Game Infinite's Top 10 Games of 2018
2018 has been another amazing year for gaming. Powerful Consoles, Fortnite, Overwatch League, Rise of 4K, all have brought technological evolution to gaming, and gaming has become more widespread and popular than ever before. This year was also packed with so many great titles that many if they had come out in another year would be a shoe in for Game of the Year. Competition for that acclaimed title was fierce and we saw so many amazing games. 2018 saw the power of Xbox One X and PS4 Pro really shine with some of the most beautiful looking games we have ever seen. This list contains all the major AAA games that I played that I thought were some of the best of the best. If one of your favorites didn't make the list, or perhaps I didn't get to play it, make sure to comment what your favorite games were! Due to the sheer amount of great content produced this year, a separate list will be made for my favorite Indie games (excluding promoted GiFriends members games), so great titles like Donut County or Semblance will be on that list. We saw many great ports and enhanced editions like Injustice 2, Diablo 3 or Arena of Valor on Swich, that as well will get their own lists.
Here are some Honorable Mentions that didn't make the list, but I still enjoyed:
Just Cause 4, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Hitman 2, OnRush, Mega Man 11, Darksiders 3, Battlefield V
10. Shadow of the Tomb Raider 8.0/10 (Reviewed on PS4 Pro) (Full Review Here) First up is Shadow of the Tomb Raider. This game almost didn't make the list, because of a very rocky launch. The launch version was frought will bugs, and graphical downgrades that looked worse that the first reboot game did on Xbox 360. I was very disappointed at its state at launch. However, within a few weeks it was patched and significantly looked better. I was origianlly going to give it a 6/10 score due to its state at launch but thankfully the game was quickly improved. After the patches it looked and played like we would have expected from this title. Once it was presentable what we have is a very great game. The game play is super fun with challenging puzzles and diverse traversal. Simply getting from one point to another feels like a puzzle of traversal or stealth. The game does better than any game at genre jumping, while maintaining tone. The game can fluidly go from horror, to adventure, to puzzle, to shooter, to tactical, all smoothly. The story is intriguing, the game is super fun, and you just want to keep exploring Lara's journey in a very interesting game. Camilla Luddington who plays Lara give us an amazing performance. Everything from her vocal inflections, inquisitive tone, and emotion in high intensity sections is amazing. When she gets sad or angry, you can feel the weight in the story and identify.
SOTTR is half off at many retailers for the Holidays, so I definitely recommend picking it up. You can read the full review here.
(Shadow of the Tomb Raider Gi Gameplay)
9. Soulcalibur VI 8.5/10 (Reviewed on PS4 Pro) Full Review Here One of my favorite fighting series is the SoulCalibur series, and the sixth installment does not dissappoint. The game earns its place on the list from its best in class character creator alone! This game contains one of the best character creators I have ever seen in a game. Species, Body Type, Skin Tone, Equipment, Fighting style, everything can be meticulously crafted. On top of the fun you will have building customer characters, the gameplay itself is polished and smooth. Fighting games can suffer from being too simple and boring for hardcore fighting game fans, or too hard and complex for intro players to get used to it. The balance between those two is hard to achieve and SoulCalibur VI achieves it beautifully. The game manages to be approachable, but scales well for pros. The game is hindered by its lack of effort put into its story mode. This game could have been higher on the list if it had a fully fleshed out story mode with cutscenes and voice acting. While this review was made before the character arrived, 2B from the Nier Automata game is now available as a DLC character and she is super fun. With her release, I definitely suggest now is a time to visit the game if you haven't. Read the full review here and stay tuned for the Game Vault review with 2B.
(SOULCALIBUR VI Gi Gameplay)
8. Super Smash Bros Ultimate 9/10 (Reviewed on Nintendo Switch) Few games can break beyond the confines of "gamer circles" and get people who do not usually play video games to play the title. Games like Fortnite, Red Dead Redemption 2, Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild are three recent titles that really appealed to a wide audience. Super Smash Bros is the latest game to do this. People I know who never play video games, are talking about Super Smash, and is a popular topic amoungst my non gaming peers. Its approachability and wide appeal is in no way a distraction from the hard core gamer. This game has detail that appeals to core gamers. This game has a surprisingly good story mode that follows Kirby on a journey to save all the other characters from a cosmic entity. The game also does something I have never seen before. This game has the biggest cross over in nerd history. Avengers Infinity War is put to shame by the 70+ characters in this game! I critiqued games like Injustice 2, and even SoulCalibur Vi for their small rosters. I feel that releasing fighting games with 10-15 characters in the modern AAA next gen environment is something that needs to be worked on. Too many fighting games are releasing with small rosters and choosing to slowly add more. In the modern era where games are just simply huge with massive worlds, fighting games need to justify their prices with rosters to match. Super Smash Bro sets the new standard, raises that standard, and puts other fighting game rosters to shame. They proved that you can make a game, make it balanced, and still release many many characters. At 70+ characters plus more coming with DLC, this game continues to be fun. You continue to want to unlock more characrters, and try characters you've never played before. The replayability in this game is amazing, as it is a game you can play for hours or for minutes. Due to how late in the year this game release, I haven't had time to give it its full review yet, but I just couldn't leave it off the list. I have played enough of it to know this game is amazing and worthy of a very solid 9/10. Stay tuned for an upcoming full review for more.
7. Call of Duty Black Ops 4 9/10 (Reviewed on Xbox One X) (Full Review Here)
Weeks before the announcement of Black Ops 4, rumors began to spill about the absence of a single player campaign. During this time, I was considering skipping the game this year. To think that based on my initial thoughts, that this game would make it on to the top ten list surprised even me. There's one reason and one reason only: BLACKOUT. Zombies and Multiplayer feel average and another iterative update that if they launched alone without a campaign the game could have been a massive disappointment. However, the inclusion of Blackout made this game a must buy. Black Out is the franchise's first approach to the battle royale genre, and this game does it beautifully. This game in my opinion is the best example of battle royale we have seen yet. It has the feel and tactics of a militaristic take on the genre that frotnite doesnt have, and the AAA polish and look PUBG does not have. I would have rathered Blackout be its own continual game that was standalone and continuously updated. Read the full review here.
6. Far Cry 5 9/10 (Reviewed on PS4 Pro) (Full Review Here) Far Cry 5 was the first game of the year that I really enjoyed. In such a back heavy year where the majority of the best releases came in the last few months, Far Cry 5 gave us an amazing open world adventure earlier in the year. This game was an amazing journey, and it sparked some creative and wacky ideas with a fan theory of my own. It encourgaed conversationa and excitmement around my gamer friends as we discussed our progress and what happened. The beauty of pursuing Hope County, and fighting the Culte procided absolute endless enjoyment. This game contained some of the best Sniper gameplay I have ever seen, and introduced to us a fun and unique companion system that other games should emulate. There are few things more enjoyable than driving or flying around hope county in a range of vehicles, or watching evil super turkeys killing bears, or hunting UFO's in this crazy game. This game also contains in my opinion the best Villian in recent gaming history, Father Joseph. This game is jammed back with awesome cool things, that only the full review can do it justice. Watch it here.
5. Assassin's Creed Odyssey 9.2/10 (Reviewed on PS4 Pro)
Assassin's Creed Odyssey is latest installment in the long running franchise, and it is definitely one of the best. Assassin's Creedo Odyssey feels like Origins 1.5, and thats an ok thing, because Origins was an amazing game, and this game just simply adds to that. While at times it will look and feel like the same game, I am ok with that. They do it in a way that feels addative rather than repetitive. This game feels like they took everything great about Origins, told a different story, and simply made it better. I harshly criticized Origins for it's ending and its treatment of the "true" main character, but their mistake last year was not repeated with an inclusion of a "choose your protagonist" system. Everything from the map, the naval system, and the side missions are doubled down making this game feel vast. My biggest negative of the game that hindered its enjoyment is an unfortunate victim of circumstance. The game has a broken bug on PS4 that breaks the photo gallery. If you take any pictures in the game, it not only prevents you from seeing the Odyssey photos but your entire gallerys photos. I've never seen a game, break a PS4 system before. This issue was widespread enough that google searches and smaller reporting sites were seeing the same issue. This prevented many of my photos to make it into rotation, and prevented a timely review. Dispite promises to the contrary, the issue I never saw resolved. It adds a "fear of missing out" to the game, where you don't want to keep playing because you are afraid of missing photos. Still, this unusal situation I felt unfair to detract from the game's score. The game itself is amazing, even if it suffers from some balance and pacing issues. It just happens to be hampered by a fixable glitch. A patch went out that claimed to fix it, but it didn't for me. If you are looking to get the game, I would try to recommend for Xbox or PC until that error is fixed for evreyone. The game is too beautiful to miss out on photos, as you will want to on 4K consoles. Kassandra is the main characters I played with and her story is quite intriguing. The game also adds a new and fresh RPG system to the series for the first time. Honestly, this makes no sense from a lore standpoint as you are viewing historical events that have already occurred; so really having the ability to choose dialogue and make story decisions, is kind of odd, but it makes for a better game. The map is so huge and the game so vast that you will get lost in ancient Greece; I recommend it.
4. Spider-Man 10/10 (Reviewed on PS4 Pro) (Full Review Here)
Who would have thought that a super hero game would ever make it on this list? Let's face it. If you put Batman aside for a second, super hero games are almost always bad. They for years have been buggy low budget cash grabs that just plain suck. If you don't believe me look at Thor, Iron Man, Green Lantern, and countless other bad ones. Superheroes have been dominating the box office in Hollywood but they haven't found their mark in gaming. Spider-man helps change that significantly. This is a massive open world, with countless suits, enemy types, and a compelling decent length story. The voice acting is phenomenal and the game actually was nominated for GOTY by the Game Awards, which is no shock to anyone who has played it. For the full review, check it out here.
3. Red Dead Redemption 2 10/10 (Reviewed on PS4 Pro) I never played the OG Red Dead, and I didn't go in knowing any characters. So the success of this game mattered little to me. Do you ever have a game that everyone is telling you is so amazing, but you just have a hard time believing them? Red Dead Redemption 2 was that for me. The game had countless 10/10's before I even clicked play for the first time and everyone was raving at how great a game it is. The problem for me was, the first chapter is incredibly slow and not much happens. It contains one of my biggest pet peeves in gaming and that is "forced slow walking" sections. The first few hours is slow walking everywhere, alot of dialogue with and about characters you don't yet care about. Then the game commited the unforgivable sin that really turned me off to it. After an entire chapter of slowness, it deleted hours of gameplay and made me play many unfun hours again. I had to play virtually the entire first chapter twice. It took knowledge of this upcoming list to even get myself to play the thing again. I finally made it to chapter two with freedom to go to the open world. FINALLY I could walk and run faster. Finally I could actually go do missions and explore. This is where the game changed for the better. I could actually talk to people, so that I'd begin to care about them, while the first chapter just expected you to by default. This game has so much detail that if you only play the first chapter you will miss out. It has crafting, npc's galore. It has spontaneous events in the world. You can hunt bears, you can ride country sides. It has a cinematic camera that can make you feel like you are watching a western film. This game almost got put into backlog limbo because of its first chapter, but believe me push through, because what is waiting for you on the other side is a true 10/10 game. Now, these top four games are all 10/10 so what separates them all is minor details and a little bit of my own preferences, but they all really deserve a spot on your gaming shelf.
2. Detroit Become Human 10/10 (Reviewed on PS4 Pro) (Full Review Here) Detroit Become Human is the biggest Game Awards snub of the year, in my opinion. It wasn't even nominated for GOTY, and in my opion it is one of the best games this year. Now I realize this style of game isn't for everyone, but this game's story and overall experience is one of those once in a long while experiences that everyone should try. it does heavy cinmatics right, and is in the company of good games like Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, and Until Dawn. This game contains some of the best visuals, facial animations, character modeling, and even random details in the world you will ever see in a game. It is simply one of the best looking games I have ever seen. I really heavily considered the final order I was going to put these top games as Game Infinite has four 10/10's this year. I really did consider putting Detroit as number one, but I am going to say this. Detroit is my "Favorite" game of the year. While I think the number one spot is subjectivly better, Detroit I enjoyed most. Detroit contains a choose your own path style story telling that rivals the Mass Effect games. After each main story you can see the countless possible paths that you could have taken. In fact entire characters could be dead or missing from scenes based on decisions in past missions, and there are entire segments or areas that can be accessed based on certain mission choices. You will spend the entire game wondering what would have happened if you went down a different path, said something different, or did something different. While past games have given us illusions of choice, Detroit does better than any at giving us real permanent choices. This game ever one ups other games in the genre by giving us THREE stories that intertwine and have three main characters that each can die at different times.
I admit, this game is in a niche genre, but it deserves your attention and is amazing. It wins on story, visuals, replayability, and message. Read the full review here.
1. God of War (2018) 10/10 - GAME OF THE YEAR (Reviewed on PS4 Pro)
A top many game of the year lists is the amazing next installment/reboot of GOD OF WAR. This was an amazing gamble on Playstation's part. They made a new installment of one of their most recognizable IP's and they completely changed the format. They changed the camera perspective, the pacing, the tone, the gameplay, and most noticeably the setting. This would be like Xbox making a new Halo as a comedic third person buddy cop game. To take that risk and pull it off alone is impressive. God of War fans old and new love the game, but that isn't enough. God of War became the best game of the year. Featuring an older Kratos, you embark on a Father/Son story that has the emotional weight of The Last of Us, combined with the gameplay escort mission quality of Bioshock Infinite. A traditionally cold, murderous, rage induced, and distant Kratos is slowly replaced with a Father figure, in a way that is true to his character maturing. The world is beautifully made, with the new Norse mythological setting, but what is even more impressive is the continous single camera shot. The entire game is one continous shot. No cuts or jumps, it feels so smooth. The previous game feel very episodic with stages of bosses, and that has been replaced with a very character focused story. The premise of the story is Kratos and his son are on a journey to scatter Kratos' wife's ashs atop the highest peak in the realms. This journey leads down them a interesting adventure across the realms. The game is not without its flaws, including somewhat repetative bosses, lack of norse gods, and weird difficulty spikes, but they are totally compensated by amazing gameplay, story, and emotion, keeping it at that 10/10 and pushing it to undeiable GOTY2018. Read the full Game Infinite Review here.
Comment what your favorite/best game of 2018 year was! Did your favorite make the list? What would you add? Tell me on social posts! Stay tuned here on gameinfinite.net/news for more end of year lists, and the Most Anticipated Games of 2019.
