Alex's Top 10 Games of 2018

Here we are again. Another year has passed and, unsurprisingly, I have at least ten games to talk about. Let the (discussion of said) games begin!

This is the fourth time I've done this, and I of course invite you to take a trip back in time if you missed my favourites from 2015, 2016 and 2017. As always, my annual disclaimer: this list may include games released before 2018, because I want to shout about the awesome games I've played, regardless of when they came into existence. You can't stop me!

Before the list starts, I've decided to get the 'honourable mentions' out of the way now.

Red Dead Redemption 2 - I know, you thought it would be no.1. I haven't played enough to form an opinion yet. Maybe next year.
What Remains of Edith Finch - A great evolution of the 'walking simulator' genre.
Diablo III - Perfect for ploughing through demons while enjoying a podcast.
Yoku's Island Express - Pinball never gets old.
Finding Paradise - Like its prequel To The Moon, this is the good kind of sad.
Picross S2 - Mo' picross, fewer problems.

10. Never Stop Sneakin'

Nearly all of these shamelessly lifted off Google Image Search.

Describing this game could make it sound more complex than it actually is: a top down, stealth-focused roguelike, with a madcap time travel story about a villain who has stolen all the US presidents ("even the bad ones", as the narrator frequently points out). But as it turns out, this games boils down to a simple, joyful purity: the only control input uses the left stick to move the player character. Walk up behind an enemy, and you automatically take them down. Get spotted by a security camera or a turret, and you automatically chuck an EMP grenade. In no time I got into a rhythm with the stealth gameplay that kept me glued to my Switch, because this is an ideal game for Nintendo's handheld.

The other thing that kept me going was a constant stream of references to the original Metal Gear Solid. The visual design as a whole is a very deliberate homage to the 1998 classic, and as the game goes on there are more and more nostalgic throwbacks, often with a clever twist. To give one example, in MGS Solid Snake could catch a cold, and until the player acquires some cold medicine, Snake's sneezes would alert nearby guards. In NSS, sneezing is one of dozens of perks that can be found - what in MGS it was a bizarre obstacle to stealth, here is an absurd upgrade: you literally sneeze money.

Thanks especially to its sense of humour, I really enjoyed my time with Never Stop Sneakin'.

9. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

It feels like a long time ago, but right at the start of 2018 I started catching up on the best games I hadn't been able to fit into 2017. For the uninitiated, the rebooted Wolfenstein series is set in an alternate history in which the Nazis won World War 2, with the hopes of the world resting on a group of resistance fighters spearheaded by the all-American William J. Blaskowitz. Building on the previous entry, Wolfenstein II continues to develop Blaskowitz as a well-rounded, relatable character, which still strikes me as quite a considerable achievement, considering that in the 90s game that popularised the FPS, Castle Wolfenstein 3D, he was the blankest of slates. In fact, every member of the cast of characters in The New Colossus is memorable in their own right, and you'll have to take my word for it on the quality of the story, because I don't dare spoil a bit of it. Even after much time to reflect, the numerous "what the fuck" moments are burned deep into my mind. It has to be seen to be believed.

In terms of gameplay, Wolfenstein II latches onto a simple, incontrovertible truth: it is a lot of fun to shoot Nazis in the face. As with the previous game, pretty much every weapon has a dual wield option, and once I dropped the difficulty down a tad, I was mowing down an alternate history's worth of dickheads with a beaming smile on my face. There are also some new abilities tied into one of the craziest of the story's twists that make getting around each level highly entertaining, and further emphasise the power fantasy of being Blaskowitz. If any of the above sounds appealing, this one is definitely worth checking out.

8. Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Nostalgia seems to be big business these days, and in November one of the highlights of my gaming childhood was brought back with a glorious new coat of paint. Whereas the Crash Bandicoot trilogy felt constricted by the outdated jumping physics and frustrating level design of its source material, Spyro has aged remarkably well. The original PS1 games were always more of a chilled out romp, and if anything the process of remaking them has resulted in a more relaxing experience. Bursting with colour, and with every character and enemy redrawn in loving detail, I quickly devoured the first two games of the trilogy - saving the third for the next time I need an uncomplicated, pleasant distraction.

Admittedly I'm not certain how impressive Spyro Reignited would be for someone with no affection for the original games. Certainly, part of the appeal for me was the moment of sudden recollection as I started exploring each level. In most cases, the name of the level alone did not bring much to mind, but as soon as the environment was unveiled, I was instantly taken back in time.

Everything I've written here probably reads like a fairly cliche case of pandering to nostalgia. All I'll say is that this is about as far from a cynical cash grab as it could possibly be. I would happily pay for more aspects of my childhood to be lovingly recreated down to the tiniest detail. And speaking of 'detail'...

7. Viscera Cleanup Detail

This one caught me pleasantly off guard. Only a couple of weeks ago, I was working my way through a podcast that I had fallen nearly six months behind on, and as much as I love Euro Truck Simulator 2, it gets a bit monotonous after a while. I recalled that, quite some time ago, my fellow BFVGer James 'Theris108' had posted about the many hours he had invested in a certain game about cleaning up video game blood and guts. Sounded like a perfect accompaniment for dozens of hours of podcasts...

The premise of Viscera Cleanup Detail is that after a typical FPS protagonist has shot his way through a typical FPS environment, it has to be someone's job to clear up all the blood, body parts, shell casings, alien/mutant remains, and various other detritus all over the space station / icy planet / sewer tunnels / other generic video game environment. Years ago when VCD came out, this sounded like a funny gimmick, but how could a game about cleaning be truly fun? Well... before long I found myself worrying about running out of podcasts.

Somehow, VCD makes the chore of mopping relaxing and enjoyable. Whenever I start a new assignment, I actually get excited to see how big a mess I have to clear up. The mop gets bloody, the mop bucket gets filled up with bloody water, the mop bucket gets incinerated, rinse and repeat (pun intended). The titular viscera, bullet casings, and other rubbish get piled into a bio hazard crate, which also gets incinerated. Bullet holes in the walls, floors and ceilings get zapped with a sci fi welder. You even get bonus points for neatly stacking crates and barrels in designated parts of each level.

To be honest, writing about Viscera Cleanup Detail only makes me want to play it more. Let's crack on with the rest of the list.

6. Horizon Zero Dawn

Another holdover from 2017, this game took some time and effort for me to be won over by it. In my list last year it won an honourable mention - I could tell it was deserving of praise but hadn't fully clicked with it. When I went back to Horizon Zero Dawn, I nearly lost my patience with it... I'll get the criticism out of the way here: the early parts of this game, where many of the better tools and weapons are most likely unavailable, nearly put me off for good as I banged my head against a brick wall of robots. In my frustration I nearly missed out on uncovering a fascinating world and engaging with a superb video game protagonist. Fortunately, I gave in and lowered the difficulty setting. I'm very glad I did.

HZD is set in a distant future in which humans have, after certain cataclysmic events, withdrawn into isolated settlements of roughly bronze- or iron-age technology. The protagonist is an outcast from one of these settlements, like everyone else in her world unaware of what has come before. The cities of our time period are vast "metal ruins", and there are hostile robot dinosaurs all over the place. What really impressed me was that, eventually, the seemingly silly premise I've just described is explained reasonably, plausibly, and in service of an overall very powerful story, with an excellently fleshed out world and well-rounded characters.

Horizon Zero Dawn's story really grabbed me, so I would recommend it to most people on that basis alone. And provided you find a difficulty setting that suits you, it's also really satisfying to shoot components off huge metal monsters.

5. Spider-Man

Rarely have I encountered a world as enjoyable to traverse as the Manhattan of this year's much-anticipated Spider-Man. Web-swinging from skyscraper to skyscraper just feels fantastic, and it does a great job of tying together an open world filled with tons of enjoyable side content. The optional challenges and activities strewn about the city are numerous, but not so much as to feel overwhelming. They're varied, so they don't get old fast. And they provide lots of opportunities to try out different combat strategies - after a bit of a learning phase early on, I found the combat very satisfying, showcasing Spider-Man's crime-fighting abilities admirably. In general the gameplay clicked with me really well thanks to the game's precise, simple control layout and well-structured open world.

And then there's the story, which Spider-Man also hits out of the park. In many ways it feels like a fully-fledged cinematic Marvel story, executed with a confidence you don't often see in video games. The writing, acting and visuals (especially the faces of the characters) combine to create something really impressive. The only criticism I might make is regarding the villains of Spider-Man, who are spread rather unevenly throughout the game, with many of the more interesting encounters crammed into a busy final third. Fortunately, the game's success and certain plot hooks suggest there may well be a sequel, so hopefully I will get another chance to be Spider-Man. Because, unsurprisingly perhaps, it is very fun to be Spider-Man.

4. Celeste

This one might not be for everyone, but it was definitely suited to me. Tough as nails platformers have always appealed to me, and Celeste is up there with the very best - I might even compare it favourably to Super Meat Boy. Every level is broken down into segments that start out simple and grow progressively more challenging, simply asking that you solve each jumping puzzle one by one. The physics and controls are just exceptional, so that every time I died, I could only blame myself, not the game - again much like SMB. As a result every bit of progress feels extremely rewarding, especially when it requires an almost flawless platforming sequence or a 'eureka!' moment of inspiration.

This is a game about climbing a mountain, in more ways than one. Literally, the main character is a woman trying to reach the summit of the titular Celeste mountain. She is also tackling a figurative mountain: the overriding focus of the game is her tackling her inner demons, which in turn manifest quite literally as obstacles and opponents throughout most of the levels. And then outside the story, the act of playing this game - the skill, effort, and sense of achievement every step of the way - is certainly another sort of figurative mountain. Over and over I got that sense of accomplishment - every sequence completed, every devilishly positioned collectible snatched, and especially the maddeningly difficult 'B-sides' to each level. If at some point I finally conquer every challenge in Celeste, I will be very happy indeed.

3. Enter the Gungeon

Another outstanding indie game, Enter the Gungeon occupies quite a different genre from Celeste but shares the theme of rewardingly tough difficulty. I first played it a couple of years ago, and was actually a bit put off by the level of challenge - it felt pretty much insurmountable at the time. Then it came out on the Switch, which was a perfect fit and led to me getting a great deal more out of it.

This is another roguelike, which if you didn't bother with the Wikipedia link I provided while discussing Never Stop Sneakin', I'll give you the quick version: a game where you try to get as far as you can, fighting through procedurally-generated levels (a different configuration every time, but it's not completely random), and eventually you die, at which point you go back to the beginning, losing everything but the knowledge you acquired through failure. EtG marries this concept to the dual-stick shooter genre, an excellent combination with a pretty high skill ceiling: as with Celeste, there's a superbly rewarding feeling to becoming more proficient and overcoming obstacles that previously appeared impossible.

I should also mention what originally enticed me to play EtG: its delightfully cute art-style and the self-aware silliness of its world. Essentially, everything is bullet-themed. Many enemies are a variety of walking bullet. The in-game encyclopaedia is called the Ammonomicon, and is shot open every time you look at it. There are, of course, umpteen flagrantly ridiculous guns - to name just one, a bullet-shaped gun that shoots bullet-sized guns, that in turn shoot smaller bullets. And the aim of the game is to reach the end of the Gungeon and fire a gun that will kill the past. After many ill-fated attempts, I finally found that gun in 2018. I can proudly boast that I've beaten Enter the Gungeon, and I still feel the temptation to dive back in.

2. God of War

Given the video game's tendency to reboot or remake franchises left, right and centre, I wasn't particularly hyped ahead of God of War's release. I wouldn't say I was expecting it to be a bad game, but certain elements made me fear it was being made for the sake of being made. It wasn't evident how transposing Kratos to Norse mythology would make thematic or narrative sense. Kratos's characterisation in the previous entries as an embodiment of rage epitomised the angsty teen years of gaming, so it was hard to see what place a new God of War might find in today's more sophisticated video game landscape. The little I knew of the gameplay before release was that it appeared to take the light- and heavy-attack brawling of the older games and inject some Dark Souls-esque philosophy; it was easy to imagine that not turning out brilliantly. Call me pessimistic, but I didn't see why I particularly needed a new God of War.

It's bloody wonderful being wrong sometimes. Once the game came out, it was evident from the critical reaction to it that all of my concerns had been answered with aplomb. From my own experience of playing it, the very elements I questioned actually comprise GoW's greatest strengths, so let's go through them again.

Inserting Kratos into a Norse setting works incredibly well, perhaps because there isn't anything approaching an exhaustive exposition of how the pantheons exist in the same universe. Kratos left Greece and later married a Northern European woman, and they had a son: bar a few mysterious hints dropped throughout the narrative, that's the only explanation present and its simplicity works to the game's benefit. And as a side note: exploring Norse environments and hearing retellings of Viking legends are among the highlights of the game for me, so the move North is thoroughly vindicated.

In terms of Kratos's characterisation, he's grown up and not just literally. The unfiltered wrath of his younger self has evolved into a focused determination and thick-skinned stoicism. Over the course of this story about a father and son undertaking a difficult journey, you learn that Kratos is not the man he once was, but that person is not entirely gone either. To take an extremely one-note character and provide such a nuanced take on him, but still incorporating his previous self, is highly impressive and it's executed flawlessly. I've danced around the actual story of GoW in this summary, but it's a fascinating narrative much helped by having such an intriguing main character.

Finally, the combination of different gameplay styles is done expertly. We saw in 2017 how Breath of the Wild learned from other games and mixed them into the Zelda framework with astounding results. GoW is probably not quite so ambitious, but it nonetheless cleverly takes inspiration from Diablo in terms of having attacks with cooldowns; Destiny's weapon and armour upgrade system; and the aforementioned Dark Souls influences some aspects of the combat design and the prevalence of some pretty intimidating enemies - thankfully however its pacing and punishing difficulty weren't brought over to GoW, for the most part. The moment-to-moment experience is consistently fun and engaging throughout the game.

As you can see, I had a blast with God of War, and it overcame my apprehensions by quite some margin. It'll have to settle for second place though, because there was another contender that won the race quite early in 2018...

1. Yakuza 0

This Game of the Year was a much easier choice than on previous occasions. I found so much to love in Yakuza 0, it was almost perfectly suited to my gaming taste. There's also a personal significance of this game to my 2018, but before I get that, I'll try to express what I found so exceptional about Yakuza 0.

I can't get enough of well-told stories in my video games, and the writing in this one is beyond fantastic. It's hard to believe it was originally in another language, because the translation and localisation is flawless. The core narrative is a straight-faced crime drama, beautifully melodramatic - the redemptive arcs of Kiryu and Majima are well-trodden paths, this is true, but its delivered with such confidence I couldn't help but feel engaged. In contrast, the side stories are self-aware and coyly ridiculous, not to mention extremely abundant. Over the course of many hours, I helped: a policeman to overcome his fear of performing a stop-and-search; a guy in a back alley selling garden-variety mushrooms, who didn't understand why he was drawing so much heat; a dominatrix who doesn't understand how to properly demean her customers; and so, so many more. Crucially, the silliness of these detours gels somehow with the seriousness of the main storyline, which I can only put down to the strength of the depiction of the main characters - maybe it's because everything that happens in the game is so blatantly absurd, it all makes sense taken as a whole.

I've spoken in this top 10 about games that have great worlds, and Yakuza 0's appeals to me like no other. Set in Japan in 1988, there are two fictional city neighbourhoods based on real places within Tokyo and Osaka. The maps are relatively small compared to the current trend towards sprawling open worlds in many games, but these areas are densely packed with all kinds of activities, from the mundane to the truly bizarre. For example, there are many restaurants with dozens of menu choices; bars where you can drink whisky and be regaled with facts about said whisky; and many places that house in-depth minigames, from mahjong parlours to a baseball batting cage to "telephone clubs" (careful clicking that link if you're at work!). It can be cartoonish at times, but it's also a great metaphor for the condensed nature of life in a Japanese city. The interpretation and reflection of Japanese culture is, inevitably, a massive draw for me.

Between the main story path, side stories and the open world with its many attractions, I fell down a deep hole with Yakuza 0. The only point it comes up short on is its combat, which I found very repetitive and certainly a drag after 100+ hours (a notable exception to this is one of Majima's fighting styles that involves kicking goons in the face by break-dancing at them; always entertaining). This however did not significantly detract from the stupendous enjoyment I found in the game.

That about sums up my love for Yakuza 0, and why I believe it deserves to be singled out for high praise. But there is an additional reason why it means so much to me, and that is to do with the fact that in 2018 I went to Japan in real life. Some of you won't be hearing this from me for the first time, but I think it bears repeating, if only to emphasise the surreal experience I had.

While on a guided tour through the Shinjuku area of Tokyo, we were taken through the Kabuchi-ko neighbourhood, which I already knew to be the real life counterpart to Yakuza 0's fictional Kamurocho. What I did not know was that the game had utilised road layouts, landmarks and other obsessive details in an effort to so fully recreate the feeling of being in Kabuchi-ko. As I stood in front of this suspiciously familiar neon gate:

I thought, "in the game there's a Don Quijote a couple of blocks to the right" (a discount store chain in Japan). I looked to my right, and saw a Don Quijote in exactly the same place. I was walking around in a state of bemused deja vu for quite some time after this.

This was the most striking of a number of ways Yakuza 0 prepared me for Japan. I won't get into them now, because this piece is long enough without tagging a full travelogue on the end. Suffice to say I was immersed in its world like nothing else. Yakuza 0 is my Game of the Year for 2018, and it will live long in my memory.