Steve this contest strangely exposed what a weird, “disappointing” but not actually year this was for games. I wasn’t bored once this year. I had Fortnite and PUBG and their long shelf life predecessors Rocket League and Overwatch. Even crappy games like Mario Tennis and Mario Party seemed okay this venture around. God of War, Spider-Min, Red Dead all better than the average game even if they also had flaws. They made sequels to my personal GOTYs from recent past in Hitman and Just Cause.
Yet, and perhaps only in contrast to last year, we are faced with a Tetris game being the one the staff is most likely to agree upon, and another Call of Duty sequel the one the whole staff can agree not to fight against. Hitman 2 did nothing wrong, it’s just more of the same, which is what everybody asked for, but it’s feeling like the drop from Uncharted 2 to 3 as far as GOTY interest goes. God of War feels like it came out last year, it’s goodwill seems to have faded the same way Horizon’s did in hindsight.
Because last years games were built to last, because of the rise of free to play, because of the huge increase in quality and practically of budget, alternative gameplay titles like Jackbox, 2018 felt like a great, busy year in gaming.
But looking at Tetris and Not Another Teen Call of Duty, the lack of long term lasting impact for GOW, the passed-over, eh-not-for-mereaction by half the staff to Spidey, the absolute hatred of parts of the staff for “Red Dead 76”, GOTY makes 2018 in gaming look like the type of years when next gen consoles launch.
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