#4 Game of the Year 2018 - Dead Cells
Dead Cells one part side-scrolling action and one part rogue-like. It is a combination that has been done to death over the last few years of the indie game resurgence, but Dead Cells simply does it better than all the rest. From its rock-solid controls to its surprisingly deep itemization, the game manages to take what is objectively a short experience and expand it into countless hours of joy. It has a pixel art style, but runs and looks as smooth as the best 3D games. Enemy designs are as unique as the selection of tools you have to dispose of them. Dead Cells allows players to inch along, carefully working their way to the final confrontation, while simultaneously offering incentive to speed run the levels. It rewards all types of approaches and ways to progress, resulting in one of the most rewarding gaming experiences of 2018.
-Chris Jarrard
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Shacknews
replyShack Staff posted a new article, Shacknews Top 10 Games of the Year 2018
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Tetris Effect was robbed.
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How is Tetris Effect PS4 GOTY and then a different PS4 exclusive becomes GOTY?
CAN’T EXPLAIN THAT
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Ozzie does that when he is back from break usually.
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aka, the 300 or so 40 year old fuck anything mainstream look how cultured I am GOTY list
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I liked Chatty’s Top 10 this year.
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what was it?
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Each staff member submitted their top ten games and we are including the collective list from our Chatty community as another ballot in our vote. These votes were made outside of all of our other awards this year.
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Oh, I am faulting the list.
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I actually gave all of them free PCs this year.
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I hear that. This Top 10 is not like my list at all.
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Gonna make the intern beat Duke3D.exe.
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Dead Cells?
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He's a year late but it was PC only for a while. Actually a lot of great games come out there first nowadays.
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Subnautica?
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It was PC first like many indie games. That said, I can understand waiting till later when they are more feature complete and by then they are usually on consoles.
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The only PC exclusive I'd put up this year is MtG: Arena, and that's if I break my "no eternal multiplayer games on my GOTY list" rule. Forza Horizon 4 is the only 2018 game in my top 5 that I played partly on PC, and I reckon most people are mostly playing that on Xbox. Hollow Knight, Celeste, and Dead Cells are on PC but I played those entirely on Switch.
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I like that TGA has that as a category now, very smart. I have a hard time putting games like Dota 2, Overwatch, Hearthstone, etc, in a GOTY list because it will never be associated with the year it came out, nor will it remain as this static thing. All of those games are nearly unrecognizable from the states that they launched in.
Its the same reason Smash Ultimate isn't in my list even though its one of the best games I've played this year, its pure joy and a fantastic fighting game-
I included it on mine as I'm playing it almost entirely as a singleplayer game. And I think though a game may evolve over time, those perpetual games are worth considering in the year they came out if they're up to that bar. Part of that for me is that it can be hard to draw the line between how the game is and how it will evolve. Smash Bros. is how it is today, and is great. But we have no idea how it'll evolve with updates and such. Artifact, same way. But I think there's major achievement in launching strong enough for GOTY consideration, and ALSO achievement in evolving your game to that level. I think games can be worthy of both.
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Certainly. I just stick "eternal multiplayer" games in their own slot. For me its Smash Ultimate followed closely by MtG Arena.
Arena also gets my "I can't believe Wizards made a great PC game" award. They didn't make something that's "great for Wizards", they made something that is great Full Stop. After the disaster that is everything they've ever released I still can't believe it.
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If the shack staff paid more attention to PC in general they'd likely have found a lot of their favorites from this year earlier. Fine either way but a lot of great indies come to PC first as early access titles.
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They must really like both types of skeletons.
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I was so looking forward to SoT but it just didn't have any depth when I played it. Maybe it's filled out some since launch, I hope it has but I haven't really heard that it has. Great foundation to build on if nothing else. If thet don't make it I hope someone else copies the idea and runs with it.
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Which is a great thing for the market in general. I'm just always confused why so many game journos turn their nose up at PC especially if they have the hardware. Just means less articles I'm interested in unfortunately since I likely heard about or played the games months or years earlier when they launched on PC.
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Good list. A little surprised spiderman was #1 instead of God of War, but i'm okay with that. I just picked it up and am excited to start playing it!
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Indies killed it this year, IMHO better than the majority of AAAs that came out.
The indie category at The Game Awards was absolutely loaded. Celeste, Dead Cells, Into The Breach, Return Of The Obra Dinn, The Messenger, all bangers.
Of that list the only one I didn't care for is The Messenger, and that's entirely on me because I know a lot of people enjoyed that game. Celeste and Hollow Knight set the bar unfairly high this year so I reckon The Messenger suffered in my eyes for that.-
Most of the hype I saw around The Messenger died a week after release as people got to the second half of the game. I haven't played it, but I know about it in vague terms. I also saw a bunch of articles recently highlighting how much people loved the first half, but fell off for the second. Its exclusion feels pretty justified at this point, even if it may be a great game regardless.
Either way, yeah, this year has been stupidly good for indies. Almost all the AAA games were variations on open worlds, some far better than others, so it seemed like it was up to indie games to make something that felt focused and resonant.-
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I liked RDR at the time, mainly because of its lovely setting and how hard it leaned into aping Leone and Peckinpah. I'd have no patience for it now (because its yet another Rockstar game) but at the time it was an interesting change from GTA.
Its the same thing with Uncharted 2. At the time I liked it because of how hard they went with its presentation. Now that the novelty is gone all that's left is Naughty Dog's shitty gameplay. I hated Uncharted 4 and I sure as hell don't like RDR2
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PSA: The Messenger is still free on twitch prime for the rest of the day FYI
I just started playing it today because of that.
https://blog.twitch.tv/twitch-prime-holiday-surprise-get-seven-free-bonus-games-with-the-devolver-digital-holiday-pack-d5b0b3100415
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Totally underrated Tetris game
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I still listen to the soundtrack.
ManicDrumMix: https://soundcloud.com/the-neil-voss-collection/manicdrummix?in=the-neil-voss-collection/sets/tetrisphere-ost
Hallucid: https://soundcloud.com/the-neil-voss-collection/hallucid?in=the-neil-voss-collection/sets/tetrisphere-ost
Learn: https://soundcloud.com/the-neil-voss-collection/learn?in=the-neil-voss-collection/sets/tetrisphere-ost
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Not my list but that's okey dokey, Dead Cells, RDR2 and Tetris are all solid and I'm looking forward to trying out Spiderman when there's a good sale price.
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Excellent list!
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Each site has a different GOTY. EG said Tetris Effect, EG Readers and IGN God of War, PC Gamer Into the Breach... I consider that a great sign, both that it was a strong year but also that amazing indie games can get enough profile and recognition to go toe to toe with big publisher-funded games.
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