Author Topic: A Year in Review - 2018.  (Read 4484 times)

kashell

A Year in Review - 2018.
« on: December 01, 2018, 09:42:47 am »
It's that time again! 2018 is coming to a close. Once again, I thought it would be fun to have everyone reflect on their gaming journeys throughout the year. I'll make some categories. You fill them in. This has always been fun for me to read. Hopefully, it's just as fun for the rest of you.

Categories:

Favorite 2018 Release: What's your favorite game that you played this year that was released in 2018?

Least Favorite 2018 Release: On the opposite end, what's your least favorite game released in 2018?

Favorite Game Played in 2018: What game this year earns your spot for best game ever? It could be released in 2018 if you like.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2018: What's your least favorite game that you played this year?

Sleeper Hit of 2018: What's your personal sleeper hit for 2018?

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2018: What moment in a game you played this sticks in your head the strongest? Was it something awesome? Something tragic? Something completely over the top? Keep spoilers to a minimum or mark them if you can.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2018: Share a story about a cool find from this year!

I'll give my answers in the next post. Have fun!

Quick aside: I know that Smash Bros. isn't out yet and that might fill one of your categories. Feel free to change your answers. We're pretty laid back around these parts.

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2018, 11:10:34 am »
It's that time again! 2018 is coming to a close. Once again, I thought it would be fun to have everyone reflect on their gaming journeys throughout the year. I'll make some categories. You fill them in. This has always been fun for me to read. Hopefully, it's just as fun for the rest of you.

Categories:

Favorite 2018 Release: What's your favorite game that you played this year that was released in 2018?

Least Favorite 2018 Release: On the opposite end, what's your least favorite game released in 2018?

Favorite Game Played in 2018: What game this year earns your spot for best game ever? It could be released in 2018 if you like.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2018: What's your least favorite game that you played this year?

Sleeper Hit of 2018: What's your personal sleeper hit for 2018?

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2018: What moment in a game you played this sticks in your head the strongest? Was it something awesome? Something tragic? Something completely over the top? Keep spoilers to a minimum or mark them if you can.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2018: Share a story about a cool find from this year!

I'll give my answers in the next post. Have fun!

Quick aside: I know that Smash Bros. isn't out yet and that might fill one of your categories. Feel free to change your answers. We're pretty laid back around these parts.



Favorite game of 2018 - Red Dead
Least Favorite Game of 2018 -  Certainly not Red Dead
Favorite game played in 2018 - Red Dead
Least favorite game played in 2018 - Any game that is not Red Dead
Sleeper hit of 2018 - Red Dead
Favorite gaming moment of 2018 - Red Dead
Proudest collection accomplishment of 2018 -  Red Dead





Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2018, 11:30:53 am »
Unfortunately I won't be able to really answer the first two questions because I really only played one game that came out this year and that was Jurassic World Evolution on the PS4. For a park sim game it was pretty enjoyable, although there were some pretty big annoyances later on that made me like this game considerably less than I did during the first half of the game. Still a pretty good game.  So here are my answers for the remaining questions.


Favorite Game Played in 2018: Shenmue (PS4) and Shenmue II (PS4)


Least favorite game played in 2018: Fighters Megamix (Saturn)


Sleeper Hit of 2018: I guess Jurassic World Evolution.....see above


Favorite Gaming Moment of 2018: Playing through all the games in my old top 10, replaying many games I considered being good enough to be in my top 10, and then creating a brand new top 10 games of all time based off all this. It was very enjoyable, there were some interesting surprises, but it's nice to have a new top 10 games of all time that reflects who I am now as a gamer.


Proudest Collection Moment of 2018: Actually getting back into collecting. I had taken over a year off from officially collecting in the aftermath of selling a decent chunk of my collection, and it's been fun rebuilding it and starting to catalog it again here on VGcollect.

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2018, 03:39:12 pm »
Favorite 2018 Release: I might have to go with Monster Hunter World.  I haven't put nearly as much time into anything else this year and it's routinely putting out new content that has continued to draw me back in all year long.  I'm not big on the grinding aspect of the game, but this game made me love Monster Hunter like I always wanted to, but never could with the older clunky setup and mechanics.

Least Favorite 2018 Release: Metal Gear Survive is a pretty big wasted opportunity.  It's ideas could've made the game a fun spinoff as it's still all the same good gameplay of MGSV, but man is it just grindy bullshit.  State of Decay 2 is also up there for me as I had kinda hoped it would be far better than what it was.  It's almost literally the first game, with only the most minor of additions, while still having lots of bugs and generally being a very poor sequel.  I was willing to let stuff in the first game slide, because it was a lower budget first try and the devs seem very invested in this game of theirs, but seeing that they are now owned by Microsoft, I think it'll take a State of Decay 3 to get anything good out of this series.

Favorite Game Played in 2018: Sunset Overdrive! Finally getting to play it on a new PC port, this was no joke, the most fun game I played all year.  It's freedom and humor was just nonstop enjoyment.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2018: Mega Man X7.  Just a straight up bad game that is bad.

Sleeper Hit of 2018: The Messenger? I'm not super sure with this one, most people agree it's a good game, but because it's a small indie title, it's gonna get kinda buried by all the major hits this year, even with some other indie games like Celeste, even though I love this game much more than that one.  As I saw brought up in here too, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon will be the other.  It's also a real great throwback game.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2018, 06:59:27 pm by kamikazekeeg »

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2018, 04:31:22 pm »
Only played 3 games that came out this year:
Favorite: Super Mario Party
Least Favorite: Fallout 76
Sleeper Hit: Fist of the North Star

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2018, 05:01:54 pm »
Favorite 2018 Release: This is a really tough call between God of War and Red Dead Redemption II, but I'm going to lean towards God of War, because while RDR2 is an incredibly impressive and immersive achievement, I believe GoW is a better game that is generally way more fun to play.

Least Favorite 2018 Release: Ummm... Sonic Mania Plus I guess?  The first Sonic game I've played in decades and it was totally underwhelming.  It's either way too easy or way too obtuse, and turns out I just don't like Sonic that much?

Favorite Game Played in 2018: Hollow Knight.  This game is beyond impressive, especially since it was made by a team of only three people.  It is one of the best Metroidvania style games ever made.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2018: Star Wars Battlefront II.  It came with my XBone.  I played it for the campaign, which was not good.  It looks, plays, and sounds great, but as a single-player experience that was supposed to make up for the lack of one in the first game?  Total whiff.

Sleeper Hit of 2018: Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon.  This one got swallowed up by all the other throwback platformers of the year, but is just as good as most of them while being the perfect spiritual follow-up to Castlevania

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2018: The final conversation between Dad and Boy in God of War.  But there were some great ones in RDR2 as well.  Including a couple that totally blindsided me.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2018: Either picking up my complete NES Deluxe Set (and like 30 other games) at an auction, by staring down the other person bidding and not blinking, or a different estate auction in Feb where I got a ton of SNES, N64, and 3DS stuff for next to nothing.


redblaze57

PRO Supporter

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2018, 05:32:50 pm »
Favorite game of 2018 - Pre Smash answer: Yakuza 6/Spider-man
Least Favorite Game of 2018 -  Fortnite- not trying to be elitist here played for 5 minutes and deleted it. Just didn't care for it
Favorite game played in 2018 - Yakuza 0
Least favorite game played in 2018 - see least favorite
Sleeper hit of 2018 - Fist of the North Star lost Paradise
Favorite gaming moment of 2018 - Belmonts in Smash
Proudest collection accomplishment of 2018 -  Finding Tony Hawks American Wasteland on the 360
« Last Edit: December 01, 2018, 05:53:24 pm by redblaze57 »

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2018, 05:36:01 pm »
Favorite game of 2018 - Pre Smash answer: Yakuza 6
Least Favorite Game of 2018 -  Fortnite- not trying to be elitist here played for 5 minutes and deleted it. Just didn't care for it
Favorite game played in 2018 - Yakuza 0
Least favorite game played in 2018 - see least favorite
Sleeper hit of 2018 - Fist of the North Star lost Paradise
Favorite gaming moment of 2018 - Belmonts in Smash
Proudest collection accomplishment of 2018 -  Finding Tony Hawks American Wasteland on the 360

This might just be a shot in the dark, but I have a feeling you like Yakuza and Yakuza related properties lol

redblaze57

PRO Supporter

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2018, 05:53:05 pm »
Favorite game of 2018 - Pre Smash answer: Yakuza 6/Spider-man
Least Favorite Game of 2018 -  Fortnite- not trying to be elitist here played for 5 minutes and deleted it. Just didn't care for it
Favorite game played in 2018 - Yakuza 0
Least favorite game played in 2018 - see least favorite
Sleeper hit of 2018 - Fist of the North Star lost Paradise
Favorite gaming moment of 2018 - Belmonts in Smash
Proudest collection accomplishment of 2018 -  Finding Tony Hawks American Wasteland on the 360

This might just be a shot in the dark, but I have a feeling you like Yakuza and Yakuza related properties lol

To be fair I only started playing them over the summer and ended up Marathoning all I could find, so can you blame me? At least I'm not obsessed with Red Dead Redmption 2 to the point where it's all I talk about
« Last Edit: December 01, 2018, 05:55:54 pm by redblaze57 »

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2018, 06:41:57 pm »
Favorite game of 2018 - Megaman X4
Least Favorite Game of 2018 -  Megaman X7
Favorite game played in 2018 - Megaman X Legacy Collection 1 and 2
Least favorite game played in 2018 - Bram Stoker's Dracula
Sleeper hit of 2018 - Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul
Favorite gaming moment of 2018 - Devolver Digital's E3 Press Conference
Proudest collection accomplishment of 2018 - Getting a gold cart Legend of Zelda for NES

wolfen

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2018, 10:39:01 pm »
Favorite 2018 Release: God of War/Smash Ultimate

Favorite Game Played in 2018: Horizon: Zero Dawn

Least Favorite Game Played in 2018: Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD  I had to push myself so hard to try and play this and I just couldn't get through it. It felt so souless compared to the first one plus it was basically retelling the same story and the gameplay felt super inconsistent than the first game.

Sleeper Hit of 2018: I have never played a Dragon Quest game, much less a JRPG, and I had heard some murmurs of DQ11 releasing and I bought it on a whim. It doesn't feel grindy like a lot of RPGs, I feel like I can play at whatever pace I want without feeling too overpowered or underpowered. The enemy designs are so aesthetically pleasing that they inspired me to actually draw a few of them, which is really saying something. The story and characters are all so fun and compelling. Great game!

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2018: The ending sequence of God of War when Kratos and Atreus finally get to Jotunheim and find out some information with HUGE implications. Also the secret ending back at their log cabin house is super cool.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2018: Not a find but, I finally have all of the old Gamecube games I used to own as a kid which I've been slowly building over the last couple of years.

2018 has been a great year for going out of my comfort zone considering most of the games I played this year were non Nintendo i.e. Horizon, God of War, Dragon Quest 11, Black Ops 4, Unravel, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD, etc. and we're gonna get a fat Smash Ultimate cherry on top.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2018, 10:50:53 pm by wolfen »



ferraroso

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #11 on: December 02, 2018, 09:02:53 pm »
Favorite 2018 Release: Marvel's Spider-Man

Least Favorite 2018 Release: Metal Gear Survive

Favorite Game Played in 2018: Sonic Mania Plus

Least Favorite Game Played in 2018: Slime World (Mega Drive)

Sleeper Hit of 2018: Kunio-kun: The World Classics Collection

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2018: Doctor Octopus reveals itself: Marvel's Spider-Msn

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2018: Sega Dreamcast Regulation 7 Limited Edition

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #12 on: December 03, 2018, 12:56:32 am »
I guess I can do this. Why not!

Favorite 2018 Release: This might end up being Smash Brothers but as of now, Red Dead II.

Least Favorite 2018 Release: I tend not to buy or pay attention to games that I don't think I will like, so its a little tough. I found Octopath Traveller to be a disappointment but I think the concept of Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the most disappointing to me. Reception is positive but it just looks worse than last year's version from everything I have seen of it.

Favorite Game Played in 2018: Setting aside the old standbys, I put 200 hours into Xenoblade Chronicles 2, so I guess thats it.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2018: Octopath.

Sleeper Hit of 2018: Minesweeper, as always. So much time wasted...

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2018: The whole saga around the Grinch leak was hilarious, a real roller-coaster. You could broaden it to Smash hype in general, I guess. Everyone is here!

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2018: This was, perhaps, a down year for game collecting for me. Usually I have at least one big hit but meh. I did end up going to a game/computer auction up in New Jersey earlier this year and just seeing some of the really rare stuff in person was treat. I feel like I overpaid on some of the few items I got though, oh well, that still the most excited I've been. The only two "good" lots I ended up with this year were both flea market finds, cleaned a guy out on loose N64 games plus an NES in an SNES box (oh well, box is a box,) and then a day later got a good 5200 find (system, joy stick and track ball boxed, 18 or so loose games for like 125, a pretty good deal,) which is a system I had been idly considering acquiring for a few years now. But really, both of those are comparatively small in my opinion.

Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #13 on: December 03, 2018, 09:10:02 am »
Favorite 2018 Release: Yakuza 6.  I honestly expect this to change to Smash Ultimate once that comes out.  Part of why I'm hesitant to take part in these super early year end threads.  There's a whole month left in the year.  Anyway, Yakuza 6 is a fantastic game and does really well to end the Kiryu anthology.

Least Favorite 2018 Release: Fallout 76.  Everything about this game is just terrible.  I bought a copy and I haven't opened it and am considering returning it, because yikes.

Favorite Game Played in 2018: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice  I had put off buying this game for so long, and then I had put off playing it for a while longer.  This game is so damned fantastic that when they announced the physical release, I bought it for both PS4 and X1.

Least Favorite Game Played in 2018: Mega Man X7.  This one took some thinking because I played a lot of damned good games this year... then I remembered that I tried to play through the X collection.  I gave up on X7 within minutes of starting the game.  Mega Man X5 gets honorable mention for also being a stinker.

Sleeper Hit of 2018: I want to say Until Dawn because I was so hesitant to play this game and my wife made me play it and I rather enjoyed it.  But if we are talking about games that came out this year, I'm gonna say Dark Souls Remastered.  I have played Dark Souls before and I remember the experience being okay, but this second time around of playing having the knowledge needed to get through the game, the game was absolutely fantastic and I've had such a hard time putting it down.

Favorite Gaming Moment in 2018: The many times that the games I played would tug at my heart strings.  Yakuza 6, Yakuza 5, Among the Sleep, and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.  All of these games had moments that were highly emotional, and the games were so good that I felt invested enough to feel.

Proudest Collection Accomplishment of 2018: I didn't do a lot of hunting this year at all, I think the one sale I did hit was this past weekend and was it a doozy.  I'm gonna post about it in the December Collection thread... even though part of it was November 30th.



And as always I'm going to add some of my own categories

Proudest Gaming Accomplishment in 2018: I have to go with playing Dark Souls Remastered.  I went through 3 bosses back to back with no bonfires, because there were no bonfires between them, didn't die once.  I was really expecting to die, but I managed to get through the 3 bosses back to back.  I was pretty fucking proud of that, managed to not lose a shit ton of souls in the process.

Favorite Game Revisited in 2018: Again this award goes to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.  I play this game yearly attempting to work my way towards that platinum trophy, and I make a little progress each year.  I love this game so damned much.  Definitely in my top 5 games of all time.

Least Favorite Game beat in 2018: Mega Man X5.  This game is just plain terrible.  Not as bad as X7 I suppose, but it definitely sucks an egg.

Top 10 Games played in 2018:
  • Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (PS4)
  • Yakuza 5 (PS3)
  • Yakuza 0 (PS4)
  • Yakuza 6 (PS4)
  • Dark Souls Remastered (NS)
  • Dragon Quest VII (3DS)
  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider (X1)
  • Far Cry 5 (X1)
  • Donut County (PS4)
  • Steamworld Dig 2 (NS)

Ten worst games played in 2017

  • Mega Man X7 (PS4)
  • Mega Man X5 (PS4)
  • Dragon Quest VIII (3DS)
  • Florence (Android)
  • Opus: The Day We Found Earth (NS)
  • Splatoon (Wii U)
  • Borderlands 2 (X1)
  • Mega Man X6 (PS4)
  • Mega Man X4 (PS4)
  • Gorogoa (NS)


Re: A Year in Review - 2018.
« Reply #14 on: December 03, 2018, 10:03:19 am »
Proudest Gaming Accomplishment in 2018: I have to go with playing Dark Souls Remastered.  I went through 3 bosses back to back with no bonfires, because there were no bonfires between them, didn't die once.  I was really expecting to die, but I managed to get through the 3 bosses back to back.  I was pretty fucking proud of that, managed to not lose a shit ton of souls in the process.

I had a similar experience with Remastered.  I beat Ornstein and Smough on my first try, and I kinda just sat there stunned for a few minutes.  I thought I was going to be there for an hour at minimum.  In fact I beat the majority of the bosses I had previously faced pretty quickly.  I'd say 3 attempts at most for everything except some DLC bosses and Gwynn- and Gwynn only took so many tries because I wanted to try parrying him to win, which did not go well at all.  Once I got serious about it I beat him on try 2 I think.