Year In Review: 2018

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Once again, recording some quick notes about the games I played in the past year, along with some applicable ratings. Just, you know, as a reference for myself in the future.

This year had some solid hits, but I don't think that 2018 really holds a candle to 2017 - at least not for my tastes. At any rate, I suppose my "Game of the Year" was Hollow Knight, although that feels a little cheap, seeing as how it wasn't originally released in 2018 - it just had its Switch port this year.

Honestly, this year, I pretty much just played a bunch of Warframe...

  • Monster Hunter World – [8]

    • A few minor complexity and tutorial issues can't detract from this being the overwhelmingly best game in the series. It makes smart decisions to broaden its audience and fix longstanding issues with the series – the improvement of the lock-on camera is a fucking godsend.

  • Vermintide II – [6]

    • Some weird balance with some of the classes, and charmingly buggy, but is/was at least constantly improving. A solid melee-focused innovation on the Left 4 Dead formula.

  • A Way Out – [4]

    • Doesn't have a very good story, and has fairly bland puzzles and gameplay – but I don't think any game has attempted to do a story-focused co-op game like this before, and that's at least commendable.

  • God of War – [7]

    • The story of Kratos is extraordinarily satisfying from a meta perspective – we see this former symbol of overt, edgy machismo “grow up” and mature with an industry and audience that may have otherwise left the old God of War games behind. This character grows as a parent over the course of the narrative, while still (more or less) managing to honor the source material of the original God of War games. A highly endearing tale with some fun (if shallow) hack-n-slash, somewhat held back by a couple poorly paced story beats concerning Atreus, and noticeably limited enemy variety - particularly in the boss department.

  • P.R.I.C.E. – [n/a]

    • A pretty standard point and click adventure with all of the frustrations that come with it. It's only an hour long, is free, and has a pretty cute little art style, so overall it doesn't even feel right to grade it... but I would recommend it, if one was in the mood for a digestible, visual novel + point and click adventure sorta game.

  • Hollow Knight (Switch) – [9]

    • Extremely challenging and fun metroidvania with an inspiring art style. Not many complaints here: some of the sound mixing is a little off, and there's no late game money sink until the DLC (meaning you're sitting on a ton of useless cash for the last half of the game).

  • Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion – [9]

    • A well crafted gauntlet of platforming and shooting challenges. Honestly, the DLC is better than the campaign in the main game.

  • Magic the Gathering: Arena – [7]

    • A serviceable translation of MTG into the digital realm. I'm curious to see how this game pans out in the future, and how much resources Wizards of the Coast is going to pour into it. Is this the first honest attempt to phase out the paper card game in favor of digital? (Almost certainly not, but it will be interesting to see what comes next.)

  • Super Smash Bros Ultimate – [n/a]

    • I'm not really good at Smash (or any fighting game really), but this proved to be a fun distraction. If I were a fan of the series, I'm sure I would be simply overjoyed at this game's gargantuan roster.