Game Of The Year — a tough call to choose the best of the best for 2018

It’s been a fantastic year for games, with some truly fantastic titles debuting — and games reviewer Royce Wilson has put together his list of the top picks representing the best games of 2018.

It’s a cliché to describe the current year as a high-water mark for gaming, but 2018 really has been an outstanding year for games, with several absolutely incredible titles released — indeed, this has been the first year in a long time where there’s been more than two extremely good and worthy games in play for my coveted Game Of The Year title.

Whether you’re a first person shooter, role-playing, strategy, puzzle, casual or narrative game fan, some excellent titles have hit the shelves and distribution services this year — something for everyone, regardless of your interest.

Picking the very best games that found their way onto my hard drive over the past year is never an easy task, but nonetheless, here are my picks for this year’s top games.

GAME OF THE YEAR — RED DEAD REDEMPTION II (Rockstar)

Rockstar’s masterpiece about the passing of the Golden Age of the Old West combined an excellent story, superb visuals and massive world into one incredible open-world experience.

The attention to detail is remarkable, and while the control system could use some work, Red Dead Redemption II offered a gaming experience which manages to be involved and dramatic, with plenty of action, humanity, humour and drama too.

It was hard to go past Red Dead this year.

The game carries on the best traditions of Westerns, touching on a range of themes including the coming of civilisation, groups drifting apart and folly of chasing that elusive Big Score. It’s a brilliantly polished absolute must play that offers a truly epic gaming experience, and with the launch of Red Dead Online, the stage has been set for plenty more enjoyment to come as well.

Polished brighter than a lawman’s revolvers, a story worthy of the best Western film traditions, packed with more bullets than an armoury full of Winchester Model 1873 lever-action rifles, and offering the chance to live out a form of your very own quasi-WestWorld fantasy (minus the psychotic robots) this game is so good that even if you don’t own a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One I would suggest seriously looking into buying one so you can experience it for yourself.

SO VERY NEARLY GAME OF THE YEAR — GOD OF WAR (Sony)

“Runner-up” doesn’t really do this title justice, in that it truly is an incredible game that’s only missed out on the shiny gold-plated top spot by the width of one my cat’s whiskers (and my fondness for Westerns).

A technical and storytelling triumph from start to finish, God of War (released by Sony on PlayStation 4 exclusively) is a shoo-in for pretty much every “Game you absolutely must play” list, and with good reason.

God of War is a seriously good game.

The story is something truly excellent, encompassing grief, father/son relationships, great mechanics and even touches of humour.

Everything about the game comes together well, it looks amazing, and it’s one of those games that stays with you long after the credits have rolled.

All in all, it’s an epic of Titanic proportions and if you own a PlayStation 4 you absolutely must play this game.

BEST PC GAME — ASSASSIN’S CREED ODYSSEY (Ubisoft)

Given that both the game of the year and the also game of the year but not quite as much are console-exclusives, PC gamers might be wondering what the best game they can actually play has been this year, and the answer is Ubisoft’s Olympian Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.

Moving the series away from a pure action spectacle closer to a fully-fledged role-playing game, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey included branching dialogue, likeable characters, excellent writing, amazing worldbuilding and a truly vast amount of content and was just generally really good all around.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is another winning feather in the franchise’s cap.

With Ancient Greece as its setting you get to explore a beautifully realised Greek world, interact with historical characters, travel the Aegean in your very own trireme, get into swordfights, Spartan kick people off cliffs, and generally live out your very own Sword & Sandal epic.

For PC gamers, this was a real highlight for the year and one of the few titles (alongside Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War) which I kept playing long after I’d filed the review — it’s an Epic game in the truest sense of the word and easily my PC game of the year.

BEST ACTION GAME — STRANGE BRIGADE (Rebellion)

Video games are supposed to be fun, and few games this year embraced that concept for me like Strange Brigade did.

A horde shooter with a 1930s adventure film aesthetic, Strange Brigade did not take itself seriously at all and went out of its way to ensure you as the player had a jolly good time shooting mummies in their undead faces with a variety of period-appropriate guns, unleashing magical amulet powers on cadaverous horrors, and searching for lost treasure which belongs in either a museum or your bank account depending on how you look at it.

Video games are supposed to be fun, and few games this year embraced that concept for me like Strange Brigade did.

With top-notch tongue-in-cheek narration perfectly nailing the style of the era, a great cast of heroes, and plenty of old-school action in both solo and co-op mode, Strange Brigade represented some of the most straightforward fun I had this year.

Given it’s also a matter of public record I love Biggles adventures, ripping yarns, the Indiana Jones films, the Brendan Fraser The Mummy film, and pretty much everything else Rebellion used as source material for the game, it should come as no surprise that Strange Brigade comes highly recommended from me.

BEST INDIE GAME — PHANTOM DOCTRINE (Creative Forge)

Basically a cross between XCOM and every really good Cold War spy thriller you’ve ever read, independent studio Creative Forge’s title Phantom Doctrine is a fantastic game about espionage in the 1980s, giving you the chance to led a team of KGB or CIA operatives against a shadowy cabal planning to destabilise the delicate balance of power between East and West to keep the Cold War going indefinitely.

The missions take place all over the world and involve everything from rescuing informers and obtaining information to eliminating agents, while the agency management aspects covers everything from assigning false identities to performing MKULTRA mind control programs on captured agents.

If you like turn-based strategy games or espionage, this is well worth a play.

Incorporating everything from false identities to language proficiencies and different approaches to a mission, the game did a great job of capturing the Cold War tension and aesthetic.

I had a lot of fun with Phantom Doctrine and have no hesitation in recommending it to fans of the genre — if you like turn-based strategy games or espionage, you’ll want to intercept a copy of this one and investigate it thoroughly indeed.

BEST EXPANSION — WORLD OF WARCRAFT: BATTLE FOR AZEROTH (Blizzard)

Blizzard’s hugely popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft received a significant expansion this year in the form of Battle for Azeroth, further expanding the content and adventures on offer in the world of Azeroth.

Even as a relative newcomer to the world I was able to jump in and get involved without too much trouble, with a range of quests to undertake and places to explore.

The popular online game got a new look this year.

If you’re a World of Warcraft fan, Battle for Azeroth is well worth getting — especially if you’ve been following the Alliance vs Horde adventure for a while now — and for newcomers, it’s easy enough to pick up your sword, wand, bow or staff and get into everything the world of Azeroth has to offer.

HONOURABLE MENTION — MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN (Insomniac Games/Sony)

Superhero games have proven surprisingly hard to do well, but Insomniac Games managed to bring everything that is good about Spider-Man to living rooms across the world with their excellent take on Peter Parker’s story as he matures into a young adult still finding his place in the world.

As a PlayStation 4 exclusive, the game does a great job of recreating New York City as a playground for Spider-Man to swing around and beat up goons in, and the story is solid and very relatable as well.

This one deserved a mention.

The developers went out of their way to make sure the game was accessible to fans and newcomers alike, and succeeded very well indeed — as long as you know Spider-Man is Peter Parker and has super powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider, you can jump in an enjoy this.

It’s a lot of fun and probably the best superhero game I’ve played — and as testament to its popularity, the game has one of the highest platinum completion rates (100 per cent of all story, side missions, challenges, etc) of any game on the PlayStation 4.

HONOURABLE MENTION — NINTENDO LABO (Nintendo)

Quite unlike anything else I’ve seen this year, Nintendo Labo basically manages to combine cardboard with video games in a spectacularly successful and innovative way, giving gamers of all ages the chance to assemble a range of accessories ranging from a remote control car to a fishing rod to an actual robot.

It’s a lot of fun, adds significantly to the versatility of the already extremely versatile Nintendo Switch, and helps bring gaming into the real world even further.

One of the great things about it is you don’t have to be a gamer to enjoy it, as it expertly combines construction with gaming in an accessible way that will appeal to both gamers and non-gamers alike, and give families and friends something to work on together.

What were your top games of 2018? Continue the discussion on Twitter @RoyceWilsonAU