2018 - Your Top Ten Games

𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐎𝐏 𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟖

𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐑𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝟐 (𝐗𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐎𝐧𝐞 & 𝐏𝐒𝟒)

RDR 2 seems like great story trapped inside a schizophrenic (and sometimes down right bad) videogame. It is a game that simultaneously wants you to explore a world, but demands that you do only exactly what it wants you to do during missions. It's a game bogged down by arbitrary fail states, a cumbersome fast travel system, and laborious animation priorities that make it feel at times very unresponsive. It is a beautifully crafted experience in desperate need of a director to reign it in better. And yet it is still a game I continued to think and talk about, a messy but ambitious game, which is highly uncommon for a big budget game, which is why it makes this list as an honorable mention, and why I will likely return to it even though I already stopped playing it twice.

𝟏𝟎. 𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 (𝐈𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞, 𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐝, 𝐏𝐂, 𝐏𝐒𝟒, 𝐗𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐎𝐧𝐞)

Stop me if you heard this one: a game about raccoon who uses a Donut Shop as a cover to suck an entire town into a black hole. Also it is a metaphor for gentrification. The mechanics of Donut County are simple - you control the black hole and move it around the screen in various scenarios to hoover up objects. The more you hoover, the bigger your hole. Donut County is a charming little experience that takes influence from the cult classic Katamary Damacy. It is a cheap $5 game that lasts about 2 hours and doesn't outstay it's welcome, but one that will stick with you. It's a game that toys with larger cultural themes, but is not so heavy handed in it's delivery as to turn them into a soapbox. It's also literally a game anybody can play and enjoy regardless of skill level or their level of familiarity with videogames.

𝟗. 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝟒

VC4 is an interesting hybrid of a turn based strategy game and a real time game where you take control of your characters for a set amount of time and move them around the map and actually aim and shoot at enemies. Imagine chess where you take direct control of the characters and attack the enemy for their "turn." The narrative is silly high school teen anime antics set in the backdrop of a pseudo World War 2 setting, but has enough heart to make the characters likable. However, what kept me playing this game for 40+ hours is the unique combat system. This is the fourth incarnation but because only a handful of the entries made it to the U.S. and because no other game series has adopted this formula, it makes for a really unique and fun strategy game experience.

𝟖. 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧'𝐬 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐎𝐝𝐲𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐲 (𝐗𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐎𝐧𝐞, 𝐏𝐒𝟒, 𝐏𝐂)

The buffet of videogame mechanics all bundled up in a pretty package. If you have a favorite big budget game in the last 5 years, Odyssey probably borrowed something from it: the enemy tagging system from Far Cry, stealth combat of Batman or Hitman, the quest design of Witcher 3. I could go on. But Odyssey does a good job of taking all these elements and bundling them up in a satisfying wrapper with some fantastic set pieces of the world of Greek History and mythology. It is the "most" videogame you will find in a single package this year, and offers both quality and quantity in abundance, even if it offers little in the way of design ambition. It is almost the definition of videogame comfort food, and it's pretty good at what it does.

𝟕. 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐖𝐚𝐫 (𝐏𝐒𝟒)

In contrast to Odyssey, God of War's series reboot is a tightly edited package, taking the less is more approach when it comes to open world design. The combat has been completely overhauled and they even found a way to make Kratos a more interesting character through exploring a father / son dynamic. It's more than a bit heavy handed and hamfisted in it's main narrative, but it gets points for trying. And a lot of the side characters banter make up for a main narrative that thinks it's smarter or more ambitious than it actually is.

𝟔. 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 (𝐏𝐂, 𝐗𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐎𝐧𝐞, 𝐏𝐒𝟒)

My favorite multiplayer game of the year. If you want to get together with some friends and beat up on some giant creatures, this is the game for you. Some inelegant user interface and multiplayer match up decisions get in the way a bit, but they are minor inconveniences once you work your way around them. I put in a collective 30+ hours on this game, a pittance compared to my group of friends who left me in the dust as work and other obligations got in the way, but I look forward to revisiting it during the coming year.

𝟓. 𝐀𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐭 - 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐏𝐒𝟒 𝐕𝐑)

if this list were only about charm and clever design, Astrobot would be at the top of it. It is one of most clever VR games I have ever played using the mechanics of a 3D Mario game as it's basis, but building from there. Every level offers a new game play mechanic, a new way to interact with the world. Surprise and delight are the two most common emotions it elicits, and it's a joyous videogame playground.

𝟒. 𝐌𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐙𝐞𝐫𝐨 - 𝐑𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐝𝐞𝐧 (𝐏𝐂, 𝐗𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐎𝐧𝐞, 𝐏𝐒𝟒)

MYZ is a strategy RPG that is part Xcom and part Metal Gear stealth. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world with mutant animals that talk dismissively about the stupidity of the human race that came before it (that would be us). This game took me by surprise and ate up almost a solid week of my winter break. I had never even heard of it until the week it came out but immediately fell in love with it. At 20 hours, it didn't overstay it's welcome, but it did leave me hoping for a sequel.

𝟑. 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 (𝐏𝐒𝟒)

I should note upfront I don't care much about the Marvel universe nor Spiderman as a character, which made this game even more surprising. Mechanically it just nails the feel and makes traversing the city a ton of fun. And the story hits some surprising understated beats, better written and acted than most of the Marvel films. While Spiderman is not a game I will think about for decades to come, playing through it was probably one of the most enjoyable couple of weeks I had with a videogame all year.

𝟐. 𝐓𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 (𝐏𝐒𝟒 & 𝐏𝐒𝐕𝐑)

I've already raved at length about the magic of Tetris Effect. It is the definition of the whole being more than the sum of its parts. What those parts essentially are is one of the best versions of Tetris combined with beautiful world music and visuals with a theme of universal-ism and togetherness. But what happens when you play it, is you become one with it. As you turn the pieces and clear lines, the sound effects create the music and it escalates and slows in tempo in time with it. Tetris Effect is essentially videogame meditation. I have heard stories of many people who use it to deal with anxiety issues and I can completely see why. It is the purest form of "game" in one of the most beautiful wrappers ever made. It is a game I will no doubt return to for years to revisit, both inside and out of VR.

𝟏. 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞 (𝐏𝐂, 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡, 𝐗𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐎𝐧𝐞, 𝐏𝐒𝟒)

Much like Tetris, Celeste is a game that mechanically pulls you in to make you hyper focus on the experience it is offering you. But Celeste does it with two dimensional platforming done in a retro 8 bit art style made to look like a classic NES game. Every level, or screen, in Celeste is a series of jumps and challenges that will only take you 5-10 seconds to execute if you do them right. You can repeat and fail as often as you need without penalty. But the genius of Celeste is that it is as much a puzzle game as it is a platformer. It keeps teaching you new ways of playing it, new ways of seeing the screen in front of you. And each new chapter introduces new mechanics that continue to build upon the lessons it taught you previously.

And if that was all it was, it would still be one of the best platformers I've ever played. But themes of Celeste directly tie into the gameplay. Celeste is a game about a young woman who feels like she must climb a literal mountain. Her life is something of a mess, but she's putting everything on hold because it is just something she feels like she must do. And over the course of the game it deals with themes of anxiety, depression, facing the parts of ourselves we don't want to see, and learning to cope with those inner and external voices around us. And it does so not in a preachy way, but in understated conversations and brief internal thought monologues. And over the course of playing it becomes very clear that the game's themes and the mechanics are perfectly married. We are climbing the mountain with Madeline (the main character), and her struggles are much like our own and the entire game is a metaphor for those emotional and psychological challenges we all face, staring at the mountains, and forcing ourselves to take the jump. To fail. And to immediately try again.

Submitted January 01, 2019 at 02:26AM by EternalGamer2 http://bit.ly/2Ao7YMq