长文，GamesIndustry关于 2018年最佳游戏的项目列表

原作者：GamesIndustry Staff 译者：Willow Wu

随着年终将近，游戏行业中的编辑们开始回顾过去一年所玩的游戏，并给他们最喜欢的作品再助一臂之力，做最后一次公开推广。

对于GamesIndustry.biz来说，2017年是不太寻常的一年，绝大多数人都认同《塞尔达传说:旷野之息》是一个非凡的成就，年度最佳游戏当之无愧。而今年，大家的看法就没有这么一致了。

所以，与其选出一个大家都支持的游戏，我们决定让几位代表来分享一下他们在2018年获得的难忘游戏体验。

Christopher Dring

他心中的年度最佳游戏：《盗贼之海》（Sea of Thieves）

作为Rare开发公司的死忠粉，《盗贼之海》这个游戏我当然是非常喜欢的。这样一个美丽、有趣、傻兮兮的复古风格游戏，再加上美妙的音乐，它将Rare的优势完全展现出来了。

从很多方面来说，这个游戏可以说是公司的“回归本职”之作，因为在此之前他们一直都在为Kinect制作体感游戏。

《盗贼之海》刚刚与玩家见面的时候，它显然是一个非常缺乏深度的游戏。你用不了多少时间就能摸清游戏的大体，然后就是核心循环的不断重复。在这一年，经历了四次升级大改造和无数次微调整之后，《盗贼之海》焕然一新。游戏内容非常丰富：你踏上寻宝之旅，你会遇上巨齿鲨、海怪克拉肯，你还有可能会遭遇沉船等等挑战。无论是从游戏体验还是单纯的视觉体验来说都是一场盛宴。

它跟当下的多人联机游戏不一样，游戏中不存在更强大的船、盔甲或是武器，只有外观上的差异。玩的时间越久并不意味着你就技高一筹。无论你是游戏时间有限还是充足，上手都没有什么困难。对于我这种要在类似《命运》的多人竞技游戏上花很多时间以获得优势的人来说，《盗贼之海》具有非常大的吸引力。

当然，我不能说所有人都会这样。但是对于Xbox公司来说，发行这个游戏就是一个3A级别的大胆赌局，甚至可以说这是今年最勇敢的决定之一。希望它能一直保持成功吧。

提名的游戏还有：《大金刚：热带寒流》《蜘蛛侠》

本年度最出人意料的游戏：《神秘博士：无限》（Doctor Who Infinity）

今年我玩了很多优秀的游戏，有一个游戏我原先是有点担心，但后来觉得挺惊喜的：《神秘博士：无限》。实际上，它是一个小型的剧情主导解谜游戏，主要玩法就是宝石三消，游戏包含了几种不同的漫画风格，剧情也是由不同的人撰写的。章节中的部分角色有配音。

听起来是有点与众不同，但是考虑到《神秘博士》以往的衍生游戏，我并没有抱着特别大的期待。但是开发团队Tiny Rebel将这些内容合理地组合到了一起。没有《神秘博士》这个剧情背景，这个游戏完全没有办法拿到那么多奖项。

本年度最令人失望的游戏：《古墓丽影：暗影》

我很喜欢《古墓丽影》的重启系列。《古墓丽影9》和《古墓丽影：崛起》都可以归入我最喜爱的游戏之列，而且说实话，它们比《神秘海域》系列要好。

《古墓丽影：暗影》是一个不失水准的好游戏。画面精致，潜入丛林、完成各种各样的挑战仍然能带给玩家满足感。然而，这个夸张的故事缺乏的是情感渲染和神秘感——这两个元素正是两部前作吸引我的原因。再加上游戏本身缺乏创意，玩法重复，让《古墓丽影：暗影》成为一个令人失望的收尾之作。不然的话这会是一个非常棒的Lara Croft三部曲。

James Batchelor

他心中的年度最佳游戏：Florence

我很难用言语表达我有多喜欢这个游戏。它在40分钟里呈现出的创意、带给人们的喜悦是很多3A游戏40小时都做不到的，它真正诠释了什么叫做“少即是多”。

王友建成功地用一款浪漫版的《瓦力欧制造》讲述一个扣人心弦的爱情故事，而且游戏中没有一句台词。小游戏用来表现生活的不同方面，或者引入故事的下一阶段。尽管游戏机制很简单，但是内容非常有深度，对话气泡拼图就是一个很好的例子。通过触屏和角色互动也能增强游戏和玩家之间的联系。

艺术风格具有识别度，音乐很好听，游戏节奏也非常好。你不免会担心这些小游戏是不是玩得太快了（尽管开发者本身的意图就是在几秒之内完成它），然而你又很想知道接下去会发生什么。尽管最后结局不是你所希望的那样，但却回味无穷。我迫不及待地想知道王和Mountains团队接下去会做什么样的游戏。

提名的游戏还有：《伊迪芬奇的秘密》（我知道它是2017年的游戏，但是我今年才玩的。挺不错的游戏。）

本年度最出人意料的游戏：《被遗忘的安妮》（Forgotton Anne）

在游戏开始的几个小时里，简单的游戏玩法和一成不变的节奏表明了这是一款过于倚重动画风格（确实很棒）的游戏。然而，随着游戏进程的推进，《被遗忘的安妮》将你带入到了一场天马行空的冒险中。

《被遗忘的安妮》感觉就像是吉卜力工作室出品的横版平台解谜游戏，在这个反乌托邦的世界中，所有被遗忘的物品都有了生命。在与物品互动时，游戏会让玩家做出行动选择——安妮可以提炼物品的灵能，也就是说让它们消失，也可以选择放弃。这些选择也会影响故事的发展、决定结局。

配音也很棒，一个独立游戏能有这样的效果已经远远超出了我的预想。临近结局传递出的信息真的会让你反省自己对物品的态度。

提名的游戏还有：《尤库的小岛速递》，我从没想过我会喜欢弹珠+类银河战士恶魔城+屎壳郎的组合。

本年度最令人失望的游戏：《哈利波特：霍格沃茨的秘密》

这游戏有太多吸引点了，玩家终于能体验一把霍格沃兹学生的生活了。游戏对电影和原著书的还原表明了开发成员是骨灰级的哈迷。它不是那种不走心的电影捆绑销售产品，剧情很有意思，我发自内心地想解决那些谜题。

但是我做不到。这是一个F2P游戏，所以自然会有冷却时间、付费墙这样的设计，我没有办法按照我想要的节奏玩游戏。

为了配合剧情进度，你必须反复刷课程任务让角色技能达到要求的水准，再加上课程/章节耗时实在是太长了，游戏进入二年级后就很不想再玩下去了。除此之外，无论你在生活中做什么都要扣能量，非常死板。举个例子，8小时的课程可以获得更多经验，五星课程需要三管能量才能完成。如果你一开始就把能量花掉，要等三个小时才能再次充满。所以你必须得计算好时间登录游戏以免错过课程。

我希望这个游戏变成付费版，如果没有F2P商业模式所设定的这些障碍，这个游戏玩起来会非常有意思。

提名的游戏还有：我等了很久的《漫威蜘蛛侠》还没到手……

Rebekah Valentine

她心中的年度最佳游戏：Minit

2018年我几乎完全放弃了3A级游戏，只专注于那些能够鹤立鸡群的独立游戏，对Minit的热衷大概就是我移情于小游戏圈的最有力证据吧。这是一款低保真的俯视角冒险游戏，每局60秒。

极简的画面、简短而古怪的对话，以及不加任何多余点缀的环境促使Minit成为一款即开即玩、高度沉浸的优秀游戏。很明显，开发者对游戏的每一秒都做了仔细思考——角色会如何移动、看到什么以及有什么反应。游戏形成了一个流畅、有意思的快速循环。我的大脑持续全速运转，就像游戏中长得像小鸭子一般的角色不停地奔跑，我在急切地计划进入下一个谜题的路线。

Minit是我玩过的最烧脑的游戏。它证明了只要核心玩法概念足够出色，那么精致的画面和丰富支线任务就不是必需的，但是斗志昂扬的音乐可以当作是锦上添花。

提名的游戏还有：《蔚蓝》《极限竞速:地平线4》《空洞骑士》以及Gris

本年度最出人意料的游戏：Paratopic

作为一个土生土长的美国中西部人，我可以说之前我从没见过任何一款游戏像Paratopic这样呈现我的家乡。这个猎奇、惊悚的小游戏看起来就像是PS1时代的产物，或者是你无聊时偶然看到的那种恐怖电影，然后又在脑海中挥之不去。玩家要体验观鸟人、走私者和杀手这三个故事，将细节线索串联起来，从而发现这三个故事是如何交织在一起的。游戏充斥着诡异的气氛，谜团重重，让人意犹未尽。

虽然我对恐怖游戏完全没有兴趣，但是自从玩了Paratopic之后，它就一直萦绕在我的脑海中，诱使我回到游戏里，努力去搞清楚VHS录像带事件、一只奇怪的红鸟和树林鬼影背后的含义。这游戏有一种令人毛骨悚然的熟悉感（喷射的番茄酱、在空旷的道路上开车，诡异地在两个电台之间切换），剧情很巧妙。在这样一个枪战+跳杀成为恐怖游戏固定套路的时代，Paratopic的游戏玩法无疑是非常具有独创性的。

本年度最令人失望的游戏：《彼处水如酒》

游戏刚开始的几个小时让我想起了大学时期上美国文学课的愉快时光——有趣的民间故事、Robert Frost的诗歌还有“昭昭天命（游戏邦注Manifest Destiny）”年代的梦想。单从故事叙述、探寻新故事来看，开发商Good Shepherd的剧情设计是我玩过的所有游戏中最好的——玩家收集一个个新故事，从别人的叙述中了解他们的世界以及生平经历。

令人失望的地方在于游戏的制作。在寻找故事的时候，我不得不拖着那个步伐极其缓慢的骷髅在美国地图上走上几个小时，听着同一首主题歌(诚然非常棒)，在不同的地区以不同的风格演唱。

尽管故事非常好，但是制作无疑是给玩家体验造成了不小的负面影响。如果这是一部短篇小说集，我会给予更高的评价。

Haydn Taylor

他心中的年度最佳游戏：《旗帜的传说3》

游戏精美的手绘艺术让人想起了上世纪80年代的卡通。深度战略战斗系统加上业内数一数二的剧情，《旗帜的传说3》以最好的方式呈现出了系列玩家所熟悉的内容。

跟其它三部曲类的游戏不同，《旗帜的传说》系列讲的是同一个故事，而不是三个联系不怎么密切的故事。虽然是三个独立的游戏，但其实它们更像是一个作品的三个章节，而玩家又能感受到它们之间的不同特点。

《旗帜的传说》可以说是视觉小说穿插回合制战斗，但是Stoic Entertainment在有限的结构上创造出那么多精彩的内容。从因不断被追杀的产生的压迫感，到目睹世界分崩离析，《旗帜的传说》三部曲堪称杰作。

拯救世界是电子游戏最常见的主题，但是很少有游戏真正能表现出那种危机感。尤其是第三部，在世界末日的重压之下，这座城市已经来到了破碎的边缘，血淋淋的现实摆在眼前，今时已不同往日。

《旗帜的传说3》为这个系列画上了一个圆满的句号，同时它也让我开始烦恼，怎样才能做出独具匠心的东西。

本年度最出人意料的游戏：《突变元年：伊甸园之路》

看着这个画面，一只拟人化的卡通鸭子在阴沉的末世中摇摇摆摆地走着，我当初就想着绝对是一个荒唐的垃圾游戏。但是令我非常惊讶的是开发商The Bearded Ladies竟然合理地将这些毫不相干的元素组合到了一起，而且轻松搞笑。

它成为了一个融合战术回合制战斗、生存和潜行的刺激游戏。这个猎奇的团队组合也让游戏变得有特点。

这是一个非常棘手的游戏，玩家需要花上好几个小时才能完全掌握那些细节技巧。但是一旦你玩上道了，在遇到大boss之前迅速消灭掉各个区域内的敌人，最后再集中精力策划伏击，你就能顺利过关了。《突变元年：伊甸园之路》绝对是一个好游戏。

本年度最令人失望的游戏：2018

上面那部分我没有列出其它提名，因为我的选择余地很小。我在2018年玩的（或者是重玩的）好游戏都是前些年的作品。

但是说到令人失望的游戏，情况就完全不一样了。从单调乏味的《杀手2》到《墨西哥英雄大混战》续作的高调回归，我实在说不准谁才是真正的“赢家”。

《克苏鲁的呼唤》是一个强力的竞争者，因为我之前期盼的远不是这样肤浅、严重缺乏连贯性的劣质成品。《辐射76》也在我的提名内，但是这一系列从《辐射：新维加斯》开始就在走下坡路了，所以与其说是失望，更贴切的说法是勉强接受，即使游戏真的败得很彻底。

今年我们有《战神4》《蜘蛛侠》《荒野大镖客：救赎2》《刺客信条：奥德赛》，这些游戏无疑会出现在很多人的2018年度最佳游戏列表中。但是我认为，从它们的规模以及细节角度来考虑，这些游戏还不算非常有趣。

论暴力表现比不上《德军总部2：新巨像》，论设计比不上《塞尔达传说:旷野之息》，论天马行空比不上《尼尔：机械纪元》。总的来说，今年大家都找到了不少喜欢的游戏，这很好，但2018在我看来是很扫兴的一年，这只是个人口味不同罢了。

Brendan Sinclair

他心中的年度最佳游戏：《漫威蜘蛛侠》

《漫威蜘蛛侠》就是我理想中现代3A游戏的样子。它沿袭了以往3A游戏开放世界的构建方式，将纽约设定为游戏世界背景，并且完美地展现出了这座城市的风貌。简单的操作也让城市穿梭体验变得非常有趣——在我看来，这就是游戏最核心的部分。如果其余部分做的没有那么好，那我应该还是会玩下去，享受这一部分的乐趣。

但是幸好Insomniac喜欢追求高水准，所以游戏的整体质量还是很好的。游戏环境和操作是主要吸引点，但是对战系统、支线任务、剧情这些“配角”也是《漫威蜘蛛侠》不可缺少的部分，就如Aunt May 或者Mary Jane对Peter Parker一样重要。Insomniac的游戏比之前的任何改编作更接近现代《蜘蛛侠》漫画的氛围。从戏剧性的主线剧情，到时不时搞笑的支线剧情，再到打斗中令人讨厌的俏皮话，游戏对角色剧情的把控恰当好处，并不会让人觉得拘谨或者是不能自由地探寻角色内容，缺乏代入感。《漫威蜘蛛侠》采用的依然是平凡人类与超级英雄，善与恶对立冲突这样的经典主题，但是角色剧情紧密交织，能营造出一种宿命感，而不是让人觉得在炒冷饭。

我玩过很多具有开放世界的3A游戏，看过各种版本的《蜘蛛侠》改编作品，所以我知道这两个设定对开发者来说是非常具有风险的。将这两种设定都包含在内，而且产品的每一方面都能赢得玩家的好评并不是那么容易的事，不管你的开发团队有多厉害、你的预算有多充足。干得漂亮Insomniac！

提名的游戏还有：Wandersong、Flinthook、《林中之夜》和《尤库的小岛速递》

本年度最出人意料的游戏：《空洞骑士》

直到《空洞骑士》在E3上宣布登陆任天堂Switch平台，我才知道这款游戏的存在，真是太无知了我。我不是类银河战士恶魔城类游戏的狂热粉（我在上面提名《尤库的小岛速递》主要是因为它的弹球机制设计而不是游戏类型），《空洞骑士》绝佳的画面效果让我得以忍受它大量的回溯玩法设计。

当然，我一直都没有把它玩完。我的角色仍然躺在漆黑的未知领域的某个地方，长时间的探索让我倍感疲惫，我都不想去思考如何才能收集齐那些东西。但是这样一个不知道从哪里冒出来的（对我来说）类银河战士恶魔城游戏还是给我带来了超乎预期的愉快体验。

本年度最令人失望的游戏：《漫画英雄VS卡普空：无限》

我知道这是2017年的游戏，初期评论一直让我处于观望状态，直到今年我才亲自上手。现在我后悔了。作为一个漫威和卡普空双粉，《漫画英雄VS卡普空2》一直都是我最喜欢的游戏，于是我想我或许也会喜欢这个游戏。事实证明我错了。

我甚至没法告诉你到底是哪些地方我不喜欢，因为我挑不出一个我喜欢的地方。画风、角色、组队模式、无限宝石机制……我统统都没有好感。我觉得这游戏一点都不好玩。我知道这里说的是“最令人失望的游戏”，但是实际上我对《漫画英雄VS卡普空：无限》并没有什么强烈的感觉。主要是我很纳闷为什么设定如此对我胃口的游戏却与我的期待相去甚远。

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As the last days come off the calendar, it’s time for writers across the industry to once again reflect on everything they’ve played over the past year and give their favorites one last public push.

Last year was an unusual one for GamesIndustry.biz, with the staffers largely agreeing that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a singular achievement and deserving of being named the site’s Game of the Year. There was no such consensus this year.

So rather than give the site’s stamp of approval to a single title, we’ve split up the honors and given each writer a bit of space to talk about their superlative gaming experiences of 2018. You can hear more about our choices in the latest episode of The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast, and we’d love to hear what your own picks were in the comments.

Christopher Dring

Personal Game of the Year: Sea of Thieves

As a lifelong fan of developer Rare, I was pre-conditioned to enjoy Sea of Thieves. Daft, stylistic, funny, beautiful, modern in an old-fashioned way, and with fantastic music, it ticks all the boxes that the studio is known for.

In many ways it’s a bit of a comeback for the company, as it’s the first original game Rare has released since its years making Kinect games.

When Sea of Thieves first came out, it was undoubtedly lacking in depth. It didn’t take long before you’d seen the bulk of the game and that core loop soon became repetitive. Over the course of the year — featuring four major updates and countless minor ones — Sea of Thieves has come to life. There’s always something to do and see, challenges to overcome, ships to sink, megalodons to chase away, treasure to find and krakens to escape.

It’s also the anithesis of modern online games. You can’t unlock better ships, better armour or better weapons (only better-looking ones). Playing for hours and hours doesn’t make you better at the game. It’s just as accessible for those who are time limited as it is for those with time on their hands. And for someone such as myself, who has always been put off by games like Destiny for that very reason, this hugely appeals.

Certainly it’s not for everyone. But Sea of Thieves is a bold, major AAA gamble for Xbox. It’s arguably one of the bravest games released this year, and long may it stay afloat.

Honourable Mentions: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Spider-Man

Most Surprising Game of the Year: Doctor Who Infinity

I’ve played lots of great games this year, but I’ve only really played one I was wary over that turned out to be actually pretty good. Doctor Who Infinity is actually a series of small story-driven puzzle games. Each game features gem-matching gameplay, they each have a different comic book style (by known comic artists) and they’re all written by different people. Each game also features voiceover work for some of the characters, but not all.

It sounded a bit disparate, and considering the history of Doctor Who games, I wasn’t expecting great things. But developer Tiny Rebel managed to get it all to hang together reasonably well. The Infinity games are not going to win many awards, but finally we have Doctor Who games with stories that match those from the world of books, comics and TV.

Most Disappointing Game: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

I love the rebooted Tomb Raider series. The self-titled game, and Rise of the Tomb Raider, are among my favourite titles and — frankly — they’re better than Uncharted (if a little humourless).

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is still a decent game. It still has those great visuals and it’s still satisfying to stealth through a jungle and solve those tombs. Yet with an overblown story that lacked the emotion and mystery that made the first two so engaging, and with repetitive sections and a lack of new ideas, it was a rather disappointing finale for what has otherwise been a fantastic Lara Croft trilogy.

James Batchelor

Personal Game of the Year: Florence

I struggle to put into words how much I loved this title. It delivered more joy, creativity and style in 40 minutes than most AAA games do in 40 hours — it is the epitome of ‘less is more’.

Ken Wong’s romantic WarioWare manages to tell a compelling, relatable love story without a single word. Each minigame is used to express a different aspect of life, or a deliver a beat of the story. Though their mechanics are simple, the context gives them such depth — the speech bubble puzzles being a prime example — and interacting with them via a touch screen just strengthens your connection to the story.

It helps that the art style is beautiful and instantly recognisable, the music is delightful, and the pacing is spot on. It’s hard not to worry that you’re rushing through each minigame (even though they’re designed to be just a few seconds long), but you’re eager to see what happens next and the ending — though it might not be what you expect — is satisfying. I cannot wait to see what Wong and the Mountains team do next.

Honourable Mention: What Remains of Edith Finch (yes, it’s a 2017 game but I only played it this year. My word, it’s good.)

Biggest Surprise: Forgotton Anne

In the opening hours, the simplistic gameplay and steady pace suggest this is a game that will lean a little too heavily on its (admittedly impressive) animation style. Yet as it gathers momentum, Forgotton Anne sweeps you up in its imaginative adventure.

Playing like a mix between a puzzle-platformer and a Studio Ghibli film, you explore this dystopian underworld where lost objects become living beings. The morality of how you interact with them is constantly questionable, building to an ending where I was genuinely divided as to which choice to make.

The voice acting is superb, much better than you would expect from an indie title, and the message the story delivers in the final act makes you truly question your own attitude towards your possessions.

Honourable Mention: Yoku’s Island Express, the pinball-centric dung beetle Metroidvania I never knew I wanted.

Biggest Disappointment: Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery

There’s so much to like here. The structure makes you feel like a Hogwarts student. The nods to both the films and the books show there are die-hard Potter fans on the development team. The story is engaging — far from the lazy tie-in I was expecting — and I truly wanted to solve the mystery.

But I can’t. Because it’s a free-to-play title, so naturally there are time and money barriers put up and how dare I want to progress at my own pace.

The grind required to simply keep your character’s skills at an acceptable level to progress with the story, combined with the length of time each lesson or section takes, becomes unbearable in the second year and is not at all flexible to whatever else you may be doing in life. For example, you get more XP from an eight-hour lesson and if you spend all your Energy at the start, it takes up to three hours to fully recharge. But it takes three full bars of energy to five-star the lesson, so you need to log in at certain times to avoid missing the end of the lesson.

It’s one of the titles that I wish had a premium alternative, because it would have been great fun to play through without the constant barriers the business model puts in place.

Honourable Mention: The fact that I still haven’t got Spider-Man… sorry, Marvel’s Spider-Man.

Rebekah Valentine

Personal Game of the Year: Minit

2018 was the year when I quit playing AAA games almost entirely and focused only on indie titles that instantly stood out. Nowhere was my jump from big games to small games more evident than my love of Minit, a lo-fi top-down adventure played sixty seconds at a time.

Stripped down graphics, necessarily short but quirky dialogue, and environments without a single unnecessary piece make Minit a shining example of a game with nothing to get in the way of the player enjoying exactly what they are doing at any given moment. It’s evident in every second (you will be hyper-aware of each second) of this game that someone carefully minded how the player might move, look, and react. You somehow always have exactly enough time, despite never having enough. The end result is a smooth, rewarding, and speedy loop of movement in which my brain is firing on all cylinders as my duck-like character trots along, eagerly planning my route to the next puzzle.

Minit is the most considered game I’ve ever played. It’s proof that with a strong enough gameplay concept at the core, fancy graphics and a million sidequests are unnecessary to delight a player… though its kicking soundtrack certainly doesn’t hurt.

Honorable mentions: Celeste, Gris, Forza Horizon 4, Hollow Knight

Most surprising game of the year: Paratopic

Born and raised in the heart of the Midwest USA, I feel safe saying I had never encountered a game that captured the place I grew up in before Paratopic. This strange, unsettling short looks like it climbed right off of the PS1 and feels like the kind of horror movie you watch on accident out of boredom, but then can’t get out of your head. Three intertwined stories about a bird watcher, a smuggler, and a hitman weave in and out of one another in broken vignettes that never quite explain themselves, but in a satisfyingly unsatisfying way.

And yet! Despite not being at all interested in horror, Paratopic has lingered in my mind since I played it, enticing me to return in hopes of comprehending the meaning that surely must lay just below the surface of this weird tale of VHS tapes, a strange red bird, and a haunting figure in the woods. The game’s eerie familiarity, clever writing, and striking ideas about what can be gameplay (Squirting ketchup bottles! An uneventful drive on an empty road with nothing to do but change between two radio stations!) were a true novelty in an industry of bog-standard gunplay and routine jumpscare horror.

Most disappointing game: Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

The first few hours of Where the Water Tastes Like Wine took me delightedly back to my college American Literature courses, back to folktales and Frost poetry and dreams of Manifest Destiny. When it comes to simply telling tales and exploring how stories evolve, Good Shepherd’s tale about tales captures life, struggle, and the how humans tell their stories and explain their world with some of the most fantastic writing I’ve come across in games.

But the disappointment lies in the execution. Between the folds of its numerous narratives, I was forced to drag my slow, skeleton player character for hours across empty stretches of the US map to the tune of the same (admittedly excellent) theme song sung in different styles for different regions. Then, when the story took up its next beat halfway across the country, back I trudged.

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine sacrificed how the player experiences stories for the stories themselves. Were it a short story collection, I’d be able to praise it better.

Haydn Taylor

Personal Game of the Year: The Banner Saga 3

Beautifully rendered art reminiscent of grimy ’80s cartoons, a deceitfully deep strategic combat system, and some of the finest writing in games, The Banner Saga 3 offers more of the same in the best possible way.

Unlike many video game trilogies, The Banner Saga tells a single story, rather than three loosely connected ones. While it’s technically broken up into three games, each instalment is more like a chapter of the same work than a separate entity, and yet each manages to feel distinctly unique.

While The Banner Saga is effectively a visual novel broken up with turn-based combat, Stoic Entertainment has achieved so much with the limited structure. From evoking the uncomfortable sense of being relentlessly pursued, to witnessing the world falling apart at its very seams, The Banner Saga trilogy is a masterpiece.

Saving the world is the bread and butter of video game storytelling, but so rarely does it feel like the world needs saving. In the Banner Saga, and most notably the third game, the sense that world has been irreparably damaged lingers, and any wistful thoughts of the past are mired by the stark realisation that everything is different now.

The Banner Saga 3 is a fitting end to the series and left me reeling for days, contemplating how I could have done things differently.

Most Surprising Game of the Year: Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

Looking at the art direction, complete with a cartoonish anthropomorphic duck literally waddling around a glum post-apocalyptic world, I was fully expecting Mutant Year Zero to be a dud. But much to my surprise, The Bearded Ladies somehow glued those disparate elements together in a way which is both genuinely heartfelt and effortlessly funny.

It manages to be a tense and gruelling experience of tactical turn-based combat, survival, and stealth. Here again, The Bearded Ladies took ideas that shouldn’t work together, and made something special.

A little wonky in places, Mutant Year Zero is pretty unforgiving, and it takes hours to fully grasp the more nuanced elements. But once all the pieces slot into place and you can stalk through areas putting down enemies with ruthless efficiency before pulling off a meticulously planned ambush on the big baddy, that’s when the magic happens. It’s an absolute gem.

Most Disappointing: 2018

I didn’t offer up any notable mentions above, because it’s been slim pickings and all of the best games I’ve played (or re-played) in 2018 are from years gone by.

It was quite the opposite when looking at disappointing games however. From the drudgery of Hitman 2 through to the bloated return of Guacamelee, it’s impossible to nail down a real winner here.

Call of Cthulhu was a prime contender, just because I had genuinely expected something better than the shallow, incoherent mess that was the final game. And Fallout 76 was also in the running, but the series hasn’t been good since New Vegas, so it was more of a grim acceptance than disappointment, though the sheer scope of its failings are truly remarkable.

Obviously we had God of War, Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption II, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, all of which will doubtless appear on a dozen Game of the Year lists before 2018 is finally taken out back and shot. But the size and detail of these games isn’t enough to make them interesting.

Nothing has matched the lurid violence of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, the elegant design of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, or the wonderful weirdness of Nier: Automata. Overall, 2018 has been a damp squib peppered with crowd-pleasures that, while obviously good, just aren’t for me.

Brendan Sinclair

Personal Game of the Year: Marvel’s Spider-Man

Marvel’s Spider-Man is everything I want out of a modern AAA game. It takes the established open-world AAA formula, applies it to a gorgeous facsimile of New York City and makes the simple act of travelling from place to place a compelling and almost joyous experience. That was the very heart of the game as far as I was concerned. The rest could have been substandard at best and I probably still would have finished the game and enjoyed the experience.

Fortunately, Insomniac isn’t big on “substandard.” The environment and movement may be the star attractions here, but the supporting cast (combat, side activities, narrative) is every bit as essential to Marvel’s Spider-Man as Aunt May or Mary Jane is to Peter Parker. Insomniac gets closer to the modern comic book Spider-Man vibe closer than any previous adaptation came to any version of the character from the printed page. From the at-times melodramatic main storyline to the sometimes goofy side stuff to the obnoxious mid-fight one-liners, the game operates within the well-established boundaries for the character, yet never feels restricted or lacking in room to play with the characters and premise. It embraced the classic themes and tone of the character and made them feel eternally relevant rather than interminably rehashed.

I’ve seen enough AAA open-world games and Spider-Man adaptations to know that both ideas are rife with pitfalls for developers. A game mixing the two, where every aspect lives on a spectrum between “brilliant” and “merely excellent,” doesn’t just happen, no matter how talented the developers or how high the budget. Well done, Insomniac.

Honorable Mentions: Wandersong, Night in the Woods, Flinthook, Yoku’s Island Express

Most Surprising Game of the Year: Hollow Knight

Count me among the ignorant masses who didn’t have Hollow Knight on their radar until the game was released on Switch in the middle of the E3 Nintendo Direct video. I’m not typically big on Metroidvania (Yoku’s Island Express earned an honorable mention because its pinball proficiency offset its Metroidvania leanings), but Hollow Knight’s stunning visuals were the spoonful of medicine I needed to wash the backtracking-intensive game design down.

I never finished it, of course. My corpse is still lying somewhere in the inky blackness of uncharted territory on an exploration run so long just thinking about trying to track it down again makes me tired. But for a Metroidvania that came out of nowhere (for me), I enjoyed it far more than I would have thought.

Most Disappointing Game: Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite

I know it came out in 2017, but the initial reviews kept me on the sidelines until this year, and I kind of wish I had stayed there. As a fan of both Marvel and Capcom and someone who counts Marvel vs. Capcom 2 among my favorite games ever, I felt like I’d probably find something to like here. I was wrong.

I can’t even narrow down what exactly didn’t work for me about this game because it seemed like nothing did. The art style, the roster, the campaign mode, the infinity gems game mechanic… I just wasn’t interested in any of it. I know it’s here as my “most disappointing” game, but I’m actually having a hard time ascribing any strong feelings to it at all. Mostly I’m just curious how something that seemed targeted so precisely for my tastes wound up so far from the mark.(source: gamesindustry.biz )