It’s time for the 2018 Quarterlies! Vote for Quarter to Three’s Best Game of 2018

OMG, it’s like you’re expecting people to read the original post before voting. What kind of voter suppression is going on here???

-Tom

  1. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
  2. Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War
  3. Hitman 2
  4. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
  5. Return of the Obra Dinn

You guys threw me for a loop by allowing early access games. I want to add Slay the Spire, but I’m going to stick to my actual list and wait for next year to add it.

  1. Red Dead Redemption 2 - I played this every day for 2 months straight. Open world games usually lose my interest after 10 or so hours. Not so with this one.

  2. Into the Breach - It doesn’t have the longevity that FTL has for me but I love it just the same.

  3. MLB 18 The Show - I don’t even like baseball. I don’t watch it. I didn’t play it growing up as a kid. But I am compelled to create character after character and try and bring him up from AA ball to the Majors. Often I’ll abandon a character once he’s been called up all the way and start another one just to begin the journey again. I don’t know why.

  1. Red Dead Redemption 2
  2. Subnautica
  3. Northgard
  4. Frostpunk
  5. Railway Empire

Honorable Mentions:

  • AC: Odyssey, I have not play it enough to form an opinion, but the starter island is fantastic!
  • Hitman 2 , loved the starting area mission, still need to find time for this great sandbox.
  • Two Point Hospital , just a fantastic sims like design game, only about half way through this, do hope to finish it over the winter.
  • Warhammer: Vermintide 2 , very enjoyable, wish i wasn’t so bad at it.
  • Strange Brigade , fun but I need more friends to co-op this with.
  • Dead Cells , I am so bad at this game I never made it to the first boss. Gotta try that new patch that re-balances stuff.
  1. Red Dead Redemption 2 Even though it took a long time to grab me and the central plot never became quite as compelling has I had hoped, this can’t be anything other than my #1 this year just on the strength of Arthur Morgan–without question my favorite protagonist in a game, and an extremely deep and fleshed-out character by the standard of any medium. Plus, there were a couple of moments that left me a sobbing mess, and I give high marks for bringing out strong emotional reactions.
  2. Return of the Obra Dinn If it weren’t for RDR2 this would have been at the top by a wide margin. Unique, and so, so satisfying. Like with The Witness, I wish I could pull an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and play this fresh again.
  3. Dead Cells Still haven’t beaten this, but I have been enormously impressed at how damn fun I have with it when, on paper, this doesn’t seem like something I’d like much at all.
  4. God of War I wouldn’t have expected a game in this series to pull me along by the strength of the story despite not having much fun with the gameplay, but here we are.
  5. Florence This may be usurped by Gris if I manage to finish that before voting ends, but this was a wonderful experience that managed to pack a hefty punch in a tiny package.

Honorable mention to Yakuza 0, which I’ll leave off because I played it on PS4 where it was released prior to 2018. I never would have expected to enjoy that series and picked it up mostly on impulse when the guys at Giant Bomb started a playthrough, but I was absolutely enamored and it soaked up pretty much all of my gaming time from January through July.

I eagerly look forward to Yakuza 6 being 2019’s 2018 GOTY.

  1. DCS: F/A-18C Hornet - Really the only game I’ve played this year for any length of time and wanted to get it up here. DCS is old, but Hornet was released in 2018. Didn’t see any rules against expansions, so there you go.
  1. Red Dead Redemption 2
  2. Subnautica
  3. Marvel’s Spider-Man
  4. God of War
  5. Detroit: Become Human

Honorable Mentions:
Skyrim VR - Even though I put 300+ hours into pancake Skyrim, playing it in VR is a completely different experience. And it supports mods! Truly great VR experience.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Great game but there were too many show-stopping bugs for me. One of these days I’ll get back to it, now that it’s patched up.
Vampyr - Would love to see a sequel if certain gameplay elements can be fleshed out (mainly the combat and town NPC death system). The foggy London atmosphere is excellent.
Raft - Early Access game that shows promise. I enjoy the Subnautica/Waterworld vibe.

Feel free to offer to count all the votes for next year! :)

I promise you your script is better than the AI in 90% of Computer Wargames. ;)

It’s a historical fact! Look it up!

Fixed and thanks!

I ain’t seeing nearly enough OBRA DINN up there, people–let’s get with the PROGRAM!

My top 5:

  1. Florence
  2. Return of the Obra Dinn
  3. Chuchel
  4. Yoku’s Island Express
  5. Marvel’s Spider-Man

Florence – This game knocked me out, and I thought about it all year. Yes, it’s a mobile game. And one of the things that makes it a masterpiece is how it is perfectly built for that platform, in its interface, subject matter, and length. Of course, it looks and sounds perfect, too. But what you might not expect for an “emotional” game is that the gameplay is also perfect. This is what I would call “expressive gameplay.” It’s not there to challenge you, but to make meaning out of interface. The speech balloon mechanic in Florence rivals any game mechanics out there–the combat system of Spider-Man, Kratos’ axe, and whatever gritty animal skinning or tobacco chewing mechanics RDR2 has–and puts all of them to shame with its elegance.

Return of the Obra Dinn – Few games are this wholly unique. From the look and sound of it to the core gameplay mechanics, you can’t compare Obra Dinn to almost anything else. The 1-bit Macintosh-in-3D graphics put you in a mindset to play something both tightly circumscribed, like many retro games of the early 80s, but still something sophisticated and surprising. And Obra Dinn surprises–first with its strange metaphysics, then with its incredibly dramatic story beats. Shit on the Obra Dinn gets fuuuuucked up!

Chuchel – There’s not enough humor in games, and what there is is usually verbal quips and wordplay. What’s profoundly lacking is the kind of humor that permeated Looney Tunes cartoons–humor built on timing, surprise, irrationality, and absurdity. The Amanita Design guys–famous for calm, detached, deliberate adventure games like Samorost–have channeled Chuck Jones and made the funniest game of the year.

Yoku’s Island Express – When you play this blend of pinball and platforming, it might start to feel like an obvious combination, but it’s certainly not. The design chops that put this together–and made it fit into a sprawling open metroidvania world!–are substantial. Pacing, flow, progression–platformers live and die on this stuff, and so does pinball. But they’re not guaranteed to be compatible. Villa Gorilla found the common ground.

Marvel’s Spider-Man – An open world game where I don’t have to behave like an unfettered asshole? Sign me up! And if you throw in a fluid and fun combat system and just the right diversity of activities to chase around a scaled-down Manhattan, I’ll name you my #5 game of the year!

Extended list:

The Messenger - Slyly funny platformer that transcends its 8-bit/16-bit gimmick.
Unavowed - A retro point-and-click that actually advances the form significantly.
Into The Breach - The UI triumph of the year, and also a super-clever game at the same time.
Wandersong - Cute and upbeat, with an irresistible core mechanic, Wandersong is also surprisingly moving.
Deep Sixed - The shit-hits-the-fan simulator that makes it surprisingly satisfying to read the fucking manual.

I also enjoyed: Life Is Strange 2, Superflight, The King’s Bird, Volantia: Kingdom in the Sky.

I think it was a great year for games. But that also might be related to the fact that I was more on top of contemporary releases than I have been for a long time.

Would there still be plenty of surprises for me if I spoiled the first 15 minutes of the game? I assume so but I thought I’d ask! No guarantee I’ll ever get to the game though.

  1. Pillars of Eternity 2
  2. Pathfinder: Kingmaker
  3. Bard’s Tale IV
  1. RimWorld. Ditto what Jason said.
  2. Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War. This was the best 4X game released this year.
  3. Wars of Succession. The best game about the War of Spanish Succession ever made!
  4. Helium Rain. An actual, finished, space trading game with actual gameplay. Not many of those around!
  5. Battletech. Big Stompy Mechs!

Honourable mentions:

6 Total War: Warhammer 2: Curse of the Vampire Coast. Evergreen TW series gets another fantastic makeover with a great theme and mechanics to match.
7. & 8. Armored Brigade & Aggressors: Ancient Rome. Really enjoyed what I played of these. Only thing stopping them being in the top 5 is not enough play time.
9. Strategic Command WWII: World At War. Strategic Command games are like old friends, its great when another one turns up.
10. Frozen Synapse 2. The first dozen hours or so were brilliant. Got a bit over it though after that.

100% yes!

And don’t sleep on it! It’s a masterpiece, if you ask me.

Oh damn. I had just considered this a 2017 game, despite it monopolizing nearly all of my gaming time from January through June. Would it be cheating to add it to my list even if I played on a console where on which it had been released the previous year? Because that would… change things.

  1. Subnautica
  2. Beat Saber
  3. Return of the Obra Dinn
  4. Kingdom Come: Deliverance
  5. Hitman 2

However, I’ve only recently started playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Dead Cells, Into the Breach, Overload and Exapunks. And my initial feeling is that any of those games could potentially push into my top 10, or even that top 5, with more play time. They all seem that good!

Edit: Placed Kingdom Come in at number 4.

  1. Subnautica
  2. Slay the Spire
  3. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
  4. CrossCode
  5. The Messenger

Honorable mention: Thronebreaker

Games that could’ve been (games I have, but sadly didn’t make time to play before making this list): Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Beat Saber, Ashen

Games I wish I could’ve purchased/played before making this list: God of War, Monster Hunter: World, Total War: Warhammer 2, Return of the Obra Dinn, Dead Cells, RDR 2, Spider-Man, Pillars of Eternity 2, BattleTech, Moonlighter, Hitman 2, Frostpunk, Gris, Moss, Celeste, Florence, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

  1. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
  2. Northgard
  3. Unforeseen Incidents
  4. Cultist Simulator
  5. Subnautica

I strongly object to Slay The Spire’s inclusion seeing as it entered Early Access in 2017 and will release in 2019 but feels like that ship has sailed.