was a tough call for me I understand both the brad/alex argument but at the same time i sympathize with jeff and have more fun with blops4 basic muliplayer

this was where I landed after some thought...

https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/psychomantis47/lists/in-such-a-diverse-year-of-gaming-making-a-top-10-l/365045/

No. I haven’t played it yet, though.

It’s sitting there, waiting to be played. Maybe after I finish my current game...

what game is that? see ive been distracted by reddead as well, when i wish rdr2 WAS the supreme "distraction" so to speak

When it comes out on PC maybe.

No, not even close. It's closer to the worst game I played last year than the best.

Yes but I barely played 10 games in 2018.

It has gotten better once the main stories reach St Denis.

I think the world is fantastic, the gameplay is okay. It's not the best ever but it also doesn't deserve the hammering some people have given it (but hey, opinions!)

I think it was my 5 or 6?

God of War FTW

It was number 1 for me but it was a toss up between it and God of War.

It's my number one. I've only played AAA games this year and there's only been a few great AAA games.

I've enjoyed Red Dead, Battlefield V, Black Ops 4 and Monster Hunter. The quality drops off quite a lot after that.

I only played 10 games this year. It made the list, but only number 8. I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle for a while. I eventually learned enjoy it by just focusing on the story and stranger missions. The GOTY podcasts made a convincing argument to finish that story one day. Although I haven't touched it in a month.

Nah, had a pretty long "civil" argument with one of my friend about it. I think it's a bad game for many reasons, and I've finished it. I've played a lot of games last year for my top (something like 50) and it didn't even get close.

I don't think I'm knee-jerk about it and while I'm not in the same camp as Dan in that I think doing slow, boring tasks can be meaningful in a game, I think Red Dead 2 doesn't succeed in earning its slowness and only do it out of self-importance.

Where I'm fairly frustrated about the conversations about the game is when everyone accepts the blanket statement that it's a good story cause it's better written than most game. I like Arthur as a character individually of the story and I'm not saying the writing of characters is bad, but I think the arc of the game is thematically extremely weak. Even excusing the obvious failures, that it is strictly scripted, that everything you can find in the open world is barely more than just anecdotes and that the gameplay is tired, the argument always fall back on how good the story is and I disagree even with that point.

The technical stuff is all top notch though. The graphics and art direction in this game impressed me so much I often liked it just because of that.

It's easily one of the best games of this generation. I think some people have real grips, while others are being hyperbolic or reductive. Also, when something is big and well liked at a certain point it becomes cool to hate on it (that happens with movies too: Inception and The Dark Knight for example).

I think a lot of these gaming sites' GOTY lists were awful. It's almost disrespectful to devs to put something like Tetris Effect above RDR2, GOW, and Spider-Man. Your "favorite" and "best" lists are two different things. That's like saying Candy Crush is a better game than TLAU or Bioshock. They're entitled to those opinions but opinions can also be judged.

@deathstriker: Alright, alright, dial it back a bit why don't you. You invoke hyperbole and then go swimming in it.

It is not 'disrespectful' to put a smaller game above those with a lot more moving parts if you think it's a better product which I have no reason to doubt that many of them did.

@efesell: Naw, I'm not dialing anything back. This gen kinda sucked to me until 2018 and games like RDR2, GOW, and others helped save it. That's my opinion, not hyperbole. Comments about RDR2 like it's some of the worst or confusing controls ever, or that the snow intro lasts for hours and hours are hyperbole.

It's not because Tertis Effect is a small game, but because it's so simple. A small game like Dead Cells, Bastion, or The Walking Dead getting GOTY is fine. I do think degree of difficulty to create should be a major factor. Remaking the old mobile game Snake is FAR easier than making a full fledged game. Tetris can go on their favorite list, but it shouldn't be near the top of a best list IMO.

@deathstriker: I don't see how that should be a factor at all. It weighs your entirely list disproportionately towards huge publishers who have thrown a ton of people at a project.

It's also basically never the case in life that something being more difficult to create implies some inherent higher value. Simplicity is a huge strength.

Whether it's called degree of difficulty, complexity, or being an ambitious project, I've heard this brought up in gaming before and other mediums like TV, movies, and sports. Obviously it's harder to create and pull off Game of Thrones compared to The Good Doctor or the Revenant compared to Venom. In sports it's harder to be James Harden or Giannis when you have no allstar help on your team compared to Curry who has 4 other allstars on his team, which is why Harden or Giannis are likely to be crowned MVP and not Curry or another Warrior.

I'm not trying to take anything away from the Tetris Effect devs, it was fun/interesting (for it to be Tetris), but the simplicity and straightforwardness of just remaking/updating a puzzle game takes a lot of points away from it when it comes to GOTY. It's not just about size, since complexity and creativity are tied together too. The movie Boyhood wasn't some blockbuster, but that was a wildly creative and different way to make a movie. The examples I gave before of small games like Dead Cells, Bastion, and The Walking Dead are full fledged games and creative. I'd also throw in stuff like Cuphead, Hotline Miami, and Superhot. It doesn't take a hundred people and $40 million dollars to be creative. Tetris Effect is largely just a remake that updates/iterates things.

No, unfortunately I ended up hating it. The game is just all fart, but no poo. I did finish it and liked certain aspects, but the gameplay/mission design/movement were awful. I also think the story takes a nosedive in chapters 5 and 6.

I'm in the same camp as those who can say it made their top 10, but only because I also barely managed to play through 10 games. I believe I ended up giving it a 6 or 7 spot.

It's interesting because in terms of time played, looking back it would've had to be the game I spent the most time playing all year, but I have similar gripes that a lot of people had with the overall speed of the game and commitment to realism. For the first solid quarter or third I was having fun, but eventually things just felt like a grind.

I had a moment where an NPC in Saint Denis started punching me for no reason with nobody else doing a damn thing, I hog tied them instead of fighting back, trying to take a less violent approach I guess, and I was then immediately blasted at by 5 cops at once. Didn't care much at all for realism after that.

Maybe my final impression would have also been better if I stopped playing after the main missions. I did enjoy the story, particularly towards the end, but then I gathered all the collectibles and attempted to replay missions for gold medals and that was a mistake.

Despite all that, I still had fun I just wish it didn't take up so much of my time doing anything.

No, but I only got an hour or two into it. I just didn't want to keep playing.

Easy No.1 for me (not a popular opinion I know), even with a lot of good games out this year. Exactly what I was after from the sequel and I thoroughly enjoyed my time in that world.

I had no interest in playing it until hearing Brad Abby and Alex talk about it during GOTY. I now plan to eventually pick it up based on their arguments.

It was number one and nothing else came close.

it's number one for me with god of war coming pretty close

Nope. I could say it's number 11 (because I played 12 games from 2018 in the year).

Here's my list:

Top 10 Games of 2018

	1. God of War I played the other GoW games and thought they were ok, so I did not have my hopes high for this, which made it a delightful surprise, the game looks stunning, combat feels great and sound design is amazing. Not only that, they managed to make Kratos an interesting character for once!
	2. Slay the Spire Big card game fan here, this game caught me by surprise and got me hooked, mixing roguelike mechanics with CCG was such a fresh idea to me, even though the graphics are terrible and the game is on early access, it was one of the best things I played in recent years.
	3. Vampyr I'm a sucker for Vampires and for the World War I period, specially in a story based, choice driven game, so this game presses a lot of my buttons. The story is pretty good and there are many great characters, I think many people might have overlooked this game.
	4. Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu!/Eevee! This is nostalgia overload, the original Pokemon games are among my all time favorites, and this game turned out better than I expected. I love the fact that wild Pokemon now appear on the grass and that you don't need to fight them to catch 'em all.
	5. Cultist Simulator I'm all for more weird games, also I love card games and Lovecraft, so I'm the target audience for this. It's a hard game, I need to come back and dig deeper.
	6. Marvel's Spider-Man Spider-man the movie 2, yata yata, swing, yata yata. Game looks gorgeous, plays great, story is actually ok!
	7. Fallout 76 I'm not gonna say this game is not full of issues, but I did have a great time playing it with my friend and meeting a few strangers. I also believe most people who reviewed this game played it alone, and this affected their enjoyment of the game.
	8. Florence Such a simple and powerful story, it's nice to see more games like this showing up and being recognized. A perfect game for a rainy saturday morning.
	9. Detroit: Become Human Probably my least favorite quantic dream game, specially after replaying Indigo Prophecy this year. That said, I do love this style of games, and hope they do better next time.
	10. Donut County A delightful short experience with fun writing, every year that passes I appreciate short games more and more.

I'd probably put it at 4 or 5. Still haven't finished it though.

I enjoyed God of War, Assassins Creed, Spider Man & Dead Cells more

I was waiting for the PC port that's probably never going to happen and now I've no motivation to buy it on PS4.

It is my number one in a year of good games. I'm with Brad, Abby and Alex. I think it is a landmark open world game. The criticisms are valid; for every leap forward it takes in open world design, atmosphere, and player agency/contextual interactions, it takes leaps backward in getting your character to do anything, mission design, and pacing.

A lot of it is more outlaw horseman simulator than game. If you don't like that shit, well, you don't like it.