At the recent Game Awards actor Roger Clark (Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2) claimed that we are at the “advent of a golden age” for video games. Given the spate of near-perfect games we’ve seen in the last few years, I would agree with him. Here are my five favourite games from 2018:
5. Return of the Obra Dinn – Lucas Pope
Lucas Pope’s latest project, “an insurance adventure with minimal colour”, is an astonishingly unique puzzler. The constant satisfaction of figuring out what happened to each of the ship’s crew members in the slowly unfolding tragedy of the Obra Dinn makes this the most essential puzzle game since The Witness, and another golden game from Pope.
4. Moss – Polyarc
Despite VR’s precarious position in the market, Sony’s own headset has generated a consistent schedule of amazing games. Moss is adorable. The animation work and environmental details really raise the bar for what VR can accomplish. But it’s also a surprisingly competent 3D platformer, and the way the player is treated as a physical entity within the world of the game is brilliant. This isn’t just a good VR game, it holds its own against its “flat” competition.
3. Red Dead Redemption 2 – Rockstar Games
Clunky controls, frustrating scripted sequences and a story that’s a massive 20 hours too long des not hold Red Dead Redemption 2 back from being a monumental achievement — one made possible by the 3000 people that Rockstar worked into the ground getting it made. A suite of bar-raising voice and motion capture performances bring the death of the West to life in a beautiful form, and the rendering of nature is up there with Kingdom Come. This game is going to make a lot of money.
2. Yakuza 6 – Sega CS1
Kazuma Kiryu is probably the best protagonist in video games, which makes his final game a heart-crushingly bittersweet outing. The all-new Dragon Engine make Kamurocho and Onomichi look better than ever, and smoother combat encounters had me battling thugs for hours. The centrepiece, though, is the story — a touching conclusion of a tale that has developed over seven games and 12 years.
1. God of War – SIE Santa Monica Studio
After The Last of Us, Uncharted 4 and Horizon: Zero Dawn, it won’t come as much of a surprise that the latest PS4 exclusive is this good. God of War upends a lot of the series’ established concepts in favour of a more cinematic, more personal and more beautiful brutality. The dynamic between Kratos and his son Atreus doesn’t always work, but the action never lets up. If anything, I’m disappointed that there isn’t more of this game.
