Hi. Here are the best videogames from 2018.

CELESTE

Matt Makes Games

Celeste succeeds by how effectively it mirrors and scales the relationship between player and its protagonist. Madeline’s resolve to ascend and conquer an intolerable mountain neatly overlaps with the hazards the player must endure across Celeste’s basic challenges and extremely harsh (and mostly optional) content.  Madeline’s friends soothe her escalating mental health while the player can accept highly customizable reductions in the mountain’s obstacles without suffering a gate-keeping, resolve-shaming penalty. Celeste is brutally difficult but also wants to give its player and its protagonist a hug, providing it with an identity beyond the typical masochistic platformer or gameplay-absent narrative experience.

VAMPYR

Dontnod

Vampyr drives the desire of the player against the will of its protagonist. It creates sharp edge, and the ensuing conflict has the power to bore, excite, and infuriate an audience.  Depending on your admiration (and patience) for its rampant ambition, Vampyr is either an unassuming action game or a garrulous gothic network of austere vampire folklore. My review.

YAKUZA 6: THE SONG OF LIFE

Sega

Yakuza 6 applies themes of fatherhood and masculinity as coping mechanisms for intense interpersonal drama. While it surrenders the sweeping ambition that defined Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 5, it feels sharper, more focused, and more honest about its intentions. At age 48, it’s impolite to define Kazuma Kiryu as an old man, but it’s clear that he—and Yakuza 6 as a whole—are devoted to passing their experience on to the next generation. My review.

DEAD CELLS

Motion Twin

Dead Cells is cultured, clever, and collected fusion of roguelike canon and metroidvanian doctrine. Discovering its wealth of secrets drives the player’s curiosity while a proficient performance, derived from countless combinations of weapons and options, rewards their personal dexterity. Dead Cells, from any imaginable approach, thrives in a powerful cycle of surprise and satisfaction. My review.

DONUT COUNTY

Ben Esposito

Donut County posits a world where raccoons crave not only trash, but also apocalyptic profit. This manifests into a physics adventure game with a primary mechanic of expanding the size of a trash-swallowing hole that also swallows everything else. Donut County is a meditation on greed interrupted by a mischievous heartbeat, which is probably what you want from some sentient raccoons outfitted with preposterous technology. My review.

ASTRO BOT RESCUE MISSION

SIE Japan Studio

Astro Bot Rescue Mission neatly unfolds platforming’s trick and tropes with immunity from the traditional hazards of virtual reality. Immersed in Astro Bot’s kinetic charm and engaged by its clever novelties, you’re left admiring the medium’s strengths rather than cursing its limitations. Astro Bot is a treasure for PlayStation VR enthusiasts. My review.

TETRIS EFFECT

Monstars Inc + Resonair + Enhance

Tetris Effect is a euphoric balance of intensity and serenity. Rarely do games manage either with stability, let alone perform both in concert. Tetris Effect’s audio and visual assault is as powerful as its score-chasing quest for order and perfection, leaving the player overwhelmed with raw optimism and kaleidoscopic emotion. Tetris never required a sequel, but it now feels inseparable from Tetris Effect’s compliment. My review.

428: SHIBUYA SCRAMBLE

Spike Chunsoft

428: Shibuya Scramble is a 2008 Wii visual novel localized for the first time in 2018. It’s a series of hilariously staged photographs with text overlays that relay the intertwined narrative of five eccentric people. Somehow, this became one of my most entertaining, surprising, and unexpected experiences of the year. The Verge likened Shibuya Scramble to a fusion of 24 and Arrested Development and I can’t picture a more apt comparison. Eighty-seven potential endings grant levels agency and freedom not afforded to games in the AAA space and provides a satisfactory sense of control over the direction of each character. Shibuya Scramble’s format is weird and static, but the game—playing with and deciding how action of one character affects another—is as engaging and confident as anything else in the medium. There’s nothing else out there like this game, or certainly none as good at it.

GRIS

Nomada Studio

Gris is watercolor wonderland fashioned to explore and confront elements of despair and anguish. Its communication through sound and motion paints visually arresting moments and creates intimately powerful movements. Concealed inside all of this is clever and versatile platformer, an asset Gris is confident to hold as collateral for the sake of its delicate heart.

YOKU’S ISLAND EXPRESS

Villa Gorilla

Pinball? Pinball. Pinball. Through Odama, Rock of Ages, and Sonic Spinball, attempts to fuse pinball with traditional videogame objectives have proven awkward and unnecessary. Yoku’s Island Express selected metroidvania as its live blending ingredient and created the only interesting pinball game of the last half decade. By hiding upgrades and objectives in extremely specific points on each “table,” it taught me pinball methods and mechanics in ways actual pinball never could. It took abstract techniques I never had the patience to learn and made them work inside an actual videogame. Yoku’s Island Express is a model adaptation of anything from the real world into an artificial experience.

Previous top ten lists: 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017

Because I am normal, here is a spreadsheet of every game I have finished since 2007.

There was also a site-wide game of the year / holiday gift guide article assembled this year.

Other 2018 games I greatly enjoyed:

The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories – This Missing is a heartfelt affirmation of identity expressed through emotional turbulence and macabre staging. Its performance as a puzzle-platformer—suspiciously slapdash and presumably exploitative—revels in instability, but finds resolution through a singular and concordant message. The Missing’s pieces fit its puzzle, even if the player (and The Missing’s protagonist) believe they won’t. My review.

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age – The battle between Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy has always felt like the struggle between comfort and safety against the heedless ambition for dynamism. I’ve bet on and thoroughly enjoyed Final Fantasy every single time, but Dragon Quest XI’s quiet conservatism—at what’s likely the peak of the current console generation—proved to be a much needed retreat into isolationism and security. It feels like home, which is (very occasionally!) a place I don’t mind visiting for a while. Nathan Stevens’ review.

Mario Tennis Aces – For a two week period I was extremely into Mario Tennis Aces. I was always mechanically competitive in fighting games but never fully integrated mental aspects (like deliberately but secretly leading an opponent exactly where you want them) into any aspect of my game. Mario Tennis Aces convinced me this was possible. I assumed it would dominate my competitive landscape for the remainder of 2018 and, while I was wrong, I still think highly of its prime last June.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit – Life is Strange 2’s free prequel (freequel?) managed an effective and progressive look into the nature of negligence and abuse between a widowed father and his son. A standout moment is when Chris finds his deceased mother’s vinyl collection, prompting Bat for Lashes’ Moon and Moon to start playing over a collection of idle, panning wide shots. Integration into Life is Strange 2 (which I haven’t played), successful or not, isn’t dependent on these beautiful moments. The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit exists in its own time.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – Fifteen years ago, when I rented a house with all my friends, Smash Bros. Melee ruled a half decade of my life. Enthusiasm has faded with every subsequent release. It’s harder to consistently get enough skilled and interested people together to play any local multiplayer game. I still can’t deny the appeal and the strength and the volume of content in Smash Ultimate. I bought it. I spent ten hours unlocking the full roster for a three hour night with those same friends. I don’t know when I’ll need it again, but it (and a shitload of GameCube controllers) will be waiting when I do.

Mega Man 11 – I felt like Mega Man 11 misinterpreted Mega Man’s identity as an underlined signature of extreme difficulty. Then I started using the Double Gear system, its time-stopping and power-upping contribution to Mega Man’s framework, and started to view its level design as a deliberate challenge instead of a menacing obstacle. Double Gear works and provides the game with a much needed personality. I wish Capcom would have pushed a numbered Mega Man game in even more eccentric and risky directions, but Mega Man 11 was actually just…fine. After Might No. 9 (a game I somehow finished), “fine” is pretty good! Steve Schardein’s review.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 – Kiwami 2 finds Yakuza deliberately and desperately recycling and remixing pieces of its past. While it remains a mesmerizing intersection of violence, eccentricity, and drama, its impulse to reprise Yakuza’s very recent history can wear out even the most ardent enthusiast. In a vacuum Kiwami 2 is a beacon of its namesake’s power and an imposing remodel of Yakuza 2. As the fifth Yakuza game in less than three years, Kiwami 2 may have reached Yakuza’s breaking point. My review.

Moss – A tiny mouse is an unassuming heroine, dioramas are inconspicuous puzzle boxes, and virtual reality often prefers exhilaration to gratification. Moss erases these assumptions and projects its bold ambition across a gorgeous procession of puzzles and platforming. In a medium consumed by flash and artificiality, Moss presents a mature and genuine alternative. My review.

Shadow of the Colossus – It was assumed a remake of Shadow of the Colossus, aided by the fidelity afforded by modern technology, would remove the opaque impressionism that gifted the PlayStation 2 original with its dreamy atmosphere and rob its world of the balance between beautiful and bleak landscapes. This was correct! But it also provided a new way to interpret the same geography and was, at the time, the first game I played in 4K on an HDR-equipped television. In its own time, the original work will always remain superior, but this was a nice way to see how someone else might look at the same blueprint. Steven McGehee’s review.

West of Loathing – Imagine a Western where scouring the American frontier is as urgent as calculating the severity of a hat. This balance sustains West of Loathing’s mixture of zealous role-playing and profuse outpouring of absurdity. It’s proof that capable writing can not only texture eccentric maneuvers in design and presentation, but also prevail as a primary attraction. West of Loathing celebrates Western ambiance and revels in disciplined goofiness. My review.

The American Dream – The American Dream presents a slice of Americana in which guns are fetishized to their idiotic maximum; guns for cooking, guns for dancing, guns for marrying, and guns for childbirth. While The American Dream’s action is adjacent to conventional VR shooting galleries, its vicious political commentary satirizes gun culture and leaves no survivors. The obliteration of reality appears to be a natural side effect of defending the indefensible. My review.

A Way Out – Whereas Josef Fares’ Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons was a novel, heartfelt take on sibling intimacy, A Way Out is a pulp masquerade of two impossible, insufferable dipshits fumbling their way through the worst imaginable crime noir. A Way Out is a total disaster and its unintentionally pathetic and mentally vacant characters qualify the entire project as benign camp. Playing through it with my wife was a highlight of 2018. I don’t think I laughed harder at a game than the during the twenty minutes we spent “testing” a treasure chest of weapons by firing them at each other while non-playable characters refused to address our maniacal actions. We howled at every attempt A Way Out made to force tension and drama from poorly cloned dirtbag cinema. Everything in this game pretends to be normal while nothing, anywhere, resembles anything normal. A Way Out is a fucking mess and a must play. Dillon Sweeney’s review.

Tempest 4000 – Tempest 4000 is a euphoria induction apparatus designed to simulate the mystique of vector display technology and the ancient magnetism of exotic electricity. It is overwhelming and it is hard as shit and it doesn’t care. Tempest 4000’s score-chasing energy, in the wild purity of a “video game,” feels like a magical retreat. My review.

Jettomero: Hero of the Universe – Jettomero: Hero of the Universe offsets despair with panicky optimism and traps the ensuing fallout inside of a dizzy planet-obliterating robot. It’s an alien venue for exploring the range and control of depression, but also one that expresses comfort and warmth along its journey. Resolution, through either perception or reality, casts Jettomero as a sympathetic hero negotiating inescapable desolation. My review.

Burnout Paradise Remastered – One of the larger tragedies of my 2008 list, in which I included games like Patapon, was the omission of Criterion’s Burnout Paradise. 2018 provided an all-in remaster  which, while disingenuous to place alongside new 2018 games, allowed me to, at least, mention it here. Burnout Paradise’s foundational multiplayer interface was allowed to live again for a month or two and provided affirmation that, yes, it really was that good. I drove Burnout Paradise Remastered to a platinum trophy and look forward to doing it all over again in another decade.

Miscellaneous 2018 Notes

Idiot Pollyanna Wonderland Award: Detroit: Become Human

I Don’t Understand Why My Wife Puts Hundreds of Hours Into This Award: Fallout 76. The popular and accepted narrative is that Fallout 76 stepped away from design principles Bethesda set with Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 and completely abandoned the ironic spirit of Black Isle’s post-apocalypse dystopia. From what I have seen, this seems true! From what she has played, it doesn’t matter. She wants to poke around another loot-filled wasteland and is overjoyed at the ability to bring friends with her. Triple digit hours have been lost. She acknowledges Fallout 76’s faults but they’re not enough to get in her way. She loves it and doesn’t care if (almost!) no one else did. Speaking of which, here’s Michael Mays’ review.

Mild Disappointment 2018 Award: Nintendo Switch. It would be unrealistic to expect Nintendo to swing as hard as they did in 2017. A new, main-line Zelda, Mario, Xenoblade, and Splatoon formed an unprecedented slate of year-one software. With that in mind, it was disappointing to see 2018 define the Switch as a modern port house. Last generation Wii U ports and zillions of indie games were in the same playbook Microsoft and Sony used for their consoles in 2014. It is understandable. Mario Tennis Aces somehow being the best new Nintendo-published game this year is not. Smash and Mario Party are extremely good compilations. Pokemon is a well-intended lateral move awaiting a traditional pair of entries. It’s weird as hell the Switch didn’t have a defining Nintendo release in 2018.

Am I Old? Award: God of War and Below, among others, seem as if they were designed and tested on a computer monitor and no one ever considered the possibility of experiencing them on a couch in front of a television, normal human being style. In the former, menus overflow with disorganized information displayed in microscopic text. A patch did…nothing?. I understand user-interface design is an art and, while the menus are very stylish, they fail the basic purpose of clearly and concisely relating vital information. Below is a similar case. The game revels in mystery and discovery, but I don’t think obscuring a tiny shield on a tiny character was part of the game plan. I played Below for an hour before I realized I could block anything. Either quality assurance failed these cases or no one cares. Or I’m old.

I wanted to play Where the Water Tastes like Wine, SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, Iconoclasts, Lost Sphear, A Certain Magical Virtual-On, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Minit, The Messenger, Runner3, Moonlighter, Octopath Traveler, WarioWare Gold, Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country, Life is Strange 2, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, Soulcalibur VI, Hitman 2, Florence, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, those new levels in the Switch port of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Return of the Obra Dinn, Beat Saber, Wandersong, One Hour One Life, The World Ends With You Final Remix, Shin Migami Tensei Strange Journey Redux, Deltarune, more of Ashen, The Alliance Alive, Paratopic, Monster Hunter: World, Road Redemption, and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

Greatly Anticipating 2019: Resident Evil 2, In the Valley of Gods, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Crackdown 3, Psychonauts 2, Trials Rising, Devil May Cry 5, Luigi’s Mansion 3, The Sinking City, Code Vein, Kentucky Route Zero Act V, Daemon X Machina, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Rage 2, ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove, Yoshi’s Crafted World, Sable, Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course, Spelunky 2, Afterparty, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Bayonetta 3, Babylon’s Fall, Judgement, Hades, Mortal Kombat 11, The Outer Worlds, UFO 50, The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, The Pathless, Dead Static Drive, Tunic, Killer Queen Black, Sunless Skies, Metro Exodus, Jupiter and Mars, and Wattam

Obvious Bomb 2019: Days Gone

Presumptive Bomb 2019: Anthem

Incomprehensible 2019 Success That I will Somehow Play And Finish: Kingdom Hearts 3

Not coming out in 2019: Shenmue III, Death Stranding, Dreams, Metroid Prime 4, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Shin Megami Tensei V, Oddworld: Soulstorm