Best GOTY So Far (For You) [April 2018]

[Shay Chaise]

I've had an absurd few months of gaming, I've completed about thirty games (almost all from the backlog) and really been buzzing about the medium and the enjoyment I get from it. The next few months are very promising and interesting with Nintendo Labo, Dark Souls Remastered, Smash and whatever E3 brings (and presumably Virtual Console or its replacement) but I'd quite like to take stock and note a few belters I've played. They don't have to be from this year, by the way.

1. Danmaku Unlimited 3 (Steam, Switch, mobile)

It's a very pretty bullet hell shmup by one guy, Sunny Tam. It's tough but manageable on Easy and more rewarding and chaotic on harder levels. It has unlockable weapons depending on various 'achievement' kinda conditions. It looks great, it feels superb and the patterns are creative and satisfying. It features a 'graze' mechanic where you build a chain by narrowly missing bullets. You build up your score but also a meter which you can trigger for massive damage. It takes a little time to get the hang of it but it feels fantastic when you get into it. It's a proper 'flow' game. I love it.

2. GT Sport (PS4)

One of my games of last year and it still gets more play time than anything else on the console. The new supersampling mode on the Pro has tarted it up even further, and it's perhaps the best looking driving game I've ever played, but it's the handling which makes it. The updates are regular with new tracks and new cars and the recent F1 style car is absolutely fucking sensational. I love this game and I'll look forward to every update.

3. Celeste (PS4, Switch, XB1, Steam)

While the story is a bit on the nose and sometimes jars, the core twitchy platforming is superb and pretty much best in class, to my tastes. It's very reminiscent of Super Meat Boy and N++ but I much prefer the art direction and the OST might well end up being the best of the year. I also really like the dashing, it just feels bloody good. The rave reviews are spot on.

Any more, folks? (I have another half a dozen bangers but don't want to step on everything.)

[Malcy]

GTA 5

FINALLY got round to playing it properly and really enjoying it. Just finished story mode and beginning to do all the little side quests etc and do all the little sports activities.

Can see that changing when the new DS9 update comes to Star Trek Online in a couple of months though.

[Z]

BoxBoxBoy
Fun little thing, innit?

Mario Kart 8
Just seems way better than any mario kart I've played.

[Bhazor]

I won't be able to play it until the autumn PC release but the half hour I spent with Monster Hunter World on a multiplayer raid already marks it as game of the year for me. Of the games I've actually played properly it would probably be Iconoclasts. Lovely inventive endlessly endearing little Metroidvania from one of my favourite indies. One of the prettiest games of the year too.

[brat-sampson]

So far I've loved Celeste more than anything else this year, new or old, but compared to last year I haven't played as many different things, what with Horizon and Xenoblade taking up most of my non-Celeste gaming time.

[Swoz_MK]

Monster Hunter World by an absolute mile

[Timothy]

1. Yakuza 6.
2. Nier Automata (haven't played it last year)
3. Ni No Kuni 2

[wooders1978]

Enjoyed far cry 5 the most thus far

[Mister Six]

Mario Odyssey - Absolutely stunning, rich with detail and consistently surprising. And the two-player mode with Cappy has let Mrs Six join in, despite her not being the most game-capable person in the world. The climax to the New Donk City level - you know which bit - was glorious. Currently in the food world, with its giant polygonal fruit and shrimp, where I have possessed a giant slab of meat. It's absolutely barking, and the knowledge that it will end at some point is a bit heartbreaking.

[Shay Chaise]

No spoilers but you've barely started.

[Mister Six]

Good grief, really? Feels like a decent game's worth already, so I thought we must be coming up on the end soon. Thrilled to know there's loads more to come.

[Kelvin]

I think Shay might have oversold that, slightly. You are near the end of the main game, it's just there's a lot of cool post-ending stuff to do.

[Mister Six]

Ah, poo. But also: yay!

[St_Eddie]

I've not played any games released this year.  I'm still working on my backlog from 1985.  Elite is a lot of fun and Chuckie Egg 2 looks promising.

[Kelvin]

Only new games I played this year are Xenoblade 2 and Celeste. The latter is probably better overall, but actually kind of annoyed me with the way it resolved it's story, and in retrospect, that's kind of tainted my experience of the game. Xenoblade 2 is almost the opposite; a flabby, frustrating, occasionally ugly game that won my heart by the time I finished the main quest.

Of the two, Celeste is probably the better game on paper, but I think I have more affection for Xenoblade.

Actually, I've just remembered that I also played the original Metal Slug for the first time this year, and that's probably better than either of them.

[falafel]

Don't think i have played any 2018 games just yet.  So far, though, i have completed and loved a few games; nothing you won't have heard of (in order of preference).

1. NieR:Automata.
It was a gamble, but i struggle to recall a game i have appreciated and enjoyed as much as this. It is incredibly earnest a lot of the time but I forgive it because it's also very daft and often funny; and although it feels very animé and is about smashing up robots, it is one of the most literary-feeling games i have ever played, whilst also being very definitively of its medium and using that status and its codifications and assumptions in new and surprising ways. Where Kojima stuff always felt trite and gimmicky to me, an exercise in pseudointellectual masturbation, a revelling in hollow meta bollocks, this feels very (ha) human and exploratory.  And I'm still only playing through ending C.

2. Skyrim
Swallowed me whole and spat me out. Gorgeous, smart, Idiotic, stilted, dynamic, complex, beautiful ugly mess.

3. BotW
Absolutely loved it and, oddly, playing Skyrim after it made me really appreciate just how much influence the latter had. And though Skyrim's puzzles don't hold a candle to Zelda's shrines, and the physics and melee combat are shocking, it still outdoes it for atmosphere. And although Skyrim's story is lamented, it is better than Zelda's and crucially handles the post - game experience much better. I feel like i could go back to Skyrim at any time; a return to Hyrule would undo my ending so I doubt I will ever play it again.

4. Night in the Woods
Arsehole protagonist turns out to be deliberately so, and a story is beautifully told almost to the very end. A really lovely, low key time.

Yes, I think NieR is better than Skyrim or BotW.