One of the things I’ve had in my life, in some form or fashion, since I was six years old is video games. I’m sure I’ll touch on my history with video games in the future, though I wanted to post some of my thoughts on games over the last few years starting with 2018.
My Best Game of 2018
This is difficult because both God of War (2018) and Marvel’s Spider-Man are phenomenal games and if you held my feet to the fire my answer would change day by day on what I felt was my best gaming experience for 2018. I love both experiences and even over two years later I can’t declare a winner.
God of War (2018)
I absolutely loved what Santa Monica Studios did for breathing life into the rage font Kratos and giving him more depth. This game takes a look at someone with… we’ll call ‘anger issues’ and giving them a child that he loves but can’t figure out how to live with is an interesting experience. Couple these intellectually stimulating drivers to push the story forward against the ever-expanding gameplay fighting mechanics you have a recipe for a fantastic overall experience. Honesty moment, I frankly struggled within the opening hours of the game’s combat system, but this was a ‘me problem’ and not something I’d fault the game on. I struggled with the animation timing of Kratos’ ax swing and hitting the enemies I wanted to hit, essentially the rhythm with which you need to play the game to win. After some practice and as more of the game opened up in terms of play options and approach to combat this really was not a problem anymore. As a father who has struggled with anger and who deeply loves his daughter, I could easily relate to the themes at play here. Two big thumbs way up, I’d highly recommend this game.
Marvel’s Spider-Man
I should confess before I begin my tirade here, I grew up a HUGE Spider-Man fan. I read all the comics I could get my hands on (I… actually still have them… ahem) and at age 10-13 I couldn’t think of anything better than the freedom of swinging through the air, fighting for doing the right thing regardless of my selfish wants / the impact to my life and making the world a better place. These are the general themes of Peter Parker’s Spider-Man that I look back on and think made Spider-Man great.
The 2018 video game Marvel’s Spider-Man hits all of the boxes I need for not only a great Spider-Man experience, but a great video game. Does it have great web-swinging? Check. Does it wrestle with the themes of doing the right thing against the impact on your life? Check. (The quick dumpster mission in the first half of the game is funny and really hits home what Peter sacrifices to be Spider-Man) Does it have the classic villains in a way that’s not tired but fresh? Big check.
The care and attention to detail put into nearly every aspect of the writing and creation of this world is what makes me really love it. It’s not perfect and there are aspects on a second playthrough where I had questions that were inevitably answered by ‘the plot dictates it so’ – but considering how well everything else is done I’m willing to let it go. The updated view and perspective on villains and specifically Peter’s relationship with Otto Octavius is very well done. I feel like I could gush about this for multiple more paragraphs, but you should pick it up and play it yourself. Have you played it yet? Good.
Yakuza Kiwami 2
I am admittedly a late entry to the Yakuza games. I never played them when they were new in the mid to late 2000s. At the time games were on the back burner for me and things like marriage, getting a house, building a career took center stage at the time. When gaming interest resurfaced in my life Yakuza was at entry 4 or 5 and I was too intimidated to jump in.
I came into this franchise with Yakuza 0 – most of the comments here are specific to Yakuza 0 because I both don’t want to spoil story beats and feel similarly about Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1, and Kiwami 2. I was caught off guard in a positive way by the tone and humor of the game balanced against a backdrop of beat-em-up violence. I mean there’s a turtleneck Wayne Newton look-alike villain, Yakuza 0 is set in Japan in the 80s and there is over the top levels of drama and gang-driven violence with themes of honor and self-sacrifice to do what the protagonist thinks is right (regardless of how misguided he is, his heart is in the right place).
I have no doubt that these games aren’t for everyone, but for me personally, I was entertained from start (Yakuza 0) to finish (I’m calling finish as Yakuza Kiwami 2 for this description) with a small exception of some of the side quests feel like they drag on a bit. Most of them are funny, lewd and funny, or outright hilarious (I’m looking at you Michael Jackson video side quest). The writing is great, the gameplay is serviceable if not a bit repetitive, and cutscenes are just fun. If you haven’t played a Yakuza game and at least minorly enjoyed anything you’ve seen of the campy kung fu movies of the last 40 years or so – this is worth picking up and checking out. If you’ve played and enjoyed your time with Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 1 and are curious if Kiwami 2 is worth your time? It is.
Soulcalibur 6
Soulcalibur for the Dreamcast is one of my favorite fighting games of all time. Throughout 2016 and 2017 I was really wanting to play another Soulcalibur game – to my luck Soul Calibur 6 was announced and was something a reboot of the franchise. For anyone who may not know, Soulcalibur is a 3-dimensional fighting game with weapons. The original Soulcalibur (which also oddly happened to be the second game in the franchise, the first one was called Soul Edge and didn’t do nearly as well as Soulcalibur so isn’t widely discussed) had some unique attributes in that weapons were used and you could get a ring out. The controls were fantastic and intuitive and the Dreamcast platform specifically was incredibly responsive. The Dreamcast version is held by many as the superior version of the game as it’s been optimized incredibly well for the Dreamcast hardware, even more so than the arcade version. Digital Foundry did a great retro piece I’d recommend checking out if you’re interested in some of the details here.
To me, Soulcalibur does a thing that all great games do. It’s easy to pick up and very difficult to master. My daughter even enjoys playing these games (though I struggle with pieces of it that I’ll explain in a moment). The simplicity of the game is similar to the most recent Tekken entry, Tekken 7 (which makes sense because the same team worked on both). One of the most challenging things in game design is making something intuitive enough to pick up and feel you have the hang of it, but know that you aren’t great at it yet and make you want to keep coming back for more. Soulcalibur has this in spades.
Soulcalibur 6 is a fantastic update and reboot of the franchise. The fighting is great, the story retelling and cinematics are nonsensical but fun and it has another interesting single-player story mode for finding more excuses to fight the CPU. The guest characters are also fun, Geralt from the Witcher franchise among others from widely varying franchises make for interesting additions – which is a Soulcalibur staple.
The primary issue I have with the game is the ridiculous level of fan service in the game. It’s to the point I’d be embarrassed if my parents saw me playing this game and I’m not entirely comfortable with my daughter playing it. I mean honestly… I’m pretty far away from being a prude, but this is ridiculous. I respect cultural differences and understand that certain cultures encourage ‘giving the fans what they want’ to cater to the more sexualized side of life. Though for me personally this level of objectification and dehumanizing aspect of any sex (man or woman) is not ok with me and I’d prefer it be taken out of my entertainment.
There have been a lot of games in the past decade that harken back to the 90s. I’m talking about side-scrolling, minimal story action games that were challenging and fun. You could burn hours playing them and just loved the loop of them. Most of these types of rogue… lite… light… like…. whatever games never really did much for me until I came across Dead Cells. The game is an indie-developed game that made the feeling of playing so natural and fun I didn’t necessarily… most of the time… mind that I got my butt handed to me.
The loop progression is relatively minuscule as you essentially start over with every death, but you notice yourself getting better every time you play. Generally, when there’s a somewhat challenging game and I die often I don’t generally enjoy myself (I’m looking at you souls/borne games) – though with this one I feel it’s constantly within my grasp and the game isn’t being unfair. I love video games, but I’m not good at them (unlike this guy who is unbelievably good at them – check out his Demon Souls Remake or Nioh videos – just wow). This game is good for burning a few minutes to a few hours as you find yourself getting better and further with every run. This is an incredibly well-done game.
I’m somewhat conflicted about this game (as well as the next one on the list), but certainly one of the best things I’ve played in 2018. I’ve tried getting into Monster Hunter games in the past, though they were incredibly arcane and difficult to get into. I remember the last time I tried to get into a Monster Hunter game was Monster Hunter Generations for the 3ds. I figured it would be something to help me get through morning exercise bike rides to focus on a game as I pedaled and… well ultimately went nowhere. I fell off relatively quickly as the game doesn’t seem to cater to people wanting to use the game for the time period I had to dedicate – also I had no idea what was going on so I moved on.
When Monster Hunter World came out I picked it up to give it another shot as some of the early coverage for the game was focused on how approachable the developers tried to make this game over others in the series. This series, by the way, has a die-hard fan following who are flabbergasted at why people like me find it unapproachable without significant commitment. At any rate, the game released and I launched in and was actually able to follow what was going on and what was expected of me (for the most part) – this enabled me to appreciate and respect the gameplay loop (kill monsters, make better gear, kill bigger monsters, repeat) and what the game is which is why I am putting it on this list.
The troubles came as I and my online friends attempts to start a game. And oh.. my… god. I’m not the best video game player, nor do I think I’ll ever be. That’s fine, I still love them. I’ve played video games since the 1980s and to figure out how to connect with my friends to play a game in this game felt like it was the late 90s and I was getting out modem commands to connect with a friend for a game of Duke Nukem. Well, sadly ATDT didn’t work but I did have to look up an online guide to walk me and my buddy’s through step by step on how to connect. Connecting to friends with online games was a problem solved over 15 years ago, though that’s not at all discernable in the mess I saw in this game. In all fairness, this is something that may have been fixed since 2018 (as it’s 2020 when I write this) – I’d just like to underline how absolutely and unnecessarily painful it was to play this game with a friend.
Online woes aside, this game is fun and if you want to know what the fuss is about for the Monster Hunter branded games, this is the one to check out.
This is another game I’m conflicted about… In some ways, this game is one of the best games of the year, in other ways I just couldn’t stay playing it for some specific reasons. I do believe it’s one of the best gaming experiences of the year, but it’s positioned at the bottom of this list for a reason.
First, the best aspects of the game… This is a cowboy simulator. I’ve never seen the lifestyle of being a cowboy represented in a better way through any games or movies. I’m sure some books have done a phenomenal job of it, though I’ve not read them personally (maybe I should pick up some Louis L’amour…?). The voice acting, voice direction, graphical fidelity that captures the majesty of the western United States (I’m not going to go into the HDR debacle that permeated the release, though it’s worth mentioning that certain graphical features like HDR were broken upon release and were later corrected through patches), action in the game is great and the story truly helps propel the game forward. I really was interested in what was going on with Dutch, I cared about the caravan/congregation of his followers and was mesmerized by their slow descent into madness. The slippery slope of ‘I was pushed into this and I’m justified’ into waking up one day and finding you’re the bad guy is a great narrative journey and hook.
Transitioning to the not-so-positive aspects of the game, I’d like to start with the general statement of the number of times I’ve inadvertently made myself a wanted man with a bounty on my head is kind of ridiculous. Some of it was my fault (accidentally shot a guy… or my horse… oops… by pressing the wrong button), some of it I feel was unfair (like running down a town square and inadvertently hacking them off and having them shoot at me). Too many times I felt like I was simply defending myself when I was doing something and I was getting shot at, I return fire and find the law is after me for it.
Another gripe (and I know it’s been covered in other places) is the absolutely plodding pace at which you control the protagonist. I can understand the arguments for it – they need to load in certain things behind the scenes, they want you to hear the honestly fantastic quality of writing and voice acting in camp, and ‘it’s just realistic’. I can understand all of these things, though as someone who is not a teenager with unlimited time on my hands and just wants to go somewhere to do a thing and have the game seem to actively fight against me to do that thing efficiently is particularly grating.
The final aspect I’ll comment on that I didn’t love and honestly caused me to not finish the game (I got over halfway through it) is the tight constraint in which they tell the story. The choices I make really aren’t meaningful in terms of driving to the conclusion of what happens. The game was spoiled for me and I won’t spoil the game for others so I’ll just say that I applaud and respect the story beats as I feel they’re bold and something to behold. I just struggle with how the story ends (even though it sets up Red Dead 1 very well – Red Dead 2 is a prequel). I can’t get more specific without spoiling anything.
The west pictured in this game is harsh, incredibly well done and while it has frustrating aspects I’m glad I was able to spend time in this world.