The 2018 Waypoint Community List of Lists

General Discussion
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Top 5 Games That Rehabilitated My Love for Games after God of War Almost Killed It Forever

  1. Thief Gold & Thief 2: The Metal Age - After about 3 happy, game-free months, I decided to go back to a couple of my favorite games of all time. They reminded me what it’s like to play a game that has mechanics that are engaging from start to finish, even when those mechanics are relatively simple.

  2. Dark Souls: Remastered - By the time I finished the Thief games I was ready to move on to something a little more action focused. Dark Souls reminded me that combat in games could feel deliberate and powerful without being a total cake walk or ridiculously punishing depending on the difficulty setting.

  3. Metal Gear Solid 1-3 - Conquering Lordran once again had me finally ready to play something I hadn’t played before. The Metal Gear Solid series reminded me that games could have the thematic depth and breadth to keep me thinking about them months after I played them.

  4. Forza Horizon 4 - When I had finished plumbing Hideo Kojima’s mind for answers, I was finally able to muster the enthusiasm to buy a new game. Forza reminded me that it’s okay to have fun while you’re playing games, and that it’s okay to put them down the second you stop having fun.

  5. Return of the Obra Dinn - After a few months of dabbling in other games, Obra Dinn really got it’s hooks in me. It reminded me that games could challenge me in more cerebral ways, and make me feel like a genius.

My short breakup with games has made my relationship to the medium much healthier. I read more books now, and I watch more movies. I get my fill of narrative from mediums that are much better at it, which allows me to enjoy games for what actually makes them special.

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10

Favorite NPCs

5) The Cat Chefs from MonHun World

4) Gabriel from Quarantine Circular

3) Eila from Ashen

2) Theo from Celeste

1) Emilie from CrossCode

(I will edit with descriptions I just wanted to get this list down)

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11

3 Good Games That I Obtained In 2018 That I Probably Won’t Finish Until Late 2019 Or Later Not Because I Don’t Like Playing Them Or Anything My Focus Is Just That Bad

  1. XCOM 2 - i really love customizing my soldiers and creating shitty posters, and the strategy is pretty fun, but it is long and overwhelming and i have ADHD

  2. No Man’s Sky - i’m really glad i picked this game up because the planets all look incredible, i love taking photos of all the interesting animals i find, and the storyline is very intriguing, but it is long and overwhelming and i have ADHD

  3. Subnautica - i’m a HUGE fan of marine biology and weird aliens so this game ticks all my boxes, i have so much fun exploring this world and it hasn’t been too much of a horror game for me so far, but it is long and overwhelming and i have ADHD

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12

top 5 dogs:

  1. saw a dog two weeks ago, very good
  2. i rlly liked this dog i saw on snapchat
  3. my friends dog is really cute
  4. cartoon dog
  5. my friends dog, again, this time asleep
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13

Games I want to play more of/have not played yet but really want to from 2018:

  1. Battletech
  2. Pokemon Let’s Go!
  3. Vampyr
  4. Hitman 2
  5. Just Cause 4 (it’s good, y’all)
  6. Heaven Will be Mine sounds dope
  7. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (How can you not like Kassandra?)
  8. Return of the Obra Dinn
  9. Hollow Knight
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14

Got two lists for yalls.

Favorite short, single-sitting games (that ironically took me two sittings to play through):

  1. Gorogoa - Really clever puzzle game that does very interesting things with framing and perspective.

  2. Donut County - A “hole-gobbler” (as Rob calls it) with lots of charm and personality.

  3. Floor Kids - Uhhhh a score-attack/rhythm game centered on breakdancing??? Neat!

Questionable, potentially controversial, potentially trash content that I found myself actually kinda enjoying:

  1. Strangers: Prey at Night - I really enjoyed the original Strangers film and absolutely did not want a sequel, and yet, here we are…Hey, but there is a scene (CW: Violence, blood) with Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” playing in the background, so that has to count for something right??

  2. Devolver Digital’s Big Fancy Press Conference 2018 - A weird semi-parody semi actual press conference put on by Devolver Digital during E3. Check a look!

  3. Eminem’s Kamikaze album - As icky as his subject matter can sometimes be, I can’t deny the dude’s a super talented wordsmith. Coupled with that is the fact that this album is essentially a rant in response to his previous album not selling that well, so I knew I’d be in for a ride.

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15

The Best Not-Quite-Metroidvanias (Despipte Being Declared Metroidvanias) of 2018:

  1. The Messenger - This game is a Metroidvania … eventually. The Waypoint team generally had good things to say, though Patrick panned the length of the initial bit of the game, which is much more linear than the latter parts. Personally, I really enjoyed it despite it not opening up yet. It gave a lot of good runway to get to know the abilities you pick up, and had a difficulty curve that was shallow enough to keep progress nice and snappy as you traverse the world. Once the “now this is a fully explorable world with portals between past and present” bit happened, I felt that the buildup was well justified! It really made the entire world (most of which I’d seen in one timeline or another) feel like it was full of new secrets.
    Also, the humor was a bit over-the-top but had an endearing genuineness to it, especially since I played it on the heels of the infinitely-more-try-hard Guacamelee! 2.

  2. Dead Cells - It’s definitely not a Metroidvania . But it borrows the element of permanent traversal ability upgrades and uses it to unlock access to new stages, including new intermediate stages. What’s so cool about that is that you can get 3 or 4 stages in, get a new ability, and then on your next run have a new branch to take at stage 1 or 2. That structure keeps new runs really fresh because they branch so early and often, and it’s one of the ways that Dead Cells succeeds at reducing tedium.

  3. Death’s Gambit - This game tends to have an identity crisis from time to time, and though it was marketed and discussed as a Metroidvania , I would argue that it is not one because none of its areas are gated by abilities or gear, and you don’t gain new traversal abilities during the game. However, it was a really interesting 2D soulslike. While messy and inconsistent, it was also full of interesting boss fights, dramatic music tracks, and surprisingly effective narrative flourishes. There are plenty of rocky elements, and the variety and balance of the combat is out of whack, but the team seems committed to addressing feedback and continuing to improve and expand the game. It has a ton of potential to be something special once it’s more refined.

Note about terminology: I don’t mean to be an ass about how to use Metroidvania as a classification, but for the sake of the above list the required elements are:

  • A persistent open world to explore, or at least branching paths
  • Abilities or gear that, once acquired, allow access to new areas in the world

All of these games were declared Metroidvanias by reviewers or tags on steam, hence this pedantic list. Also! If anyone’s interested, I wrote more about all these games on my hobby review blog: https://pauldoyle.space/blog/

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16

Top 8 Zones in 2018
Fortuna, Warframe
Lathyrus Palace, Ashen
The Library, Octavi Navarro’s The Librarian
The Inn, The Hex
Ossuary, Dead Cells
The Bridge, All Walls Must Fall
Miami, Hitman 2
(This space reserved for when I play more CrossCode)

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17

9, discourse.zone

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18

True

(Even mods are subject to the 15 character limit)

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19

The Bridge in All Walls Must Fall is a sneaky good pick. The feel and the theme music for it is such a good contrast to rest of the game, and yet it fits so well.

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Another two great Zones for the full top ten, that couldn’t be more opposite, the airport in this game, which reframes the airport as a space for surreal horror. It’s doing things I think are really smart that I’m legitimately stumped to try and explain why. I played this two nights ago, it takes about 10-15 minutes (unless im missing something big, and gosh is it affecting.

I am now very excited for this

The other game that I want to shout out for having a great zone is Touch Melbourne, which is an impressionistic tour of Melbourne, Australia. It also takes about ten minutes to play and is very good.

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21

Top 13 Most Powerful Heat Signature Names i’ve Seen This Year

  1. Thankful Stillness
  2. Jazz Truth
  3. Sly Dialect
  4. Ocean Prince
  5. December Orchard
  6. Gemini Glass
  7. Catch Cavness
  8. Magic Gemini
  9. Castor Coldstar
  10. Crater Dust
  11. Sunshine Fiasco
  12. Zero Hightower
  13. Ash Fairplay
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I just need to say that the first Heat Signature character I ever rolled was named “Lady Love”

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23

Then may I interest you in the newest DLC they released for free if you own wotc that let’s you create a squad then play a scenario mission with them?

Short and straight to the stuff you like and you aren’t locked into a 30 hour campaign.

Highly recommend grabbing Skirmish+ as well

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oh yeah i did get that! it looks fun i just haven’t gotten around to playing it yet (well, i tried, but then i realized that it had been months since i had played xcom and had forgotten how to do absolutely anything in it lol)

i’ll definitely keep that mod in mind, thank you!

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Favorite Non-2018 games (I played in 2018)

1. Solitarica

I’ve spent too many hours on this game. It’s the closest I’ve gotten to feeling addicted to a video game in a long time. I don’t mean thinking about it when I’m not playing it, I mean nearly unable to pull myself away from. It’s such the perfect Timeout game, and I really didn’t start with it until the later part of the year. The combination of slay the spire like progression and solitaire has me at it’s mercy. It’s so good.

2. Beeswing

Really adored this game. The music fits the art so well. Was a delight to explore.

3. Divinity: Original Sin 2

Played this with three friends and it was fantastic. Each of us took a story character and took turns picking out quests to do together. Sometimes one player would wander into a situation where they had to fight and the rest of us would rush to the rescue. The battle system is immaculate. One of the best turn-based rpg combat systems hands down. The enemies and encounters were really varied and a blast to figure out.

4. System Crash

I don’t even remember where I heard about this, but it scratches a very specific itch of a cyberpunk single-player CCG. It’s really a game I was taken completely by surprise and glad I tried.

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26

Top 15 2018 Games I Want to Play in 2019

  1. Heaven will be Mine
  2. Wandersong
  3. Vampyr
  4. Ni no Kuni II
  5. Frostpunk
  6. Secret Little Haven
  7. The Pizza Delivery Boy Who Saved the World!
  8. The Banner Saga 3
  9. Fortune-499
  10. Cultist Simulator
  11. Dust and Salt
  12. Attentat 1942
  13. Deltarune
  14. Life is Strange 2
  15. Valkyria Chronicles 4
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27

Biggest Snubs from the Waypoint Game of the Year Polls (That I Can Think Of Right Now)

  1. The Haunted Island: A Frog Detective Game - Best Writing

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  1. Lethal League Blaze - Best Fighter

its pong but 90s

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also has a popping soundtrack

  1. Dandara - Best Soundtrack

Y’all? I’m sorry. But… I think this might match Celeste. Y’all? It’s so good. This game also deserves some recognition for having really incredible game feel and some gorgeous and bizarre visuals? Some of my favorite tracks: Hidden in Logic, Shadow of a Doubt, Hopefully a Nightmare, Crumbling Memories.

I’ve said it elsewhere, but this soundtrack just… oozes style. It’s got these, bizarre, swirling synthetic sounds overlaying warm piano and bongos, that match the topsy-turvy universe its set in. I’m too hazy right now to really give a good explanation of why this soundtrack is incredible, and I might edit this later. So just listen to it:

  1. Below - Best Sound Design

Okay, I know. I know this game isn’t for everyone. I know it’s a slow, masochistic burn of a game. I know it’s dark and difficult and frustrating. I know the first five minutes seem like something out of a Tarkovsky movie. I know. But… the sound design is a brooding, hellish swathe of synthetic hums and distant scrapes in the darkness. It reminds me of a John Carpenter soundtrack. It’s hard to explain without actually experiencing it, so maybe watch this video (though the player isn’t great). This game also has incredible art design, environmental design, and… I don’t know, I actually quite like the game itself, though I know its not for everyone.

But this game has probably the most dread inducing soundscape I’ve heard in a long time. It’s not just fear, or terror, or creepiness, but dread. A deep, awful dread of things to come. Creatures chitter, monsters growl, bones scrape. Grass swishes, water splashes, stones crumble. Jim Guthrie’s music isn’t just a soundtrack, it’s the heaving breath of something echoing down the corridors.

When you die, and you will die, a deep, terrible bellow sounds upon your demise. A bleak and tremendous sound, a shofar from the deepest pits. And when you respawn as a new traveler, on a new boat, sailing past old wrecked ships and onto the same rainy shore, the same bellow hails your arrival, as if to say, “This is only the beginning.”

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  1. me - Best Thing

I’m good, and good at it, too!

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28

Ugh holy shit those names. I need to start playing Heat Signature again. I forget constantly how much fun I had with it and that it’s also basically the closest thing we’ll ever get to a Friends at the Table Twilight Mirage video game.

also tag urself i’m crater dust

1 Like