Alright so throughout the year I kept thinking man 2018 really just doesn't hold a candle to 2017 in terms of games. I think I might have been wrong? Theres not the sheer crazy volume of insanely good games but man I love a lot of games in 2018 too! Pretty good year! I once again didn't play dota and instead played probably too much Destiny, but not to the point where other games got pushed out of the way. I played most everything I wanted to at least a little bit and will return to what I feel I want to spend more time with next year.

Old Games I Played This Year That I loved Enough to Briefly Type About Them

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

War of the Chosen is such a smart expansion of all the great things XCOM 2 was already doing. The addition of the 3 new faction units and the fun new playstyles they bring to the table from the straight up Zealot from Starcraft to the humans who have been partially turned into aliens and fly around the battlefield with ziplines and Freddy Kruger claws. The new options they provide and how much they mean to the team add a ton to the way you can play. The other smart additions are the Chosen themselves, they show up onto a battlefield at random in a mission and you instantly have to change your play style to try and deal with them and it shakes up the gameplay from an enemy standpoint in such an interesting way every time. Everyone who enjoyed XCOM in any capacity owes it to themselves to play this game.

SOMA

Quick Honorable Mentions: (Actually Quick)

I just wanted to quickly state the 4 games that super narrowly missed my list for one reason or another. Forza Horizon 4 is a game that I simply didn't play enough of. It was an absolute blast from what I did play and I hope to get back around to playing it again at some point but it just got pushed out by other games. A Way Out was one of the most fun multiplayer and Coop experiences I had all year. It was what I felt was an extremely unique experience that while not the best written or acted game was a fun romp from beginning to end that facilitated a lot of good goofs and let me get attached to the character I was playing for gameplay reasons. State of Decay 2 is a buggy mess that is clunky as a Stomp production but it is a game that I had a ton of fun getting attached to my survivors and being horrified everytime a Juggernaut tore them in half (which happened multiple times...) Tetris Effect is my secret number 11 and a game that helped convince me to buy a VR headset. It is an absolutely beautiful experience that I enjoy coming back to a few times a week to play through some of my favorite boards but in the end I just think I plain had more fun with the rest of the games on this list.

The Top 10!!!!!!!!!!:

10: Megaman 11

I'm a pretty big fan of the older Mega Man games, 1, 2 and 3 are all what I consider pretty excellent versions of that sweet sweet mega man formula. I also enjoy quite a few of the different games in the greater Mega Man canon like the Zero and X games but those 3 are the only 3 I've truly played and enjoyed. So I was very ready for a good mainline Mega Man game and hey they made one! The double gear mechanic is such a fitting and great way to evolve what is essentially many of the same mechanics into a new generation of Mega Man. The level design is often top notch and the boss fights are some of the best in the series. When the bosses themselves use the speed or power gears the difficulty ramps up and you truly feel like you are on even ground. Of course you can always find the optimal route and defeat all the bosses with the weapons they are weak to but I certainly managed to sit there and guess the wrong order entirely and had to defeat them all the hard way!

9: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Smash has always been one of my absolute favorite series. Hours and hours have been lost to playing local multiplayer with my brother or against my friends in various configurations over the year. To have a Smash game that celebrates its legacy and brings back so much of what people love from the series and bring it forward into a new generation is great. The world of light mode is often incredibly clever with the battles they reenact but I felt like I wanted it to end a couple hours before it ultimately did. All of the new additions feel great and add different feeling characters to the cast and it plays phenomenally. I imagine if I'd had a bit more time with the game it could be higher up but thems the digs.

8: Dead Cells

Dead Cells feels incredible to play and is one of the most satisfying games of 2018. Getting that perfect build and absolutely melting enemies and feeling like a whirlwind of death is some of the most fun I've had playing games this year. But I just haven't had THE run yet, something always happens (and to be clear its always my fault) I get greedy and open a cursed chest, get too liberal with my health potion usage, or just plain make bad moves and don't beat the game. This is not the games fault in anyway but its why its not higher on my list, I have yet to achieve ultimate satisfaction in Dead Cells and its something I will continue to chase. Also the Switch version has serious slowdown issues on some levels.

7: Marvel Presents: Sony's Spider-Man

This is one of the most fun games to play of the year. Moment to moment I was never bored with just DOING things in Spider-Man throughout my time with it. It was always satisfying to get into a fight, swing around, or do most of the random side activities. I'm a big fan of Arkham combat and while I don't think this quite tops some of the things Arkham Knight does with that kind of combat *cough why don't you just copy all the quick launch gadgets and make your enemies more immediately readable cough* I did love the mobility of Spider-Man in all aspects of the gameplay. The story really is up and down for me on this one though. Peters relationships throughout the game are so well done and are some of the best parts of the game, but most everything with Mr. Negative falls quite flat and hes a large part of the middle of this story. He is just too one dimensional of a character to carry the middle of this game as a villian and until the last third or so that part of the story is pretty flat. The end of this game was incredibly emotional for me and I thought that Spider-mans performance was excellent in delivering what could have been seen as poor lines.

6: Dragonball FighterZ

Fighterz is a game that I didn't know I really wanted as a kid. The Budokai games were the hottest shit around when I was really into DBZ as a kid but I just didn't know how good it could really get! This game plays incredibly and honestly it was at 9 when I started writing this list but as I started to type everything up I thought eh this thing could probbbbably go up another slot. The style present within all of the level 3s and just how perfectly flashy everything looks while managing to stay under that threshold where it becomes a chore everytime you see it or do it is incredibly key. It encompasses everything about Dragonball Z, makes it look better than it ever has before and is totally rad and surprisingly accessible for an Arcsys fighting game. It doesn't hurt that the top 8 of Evo for this game this year was some of the most exciting fighting game play I've ever seen. Also this game got me to actually watch Dragonball Super, I think that's a good thing? Also I'm putting another picture in.

5: Monster Hunter World

Why did this game and FigtherZ have to come out on the same day?! There was plenty of time devs plz. Anyways this game really scratched the looty Destiny itch when Destiny was in what we will call a bad state! It also made Monster Hunter playable to people who were interested in the series but didn't know what the fuck a paint berry was. Every weapon was something I wanted to try because they all had totally unique playstyles but I eventually settled on the Switch Axe and Hammer with the occasional dip into Bows and the Charge blade. Every hit in that game is satisfying knowing that in some capacity you are whittling down this great beast or bringing it closer to a stun or close to a limping state. Every phase of the fight is so well designed to be read visually without a big health bar saying NERGIGANTES REMAINING HEALTH. Instead you know that when he retreats limping back to his nest he will be more dangerous than ever and have full black spikes and do that bullshit dive attack that you have to put your weapon away to avoid every 5 seconds. But if you are good enough(not me) you can knock down his spikes and make sure he never even gets to use that attack! My only real complaint is that low rank is dumb and it took me way too long to get a Zora Magdaros Gem.

4: God of War

How did this fall all the way down here? I was pretty sure this was my Game of the Year for most of the year! God of War is such a complete experience that evolves the series in such a needed way. I enjoyed the original trilogy but that was a long time ago and I like to think that I and games have both grown up a fair bit. The combat in this game was oh so satisfying throughout and provided enough challenge on hard that I don't think I ever want to try Give me God of War or whatever its called. The different ways you can spec out Kratos to be more effective at one thing with his various combat styles brought so much variety to me, am I going to fight a difficult boss like a Valkyrie? Better get some of those shield charges with I-Frames so I can just stun her with that instead of having to avoid that HORRIBLE Valkyrie that jumps up and crashes down upon you screaming VALHALLA! If you fought her you know the one. Anyways the story was engaging throughout and made me care about Kratos' relationship with his son and had so many great moments of Kratos being so completely out of his element because he has to be a father.

3: Destiny 2: Forsaken

Forsaken fucking nailed it y'all. Warmind was an excellent step in the right direction towards righting the colossal manowar that was Destiny 2 and honestly at the time I thought that was satisfactory. But man then Forsaken comes along and shakes up so much of what were core systems to Destiny 2 Year 1, systems that I had grown to enjoy and thought I would miss for awhile. Then I thought about how rad it would be to use a hand cannon shotgun and Whisper of the Worm and oh yeah Destiny 2 year 1 probably could have been way cooler??? Point is Forsaken brought with it incredible content that I'm still running to this day (fuck you Riven I've killed you more than all these other fools but i still don't have 1000 Voices) and added so much to the PvP experience between the time to kill changes and the reintroduction of the special weapon to every fight loadouts. I'm excited for the future of Destiny and it will definitely be the game that is 'home' to me for the foreseeable future. I'll play other games and enjoy the hell out of them but I suspect I will always come back to Destiny.

2: Astro Bot: Rescue Mission

Astro Bot was such a delightful experience from beginning to end. Not only was it the game where I was like oh holy shit VR it is also such an incredible 3d platformer on top of it. Not many companies are out there making 3D platformers let alone ones where the perspective and camera is one of the strongest traits with VR. The camera is honestly always not noticeable at best in a 3D platformer and this is such an evolution of that in that the perspective of this game is one of the most fun parts. Whether it be peeking around a corner to look for a bot you heard that needs rescuing or going in and out of water as it washes over you. The game made water levels fun! At first I thought it was just this perspective an the novelty of VR but as the game introduces and compounds on the devices that you shoot from your controller it becomes complicated and was constantly delighting me with new mechanics. This was my number 1 for quite some time for pure fun factor but ultimately I made a different more cowardly choice.

1: Red Dead Redemption 2

Honestly so much has already been written about this game that it seems futile to write more. But dammit the tale of Arthur Morgan has to be my favorite story in a game to date. The ending of this game is so incredibly strong that it really dissolved a lot of the negative feelings I had at points throughout the story and my time with the game. Its the best story but there's also just too much of it! By the time I was ready to really plow through the story after fucking around in chapter 2 in the open world for hours I found that it had its ups downs and its downright bizarre asides, (Guarma sucked). But by the end of it all Arthur Morgan had shown himself to be such a nuanced, well realized, and downright likable character that I had no choice but to love him and the game. There's so much game and too many shootouts but then there's also missions where I do nothing but help a recently widowed woman learn to hunt and fend for herself and its fucking delightful. Speaking of delightful the absolute cherry on top of this grand story is the Epilogue, without spoiling anything (because how many of you actually beat this?) the epilogue is utterly delightful and full of those slice of life missions and much less shooty shooty. It has such an optimistic feel to it that I couldn't help but loving it and its contents. So while its a flawed experience at times the absolute highs that you experience both with the story and fucking around in the open world make this my game of the year.