Well. 2018 was a great year for games. The majority of games we were hyped for delivered the goods. Top notch experiences. A few though fell by the wayside and we were left a little disappointed by what we got once the game released. By no means are these games terrible, (apart from one) in fact they are still pretty great games that are worth a play. They just left us with a sad taste of disappointment in our mouths after playing them.
5. Marvel’s Spider-Man
The first few hours of Insomniac’s Spider-Man game are fantastic. A high octane opening sees you fighting through mobs of unsavoury criminals in order to get to Wilson Fisk. After that, the island of Manhattan opens up and it’s a wonderful place to roam about in. From here you can take on main missions, side quests and more such as photography. However, things start to get a bit creaky. The open world of Spider-Man seems to be stuck in the yesteryear of Assassins Creed.
You see, outside the main story, there is nothing that much to do once you really look at all the options available to you. Pigeon chasing? Really? Backpack collection? Ugh. These things will never change. What activities you are doing in hour 5 of the game you will be still doing in hour 30. The lack of evolution as the game progresses is the biggest disappointment for this game, followed by the missed opportunities for more complex and engaging boss fights. Other than this grumble, Spider-Man is well worth your time for the smartly written and engaging story.
4. Kingdom Come: Deliverance
An RPG set in the medieval times? Great! No magic and weird creatures? Fantastic! Kingdom Come: Deliverance piqued our interest for this reason alone. A straight-up medieval simulator. Yes, it had crazy glitches. Yes, the graphics were not that great and the voice work was patchy at best, but it worked. You really felt you were down in the dirt trying to survive. You were a commoner. You had no skill in swordplay, why would you? It was ok to run away from a fight in this game! So why the disappointment?
Lockpicking. The game is on this list for lockpicking. We haven’t progressed very far in this game as the lockpicking system is so hard we stopped playing. We wanted to be the ruffian who sneaked around and stole things from the upper class but no, we can’t lockpick. It was a common complaint at the time of launch. PC players could just mod it out but consoles players were left in the lurch. Maybe it has been patched now? We might return to this in 2019.
3. Outlast 2
Outlast was an amazing game. A white-knuckle ride through an abandoned mental institute. Outlast 2, on the other hand, was an average game. It follows the same formula as the first. A lone person wandering around equipped with a video camera that has night vision and is trying to escape the hellhole they find themselves in. The game was too much like the first. The added psychological horror was a nice touch but it jarred with the rest of the game. It didn’t know what it wanted to be. A full on gore game or something more subdued that ate into your subconscious. Stuffing both together just didn’t work and it just wasn’t that scary. Sad.
2. Detroit: Become Human
David Cage. Love him or hate him you know his games will always deliver on the cinematic level. Storywise, it’s always a mixed bag and Detroit: Become Human is the worst offender out of all of his games. The biggest problem with the game is that two of the three characters stories are just not very good. That’s like over half the game. The story of Markus is a snoozefest and the Kara story is not much better. What makes the game shine is, of course, Connor.
Why couldn’t the game be all about him? It’s like they put all their resources in his story and then scrambled to cover the rest. By no means is it a bad ‘game’ but when two-thirds of it are trash, you have to wonder if your money could be spent better elsewhere.
1. Fallout 76
Nothing to say on this one. We all know how terrible this turned out. A moment of silence for Fallout 76…
We’ll be back next week with our Top 5 Best Games of 2018!