Hitman 2 is the big game in this list of which I’ve probably played the fewest hours, but I played so much Hitman 2016 and while it may sound like damning with faint praise to describe this as more of the same, that sameness is still of an exceptionally high level.

Hitman 2’s graphics are already starting to look a bit Last Generation and the Ken Burns style dialogue scenes occasionally made me wonder if I was back in a Yakuza game, but the core idea of the re-playable clockwork arena is just so good and surprising and so deep and let’s face it so FUNNY I just know it will be a game I’ll be enjoying over and over again.

I like how what appeals about the Hitman game world is the small tight stages where everything is knowable and predictable and you can choose where to start your interruptions, and with Red Dead Redemption 2 the appeal is the huge unknowable unpredictable unique quality of it’s world. Hitman 2 is about as non-linear as it’s possible to be.

Donut County is a perfect example of a small game done with very perfect authenticity to its own little game universe. The game dialogue is of a piece with the graphic style which seems of a piece with the music which is of a piece with the writing and even the simple quirky gameplay.

It can be surprising how much clear definition of character is crammed into the often brief appearances.

I think it speaks volumes for Donut County that it can be played and enjoyed equally by a five year old and a forty-mumblemumblemumble year old. I actually found it delightful.

I had watched a lot of Baer Taffy and others playing this game in beta before it came out. It was a fair wait for it to come out on PS4 – and of course it came out while I was deep into other stuff but its absolutely the perfect “drop-in and punch out a run” kind of game – it’s super bright, wonderfully responsive and yes some of the shrug stuff comes off as a bit cheesy but it’s such a small part of the game it would be nuts to mark it down for a bit of “personality”.

There is enough variety in each run that it never feels repetitive and that’s no easy trick.

I did sometimes feel like it took me longer than I had to reacquaint myself with the control scheme – and this game can be unforgiving if you’re slack – but then my thumbs are old and can take a while to warm up to slow.

I very much enjoyed the first Life is Strange series and the soundtrack playlist is still on the Spotify rotation – I haven’t played Before the Storm yet – but this little stand-alone free “introduction” to Season 2 quickly won my heart.

Yes I’m a sucker for a bit of Sufjan and yes the awkward/abusive father son relationship was still a tender spot from God of War but those components alone wouldn’t have swayed me.

The writing did a great job of conjuring a real boy in a very imaginary world.

Moonlighter is a curious little gem where you loot little dungeons for junk to sell in your little shop in town to make money to buy bigger weapons & gear to explore bigger dungeons – it all works nicely and has the most lovely inventory management mini-game.

There are a couple of people in the town who I don’t really see the point of, and to thieves try to rob your shop 5 or 6 times in a 5 minute operating hours game day seemed a bit extreme, even with an assistant and the lower the chance of thieves perk, but hurry-up system in dungeons and the secret lower floors bits are great.

Also I somehow never got tired of the almost always-on music – which in itself is no small achievement.

As far as I can tell, in terms of raw playing hours I’ve spent more in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey than any other game in 2018, and while I can’t say I empirically enjoyed this game more than others, I have to concede that it was – and remains – a very playable game.

I found Alexios immediately intolerable – in fact he seemed much better suited to being the idiot stooge bad guy brother – though I’ve not seen this inverted so I may be wrong. In general I found the male characters quite wooden and hammy in their performances.

The game’s systems are evolving too – the combat good fun and offers genuine variety through the skill trees and endlessly modifyable weapon and armour loadouts. The naval combat is tighter than that in the still venerated Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag (which I still haven’t played…)

It’s been said often that this game world has clearly opted for size over depth, for sheer geographical mileage rather than any meaningful substance, and it is hard to disagree that the world through very pretty to look at, exists only in 2 dimensions and little or nothing you do anywhere in it has any real lasting impact – it’s like you’re in a very pretty dream.

For my sins I’m probably like 130 hours into this game and although I liked Kassandra immediately I can’t honestly say she’s changed since the first moments. Sure there are dialogue options referencing her being a god but really those can be passed off as wild egotism as much as character arc. 

I must admit I play this game as much out of VR as in, but if introducing someone new to PSVR it has rapidly become my go-to game.

Tetris Effect is like a very special medicine – it is like a pick-me-up if you’re down, a massive stress-ball when you’re stressed and also like a reset if you just want to give you head a break.

Positivity is an underestimated commodity in modern gaming – or media generally – but Tetris Effect will micro-dose you little hits of joy with each completed line and smother you in happiness when you get a Tetris or finish a level.

The music and the way it responds to your every move just adds to your perfect sense of agency.

Marvel’s Spider-Man seemed like a simple recipe for success – get a fantastic looking game with a great script, narrative and fantastic voice actors, add a compelling combat system with fun skill unlocks and collectibles – what could go wrong? Very little as it turns out.

Combat made my thumbs hurt – but I liked this about the game.

Like everyone else, I loved the traversal – the swinging through Manhattan Island made getting from point A to point B a total joy – though the subway vignettes for fast-travel were nice also.

Part of what I loved most about Marvel’s Spider-Man was that it didn’t really hang around too long – you play through the story, do a bit of post-game tidy-up and you’re done.

I’ve not felt the urge to explore the DLC here, which can be taken as an additional tick in the “done” box.

First off I have to say that I totally loved this game.

I don’t mind admitting that just a bit I fell in love with Arthur Morgan and shed a little manly-man-tear when he finally met the end of the non-epilogue chapters. I know people found it maddeningly slow and needlessly fastidious but as a lover of a game experience that tries to be cohesive with the world it presents.

I liked that the game was slow, or at least that it periodically “invited you to slow down”.

I totally loved how when you were out and about the “ambient animal noises” all had an actual detectable source – a real animal/bird would actually be nearby if you heard it .

God of War isn’t a novel or edgy pick for best game of 2018 I grant you. I cogitated & ruminated long and hard about whether to put God of War or Red Dead Redemption 2 at the top of this list as both were amazing to look at and had story arcs clear and strong enough to compete with the best epic highbrow TV box sets, but in the end I opted for God of War because felt it was designed to be a more Gamey Game – there are puzzles and jumping and the combat is just so brilliantly done.

God of War is bright and delicate and strong and deep and oh lordy is it deep – both the amazing voice of Kratos and “shake the windows and doors and shelves and neighbours’ apartment” voice of the World Serpent are just the most incredible sounds I’ve heard in any media.

I haven’t platinumed this game because I’ve not beaten that damn last Harpie Queen and I haven’t really been tempted by New Game Plus, but I’ve done everything else.

Yes I’m putting a second Assassins Creed game into the 2018 lists – what of it? I only finished AC Origins in January 2018 and went back for the Curse Of the Pharaohs DLC mid-year once it was on sale.

How is there space for both games in a small year?

Bayek is a much more compelling central character, he has a proper story arc unlike Kassy or Alex and although the newer game has lush geographical diversity and at times jaw-dropping verticality, there was a grandeur to the deserts and pyramids that Odyssey’s Greece lacks.

Detroit: Become Human is a deeply flawed game – one of its most glaring flaws being that it’s just fundamentally daft – but there is still something to be admired in here – the character models and facial animations are quite stunning and there are scenes/sequences that will stay in the mind for some time, and the timeline or branching story visualisation is pretty innovative.

My fundamental issue with the David Cage milieu is the assumption that people are happy to sit attentively through 5 mins of cutscene then be chastised for missing a sudden QTE at the end of it that shows up with no warning.

Modern gamer attention spans don’t tend to work like that.

Into the Breach is a game my love for exceeded my time to actually play, but what I did experience I totally loved. Yes it’s my only Switch entry on either of these lists – maybe I need to be more of a public transport commuter to be getting more time on Nintendo’s wonderful little piece of gaming hardware.

A bit like a complexo-simplified techno-chess with robots, and there have been many wise and sage things written online about the science of predictable outcomes or Perfect Information and their role in Random Number Generation, but regardless of where you stand on this debate the fact that Into the Breach lends itself so readily to this level of discussion says much for the game’s complexity and deft design.

Yes I played through Far Cry 5 and had a fun enough time as I did so but like an increasing amount of Ubisoft’s recent output, this game never felt like a cohesive experience – more like a game system with a “market tested edgy” narrative loosely tethered around it but not attached in any meaningful way.

Daft but fun enough.

The post-launch DLC and the idea of the player created levels from game assets had promise but neither delivered – the Mars and Vietnam DLC just lent strength to the feeling of Game Mechanic over plot or narrative. 

Even the not-DLC but kind of related post-release spin-off Far Cry New Dawn which is set on the same bit of fictional midwest lends weight to my suspicion that Ubisoft came up with a game engine and have been playing Scenario Roulette with the game ever since trying to find what might stick best with playing audiences.

A Way Out deserves a mention not for its highly derivative plot or its super cheesy in the wrong ways dialogue, but certainly to its innovative approach to cooperative game-play.

No the story really isn’t great and the graphics are little more than passable, but the act of playing this game with a friend – either online or sitting next to you on the couch – is still an experience unlike too many others available at the time of writing.

As I played through A Way Out with the knowledge that the flamboyant director and his brother had been heavily involved in the development to the level of character modeling and motion capture I couldn’t help to what extent those were budgetary decisions and to what extent the game was a vanity project?

One noteworthy highlight was the trophy for sitting together on a bench in the forest where you could hear the characters from Brothers A Tale of Two Sons calling to each other in the distance – as confusing as that game could be for one’s thumbs I totally loved it.

Jurassic World Evolution was the park building sim with some Jeff Goldblum voice work in it.

As a management sim it was fine and fun for a while but by no means outstanding.  I didn’t WIN at it but once I’d stopped I was happy to trade in for I think Spider-Man and didn’t feel like I’d wasted my time – hardly a ringing endorsement but I played more of this than I got to play of other games on this list and that has to count for something.

A common downfall of games of this type is the “busywork” of micro-management.

In Jurassic World Evolution the idea of earning enough credibility with factions and public to unearth fossils that will allow the player to ultimately grow your own T-Rex or whatever the exponentially more fearsome Made-Up-O-Saur is called – but in reality if your beasts surroundings aren’t totally perfect they will rather horrifically bash their head against even the toughest most electric barriers until they either die or escape and start eating people.

At its later stages Jurassic World Evolution just stopped being fun.

Fallout Shelter is in here because we kind of got into this as a family for a bit – each on separate devices like the modern family we are.

Yes I even platinumed it – no I didn’t spend any money on its insidious microtransactions – would I ever pick it up again or recommend anyone else play it? No not really.

I got caught up in Monster Hunter World’s crazy bewildering loop of track beast to hunt beast to kill beast to craft better gear from the beast to to hunt and kill bigger beast.

Monster Hunter: World is so very much it’s own game and I respect it for that. The story is nuts to the point of superfluous, but the worlds and the creatures in them are so lovingly created, and the weapon options and game balance are just perfect.

I felt bad for being a bow person but meh.