My favourite games of 2018
And also my pick for the best game to play on the toilet.
I understand why I didn’t do a list last year, but in hindsight, I’m more than a little sad about it.
Last December I left my job of 14 years and flew off to the UK, so I didn’t really have time to put one together. But last year also saw some of my favorite games of all time. Breath of the Wild might be the best game I’d ever played, the Uncharted spin-off was great, PUBG was the start of something special, Super Mario Odyssey is an all-time great…
It’s not that this year’s crop of games weren’t as good, it’s that ANY year would struggle to match that. 2018’s games certainly aren’t as good as 2017’s, but they’re games. There’s always fun to be had.
Before I get on to the top five, here’s a few other games that caught my eye this year.
Best game to play on the toilet
Alto’s Odyssey
Whether you like to drop and run or stay and think, Alto’s Odyssey is pretty much perfect for this. The stylish sequel to a hit snowboarding game, the sandboarding sequel is somehow both challenging and zen at the same time. It’s not too easy, but it’s also very relaxing. Pure, poopy bliss.
Old game I spent way too much time on
Skyrim (Switch)
Here’s a game you should probably never play on the toilet, unless you plan to live there. I don’t know why Skyrim continues to be compelling, but somehow it keeps sucking me right back in. Maybe it’s because, despite finishing it at least twice before, I still find quests and locations I hadn’t been to before.
Remake/remaster of the year
Wario Ware Gold
I didn’t see this one coming. Wario Ware is great, but after the brilliant Twisted, each successive entry brought diminishing returns. Gold is somehow stuffed to the brim and lacking in fat at the same time; it has the best of the series in one place, but by not relying on one mechanic (as Twisted or the disappointing Touched did), it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Boba Fett/Captain Phasma Award for biggest disappointment
Contra: Return
Look, it’s easy to pick on mobile games for being F2P hellscapes. The smartphone game Contra: Return has all those icky F2P elements, but that’s not why it’s on this list. It’s here because it fails at being a Contra game. I mean, it has limited ammo and auto-aim! What the hell?
Game I’m so addicted to I refuse to play anymore for my own sanity
Game Dev Story
This game is a perfect feedback loop that I cannot break myself out of. It’s a game about developing games. When the game is done, it gets rated and put on sale. So naturally you want to see how well the game sells. But while you wait for week-by-week sales to roll in, your team sits idle, so to prevent that you have to put them to work on the next game. But then you have to see how well that game sells. But then while you wait for that you’re already working on the NEXT game. There’s no natural stopping point. It drives me crazy. I’ve only ever played it something like four times — three on iPhone, and one on the new Switch version — and every damn time I run out of battery.
This game is so cute I can’t even
Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu
OMG. You can rub Pikachu’s belly and he makes cooing noises! The rest of the game — a smart reworking of the original Pokémon Red/Blue (or Red/Green, depending on where you’re from) — is charming and fun. But it’s things like being able to ride Snorlax like Totoro that just make it so damn adorable.
Ravi you really need to play this game already
Subsurface Circular
This game has been on my backlog so long that the sequel has already come out. And is also on my backlog. Damnit.
I wish I played more of…
A Way Out
A co-op tale of prisoners on the run from the guy behind the brilliant, brilliant Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (which was basically a one player co-op game), A Way Out seems clever and fun. But it also kinda requires another player, and since I am now Old, getting friends over to play games is such an ordeal that when my brother got bored after a couple of hours I knew I’d never play this game ever again.
Five
God of War
I know, objectively, that God of War is a Very Good Game. I enjoyed it reasonably enough. But I have never really been a God of War guy, or a fan of games with combat like this, so it didn’t click with me on the same level as most people. That it’s still on this list is testament to how good it is regardless.
Four
Marvel’s Spider-Man
On a certain level, I know that Spider-Man is a fairly average game. It’s gorgeous and it’s set in a staggering recreation of New York, sure, but it doesn’t really do anything particularly new or different with missions or combat. And yet… there’s just something about this game that makes me smile. Just swinging through the city is an absolute joy; finding little nods to other Marvel heroes or even real-life NY landmarks like the Ghostbusters firehouse is brilliant. The whole thing feels like it was put together with a lot of love, and elevates the game to be something truly special.
Three
Red Dead Redemption 2
Where Spider-Man feels like more than the sum of its parts, for all its brilliance Red Dead Redemption 2 feels slightly disappointing. It’s rigid to an almost admirable degree, and yet it also breaks its own rules when it wants to. But what it does well, it really does well. I’m a sucker for open worlds, and this is one of the best around, striking a great balance between scale and density: It uses negative space to create scale, but yet not enough that the game feels empty. And while the story is gripping, the way it’s told is phenomenal. Red Dead Redemption 2 can be hard to like. Brilliance needs to be coaxed out of it. But it is brilliant.
Two
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
In contrast, it’s hard not to like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate from the moment you pick it up. But that is perhaps the point; no series panders to the fans as well as this one. Throwing every single character in the series into one highlights just how damn impressive the whole thing is. Every character keeps their quirks from wildly different games and genres, and yet the whole thing feels cohesive and balanced. Where Ultimate sits above its predecessors is the “campaign” mode, World of Light. Previous Smash campaigns were pretty dull, but in fairness, there isn’t a lot you can do in fighting games with a campaign other than spruce up the usual procession of fights. World of Light succeeds by taking Ultimate’s enormous roster and flexibility to create fights with characters not in the game… like painting Donkey Kong green, throwing him in the jungle stage with electric weapons, and pretending he’s Blanka. It may not sound like it works, but it absolutely does — more fan service from the master of it.
One
Reigns: Game of Thrones
I wrote about my love of the original Reigns two years ago. I can’t believe I didn’t see how perfect this collaboration would be. Reigns, a royal simulator played only by swiping left or right to make decisions, is a game of terrible choices that feels impossible to win — just like Game of Thrones. But it’s more than just a surface tie-up.
Being a Game of Thrones game gives Reigns more meaning, it gives it more of a “point”; instead of playing a certain way just for the sake of completing everything, here you might want to direct Cersei’s decisions in a certain way so you can unlock Jaime and experience his story.
It’s beautifully written, even for a Song of Ice and Fire nerd like me. And being set roughly, er, now — now being post-Season 7 and pre-Season 8 — it allows Game of Thrones fans to do what we love, and that’s speculate about possible endings. This game allows you to actually experience them, whether leading Danaerys up north to reunite with Jon (and disappearing, never to be seen again) or messing things up so spectacularly that the White Walkers sweep south and claim the Iron Throne.
This game’s most spectacular achievement is that the license enhances both sides: It makes Reigns a better game, and it adds a dimension to Game of Thrones that only this game could bring. It’s also a lot of fun, and for all those reasons, it is my Game of the Year.
If you enjoyed this list, I discussed my games of the year with my good friend Victoria Ho on our little podcast, You Died. You can listen to it right here!
