, and holy drat. The story has more than earned its reputation, being complex and emotionally resonant enough to stir up emotions and also make less smart people argue like crazy about the ending, while the stealth gameplay, despite annoying me at the beginning, perfectly suits the tone. 05. Yakuza 0 (2017) Such a strange mix of the most unironic masculine melodrama you've ever seen and utter batshit absurdism in the side missions, every single second of this game is a delight, and I love Kiryu and Majima SO drat MUCH and I also love every single other goddamn character you meet because they're all incredible and I spent a lot of time on side activities I would have completely ignored in every other game because the presentation around them was so drat charming or because I wanted to win a chicken and then you get into the second half and there's twist upon twist and it fucks with your heart so bad 04. Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) Gorgeous and exciting and emotional af and any time someone says Aloy is a bad character I want to do a hurt on them. The world/creature designs are so fantastic, while the story is paced wonderfully, and the mysteries about what happened to the world are legitimately interesting with extremely satisfying answers. Plus knocking parts off robodinos never got boring. 03. NieR: Automata (2017) My brain isn't working well enough right now for me to accurately explain how much I loved this game but simply put it's up there with the most emotional a piece of media has ever made me. Yoko Taro is a genius and the way he fucks with typical videogame and anime bullshit conventions is hilarious and awesome, while the story has so many heartbreaking and intense moments, with some shocking and thoughtful story turns. And that's before I even get to the ending, which is one of the most amazing things I think any videogame has ever done, and something that no other medium could ever even begin to attempt. 02. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) I'm assuming you've heard of this one, right? The cowboy game that's a prequel to that other cowboy game by one of the best developers in the world? While the handling style isn't for everyone, once I got used to it I felt it added to the immersion. A lot of people don't enjoy the shooting mechanics either, but I loved them - not sure getting a series of successful headshots has ever been more satisfying for me. But there's a few things that really propel this to one of the best games of all time. First, the map: with bags of personality in each area and an amazing amount of secrets to discover, it's up there with BotW as one of my favourite open-world maps ever. Second, the writing, which still has Rockstar's cynicism but is just so so far above all the nihilistic shock-value nonsense the GTA series has been peddling for a bit - it's more wounded, with the feeling of heading straight into hell. And finally, following on from 2.....the characters. The amount of wonderful, well-drawn characters in this game is almost beyond belief, from the fellow gang members you poke fun at, bond with, and console, to the random people in the wilderness you have to save from bears and poo poo, with the best of COURSE being Arthur who is the best protagonist Rockstar have ever made and one of the best of any game. Rockstar may have worked their employees to the bone like assholes to make this but there's still so much love and passion that comes through in every scene. RDR2 is truly the kind of game that only comes around once in a blue moon, and the only way I could see something topping it is if, like, there is an all-time classic I never played that had an incredible remake come out recently!!!!!!!!!!! ....... 01. Shadow of the Colossus (2018) Wow. It's funny how much of a departure this is from my 2, going from a game with awesome characters all over the place to one of the loneliest gaming experiences around. Yet every second of SotC just feels....special. It's the same kind of feeling I get from Zelda games, where it starts to approach a kind of weird psychological magic. People have been eloquently expressing why this game is so good for over a decade now, and I don't think I can add much new, but here's some of the classics: the sense of scale is unbeatable, the design and puzzle-like nature of the fights is extremely satisfying, and the tone, especially the growing sense as you go on that you shouldn't be here, and that this is all wrong, is genuinely chilling. I finally understand the hype. I finally understand why this is the number one game brought up when some idiot tries to say videogames aren't art. Just.....loving wow. here's everything else I completed this year: 11. Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion 12. Spider-Man 13. DOOM 14. Pokemon: Let’s Go! Eevee 15. Yakuza Kiwami 16. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus 17. Donut County 18. Tomb Raider (2013) 19. Assassin’s Creed Origins 20. Little Nightmares 21. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture 22. Rise of the Tomb Raider 23. The Unfinished Swan veni you need at least five games you silly
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Dec 4, 2018 00:41
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1: Slay the Spire Perfect, perfect blend of card game and roguelike mechanics all wrapped up in a fun, endlessly fascinating little package. Each attempt takes about an hour so it's great as a commuter game, or to just chill out at the end of the evening. The card design is excellent, the balance is spot-on, and the devs aren't afraid to let you put together some crazy combos that break the game in amusing ways. There's a lot of skill involved in optimising your deck and building it around the relics you find, as well as playing the odds on draws in combat. You can go hardcore with a gradually-increasing difficulty system, you can chill and explore some crazy deck concept on normal mode, or you can try a daily run where up to three mutators put a unique spin on the game. Game of the year 2018 and it isn't even technically released yet. 2: Path of Exile The best ARPG on the market by miles. The devs shower it with content, from running 3-month-long leagues with modifications to the base gameplay to a constant stream of technical overhauls and entirely new mechanics (just this year it had an endless dungeon added on, and the next update is going to add a Shadows of Morder style politics system to the endgame). Super deep and tons of options but don't let the Final Fantasy-style passive tree put you off, it's really not as scary as it looks. Free to play and funded by players wanting to play Barbie Princess Dress-Up by buying cosmetic microtransactions with no gambling (ie you just buy what you want). You don't have to buy any of it although a currency tab is a big QoL improvement. 3: Prey (2017, not the 2006 one) Just like all right-thinking human beings I loved the System Shock games, Deus Ex, Thief, Alpha Protocol, and so on. This is that, but brought up to date. Same open world mechanics, same immersive-sim game design, an interesting story to unravel, but with the benefit of modern graphics and a good deal of polish. Haven't tried the expansion yet but I've heard good things about that too. 4: Stellaris Like Path of Exile in that there's a constant stream of updates and new content; not like Path of Exile in that most of it costs money. If you like spacey sci-fi 4X games though it's hard to do much better. As usual with 4X games the AI could use work but there's enough systems to tinker with and story to explore that it's a lot of fun anyway. You can build Orbitals; what's not to like? 5: Vermintide 2 The subclass system is a little hit and miss, to be honest, but the base gameplay is still really good. I haven't played an FPS that does a better job with melee combat. There's a surprising amount of depth hidden in a fairly simple system and it feels heavy and impactful and fun, too. Lots of people bitch about the balance on the very hardest difficulty, but it's a great co-op game to play with friends, especially if you're old-school enough to still do LAN parties. The world-building and atmosphere especially is top-notch. It's set in the actually good Warhammer world, ie the doesn't-take-itself-too-seriously mashup of German-history-but-with-elves-and-dwarfs one, before the travesty of paint-by-numbers "epicness" that is Age of Sigmar, which ruined everything. I'm not sure there's a game that captures the old Warhammer world better than this one does, except maybe the original Vermintide itself. 6: Legend of Grimrock 2 Yeah yeah it came out in 2014 and I'm a sad old fart who's years behind the times. It's really good, though. Basically a homage to old-school dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master, complete with grid-based movement and a lack of player handholding. The original took place in a single big dungeon but the sequel adds an overworld and lots of smaller dungeons to explore. It's a mix of puzzle-solving and properly old-school RPG combat and it's ace and you should buy it. Well that's my video game story, thanks for listening Zephro fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Dec 4, 2018 |
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Dec 4, 2018 13:09
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2018 sure was a year. I've played a bunch of stuff and am ready to make a top 10 list. 10) Battle Chef Brigade I love everything about this game. It's a fun thing to pick up for a quick game. 9) Slay the Spire My brother said I might like this game, so I downloaded it from our shared steam account, and much like a few others on my list, I go to it when I want to spend a bit of time just doing absolutely nothing. 8) Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion The little puzzles were super fun, and the final rush was difficult in a way that didn't feel unfair. The final boss was also really good. Ranked so low mostly cause it's not standalone. 7) Pokemon: Let's Go: Eevee Edition I recently replayed Pokemon Red when it came out on Virtual Console, and I'll be the first to say that that game DOES NOT hold up. However, Let's Go is basically yet another Gen 1 remake, but it is a lot of fun! I played it for hours the day it came out, and played through the whole game that weekend, and felt like a kid playing Pokemon for the very first time again. The Go mechanics translate surprisingly well to the Switch, and the change to seeing Pokemon in the wild is a very welcome change that makes the game feel less like same old game and more like its own thing. 6) Fortnite Yeah, yeah. It's fun and quite addictive. I can pick it up and play for like a half hour while goofing off with my friends. If I die, I legitimately could not care less, and on the rare occasions I win, it's a celebration. That's what video games should be. 5) Super Smash Bros Ultimate I have yet to play this myself, but it is a love letter to video games, and every single piece of gameplay footage has made me confident I'll like it. The rating here is super tentative towards how much fun I have but the genuine care that has gone into the game makes me think if it moves either way it'll be up. 4) Celeste Fun, simple platformer. Emphasis on FUN. I've completed it multiple times and intend to complete it many more times. 3) Kirby Star Allies First you draw a circle, then you dot the eyes, draw a great big smile! The Kirby Series is one of my favorite game series of all time. It's always consistently provided good games. Rarely has it provided a flop, but admittedly rarely has it provided a game I'd consider "a masterpiece." I would not classify Kirby Star Allies to be a masterpiece, but I will say that it is a wonderful love letter to the franchise. As of Friday, every single mainline Kirby game is represented with a playable "Dream Ally," in content updates that the game had continued to provide up to this point. They also just added a new mode that is also very difficult but very rewarding. 2) Marvel's Spider-Man Part Man, Part Spider, All Cop What can I say about this game that people haven't said millions of times? I loaded up this game expecting Spider-Man 2 and I got Spider-Man 2. I was genuinely penciling in this game as my #1 game of the year for most of the year, and then I played the one game that could top it. Also the DLC so far has been only okay, as opposed to fantastic, which puts my #1 slightly above it as well. 1) Xenoblade Chronicles 2/Torna: The Golden Country (single game with an expansion) Don't Forget Me -- A million forgettable soldiers Sequel to my single favorite game of all time, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was a ride from start to finish, and I loved every minute of it. If it was just the game itself that I played this year, it probably wouldn't be #1, but then they released an expansion to the game, explaining the backstory of the villain faction Torna. In that mode, you play as three parties of three, one Driver and Two Blades each, in a story that expands on the motivation for the three main villains of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and even gives one of them a much more loathsome presence over the first game. At the end of Torna I felt the urge to start a new game plus just to punch the main villain in the face a second time. Gameplaywise, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was a refinement of the Xenoblade and Xenoblade Chronicles X battle system, and Torna expands on it even further. The outfits are a bit of a downside, but you can now get Mythra's superior Smash costume which I feel is a supreme improvement over the original. I heard there were some problems with the game when it came out, but I only started playing it after Torna was released and at that point most of the biggest issues had been patched out. I can't highly recommend this game enough. Lora for Smash.
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Dec 4, 2018 20:57
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I love the new meta of counting down instead of up!
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Dec 4, 2018 21:13
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StoryTime posted:I love the new meta of counting down instead of up! Haven't even thought of that. Need to chnage mine. I also added some sicknasty .gifs BeanpolePeckerwood fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Dec 4, 2018 |
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Dec 4, 2018 21:50
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Haven't even thought of that. Need to chnage mine. I love that Automata gif 
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Dec 4, 2018 22:47
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Samuringa posted:I love that Automata gif I hope 2B has that kick in Soul Calibur 6 and that your opponent just explodes upon contact with the wall
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Dec 4, 2018 23:00
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better yet, a stubby gets summoned in that she kicks at her opponent and it's an unblockable
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Dec 4, 2018 23:41
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StoryTime posted:I love the new meta of counting down instead of up! Yeah it was really weird when you guys started going from #1. Have y'all never heard of a countdowns before?
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Dec 5, 2018 00:22
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These people have no concept of suspense
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Dec 5, 2018 01:04
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Rarity posted:Yeah it was really weird when you guys started going from #1. Have y'all never heard of a countdowns before? Rarity posted:You guys share your top 10 favourite games of 2018 ranked from 1 to 10.
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Dec 5, 2018 02:20
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2018 was a good year for video games! Also, being unemployed for a portion of the year has afforded me more time than I'd typically have for gaming (and putting this list together). Here we go! 10. Overcooked 2 - If you want a true test of a relationship, play Overcooked 2 with your significant other. I played through the entire campaign with my wife over the course of a couple of months and every session provided me with the following course of emotions: This is fun haha => okay let’s get serious => what the hell are you doing I said lettuce not tomato!! => I’m done and never playing this again. That’s the fun and draw of Overcooked in a nutshell. Now that we’ve beaten it we’re moving on to the DLC and trying to 3 (maybe 4) star all the levels. I’m sure I’ll swear off the game 100 more times, but once I take a little break I’m always ready for more. 9. Prey (2017) - What a fun surprise Prey was for me. I picked it up during a summer Flash sale for less than $10, and had a great time with it. It really reminded me of how I felt playing Bioshock for the first time, and I loved the freedom of the playstyles. The abandoned spaceship atmosphere is well done, and the first few times you drift out on the exterior are pretty fantastic. I feel like the game really gives you the sensation of being the only person to play it in your own unique way, and I’m sure a lot of people feel the same. Every time I used the goo gun to reach some hard to reach area I felt like I was cheating which is a testament to some great design. The ending was a bit anti-climactic, and load times become a little grating in the last hour or so but I had so much fun on the journey to get there that I didn’t care. 8. CoD Blacks Ops 4 - I hadn’t purchased a CoD game in years, but I was hyped for Blackout leading up to the release and it did not disappoint. I had dipped my toes in BR games before (PUBG too rugged, Fortnite too buildy), and CoD really delivered a fun, polished BR game. Playing solo can be quite intense, and playing with a team of friends is some of the most fun online gaming I’ve had in years. The traditional MP is pretty solid as well, with good gunplay, cool specialist classes, and no more crazy wall-running or air jumping. I did get a little burnt out on the MP, but Blackout is still a great time. It also has Zombies which I might get around to checking out one of these days. 7. Celeste - Pure platforming nirvana. Celeste has some of the most challenging level design, mixed with some of the tightest controls and a surprisingly poignant story. I knew the game was going to be great going into it, and it still exceeded my expectations. The game is tough but never feels like it is punishing you, and instead encourages you to keep going much like the story’s narrative itself. I haven’t played it since release, but typing this is making me want to go back and find all of the remaining strawberries! 6. The Last of Us: Remastered - Better late than never. This was one of the first games I bought with my PS4, and I stopped playing it around the halfway point. I decided to give it another go, started over and blew through it in three days this time. The stealth/resource gathering gameplay still isn’t really my cup of tea, but the characters and story truly elevate this into something special. I probably can’t say more than what has already been said, but I’m glad I finally gave it another chance and I’m really excited to see where they go with the sequel. 5. Astro Bot: Robot Rescue - This game is like having fun strapped to your face and the opposite of Alex’s treatment in A Clockwork Orange. Like others that have played it, I can’t remember the last time I experienced such pure joy playing a game. The implementation of VR is probably the best on the platform, and the level design matches the platforming magic of 3D Mario games. It seriously feels like Nintendo secretly made this game for Sony just to see what they could do with VR. I do wish the game was longer, but some collectables and hidden items within the levels lend to replayability. Anyone who has PSVR and doesn’t have this game is the smelly kid in class. Don’t be the VR smelly kid and get Astro Bot, you bum! 4. Horizon: Zero Dawn - Better late than never part 2. Another one I played during launch and stopped playing it due to thinking the combat was boring. Luckily, I stopped playing right as the world opened up so I jumped back in at the right time. I also got a Pro in between play sessions, and it goes without saying but this game on a Pro in 4k HDR is mind-blowing. I think I stopped to take in the visuals during this game more than anything else I’ve ever played and I don’t know how the hell this thing runs on a PS4. I also got the hang of combat, and enjoyed uncovering the mystery of the story. Inventory and sub-plots could use some help, but overall they didn’t hamper my experience. I still need to check out Frozen Wilds as I know the DLC is supposed to be great. 3. Spider-Man - I had so much fun with this game. It doesn’t do anything too revolutionary with the open-world formula, but the web-swinging around the city feels so good! I really enjoyed the story, and the combat customization kept things fresh throughout. I wish it was longer, and I’m waiting for the third DLC pack to dive back in and do all three. I’m excited for the next game and I can’t wait to see where they take the story after the post-credit stingers in this one. I’m hoping this sets the precedent for Marvel games to come, and I’m looking forward to other games in the MCU Universe. 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 - RDR2 is a monumental achievement in gaming. It’s the first Rockstar game I’ve finished since Vice City, and that’s thanks to a great story and Arthur Morgan, the best protagonist Rockstar has ever created. It’s not a perfect game and it definitely takes some getting used to the controls, but once you get absorbed in its world it’s hard to put it down. There is so much to see and do in this game, and after spending 60 hours beating the game I feel like there is still so much I haven’t seen. I could go on and on about my experiences in this game, from spending an hour hunting a legendary white buffalo in a blizzard, to being a complete hatchet-dynamite terror in saloons, and the way the world reacts to you often leads to hilarious and unexpected results. I have a save file midway through the game so I can play cowboy whenever I get the itch and so that my noble steed Dobywill live on forever . I will play through this game again. 1. God of War - This game is 100% my jam, BOY. I played the original GoW trilogy, and I always found the settings and boss fights more enjoyable than the combat or Kratos himself. Sony Santa Monica knew that the original combat and Kratos’s characterization needed to change, and they improved the formula in every conceivable way. We have an older Kratos trying to forget his past, a new unique setting with Norse mythology foreign to him, and foreign to me as a player. The way the game feeds you the mythology (I know it takes some liberties) through Atreus and Mimir was fantastic and I ate up every bit of it. The combat was completely revamped with multiple styles and upgrades, and I loved how Atreus’s own bow skills are integrated in combat. I know it’s a bit divisive, but I loved the “one-take” feel of the camera. Oh, and the game is gorgeous. The pacing and sense of exploration were great, and the conversations during boat rides or walks helped build relationships between the characters and prevented the game from being boring for a single moment. To me, GoW is a complete AAA package; I could come up with a complaint or two for nearly every other game on my list, but I don’t have any for this one…BOY. Honorable Mentions (in no particalur order): Soul Calibur VI - A great return to form for the series, and I’ve already lost so many hours of my life in character creation. I just picked it up on Black Friday, and with more play time I could see this moving into my Top 10. Shadow of The Colossus (2018) – This would easily be in my Top 10 if not for the fact this is the third time I’ve played it on as many platforms. This sets and exceeds the bar for the precedent of remakes, and is a true classic. Uncharted 4 – Finally got around to finishing Nathan Drake’s story and it was a fitting end. My usual gripes about the combat persist, and UC2 is still my favorite, but I did enjoy this quite a bit. Detroit: Become Human - Detroit has some great moments, and I loved the detective plot, but unfortunately the other two stories take themselves way too seriously and bring down the overall experience a bit. It sure is a pretty game though! Monster Hunter World – I had been wanting a next-gen MH for years and finally Capcom delivered. It’s a gorgeous game, and the monsters all have such unique behaviors, but once the late-game grind kicked in I decided to use my time to play other games. After sinking 200+ hours into MH3U I just kind of knew what to expect and decided to move on after about 50 or so hours in MHW. Rocket League – If I hadn’t been so incredibly addicted to Rocket League for the past two years I probably could have played/finished so many more games. Such a simple, fun game with an ever-increasing skill ceiling. I’ve been on a hiatus for about 4 months now, so we’ll see how long this continues before I get the itch again. Dead Cells – I couldn’t put this game down for two weeks after buying it, and the only other rogue-lite I’ve ever enjoyed this much was Rogue Legacy. I feel like the game is a bit too reliant on a core group of great weapons with a lot of filler ones, but I still had a blast with it. Hollow Knight – Another one I had a hard time putting down, and it’s one of the best Metroidvania’s in recent memory. It gets really tough in the late game once the map is uncovered and it turns into a boss rush. Tetris Effect – I’ve never been a big fan of Tetris, but coming from the creator of Rez and Lumines (two games I love) I knew it would be something special and can safely say this is the best Tetris ever. VR mode is great, and as someone on here said it best it’s like headphones for your face! DOOM – I finally got around to finishing this after making it about halfway through during launch. Playing this game feels like chugging gasoline while flying a jet plane and I love it. Its gameplay does get a bit redundant, which is why it took me so long to finish but it is a blast. Moss – It was the best PSVR platformer until Astro Bot came along, but it’s still a fun, cute VR puzzle/platformer with great environments and oozing personality. The Golf Club 2019 – Finally, a golf game that reaches the heights of the great Tiger Woods games from the early 2000’s. The mechanics are great, and the fact that there’s an uploadable player course creator means you will never run out of new courses to play. Just Cause 3 – Yes the missions and liberating towns are a bit tedious, but those explosions! I had a lot of fun in the 20 or so hours I put into it before repetition sank in. The DLC wingsuit makes you Iron Man which is A+. Wipeout Omega Collection - One of the best PSVR releases with an immense amount of content. Whipping around those courses inside the cockpit in VR provides some of the greatest immersion on the platform. No Man’s Sky – Despite that terrible launch, Hello Games has really put a lot of effort and continuous updates into making this the game that many were expecting at launch. I’m glad I’ve hung onto it, and I’ve had a lot more fun with it as a chill-out game in Casual Mode when I can just hop around planets building bases and not worrying about resources. DuffMayhem fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Dec 5, 2018 |
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Dec 5, 2018 02:30
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10. Soul Calibur 6 This is a release that I wish was much higher, but a handful of technical issues have forced an early abandonment of a game I was super hot on. I’ve never played a SC game before, outside of renting SC2 on GameCube as a teen because Taki had huge knockers, and after Tekken 7 made me understand why people love 3D fighters, I was ready for SC’s more character focused (in opposition to Tekken’s system focused) design to pull me in. And it did! SC6 is undeniably special in the contemporary FG space, since 90% of the cast just has fully cheap, supremely high damaging options available to them at every second of a match. 2D games just don’t do this anymore, which is why I initially loved learning the game. But playing online is just flat out abysmal, the netcode feels like utter trash, and I play the same handful of people from this website in every game; where we usually have 1-2 frames of input lag, SC6 felt like loving molasses in comparison. I think it’s also something to do with the way they handle input buffers at a local level anyway, it just feels off. Also, their controller support is the worst I’ve ever seen in recent years, even worse than DBFZ. Bamco keeps knocking it out of the park. Also the lobby system is bad, again, but no FG makes good lobbies for some reason even though GG created the ur-example like 4 years ago. Even Arc can’t copy themselves since BBTag’s lobbies are rear end too. Anyway, I wish playing this was easier, because I would have played a lot more...Raphael ftw. 9. DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu 1.51 Black Label This is a odd one on a few levels, because A) it’s an arcade game from 2008 that didn't have a US release until 2016, and B) I'm specifically choosing the Black Label remix mode over the vanilla 1.5 release because it has a much more enjoyable scoring/rank system. Anyway, this is the 5th DDP game, and as someone who has only ever flirted with the STG/shmup/bullet-hell, whatever you want to call it, genre, this was the first time I ever actually sat down with a game long enough to 1CC it (on novice...it's a moral victory) and read about scoring strategies and practice particular stages and boss patterns in the replay mode etc. The central gameplay design of Black Label is the most fun to me of any Cave game I've played: holding both shot buttons gives you an ultra powerful beam that cancels bullets into score explosions. The more you use it, however, the higher your rank goes, causing future bullet patterns to be denser, more deadly, and conversely, worth more points if you can cancel them properly. This continual dance between disaster and high scores is wonderful fun once you get tuned into it, and it has made me better at shmups in general. In theory. I still haven't 1CC'd anything else but I've been playing Mushihimesama at least once a day and can get to stage 5 fairly reliably. Also the Ship Select Music in Black Label is awesome and it's criminal that it only lasts like 30 seconds. 8. Bloodstained I’m a huge fan of IntiCreate’s games, and Curse of the Moon didn’t disappoint. The level design, on first pass, felt like a perfectly competent homage to CVIII, and their NG+ and branching party design only revealed how perfectly tuned it was on repeat visits. More than anything, this game felt like the CV Rebirth sequel that not enough people have been asking for. 7. Octopath Traveler Octopath is kind of an audacious game. The narrative and map design were some of my favorite elements; the totally open-ended approach made the game world feel way more alive than most JRPGs maps. Seeing various hangers-on appear randomly in later towns to feature in their own alternative epilogues, helping out strangers in town for no reason and watching them travel the world on their own, the tavern chatter and party chat, all of it felt antithetical to the usual “100% of the Content 100% of the time” approaches a lot of contemporary games aim at. It also helped that the job system and combat was inspired by, but not directly aping, the Bravely games, and that the enemy sprites were some of the best JRPG enemy art in a while. The aesthetic on a whole was just remarkable. The post-game “revelation” was beyond boneheaded, though, and I’d almost rather it didn’t exist at all. The feeling of these 8 people just hanging out by accident makes more sense than any deity-driven strings of fate BS that had to be explained in 10000000 line datalogs. Who gives a poo poo! 6. Hitman 2 It’s more Hitman (2016) levels. I’ve only played 3 of them but it’s clear that IO’s design sense has only gotten better in the interim, and I’m looking forward to another year of support. The episodic format is so much better than a single release though, and I’m bummed this came out as a single package. It might end up higher once I finish it. 5. BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle If Tekken 7 proved to me that I could enjoy 3D fighters, BBTag proved to me that I could enjoy tag fighters, a remarkably difficult feat to accomplish considering how much I loving hated Dragonball FighterZ earlier this year, from the same studio. BBTag shares that similarly surprising trait from SC6 that is so endlessly refreshing in fighting games: big rear end damage. You land one counter-hit combo in BBTag and you do like 50%+ easy, even more with just a tiny bit of meter (it helps that this game spits out resources at a WakuWaku 7 tier pace as well; you can’t sneeze without getting half a bar). They pulled off a tremendous amount with very little in BBTag. With only 2 “real” attack buttons, the focus on controlling the team as a system, rather than a individual character, really helped me to adjust to the flow of 2-on-2 combat. Matches are fast and furious, the crossovers were awesome, and I hope they add a billion more ripped sprites into this game. The only lame part is again, bad lobbies, even though this was the closest yet to GGXrd’s. Also RWBY is stupid. 4. Under Night In-Birth EXE:Late[st] This came out like 3 years ago at this point I think but this year was the PC release. This is my favorite fighting game of the current century. I’m looking forward to the new arcade update in 2019 that I won’t be able to play for 18 months. I won $3 dollars playing this this year, making it de facto the most lucrative game I’ve ever played. 3. Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion Hmmm...it feels a little like cheating to be able to include this game on a list again, but it did get a new release in 2018. The single player they added was remarkable, the first of the Splatoon campaign stuff that I’ve loved without reservation or caveats of my intrinsic love of the movement. It feels like they finally figured out the right pace and cadence for serving up a series of truly varied platforming and pure combat challenges. I hope they continue to iterate on this side of the game in the future, even if it really is only like 1% of my total playtime. 2018 was a tremendous year for the game on the multiplayer side, with the addition of monthly ladder resets with X-Rank, the addition of some classic maps and welcome newcomers, endless arrays of weapon variants and cosmetics, and now they’ve started doing themed splatfests that include total square overhauls and new in-match flourishes like ghosts flying around and Christmas trees bouncing around. I’m never gonna stop playing this game, at least until Splatoon 3 comes out. 2. Celeste An impeccably designed platformer with arguably too many good levels in it. It makes you surprised that these people kept coming up with awesome poo poo. It’s got that wonderful and remarkably rare design of never really having more tools than what you start with in the first 5 minutes, but the level design remains creative for 20+ hours. Also you can skip all the cutscenes without having to be in NG+ or something, which bumped it up like 3 slots. I’m sure lots of people will have Celeste on a list, and it’s a game thats probably sold short by text descriptions, so honestly, just give it a shot. You may love it from the very first time they show you how to airdash. 1. Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate [Monster Hunter World, inclusive] More than anything, this year was the year of MonHun for me. I have played like, 25 minutes of a PSP MH that I don’t remember the name of, and a dozen or so hours of MH4U on 3DS, but never did I feel like the hardware was providing me the experience I actually wanted. The long wait for MHW on PC was well worth it, and finally, this was the game that got me to love MonHun. Many people will tell you MHWorld is a game that “streamlines” the negative parts of MH games. They’re lying, or considering the wrong issues. MHW is honestly a step back in many ways for me, compared to the previous gen (which is why I’m giving this top spot to GU, which I played a fuckton more of this year). The thing that MHW and GU both provide that no MH game has ever really had for me before, is a loving right analog stick. MH on a portable system with two analog sticks and four trigger buttons is pure bliss. And when I’m at home, I can boot up the winter events in MHW and see what’s happening. I’m hoping World Ultimate improves on all the elements of the game that are lacking in comparison to past installments (limited roster, extremely bad postgame design, boring weapon/armor designs), but I will always have GU to go back to, with its frankly suffocating amount of content. I played this game for 200 hours and there’s still monsters I haven’t even fought once, and dozens and dozens of quests and arena challenges and event quests and so and so on that I’m not sure how to even access...but I know they’re in there. And with 300+ hours across both games I’ve still only used like 5 weapon types. I became a MH convert this year, pure and simple, and I wish I was unemployed so I could just play these games forever. Along with Splatoon.
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Dec 5, 2018 03:57
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Rarity posted:Yeah it was really weird when you guys started going from #1. Have y'all never heard of a countdowns before? Look I'm a software engineer, it was all I could do to not start from zero.
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Dec 5, 2018 10:16
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I haven't really had time to play too many games this year. So here is a truncated list containing 5 games I really enjoyed during 2018. I play exclusively on PC, so no console game unfortunately. 5. Tyranny An excellent CRPG published by Paradox. I really enjoy the dialogue. Also the "lawyering" portions were actually really well done in my opinion. I enjoyed being able to create my own spells with a variety of effects. 4. Cold Waters A hardcore yet accessible submarine sim. Nothing feels quite as good as launching a spread of Mk48s at a wolfpack of Alfas and slipping away without them being able to fire back. 3. Dark Souls Finally got around to playing this. Holy crap is this a good game. Praise the Sun! 2. Kenshi An "early access" game that was actually finished. A hard sandbox autism simulator where you can easily grow hydroponic hemp for cash while you make an army full of cyborg ninjas to hunt giant robotic crabs. Very easy to mod to hilarious result. Includes a Peeler machine which lets you "peel" the limbs off prisoners you dislike. Goats will gently caress you up. 1. Kingdom Come: Deliverance The moment I first "mercy killed" a Cumin marauder with my mace got me hooked. Intricate fighting system. Skyrim in Central Europe with no magic. I loved this game.
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Dec 5, 2018 20:33
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I will contribute to this thread when I'm not braindead from 11 straight hours of Stellaris. You do good OPs Rarity 
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Dec 7, 2018 05:50
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I spent a good chunk of the year working through backlog and older games I picked up relatively cheap so most of my list consists of non-2018 titles. This is the first year I kept constant track of games played and ratings out of five on Glitchwave which made making this list easier to create and next games to play easier to decide. A few honorable mentions: 14. Hero Core - 4/5 - A tiny freeware game with very basic black-and-white pixel graphics but executes the metroidvania genre better than most attempts. If you have an hour to spare, go download Hero Core and spend it wisely. 13. Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 4/5 - Beat on January 2nd so it technically counts! The first case's twist might be my favorite surprise in a game's plot ever. It's been a while since a game made me pause and walk around in awe. The following murder cases are mostly interesting but the key is that Spike Chunsoft knows how to throw some weird, tangible personalities into a locked room and make them bounce off each other. 12. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations - 4/5 - The refinement of the Phoenix Wright formula. As good as the game is consistently, it doesn't reach the highs that the more-variable Danganronpa v3 provides (which made ranking both difficult to decide). I wasn't as impressed with the final case as other players but still enjoyed the ride. It's a shame that Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies don't measure up to what should've been the prime template of Phoenix Wright games. 11. The World Ends With You - 4/5 - I grabbed the older DS version after bouncing off the iPad version and finally "got" the combat in the two-screen version. The best acknowledgement I can give is that, unlike so many other RPGs, I would take battles proactively just for the fun of playing rather than for grinding. The game's also dripping in fashionable trendy culture and gives the game a flavorful character. There's probably too many mechanics to keep track of (Pin evolutions! Food! Individual clothing! Stickers! Tin Pin!) but the core gameplay loop is worth it. The real list: 10. Celeste - 4/5 - Probably the best twitchy-and-difficult platformer I've played and includes a great soundtrack and surprisingly heartwarming story. I usually don't enjoy difficult platformers like Super Meat Boy but Celeste was great enough for me to transcend. 9. Steamworld Heist - 4/5 - XCOM came first but Steamworld Heist simply felt more enjoyable to play. It's an example of simplifying gameplay successfully. 8. Yoku's Island Express - 4.5/5 - The idea to make a Metroidvania where every room is some kind of pinball table was inspired. That would make for a nice game alone but whoever designed this game also had a fantastic sense of open-ended exploration and let the main plot be easy and the side content have some nuanced difficulty. However, they did not have a great idea for the final boss but I'll excuse that for the fun of exploring the island via pinball flippers. This is the the most relaxing game on this list and perfect for unwinding after work. I only wish the world was larger, you'll beat this in six hours while taking your time, but there's likely not enough table mechanics to continually keep the experience fresh. 7. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - 4.5/5 - I wish all puzzle games carried this much plot successfully and made every progress step feel like a clever story-relevant decision. It's a welcome change after trying games like The Witness which mostly assume you enjoy puzzles solely for their mechanics. The Ghost Trick gameplay element was a great idea and finding new ways to interact with the world was a continuous joy. 6. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider - 4.5/5 - I will always rate Dishonored games high since I latch onto games that offer an open world full of possibilities and let me explore. Death of the Outsider is a great continuation of the series formula albeit a shorter one with some repeat level usage. 5. Hollow Knight - 4.5/5 - After playing and stopping on the PC, I tried again on the Switch and played it non-stop in a few consecutive days. It's weird how games can pass an early game hump and suddenly become captivating. Only my #1 game of the year matched the feeling of exploring undiscovered areas in non-linear fashion but Hollow Knight includes a staggering amount of content to discover. I still consider the game too hard, even when taking the intended difficultly into account. Never started any of the DLC content, everything I've seen seems to push ungodly-difficult boss fights instead of new exploration opportunities. 4. Hitman 2 (2018) - 4.5/5 - The best game released in 2018 (before playing my embarrassingly large 2018-specific backlog of MHW, GoW, Octopath, PoE 2, or Frostbite). They've refined the formula from Hitman 2016 to the point I'd welcome new missions in this style forever. They've also figured out the right mix of satire and humor for the missions, a welcome change after Absolution's toxic attempts. Hitman's always been great at environmental storytelling but this entry managed to surpass my expectations. Miami and Sgail are standout levels, although Hawke's Bay should be praised as one of the most effective training levels in recent games. Adding the Hitman 2016 levels into the current engine was the cherry on top. 3. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Spirit of Justice - 4.5/5 - After playing Danganronpa, I found the next closest thing with Phoenix Wright and played the six mainline games in 2018. Every game was worth playing but the most recent entry was easily my favorite of the series. The characters and locations turned out to be surprisingly great and the last case may be my favorite of the entire series. Switch the Soba case with the SeaWorld case of 5's DLC and this would be flawless. 6 > 3 > 1 > 2 > 4 > 5. 2. Bloodborne - 5/5 - I fell in love with Dark Souls 3 last year, enough to pick up a PS4 bundle during Black Friday, my first playstation console, and try Bloodborne as the first game. The aggressive combat and tighter-interwoven levels feels like the last needed improvements to an already-amazing gameplay formula. The obscurity of certain progression points and character stats are still frustrating but that's an expected part of the BloodSouls experience. 1. Super Metroid - 5/5 - Finally got around to playing this and instantly became one of my favorite games of all-time. I expected Super Metroid to be out-of-date but I found it timeless and better than games released today. I had played and enjoyed Metroid Fusion, Samus Returns, and Metroid Prime before but Super Metroid is on a different plane of existence. There could be another five paragraphs about how much I loved the stages and designs and music but, and the end of the day, it's my fault I didn't play this 25 years earlier when that discussion was still new. As an addition, here's my favorite games that were released during 2018, with ratings and brief comments: 1. Hitman 2 - 4.5/5 2. Yoku's Island Express - 4.5/5 3. Celeste - 4/5 4. Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology - 4/5 - Makes a few interesting decisions with RPG turn-based combat and the plot handles its time-travel hook nicely. As an RPG fan unfamiliar with the original release of the game, this was a welcome surprise. 5. Spider-Man - 4/5 - My favorite version of that triple-A, Ubisoft-esq open world, Arkham fighting-style game that we've seen over and over. There's a disconcerting thought that, as polished and high-budget as the game is, the experience is ultimately forgettable and won't have the lasting power of other releases. In that sense and fittingly so, Spider-Man is the video game equivalent of modern Marvel movies. 6. Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 4/5 - I'm not a fighting-game player, my enjoyment is really based on the single-player experience and learning the strategy behind each fighter. It's a testament to the game that I enjoyed Ultimate despite not being in the target market. 7. Deltarune - 4/5 - After Undertale, Toby Fox has a blank check to make anything he wants to. 8. Return of the Obra Dinn - 4/5 - I don't think I have the time and patience anymore to sketch out all of the identities/deaths but the experience of solving cases was thrilling. I'm waiting for a few potential quality of life updates before returning to the game (let me teleport to the memories from the diary!). 9. Iconoclasts - 4/5 - I can see the passion project level of care in individual moments but this could've used rounds of story and level edits before release. There are strong ideas buried here, I'm still giving this a good review after all, but too many disjointed choices drag the experience down. 10. Pokemon Let's Go Eevee - 4/5 - If you had to redo Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow in the year 2018 for the widest possible audience, you'd make it exactly like this. The changes to random encounters and catching mechanics turned out to be the right choices long overdue for Pokemon, although it's all stuck in the well-tread and unimpressive overworld of Kanto. 11. Dead Cells - 3.5/5 - Fun combat and exploration in individual attempts but I just don't enjoy roguelite gameplay loops...unless it's FTL. DMCrimson fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Dec 20, 2018 |
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Dec 7, 2018 06:50
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Went through my PSN tropies last night and uhhhhh drat. Hell of a busy year for me. Played: Uncanny Valley, Unravel, The Witness, Bound, Tearaway, Cast of the Seven Godsends, I Am Bread, NecroDancer, Machinarium, Slain, Escape Goat 2, Agents of Mayhem, Mighty No. 9, Burnout Paradise, LEGO Harry Potter 1-4, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Vermintide, DeBlob, Playroom VR, Rain World, Firewatch, Planet of the Apes VR, Evil Within, Gran Turismo Sport, Trackmania Turbo, Fishing Master VR, Inpatient, Farpoint, Skyrim VR, Gunjack, Megaman Legacy Collection, Raw Data, AC: Origins, Dick Wilde, StarBlood, Wipeout Omega, Blasters of the Universe, Super Amazeballs, Nioh, 99Vidas, Ether One, RE Revelations, Switch Galaxy Ultra, Absolver, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, FFXV, Bard’s Gold, DWVR, I Expect You to Die, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Fallout 4, Sparkle 2, Deracine, Bulletstorm Finished: Deadly Premonition (technically beat this last year but whatever), Undertale, Dear Esther, Murdered, Hue, Knack, Titanfall 2, Prototype, Prototype 2, SotC Remastered, Hellblade, Knack, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, PSVR Worlds, Arizona Sunshine, Statik, Surgeon Simulator ER, Gnog, Accounting+, KF Incursion, Batman VR, The Perfect Sniper, Broken Age, H:ZD, MKX, Uncharted 4, Uncharted LL, Drakengard, NieR, NieR:A, Little Nightmares, Heavy Rain, Edith Finch, Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami, Yakuza Kiwami 2, FOTNS LP, RE7, GoW, RDR2, Far Cry 5, Doom VFR, Job Simulator, Deltarune Replayed: Sleeping Dogs, Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Bioshock Infinite, Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, DS Remastered, Uncharted, Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3, Full Throttle, GTAV, Dragon’s Lair Trilogy TOP TEN DISQUALIFIED: Shadow of the Colossus SotC is GOAT, so it’s unfair to count it in the top ten, but holy poo poo the remaster is so so so good. At 4k in HDR it’s breathtakingly gorgeous, the 1080p60 mode is rock solid perfect, and the game is better than it ever was thanks to the added polish. 10: Accounting+ I got my PSVR this year and AC+ really stands out as the best “gimmick” experience on it to date. Almost anything in VR is fun, even the dumb stuff, but Accounting takes that to a completely different level. It’s intensely funny, makes great use of VR as a platform, and has enough variety and weird hidden poo poo to be worth a ton of replays. 9: Déraciné More VR! Still haven’t finished this, but I am kind of in love with what Fromsoft did with it. It’s a strange, melancholy, and very pretty adventure puzzle experience, and would be a great model for other developers to follow. 8: What Remains of Edith Finch Less of a game and more of a first person short story collection, but it was fantastic all the same. My sister recommended this to me and it’s just one of those experiences that sticks with you. Even with just a few minutes dedicated to each of them, every single character’s story is memorable and sad in its own way, and they’re all dealt with in really unique ways. 7: Hellblade (and kind of GoW) Top ten spoilers: God of War isn’t on here, but Hellblade does have to share the space a bit. Where GoW had great combat depth and variety in tools, Hellblade has a singular story experience like nothing else I’ve ever played. They’re so similar in tone, art direction, and base gameplay though that I feel like listing them as a pair. Hellblade wins out the spot for the fact that it arguably doesn’t depict anything actually supernatural, but also doesn’t shove that fact in the player’s face. Best use of headphones in a very very long time, too. 6: Resident Evil 7: Biohazard I was really surprised how much I liked RE7. After getting pretty into the mysteries of the demo when it came out, I just kind of forgot about the main game. Picked up the complete edition on sale, then immediately ran through it 3 more times and got the speedrun bonuses. When they said they were getting back to the series roots, they really meant it. The Baker’s house is intimidating and confusing at first, but tightly designed enough that you eventually remember it entirely. The BOAT PART  wasn’t even that bad, even if it did kind of throw the pace and tone off. Amazing how quickly it goes when you know what you’re doing though. And I’m sure everyone knows but having it 100% in VR is completely freaking rad.  5: Horizon: Zero Dawn Just a fantastic game overall, and enormous. Aloy’s a really nicely designed character too, but I do think the wunderkind stuff was a bit overdone. It has a plot justification, but she’s a little too player-inserty in this otherwise completely alien world. The robot design and combat are what really made it for me though. Once you have your full toolset, there’s nothing like it, and being able to roll up and take down a pair of endgame hulking monsters without any effort really feels earned. 4: Undertale  Deltarune gets props too, but I beat Undertale on January 1st.  Gotta give Toby Fox some real credit for nailing the “nostalgia for a thing that never happened” feeling in me that Earthbound Zero did so many years ago, especially since I know EB was a huge part of his history. Gameplay and story aside, since that’s all been discussed to death, Undertale is almost like...inspirational to me as a dude trying constantly to find my way into design and dev. It’s just such a well designed thing that feels like it finally got to escape from someone’s head after forever, and I adore it. And hot drat, that music. 3: NieR/NieR:Automata I’m putting these both here so they don’t take up more space, because I can’t really even split the two in my mind. I have never in my life played anything quite like NieR, and Automata was a perfect sequel to it in every way. The bleak hopefulness of both stories is, if not totally unique, put to use for something I don’t think could really be done outside the medium of video games. The basic plot beats, sure, but using NG+ as a plot device is absolutely brilliant, and done masterfully in both games in different ways. I know Automata has been a forums darling since it came out, but I really really hope the original gets an HD rerelease, or dare I dream for it even a remaster. 2: Yakuza Kinda like NieR, if I split this out, it’d be in spots 2, 3, 4, and 5 (because I’m counting FotNS too). If you told me a few years back that I’d ever play four entries in a JRPG-length series in under three months, I’d have called you insane, but that’s Yakuza baby! I tried 5 when it was free on PS3 and really liked what I got into, but dropped it because I’m a big sequel nerd. After I grabbed 0 and rolled through it right through to Kiwami, K2 and FOTNS came out and I just couldn’t resist. I think my favorite thing is that the combat isn’t completely consistent across them, so finishing the plot and going back to Premium Adventure mode whenever never feels boring. None of the games make the others redundant or obsolete, and that’s a really solid design achievement. 1: Red Dead Redemption 2 Yeah, I’m going for it. Rockstar may have some varied output, but just like the first one they absolutely loving nailed it this time through. There’s just so much variety in the world and so much to do that it’s basically overwhelming. I finished the main story after about a month, and still did next to nothing when it comes to side activities, and somehow I’m still having fun with all of it. If the combat doesn’t grab you I can see a lot of the game being a bit of a slog, but lucky for me I think it’s more or less perfect. Punchy, reactive, and loud is all I ask from a shooter sometimes, and RDR2 gets that just right. After starting NG+ I was also really caught off guard by how much the characters age over time too. Earlier cutscenes and later ones do show a clear development for everyone, but it’s so subtle during the main story that you barely get a chance to notice. And that’s my list(s). Thanks for reading. Or scrolling.
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Dec 7, 2018 23:39
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Honorable Mention Polybius (PSVR) - Really cool old-school arcade style game taken to extremes with VR. Not for everyone; some people can't handle the speed and spectacle (very flashy-lighty, keep away from people prone to seizures!). Those who can handle the ride are in for dozens and dozens of levels with unique gimmicks and trippiness. I guess it would be the "perfect" game to play with drugs, but doing so ensures you will suck. Oh well. 10. MH World PS4/PC - As a longtime hardcore Monster Hunter player, this game was definitely a miss for me, but I can appreciate how it has brought the series to a wider audience and modernized an engine that has been used for over a decade at this point. Still put 100 hours or so into it, even though there isn't REAL endgame content. 9. Divinity Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition Multi/PC - This is a game from last year, however, the ultimate edition of it was released a few months back with nothing but improvements. Highest level of recommend. 8. Dead Cells Multi/PC - A fun roguelite platformer that went through an early access development cycle. There is tons of content to unlock, and no two experiences are the same. I hope the devs will continue to add content to the game and diversify it more in the coming years; I see it being a game that could evolve much like The Binding of Issac has. 7. AC Odyssey Multi/PC - First AC game that has held my attention in many years. Still has some flaws; for a game set in ancient Greece, I have a lot of boredom with the world itself. The mercenary and cultist systems are interesting, and the combat is no pushover. As per the franchise, there are many different playstyles to that extent. 6. Astro Bot Rescue Mission (PSVR) - Maybe the first must play VR game to be released. 5. Invictus (Super Mario World ROM Hack) SNES or Emulator - While Mario Maker hasn't received enough updates or a Switch version with more features, the SMW dev community has been putting out hacks with incredible amount of polish in the last few years, with this year being the biggest yet. The level design in this one is well conceived, and it has additional features programmed in (in the ROM hacking community, this is known as a 'chocolate' hack, as opposed to a vanilla which would be the base game with only stuff like level design and music altered) including a custom boss. This hack is definitely for the most seasoned of gamers, but it does feature quick retry that grabs the same feel as Super Meat Boy/Celeste (more on that later) which makes it less frustrating to play. If you ever really enjoyed SMW and are up to the challenge, this one is for you. 4. Crosscode PC - Indie Action RPG with platforming and puzzle elements. Another early access indie game that flew under a lot of radars due to that style of development. The complete product is awesome and very original with interesting characters as long as you get past the amturish Tumblr-esque portrait artwork. This would be higher, but I felt like it often stretched out puzzles, or boss fights, or just general concept of design elements for way too long. Above all else, I typically believe that longer is usually better; content is king. However, I found myself wanting certain dungeons full of puzzles to end a little sooner, and the platform puzzle exploration style of gameplay got tedious long before the end of the game. 3. Tangledeep PC/Multi - Indie roguelike dungeon crawler with a lot of charm. Game music community veteran Zircon did the soundtrack for this game, and let me say, it sounds like most 'SNESy' of any mock SNES non-SNES soundtrack i've ever heard. The nostalgia hits hard, and the game is great fun. Another rather tough game, but you can take some of the more "final" roguelike elements away from it and formulate the optimal experience for your preference. There is a lot of depth here, and a lot of replay value. 2. Celeste Multi - Another indie killer. While 2017 might have been one of the best years in the history of gaming for AAA games, 2018 definitely brought some scorching fire from independent devs at all-time low masterpiece-for-dollar conversion rates. This game is challenging, but it has that Super Meat Boy feel of instant action - you will die a lot, but the fact that you materialize right back into it puts a hard cap on the level of frustration you can experience much of the time. Pair that with tough platforming, unique mechanics, good art style, and a soundtrack that fits really well, and you have a winning formula that manages to stay fresh even though it feels very much like a Retro game of old. 1. Sound Voltex IV Heavenly Haven (Arcade) - Still the game I play the most probably. As a former hardcore rhythm game player who is softening up after almost 2 decades of this genre, it seems like a good 'level' of game to play to get my fix. It is considerably easier than Beatmania IIDX, a game that constantly pushes the limits of human dexterity, but still more challenging than most other casual or semi-hardcore rhythm games. The focus is on equal dexterity amongst both hands and learning how to read/execute awkward patterns at really high speed. The music is unique (hit and miss) and plentiful (around 1250 songs in the game by now), and playing the game is a rush. If you happen to live in Asia, or one of the few cities in the US that has a Round One location near you, be sure to check it out. Practice enough and maybe this will be you one day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta7UnFTnbZI The big ones that I didn't get to play yet: God of War, RDR2, Smash BabyRyoga fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Dec 8, 2018 |
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Dec 8, 2018 02:45
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It's been an on/off year for gaming, I think. The highs were very high, the lows were... so very low. In descending order, #1 being my favourite. (Yeah, take it! I love MHW so much I wanna talk about it first!) These are all for PC: 1) Monster Hunter World (325 hours) This game ate my goddamn life. I have murdered so many monsters that I no longer feel emotion. These big, beautiful beasts have been blown up, shot, stabbed, sliced and diced up into so many fabulous coats and entire days just disappeared as I did so. Outrageously fun. 2) Overwatch One of 2016's best games is still incredibly good even today, and most of my summer was spent playing it while watching the Overwatch League tournament until ridiculously early in the morning. I've never realled cared about esports but I finally became genuinely invested in it. I've not played since Hammond and Ashe have been added but I'll be sure to revisit it at some point. 3) Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (34 hours) I really, really didn't expect to play this at all, let alone enjoy it as much as I do. I got it as part of my PC upgrade (Free code) two weeks ago and I've played it daily ever since. The last CoD I played was Black Ops 1, and while I enjoyed it I never felt the drive to really revsist CoD. The shooting is every bit as smooth and addictive as I remember it and while it doesn't do anything revolutionary, it's still super slick and Blackout mode is a very good interpretation of Battle Royale. 4) Soul Calibur 6 (27 hours) I enjoy beat-em-up games but don't really play them, but I've always had a soft spot for SoulCal's fast, flashy, snappy but accessible fighting. The latest entry brings the series back to basics by simplifying the fighting mechanics to be less combo-centric, and in doing so it makes it a beautifully simple yet wonderfully addictive experience. 5) Battlefield V (18 hours) Another game that I've gotten recently that's really impressed me. The last Battlefield I played was Bad Company 2, and much like CoD the latest entry still has very similar gameplay to the previous games in the series - but by god does it look nothing short of absolutely stunning. I'm not great at the game, but the sheer experience of being in one of these vast, dynamic battlegrounds is wonderfully convincing. 6) Hotdogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades (30 hours) It's gun pornography. Hundreds and hundreds of realistically modeled guns that you can fiddle with all the whistles and bells on, and a massive variety of different shooting ranges, arenas and adventures with which to scratch your itchy trigger finger on. The developer won't stop updating it and the sheer amount of cool features that have been introduced is truly a sight to behold. 7) Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice VR (7 hours) One of the smartest, beautifully empathetic gaming experiences elevated to a whole new level in VR. Psychological tricks and gorgeous audio design really enhance this nightmare trip through a broken warrior's mind. Had an ending I cried at. Not afraid to admit it. 8) Yakuza 0 (49 hours) An extremely cool, very smart action RPG based in 1980's japan. Manages to be a serious, gripping crime drama in one moment and a wacky, carefree and frankly adorable series of misadventures in the next. I've always been interested in this series and now I've gotten to play the prequel to all of it, I'm very excited to play the rest of the games when they're released for PC. 9) Forza Horizon 4 Vroom vroom cars which go super fast with none of the pomposity or fancy trimmings of the actual Forza series. It's as arcadey as you want it to be but the simulation aspects aren't shabby at all, the game looks and runs wonderfully - a good contrast to FH3 - and the selection of vehicles is, as always, spot on. Also it's set in England which is a huge rarity in videogames. 10) Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition (72 hours, mostly toolset) Beamdog brought a game that I spent an unhealthy amount of my teenage life playing back from the dead, and added a whole load of mod cons to make creating and sharing modules even easier. I was laid up with a broken leg for the beginning of the year, and being able to sit down, write quests and dialogue, code, place buildings, make items and descriptions, and test dungeons out made me feel like I was really doing something fun and creative with my lovely situation and cocodamol-dazed brain. Of course, the module is never going to be seen by human eyes and it turns out I had to scrap hours and hours of writing on account of it being a total nightmare to DM a sessions where players have to read, but running it through with my friends was a really fun and interesting experience. I'll revisit that module some day and it'll be my magnum opus sometime never. -- Now for a different tack. Here's some games that I was really, really disappointed with - no particular order on this one: -1) World of Warcraft: Battle For Azeroth Kind of says a lot that I didn't really have high hopes for this expansion to begin with, being underwhelmed by the feature list and premise from the get-go, but I still gave it a chance on the strength of how fun Legion was, being some of the most fun I had in an MMO to date. I don't think I've ever bounced off WoW so hard. I started in Stormsong and by the end of it I had no drive to play at all. I don't think I've ever felt so bored, and the loop of "Help, my farm is in trouble! Oh, thank you hero, here's another farm that's in peril!" and the loving RAZORQUILL was basically underlining all the poo poo I was getting bored of without the fun and energy of Legion. The thought that I might have to plow through this content if I ever return to WoW again is a daunting prospect. -2) Far Cry 5 Maybe this is unfair to say, because I did enjoy my time playing it - to begin with. I played through the entire game with a friend and then halfway through solo, but that initial playthrough soured me so hard on the game that it actively sapped the fun out of my next runthrough. I've said it a few times, but I've never seen a game sabotage itself so goddamn hard. Interrupting players mid-action to strap them down for mandatory, boring dialogues with ineffectual, unthreatening villains who had the potential to be so much more, then giving us one of the biggest gently caress-you unsatisfying endings I've had the non-pleasure of sitting through made the goodwill flee this game like rats from a sinking ship. A fine game when it's being itself, a frustrating mess when it feels the need to try and be clever. -3) Just Cause 4 This is a current game that I'm having a lot of fun with. It's guaranteed to make me laugh out loud at the wacky system and the over the top AI who throw themselves at you mindlessly while chaos rains around you. The reason why it's on this list rather than GOTY is that the state it was released in and the state it remains in is completely loving unacceptable. Clunky controls, terrible graphical issues, crashing for many players, a huge downgrade in visuals compared to videos released just before the game came out - they were clearly rushed to complete this game in time for the holidays and it's hosed up something that could've been really, really good. You only get to make a first impression once and for a lot of people it was a wet fart. Songbearer fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Dec 8, 2018 |
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Dec 8, 2018 04:37
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Dewgy posted:3: NieR/NieR:Automata Yo Dewgy (and anyone else who wants to do this), I can't accept lists with multiple games in the same spot. If you want your points to be counted then you need to decide between them.
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Dec 8, 2018 07:23
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I didn’t even know this was getting counted for anything in the first place, so I think I’ll live.
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Dec 8, 2018 11:43
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I need to edit DQXI into my top ten I am loving this game.
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Dec 8, 2018 14:13
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Dewgy posted:I didn’t even know this was getting counted for anything in the first place, so I think I’ll live. Just specify N:A and 0 (or whatever you want) you silly
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Dec 8, 2018 16:07
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I played a lot of games this year, but I played a whole lot of the SAME games, so I don't know if I have 10 to fill out my list. I'll just go with a top 5. 5. Forza Horizon 4 (Xbone) The Forzathon events and seasons add a lot to the game, and overall it's a much better iteration than Forza 3. The world looks great and there's a pretty large variety of cars that are actually fun to drive. Most of the "story" missions are terrible, but I played this long enough to collect well over 300 cars and will probably still return at some point to check out the expansions. The world needs more open world arcade racers. Someone make Burnout Paradise 2. 4. Yakuza 6 (PS4) I found a lot of the actual mechanics of this game to be worse than Yakuza 0, and the lack of a stance system is a noticeable downgrade, but it looks really good and the story is great and it serves as a fitting end to Kiryu's saga. This series is great, but play it at least mostly in order if you can (I've heard 3, 4, & 5 are supposed to be coming to PS4, so all 7 will be available on that system eventually). 3. Dragon Quest XI (PC) This is the most jRPG game imaginable, with all that entails, but it served as a nice throwback, and it's an amazing colorful world with a story that keeps moving along nicely. If you have ever liked a Dragon Quest game, you will love this one. 2. Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4) This is an improvement over both Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 6 in about every way imaginable. Yakuza 0 is still the best starting point, but this game is now the best game in the series, and picks up a lot of the best elements of Yakuza 0 and puts them into the new engine. The Yakuza games are the most over the top melodramatic / goofy stories imaginable, but I love them with all my heart. I wish they would make a whole Majima game, but I know that is not going to happen. 1. Warframe (PC) This game is not new, but it did just have a huge major update, and I only recently really got into it after loading it up once a year for the past few years and being confused for an hour and then turning it off. This time it really got its hooks into me and I've suddenly got about 200 hours into it and am having an amazing time space ninja'ing around blowing things up with a bunch of goons. It combines a lot of numbers that go up, with putting mods (which you can collect and level up) in your guns (which there are hundreds to collect and level up) and your warframes (which also involve farming / collecting and leveling up). If you like big numbers, collecting stuff, and making a pretty spaceship for your customized warframe and all of your space pets, it might be the game for you. Honorable mentions - Path of Exile and XCOM 2, which I played a lot more last year than this year, but I put over a hundred hours into both and I am planning to revisit both by the end of the year and see what is new.
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Dec 8, 2018 17:50
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1. castlevania rondo of blood - slow, high commitment, pure 2d action game. unlike the igavanias, this is nonstop. no downtime, no xp. classy and to the point. very little bullshit platforming or knockbacks that other classicvanias suffer from (imho). hold the whip button and you can back up without turning around - important! this simple mechanic is a way better bit of control than the 8 way whip in super castlevania. soundtrack full of classic 90s roland sounds. ridiculous sprite work. makes bloodstained look like TRASH. no offense. also has a great dracula monologue at least as good as the famous one from sotn. he’s all like ‘it’s not my fault i’m evil, it’s society’s fault, MAN.’ yeah right, that’s what they all say! this game is the best. 2. panzer dragoon zwei - Its a much better example of a game where you have a relationship with an animal mediated through a controller than, say , red dead redemption 2. the lore is as tastelessly dense as Uilalalia’s Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters, and of course I mean that as a compliment 3. dragon quest xi - battle system has exactly one gimmick, and it’s one of the best ever. but you mostly don’t have to play it if you don’t want to. just turn it on auto and look at it. that design. that animation. what can you say really. 4. katamari damacy reroll - https://twitter.com/dril/status/1022487902180319232 this joke might actually be true if more game designers were like keita takashi and less like their poor unhappy selves. then again, how can any adult make something this genuinely childish that isn’t also simultaneously stupid and condescending? it must be insanely hard! it was even hard for antoine de saint-exupery. I don’t know how hard takashi and his team worked, but they sure make it look easy. i guess that’s part of the charm. it’s so obviously ‘art’ that it was canonized as such almost immediately. the more interesting question is… what if toys are actually better than art? maybe if all toys were made by people like keita takashi, that would be true… 5. space harrier 3d - m2 are gods. turn up the 3d and all the wacky settings and just go to town, its so cool. the original game came out in 1985 and i think it’s better than super mario brothers. well, bye. Mia Wasikowska fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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Dec 9, 2018 06:46
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1. Divinity Original Sin 2: played this last year when it originally came out, then again this year when the Definitive Edition was released in August. There's very few games that so very easily encapsulate the word fun, but DOS2 is one of the most outrageously fun games I've ever played. The combat is amazing and a huge draw, the world might not be the most original one ever designed, but it's meaty and there's tons and tons and tons of poo poo to do, and the companions are well-written, interesting and well-acted. I also really like that you could play as your companions and experience their stories through their eyes. Very, very solid game. Highly recommended. 2. Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire also came out last year, but I've played a whole lot of this year as well. GW2 is an extremely well crafted MMORPG and Path of Fire is a pretty great addition to a game that keeps getting better with each new installment (whether it's the regularly released free DLC or a new paid expansion pack). Gorgeous map design as always, superbly enhanced by what's almost definitely the best mount system in any game. The big bad was pretty cool and him murdering you was a nice, unexpected little twist. You get better. 3. Prey (2017): I've actually never played any of the earlier immersive sims games like System Shock, but I enjoyed the hell out of this game. Really amazing level design, cool as hell setting, and the attention paid to the little details was absolutely mindblowing (all the NPCs have their own sleeping quarters, desks/computers, and it all reflects their personalities). The Gloo Gun was a fun and innovative weapon that could be used in a myriad of ways and the game was really good at actually rewarding you for sequence breaking. 4. Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire: great sequel to the first PoE. Ship battles were kind of underwhelming, to be fair, but I loved building up my ship and exploring the seas inbetween helping out the different factions and putting out fires among my party members. Some really great writing, especially for the companions, and great voice work. I'm not into spreadsheet character building and the options were sometimes maybe a bit much, but I liked how deep the character building went and the things you could accomplish with a little effort. 5. The Sims 4: (probably the only time this game will be mentioned in this thread, heh.) One of those games that I play obsessively for a month, then put down for six. The Get Famous expansion pack was release to enough to draw me back in again and thus, I obsessively played it for a month again. It's still pretty great, with a distinct art style and huge improvements over how the AI acted in the previous installments (multitasking alone is worth the price of admission). The Get Famous pack had some cool gameplay and the celebrity related quirks were pretty fun to deal with.
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Dec 11, 2018 16:37
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 I'm going to update this list in a new post *The links are almost all just a track from the game. Top Only included one game when talking about collections for my sanity. Not my actual Top Ten 11. Secret of Mana (via the PS4 remake) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd2KWWNnh3Y 10. Resident Evil Remake (played on PS4) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLX6reRrD88 09. Megaman Zero 3 (via the Megaman Zero Collection) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzSzyZmOzGY 08. Tales of Graces f - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJs1Mk06ag8 07. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (via PS2-to-PS4) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC4kgqcFEME 06. Donkey Kong Country 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ig_0sIxAPU 05. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (via the 3DS Remake) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fLms2ZoJwA 04. Shadow of the Colossus (via the PS4 Remaster) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmEhEM_3GSM 03. Megaman X2 (via the Megaman X Legacy Collection) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNN4yOJZpdA 02. Illusion of Gaia - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOsT8R1POEA 01. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (via Castlevania Requiem) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RqGeEsXJWY The Actual Top Ten 10 - Tokyo Mirage Sessions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy_nUw50PtM I don’t think I like Persona or Fire Emblem. I’ve tried both on occasion but have never made it successfully past the 50 percent mark in a Persona, or past the first handful of missions in a Fire Emblem (in fact the only other SMT game I’ve beaten is DDS1 on PS2). I feel like this game, TMS, gives me everything I like about Persona without the giant time-wasting activities those games nearly require of you, and is incredibly pretty while giving me authored dungeons with the types of weird puzzles that I crave (yes I know Persona 5 doesn’t have random dungeons either). I liked the characters, I liked the setting, I liked the combat and the session gimmick, I like the sidequests and the dungeons and the bosses are all super cool. 9 - Iconoclasts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGf3bDdNm9w This game is weird. It’s a Metroidvania where you don’t really backtrack much. It’s an action platformer with a ton of dialog that’s been kind of overly translated (if that makes sense). It should be annoying to play frankly, but your toolset is good to play with, the bosses are great, and the story builds up to an explosive conclusion that’s worth seeing even if you’ll never be interested enough in playing the game. It’s also a particularly gorgeous game with great pixel art that makes it clear why this game took forever to come out. 8 - Tomb Raider 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6di0-6eZOp8 I first played the original game with the greatest hits version on PS1. I always liked how vast and fleshed out and just how cool the environments were, I was just a little too dumb to figure out how to play it. I knew I had seen most of the levels in the original playthrough, but also there’s a level skip code that I probably used to do so, as I think I had never made it past the Tomb of Tihocan legitimately. For whatever reason I felt particularly compelled to play through it earlier this year and finally complete it, and it’s still a fantastic game with interesting environments and cool puzzles and a draw distance that can still scare the poo poo out of me. 7 - Bloodstained - Curse of the Moon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSb6-rEOaZ8 So, uh, Castlevania III is my favorite game in the classic Castlevanias, and Castlevania itself is pretty high up there in favorite series, and I always thought Inticreates did a great job with the Megaman Zero and ZX games and then they just went and made a modern Castlevania III. And this just sort of showed up one day, with no real fanfare. Why is it so good? This is what modernizing is classic is. They took the main feature of Dracula’s Curse, the character switching, and made it so that you can have everyone at once and switch them out at your leisure. Or if you prefer your game more difficult, just murder your companions which gets you a different ending. I’m up for anything that smooths out rough edges but still allows me to have the hosed up difficulty setting I’m used to. Good level design, bosses, and music, and none of it overstays its welcome. 6 - Mega Man 11 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSirZdxOK4E I don’t think I was particularly expecting anything from this. It was cool that Capcom was finally making another Mega Man game but the music in the first trailer sounded kinda dull, and there was no guarantee that after so long that whoever they got to make it would be able to deliver on the premise. But it was good to find out that Mega Man was back with another good entry in the classic series. Apparently they added a “Double Gear” system that makes it so that you can slow down time, or power up your shots, but also they were smart enough to make it so that it’s completely optional if you want it to be so I never used it once. Add to that the multiple difficulties and it’s incredibly friendly to new players while also adding a ton of difficulty for returning fans if you want it. The bosses are all fun to fight, the levels are incredible if maybe a little long for only two checkpoints, and the graphics for the game surprised me with how beautiful they are, considering the majority of this series are NES games or games patterned like NES games. ...music is still kinda dull though, the one mark I can think against it. Reminds me of Sonic 4 if anything. 5 - Miles & Kilo (played on PC) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k02D8TwHtkY - Trailer Occasionally I will actually go through Steam’s Discovery Queue thing because after I blocked a bunch of poo poo, and after you clear the cobwebs of all the new releases you already know about, it will very rarely show you a really cool game that got no word of mouth, no marketing, and may as well have not existed otherwise. I wanted to dismiss this game when I first saw it, because it’s an indie pixel runner game, but thankfully Steam autoplays the first video, which showpieced the incredibly interesting and varied level design, how the pixel art doesn’t look half bad, and how for whatever reason it reminds me of Adventure Island where I’d just be running to the right as fast as possible anyway. I noticed this came out on Switch at some point, so I’d highly recommend you’d give it a try, because it’s some of the tightest platforming I played this year, in a year that gave us a ton of fantastic platformers. Though in the ports to other platforms the developer has given the option of turning off the autorunning, I’d suggest you leave it on. 4 - Astro Bot Rescue Mission - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkRZxkWvHr0 Astro Bot is a game that gave me a similar feeling as to when I played Super Mario 3D World (my favorite Mario game of all time), where the game felt like it’s from an alternate universe where developers kept making obstacle course platformers past the SNES en masse, and instead of changing the formula too much they just kept iterating and iterating on level and art design until it was in a masterclass of its own. While this game does not reach the same levels of craft in my mind as 3D World, it’s not particularly far off either. This is a VR game of course, and while I can easily envision a version of the game that doesn’t need it, it certainly does add to the experience. Having to actually physically find some secrets based on 3D audio cues and just noticing things out of the corner of your eye is a great experience and adds a lot to how they could design the levels. 3 - Soulcalibur VI - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PneJB29Nr00 Unlike a lot of people, I’ve never been outright disappointed with a Soulcalibur game. While yeah, IV wasn’t particularly great and V was lean on everything except new characters that I mostly didn’t like as much as the original cast, VI is absolutely a return to form on everything I like about this series. You like Weapon Master mode? Cool, they did that and included a neat timeline story mode. You like character creation? It’s still here, and people are still making goofy licensed characters that are always fun to see. The actual gameplay? Faster than it’s been in years, with the characters you want, and with a new mechanic that initially feels weird but fits right in once you’re used to dealing with and using it. Soulcalibur VI is fantastic and I can’t wait for the poo poo they’re adding to it. 2 - Horizon Zero Dawn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ0FeBokxo4 From when I saw the first E3 trailer I knew hunting robot animals would be cool as heck, I wasn’t sure if I’d actually enjoy it, and I wasn’t expecting the second most compelling post-apocalyptic story I’ve seen since Nier (between Automata and Zelda this game got really screwed coming out when it did, huh?). Hunting machines never stops being fun. Whether you’re using weapons to directly attack, or setting up traps in a narrow canyon just to piss everything off in front of you as a lure, ripping pieces off of animalistic machinery just feels good, and it feels great when you pull off some nonsense using the tools you have. Exploring is fascinating, in that you’re always unlocking another mystery of this world, which is fully realized and wonderfully explained. In what must be the only time where a game having a ton of audio logs wasn’t annoying, let alone being some of the most interesting poo poo I’ve heard in a while. 1 - The Last Guardian - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQcuKNqewlg I have a confession, I never beat Ico. I straight up got stuck on a puzzle back in the day and never really went back to it. Then Shadow of the Colossus came out, and it became one of my favorite games of all time. I kinda expected The Last Guardian to be back on the track of Ico, where it’s an obvious good game that I just wouldn’t ever really care about that much, and it was easy to dismiss this as “oh something’s going to happen to one of these characters and it’ll be emotional” and that’s all it’ll be. Being wrong rules. Trying to finagle your giant cat monster to solve puzzles feels really great, the mystery surrounding what you’re doing and where you are is super compelling, and seeing these two things build on each other to an incredibly inspired finale is one of the best moments in games I’ve seen all year. Don’t sleep on this like I did. Other games completed this year 21. God of War 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xPXbrYfsXo 20. God of War 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FhPsDNuP3Y 19. God of War (Original) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHkm90P2-S4 18. Yakuza Kiwami - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7FLlQGXErY 17. Deltarune Chapter 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgt6R4Laxew 16. Oxenfree - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEbC2dQDsVc 15. Alien Isolation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D9hlddUm3c 14. JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9IkfrpzcUo 13. God of War (2018) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v5giUs4jnY 12. Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTjS1H4zxGU 11. Picross 3D Round 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QRuMARzzLg Phantasium fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Dec 31, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 20:40
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Phantasium posted:*The links are almost all just a track from the game. A great list. Especially love the Tomb Raider nod. The music in that game is still wonderful (especially where and when it cues since most of the game is total silence), shooting is used only as a scare tactic and palette cleanser between large and very demanding sections of environmental exploration, and saving only being available at level breaks keeps tension sky high because of the general finicky and fragile nature of Lara's dexterity. The only game in this sad zombieturd of a series that lives up to the original's promise is TR Anniversary. The Last Guardian might even be more special at this point because of how few people out there have actually played/completed it. The whole thing feels incredibly personal and private.
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Dec 13, 2018 22:00
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The first balance patch notes have arrived for SC6 and they're making a lot of the high octane options weaker across the board which is kind of lame, coupled with how much I (unexpectedly) love Smash Ultimate, I'll probably release a December patch for my list and remove SC and put Smash somewhere on there. Or maybe just put both monster hunter games on there as 1 and 2.
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Dec 13, 2018 22:11
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In Training posted:The first balance patch notes have arrived for SC6 and they're making a lot of the high octane options weaker across the board which is kind of lame, coupled with how much I (unexpectedly) love Smash Ultimate, I'll probably release a December patch for my list and remove SC and put Smash somewhere on there. Or maybe just put both monster hunter games on there as 1 and 2. Actually the patch looks good.
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Dec 13, 2018 22:23
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:and saving only being available at level breaks keeps tension sky high because of the general finicky and fragile nature of Lara's dexterity. no joke I have problems starting TR2 because when you can save anywhere at your own leisure, I usually either forget to save often enough, or save so often that it's an annoyance, having them be limited and signposted before difficult challenges helped it from ever being too unfair. also when I beat that I went to try and play the remake, and I cheated so that I'd have the commentary crystals right away. I was enjoying it too, until I got to a commentary crystal that said "our concept for the levels in Egypt was to make it about traps." I was like, what concept you're remaking the game, and then I came across the traps they added and it no joke ruined the game for me and killed my motivation to continue. throwing a bunch of instant death bullshit between puzzle rooms that have super precise timing is god dang garbage.
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Dec 13, 2018 23:04
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1.Celeste (PC) (2018) A platformer that is like Super Meat Boy but is really nice about it; Celeste puts spikes nearly everywhere for you to run into, but it never feels like the game looks down on you for doing so. Also, The soundtrack is excellent. 2. Radiant Historia (NDS) (2011) A turn-based RPG that manages to combine the story gimmicks of Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross without becoming messy, Radiant Historia has compelling storytelling and a battle system that rewards team attacks. The turn queue is something every RPG should have. 3. Katamari Damacy (PS2) (2004) There is an unique catharsis gained from assimilating anything smaller than you into your massive space ball. A game where it is fun to try to get bigger and go for the high score. 4. Okami (Wii) (2008) An artistic adventure starring the goodest godess dog and a tiny man who won't shut up. Praise the sun! 5. Geist (GC) (2005) A somewhat clunky FPS that gets points for letting you be a ghost and spook people. I'm fairly certain that this game influenced Super Mario Odyssey. Note that I have not been able to try the multiplayer mode. Honourable mentions to Lisa: The Joyful and Yugioh World Championship 2010.
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Dec 14, 2018 06:10
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#10 - Octopath Traveler This was a good year for RPGs, or at least the kind that I like, and the common aspect they share is that they all have a really great structure. That’s the aspect of my first game on the list that I like most. The structure of Ocotopath is like a semi-open world CYOA, with plenty of opportunities to set the pace to your liking. Not to say this its executed perfectly, with the early game feeling a little dull if you choose to collect all the party members immediately, but by the mid game everything is kind of opened up to poke at and you can start getting into encounters that are interesting and challenging. The battle system is quite nice with a very satisfying "break" mechanic that leaves your enemies open for big attacks once you exploit their particular weakness. The character class system is another strong point and I especially had fun trying out different job combos once I unlocked the advanced jobs. Game has kind of an inscrutable entry into the endgame but that didn't sour my feelings on it too much. Biggest point against it is the fairly sparse interaction between party members, but individually I thought most the characters came across as really likable. #9 – Celeste Love a good platformer but they're kind of dime a dozen when you're looking at pixel indie stuff. Celeste transcends that label though and has some of the tightest design, both in terms of the controls and environments, of anything on this list. Every level, hell practically every screen, has something that builds off the previous one in creative ways. I'm rarely able to accomplish the toughest challenges in these precision platformers but Celeste was just such a joy to play that it hardly felt like a struggle. #8 - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate To be honest I don't even know what to say here. Its Smash and its got all the characters. I mean that alone could probably make the list for me but Ultimate also has a really neat single player experience too. World of Light is maybe a bit bloated, with too many trash fights, but overall I really like the concept and I think it’s a good value add for the game. Not to mention that that’s on top of the classic mode, which is also really fun. Combined with the general improvements to the core mechanics (movement feels great now) I think it’s safe to say that this will end up being my favorite Smash yet. #7 - La-Mulana 2 The original La-Mulana was just such a fascinating game to me. When I played the MSX style version like a decade ago it felt like I'd happened upon some truly archaic poo poo, a game that seemed to actively discourage you from making progress. I love a game where the theme kind of mirrors the feeling you get playing it, and solving puzzles in La-Mulana truly feels like you're stumbling through ancient mechanisms designed to trick interlopers. The sequel pretty much delivered exactly what I wanted and expected. It is at its core just more La-Mulana, with some nice quality of life features and a little less obtuse puzzle solving. I think they did a better job ramping up the difficulty in the early game. Where as LM1 can make you feel like you hit a brick wall within the first hour, LM2 gives you a gentler introduction to what the game will come to expect of you, and allows you a little more freedom early on to just explore without having to necessarily solve anything. Eventually that pace picks up and you get into the real meat of the puzzle solving, with classic LM puzzles that span across multiple areas. I think the late game gets a bit tedious and honestly many of the bosses are a pain (they generally weren't great in LM1 either) but La-Mulana still remains a completely unique experience. #6 - Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire This is another game that I think really kills it with its structure. A supremely open-ended RPG that has great character building and extremely refined rtwp combat. The difference between PoE1 and 2 feels exactly like the leap between Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. I'd say that I liked PoE1 more than most but it was undeniably a dry as hell take on the infinity engine style of RPG. PoE2 does just about everything better than its predecessor and the result is a game that I think actually deserves to stand next to the legacy of games that inspired it. The central city of Neketaka is the location from which all paths branch out from and its just a delight to explore as its absolutely dense with content. The cultural and factional politics of the region are expressed really well through the dialog, which is much less dull and dreary than PoE1, and its a nice treat that everything is fully voice acted. I think the more open ended structure of game really allowed Obsidian to play to their strengths as a studio and its a drat shame that the sales figures don't appear to reflect the quality of this. #5 - Return to the Obra Dinn If this list was category based Obra Dinn would be a shoe in for Most Novel Concept. Or Best Puzzle Game. Or Best Styyyyle. Anyways this game owns because it works off of a very simple set of rules and builds a tangled web of puzzles around them. You're on a ghost ship and tasked with identifying all of the dead crew members and their cause of death. To solve a "fate" you must know three things: Who died, how and by what means. Correctly solving three fates is met with a musical cue that you will come to savor. It will sustain you. Solving fates starts off simple but will eventually require some extremely clever deductions or even informed guesswork. Just an incredibly tight package here that won't outstay its welcome. #4 - Hitman 2 Okay so this really does feel like a level pack for Hitman 2016. Maybe it would be higher on the list if it bucked the formula a bit. But honestly that formula is so good that just "the same but better" is enough to carry this game a long ways. Pretty much every level in Hitman 2 is like a Sapienza in terms of quality and density. The overall package you get with Hitman 2 deserves some consideration too I think, with all the Hitman 2016 included right in the same launcher (assuming you already owned the complete suite of them) with the improved gameplay changes. I really like that since not only did it give me a reason to check out the old levels but also just having all your stats and accomplishments all in one place further incentivizes me to keep doing more and more. Still working on those mastery levels... #3 - Into the Breach When I started making this list I really didn't expect for Into the Breach to be in the top three. The more I thought about it though the more I realized that this game has a lot going for it and very few flaws on top of just being really fun to play. This game has a lot of really elegant solutions to problems that I see in a lot of tactical strategy games. For one, you're not often finding yourself in situations where you've already won and you're just going through the motions. Generally either things are still dangerous or the game about to be over (or you need to up the difficulty). There is also very little RNG, which gives the game sort of a puzzler feel to it. This leads to the impression that every round is "solvable" even though they won't always be. And when they aren't it won't be because of a roll of the dice, it'll be because three moves earlier you did something that set this current situation into motion. I love that. The game is also extremely clean in how it presents information, nothing is hidden behind nested menus or whatever, the whole battlefield and all your options are pretty much right there in front of you. It’s a really pared down take on the genre, yet there is still so much variety between the different squads. Each one has a really distinct theme that meshes well with their unique abilities and they all have a little bit of a twist for how they need to approach encounters. Favorite squad is the Blitzkrieg btw. #2 - Dragon Quest 11 Right so structure in RPGs. Super important because they're long as hell and full of peaks and valleys between combat and story. Improperly paced RPGs can feel like a real slog, but well paced ones can feel like a journey. The pace of DQ11 is absolutely impeccable. For the uninitiated Dragon Quest games are charming traditional JRPGs that generally move at a speed I'd lovingly describe as plodding. In DQ you arrive at a new village, have a little chat with the locals, tromp around a dungeon a bit, slay a boss monster and then move onto the next village. Repeat for 80 hours. It doesn't sound so stimulating on paper yet the execution of it in these games is masterful and DQ11 does it the best. It’s some combination of fun characters, charming worldbuilding and combat that feels just interesting enough to engage but not overwhelm. Each narrative arch and its accompanying dungeon delve is like a bite size piece of what adds up to a grand adventure that unfolds over the course of an appropriately long length of time. And that grand adventure is itself just one arch in an even more grand adventure that encompasses the whole of the game. Games of this length can often feel insurmountable due to sheer time commitment, but DQ invites you to take your time with it and chip away at your own pace. Overall just an extremely comfy game to relax with. #1 - Monster Hunter World I'd never played a Monster Hunter game before this summer when MHW came to PC. Now its one of my favorite series. When MHW was released on consoles last winter I thought "Huh that looks pretty fun, but I'll wait". Had I known then what I know now I wouldn't have waited. I couldn't have. It makes sense since the MH games had always looked to encompass aspects of games that I really like, and I'd always be vaguely aware of the series. But even in hindsight I'm glad I started with MHW because I think that it's inarguably the best entry point into the series. It has the core of the MH experience but in a package that’s easier to swallow, with sick graphics, fluid controls and a bunch of quality of life changes. I'm giving the top spot to MH World, but I'm also going to mention Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate because its basically the other side of the MH coin here. I played nearly as much GU as I did World this year (totaling hundreds of hours of MH) and, while its rough around the edges by comparison, what you get out of it is so worth it. It’s not just the huge breadth of content, of which MHW is somewhat lacking, but also the "classic" monhun experience. That's what I really appreciate about GU, even though I'm a series noob I could play that game and get a glimpse into the past at everything that MH offered before World. Its funny that I don't think I could have gotten into GU without playing World, and playing GU gave me a new appreciation for World and the series as a whole. Really they're both my GOTY but I'm comfortable settling on World and I can't wait to see where this franchise goes. I spent months in a MH themed fugue state and hell I don’t want it to ever end.
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Dec 14, 2018 21:39
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10) Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey I think that this game is kind of a mess. But I played it every day for more than a week until I finished it. For its many flaws, it gives you a beautiful place to explore. Kassandra is a fun character to be, and while she can sometimes be a little all over the place the dialog choices added a lot more to the game than the on-paper addition of these options suggests. The Greece of ACO is just a fun place to be in, and while it lacks some of the haunting beauty of Egypt from the previous game, there’s still a lot of great stuff to see. AC is a series I wrote of up until the last one, and I’m hoping that they can keep adding to this formula. Maybe less of an iron grip on progress, and some more depth, and these could start being real close to classics. 9) No Man’s Sky I refunded this game basically immediately on launch, but I’m growing to love what it’s become since. The photo mode is great fun, and it’s some of the most fun I’ve had exploring in a game in a long time. It helps that, with real multiplayer, I’ve been able to bum around taking photos and scanning poo poo while my friends do the more heavy lifting of actually gathering resources to jump from system to system. NMS is a fantastic interstellar mooch simulator. My favorite detail is when it’s raining, and you get back in your ship and hear the patter of rain on the hull. It’s what works about this game in microcosm. 8) Hollow Knight Hollow Knight is beautiful - I love the environments, the characters, the music, the bits of story. I really like the choice to have to find and buy a map for each area, and that it doesn’t fill in until you rest at a bench. It would be way higher up my list if it chose to be easier instead of missing challenging and landing straight in obnoxious a bit too often. Still, this doesn’t drag down the overall game too much. 7) Celeste This game is just an incredible platformer. It looks good and plays well. 6) Pillars of Eternity 2 Baldur’s Gate 2 is one my all time favorites, and up there for the game I’ve replayed the most. I like PoE 1 okay but I felt like it retread a lot of the issues that I have with the first Baldur’s Gate. They stuck too closely to the formula of generic fantasy and it made the game seem rote. POE 2 address a lot of these issues with a more exciting setting, a bigger and better world, and more exciting and fantastical areas and characters. While I don’t feel the different elements of the story entirely gel together, the moment-to-moment dialog choices and story beats were hugely improved over the first. The writing also has an energy that the first game lacks. The additional complexity added to the class system also makes replays more enticing, and I’ll definitely be revisiting this game from time to time. The big question going into this game, for me, was will it replace BG2 as my favorite isometric RPG? I haven’t played the latest DLC and updates, but the answer is firmly ‘maybe someday.’ 5) Dragon Quest XI It took them 11 tries but they finally made a good one! Seriously though, this is the only long RPG I’ve played in a while that felt like it earns its length. Despite being dozens of hours long, it never really feels like it drags. It also does a pretty good job of walking the line between classic and modern. I don’t have much nostalgia for DQ, but even I think they did a good job with a lot of the reoccurring elements. The art style is really enjoyable, as well. 4) Hitman 2 Trying to insert yourself into the clockwork workings of a Hitman level remains an absolute joy. It’s fun to get things exactly right and slip in and out like a ghost, but it’s also fun when you gently caress up royally and the entire things melts down around you. I appreciate that Hitman has allowed itself to remain very ‘gamey’ and at least tries to place fun and consistency over realism. 3) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate It’s a new Smash, and a good one. It’s good that is seems to have turned out well, because I’m betting this is the last one for quite a while. 2) Iconoclasts I love the look of this game. I also really enjoyed the story, and the characters. The gameplay leans more on puzzle solving than combat, but the boss fights are a treat. I don’t know if there were any that I did not like. It also gets points for doing one of my favorite things: Having your NPC allies actually help out in boss fights. What their actual function is varies, but it makes the game feel much more alive and dynamic when this happens, even if it’s just for show. In Iconoclasts though, are either part of whatever puzzle you need to solve to beat the boss, or you actually control them for part of the fight. It seems like a minor detail, maybe, but it makes a big difference. 1) Monster Hunter World MHW is outstanding on its own, but what really makes it my favorite game of the year is that it’s the entry that finally drew my friends in. I’ve played a bunch of most every western-released Monster Hunter since Freedom Unite, but I could never get anyone else I know into it. Not surprising, as they’ve been dragging their feet on making necessary quality of life changes for years. They’re here now though, and largely good. I also want to give a shoutout to MHGU(and it looks like I’m not the only one)- based on strictly solo play, I’d actually give it to this game instead. I’m used to old Monster Hunter enough that the step back doesn’t bother me too much in the face of all the variety this game provides compared to World. However, while I like it, I’m glad to see it go so that the series can make the jump forward.
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Dec 15, 2018 21:58
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