Last Wednesday
Awkward Mixture published its yearly
Reflection. This article specifically summarizes all the video
games reviewed on the site, and will be the last article of 2018.
2016
and 2017
were great years for video games on Awkward Mixture. In 2016 I
reviewed 14 games, and strongly recommended six (42%). 2017 included
21 games, with nine strongly recommended (42%). This year, with only
13 games, I'm going to strongly recommend 5 (38%). That data
doesn't make 2018 appear much worse than the two previous years. But
it's all about the bottom of the chart.
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | |
| Best Game(s) | 1 (7%) | 1 (4%) | 2 (15%) |
| Honorable Mention | 5 (35%) | 8 (38%) | 3 (23%) |
| Worth Playing Once | 6 (46%) | 5 (23%) | 3 (23%) |
| Not Worth Playing | 2 (14%) | 7 (33%) | 5 (38%) |
| Started but didn't Finish | ? | 8 | 3 |
| Total + Didn't Finish | 14 + ? | 21 + 8 | 13 + 3 |
2018
contained five games not worth playing, which is the largest
percentage for any year. While 2016 wasn't much better than 2018 in
Honorable Mentions, most of the games were at least worth playing
once. Part of the problem with this year, was as already mentioned
in the yearly review, that my computer was broken for the entire
months of March and September. This reduced the sample size.
Additionally, Ultimate
General: Civil War,
Divinity: Original Sin,
Dark Souls 3,
and Pillars of Eternity
were exceptionally long
games, and between the four of them I wrote seventeen articles.
Before
the list begins, one final teaser. In 2016, Alien:
Isolation won best game without any contenders. None of the five
Honorable Mention games came close. In 2017, deciding the best game
was difficult because none were truly great. In the end, I decided
on SuperHot,
and I don't regret it. Yet no other game differentiated itself
enough from the others. Unlike years past, 2018 included two
challengers for the best game. It was incredibly difficult deciding
between two games for the Best Game, so I created a 2nd
place award.
Onto
the games!
Games I Didn't Finish:
Sometimes I
begin a game and don't finish it. That doesn't mean it is terrible,
though it often is. This is a list of the few games I began, but was
unwilling to see to completion.
Playing
Punch Club
felt exactly as dull as its activities. Go to the gym. Work
construction. Sleep. Eat. Compete in a boxing match. Repeat,
without achieving any progress because there isn't enough time to do
anything long enough to improve.
While
I enjoyed WarCraft, StarCraft, Age of Empires, and Age of Mythology,
I've long since abandoned the genre. Stronghold
Crusader belongs to that
past era, and classic RTS games bore me. Crusader
even contained a mechanic which eliminated my least enjoyable feature
in the genre. It streamlined the task of collecting resources, by
automating it. In spite of this, it's a category I no enjoy.
Every
game in the survival genre shares similar features, and similar
problems. The Flame in
the Flood fails
to overcome the common issues. Every
game starts the same, and feels the same for the first half hour.
Even beyond the beginning, the game doesn't develop, or allow enough
advancement.
If I was Trapped on a Deserted
Island, I Wouldn't Play these Games:
It's a fact
that there are plenty of games people love, that others are bound not
to enjoy. Some of these were particularly disappointing because of
their reputation. I played these, but I regret the time wasted.
I
played the original Star
Tactics
in January of 2017. At the time it was terrible mess, originally
planned as a mobile game, and I panned it. After
my review the creator contacted me on Steam, thanked me for taking
the time to write a review, and said he was releasing an updated
version. After spending an additional four hours on Redux
in
2018, I can confirm
it is the Most Improved
Game
I've ever played, but
I still wouldn't play it again, and only recommend it to people with
the understanding it is a simple, casual, mobile-like tactical game.
To
start the year, I played three 4X-RTS space sagas. As I mentioned
in discussing Stronghold
Crusader, classic
real-time strategy games don't engage me like they used to. So
maybe it is not surprising that I only played Sins
of A Solar Empire: Trinity for five hours before calling it
quits. To me, the whole experience seemed like the Most
Accurate Portrayal of How Boring it Would be to
Actually Manage a Space Empire.
Domina
seemed like an exciting concept. Train gladiators to fight for your
glory. In concept it didn't work. The training is busy work, like
an idle game, while combat is too quick. It's impossible to see how
the effort in developing the gladiators translates to the arena. On
normal difficulty it is almost impossible to lose. For these
reasons, Domina is the Most Likely to Inflict Pain on the
Player.
Part of my
enjoyment of this blog is cataloging and reviewing games, with the
thought that some day I will review a sequel and have an old review
to refer to. This wasn't true for Ultimate
General: Civil War, (and I sort of worked a review of the
original into the series), because I'd played Ultimate General:
Gettysburg before creating Awkward Mixture. What is true, is
that Ultimate General: Civil War was the Most Disappointing
Sequel reviewed on Awkward Mixture.
It's disappointing
to dislike a sequel, but it's even more disappointing to despise a well
received original, especially when its sequel is already available, and that
sequel ranks in the top 30 PC games ever according to Metacritic.
Divinity:
Original Sin Enhanced Edition, is well regarded (though not as well as Divinity: Original Sin II), but I suffered through it. Length
wasn't the issue (see Pillars of Eternity), though I was bored
by at least hour 20. Difficulty wasn't the issue either (see Dark Souls
3), though every battle was a tedious duel to the death. It was
both of those, and also included a tone which zigged and jagged, jarringly
from humor to funereal, without any sense of rhyme or reason. As a result, I
plan to delay playing Divinity: Original Sin II for quite some time,
making Divinity, the Most Disappointing First in a Series I Wanted
to Play.
Games That were Fun Once:
Sometimes the
uniqueness of a game makes it worth one attempt. Other times, the
enjoyment of an otherwise well designed game is eventually reduced by
one expanding flaw. Therefore these games are recommended with
reservation.
Paradox is one of
my favorite developers and publishers, so I thought I would love
their space saga. Unfortunately,as I played Stellaris, I realized that
the strength of Paradox has been in the historical grounding of its
games. Stellaris
is the Best Space Saga Which Needs A History. Without it, the
intricate details of building a galactic empire are meaningless.
It seems unlikely
there are any game aside from Mini
Metro, in which the player exclusively constructs a subway (or
other rail-based) system. In spite of the ever increasing demands
made on the player, it's an oddly relaxing experience. The strength
of Metro resides in the design, and therefore it is the game with the
Best Combination of Color and Simplicity.
Kingdom:
Classic is a strange combination. On the one hand, it
expects the player to win on their first attempt. I assume this is
true, because replaying even a part of the two hours would be
arduous. On the other hand, the game offers no instruction, and
small mistakes are compounded by an inept AI, which foolishly sends
the player's workers and soldiers on unnecessary suicide missions.
The developer has released at least one sequel which I tried, but
Kingdom is a good game with the Least Need of A Sequel.
Honorable Mention
A great game
allows one to conceive of playing again. Maybe they don't have the
time, and never will, but they'd enjoy experiencing its resolution a
second time. The following games are highly recommended.
Sometimes a sequel
is carried by the original game. The
Banner Saga 2 is not particularly unique or powerful. It doesn't
offer any answers for issues from The Banner Saga, and
introduces too many new questions. The combat is still satisfactory,
but the story, upon which the series rides, is precariously balanced.
In fact, The Banner Saga 2's position as a great game is Most
Dependent Upon The Series' Conclusion. If The Banner Saga 3 is ok,
The Banner Saga 2 will be only adequate as well, and will no
longer deserve this honorable mention. Look for the review of The
Banner Saga 3 in 2019.
When I played the
three 4X-RTS games in January and February, I couldn't anticipate
Star
Ruler 2 would be the best of the three. The other two games had well
regarded publishers, Paradox and Stardock, while Star Ruler 2
was created by a company which only produced two games, and doesn't
have a homepage or Wikipedia page. The game hasn't even been rated
by four reviewers on Metacritic, denying it an official rating. And
while it doesn't have the depth of empire building that Stellaris
does, it embraces some unique mechanics and has the Best Space
Ship Design System.
I didn't play
Ultimate General: Gettysburg
this year, except after playing Ultimate General: Civil
War, to make sure it was as great as I remembered. I also didn't write a stand alone review for it, but
spent nearly 7,000 words comparing the original and the sequel, to
the latter's detriment. Aside from the many problems with Civil
War, it failed by abandoning the
feature which made Gettysburg
unique: the Best
Implementation of Different AI Difficulties.
Awkward Mixture's First 2nd
Place Award
For those paying
attention, there are only two games remaining. Both were the last
two reviewed in 2018, and both received at least 6,000 word reviews.
I spoke about them in glowing terms, but I'm compelled to place one
above the other. Ultimately, two points reduce Pillars
of Eternity to the position of runner up. I didn't buy the DLC, and the
ending, while unique, required too much pondering for me to accept it
outright. But the latter is the only flaw in the series. The rest
is a beautiful tapestry built upon an intricately composed history
stretching back ages. That is why Pillars of Eternity has the
Most Epic History.
Best Game of 2018/2016
What is there to
say about Dark
Souls 3 that I didn't already declare in five articles? Quite a
bit, but there isn't time to delve into any more detail. Dark
Souls 3 included everything one could want in an Action RPG. A
dark, mysterious story, a tight, deadly combat system, and an
expansive, absorbing setting. But what set it apart even more was
the seamless integration of a multiplayer system, both adversarial
and helpful. There was nothing more rewarding than winning a 3 v 2 v
1 multiplayer battle, except for defeating the insanely difficult
bosses. Dark Souls 3 is a challenge, a rewarding one, full of
suspense, wonder, and inevitable death. It is the Best Game of
Awkward Mixture of 2018.
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