Welcome to the first Video Game Round-Up! Special! I got to play a lot of games this year that actually came out this year, which is not a thing that usually happens to me as I’m often playing games from years before (which I also did this year, as I played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) and Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4), the two best games of 2017). And a lot of those games I played were really good, so my list won’t be a laughable one :D
Let’s start with the games that didn’t make my list for various reasons, but that I also played. These are in alphabetical order:
Detroit: Become Human (PS4) - I enjoy narrative-driven games a lot. I’ve played Quantic Dream’s previous two games, Heavy Rain (PS3) and Beyond: Two Souls (PS3), and enjoyed them, but these games have always had weird gameplay mechanics, and even weirder narrative decisions. Detroit had the weirdest story that shoehorned in real-world history (like slavery, the Holocaust, and the civil rights movement) in a really hamfisted way. I decided to focus on the individual characters (who I actually liked a fair bit) instead of the overarching story, and I enjoyed Connor’s investigation gameplay bits the most. In fact, there was more puzzle-y bits in this game than previous Quantic Dream games, which I enjoyed. But yeah, it still wasn’t a very good game, and even though I said the various flowcharts that showed where the story could go if I made different decisions would likely make me play it more to see where those different decisions went, I actually haven’t played it since finishing it.
Far Cry 5 (PS4) - I actually did like this game a lot, even though most everyone else didn’t. I like these large open-world games that let me shoot a bunch of horrible people, and even though the ending of this game was just complete nonsense (and some of its story beats where like WTF), I am nevertheless looking forward to Far Cry: New Dawn, the direct sequel to this game.
Iconoclasts (Switch) - I need to finish this game. This is a very satisfying and crunchy platformer, but I keep setting it aside to play other things, so that tells me something about how important it is in my hierarchy of things I want to play. I still highly recommend it, though.
Into the Breach (Switch) - I think this game would have made my top ten if it wasn’t so dang hard! It is legitimately a fantastic tactics game, but either I am too dumb or the game is too hard for me to fully enjoy it. It’s like chess, where you need to think a couple of moves ahead in order to be able to make proper headway (which means I am probably too dumb, and the game is the perfect level of hard).
Katamari Damacy REROLL (Switch) - Literally the only reason this game is not on my top ten list is that it is a remaster of an old game, and not actually a new game, which disqualifies it. But I love Katamari so much, I had to include it here so as to give me another opportunity to tell you all to go get it!
Nintendo Labo Variety Kit (Switch) - Even though I love this thing to bits, I couldn’t in good conscience put it on my top ten because it’s not really a game per se. It’s more of a crafting project and a teaching tool, with a little bit of gamification thrown in. But regardless of how it’s classified, it’s fun as hell, and if you have a Switch, you owe it to yourself to get it. The piano alone is worth the price of admission.
Omensight (PS4) - I like this game a lot, and I think it has a really interesting conceit at its core, but unfortunately it’s too same-y. The story is great, and the gameplay is great, but then the gameplay is repeated ad nauseam. There are only so many times I can cut through fools using my super quick sword strikes before it gets a bit boring. I just want to get to the next story beat, please.
Okay, enough of the undercard. Let’s get to the main event!
10. Donut County (PS4) - This game is ridiculous, and amazing. You play as a hole, and you swallow things up. And it even has a story. Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s also short, so its quirky sense of humor never outstays its welcome. It’s also available on pretty much every platform you can think of, including mobile, so you have no reason not pick this up and have a blast.
9. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch) - I’m not very good at fighting games, and this one is no exception, but the Smash series is always a fun time, as it’s not as difficult to learn as “proper” fighting games. This version lives up to its Ultimate name by including every character that has ever appeared in previous Smash games, as well as a bunch of new ones. The Adventure mode is also like a light RPG story mode (emphasis on the “light”), and I enjoyed it a very great deal.
8. Gris (Switch) - The most beautiful game I’ve ever played, bar none. It’s also a pretty good platformer with a great story, but really, I’m here for the pretty. I know this sounds almost exactly like what I’ve said before, but what to do? It’s just the prettiest damn thing.
7. The Gardens Between (PS4) - I probably loved this small game more than anybody else in the world. It had a great story, very simple controls that anyone can learn, and some sweet time-manipulating mechanics that let you solve puzzles. This is a short game that totally knows what it’s about, and isn’t afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve.
6. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (PS4) - This was the first Assassin’s Creed game I ever properly played, after starting the first game in the series and then giving up after like 15 minutes on three separate occasions. What ultimately drew me to this game was that it became a lot more of an RPG compared to previous iterations. Plus, Kassandra was such a fantastic character. I platinumed this game, and am currently making my way through a sizable amount of DLC (some of which has come under fire; more on that in regular VGRU), so I will continue to part-time live in Ancient Greece for the foreseeable future.
5. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC) - I literally just started playing this game last night (at the time of this writing), and it is amazing. Created by Lucas Pope, the same creator behind the amazing Papers, Please (PC), this game puts you in the shoes of an insurance investigator with some supernatural objects as you try to figure out what happened to the entire crew of the Obra Dinn, a ship that was lost at sea until it mysteriously showed up in port, with all hands missing or dead. I’ve played like three hours of this, but that’s enough to know how great this is, and that I’m going to play it until I’ve solved everybody’s death and/or disappearance. So very few games let you actually play detective, but that this game’s entire reason for existing. Also, the music is phenomenal.
4. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4) - I’ve already written an entire essay about why this game is great, even if it is often not a great deal of fun, so I shan’t bore you further. I will say only that I didn’t think anybody could ever hope to replace John Marston in my heart, but Arthur Morgan sure got damn close.
3. Marvel’s Spider-Man (PS4) - We’re getting into “maybe this should have been number one” territory here. I loved playing as Spider-Man so much, I did everything there was to do, even the annoying stuff like Screwball’s challenges, and the tedious stuff like all the city crimes, just so I could be Spider-Man for a little bit longer. Swinging through New York City, photographing all the Easter eggs and city landmarks, getting all the alternate outfits, progressing through the story, fighting various rogues,... pretty much everything about this game was dang near perfect, and I really, really, really hope that the announced Fantastic Four-related DLC is more than just extra outfits (please with some more story and gameplay? pretty please?).
2. Celeste (Switch) - Maybe this should have been number one too? Celeste is about as perfect as a platformer can be, and this is coming from a guy who’s played every Mario platformer ever made. The mechanics are excellent, the difficultly curve is perfect, and the story is phenomenal. Yeah, there’s a story in a platformer, and it’s amazing, and it has nothing to do with kidnapped princesses, and everything to do with mental health and persevering. I had a pretty tough time the second half of last year, and playing this (and watching other people play Dark Souls (PS4) and Bloodborne (PS4) on YouTube) reminded me that nothing is impossible, that you can get through even the hardest things if you just keep getting back up.
1. God of War (PS4) - Maybe this should have been number one too? Oh wait, it is! I had not played the previous God of War games even though their deep dive into Greek mythology made them a perfect fit for me. But their hack-and-slash mechanics, their often one-note stories, and their questionable ethics turned me off of them. I almost didn’t play this one because I had initially assumed it was just going to be more of the same. Thankfully, I was wrong. Instead of an angry man-child destroying everything in his path, we had a man who had grown, a husband who had faced further loss, but a father who couldn’t give in to his rage anymore. He was measured, he was calm, and he tried his best to avoid battle when possible, all while trying to teach his son the way the world works, and protect him from the mistakes of his past. This game ended up being a lot more emotionally driven than I would have ever guessed, especially as the main mission of the game is simply to scatter Kratos’ wife’s ashes from the highest peak in the Norselands. I say “simply”, but of course it’s anything but simple. Also, the move to Norse mythology from Greek was a fantastic breath of fresh air, and allowed the creators (mostly Cory Barlog, the game’s creative director) to play with lesser-known stories and characters to excellent effect. Yeah, I this is totally my number one game of 2018.
And that’s my Top Ten of 2018! Disagree with my choices? Think something else should have been number one? Any game from 2018 I should have played, but didn’t? I welcome all your comments and discussion!
There’s one more Special! coming up soonish before the next proper Video Game Round-Up! in February, so stay tuned!
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