|
I had to make a last-minute addition to include GRIS on my GOTY 2018 list. Anybody who loves beautiful things should buy this game!
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 10:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 11:08 |
|
|
2D Journey looks cool.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 12:24
|
|
|
exquisite tea posted:I had to make a last-minute addition to include GRIS on my GOTY 2018 list. Anybody who loves beautiful things should buy this game! Thanks! This is a reminder to anyone else who has edited their submission that you need to let me know or otherwise I might miss it!
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 18:24
|
|
|
Rarity posted:Thanks! This is a reminder to anyone else who has edited their submission that you need to let me know or otherwise I might miss it! I'm not going to make a new writeup but you can replace SC6 with Smash on my list.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 18:30
|
|
|
In Training posted:I'm not going to make a new writeup Hmm... I'll allow it. Just 
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 18:32
|
|
|
In Training posted:I'm not going to make a new writeup but you can replace SC6 with Smash on my list. hosed up.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 21:46
|
|
|
here's my list of ten. i prefer complex systems-based strategy games, short narrative games with a coherent point or theme, and games which clearly have a lot of attention and effort invested in their design. all ten of these games are solid recommendations from me and i thought all of them were of excellent quality - when i post complaints i'm pointing out specific shortcomings of the game which don't significantly detract from the overall quality. i've also got some loose games after these ten which i thought were good but didn't quite grab me 10 - frostpunk i was a fan of the idea of this war of mine, as well as papers please, so games which are just 'misery simulators' which force you to make hard decisions in a lovely environment are draws for me. i played this for a bit and liked the idea enough, but it wasn't able to hold my attention for very long. i was annoyed by my inability to map my more obssesive building layout tendencies onto the round grid map design but i thought the idea was solid overall. i'll probably revisit this game at some point and try to give it a solid playthrough. the pacing, sound, and visual presentation of snow falling was attractive to me and helped increase the immersiveness of the simulation 9 - tacoma the developers of gone home, this is the next gone home in space. it had a great concept of playing back moments in time which you would have to review for clues. my biggest complaint about this game is that the gameplay, while more present than in gone home, was still a bit more on the side of short film than actual game - but i liked that the dev team tried to make more of an actual game game, which was my only complaint about gone home. i just don't want my investigative archeology detective simulators to just hand everything to me on a plate as i click next to advance the story. the only knocks i have on this game are that it's too short, has too little gameplay, and the concept was better executed by obra dinn later on 8 - thimbleweed park this game sets the standard all pixel retro games should try to achieve when reproducing a certain time and place in gaming history. i mean it helps that the devs of this game were actually the devs of old late 80's/early 90's lucasarts style adventure games, but anyway. this is a straight up lucasarts adventure game and that is splendid. my only complaints about this game were some of the voice acting and i'm old now and forgot how hard these puzzles can be, but if the puzzles were easier then it wouldn't be a proper homage i guess 7 - night in the woods excellent game all around. the only thing i didn't like was all the platforming as navigation but then i just don't really like platformers. this game completely nailed the unification of aesthetic, art design, sound design, writing, and themes. i didn't like how content was gated behind mutually exclusive choices because i couldn't motivate myself to another playthrough but i should at some point. i dont want a sequel for this game but i want another game as much like this as can be created without repeating itself 6 - two point hospital i loved theme hospital and the other bullfrog style management games, so this one was a day one purchase for me. it had some bugs to iron out but the dev team did an excellent job. it's theme hospital 2, what more do you want? one downside to this game is that the main gameplay loop gets repetitive and there's no way to break that really, which was true of the original as well. it's almost more of a puzzle game than a management game at times. the art design is inspired and the sheer attention paid to replicating the original is well appreciated 5 - life is strange teenage girl drama simulator. parts of the narrative were weird and i cringed at the attempts to replicate teen talk but as a video game soap opera it worked well in terms of story and gameplay. i liked the rewards given to the player in terms of extra insight and character development as a reward for snooping, and the game was more clever than not. the characters were all pretty decently done with the exception of one (the bad guy) and i appreciated how chloe was both sympathetic and infuriating in turn. the gameplay loop was just about getting tired when the final chapter kicks in and that whole thing i found mostly well designed. i also appreciated the sound work as well as the attempt to make arcadia bay feel like a real place 4 - crusader kings 2 i dont have anything to add except this is one of the best games of all time and is the reason i wasn't able to play more games this year. like i had to consider "do i want to play this new game, or do i want to play ck2 again" as i boot ck2 for the jillionth time. and it keeps getting better. can't wait for ck3 in 2020 or whenever 3 - prey i didn't finish this game because my wife was watching me play, she got impatient and spoiled the ending, told me about it, and that sort of killed any forward momentum we had to finish it up. probably for the best because the ending sounds real dumb. but endings are hard to write and games like this are more about the journey than the destination. i was overwhelmed with the almost obsessive level of detail in making talos a real place, and found it difficult to keep up with the otherwise urgent pacing pushing you forward as balanced with the reward of really digging in to each individual and what they were doing during the entire typhon crisis. it's a joy to play and explore 2 - return of the obra dinn nearly a perfect game. incredible art design, the archeology/forensic gameplay was balanced to be both challenging and rewarding, and enough was left unsaid about the narrative to keep it interesting. any limitations the game has are easily explained by the inherent choices made when allocating game dev resources, and as this was effectively a one man project i think these choices were answered elegantly. again, i was compelled to move along the narrative in such a way that i missed critical clues and so had to do a new playthrough to finally crack the case but that's on me as a player responding poorly to the core design. just a stunner of a game. i recommended this to a group of gamer friends and when i said "it's the new game from the papers please guy" folks were like "oh that was all you had to say, i'm sold" and really i can't add anything else to that. lucas pope is an indie rock star for real 1 - yakuza 0 i'm a pc gamer so this was my first chance to play yakuza and i am considering buying a ps4 just to not have to wait for more ports in the series. this is what grand theft auto should be, blending the giddy beat em up bad guy action with enough japanese absurdist nonsense to make the game's more aggressively masculine idiocy reach an ideal pitch. like if the game was only men screaming and crying shirtless in the rain about family and betrayal then it would be a bit annoying, but juxtaposing all this macho meat slapping with RC car circuits, intensely savage children, and all kinds of odd assed characters in a stupidly complex gangster drama really helps to sell the tone. where GTA turns me off for being too tryhard edgy in a big open world sandbox, yakuza sells it by going so over the top that it becomes compelling again. and running around in the authentic 80's japanese cityscapes was far more interesting to explore than sterile gritty americana. i loved nearly everything about this game, the only downsides were the heavily japanese game design choices regarding long rear end cutscenes, auto saving, and tedious trophy grinding. but $20 is a completely criminal price for this game given the huge amount of content it offers now here are some games i played which i thought were good but which i just bounced off, or which aren't solid must play recommendations battletech i'm only a casual mechwarrior fan, but i like big 80's style warbots and turn based isometric shooters. the pacing was a big turnoff for me though, as well as the amount of time necessary to fire up a new career after i've tanked one through permadeath terrible decisions and bad leadership. i'll probably revisit it at some point, it seems good and i trust the developer/publisher war for the overworld i hoped this game would be for dungeon keeper what two point hospital was for theme hospital, but it seems too much like a fan project with extra unnecessary stuff. still a good game though. i haven't tried the other dungeon keeper thematic remake and i probably won't. life is strange: before the storm ugh, chloe. life is strange where chloe is the main character and her super power is being the most seventeen year old teenager to ever snarl at her parents. my god i just wanted to shake her sometimes, but also her extremely pissy comeback mode was fun. chloe is a great character but i just can't stand concentrated teenage angst of this magnitude, and the game telegraphed exactly where it was going in the middle of the first episode. felt like too much of a cash in but if you liked life in strange, like really liked it, you'd probably like this too rising storm 2: vietnam pretty good, but it suffers from the same problem all the tripwire shooters have, which is that the learning curve is steep and the community is a small core of extremely skilled players who will snipe you from across the map and then spam voice chat with racist nonsense. i couldn't ever invest the time to get decent at this game and learn the maps, plus also i quickly didn't want to actually play with my team because they were some combination of powergamer and closet nazi. when the game works though it's pretty fun for a large team based shooter in a way that i don't find in modern incarnations of more casual shooters like battlefield surviving mars i loved the concept, art and sound direction, and overall feel of this game. my only problem is that there's not much game there - the developer is the same as the middle generation of tropicos (3 and 4) which had the same problem of being easy to figure out and then break and then it's just sim city on mars with a lot more logistics tracking. overall pretty good though even if it couldn't compete with other games for my attention overwatch i still play this game every once in a while when i want to play less than an hour of multiplayer first person shooting, but it has the same problems it always had. either you get good and roll with a crew of friends who try hard to play decently, or you cast your fate into random pubbies where try as you might you'll either get placed on a team that gets stomped or inexplicably stomps. really it's just tough to make a multiplayer shooter that isn't a roll of the dice as to whether you'll end up feeling like you got a satisfactory level of gameplay, but at least the community is marginally less toxic than most other big shooters on the market stellaris i like the paradox games which are more story generators than mechanical simulators. not a fan of the hearts of iron series, i don't like ww2 that much. and eu4 is just too complicated at this point for me to wrap my head around. ck2 is perfect for me because it's more about people than nations. and stellaris almost scratches that itch as a space opera except it's a bit too buggy and obtuse to really shine. but overall it's pretty good
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 23:08
|
|
|
1. Monster Hunter World - Only Persona 5 got as much time out of me (and that game is loving long). At first I was unsure, because the controls are so much different than I expected, but once I got into it it was a daily player for awhile. There was a week where I was dumping 5+ hours into just tempered Deviljho runs every night. Most of them failed, because he's a pubslayer. But hoo boy was it fun to try anyway. I just want more. More monsters, more game. I bought MHGU for Switch, but 15 minutes with that game told me it was nothing like World and I don't know if I'm going to go back. I just want a G rank expansion for World with a ton of new monsters. I will pay full price, I don't care, just PUT MORE CONTENT IN. 2. Furi - I had weirdly high expectations going into this, and they were met. Furi is not perfect, but everything about it is artistic and packed with style. I love the boss designs, and the game - excluding The Burst - is a masterclass in how to make challenging, engaging, fun and fair bossfights. That's all there is, also. Furi has walking, and it has bossfights. Any story is either told to you by your traveling companion, the bosses themselves (rarely), or the visuals of the environment. The character designs were done by the creator of Afro Samurai, and it really shows. I personally love Takashi Okazaki's style, so I thought all the designs were really cool. The whole game is basically just "can we really get away with just making a bunch of tough bosses" put into action, and I think it totally works. The soundtrack is mostly outrun stuff, like Carpenter Brut. Lends a frantic sense to the action, which has you constantly dodging, parrying, shooting, and repositioning. I can't say enough good things about this game, and I particularly recommend it to anyone who likes bullet hell games, or stuff like Dark Souls. 3. Persona 5 - The most stylish game ever made, by a fairly wide margin. I can't even think of a single game that comes close, despite the love I showed for Furi above. Persona 5 feels like someone listened to all the reasons I think JRPGs are boring and it's a genre that is not for me, and they were like "okay that makes sense, but first try this." It's fun, I love the characters, the story is good, and it looks like anime. Anime is the pinnacle of human artistry, so this works in Persona 5's favor. I don't really like cats, though. Oh, and the soundtrack. Holy gently caress has there ever been a better game soundtrack? I've legitimately listened to Whims of Fate and Layer Cake on repeat for a solid hour or more. The songs just don't get old. 4. Horizon Zero Dawn - I was just constantly surprised by this one. I expected a mostly-competent third person robot dinosaur hunting simulator with a storyline full of cringe and janky animations, based on the webms I saw around release. What I got was a smartly-designed third person robot dinosaur hunting simulator with one of the best stories I've seen in a game in years, visuals that someone sold their soul to the devil to get the PS4 to run them, and a "less is more" approach to sidequests that left me actually thirsting for more filler content just to have an excuse to play more. Really superb game. 5. Super Mario Odyssey - Like mainlining joy. I can't believe they can still make Mario games this fun. I bought it to play on a 12 hour flight and ended up struggling not to play too much of it before actually going on my trip. I just...didn't want to stop playing. It was too drat fun. The various possessions were so neat to discover and getting good at the locomotion was pretty satisfying. It's not my favorite Mario game ever, but it's probably top 3. 6-10 in no particular order: Danganronpa V3 - A fitting conclusion to the series. First case is one of the all-time greats, I think, despite being the tutorial. Really got weird at the end, but I'm fine with it. Yakuza 0 - I wish I liked this game more than I do. It has all the right elements, and I think the level of depth the characters are given is surprising and impressive. Unfortunately, most of the time is either spent in dialogue boxes, cutscenes, or fighting. The latter of the three is merely serviceable. It's Witcher-level, basically. Not bad, but not super engaging or interesting despite the number of styles you can employ. The voice acting and soundtrack are top notch, and the story is excellent. I'll be playing more of the series, but I've heard 0 is the best or second best by popular opinion, and I wouldn't feel comfortable giving it higher than an 8/10. Vermintide 2 - I played a fair amount of the first game and loved it dearly. Vermintide 2 is more of the same, sort of. Some things are better, some things are worse. I think it's pretty good, but it didn't suck me in like the first. I think it really could've benefited from importing the levels from the first game, although I have no idea how hard that actually would've been. Fatshark still a great developer and I'll be buying the DLC and going back to the game in time. Nier: Automata - Pretentious bullshit. Nah, not really. Just exactly the game Yoko Taro wanted to make. It was fun, the combat was alright, and I liked the multiple endings idea and execution. It's not my favorite game of the year, but it's somewhere in the top ten! Far Cry 4 - It's another Far Cry game. Pretty fun. I was totally in the mood for one of these. Wish the dumb helicopters didn't fizzle if you got too high but whatever, most of the game was good. Story was goofy. Pagan was a fun villain and I liked how much he talked. Wish he'd gotten even more time, but no worries.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2018 07:17
|
|
|
#1. Smash Bros Ultimate This is the best game to come out this year, full stop. It’s one of the best games to come out any year. The tagline, “Everyone is here!” is so amazingly apt. It’s definitely the biggest crossover I’ve ever seen and it’s evident how much love went into every 1 and 0 of the game’s code. You owe it to yourself to play this game if you have ever, in your life, played any video game ever. #2. Celeste I was surprised how much I loved Celeste. I don’t usually like Meat Boy-esque platformers, like ever. But it’s not like that at all. First of all, the ability to turn off the difficulty and just enjoy the story was amazing to me. More games should do that. And what a story! As someone who suffers from Type I bipolar disorder and general anxiety disorder the story really hit extremely close to home. It made me cry at points. I don’t get an emotional response from games very often. Celeste is truly one of a kind. #3. Minecraft It’s a bit weird putting Minecraft on a best games list in 2018, let alone so far up the list, but the updates it got this year were substantial and being able to play cross-platform with all of my friends in the Realms update was a real game changer. I had some goon friends who I was playing with for quite a while until school intervened, I need to get back to playing with them, but suffice it to say those weeks playing with them were some of my best highlights of the year. #4. Monster Hunter Gen U OK, this is a slight cop out, as I didn’t actually play Gen U this year. I did provide commentary for an LP of it, though! Will It Cat is an ongoing LP with over 30 episodes with me and fellow goon liquidypoo commenting on this lovely game (and regular Generations before it) while Silver Falcon plays, and while I haven’t played it myself, I have enjoyed enough time with my friends over the game that I feel it deserves a spot on this list. #5. Splatoon 2 Who doesn’t enjoy a good splat now and then? Well over a year after its launch, this game is going strong in my library, and with new content added constantly it feels, well, fresh. I don’t like to do anything other than Turf War but that’s OK. It’s cathartic just to ink some floors now and then, you know? #6. Octopath Traveller I think I thought I liked this game a bit more than I did. I was surprised that it came out so low on my list. I actually think it’s a fantastic game, just a bit too hard for me and the story gets a bit too repetitive. It’s stunning to look at and the soundtrack is amazing - plus when our power went out for 25 hours during the summer this is what I chose to play to keep myself occupied. A great game, but a flawed one. #7. Stardew Valley I didn’t play this too much this year, as I played it more last year, but it still earns a pretty OK place on the list. Not as high as I’d put it last year, though. Harvest Moon has always been a favorite series of mine and I come back to it time and again. It’s a great time waster. As many others do, I tell myself, “Just one more day!” and then look up and four hours have gone by. There is so much to do and see in this game that it has years of play left in it. And I haven’t even tried out the multiplayer yet! #8. Nintendo Labo (Variety Kit) I swear it’s not just cardboard! I had a blast building all the various projects that came with this kit. They were very satisfying to me even as someone with no kids! I’ve always been a hands-on, engineering kinda gal, and seeing everything come together and work was just very rewarding to me. The games got kind of dull but the little educational bits were actually very entertaining. I think this would be great for schools. #9. Golf Story This game was a real surprise to me. It brought me back to nostalgic days playing GBC Mario Golf and had a great little RPG mechanic and story that really drew me in. I’d love to see more sports RPGs like this from the same developer! #10. Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee Returning to Kanto was a real treat, especially because I got to do it with my new fiance. He really loves Pokemon and a lot of that enthusiasm rubbed off on me; however it’s a lot of the same, albeit with updated mechanics, so I can’t justify putting it any higher on this list.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2018 08:48
|
|
|
So, it turns out I don’t actually play that many recent games (also wow looking through my playtime stats made me realize (1) I don’t play games that much anymore and (2) I realllly should try more critically acclaimed games). 1 - Dead Cells Best combat of any game ever for me, beautiful art, really rewarding to improve at, tons of interesting ways to play. Easily my favorite game of the year. 2 - Celeste Really fun pure platformer, and maybe one of the only games where the gameplay mechanics actually tie in really effectively with the story. 3 - Counterstrike: GO If you haven’t played this already I would give it a try. It feels sort of like the Starcraft of FPS games. Big fan of the slow improvement and how impactful it makes each round. Hard not to put it here given how huge my playtime was this year. 4 - Immortal Redneck Worst named best game- this is a rogue lite FPS which is really excellent and probably the best in the genre by far. Sort of quake like shooting, lots of weapons/a variety of mechanics. One of my favorite single player FPS games period. I actually did a speed run of this game, that’s how into it I got. 5 - Ring of Elysium Somehow Tencent’s F2P shooter is the only battle royale game I’ve ever enjoyed. Managed to replace CS GO for FPS play for awhile. The placement system with grids is great and removes the randomness at the start, combined with plentiful item drops this means you almost always have a fighting chance every run. The added movement mechanics are great, and the helicopter ending adds suspense I appreciated quite a bit. 6 - AC Odyssey This didn’t really feel like the AC I remembered at all, but I really liked it. Fun combat and a huge world with tons to do. I thought the game was big looking at the starting minimap, and then realized I was super zoomed in and it was like 5x larger. This iteration of the ubiRPG genre really worked for me. 7- Paladins Had a brief flirtation with destroying itself via micro transactions, but pulled out of that death spiral and is very accessible now. It’s basically a much more interesting and fun (in my opinion) but waaay less polished version of overwatch. The character design is super embarrassingly bad at times, but the core game is really fun. 8 - Insurgency: Sandstorm I like it as a middle ground between counterstrike and a more casual FPS. You get the slightly more complicated shooter mechanics, minimal HUD, and impactful deaths, but with slightly shorter round times and a bit more forgiving overall. It really breaks down competitively unfortunately (prenading routes becomes huge, so odds are you may die randomly with no way to stop it from a grenade tossed by an enemy with a cannon for an arm). 9 - Minion Masters It’s basically like an old Warcraft 3 custom map— spawn units which auto walk over to attack your opponent. This game looked terrible, but it’s actually really well done and quite fun coop. I am still a bit embarrassed that it’s so high, but I did really play/enjoy it a lot. 10 - Card Quest One of the first deck builders I’ve really liked! I play mostly on mobile but I really like the small card puzzles it gives you with each new encounter, as well as the sort of simplistic thematic deckbuilding which strikes a good balance between complexity and variety. Honorable mentions: Slay the Spire- very close to putting this in over Card Quest, gives a similar experience. If it was mobile I’d likely have played it more. Stardew Valley - the coop mode really adds to the game, super fun to build a farm with people although the energy system can lead to you getting out of sync and resulting in eg one person just waiting for the other. Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare- this May be mostly a testament to how much I want the mount and blade sequel to come out. Think mount and blade mixed in with Arma, but really loving janky, and you have this game. Development going well though so excited to see where it is by release. Factories- The slow Skinner box of increasing automation really worked on me. Playing with friends coop was great- this game actually convinced me to set up a server for it. Eventually it started to feel a bit pointless/Sisyphean, but I’ll probably come back at some point post release.
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2018 03:33
|
|
|
10. Timespinner a little metroidvania that came out of nowhere and captured my attention way more than i expected. a gorgeous love letter to castlevania (specifically to order of ecclesia) and the single gayest game i've ever played, i had a whole lot of fun with it ... for as long as it lasted. kind of super short, unfortunately, i was left wanting way more! though i guess that's better than a game outstaying its welcome. 9. Octopath Traveler a testament to my last point above: talk about a game overstaying its welcome. as beautiful and fun of a jrpg as it is, octopath just keeps loving going, and there's so much repetitive content. i loved the way the game looked and played but there was just so much chaff; i think the formula is very strong but desperately needs refinement. i think a sequel from the same team would be a stellar game. 8. Assassin's Creed Odyssey i've never cared about asscreed before, i never enjoy open world games, but ACO proved to be well worth my time regardless. getting to be the hottest vg protagonist in a long time loving and fighting her way across ancient greece is a formula that's hard to gently caress up, and i had a loving blast doing it. the level grinding was kind of annoying but everything else i thought was super great. 7. Path of Exile: Betrayal path of exile is absolutely the best arpg out there, and i have to give special shoutouts to the recently released Betrayal league, which rolls in a bunch of content that was temporary to make it permanent, plus a lot of brand new poo poo and quality of life stuff and it's overall just a great loving package. the devs constantly put out so much content on a regular basis entirely for free, and i find that to be relatively baller. 6. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 a game i bought entirely for the anime titties, and then it turned out there was a deep and gorgeous and massive and well-crafted jrpg attached. 5. Super Smash Bros Ultimate everyone's here! everyone's smashing! it's a fun time! world of light was a really loving cool adventure mode with the greatest last few ending battles, it was neat seeing all the different battle conditions they spun up to represent the spirits. overall just a great loving package. 4. Forza Horizon 4 i can't stand driving games; they constantly put me to sleep. gf convinced me to give this one a try with her and it was a fantastic decision! i'm terrible at driving games so the varying options to make it arcade-y are a godsend, the map is huge and varied, there are so many loving cars, and it just feels great to cruise around. 3. Deltarune would easily have been #1 if it were an entire game. best soundtrack of the year, best writing of the year, best pretty much everything of the year, just ... it's not a full game and i want it to be. i hope toby fox doesn't take ten years to finish it! 2. Celeste the ideal platformer. gorgeous and well-written and exactly challenging enough for me, encouraging you to try and try again, to push against what you thought to be impossible, to climb just a little higher. celeste is a masterwork of the genre and the assist mode ensures anyone and everyone can have a good time with it! 1. Iconoclasts i played iconoclasts right when it released and it stuck with me throughout the entire year. the pixel art is gorgeous, it's fun to move around the map and solve puzzles, and while some of the systems feel tacked on (the mods especially) the characters and their writing and the amazing, amazing plot beats that happen in the back half kept me glued to the game enough to beat it in one long sitting. gently caress this game is so loving good.
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2018 04:48
|
|
|
10: What Remains of Edith Finch Looks like I got around to this in January, fun game that tricks you into thinking it's a walking simulator, but then surprises you with a thoughtful story full of mini-games. 9: Far Cry 5 It was a big open world shooter just when I needed a big open world shooter. It wasn't anything different then the other Far Cry games not set before recorded history, but they do tend to be fairly massive with a ton of things to do, even if you don't buy the DLC. 8: Zero Time Dilemma Got it Free on PS+, and spent a good amount of time with it. Only one segment game me too much trouble, which is the sign of a good escape the room puzzle game when you don't have weird bizarre solutions. 7: Disgaea 4 Tons of content, like the other Disgaea games. The cast of characters in this one are pretty good, however the jump in difficulty in the end game jumps pretty drat high. 6: Darksider 3 I really like DS 1 & 2, this one is just as good. Unfortunately just as good means it's got some issues. https://twitter.com/GundamJoe/status/1070611534953500672 If you like DMC and Dark Souls, it borrows mechanics from each to make a competent character action game. 5: Celeste Not much more to say then what everyelse has, but I feel like the last few levels have a few bullshit puzzles that drag it down. 4: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 A decent continuation of the Xenoblade franchise, that manages to have enough great about the story, characters, and breadth of content to balance out the crap fest that is the blade gacha and voice acting. 3: Super Mario Odyssey You remember all the other 3D marios? It's that, but better, and with Fashion. 2: Monster Hunter World I'm a huge Dark Souls fan, and MH is basically the first iteration of it. World takes the formula for the other games and adds a ton of QoL improvements. The only thing keeping it from being number 1 is that it doesn't have enough content for me. 1: Spider-man This game, oooo boy. While the DLC side missions can be an exercise in frustion that really doesn't bring down the rest of the game. An amazing Spider-man story, fantastic fighting controls, and spectacular graphics would already make this a great game, but add the webslinging Travel on top and this took the top of my list.
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2018 23:00
|
|
|
In which I spend way too much time writing about video games... So for those of you that don't know me from the chat thread I don't play modern games cause current gen is expensive as hell. Instead I missed out on the last gen at the time so I've now got a 360, a PS3 and a Wii and I'm working my way through those game libraries. Therefore look forward to this list being a collection of games from 2006-2007! Fair warning, there will be spoilers ahead.  10. Cooking Mama (Taito) PUT COOKING MAMA IN SMASH NINTENDO YOU loving COWARDS!  9. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent (Ubisoft) I'd never really tried a Splinter Cell game before I jumped into Double Agent and once I got over the learning curve I discovered a very tight and compact stealth game. What really stood out to me most was the level design which covered a nice variance including a prison during a riot, a cruise ship and a 5* hotel in Shanghai. The levels gave you enough freedom to roam while still guiding you along from set piece to set piece such that it didn't feel like the game was leading you by the hand. What helped with this was strong enemy AI that was reactive and finely tuned to make your playthrough unique to you. A really great example of a genre that I need to get into more.  8. Caveman 2 Cosmos (Civ IV Fan-Mod) Right, this one might need a bit of explaining. Sid Meier's Civilization IV is one of the best entries in his 4X series but this total overhaul mod takes the game to a whole new level. Imagine Civ but with more. Much, much more. More techs, more units, more resources, more civics, more everything. This mod takes your civilization through the entirety of human history from the birth of homo sapiens through to present day and beyond into the far far future. It's so deep and complex and long that I've played it for hours and still barely scratched the surface. Starting up a Caveman 2 Cosmos game is not a whim, it's not a flight of fancy, it's a long-term commitment but it's one that is oh so rewarding. I want to LP this game one day, I just need to find an extra 100 hours in my week to make it possible.  7. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda) This year I came back to my 100+ hour save file of Oblivion with a firm goal in mind: to do everything. Despite such a lengthy playtime already knocked off there was still a ridiculous amount of content to get through. I ended up adding almost another hundred hours but in that time I did every quest, explored every dungeon, read every book and it's a testament to the breadth of this world that I was able to keep going for so long. The world of Cyrodiil was a beautiful place to jump in and out of for an hour at a time and it comes at a time in my video game chronology where open worlds are full of intrigue and excitement. The lure of discovering what was around the next corner kept me drawn in from start to finish.  6. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo) I picked up my Wii at the start of the year and Twilight Princess was the first game I played on it. I had previously watched an LP of this so I can't say that my experience was fresh but the Zelda gameplay is still so strong that it remained one of my favourite games throughout the year. What really stood out was the quality of the dungeons. Each one was tightly crafted to bring out the best of your abilities and make use of your items in ever more inventive ways with the Aribter's Grounds and Yeti Mansion being particular highlights. The addition of Midna as your helper was also a welcome highlight and she still stands out as one of the best characters in the series. Overall, this was just Legend of Zelda doing what it always does and that alone makes for a great game.  5. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (Naughty Dog) Here's another game that I was already familiar with from an LP and this may well have impacted it's position on my list. Even though the story and the set pieces weren't a surprise I still had an absolute blast playing through the first of Nathan Drake's adventures. This game makes the most out of the new PS3 hardware to pull of some stunning vistas and creates this amazing sense of scale where you as Nathan feel like such a small and insignificant part of this tropical environment and the sense of danger as you cling to the edges of sheer cliffs is palpable. Nathan is a consummate action hero brought to life so well by Nolan North and the first steps in his relationship with Elena are very sweet. It's a fun romp that tantalises with hints of the better things that are ahead for the franchise.  4. Crackdown (Realtime Worlds) Or as I like to call it, Dicking about : The Game. Just like the previous two entries on this list this is also a game I'd previously watched an LP for but unlike those two games that pre-existing knowledge didn't harm my enjoyment one bit. That's because Crackdown is a game all about dicking about. You jump some buildings, you shoot some dudes, you kick some dudes in the face and you do it not for some higher, loftier goal. You do it because it's fun in and of itself. Pacific City is a place where you can dive in for as short or as long as you like to blow off some steam and have a good time. I also really appreciated the last minute twist because it rolled in all the troubling issues with the game's concept with a perfect justification.  3. Resident Evil 4 (Capcom) I'd never played a Resident Evil game before I sat down with REvil4 in November and I'm so glad that this was the one that I came on board with. If you want to talk about finely tuned action games then here is one that is pieced together to perfection. The pace of the tension is phenomenal with big set pieces being doled out one after the other like a gourmet dinner. The minecart ride, the helicopter base assault, the cable car, the cottage siege, the laser corridor, ROBO-FAUNTLEROY, there's just so many memorable moments. Now obviously over-the-shoulder gameplay is old hat these days but this still feels revolutionary and creates a tighter action focus without sacrificing the scares so crucial for survival horror. I think as video game fans were used to feeling that barrier between us at the controller and the game on the TV screen and it's rare for that to really get broken down. There were times in this game where I caught sight of an enemy and immediately checked the gently caress out. (gently caress Regenerators. Seriously, gently caress them right in their squishy mouths.) In those moments the barrier came broken down and for a few brief seconds I wasn't just playing Leon. I was Leon. Luckily with such a selection of beasts and monsters to fight Leon comes equipped with a collection of the best guns in gaming. Capcom did a great job of making each gun feel important and having its own impact so that you really can choose what suits you best and roll with it. The power of the Broken Butterfly and the range of the Assault Rifle teased me but I could never betray my first love, the oh so powerful Riot Gun. And combining this gunplay with the Wii motion controls was a match made in heaven. Using the Wiimote to point and shoot felt like the destination that gaming has been evolving towards all these years. It's fast, it's snappy, it's accurate and I can't imagine any other way to play a game like this again. It would be remiss of me to finish this without touching on the story. While Leon's quest to save Ashley is fairly shlock B-movie fare the game's pacing again stands strong as it dolls out enough plot beats to keep things moving. Leon is a fine action hero and Ashley is a stone cold queen who deserves some real respect while Fauntleroy is a giant jerk and Saddler can go gently caress himself I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR TAKING COP BRO FROM ME!  All in all, REvil4 was a joy of a game and was all set to be my game of the year except at the start of December I replayed... 2. Bioshock (Arkane Studios) Bioshock was one of the games I picked up when I originally got my 360 and it's been a firm favourite ever since. We're talking about a game that I would no lie put in my all time top 10. REvil4 didn't stand a chance, unfortunately. I love this game so much that even though I've played it before and I've got a long, long list of games ahead of me to play I still took the time to give it another crack and it was every bit as amazing as I remember. The game drew me in and had me enthralled throughout its journey without ever missing a beat. I think what stands out to me most about Bioshock is that the world of Rapture is so wonderfully realised. Andrew Ryan's libertarian utopia turned dystopia lives and breathes with such richness and detail that everywhere you look there'll be something new to discover, a new audiodiary to expand the backstory or a hidden poster or advert that makes the world feel real. Rapture has such a disturbed and manic undertone that is carried through so well by all the inhabitants that you meet. This is true from the splicers who's introductions are all pants-wettingly terrifying to more important individuals like Dr. Steinman's obsession with beauty and Sander Cohen's devotion to the modern artform. But no character looms larger over Rapture than Ryan himself, who in many ways is the last sane man in the city but may also the most insane of all and your meeting with him is one of my standout memories in gaming. Which of course brings me to The Twist. I was really interested during my replay to see how well it held up and it does. It really, really does. This is another game with a great sense of pacing up to The Reveal with Jack's backstory slowly being dismantled until you approach Ryan's lair at which point everything quickly comes tumbling down. I also need to give some serious props to The Ending which is heartfelt and moving in its simplicity. All in all, Bioshock remains an absolute classic and was all set to be my game of the year except at the end of December I played...  1. Heavenly Sword (Ninja Theory) I think what I love most about video games is their ability to draw you into a whole other world. Sure, gameplay is great and all but if your game can pull me in so that I'm walking and breathing and living inside it while the controller's in my hand to the point that I can believe the world still exists when the console shuts down then I'm sold. Heavenly Sword is one such game. This is a game which draws its world with such fine brush strokes as to be a piece of art. For starters, the presentation is fantastic. The graphics are jaw-dropping with the most amazing vistas I've ever played through and the first characters in gaming to come close to resembling reality. This is combined with a soundtrack that is haunting in its beauty and some stunning cinematography. You fight your way along a bridge while the camera pans epically across the valley. Later it pulls back as you take part in the final conflict between your tribe and the enemy forces to show off the full scale of the battlefield. It's like Helm's Deep but you're a part of it. For the last two decades we've been talking about the intersection between games and movies and this game proves that likes of Hideo Kojima and David Cage are doing it wrong. In Heavenly Sword you don't sit and watch movies in between bits of gameplay. Instead, you are the movie. That's all very well and good but it wouldn't mean poo poo if the story of Heavenly Sword wasn't up to scratch. Luckily the game does not fall short in that department. With a tight framing story covering five days of time Heavenly Sword uses its large sense of scale and history to tell a deeply intimate and personal story. Against this epic backdrop we focus on a mere handful of characters. Our heroine Nariko is tragic yet noble, a warrior who moves with a sense of beauty and grace and enough determination to survive years of being an outcast within her tribe and the emotional distance of her father. By her side is Kai, innocent and childlike but with a engrossing sense of joy at the destruction and death she causes. The emotional bond between Nariko and Kai lies at the heart of the game and is the heart of the story. Set against them is Bohan, a vile despot played to perfection by Andy Serkis at his full on Gollum best. You haven't lived until you've seen a man rage in fear against threats to his sacred genitals. Here's the thing that really stands out to me about Heavenly Sword though and it might be the reason it's so captured my heart. This is a game with such a strong feminist message. Like I said at the start I'm gaming in the mid 00's where female characters are still pretty much at best either mindless eye-candy or disposable cannon fodder and at worst non-existent. Then here comes a game with two strong female characters and some seriously heavy subtext. Nariko has been outcast from her tribe since birth for not being the regeneration of a legendary god as scribed in prophecy. While it's never clearly stated this is ostensibly because she is a woman. Yet after a lifetime of being shunned and ignored Nariko steps into centre stage through her own will and claims the power of the Heavenly Sword not because is was destined or pre-ordained but because she chose to claim it. It's such a strong, positive message and as a woman the game speaks to me in a voice that other games just can't match. This is a story that is going to stick with me for a long, long time and I'm sad I'll never get to experience that sense of wonder from discovering it again. Rarity fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Dec 24, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 24, 2018 16:08
|
|
|
Rarity posted:
Everything's better with gifs!  YES at the Heavenly Sword love. I'd play a remaster in a second. I'd love to see what you think of The Last of Us and its DLC.
|
|
#
?
Dec 24, 2018 20:52
|
|
|
I've seen Geop's LP. Ellie rules.
|
|
#
?
Dec 24, 2018 23:47
|
|
|
Hey, Rarity, I updated my list at the last minute. It's on the first page with all the gifs. I put a write-up and some other poo poo in there as dedication. In short, I played Gravity Rush 2 this month and it stole the top spot and bumped everything else down the list, so Until Dawn got eliminated, GoW is #10, etc. Sorry for the trouble.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2018 02:50
|
|
|
1. Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire It for me fixed a lot of the issues with PoE 1. Really felt like a worthy successor to BG2. 2. Assassins Creed: Odyssey Although it'd be nice to focus more on the RPG mechanics and from its sheer size is a bit uneven, it's one of the more enjoyable ones this year overall. Honorable mention: AssCred Origins Curse of the Pharoahs. Punch King Tut, it's like punching the pope. 3. Warhammer 2: Ham Harder Orks orks orks orks orks orks orks orks. Honorable mention: Rome II: Rise of the Republic. 4. Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock An official BSG game that isn't bad, and was actually good? Unpossible! 5. Battletech The recent patches and DLCs have definitely improved it, but the best big stompy game in a while. A Shameful Display: Farcry 5 The gameplay itself was fun, but the main plot was so detracting from that... it undid any good.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2018 04:33
|
|
|
Rarity posted:8. Caveman 2 Cosmos (Civ IV Fan-Mod) Was this my fault because I've always been banging on about it in UKMT? Either way v. glad to see it on the list 
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2018 05:37
|
|
|
Ms Adequate posted:Was this my fault because I've always been banging on about it in UKMT? Either way v. glad to see it on the list It was sebzilla that I remember bringing it up, sorry! Atarask posted:3. Warhammer 2: Ham Harder I'm assuming this is Total War: Warhammer II but if you mean something else please let me know!
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2018 07:41
|
|
|
10. Slay the Spire Extremely addictive deckbuilding game, so much so that I had to uninstall to make sure I kept up with my college work. It would be the #1 on my list if I could control myself. 9. Frostpunk City building survival game that isn't nearly as harsh as it seems. I liked it for a couple scenarios, but even halfway through the second one I felt like I'd seen all the game had to offer. 8. Furi All boss fights, no filler. It's great. 7. The Talos Principle As much as I love this and The Witness, I wasn't able to finish either, and I'm OK with that. 6. The Sexy Brutale Unlike The Talos Principle, the puzzles in this one never got so tricky that I was unable to solve them. I even went on to get 100% completion! 5. Celeste Currently playing through this one, and it may just make me break a controller for the first time in over a decade. I love it. 4. West of Loathing It's a very funny RPG, but not in the 'laugh out loud' sense, it just kept a grin on my face the entire time I was playing with it's barrage of stupid puns and absurd stories. 3. Okami HD It's an extremely pretty open world game with a ton of side stuff to do. It ended up scratching that MMORPG itch for me, oddly enough. 2. A Hat in Time This game feels like a mess cobbled together from a bunch of different half finished products, but the gameplay is so good and the worlds and characters are more than charming enough to compensate. 1. Return of the Obra Dinn Once I started I couldn't stop playing this until I had solved everything. It's a unique game with nearly perfect execution.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2018 18:08
|
|
|
Runners up (i.e., every game I thought had a shot of cracking the top ten but didn't quite make the cut): Atelier Shallie Myst IV Riven (mostly this low because the game is impossible to get the full experience from on a replay) Deltarune Ib Myst III Witch's House And, the big boys 10. Atelier Sophie This is a good spot to say it, but I played a lot of Atelier this year. Like, a lot a lot. This was the year of Atelier for me. Sophie has the problem that the first three to five hours are mind boring (none of the interesting party members get introduced right away, the two lead characters take a while to find their rhythm, and the gameplay unlocks slowly). But once you get past that, it's still an Atelier game. It has the second-best crafting system of the Ateliers I played this year and likable characters once you get over that initial hump. If It didn't have that one glaring flaw it would jump five places in my rankings. 9. Subnautica Wonderful atmosphere. You go from alien but welcoming in the shallows to alternately spooky and frightening the deeper you go. It's buggy and the ending drags a bit but what it does well, it does very well. 8. Ocarina of Time randomizer romhack Were you an N64 child? Do you remember where all the secrets are in OoT because you played it obsessively? Boy do I have the romhack for you! A fun remix on a classic game that allows you to enjoy it again almost as if it were new to you. 7. Rhythm Heaven Megamix It's a rhythm game, except instead of ramping up the difficulty, it ramps up the variety. Whereas most rhythm games are one game that they explore in detail, this one gives each game a bit of a spotlight then moves on. 6. Atelier Escha and Logy Another Atelier game. Good, fun crafting system, difficult bosses often enough to make sure you're using the crafting properly (something missing from many Ateliers), and likable characters. Just a solid Atelier all around. 5. Atelier Rorona Worse gameplay than Escha and Logy but better writing and characters. Rorona is precious and Sterk and Esty are my very good friends. The gameplay is a bit clunky and dated but the menus got touched up in the ports so it has modern quality of life features. 4. Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind A King of Dragon Pass sequel! That game was an absolute masterpiece and basically nobody played it and the same thing happened again. It, along with KoDP, is almost unique in having a fantasy world that really feels like another world instead of the real world with spells and swords stapled on.You truly have to mentally immerse yourself in the way this world works to succeed and that's an incredible feeling that only video games can provide among all forms of media. 3. Atelier Totori The top three is all Ateliers so strap in. This one manages to have a story which is simultaneously about not very much (like all Ateliers its very low stakes) while simultaneously packing a punch in the delivery. The relationship between Totori and her sister is the realest depiction of family I've seen in a video game in a long time. I liked almost every character. This was still early enough in the Atelier franchise that there's a bunch of gameplay improvements they hadn't hit upon yet but the overall design of the gameflow worked well and the writing carried it beautifully. 2. Atelier Lydie and Suelle The most recent Atelier, and the game that sent me on this year's trek through the series. Easily the best gameplay of any Atelier game. The crafting feels good enough to be a standalone puzzle game, and the combat is fun and rewards mastery of the crafting system. I feel like the latest Ateliers kind of stumble because they removed one of the core pillars of earlier games--the time limit/schedule. This game is the first one that felt like it truly solved that problem. This game feels like the game Sophie should have been. 1. Atelier Ayesha And here we are, Atelier of the year. This game feels like a "fixed" Totori, which was already my number 3 game. The game flows better, fixes a few clunky bits of design, has better quality of life, and otherwise continues the extremely strong writing set by Totori. The relationship between Ayesha and her sort of teacher Keithgriff is one of my favorite bits of writing. The game is serious when it needs to be, comedic when it needs to be, and manages to cram more emotional weight into itself than almost any other game I've ever played, all while just being the story of a young woman wandering around learning alchemy. A true masterpiece that all JRPG fans should give a try. Next up on my list is Atelier Meruru, the game made in between Totori and Ayesha. Based on the two games on either side of it I'm assuming that it will be my 2019 goty. cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Dec 26, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2018 06:51
|
|
|
Lots of Switch games this year, but that's totally ok with me because the Switch has been an absolute blast to play and it's perfect for getting my son into the habit. Thanks for putting this together, Rarity! 10. Super Mario Odyssey Finished the game, beat the optional dark side area, got most of the moons. Great game, enjoyed the journey, but I don't think I'll be replaying it anytime soon. 9. Fallout: New Vegas Replayed it this year, beat it for (I think) only the second time. It still holds up as the best of 3/NV/4, although I haven't played 76 and don't intend to. What I found interesting, especially after replaying 4, was how nice it was to not feel compelled to pick up every last bit of garbage. I purposely steered away from a crafting-heavy build and skipped Survival mode, but even so my lizard brain would see a box of Abraxo or scrap electronics and initially feel compelled to pick it up and hoard it. It makes the game feel a lot lighter and more fun to play, but also highlighted how FO4 uses that garbage to fill out its locations. It also highlighted the incredible jankiness of the Gamebryo engine in ways that weren't entirely pleasant. It's still worth the replay. 8. XCOM 2 I've put a lot of hours into the new XCOM and XCOM 2 and both are terrific games. They haven't gone stale for me yet. 7. Persona 5 The only PS4 game on my list this year, Persona 5 came out of the gate strong and totally collapsed by the endgame. It needed two fewer dungeons, and I can't believe the game tried to make me care about Haru that late into the story. As it was, I walked away from it at the final dungeon and had to force myself to finish it later. Even so I can't deny how much fun I was having with it up until I hit the wall. 6. Just Shapes and Beats Canadian beats and geometric shapes combine into a game that is half avoidance game, half Winamp visualization. Some of the stages are definitely too easy and could have benefited from creating multiple difficulties, but it's great fun and really highlights what you can do with very minimal graphics. 5. Breath of the Wild Actually, weapon durability is good. 4. Pokemon Let's Go Eevee As someone who's played every generation since Pokemon Red, this was long past due. I never felt like the act of reducing a Pokemon to low health and then throwing balls at it was core to the "catch em all" experience, and I can't imagine how anyone would prefer it to this method. It's fine that it's accessible to children, because I wasn't much older than my kid is now when I played the game on the original brick. There were a few things missing that I found surprising (mainly just Abilities) but overall I wouldn't be at all disappointed if this became the standard for Pokemon mechanics. And Eevee can wear a hat that is a little woolen Diglett. 3. Smash Bros Ultimate It had to be on the list. I'm terrible at it, but it had to be on the list. I've played for 30 hours and I think I'm like 2% done. 2. Total War: Warhammer 2 Similarly to Pokemon Let's Go, this series stepped out of its comfort zone and is way better off for it. Opening the Total War floodgates to all sorts of wacky impossible fantasy poo poo has led to some awesome gameplay and tactics far beyond the standard infantry/ranged checkerboard. My first game was a bunch of vampire pirates that relied on their terrifying undead gunline and were led by a ghostly opera singer riding a gigantic hermit crab, and now I'm playing as a bunch of lunatic chivalry-obsessed Frenchmen with a peasant front line and superpowered cavalry. 1. Prey It had me hooked from the intro sequence but absolutely managed to live up to the "spiritual successor to System Shock 2" that the thread claimed it to be. Stranding the player with only monsters and audiologs isn't anything new but I think Prey stands as the new gold standard of the genre, easily beating out the Bioshocks and even the System Shocks that preceded it. It gives the player a wide array of tools and never feels like there's a "right" or "wrong" way to solve problems. I haven't played Mooncrash but I'm really looking forward to it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2018 18:16
|
|
|
More people should add The Messenger to their list!
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2018 19:03
|
|
|
Comfy Fleece Sweater posted:More people should add The Messenger to their list! Why?
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2018 19:20
|
|
|
10: Grim Dawn is an ARPG, or loot pinata game if you prefer, in the style of Diablo, Path of Exile, and its own predecessor Titan Quest. TQ developed a cult following as an excellent entry in the genre, and Grim Dawn builds on it in every way. It is huge, expansive, and as each character can choose two of the game's eight classes, combined with a secondary advancement system called Constellations that can enhance your characters in many ways, there's an enormous degree of depth and flexibility in your builds. All augmented by the vast array of items that you can find. It also makes a decent enough stab at having lore and a story and so on, nothing truly amazing but better than the usual fare for the genre. It's hard to write too much about this game, at least in this context, because either you like the genre or you don't. If you do, this is an exceptional entry. If not, this is unlikely to change your mind. 9: Megaquarium is a late entrant on this list for me, as I only got it for Christmas! But I already love it. It's a management game in the style of Rollercoaster Tycoon or Two Point Hospital, with you designing and managing an aquarium, aiming to provide an edifying experience to the punters while also making a profit. It is charming, cute, and deeply fun in that compelling way the old tycoon management games used to manage when we were young. Even as I'm writing this I'm thinking about playing it, planning a more efficient route, how to pack more filtration and heating units into a small space, which staff to hire and which jobs to assign them, so on and so forth. There is a broad choice of sealife to place in your many tanks, and you have to account for many things in order to keep them healthy, such as water quality, temperature, and type of food, but also whether the fish require solitude or schools, if they can be housed with crabs or starfish or corals safely, their needs for plants or caves, and much more. It is a deeper game than it seems in the first couple of levels which ease you in, but the sense of mastery as you build a large and efficient aquariam with an abundance of sealife and many happy visitors is tremendous. 8: Into the Breach was made by the people who made FTL a few years ago, and it's somehow even better than that game was. This is tactical combat boiled down to the barest, purest essentials, and it is sublime. Every map is a puzzle, and the way campaigns work ensures it's vital that you solve the puzzles as efficiently as you can if you want to succeed. Things often don't go to plan, however; and that's where the game gets even better, because you struggle to recover from mistakes and missteps, and must make difficult decisions about what to risk, or outright sacrifice, in pursuit of victory. Sacrifice the wrong things and later levels may become ever-more difficult, trapping you in a spiral of decline. But instead of creating a situation of ragequits or restarts, the game somehow pulls you into a determination to succeed, to try and turn it around. You rarely manage it. But on the occasions you do, the sense of triumph is stupendous. Masterful in every facet, I cannot recommend ItB highly enough. 7: Hitman 2 has to be on this list somewhere. Really it's Hitman 2016 and Hitman 2, as the content merges if you own both, so you can play all the previous game's missions in 2, including with the various new weapons and tools. But that's by the by; the real point is that this is the Hitman we've wanted since Blood Money, that game's complexity, details, and for it's day impressive scope, all incerased and made better than ever. For one thing the levels are vast, and for the most part, extremely deep as well. Hokkaido from 2016 and Sgail from 2 are truly outstanding efforts in game design, using tight, constrained areas and then packing them with a barely comprehensible amount of options. It's a series which is a little goofy, 47 kills people in some wacky ways, but then the idea of an assassin this good kind of justifies that he'd have to be someone who erases the genius-madman line. The amount of content is absurd as well, as you can play an enormous number of 'escalations', small missions set in the existing levels which have varied and increasing conditions (e.g. starts with 'kill this guy with an axe' but by level five it's 'kill that guy with an axe, wear his clothes, kill someone else with an explosion, don't get seen by a camera, escape in one specific way'), AND on top of that player-made contracts where you can load up things other players have done and try to match or beat their conditions and times. 6: BattleTech is basically the 'Mech game we've always wanted, at least since MechWarrior 2. You set up your lance of pilots and their 'Mechs, you deploy to missions, you blow stuff up, punch stuff out, and stomp on things to destroy them. There's a tremendous feeling of the sheer size and mass of these machines, especially comparing a sprightly Spider to a big boi like a Highlander or King Crab. Like Into the Breach this is turn-based tactical combat, but the details are fundamentally different; both are excellent in their own ways. Even as I think Into the Breach is probably the better game qua game, I still rate BattleTech a tiny bit higher, thanks to the setting, atmosphere, and Sumire. The game also does a great job of making you feel like a bunch of mercenaries, in that you really have to be judicious with your resources at times or you're going to struggle economically. It's entirely possible to win a mission but end up with so much damage to your 'Mechs that you don't even break even, to say nothing of having a great pilot injured or even killed. Also, the fact that they let you choose your pronouns and that you could have non-binary pronouns was excellent both for us GENDER TRAITORS and for the sheer amount of rage it caused in reactionary shitbirds. 5: Prey could be called System Shock 3, and indeed our own SA thread for it was titled after that notion. You're on a large research station in Lunar orbit, a station under attack by some truly alien aliens, and in the vein of System Shock or BioShock, embark on an effort to find out what happened and why, and attempt to contain it or escape, depending on what you might learn. Developed by Arkane, who already showed themselves to be a very skilled team with the Dishonored games, Prey gives you an abundance of challenges and an abundance of tools to face them with. Like the best in the genre these are diverse and give you a genuine sense of achievement when you get past an obsctale that was stumping you, whether by using an environmental feature to kill an enemy, sneaking past thanks to your skills in hacking or the like, or using the game's other even more unique tools. Yes, the game relies on the overly worn trope of voice recordings and written logs to give you plot and objective information, but it does so well enough and with each character unique enough that the tiredness of the trope seems very distant for once. The important discussions of events aboard the station are intermixed with ordinary and believable exchanges. Arranging a D&D session. A relationship breakup. Using highly advanced 3D manufacturing technologies to make nerf guns. It gives the world a degree of texture and depth that others in the genre strive for but rarely achieve. 4: Crusader Kings 2 has been out for years now but it's continued to get patches and content DLCs right up until Holy Fury a few weeks ago. And what a glorious game it is now, what an inspired idea to control a medieval dynasty, how supremely well-executed the conceit is. Your only true goal is to ensure your dynasty remains alive, and landed, until the end-game date. Like most Paradox games everything beyond that is a suggestion rather than a demand. You can try to conquer the world, or keep to your own small corner of it, you can be a Queen or Empress, or one of their many vassals, you can pursue your goals by diplomacy, dynastic marriages, seduction, assassinations, bribery, military might, or personal dueling skill, among much else. The game is backed up by a vast array of events governing everything from whether you bury your pet cat in an ostentaious or private ceremony to trying to raise your kids to have good traits to what to do about the spooky sinkhole that is terrifying the peasantry. You will face off against threats as varied as the Plague to Ghengis Khan to your family's patriarch suddenly being killed in a plot you had no idea existed, to find your son and heir - who you are now playing as - was the one responsible. Crusader Kings 2 is often challenging, sometimes absurd, but never dull. It is also, as typical with Paradox titles, backed up by a large and active modder community, making everything from small gameplay tweaks to complete overhauls that place you in Westeros, Nirn, or North America half a millennium after an unspecified apocalypse. 3: I'm late to The Last of Us, having skipped the PS3 entirely, and only getting a PS4 late this year in anticipation of RDR2. But having just one game would be silly, so I picked up a couple of others, one of which was TLoU Remastered. At first, I didn't see the big fuss; it was a pretty good third-person shooter with, admittedly, uncommonly good voice acting. But I found myself playing it more and more, pressing ahead to see the next exchange between Joel and Ellie, exploring the next location, figuring out what happened to Ish and his group, hoping that promised events will actually happen, and soon I was at the end of the game looking back at something truly special. This is gaming doing what it can do better than other media, not because the story itself couldn't be told otherwise (in fact it's far easier to see TLoU as a TV show or comic than, say, CK2 or BattleTech), but rather because it uses the gameplay and the challenges you face to draw you into the world, to make you feel increasingly protective of your ward, to give a sense of danger and tension. The Last of Us is a masterwork, deserving of its countless plaudits. 2: It's hard to think of what to say about Red Dead Redemption 2 that hasn't already been said, and better, dozens of times. It's one of the biggest releases of games in history, and these days that means it's one of the biggest releases of anything in history, period. RDR1 was an instant classic and, remarkably, Rockstar exceed that feat with the follow-up. R* have always been quite willing to foist their idiosyncracies on players, but never have they succeeded so thoroughly. It takes time to get around the world, but it's not boring, it just gives you a true sense of the scale of the place. Strangely, RDR2 has a sense almost of the roguelike about it, in the deliberate nature and pacing, the way side activities are typically extensive investments of time, the incremental improvements in Arthur's abilities, carry capacities, etc.. The story, for me at least, works incredibly well, and succeeds so thoroughly that it actually enhances the meaning and impact of the first game, despite the relative limitations created because RDR1 never mentioned the great majority of what happens in 2. But the real magic of the game is in the ridiculous detail in the vast world, and how it all works together to make a sense of place and life. The way your clothes get dirty if you are knocked over into the mud. The way your painstaking efforts to stalk and hunt a deer can be undone because someone obliviously rides past and spooks your prey. The absurd attention to detail on your weapons, once engraved and carved and customized to your liking. But really, REALLY, the magic of the game is that it understands the deep and profound questions that surround the very concept of 'Redemption' - What is it? Who pursues it, and why? Who deserves it? How does one earn it? There are other works that tackle the subject better, but not many, and none I can think of in gaming. 1: Stellaris is another Paradox game, this time a space 4x, like the famed Master of Orion 2, Sword of the Stars, or Endless Space. Like most in the genre you pursue the four aforementioned 'X'es, those being eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation, and eXtermination. Discover star systems and worlds, encounter your rivals in the galaxy, colonize, advance technology, face ancient and alien dangers, and all while managing your population and economy. Stellaris is a wildly ambitious game and, being Paradox's first foray into 4X rather than Grand Strategy like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis, is generally acknowledged to have stumbled at first. The two years since release have seen both the addition of new gameplay - machine empires such as the Borg or Weyland-Yutani-esque MegaCorps - as well as sometimes dramatic overhauls of existing systems. We have seen the thoroughgoing rework of interstellar travel, abolishing the old system of three different methods of travel in favor of hyperlanes-only, at least until much investment is put into technological research. Most recently the MegaCorp DLC arrived, at the same time as a patch which radically overhauled the population and economic systems. Gone are the old tiles, replaced by a more complex system of population management and jobs being provided by a world's districts and buildings. In truth the rollout of this patch has been rocky, with the AI falling short and a late-game slowdown issue becoming acute enough to make it unplayable. And despite this, it is my most played game on Steam, and my most played game of any sort since it released in 2016; I have almost 2000 hours now. Paradox's original design vision was of a galaxy that is ancient and full of wonder, and in this, they succeed sublimely. You encouter the relics of countless lost civilizations, everything from exploration pods holding a deceased astronaut to imposing ruins that give insights to new technologies, and encounter beings of many kinds, some benign, some exceedingly dangerous - to say nothing of the particular brilliance of the Worm and all its related material, written for a special free DLC called Horizon Signal by Alexis Kennedy. Honorable Mentions; Cities Skylines Middle Earth Shadow of War Two Point Hospital Total Warhams 2 Motorsport Manager XCOM 2 Project Zomboid AssCreed Odyssey Not yet spent enough time with, but have great promise: Ni No Kuni 2 Monster Hunter World Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2018 22:35
|
|
|
My top list of the games I've played this year: 1. Witcher 3: The wild hunt. I recently re-played it and it still has the most interesting world and storylines. And it has 100+ hours of it. Triss vs. Yennefer? Triss, always. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U85Er5hz82g 2. Six Ages - Ride like the wind Probably the best game on the IOS platform, that I've ever played. Its a clan management / Choose your adventure-game from the makers of the King of the Dragon Pass. Really epic storyline based on classic RPG world Glorantha. PC version is coming 'soon'  Instead of video, here's a link to our very own "GreyjoyBastard's let's play: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3862744 (100+ pages and still going strong.) (Warning: Plenty of spergy lore posts) 3. Overwatch It's my first multiplayer FPS since original Quake and I'm still enjoying it after 2,5 years. I like it, because it had so much variety. All 29 characters have distinct playstyles and game has lot of fun gamemodes. It also looks bright and colorful. I don't like 'realistic' graphics that most FPS-games have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oAILYpV0TM 4. Artifact Best card game on the market right now. It has lot of depth and you have to think really hard about what to focus on, thanks to having 3 different boards you have to contest to win. Card pool is still bit small, but whenever the next expansion comes should fix it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUim6nVahv8 5. Rock Band 4 Ever since the Original Guitar Hero on Ps2 was released 2005, I've been consumed by the band games. I changed brand to Rock band, when it released with plastic drums and singing and I still pull out my mic and E-drum kit every now and then to play my favourite songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxpq9t1W6eE 6. Pillars of Eternity 2 - Deadfire PoE2 has improved so much from the original. I love the Pirate fantasy theme and world has lot of cool stuff to explore and characters to meet. It has a lot of character customization, which isn't my cup of tea, and luckily you can ignore lot of it, if you chose so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmRmUUEbLqI 7. Spider-man. Surprisingly fun take on the webslinger and not at all a quick cash-grab, like most superhero games. Story is entertaining and the combat has similar addictive quality as the Batman games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Mi6LfOBTA 8. Yakuza 6 Kiwami Manliest man alive shedding manliest tears about manliness and punching some punks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43RNsxB4jy8 I've played plenty of other games this year, but I don't feel like voting rear end.creed or RDR2.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2018 22:51
|
|
|
Ms Adequate posted:
This goon gets it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2018 23:28
|
|
|
Ms Adequate posted:9: Megaquarium is a late entrant on this list for me, as I only got it for Christmas! But I already love it. It's a management game in the style of Rollercoaster Tycoon or Two Point Hospital, with you designing and managing an aquarium, aiming to provide an edifying experience to the punters while also making a profit. It is charming, cute, and deeply fun in that compelling way the old tycoon management games used to manage when we were young. Even as I'm writing this I'm thinking about playing it, planning a more efficient route, how to pack more filtration and heating units into a small space, which staff to hire and which jobs to assign them, so on and so forth. There is a broad choice of sealife to place in your many tanks, and you have to account for many things in order to keep them healthy, such as water quality, temperature, and type of food, but also whether the fish require solitude or schools, if they can be housed with crabs or starfish or corals safely, their needs for plants or caves, and much more. It is a deeper game than it seems in the first couple of levels which ease you in, but the sense of mastery as you build a large and efficient aquariam with an abundance of sealife and many happy visitors is tremendous. Curiosity: why did Megaquarium get on your Top 10 while Two Point Hospital didn't?
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2018 01:22
|
|
|
First some Honorable Mentions: Subnautica – Great game with extremely cool environments. I loved exploring and building better ships, although I didn’t get much into the base building aspect. The numerous animals were fun to observe and examine and I really liked the mysterious story that you uncover by diving deep into the depths of the ocean. However it misses out on my top 10 list because of its abysmal technical issues. Iconoclasts – Very good metroidvania with a moving and fairly bleak story. The Fall 2: Unbound – Viva la robolution The Messenger – Last game I played in 2018 and allllmost makes the list. It’s a really cool platformer that turns into a metroidvania. Has some cool bosses but is overall a bit easy for my tastes. And now, my top 10 games of 2018, that all came out in 2018 as God intended: 10. Thronebreaker – I didn’t have much interest in the standalone Gwent multiplayer game when they announced it, so I’m really glad they ended up making a companion singleplayer campaign mode. The story was up to Witcher 3 level of quality and the revamp to the Gwent gameplay worked well to support a whole game. 9. God of War – Never played any of the oldere God of War games but I got this for my birthday and really enjoyed it. Combat was very satisfying and the story and characters were both gripping. I look forward to the sequel. 8. Wandersong – A big surprise, I bought this game on a whim not knowing much about it. The lil bard won my heart as he kept trying to save a world that didn’t want anything to do with him. His relationship with Miriam was probably the best part of the game, though I also loved his interactions with Audrey the Hero who just couldn’t be made to see things other than the simple black and white ideas she had about what her duty was. 7. Yakuza Kiwami 2 –Finally, a Yakuza I played at release! It’s my second favorite so far after 0. I wasn’t a huge fan at first of the new combat engine, but I got used to it over time. I didn’t like the Majima Construction minigame, but was very glad to see the Cabaret club make a return. The main story was excellent and the substories were as funny as ever. Now I wait patiently for the 3, 4, and 5 remasters to come here before I finally can play 6. 6. Valkyria Chronicles 4 – I only played VC1 a couple years back when it came to PC, so I didn’t have as agonizingly long a wait for a second good VC game. Still, I’m glad it finally came. The new units really added to the depth of strategy and I liked their solutions for boss fights a lot better than in the first game. In general there’s a lot more map variety as well, and the addition of the giant battleship was cool. Story was good as well, fuckin United States and their weapons of mass destruction. 5. La Mulana 2 – The La Mulana games are truly like nothing else out there. Getting to play this one on release and solving puzzles in cooperation with other people online was incredibly fun. 4. Monster Hunter World – The huge praise Monster Hunter gets has always intrigued me but every demo I’ve played convinced me the series just wasn’t for me. This finally changed with World which I was convinced to buy with reassurances that it would be way more accessible. And it was true. You still need to watch weapon videos to understand how to use them to their fullest extent, but otherwise everything is very self explanatory and the game was completely engrossing. I still don’t have the desire to keep grinding things and playing multiplayer forever like some do, but I got what I wanted out of it and look forward to the expansion. I wish this carried over to liking other MH games, but I tried the GU demo and I just can’t deal with the clunkiness. 3. Return of the Obra Dinn – This is one of the most brilliant puzzle/mystery games I’ve ever played. The way the game gives you a set of tools and then pushes you out into the ship was invigorating. Every deduction is up to your own powers of observation and memory. It never leads you towards anything or prompts you to give the right answer. Nothing feels as satisfying as seeing the screen go black and pop up with “Well done. Three more fates correct.” I’d say I want more but I don’t know how this feat could be repeated! 2. Celeste – This game blew me away. I bought it because it looked like a cool platformer but I had no idea how amazing it would be. Its mechanics are so much fun and its difficulty curve is perfect. The main levels can be beaten with persistence, the strawberries require a bit more skill, and then the B and C sides push you to your very limits of your platforming skill. I managed to do everything there was to do in the end but it was grueling and I loved it. The story was moving as well. This stayed as the number 1 on my list for over half the year, and I thought it couldn’t be toppled, until I played… 1. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Well this is simply one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played. The combat and character building are so well executed. Bosses are quite challenging and require you to plan your party well. The story is great and every character is a lot of fun both to play as and as part of the story. I’ve only played 2 other dragon quests before this one (4 and 8) and this is definitely my favorite, edging out 8 by a fair margin. My favorite thing about the game is how there are 3 major plot events that dramatically change the state of the world, and every single city and character in the game is strongly affected by them. Going around the world after each of these and seeing what’s different is incredibly cool, and reminds me of some of my favorite games of all time – the Trails series. Well done Dragon Quest.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2018 18:12
|
|
|
Dishonorable Mentions: Farcry 5 Cultist Simulator You know what you did. You know exactly what you did. Go sit in the corner. Games that I can't put on my list because I didn't actually play them: The Missing: J. J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, I just finished watching a Let's Play of this and I deeply regret not purchasing it. What a life affirming message. Dragon Quest XI Yuji, (can I call you Yuji?) Yuji, Yuji, it's perfect for the Switch. The Official DalaranJ Top Ten Games of 2018 10. Dark Souls Remastered I don't have PS+ so this was my first chance at experiencing jolly cooperation. It is, indeed, jolly. This game is surely showing it's age, but you can feel all the important mechanics and the innovative approach to plot here. A game that will go down in the textbooks. 9. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Replay) Speaking of games, that will go down in history. Of course, I beat this last year, but it's not over, this world is always hiding more. I will be playing this on and off for years. I would have happily put this higher on my list, but 'gotta make way for the homosuperior.' 8. West of Loathing I'm too old and lazy to MMO anymore, so I'm glad the Kingdom of Loathing guys are putting out stand alone games. Nice simple puzzle solving, still broken rear end combat, great simple weird non-punching down humor. Hope they put out more of these. 7. Six Ages: Ride Like The Wind Glorantha (the setting of this game) is intimidating. This game makes it easier (still not easy, it's a quirky game) to approach, and I do love me some Bronze Age drama. 6. Minit A masterpiece in simplicity. A pure and straightforward monochrome adventure. You've got sixty seconds to do what you've got to, and then you go do something else in 60 seconds. 5. Caves of Qud (Purchased this year) I love roguelikes, and the mechanics of this one are quite unique and interesting. You can develop a series of mutant powers, or instead you can go the cybernetics route. A fascinating and unique setting on an abandoned planet far in the future. Live and drink, friend. 4. Hollow Knight (On the Switch) Just pitch perfect at every moment. The pinnacle of metroidvanias. 3. Return of the Obra Dinn Finally a game where you can play as an insurance adjuster. An insurance adjuster for the British East India company in the 1800's that travels back to the points of people's deaths to discover the cause. The soundtrack is brilliantly tuned with the action. 2. Monster Hunter World It's like Monster Hunter, but it hates you less (and it looks gorgeous)! Except for the RNG, that still hates you. I played double cross after this and was going crazy without the in game weapon trees. For pity sake, I was in a tizzy over not having superarmor on hammer, and I don't main hammer. 1. Hitman 2 (Didn't play hitman 2016, so that clearly affects my enthusiasm for this one.) A delightful toybox of mayhem. Like Breath of the Wild there's always a new silly storyline to uncover, and all the mechanics just piece together exactly as they should. Unlike Breath of the Wild those storylines are about killing people in increasingly crazy ways (and keeping it a secret). DalaranJ fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Dec 29, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2018 20:45
|
|
|
here are some games that i played in 2018 that i remember yatta katamari damacy reroll *goty* katamari is a near perfect game. simple controls, straightforward goal, all that stuff everyone's talked about for 15 years. what really draws me in to katamari is the construction of the levels. i saw a thing once about the motion of kurosawa films and i really get the same vibe here. i don't think there's a direction you can look in any level without seeing a mermaid bobbing or a stack of men teetering or watermelons circling a giant watermelon with a crown on it. there's 100 little vignettes playing out around every corner and it all comes together as a living, breathing world. the game does so much with just little animations and simple but bold models and i really love the clean pixely textures. you'd think it would feel awful tearing down this beautiful clockwork world of whimsy but the act of reunification feels just as much at home as the grand dance. truly, i feel the cosmos  spiderman everything good about katamari is missing in spiderman. being spiderman is fun for a few hours, it's fun to watch him flip over goons and stick guys to buildings and junk. and then i found i was just rhythmically tapping X to skip jump hop across rooftops, trying to get across town mindlessly chasing a waypoint. sometimes i would dip to street level and swing by, skimming the pavement, but the world down there was just as cold. off to collect another backpack, beelining straight for another landmark, checking off another arena brawler hideout. i think im tired of open world collectathons with randomly generated pockets of gameplay i did like the characters in the first half/two-thirds though and im going to play the second one though when it comes out probably. also the best costume is the sick red jacket + black jeans combo  zack and wiki i set up my wii u to play pikmin and i ended up playing this again instead. the puzzles in zack and wiki are kind of simple, mostly because the obstacles have one very specific solution and those solutions are very specific and obvious animals that need to be turned into a hook or a bomb or something. but i love the presentation of this game, i love all the settings, and there are some twists they use with the tools that are novel enough  pikmin hachi machi this game still whips. the desperate atmosphere, the flavor of the parts, the inspired fauna, a sense of exploration and tackling big goals. but i've played it a lot and im pretty good at it so some of the magic is gone unfortunately. this is the game i wish could forget and play through for the "first time" again. if anyone knows where to get a little desk model of the ss dolphin please tell me  deltarune it's more undertale and it's good. i could see the thing where some of your own party members are working against you in peaceful combat being annoying though  black bird i'm not really a shmup fan and i don't know what makes a "good" one but the destruction is satisfying and it's got the chulip/little king story/million onion hotel tinge that i love. it's short but it's and old game thing where if you die you're back at the first stage so it took me a bit to actually finish (im not good). please buy this so Onion Games makes more onion games games  hollow knight most of the character designs are cute. i found the melee based combat to be frustrating most of the time though until you get the long nail, and then it's frustrating only occasionally. a lot of show, don't tell story so that's a thumbs up  breath of the wild i bought botw again for the switch after playing most of it on wii u and it's still p good. did all 120 shrines this time around. i really wish you got the horse bike way earlier than "literally everything is done" but it still owns. weapon durability sucks, the rain climbing stuff sucks. rest of the game is a master's piece  night in the woods couldn't get into it sorry 
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2018 21:38
|
|
|
I'm just going to do a list of the best games released in 2018 5. Mark of the ninja: Remastered An update to the great stealth action game, with beautiful 2d graphics. 4. Raft A more traditional survival game, but one that is simpler and more streamlined. It is more about a peaceful experience than surviving. 3. FAR: Lone Sails A relatively simple game. You drive around the deserted landscape while solving minor puzzles and exploring the story. 2. Subnautica I have played through this game several times during early access, and I was happy to see it do so well after the full release. This is a survival game done right, no gathering sticks or chopping down trees, instead you are building cool underwater bases and speeding along the ocean. 1. Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Sequel to the best game of 2015. It has beautiful graphics, fun storylines, great characters and a very fun gameplay, Oasx fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Dec 30, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2018 22:21
|
|
|
For some reason some universally liked games of 2018 such as Monster Hunter World, Dragon Quest XI, Pillars of Eternity 2 really didn't click for me. Each lasted a couple of hours before I got too bored with them. My top 5 5. Phantom Doctrine XCOM-like set in the Cold War. Set up a team of spies and work your way through a well told campaign. All the fun of XCOM without the brutal RNG. 4. Kenshi Sandbox, squad based real time RPG? I don't know how to describe this game. The setting and worldbuilding is extremely well done. You start out as a nobody and are completely free to find out what you're supposed to do. In the beginning it probably consists of stealing food to survive. Work your way up to weedboss with his own team of assassins who controls whole empires. 3. Subnautica Best survival game I've played in a while. Crash on a world consisting of ocean, rebuild and survive. Very atmospheric and sometimes scary as gently caress. 2. Return of the Obra Dinn A atmospheric murder mystery puzzle game. The music really elevates this game to a masterpiece. 1. Path of Exile The game I played the most in 2018. This Diablo-like ARPG remains engaging because they churn out new content every 3 months. There are roughly 23 million builds that you can try out and every new league brings out some new interesting mechanic, skills and items to find. The sound design is extremely well done and in the later acts there are some very memorable bossfights.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2018 00:16
|
|
|
In 2018 I played more than twice the number of games I did in 2017 (the year I bought the PS4). I can probably chalk this up to depression, but I also wound up exploring a lot of new things and getting a better idea of what I liked. Looking ahead to 2019, I don't see myself playing nearly as many games but I know what I do want to spend my time on. Honorable Mentions Nier Automata: I started this in 2017, but didn't truly finish it until 2018. I feel its kind of unfair to include it on this list because it's so good and would crowd out some neat games I played this year. Yakuza Zero: Same story as above, I began in 2017 but didn't come back to finish it until 2018. And likewise, it would be fighting for one of the top slots because it is also one of the best games on the system. Monster Hunter World: It came out in 2018. It was incredible. It ate hundreds of hours of my life I will never get back, but cooperative action games are dear to my heart. Here's the thing though: At a certain point these online games with live service/ongoing support begin to feel like obligations and grows tiresome. I enjoyed spending way too much time with it, but I don't know if I'd say it had much of an effect on me other than being fun. Warframe: Exact same story as above. A fantastic game but not something I'd consider in my top 10, despite putting hundreds of hours in. Also I don't want to spend hundreds of hours on a single game anymore. Dishonorable Mentions Dark Souls 3 and Dark Souls 2: I ended 2017 completely obsessed with Bloodborne, after spending eight months hating it it finally clicked and my friend convinced me to join him playing through all the Souls titles. After playing through the whole series I can be pretty direct when I say I'm not a fan of Dark Souls. Dark Souls 3 was a boring slog until Lothric Castle. Dark Souls 2....is Dark Souls 2. It's Marmite. I enjoyed playing through with a friend, but wouldn't dream of playing through it by myself, and have no desire to return to either of these. Death's Gambit: The Dark Souls of Dark Souls Clones. This looked like a mix of Dark Souls and Castlevania in a 2D world and...it was disappointing all around. I hadn't quite come to terms with the fact that I didn't actually like Dark Souls so much as I just constantly had it bombarded on me by a friend. It also happened to be a bug ridden mess that caused me to lose everything in the middle of fighting the final boss and I never bothered going back to it. Devil May Cry 4 SE: I thought I'd give this a try when it was deeply discounted because I had never tried a DMC game before. I was unimpressed and terribly bored by it, even before it pulled the laughable sin of having the second half of the game being backtracking the same route you took to get there. I'm beginning to think that I'm just not a big fan of action games. The Actual Top 10 List (only 3 of which released in 2018....*cough*) 10. Dark Souls Remastered was played after I had slogged through DS 3 and DS 2 joylessly, but I had committed to finishing the whole series with my friend. And...I actually liked this one and understood why the game was so renowned. I enjoyed it so much I played through the game three times and did a lot of multiplayer with friends. Dark Souls => Bloodborne feels like a much more natural evolution than whatever happened in DS 2 and DS 3. This game nailed the "spooky Zelda" exploration gameplay I loved about Bloodborne, and that I felt missing in later titles. Still, looking back, I'm completely burned out on the series and the entire genre. It gets a slot here out of respect for it. 9. Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late[st] has the best name and that isn't even the full title. I got back into Fighting Games this year and played quite a few while trying to find one that I enjoyed the most. And Under Night came out on top of the pile with its Anime word-salad, "assholes fighting on the streets at night" premise, a cheerfully stupid visual novel tacked on. Akatsuki and Enkidu feel wonderful to play, and more reminiscent of the Street Fighter that I used to like than SFV. It's got a phenomenal tutorial that helped me out with other fighting games as well. 8. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon looks better than the main game thats being developed. A love letter to NES/SNES Castlevanias that doesn't outlast its welcome and has a wealth of replayability. 7. Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ was a gamble that paid off. After finishing Persona 5, I wanted something else sort-of-similar and this got recommended. It was my first Falcom game, and it was so earnest and optimistic that even the generic story became touching and heartwarming. Its a solid Action RPG that builds on the Ys series, but is also married to a social system like Persona. Go to school and hang out with friends, have a dungeon section, then go back to school, etc. I found myself thinking fondly of this even quite a few months later, and plan to go revisit it again in the future. Based on my positive experience with this, I then went on to try Ys VIII (which you'll find below). 6.Danganronpa 1 + 2 Reload was another game I played shortly after Persona 5, because apparently I was in the mood for "Japanese Students In Danger" as a genre. Theres not much I can say that you probably don't already know about this visual novel series. Charming characters, great twists, inventive mysteries. 5. Yakuza Kiwami was great, just not as great as Yakuza Zero and so it finds itself in the middle of my list. I know its not as popular, but I liked the more focused experience compared to Zero that actually let me make an attempt at sort-of-completionism. Its the only Yakuza where I've managed to clear enough to get to Amon superboss fight, for instance. I enjoyed playing around with Dragon Style, the story was a fitting epilogue to Zero, and I got to spend more time with characters I loved. 4. Okami HD was a game I went in to expecting "Zelda, but you are an adorable dog who is also Amaterasu". That is exactly what I got, an old-fashioned Zelda game that was cute with a beautiful art style, fun combat and exploration, and a great story mashup of Japanese mythology. I missed it when it came out, but still feel like it holds up exceptionally well. Looking back on the year, this is one of my more fondly remembered experiences. I would have got the Platinum on it if I could have beaten the last race through the forest  3. Ys VIII:Lacrimosa of Dana is a relatively late entry, having finished it earlier this month. Great music and atmosphere, with a story that can be summed up with "shipwrecked on dinosaur island" but that still manages to be compelling for how little of it there is. A great action rpg title that was fast-paced, colorful, and relentless optimistic. I became a big fan of Falcom after playing both this and Tokyo Xanadu Ex+, and am eagerly looking forward to both Ys IX and the Trails of Cold Steel games next year. 2. Atelier Ayesha: Alchemist of Dusk was the last game I finished in 2018, slipping in out of nowhere and waking me up for a whole series I was blind to. It was a game that challenged my view of a lot of RPGs in that it lacked any conventional antagonist, with a beautiful and melancholy story about family and friends in a world dying from the actions of past generations. The characters were all charming and grew on me throughout the story, but the world building was phenomenal and really invested me in wanting to figure out the mystery of the dying world even if its completely tertiary to the main plot. My first games of 2019 are going to be the follow-ups, Atelier Escha & Logy, and Atelier Shallie via PS Now. I'm going into 2019 eagerly excited for engrossing, single player, turn-based games that is what I truly enjoy. 1. Persona 5 is a flawed game but probably the single most enjoyable game I played all year. I found myself humming the music for months, and still had enough goodwill towards it to get the Dancing games. More than anything though, it was responsible for telling me "anime is Cinnamon Bear fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Dec 30, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2018 08:20
|
|
|
In no particular order; CrossCode : A beautiful little tale of MMOs, amnesiacs and balls. Lots and lots of balls. I picked this up as my annual "Game I play over the Xmas holidays" and I don't regret a single moment of it that didn't have to do with the second temple dungeon because who boy the person who designed that one and the monsters within needs a punting in the arse. A love letter to all things 16 bit action rpg with a beautiful soundtrack that harks back to a hunting Chrono Trigger style late snes piece with it's main battle theme basically being what one could imagine a hypothetical Phantasy Star 5's battle theme being. Recommended, it's a tenner on Steam or GOG, you will not regret it. Oh and it's all coded in HTML 5, so it's a technical marvel as well on top of all that. Smash Bros. Ultimate : If this is Sakurai's last he's certainly left the best for it as the game is one of the most well designed fighters I played this year (Placing a firm first against the brilliant DragonBall FighterZ and the somewhat scabby Blazeblu Cross Tag Battle. The World of Light, whilst a bit of a slog, is a beautiful send off to the franchise and pulls some effective gut punches through it's themed fights. Really all that's missing is a compitent Online but I get the feeling that Online will never really be Nintendo's strong suit no matter how much they charge for it. Sonic Mania Plus : A strong showing for sega's prodigal son with a really well implemented Extra mode and extra characters. Also of note was the advertising campaign with one of the best Sonic cartoons of recent years and that's not light prase given how well Sonic Boom made lemonade out of it's source game's lemons. The 3DS Fire Emblem Games : Whilst they have their issues (All of them feel like they were adapted from some low to mid tier Light Novels), Fire Emblem's 3DS presence still got to me with it's crunchy combat, amazing music and chracter customisation / strong voice acting (in the case of gaiden). That being said if Three Kingdoms doesn't take itself a mite more seriously I will snap. The Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time (Randomized) :This was easily the thing I sunk the most of my time doing this year. The plutonic ideal of what I wanted Breath of the Wild (a game I completed this year but more as an obligation than anything else) to be it took a classic of my childhood and flipped it on it's head. The Text and Sound Randomisers made easily made it the hardest I've laughed at a game for quite a while.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2018 21:22
|
|
|
My top ten games of 2018, represented via their music: 10. Yoku's Island Express: A pinball metroidvania is good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB9FAZ1CLds 9. Dead Cells: The joy of movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B28WegRHDX4 8. Astro Bot Rescue Mission: I reached out and poked out with my hand in VR space like they do in the movies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy5kQD1miJw 7. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life: Nani?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVWd-8sjLx0 6. EXAPUNKS: Alternating between feeling incredibly stupid and invincible while punching deck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxaM3F1TcJA 5. Soulcalibur VI: Geralt and 2B and my OC do not steal return to the stage of history https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZoBBg_TDzM 4. Into the Breach: Mechs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awHepFu-YBk 3. Magic the Gathering: Arena: It only took them 21 years to make a Magic game better than Shandalar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t_9C37K_7E 2. Tetris Effect: "One of the first formal studies of the phenomenon was at Harvard Medical School in the year 2000. Participants played the game for seven hours each, spread over the course of three days. Remarkably, sixty-three percent of the participants, almost two-thirds, reported seeing imagery from the game hours after they finished playing, often just as they were falling asleep. This fact, on its own, is newsworthy. But even more surprising, amnesic patients with brain damage that prevents them from forming new memories also reported seeing game imagery well after they’d finished playing. These participants were unable to recall having ever played the game, but their descriptions matched those of players with perfect memories. Blocks – they all saw blocks, falling through space, sometimes rotating or fitting neatly into empty spaces between other blocks. Some participants also reported seeing completed lines disappearing…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeZne1wVyl0 1. Return of the Obra Dinn: I could see myself becoming an insurance adjuster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ4QweAa9lM
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2018 00:22
|
|
|
This has been the best gaming year of my life. I had cut most video games out of my life for the past 5-10 years, bought a PS4 in May to help with some depression, and I've been blown away by the quality of stuff thats out there right now. My only regret is that I don't have enough time to play so many of the other great games that I know are out there. One day, one day... Didn't make the cut: Moss - Cute, makes a great first VR game, but the puzzles weren't really my favorite kind of puzzle. Bastion - The combat didn't 100% click with me, but I loved the variety of all the weapons. Beautiful music and a joy to play. 10. Rayman Legends Beautiful platformer with absolutely perfect sound design. Ramps up fairly smoothly and going for all the collectibles is challenging but attainable. Lots of pattern memorization to be had here with the bosses and bonus music levels. I wish all games did music levels the way Rayman did. 9. Donut County I want to see a sequel to this game. Delightful sense of humor and mechanics that feel very Katamari-esque. The only other thing I wanted from it were some levels with larger scales. 8. Astro Bot: Rescue Mission "The Super Mario 64 of VR," as I've heard it called, is not an overstatement. This game made me feel like a 10-year old again, no other game on this list had a more magical experience. 7. Celeste I generally don't like twitch based platformers like Meat Boy and N++ and the like, but the connected screens and story in Celeste go a long way in making the effort feel "worth it." 6. Tetris Effect The definitive version of Tetris. I think I'm one of the few that prefers this in regular mode over VR. About as perfect as can be, except for two tiny things: that break in the action when you transition between stages, and no multiplayer. 5. Lumines Remastered The puzzle game itself may not be quite as good as Tetris, but the music and the overall feel of this game are still more enjoyable to me. I'll probably play Tetris more often, to be honest, if only because Tetris is better for short bursts. But for a longer puzzle session this is still my go-to. 4. Hollow Knight Everything I want in a Metroidvania. Great sense of exploration and growth. Story that isn't overly explained. Lonely atmosphere. Difficult bosses that you will always eventually learn to master. Repetitive combat that somehow never got old for me, perhaps because the game just handles so well. 3. Monster Hunter World Another game with great combat. I've just gotten to the high rank missions and experienced the realization that I will end up sinking 500 hours into this game. 2. Bloodborne Whoa, even better combat. Quite possibly, the best combat in anything I've ever played. It's just... perfect. The Old Hunters DLC is absolutely astounding in its graphic design, level structure, and boss fights. 1. Yakuza 0 No game made me laugh, cry, or cheer more than this one. It doesn't do anything perfectly except combine an ambitious number of elements into a single package. It is the most surprising game I've ever played, no other game series manages to accomplish what Yakuza does for me. I waffled a lot between this and BB for the top spot, but this game has stuck with me a lot more. Best songs of the year as well. 24-hour Cinderella and I Wanna Be Your Girl, ooooohhhh oooh oooooh ooooooh are in permanent rotation for me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2018 00:53
|
|
|
 This is the updated list, because I forgot a couple things, and also because Timespinner is so loving good, you guys. *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 - 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. 8 - 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. 7 - 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. 6 - 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. 5 - 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. 4 - 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. 3. Timespinner - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ1JGrdRz9M I am writing this on December 30th, less than 24 hours after completing it pretty much fully with all achievements, including the fake not tracked ones where you beat every boss without using timestop powers and without getting hit, which was only 3 play sessions and only a couple days into owning it. And as of this moment I’m having to fight the urge to do another playthrough instead of writing about what I like about this game because holy poo poo do I loving love this game and gently caress it it’s going this high up. This game is an incredibly explicit love letter to Igarashia’s DS Castlevania games, even more explicitly to Order of Ecclesia, and despite some occasionally goofy writing and it being somewhat shorter than any of those DS games, it easily hits its mark in everything that matters. To the point where I think the composer even listened to the music in those games and tried to emulate it and even the places in the game where they would play; there’s an arena that may as well play the music from Portrait of Ruin’s arena area. The gameplay is just those DS Castlevania games, except you get a timestop power that lets you do a few fun movement things, like freezing enemy projectiles to reach new areas. As far as what’s unique about it, the game is essentially a time travel plot where you’re trying to avenge the deaths of your friends and family from the galactic empire that killed your mother. You come from a race of people that have been silently guarding a time machine and basically use it to send important once in a lifetime messages because to use it erases you from the timeline. The setting leads to some really neat cross-pollination of some things, like how I can say this is a game about stopping demons from controlling a space emperor from abusing a time machine. It remains possibly the only game where upon beating it I, in one game session, went right back and started a new playthrough and then finished that playthrough. Yeah I had new game plus bonuses and a movement mechanic that makes zipping through areas a breeze, but I can’t imagine doing that for any other game, even those original Castlevanias. 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 25. God of War 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xPXbrYfsXo 24. God of War 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FhPsDNuP3Y 23. Children of Mana - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnDRxlD1ZCE 22. God of War (Original) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHkm90P2-S4 21. Yakuza Kiwami - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7FLlQGXErY 20. Deltarune Chapter 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgt6R4Laxew 19. Oxenfree - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEbC2dQDsVc 18. Alien Isolation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D9hlddUm3c 17. Yakuza Kiwami 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W61-AJIZFCk 16. JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9IkfrpzcUo 15. God of War (2018) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v5giUs4jnY 14. Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTjS1H4zxGU 13. Picross 3D Round 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QRuMARzzLg 12. Resident Evil 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8haALcYfWf4 11. Iconoclasts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGf3bDdNm9w
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2018 04:11
|
|
|
This was a strange year for me. I've been biding my time waiting for the next mainline Pokémon game to the Switch so I'll be finally motivated to move on. In the meanwhile my 3DS is sitting idle. Not many huge budget PC games have caught my eye, either. The bulk of my new game experiences came from indie titles at the end of the year. 9. Elder Scrolls Online The UI is a wreck, movement is oddly floaty, combat doesn't resonate with me, but that doesn't matter. This game has excellent player housing, and it's a true joy building and sharing houses with others. I've seen some of the most lewd, cute, horrifying, and majestic player-made creations that video games have to offer. 8. Deltarune A very short game, more of a demo, but already the soundtrack, gameplay, and unanswered questions grabbed me. I hope it can become fully realized one day. 7. Darkest Dungeon Stylish, cruel, and difficult. The game's narrator is worth the price of admission. The stress mechanic is genius, and if you mess up badly enough, you'll get a deadly stress cascade that will end your current adventure. I'm not sure I will ever beat this game (without researching a cheesy party setup) but I'm very glad it exists. 6. Slime Rancher A unique, nonviolent FPS that's equal parts lonely, soothing, and adorable. It was a much-needed diversion for the aftermath of the death of a family member. Thank you, Slime Rancher. 5. LISA the Painful One of the oddest games I've ever played. One moment I'd be guffawing, and the next I'd be silent with dread. It swings from absurd encounters to this:  ...to bleak scenarios about child abuse and drug addiction in a matter of minutes. What I have seen, I cannot unsee. It's a part of me now. 4. Morrowind Old as balls and janky no matter what you do to it, but thanks to the magic of mods, you can force it to modernize. If you mod it and are patient with it, it's got incredible scope and depth. The main campaign's got one of my favorite takes on a prophecy: you are just one of many who's met some of the criteria. You aren't handed super powers or special titles by fate or birthright: you've got to earn that role until Morrowind's ruling organizations can't ignore or persecute you anymore! 3. Dragon Quest XI Dragon Quest just doing what it does best. There's an immense amount of content to do, places to explore, and gorgeously animated monsters to beat. Features one of the most likable characters I've encountered in a video game. Its incredibly tinny synth music clashes with the high production values, but at least there's a mod to fix that. 2. Undertale A perennial favorite and it's easy to see why. This one uses video game conventions in unexpected ways to craft something unique. Its musical leitmotifs are cleverly used to create a soundtrack that tends to resonate with you and stay with you. It's got one of the most cathartic endings I've ever experienced, and yet something about it gets under my skin. If I greatly enjoy a game, I tend to want to start a New Game + or new save file, but this one actively discourages you from replaying it once you've gotten the happiest ending. Why you gotta torment me like that?! 1. Breath of the Wild Not a very shocking one, I know. This time I had the DLC, and reducing the cooldown of Revali's Gale to 1 minute is a joy. Even though there's not many surprises left for me in the game, it's still a wonderful experience. How is this game real? A game this size, of this complexity, that works this well should be impossible.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2018 12:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 11:08 |
|
|
I had a pretty busy year and as a result played far less games than I normally would get the chance to, so it was a bit of a struggle to put together a Top 10. Nevertheless, I persisted: 10. Assassin's Creed Origins: I've so far only got the chance to play the opening area of AC:O, a game people had raved about for months before I finally picked it up. Even then, it was enough to see that just a drop in the bucket could deliver hours and hours of enjoyment. Refining a lot of what made the AC series work and dropping stuff that didn't (I don't think I saw a single reference to the modern day or Abstergo at any point, thank God), on the strength of that alone it was enough to rank (just) in my top 10. Maybe I'll finish it in 2019 and get through enough of Odyssey to rank both on NEXT year's list.  9. Pillars of Eternity 2: I absolutely devoured Pillars of Eternity and was thrilled it did well enough to warrant a sequel. Unfortunately the release also coincided with a particularly busy period and though I've managed to get a few hours of play and think it looks and sounds great (basically an improved version of everything I liked about the first game) I can't rank it any higher because I still have so much to go. I am sure as hell looking forward to finishing what I started, however.  8. Dark Souls Remastered: When the original Dark Souls came out, it was all anybody could talk about, to the point I worried it had been oversold. I was wrong, because even in spite of the game being a chore to setup and play at a proper resolution on PC it sucked me down a black hole of incredible atmosphere and just the right level of frustration: satisfaction ratio to keep me coming back for more. After played the hell out of DS2 and DS3 (enjoyable experiences but nothing with quite the same feel as Dark Souls 1) I thought maybe I might be burned out. The Remaster reminded me that the original game really is THAT good, and now it's a hell of a lot easier to load up and play to boot. A wonderful (and poetically) circular way to finish up my Dark Souls experience, by going back and doing it all over again.  7. Monster Hunter World: Every year or two, people would rave about the latest Monster Hunter. I'd never played one before and figured I never would, being primarily a PC player (with intermittent access to a PS4 at times) so I was understandably pretty thrilled when it was announced MHW would have a PC release. I still didn't know ANYTHING about the game other than that you... hunt... monsters. Turns out, that's all anybody EVER knows! You show up to some beautiful new world as a complete newbie and some dude says,"Go hunt some monsters!" and before you know it you and your best friend cat are windsurfing pterodactyls onto the back of a giant lava monster while stopping to steal eggs from pissed off dragon-birds for a different cat (with muscles) so you can have a bitching high-protein meal to aid in your tracking down a lightning horse and hoping an inflatable albino bat doesn't show up and ruin your cool Halloween costume your buddy made you after you beat up a giant scorpion that kicked the poo poo out of a sentient rock. Monster Hunter World is weird, doesn't make much if any sense and I couldn't love it any more if I tried.  6. Hollow Knight: A Dark-Souls Metroidvania platforming handdrawn.... gently caress it, I'm not gonna try and define the genre. It's just a cool as gently caress, atmospheric as hell game about a little bug that starts exploring the ruins of an underground bug kingdom and it's beautiful and sweet and horrifying and impressive and I never really wanted it to end. There is so much customizability in terms of how you can choose to equip your character and fight it out, so many little stories to be told, characters to learn about and save/doom. A history to unfold, maps to mark, marriages to save, warriors to inspire, wannabe Kings to be brought down, wannabe Gods to be taken down a peg or two, mighty heroes who are not what they seem. Play this game, give the developers money, something of this quality and depth can't be rewarded enough.  5. Prey: I never fully played the original System Shock or its Sequel. I'd always hit a wall of old graphics/dated (though innovative for the time) gameplay etc. People said Prey was System Shock 3 in spirit at least, and the idea of playing a modern day version of a game I'd always wanted to get into sounded great. Butttttt... it's Prey? Isn't that some game about a Native American using portals? Nope, Bethesda just decided to use the name for no real apparent reason and cause a bunch of confusion and piss off the few fans that IP had. Luckily, Arkane (who also makes the wonderful Dishonored series) produced a game so good that (I hope) word of mouth spread enough that people know it is utterly fantastic and well worth playing as a standalone new IP. The replayability, the atmosphere, the voice acting, the different solutions to intriguing issues. Are you a monster? A savior? What makes you... you? Interesting philosophical issues arise even if they often boil down to hitting things with wrenches (that's a valid philosophy!) and I hope like hell that the recent expansions/DLC that added some new story/replayability to the pre-existing assets is a sign that Bethesda was impressed enough by the critical acclaim and passionate (if small) fanbase to let Arkane make another at some point down the line. It would be a shame if this was the only Prey we ever got. But if it was... goddamn what a high point to finish on.  4. Spider-Man: When I got excited about this game, some people said,"It looks like it's just Arkham with Spider-Man instead" as if this was supposed to be... a bad thing? Taking all the thrill of the Batman/Arkham combat but using the lighter, faster Spider-Man as title character probably would have been enough to make it a good game. Thankfully, Insomnia made a great game with the combat just the icing on the cake. Capturing perfectly that sense of Peter Parker as a well-meaning guy with noble intentions who just can't help but gently caress up EVERYTHING in his life, it is able to reference so much of Spider-Man history without feeling roped down by continuity/canon. Essentially, it boils Spider-Man down to his essence, or at least what I think of as his essence, and I couldn't be happier that what was a big budget AAA game also had the benefit of feeling like an absolute labor of love from true fans of what always has been and always will be my favorite Superhero of all time.  3. Yakuza 0: Similar to the Monster Hunter series, I'd heard a lot about Yakuza but never had the chance to play it. When 0 came out, it was cheap enough to figure why not take a gamble and see what all the fuss was about. Turns out all the fuss was about one of the best, most hilarious, ridiculously dramatic and over-the-top games it has ever been my pleasure to play. Somebody on these forums once described it as,"Stern-faced middle-aged Japanese men staring grimly into the middle distance while holding a glass of scotch before ripping their shirts off to reveal they are super loving ripped" and that is a pretty great description... that also missed about 90% of the utterly insane (often completely optional) stuff you can get up to. Go fishing for Great White Sharks; get wrapped up in the ultra-competitive world of remote control car racing with 8-year-old kids; teach a dominatrix how to dominate her client; watch softcore porn with a stranger so he doesn't feel weird; play 80s arcade games; run a cabaret club; learn how to breakdance fight; fistfight an angry old man in the sewers; run a real estate company; try telephone dating and help a sexual omnivore get an erection again. All of that basically only scratches the surface of everything you can do in Yakuza 0 and barely touches the wonderfully over the top and bizarre main storyline. It is an utter joy to play and I absolutely cannot wait for the other Yakuza games to be ported to PC so I can continue the story of Kiryu and Majima.  2. Hitman 2: In 2016, I didn't bother getting the new Hitman game because it was episodic and I figured I could just wait for the WHOLE game to be out. Eventually that happened and I bought it, and I realized what a fool I'd been and how I should have picked it up an episode at a time. The game was just so dense, so packed it was almost overwhelming. I felt bad that my delay in buying the game may have contributed to the (comparatively) poor sales that put the entire studio at risk. When Square-Enix decided to no longer produce new Hitman games I despaired, having put in over 250 hours of utterly fascinated exploration of the World of Assassination. So since this entry is for Hitman 2, why am I talking about Hitman 1? Because they loving put the ENTIRE Hitman 2016 into the game for free if you already owned it. One of the best games of 2016 completely recreated in the new game to play all over again. Then on top of that a massive NEW game to go with it, with huge new levels, massive replayability, secrets, tricks, unlockable routes and disguises and weapons and items and there is just so much to loving do in this game. I've already put in close to 50 hours and I'm only on the second proper mission of the new game. After the nadir of the Hitman series (and sadly, it's most popular iteration) that was Absolution, to see 2016 and now this new game come along and absolutely get everything right while ditching all the trashiness that often permeated earlier games is a thing to behold. I'm still finding out secrets I never knew from the first game and have barely scratched the version of this one. It is a phenomenal achievement and it would have taken something unbelievable to beat it.  1. Red Dead Redemption 2: It's unbelievable. I never got to play the first Red Dead Redemption, and so for many years San Andreas and Bully remained my go-to choices for very best games ever made by Rockstar. RDR2 blows them both out of the water, with an astonishingly detailed and "living" game world matched only by The Witcher 3 for me in terms of open-world immersion. Almost all the little eccentricities and foibles of Rockstar's writing that I've found so annoying in the past are absent, replaced by a genuinely interesting and compelling group of characters you come to know and value. None moreso than Arthur, who is arguably the best protagonist that Rockstar has ever created. The slow and deliberate pace of the game allows you to sink into the character and the world and let everything simmer. It was a true pleasure for me to realize that the story was NOT about some big heist or score that Dutch's gang was trying to pull off, but the far more intimate and interesting story of Arthur's slowly growing realization that he had to make a change for the better and just what that should entail. I have taken every (not enough) spare moment I could to just play this game, to immerse myself in its world and explore every possible nook and cranny. Even now I am still in the immediate post main-game epilogue and feel there is still so much I have NOT done, and so much more to see. This is a game that I could play for months more to come and still feel like there was more to do and see. It is a spectacular achievement, and an absolute shoe-in for my Game of the Year.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2018 13:45
|
|
