Game of the Year 2018: Liam's Personal Picks

The Missing sounds nice, but unfortunately it's not available in PlayStation Store from Brazil...

And I have to agree on God of War. i've been playing it for the past two days and it's really amazing! =)

god of awards.god of g.o.a.t.best PlayStation franchise ever.word up son

GoW hands down the best game of 2018 period .

Great list and enjoyed the reviews from Liam this year! Thanks!

Perfectly describes my feelings towards red dead 2. Why is there no fast travel to camp? Why does it skip the riding on just some missions? That game has absolutely no respect for the players time, which is scarce if you're not a teenager living with mom and dad.

@tameshiyaku you can upgrade your camp to be able to fast travel can't you? I have anyway.

I must be the only person on the planet that didnt think that much to RDR2. Still completed the single player but it was a struggle to do so.
Agree with God of war and spidey was also amazing.

@Simon_Fitzgerald Cheers man! We shall indeed 😊

@get2sammyb not enough to overlook its many flaws especially its gameplay though

@get2sammyb If you had to take a dump every 30 minutes, that would be realistic too, it wouldn't be fun though.

Agree with the list. I think reviewers overlook Red Dead 2's problems. I felt the same as Liam described - the world is very impressive, many incredible moments and vistas, but actually not all the content is that interesting and the gameplay is too frustrating. Also, they supposedly created a realistic game in which you have to eat / sleep / take a long ride from place to place, yet you can get shot 10 times and continue as if nothing happened, and take out by yourself an army of 30 men. Very realistic indeed. They should've taken The Last Of Us' approach if they wanted to go in the realistic path all the way. I don't think this game deserves GOTY despite all the impressive figures and moments. GOW easily deserves that, and to be honest maybe also games such as Dead Cell.

@oatmealwarrior92 tempted to go a step further and say the best game this generation. Its wonderful!!

This seems like a repeat of 2015, I feel like I am taking crazy pills. How in God's (Pun intended) name is everyone giving God of War game of the year?

Just like when people were giving Metal Gear Solid 5 game of the year I was upset and confused. God of War took the intense fast paced action and slowed it up, repeated boss fights very quickly and made the whole things pretty but shallow. Just like Metal Gear Solid 5, who literally had you repeat the opening and several missions because it ran out of stuff for you to do.

However Insomniac took a tired franchise like Spider-Man and made a truly remarkable game that had a great story with a few gut punches at the end. Not only is it a great looking game, but it embodies it's characters and throws in a few truck loads of fan service to boot.

God of War soft rebooted the series with Norse Mythology but literally showed off almost none of it, apparently Norse Mythology is just a handful of trolls and a couple of Gods. The slower gameplay, and new camera angle killed the game for any long time fans of the series. Think if they took Devil May Cry and stripped out the fun combo heavy fast combat and instead you guided an older Dante and his young son around and had a heavy weapon to kill a couple enemies that showed up on the screen at a time.

In no way am I saying God of War deserves a 0/10 but a solid 7/10 Buy it recommendation, but not Game of the Year

@steventonysmith Well I'll be buying GoW on the January Sale and I think I will love it, to me I got tired of the hack&slash to the finish line like the DMCs etc after GOW3, I love the new Uncharted slow-paced direction. That said though, I don't think I'll pick it as my GOTY over RDR2 why? Like I always say, I'll choose open world over linear any day, no matter how great the latter is. I mean I repeat, GTAV is still selling, The Last of Us was spectacular but that's it, when you're done you're done, you move on. RDR2 will still be selling come 2019, that to me makes it GOTY. And yeah MGSV is the MOST OVERRATED game this gen. It's like an 85 game not that misleading 93 it has on Metacritic.

Red Dead suffers from Rockstarism where they give you choices that don't matter and in the main story all your freedom is removed.

@get2sammyb
I'm enjoying RDR2, but coming straight off of Fallout 4, the travel is killing me. One of my earliest perks in Fallout was fast travel when overburdened. Yes, I missed out on the country side and random adventures, but I still managed to put in 100 hours or so. Without fast travel, that would have been 400 hours easily...and I wouldn't be done yet.

Again, I'm enjoying RDR2, it's just an adjustment.

I think with Red Dead, it's only actual "chore" is bathing after a while. You want to be able to pay more to take a quicker bath. I don't have an issue with the way Arthur moves; I think it's well done and makes sense for the game. A certain sense is of adventure is achieved by the lack of fast travel, and the world is smaller to accommodate that. The world is fantastic, but doesn't feel "gigantic." It doesn't need to either. It never takes too long to ride somewhere, or the nearest fast-travel station. I think shooting is also fun and works pretty well for the game. It makes sense for the era's weapons and gives the game enough difficulty. I've been taking some time to just enjoy the world and not progress in the story, and I've been very impressed.
A small "chore" feeling can come over the game, but it's completely overridden by how masterfully the game is made. The benefits of the paced gameplay end up being better than the "chore" issue.

@get2sammyb Other games manage to be "immersive" without sacrificing player conveniences. Btw... thanks for the controlls setup, sure helped!
@tomassi I used fast travel at camp, but if a mission ends in the boonies, you still have no choice but to ride back to camp. Taking the train or stagecoach will only take you to the nearest town. It's all fantastically gorgeous and fun to play in its sluggish way, but everything just takes too damn long.

@get2sammyb are you really going to say rdr 2 as good gameplay or that’s its pacing for the story isnt bad?

@dark_knightmare2 Yes he's really going to say it, you can't force him to say otherwise. RDR2 is just amazingly beautiful, deal with it.

@Octane Imagine having to take a dump every thirty minutes AND trying to complete Red Dead 2

@get2sammyb Once or twice a day, or how long does an in-game day last in RDR2? Don't tell me it's 24 hours...

@TheArt nobody said it wasn’t beautiful so chill out. The fact is the gameplay is horribly mediocre which is why you see tons of people across the web talking about it,the story pacing is pretty bad,it’s selective realism is annoying,it’s mission template is stale after over a decade of rockstar using it ,it’s enemy variety is non existent and it’s mts infected mp is a disgrace. The good of it is It’s world which is beautiful,the level of interaction with it is second to none and Arthur is a great character but that’s not enough to offset its problems especially its gameplay which is the most important thing in a game.

@dark_knightmare2 And there are megatons out there who don't find them to be problems. You're going on like you want everybody to acknowledge problems exist at all cost. And enemy variety? Come on every game isn't fantasy, I don't know which enemy types you want from 1899.

I see a lot of people being harsh with RDR2 flaws. Of course it has flaws like every game including GOW. I.m not fond of critcizing games I don't really like but look at The Witcher 3. Praises everywhere and yet the combat is awful. I get people just feel the overall experience is worth it. That's the way I feel with RDR2 but in addition That the flaws are actually meant to be as the devs vision. Hey some people even say only one first pers mode in CP 77 s just their vision rather than a lack of option.
I say RDR2 offer a overall fantastic game incredibly well done considering the scale.

@TheArt we’re the human freaking race there is tons different from faces to body size so that isn’t an excuse for their bad enemy variety. I never said people that don’t have problems with it don’t exist but that just means I can’t really trust their opinion. When a game in 2018 with the size and budget of rdr 2 controls and plays like a game from last gen that if not made by rockstar would get so much crap that’s a problem for me and when you’re doing a variation of the exact same thing for the first four chapters before the game jumps the shark in the first half of chapter 5 and drops you into an uncharted game before going to chapter 6 and just spins it’s wheels till the last like two or three missions that’s a problem. The epilogue has no business being as long as it was its hours of mundane filler before the last mission where something of substance actually happens even though you know who being there at that exact moment was such a contrivance. I love gaming so I want games to be the best they can be so I’m not going to ignore faults and just focus on positives because I want rockstar to change their outdated mission template and gameplay while fixing their pacing problems in their stories.

@dark_knightmare2 Face? Body size? Dude what are you talking about? Yo I'm done.

Fast travelling in an open world game as beautiful as RDR2's is a crime.

@TheArt you said what could they have done for enemy variety and I said have different faces,body sizes etc. not the same like four or five outfits,faces and skinny body size

Ahh Red Dead Redemption 2 the game with the quite stunning open world with a great story and fantastic voice acting coupled with the most restrictive mission structure imaginable where all freedom is completely removed. Missions such as robbing a bank but you can only leave when told, then you're told to get out of town but have to go down the exact street the game wants you to, in fact any deviation or creativity is pretty much with mission failed. A mission structure which I kid you not has a mission where from camp, you are told to rob a coach and take to a location for a train robbery half way across the map. You do so and put it in the spot, the next mission is to ride all the way back to camp to tell them you've done it, the next mission is to ride all the way back to where you left it to start the robbery part!!! A world where police magically know the exact moment you rob a train out in the wilderness and appear almost immediately, a world where you are instructed to hide a stagecoach in a secluded spot providing it's in the yellow circle marked on the map. A world where you may strangle a stranger getting instead of getting on your horse because it's the same button, a world where your weapons are constantly removed from you because you were on your horse too long in a game which requires you to be on your horse too long. A game where you can fast travel out of camp when upgraded for player convenience but can never fast travel back, oh and most missions start in camp and end well outside of it, oh and in camp forget about running because you're not allowed to. A game which needs a guide to make it's sluggish controls almost bearable but never actually good, this is compounded by having to loot everything individually by holding a button and opening every drawer by holding a button and watching the animation for all of this adding to the slow pace.

Sorry if this post feels like it's wasting your time but that is my point, this game constantly wastes your time with all of these animations and little details and having to ride everywhere, for the first few hours it's fantastic but after that watching him lift every body to loot it or open every cupboard or skin every animal is just boring. They've gone too far and the immersion gets in the way of the gameplay so so often,

I adore the original Red Dead Redemption and it's my favourite game on the PS3 yet despite it's age that game plays better than this one because it doesn't have all of the lavish animations or silly gun removing mechanics. There is a 10/10 game buried under a pile of glorious but overused animations, a sluggish and convoluted control scheme and a mission structure that is 10 years out of date but as is it's the biggest disappointment of this generation for me. A good game but not a great one

Its year 2018, Rdr2 living in the era where cod black ops4 was the boom, for me rdr2 is aiming for older player that strive for quality and high art on video games platform.. i dont say black ops & gow is a childs play, its just not aiming as high comparing rdr2. I think rockstar doesnt need the award, with or without it they always go beyond other games in terms of technical and accomplishment in the end product.. and by the selling numbers it also show without the award rdr2 is people champions

I can see Liam has a great taste in gaming with that number one choice, but I never even heard of that fifth game it would be cool to get it as a PSplus game I guess

God of War is the correct choice. RDR2's controls and mission structure are so outdated at this point it's pathetic. It's why God of War is topping it for so many GOTY awards. I don't care how great your world looks if it's a damn chore to play through it. Calling it different doesn't excuse its problems.

"but I continue to question if I actually enjoyed the act of playing much of it"

Exactly how I feel about RDR2. Technically it's brilliant. I'm just not having much fun playing it. It's actually the biggest gaming disappointment this year for me.