Games You've Beaten in 2018

[MetalCaveman]

Necromancer pretty much breaks the game, which is why it's so fun, eventually you're just able to spam exploding ghouls and those things are awesome.  

[toxicitizen]

Damn, sounds like that would've made my initial playthrough more enjoyable hahaha. There were a few really frustrating combat difficulty spikes on Apocalyptic.

[Mal]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden Country

 

I'm freed from this game. I enjoy this expansion but this being a prequel really put a damper on things story and character wise. Which kind of sucks since I identify myself more with this Lora and company than Rex and company. Combat and overworld exploration is much tighter though since you don't have an army of Blades to juggle around (read: grindy). If you thought the combat in the base game was good then please try this one out.

 

I think overall I will give XC2 a B+ (out of S) despite all my naggles I have about the game. If I were younger and less versed in Anime Bullshit (tm), I'd be all over this game. Tons of growing pains (and tutorials till the end) but shit if the combat is fun as hell. Hopefully someday I'll get to play XC1 and then have the pleasure of playing XC3 whenever it get announced and released.

[Thursday Next]

Overcooked! 2

Played through this with the gf on the Switch. Three-starred everything, but I think we'll need extra people for four stars. Fun game though.

[Mister Jack]

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

 

I picked this up a while back and got a little over halfway through it before I set it down and just never got back to it.  I am pretty sure I'm getting Smash Bros soon, so I figured I should try to scratch that off of my Switch backlog. It's pretty decent, although the difficulty can vary wildly depending on your team layout.  It's never as hard as XCOM, but there were some fights where I really struggled until I changed to Mario/Rabbid Peach/Luigi, after which I steamrolled through most of the obstacles in my path. Frankly, there is little reason to use anybody besides these three.  Mario is required, but Rabbid Peach is the only real healer you have and Luigi can get up to four shots in one turn with the proper skill upgrades. With that kind of team, the only thing that will give you any real trouble is the bosses, particularly the final one. I also have to mention that the boss of world 3 is great, easily the funniest and most memorable part of the game.

[TheMightyEthan]

I loved that game so much. I finally sold it after I 100%'d it and the Donkey Kong DLC, but I wish there was more of it to play.

[Mal]

Earth Defense Force 5

 

Holy shit. This is amazing. Best EDF yet. We lost fighting the hectors but we gained more by fighting frogs and greys. Seriously, they are far more interesting to fight than the hectors. The frogs would be the closest to the hectors. The aliens comes in their regular and heavy armor forms. You won't be oneshotting them with a sniper rifle since you need to knock off some armor first. 

 

Also that final mission. Holy shit. 

 

Oh yeah. GOTY. Totally not bias. 

Edited December 18, 2018 by Mal

[Mr. GOH!]

I finally beat RDR2 and I loved it.

 

Spoiler

A lot of the criticisms of the game are true; the missions don't actually involve all that much different action, though the locales and story beats may differ; it's a slow, sprawling game and everything takes forever; it is rife with collection and fedex side quests that add nothing. That said, I loved the setting, the story, most of the characters, and how everything in the game, including the slow actions and fiddly-at-first horse controls, really adds up to feeling like you are playing a character in the Old West. I don't think I have ever played a more immersive game. Dutch and the gang are among my favorite groups of video game NPCs, if not my favorite.

 

The story is pretty great overall, as are the majority of the narrative side quests. I wonder if the ending is different if you play Morgan as mean bastard as opposed to a gunslinger with a heart of gold. Arthur's death is very affecting, as are his relationships with most of the gang. 

 

I really enjoyed that there are two epilogues that are each almost as long as regular story chapters, though it always felt wrong to take Marston out adventuring and exploring when he has duties bake at the ranch. I liked how you can do all these repetitive chores on your ranch for a measly 8 bucks at the end of the game day when you could probably get way more than that searching the countryside for bandit gangs to eliminate. Honest work does not pay as well as violence. 

 

It is probably not my personal GOTY, but it a an enormous achievement and I will be thinking about Arthur Morgan, Dutch, John Marston, and the rest of them for months and years to come.

 

[MetalCaveman]

Metro Last Light, finally got the Redemption ending! \m/ \m/  

[CorgiShinobi]

Smash Ultimate's World of Light (a.k.a. Story Mode)

 

I did everything, aside from doing the alternative endings for not completing the requirement for the true ending. The true ending, of which, is pretty darn tough if you haven't found your main or the right Spirit to get you through the onslaught. It's Sakurai, so if you're familiar with how he does Kirby true endings, it won't be that much of a surprise. Getting every Spirit in World of Light will net you a fair amount of the game's total Spirit total. I did the Spirit Board every now and then, and honestly I would recommend doing Spirit Board after World of Light because I was getting repeats once I progressed further in the game mode.

[TheMightyEthan]

 

Finally beat Red Dead Redemption 2, this amazing, god-forsaken, beautiful game. It is my GOTY, and others, including @Mister Jack and @Mr. GOH! have already expressed everything I would say better than I could.

[Pojodin]

1.       Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

2.       Forma.8

3.       Dear Esther: Landmark Edition

4.       Don't Knock Twice

5.       N.E.R.O.

6.       Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

7.       I Am Setsuna

8.       Rime

9.       The Silver Case

10.   Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

11.   Cuphead

12.   Owlboy

13.   Typoman: Revised

14.   Transistor

15.   Unravel

16.   Claire

17.   Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

18.   Axiom Verge

19.   Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

20.   God of War (PS4)

21.   Beyond: Two Souls

22.   Aviary Attorney

23.   The Evil Within 2

24.   Murdered: Soul Suspect

25.   Resident Evil REmake (PS4)

26.   Hyper Light Drifter

27.   Octopath Traveler

28.   Hollow Knight

29.   Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

30.   Resident Evil 0 (PS4)

31.   Super Mario Odyssey

[TheFlyingGerbil]

That's quite the list. Which was you favourite game on there?

[TheMightyEthan]

 

Snuck Shadow of the Colossus in just under the wire for 2018.

[TheMightyEthan]

Assuming I don't finish any more games this year (a huge assumption, I know), I beat 20 games total:

 

Opus Magnum

Blue Reflection

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

Bastion

Tiny Metal

Telltale Batman: Season 2 (RIP Telltale )

Assassin's Creed Origins

Surviving Mars

Destiny 2

God of War

Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris

Destiny 2: Warmind

Uncharted 4

Mario + Rabbids: Donkey Kong Adventure

Uncharted: Lost Legacy

Life Is Strange: Before the Storm

Spider-Man

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Red Dead Redemption 2

Shadow of the Colossus

 

My most played platform by number of games was PC, with 55% (11 games):

 

 

But going by hours it was PS4, with 50% (186 hours):

 

 

If it weren't for RDR2 PC would have won both categories handily. That game alone accounted for 66 hours, and that's even with me doing almost no side content after about the halfway point of Chapter 3.

 

PS4 also wins for most hours per game, at 27:

 

 

A big part of that is RDR2, but even without that game PS4 would still win the category. The rest I believe is due mostly to the two Destiny expansions, which were pretty short and drag down the PC average.

 

I was expecting this year to be the year of the PC for me, but PS4 actually made gains as compared to last year, which I find interesting.

 

I ended the year with a backlog of 7 games, the same as what I started with, so at least I'm finish games as fast as I acquire them. And 6 of those 7 I got within the last 6 weeks, so really I was doing pretty well. I removed 28 games from my backlog throughout the course of the year. The reason that's more than the games I beat is because some games I take off once I realize I don't want to play them anymore, without actually finishing them. The games that earned that dubious honor are:

 

Tyranny - This was a good game that I just lost interest in before getting all the way through it. I never really played classic CRPGs, so I think going back to that genre puts me at a disadvantage.

Metro 2033 Redux - I should have known before I got this one, I was never able to get into the original Metro 2033 either. I want to like it, but for some reason I just don't.

Okami HD - I just wasn't having fun.

Styx: Shards of Darkness - Same as Okami.

Yooka-Laylee - Same. It just felt soulless.

Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock - I've read that the expansion really improves this game, so I may give it another shot at some point.

The Long Journey Home

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - I was really enjoying this game, until I got to a level that just seemed way too overwhelming.

Dying Light - I loved the running around and hiding from zombies, but hated actually fighting them, which the game makes you do too much.

Valkyria Chronicles PC - I didn't even make it to the tank mission this time.

Into the Breach - This is a good one for playing when I have a little time to kill, but not one I'm probably ever going to just play through.

 

So that was my year in games.

[toxicitizen]

Didn't play as many games this year. I usually shoot for 50+ but that's kinda hard when you spend half the year playing nothing but Warframe. And I've already managed to not finish Grim Dawn by the end of the year because of Rainbow Six Siege, so it doesn't look like things are gonna go back to normal next year lol. I also kinda forgot about my spreadsheet this year, so I'm pretty sure there's at least one or two games I forgot to log. I already converted my backlog into Steam categories so that I can keep better track of it next year. Anyway, here it is.

 

 

23 games, all of them on PC and nearly half from my backlog. My only goal for 2019 is for the backlog ratio to get even higher. Italics are games that came out this year. I usually mark them to keep track of GOTY candidates but I honestly don't know if I even have one this year. With all the major releases being console exclusives, I felt pretty out of the loop and stopped giving a shit. Yakuza 0 is the one that surprised me the most by how freaking good it was and EXAPUNKS was the most sheer fun I've had with a game. So I guess those two.

[TheMightyEthan]

As a follow-up to my Shadow of the Colossus post, I wanted to add how impressive it was playing a 13 year old game with a world that was just so huge. I'm super impressed that they were able to make a game this big on the PS2.