PS2 Backlog Committee's Top 10 Games of 2018

[isthatallyougot]

Nice list j. I really need to play the SOTC remake, among others.

I'll post my list sooner or later. Kind of behind this year.

[canedaddy]

Well, it turns out I beat 11 games this year, and 10 of them are very good. (Sorry, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier! )


10. Destiny 2

9. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask

8. Firewatch

7. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

6. inFamous: First Light

5. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

4. The Last Guardian

3. Stardew Valley

2. Horizon: Zero Dawn

1. God of War


The top two are pretty close together... loved both of them. Three, four and five are also excellent, and there's a dropoff to the bottom five.

It was a great year of gaming for me, even thought I didn't do much of it.

[isthatallyougot]

Cane, I'm interested in all the games on your list except Destiny 2. (and I've played the Last Guardian.) Good looking list though. I'm still a bit skeptical I'll love the new GOW as much as the original series - despite loving the setting of Norse mythology - but I'll find out for myself sooner or later.

[argyle]

Here we go...


10. Far Cry 5

As much as I enjoyed this game, I still had a few issues with it. And not the ones I expected to have going in - the cult stuff is clearly a crazed cult and not a jab at Christianity. Ironically, the fact that the game DIDN'T try to push some kind of agenda is what most critics seemed to take issue with. No, my problems were all of the gameplay variety, mainly dealing with the poor handling of 2 of the 3 "mini bosses". Still, that wasn't enough to completely knock if off my list as the minute to minute gameplay was still a blast. And with the upcoming sequel, the ending I took issue with originally now makes perfect sense as a setup for the new game.

9. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

I played through 3 of the "classic" Castlevania games this year, and Bloodstained most definitely lives up to them. Fantastic gameplay with great replayability thanks to alternate paths, tons of secrets, multiple endings and of course the different characters you can swap between. And the pixel art & chiptunes soundtrack is top notch. An instant classic - and to think, this was just the "bonus" game that came from the Bloodstained Kickstarter! Can't wait for the full game this year.

8. Starlink

Starlink is the product of a game developer playing No Man's Sky and thinking "Hrm, good idea but I can make an actual GAME out of this...". And they did. Probably one of the biggest hidden gems of the year, especially on non-Switch platforms since the addition of Starfox on the Switch is all anyone seems to talk about. Just remember one thing - get this game *digitally*, and skip out on having to buy the toys.

7. Monster Hunter World

The game that finally got me into the Monster Hunter series, Tam and I sunk a good 100 hours into this game when it came out. It finally made the series accessible without dumbing it down. There's nothing quite like working with a team & taking down one of these giant beasts after a long fight.


6. Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

Best game I should have played 20 years ago. Pure joy from beginning to end.

5. Yoku's Island Express

Speaking of pure joy...man, this is it. A game about a dung beatle that plays like a cross between a Metroidvania and a pinball game, and has graphics reminiscent of the recent Rayman games. Pure genius, I couldn't put this one down until I had done absolutely everything there was to do.

4. Spider-Man

Insomniac is back with a vengeance. I don't know what I can say about this except that it's exactly what you would want from a Spider-Man game.

3. God of War

For a while, this was my front-runner for GOTY. This reboot of the God of War series reinvigorated it in ways I didn't even think was possible. Not only is the action still just as intense, but the scope has been expanded with the more open areas and most importantly, the story has take a HUGE leap. The way Kratos' son integrates into the plot and gameplay to make you very invested in what happens to him is masterful. And last but not least - this was a 100% single player game with zero DLC. In 2018, that's huge, and it speaks volumes that this was Sony's fastest selling game ever. Between this & Spider-Man, Sony has proven that there's still a massive audience for engaging single player gaming experiences.

2. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition

There was a LOT of back-and-forth when I was trying to decide the order of 2, 3 & 4. In the end, I put Hyrule Warriors over the other 2 because of one simple factor: fun. While I had very minor issues with both Spidy & God of War, I enjoyed every minute of Hyrule Warriors and am itching to boot it back up. I finished the main campaign, but there is MUCH more to do in that game. It's the best of Dynasty Warriors with the best of Zelda. Pure hack 'n slash goodness with the polish of a NIntendo game.

1. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

The more I played this game, the more apparent it became that there was no other choice for my GOTY. This game just does everything perfectly. It's a massive game, but it's filled to the brim with details to discover & things to do. The sidequests turn into long engaging lines of quests. Tam saw me playing the other night and said to me "it looks like you're getting close to the end of the game, it seems like you're wrapping everything up." I then told her what was wrapping up was a series of sidequests and I was still quite a ways away from finishing the main story. This is one of the few games where I actually bother to reload & make different choices when I'm not happy with the story outcome I've gotten - and for me, that's rare. The game is gorgeous, the gameplay is polish to a sheen and the voice acting - especially playing as Kassandra - is incredible. As good as everything else is on my list this year, this game is head & shoulders above them.


Missed it by THAT much:
Linelight and The Mummy Remastered were both great indie games that almost made the list.

Should have played in 2018, will DEFINITELY play in 2019:
Dragon Quest XI, Ni no Kuni II & the Spyro Trilogy were all incredible - from the little bit I played of each. I'm making a point to play through all 3 of those this year.

[Phaseknox]

Solid list, argyle. I was expecting to see Dragon Quest XI and Ni no Kuni II on your list since I thought that you finished them, but I guess not. I also expected Monster Hunter World to be higher on your list since you talked about it a lot last year. I knew that you liked Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap and Yoku's Island Express, but I didn't realize that you liked them quite as much as you did. The two games from your list that I'm most interested in that I haven't played yet are Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, and Spider-Man.

[isthatallyougot]

Enjoyed your list argyle. Yoku's Island Express has been on my steam wishlist for a while, but I've yet to pick it up. Sounds so fun to me too.

[isthatallyougot]

Ok, I'll finally try and put this thing together. I'm going to have to do it little by little though, so read if you want. First of all, I played a fair amount of a couple of games that I didn't get around to finishing because of upheaval in my personal life. (My separation from my wife, if you guys remember.) I plan to get back to the following two games and finish them sometime in 2019:

Earth Defense Force 2025
Digital Devil Saga

I was having a great time with both of those, but circumstance pulled the plug before I could finish, and I ended up shelving them despite really loving them both. So, hopefully they'll be on my list for this year.

I also re-played 2 games from my past. I don't count those in my yearly rankings because they've already made their mark for me, but sometimes I love a game enough to revisit it and that's what I did on two occasions this year. Here are those 2 to start my 2018 yearly review before my countdown begins.



Some games are just thrilling and immediate. There's no plot development, character back-stories, in-depth systems, world-building, etc. They just smack you in the head with simplicity and action, and when the action is as well executed as it is in Rocket League, you forget all about what it isn't, and fully lose yourself in what it is. And what Rocket League is, is simply a blistering good time. The back and forth of both teams looking to nudge things in their favor is spell-binding and constant. Every boost, touch and response dance together in a ballet of pure joy as things play out in frantic and desperate fashion. Tensions build and rise on a seemingly endless basis, and the adrenaline flows freely, resulting in a throbbing orgasm of electricity.

I've played Rocket League in years past, but I spent enough time with it again this year to put it on my list. It's so compelling to me that I considered deleting it so I wouldn't be tempted to pick it up in favor of some other games I wanted to play. It's not that I necessarily love it more than some other games I was trying to get to, but it's just so easy to pick up and play. There's such a low barrier to instant fun, that it often becomes too tempting to bypass in favor of something that's more of a slower burn. Anyway, it's still a 5/5 and almost too much fun.





I bought ICO back on its release date in the US on PS2. (I may have mentioned this before, but that's just something I almost never do.) I was so drawn to the little I was able to absorb from gaming magazines which I loved to read back then, having subscriptions to several. There was something unique and wonderful apparent, even with the minimal exposure afforded via those publications, and I had to have it immediately. Thankfully my sense of things was, for me, correct and ICO became one of my all-time favorite gaming experiences. But it was one of those situations where it was so affecting that I did not want to play it again. I was afraid it would lose its luster and magic with closer inspection, and I definitely didn't want to allow that to happen.

Fast forward 16+ years, and I finally felt enough time had passed to allow for a sense of reasonable freshness that would allow me to enjoy this gem again without a feeling of over-familiarity. Looking at things again through the eyes of the present after so much has happened on the gaming landscape, I was honestly a tiny bit afraid that I would not view things with as positive a disposition. The industry moves forward and we change along with it and with the general passage of time. It would have hurt me to see ICO as anything less than brilliant, so strong is my sense of nostalgia for this one. I would have hated for that warm feeling to go away. But I think playing The Last Guardian last year reminded me with greater clarity of the flavor of ICO, and I really wanted to take that journey again.

My impressions playing this time, so long after the PS2 release, are thankfully as glowing as they were then. I think the first thing that struck me this time was how cohesive the whole game feels. Ueda's philosophy of design by subtraction really serves to accentuate what ultimately does remain. Everything feels like it has purpose. Nothing feels extraneous or wasteful. I was also surprised with how good it looks, given its age. I did play the HD version this time, and it is conceivable that the low res textures would suffer in this enhanced treatment, but the art direction is beautiful and the fact that everything is bathed in a soft glow serves multiple purposes, both adding to the otherworldly sense of place while also masking the technical limitations of the (original) hardware. I was also reminded, in this trip back to the mysterious island castle on the sea, of the sense of scale which was very unusual at the time and on the hardware. Structures felt enormous and imposing and there was often a vertigo-inducing sense of height. I can only imagine the challenges in creating the sense of space here, given the paltry 32 MB of total system RAM. Textures aside, things still look wonderful today, and not entirely due to art design. Everything ultimately comes together to create a believable, if somewhat alien, locale.

Visuals aside, the possible themes explored within ICO are as resonant as ever. Touching on ideas of exploitation, discrimination, oppression, slavery, class warfare, friendship, loyalty, and revolution; so much is said with an absolute minimum of waste. There is such a beautiful restraint in Ueda's works, and it absolutely stands in stark contrast to almost everything else in the industry. His ability to deliver a powerful tale in a subtle and thoughtful manner is absolutely unique, and reason enough to imbibe his works. His creations are proper compost to a fertile imagination, leaving enormous room to play with possibilities. Who is the Queen and what is her relationship to Yorda and the horned boys? Why does she speak the language of both? Who were the people that brought ICO to the castle and where did they come from? Why do they sacrifice horned boys? Why are horned boys occasionally born to begin with? I could go on and on with questions generated that really spark my curiosity. By refraining from filling in all gaps, the potential for engagement is magnified. You want to know more than you are ever told, and this fosters such a beautiful sense of mystery and leaves a permanent mark on the mind.

As with anything, you could plumb the depths looking for flaws if you want to polish your spectacles and really lean in to scrutinize. The controls, firstly, could be tighter. They are serviceable, but certainly lacking finesse. The jaded and leathery gamer may view Yorda as nothing more than a glorified skeleton key as you drag her from lock to lock. And the game is brief, especially if you know what you are doing. However, all flaws are dwarfed by the magnificence of this creation and only observable with undue inspection. At the heart of things, there is an absolutely wonderful bond created between Ico and Yorda - a bond forged in silent commiseration of a shared state. Ico is apparently intended for sacrifice/imprisonment until death. Yorda frail, slow and at the mercy of a powerful Queen, is as much a victim to forces beyond her control as the horned boy. Together they presumably share the same desire for freedom and rescue, despite the long odds against them. They take their journey together in the hopes of upsetting the status quo and preserving their own lives, and what a spellbinding journey it is. After re-experiencing this beautiful tale, I'm pleased to report that it is just as wonderful as it ever was. For me, replaying ICO just cemented its status as a timeless classic and one of the absolute best from the PS2, or any era for that matter. An ageless 5/5.

[isthatallyougot]

double post

[isthatallyougot]

keep hitting the wrong button, I'm getting old.

[isthatallyougot]

Ok, on to my countdown:

#21. Papers Please (PC)



Sometimes your personal opinion is just going to be outside the chorus of the crowd. Take Papers Please, for example. It has (at the time of this writing) an 85 critic and 8.5 user score on Metacritic. It's a well and thoroughly loved game. And wow, I do not agree. To be fair, I can recognize some of the appeal. It's clearly got an interesting theme revolving around a totalitarian state. And on an even deeper level, it challenges the ideas of societal order, the obligation an individual has to follow or disregard the rules. It's also got a suitably powerful and oppressive sounding title theme reminiscent of Soviet-era Russia.

But, it is the antithesis of fun. Thematically congruent or not, pushing papers around and looking for minute details in personal documentation is nearly as tedious in execution here as I imagine it to be in real life, perhaps more so because of the need to hurry in order to earn enough wages to feed and care for your family in accordance with your apparent contract-based salary, all under the watchful and unforgiving eye of the callous system. Oppressive indeed, and while it may convincingly place you in the shoes of an individual living under such bleak and insufferable conditions, it is in no way enjoyable. Personally, I play games to enjoy myself. Fun can come in many forms, from bouncy platforming to dark horror and all the flavors in between, but it doesn't come from being a nervous, paper-pushing peon - not for me at least. I was uninterested in the dilemmas of these digital denizens. Papers just screamed drudgery and about the best thing I can say about it is that it turned me off so quickly and completely that I wasted little time in coming to peace with putting it down. I'll usually give a game a couple of hours, at least, but not this. 2/5 - saved from being a 1/5 only because of its effectiveness in replicating the sensation of the role you inhabit. Not for me.

#20. My Word Coach (DS)



I have a love/hate relationship with language. On one side of the ledger, I am drawn to the notion of articulating experience in a way that can be related/shared. It's a tool that has allowed for a great many things we all enjoy in life, including video games. Additionally, language is one of my hardwired strengths. I love writing, reading and even the mechanics and subtlety of language in all its various forms. I've studied a fair bit of Latin because of my interest in the roots of a significant portion of modern language. I speak Swedish, having lived in that country for a while, and have been told by a variety of Swedes that they didn't know I wasn't Swedish after speaking with them. (Granted, this was some time ago, and I'm not at that level currently.)

On the other side of the balance sheet, I have always felt that language, as useful as it is, keeps us at arms length from truth, from pure experience. Language, by necessity, is abstraction. No matter how deft you are with its use, both in expression and comprehension, you are always a step removed from "life" when bringing it into application, into the moment. Language can never BE what it represents, and can only convey a notion, always a bit obscure, never quite the real thing. And I've always felt torn because of this sensation. A part of me yearns for experience completely removed from words, yet once you've used a tool as extensively and consistently as we all do with language, it becomes so intimately woven into the fabric of experience that the possibility of comprehending life without it becomes next to impossible. Yet, I feel there is an almost-unattainable beauty that is forever hidden because of language, and I have sought to find it over the years in a variety of ways such as meditation, for example. Nevertheless, language, and my interest in it, persists. I find myself searching for the impossible within its confines, looking to find the undiluted harmony of being in a tool that can never be reconciled with the indefectible "now", despite its coexistence within the ever-present moment.

Because of my love for language, I long ago picked up My Word Coach for the Nintendo DS in a bargain bin somewhere. I hadn't "played" it for so long because I was fairly certain of its limitations, if only because of media capacity. However, my wife is a non-native-speaker, and I remembered that I had this buried in my library of software. She had recently expressed an interest in going back to school, feeling that she needed to increase her fluency with the English language. I recalled this DS title and decided that I'd also give it a bit of my time for the sake of checking another title off my backlog.

The first thing that happens here is that you're given sort of a placement exam to determine your proficiency with the language, a term it labels as "Expression Potential". This is not a comprehensive evaluation, by any means, and that was my first problem with this software. It doesn't do enough to establish your comfort with the English language, and because of this, I was only sporadically introduced to exotic vocabulary, making my time with it mostly redundant. I did learn a handful of new words, and that warrants praise, but it was too infrequent. Another issue I have with My Word Coach is that there is no audible pronunciation of words, something that could be invaluable to someone who might really get use out of this. I understand that size limitations probably made this unavoidable, but they could have at least included phonetics. If they had done so, it would have gone a long way toward helping anyone who might be using this as a legitimate tool. Another limitation is the scope of definitions offered. Multiple definitions of the same word are not offered, and the definitions that are given are rarely thorough. Finally, many of the word games aren't really engaging, and providing a stimulating set of activities for learning always goes a long way in the process of expanding your knowledge. I won't say that this is an awful piece of edutainment software, but there are so many better options for anyone looking to expand their capabilities with the English language that it makes it impossible to give a recommendation. It's simply not comprehensive enough and its execution of what it does offer is lackluster. I have to give this a 2/5, if only because of the fact that it can't even compete with a paper dictionary, as far as I'm concerned. Those looking to grow their competence with the language would be better served by looking at all the better options available.