GAMES OF THE YEAR
From yet another excellent Call of Duty instalment to a poignant take on android life to the best that video gaming has to offer, we look at 2018’s top ten games
10. CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 4
Any other year, a Call of Duty title making even the bottom of a Top 10 Games of the Year list would have been a damning assessment of the quality of games released in the past twelve months. Rather surprisingly, 2018 presents itself as an anomaly. Where countless other developers have delivered excellent video games, so too has Treyarch with the latest entry to the Call of Duty series. The inevitable Blackout mode cashing in on the Battle Royale genre’s dizzying rise to fame has found its perfect pairing with Call of Duty’s tight and twitchy controls.
9. MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN
For whatever reason, Spider-Man has never translated all that well into the interactive world. Any outing made by the web-slinging hero onto console or PC has always felt rather uninspired, never quite capturing the childlike glee you would imagine to be derived from swinging around metropolitan rooftops on webs shot from your hands. Marvel’s Spider-Man is by farand-away the best attempt yet by a developer to bring the superhero into a video game. While never particularly challenging, Marvel’s Spider-Man will make you feel like a powerful hero.
8. SEA OF THIEVES
Largely dismissed as far too content-light to warrant its high price tag, incremental and regular updates by the developers have kept a steadily growing userbase for this now-fantastic seafaring open-world game. It goes without saying that the most fun you will have in this game is with friends. Sea of Thieves caters to both the most casual and serious buccaneers and is truly one of the more incredibly fun multiplayer games around.
7. FORZA HORIZON 4
Even with the new heavy emphasis on online play, Forza Horizon 4 still delivers the finest driving experience around, be it with friends or simply enjoying the beautiful open world in offline modes. Forza Horizon 4 delivers everything you would expect from the now-revered Playground Games. The cars look and feel incredible, delivering jaw-dropping moments that would bring a tear to the eye of the most stoic petrolhead. Truly, the crown jewel of Forza Horizon 4 is the open world that features a beautifully executed version of the United Kingdom. Rendered in all four seasons and featuring dynamic weather and lighting, Horizon 4 is an unmissable feat of graphical engineering.
6. MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD
Capcom’s exceedingly difficult Monster Hunter series has never quite enjoyed the same popularity in the west as it does in Asian markets but with the release of World, that has all changed - excpept the difficulty, of course. It isn’t easy to pinpoint exactly what makes this game so addictive but it certainly is easy to lose hours of your time inside this game in what will feel like a blink of an eye.
5. DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN
Quantic Dream are a studio known more for ‘interactive narratives’ than traditional gaming experiences. Headed by the brilliant David Cage, who’s creative input becomes the bulk of the studio’s creative output, Quantic are responsible for 2010’s groundbreaking Havy Rain and 2013’s excellent Beyond: Two Souls. Despite the accomplishments of the aforementioned titles, they simply do not hold a candle to Detroit: Become Human. The game’s philosophical take on the welltrodden discussion of the value of android life is not only novel, but also well-considered and poignant.
4. HITMAN 2
Hitman’s sophisticated brand of contract killing is something that has never quite been emulated by another developer. Hitman 2 is very much a continuation of what we saw in the previous outing but that is by no means a complaint when it comes to the venerable series.
3. SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS
It is impossible not to wax lyrical about Bluepoint Games incredible remake of Shadow of the Colossus. 2006’s Shadow of the Colossus had achieved cult status by the time this year’s reimagining dropped – and for very good reason. The sense of total isolation save for the lumbering colossi and the unimaginable sense of scale imparted by the game was not something ever truly experienced in gaming. The remake takes a deft and masterful touch to Team Ico’s original effort, enhancing and improving it in every conceivable manner.
2. GOD OF WAR
Of all the series anybody would have expected to reimagine itself as a charming and sophisticated commentary on the tribulations of a father and son relationship, God of War certainly was not one of them. 2018’s God of War is a true labour of love, surprising in unexpected and pleasant ways and with thrilling gameplay to boot.
1. RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2
Brooding and subdued, ostentatious and loud, Red Dead Redemption 2 contains the spectrum of adjectives the world of video gaming has to offer. It has it faults but the best titles are always greater than the sum of their parts. Playing this game in a methodical fashion rewards the player and it is one of the rarer titles that only get better on further inspection, where the opposite is true for many others. The distance between this game and any other mentioned in this list is vast – a true masterpiece in the art of creating video games.