Wednesday, 2 January 2019

Top random video games in 2018

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome to the countdown.

For many times for my hobby, i always like watching recent films, cause im just a movie guy, movies are like my second or third hobby along with drawings and even writing reviews.

Though i like movies, but i also like to spent my time to play video games.

So like last year, i decided to pick random games, whether its good or bad what i've seen. But im not not gonna split between good or bad, just random in my mind.


Lego The Incredibles
For the potential of "Incredibles 2", which is easily my number favorite film of 2018, Traveler Tales decided to making a Lego video game with The Incredibles. Released for the launch of the movie sequel, the game is...   Well, pretty much like any Lego games.

For starter, the gameplay is pretty much like before that i said, you playing as the main heroes whether its Mr. Incredible or Elastigirl, it let you play on open world in Municiberg, to just do your own business, destroy something in order raise more studs as currencies, which its might be obvious that you need those to unlock more characters from random package, the power brick or even vehicles in open world hub. 

For the story, it let you start to play in "Incredibles 2" then finishes to first film, which its nice, but it would've been better that we have to start in the first movie, rather than the sequel, i know that they want to start with the sequel, because it was new. Not to mention, they tone down from PG element in order to be kid friendly, i understand that, but its probably overshadowed for a bit childish. But sometimes, they change some elements that unlike in the movie "Incredibles 2" where Elastigirl stops the train by herself, instead she and He-Lectrix are working together, which is too soon to introducing the gimmicky heroes. Or even in the first one, unlike Mr. Incredibles is on the island by himself to facing against Omnidroid, he's teaming up with Frozone in the island in the game. But thats not all, they even keep Gazerbeam alive than the movie that he was a body count.

Even though the story mode wasn't that great, but in the hub is in my opinion the best part, which it like you do not only your grinding, but also facing against the super villains, aside from Syndrome, The Underminer or even Bomb Voyage, they have a woman who's mutated from ice cream named "Brainfreezer" or even a man who's like turning into a zombie when he's probably drowned in the sea named "Anchor-Man". Pretty cool, but kinda disturbing concept for them. And for added bonus, they even let you customizing your own character, located on Edna Mode's house. And the graphic is feels like they took the same engine from the previous game, which i feel like its something straight out of PS3 or Xbox 360.

Overall, the game is not bad, i like the hub, i like they including extra Pixar characters like Wall-E, Flick from "The Bug's life" or even Dory from "Finding Nemo/Dory". But its just that the gameplay feels like the game, the changing story aren't as good and the graphic is waay to old for the current system like Xbox One S that i played.

Agony
Well, this is gonna a lot worse than "Mighty Number 9".

This game was made in Kickstarter campaign where you play as Nimrod who's been sent to hell from the creator Red Goddess, mainly because your character is a devil worshiper. Its up to him to find the way to get the hell out. Honestly, this game tried really hard to be like Doom where you play in hell, but it is so bad that its boring.

Though the graphic is not bad, but it has an overdose of violent and disturbing image, but it doesn't mean that its good, the gameplay goes where you play in stealth to hold your breath, but its messy and it gets boring all the way through. Also, the voice acting is pretty bad, which im convincing that they're voiced by the developers themselves.

Though im glad i never played, this game is so bad that the title suggested, its a complete Agony.

Soulcalibur VI
I love Soul Calibur series, this game introduced me from my friend while visiting to his home which it got a lot of attention that i wanna play. The first one that i remembered play for the first time is "Soul Calibur IV".

Several years after the disappointed "Soul Calibur V" as with some bad spin off for the cash in, Namco Bandai made "Soul Calibur VI", saying that its a reboot from the second game "Soul Calibur" (no relation of the first one called "Soul Edge"). But they said that if this game was success, they're gonna make another one, if not, than the series will be dead. When it came out, its a welcoming return.

For starter, the gameplay is what you expected, its a fighting tournament with swords, nun-chucks, axes and even powerful weapons like Soul Edge or Soul Calibur, your attack is either horizontal, vertical or even kicking. You fight your opponent, from various styles what you played as random characters, like Sophitia using her sword and shield, Ivy Valentine has a sword that turning into a whip, Nightmare uses an aggressive moves with Soul Edge, or even Yoshimitsu using his sword to standing into it while crouching or even using as a helicopter for...  Weird reason for this demonic warrior. I personally like to play as Nightmare, Sophitia, Mistsurugi, Taki, as well some new character/guest like Aswel or recently 2B from Nier Automata.

One part they adding something new in the gameplay is "Reversal Edge" where you have to use the attack or block when your fighter automatically run towards your opponent, but i find it to be unnecessary for using it, i prefer doing my combo or mashing buttons.

For the story, i expected that we can play as Sophitia for seeking revenge from the infection from Soul Edge. But instead, it focused to Kilik going on his journey to dealing about Nightmare with Soul Edge, as well with teaming up with Xianghua and a pirate captain Maxi. Its pretty cool for the explanation and the secret truth about the new sword Soul Calibur. However, you can even play as other characters for the story, like where a new character Groh was wounded from Soul Edge it causing him in berserk and confronting against historian Aswel, Kilik's training before he's prepared or even the guest Geralt was transported to different world.

And like any Soul Calibur games, you can even create your own characters. Though its nice to bring it back, but your character has to do the same fighting style from the roster, which im fine with it, along with different weapons. The good news is that you can not only play as a human, but also a different race, whether you play as an angel, a demon, a skeleton, a shapeshifter or even malfested forms. But the bad news is that the outfits are limited that they're less than before, ouch. There's another single player mode that you play as a customize character for your own journey with some RPG like for leveling your experience for your attack and defense points, and it also let you play whether you're good or evil.

This game is a welcome return that i highly recommend to play, if you're a fan of fighting games or even the series like SoulCalibur.

The Culling 2
Let me star off by saying that im not considering myself as a fan of battle royale genre, they're like a new trend of the video game genre. Especially with the over popular Fortnite. Like im trying to playing it on Switch, but didn't get my interest.

In fact, Fortnite or even "PlayerUnkown Battleground" are so popular, its no secret that many indie devs made their own battle royale, but some are either cheap or unplayable. But the biggest victim is "The Culling 2".

This game sequel came out after the first one from last year that nobody cared, they trying to make a big deal for the newcomer of battle royale, but its so bad that you can't even play anymore, because the graphic looks cheap, the game is buggy and its an obvious ripoff.

But the best part is that the game was so bad, that the company "Xaviant"  had decide to pulled the game out of library and they issue an apology to us for how bad it is. Like no S***, guys. It definitely deserves to be removed for how ripoff it was made. If you wanted to play battle royale, stick to Fortnite.

Forza Horizon 4
I always love to playing driving/racing sims, whether its my childhood like "Midtown Madness 2" or even currently like Gran Turismo. But the one franchise im a fanboy is "Forza" series.

After the release of "Forza Motorsport 7" that although its a good game, but not for god awful lootboxes (But thankfully it was removed for good reason). The company Playground Games went to make a sequel of "Forza Horizon" and oh man, i still love it and its predictably good.

In this game, it takes place in fictional land of United Kingdom, instead going around locations to creating Horizon Festival in four places, here you only have one and you can buy various house for your own home. I guess they wanted to be realistic that you want to be homeless when you live in Festival that you owned.

for the gameplay, there's not much else to say, you just driving around, winning the race in various form from street racing, off road or even cross-country. And not matter how many times you leveling up you get a slot machone that your get either extra currencies, your clothes (which yes, you can customize your character, but probably the lamest one) or even free cars. But hey, at least the slot machine doesn't let you pay with real money.

Though the graphic aren't much else to say, like its simply nice, especially for the car's detail. But other times, some graphic could be messy with poor quality, keep in mind, i played on Xbox One S, which its not as advanced like Xbox One X. But what it makes it so special is the transition of seasons, which i really like what they give, but it lasted every week til Thursday for changing seasons non stop.

And you're probably wondering the recent expansion DLC called "Fortune Island"? Well, its basically a fictional island that it was too dangerous that one one will ever come in from risky tracks or thunderstorm. And it also adding treasure hunting with riddles, some are obviously easy, but other times its unfairly hard like the one where you do the "Speed Zone" with Willy's Jeep. (Which i think there's Willys in the Jeep section, but it was on "Willy's" section, thanks for confusing me.) Overall, "Fortune Island" is pretty average, it doesn't have a "Wow!" factor like Hot Wheels.

Overall, this the game that i love to going back and play Forza Horizon, so hope for the better with the second expansion DLC and possibly another installment of Forza series in 2019.

Metal Gear Survive
Back in 2015, Hideo Kojima left Konami (due to backstage politic at poor Kojima when it comes to the development of Metal Gear Solid 5 and cancelled Silent Hills) in order to collaborating with Sony for the upcoming game that we like to see "Death Stranding".

With Kojima's leaving, you'll think that Konami is gonna focus with other franchise, right? Nope. Because they decided to make another Metal Gear game without Kojima, instead og good'ol fashion stealth mission, the game let you played as an unnamed soldier who got sucked into a portal from the sky for some reason, then you stranded into a different dimension that your mission is go killing zombies.

This is the idea what you don't have to if the creator of the series isn't here from debacle. But nope, Konami is all like "F*** this guy, lets make our own Metal Gear game in order to make money like Pachinko machines that we did!".

For the dumb name suggested, its about you live in survival from zombies and gathering foods and drinks, but the problem is you're forced to learn how to do those, because your main character is an idiot for didn't know what to do. And there's also where you gathering a crystal called "Kuban" energy for...  Science??

But you know what's the scariest part of this game aside of making Pachinko? This game is also including Microtransation. This time, if you wanna open a second file, you have to pay 10 dollars before you access. Wow... Not even Konami wasn't bad enough that they want more money like EA.

Way to go, Konami, way to go...!

Spider-Man PS4
2018 is easily a best year with our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, there was "Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse" and even dealing with Thanos in "Avengers Infinity War". Well.... Not sure if thats good for the last one... And of course there's Venom that despite it wasn't the best, but i like this movie.

But in the video game, it surprised us that instead of cashing in based on movies, this one is actually original and i loved it!

When this game was announced, i wasn't sure if its good, mainly because i always believe its game for capitalizing with Marvel license, but surprisingly, it never disappoints us. In this game, you playing as 23 year old Peter Parker who works with Otto Octavius as an research assistant on his laboratory. Despite the identity exposed in front of Octavius, he gave him a backup by upgrading the suit to give him special abilities. As he's fighting bad guys like Wilson Fisk (aka Kingpin), he heard's about the Devil's Breath from Demon that it spreads in New York, its up to you as Spider-Man to stop the Demon once and for all. The story is basically Spider-Man has to stop the virus that it causes an evil threat.

Even though the story is kinda odd, but it also has a subplot about the struggle relation between Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson, despite he may have a relation with NYPD captain name Yuri Watanabe, whether it was build for development with Ms. Watson or probably a plan with Yuri, especially Peter likes to have fun as Spider-Man for his nickname "Spider-Cop".

About the gameplay, the control is pretty nice and smooth, with pulling the trigger non-stop for web-swinging, doing the combo for beating up bad guys (especially using "Spider-Sense" to avoiding enemy's fight or even bullets) and probably some overused quicktime events. Not mention, you can even upgrade your skills, the powerups and my favorite part is the collectible suits of Spider-Man, with "Iron-Spider", "Spider-Man Noir", "Scarlet Spider", "Spider-Neon", the old "Spider-Man armor" and my favorite recently is the suit of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. The suits gives you some specials for the abilities, like camouflage, agility and more.

The graphic looks great that they give a realistic look of humans, the city of New York (as well with Avengers's tower), the action moments and so much more what they presenting, it is outstanding for Insomniac Games. You can take pictures in "Photo mode", even though i like taking pics in Smash Bros, but in Spider-Man, he likes to taking selfie. Even though that im not sure if i wanna do that as a gamer, but kids these days, they always like to taking pictures for all for fun and probably wrong reasons.

But i have a problem of this game is that aside the overuse of QTE, it also let you play as either Mary Jane and Miles Morales, but they're only use for "stealth" gameplay, which i don't like that they give us. And a third problem is that this game is exclusive on PS4, like we had some Spider-Man games on multi platforms, such as Spider-Man 2 the video game, which is great game, even though i haven't try it.

Despite some of flaws, but it is no wonder why we love this PS4 game of Spider-Man, it was considered as the best licensed superhero game and it also sold very good with over 3.3 million units of sales. Its easily a must-have game that you definitely try it for PS4.

Fallout 76
Let me start off by saying that im not a huge fan of Fallout, when i first looked it up, i always wanna give a try like Fallout 4, but my interest didn't get it, so i basically moving on.

Anyway, when Bethesda was announcing about Fallout 76, it was rather skeptical when the Todd Howard (the led developer of the series like Fallout and Elder Scrolls.) talked about the game Fallout 76, saying its gonna be a big deal with better graphic, better gameplay, playing in single player mode and playing multiplayer without online server. Which i wasn't sure if this will be better than Fallout 4.

And when the game came out, this game is nothing but fake news from Todd's announcement, with low detail, the glare is rising from the ground, boring gameplay, no single player mood, no NPC and it has online sever. Like everything is a lie for the potential, its nothing but poor excuse for showing that it will be "good", but it feels like it was rushed for making a game like this. Not to mention, you can even throw the nuke, but the nuke is way too sensitive that if you throw more than one, it crashed the game's server.

But it gets worse that the biggest final nail of the coffin, is that they even including Microtransactions to buying skins. What?! You're telling us that we have to buy a skin with real money?! God F***ing dammit! The "Evolve" all over again!

This is the game that it was done by an unprofessional developer who wants to finishing project quickly for full price in the market and even Microtransaction for quick bucks. Like stay away, that will make a lot of concerns for Bethesda's future. Except for Doom Eternal, its the once i considered my anticipation.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate
We're closing the list to talk about the number 1 must-have and favorite game of the year, Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

From before, Masihiro Sakurai and Nintendo made the fourth Smash Bros on the Wii U and 3DS, which it was rather above average, i like they brought the Mii Fighters, the new fighters is well deserved like Little Mac and Pac-Man. After the game's release, we though that its all over that Sakurai wanted to moving on.

But thanks for the support from the fans and employees of Nintendo, he brought us back to the world of Smash Bros on Switch and it really amazed us when it was announced. And when it came out, it never disappoints us for how awesome it is.

Its simple for the gameplay, its a platform fighting game, A is a simple attack, along with Smash with Joycon analogue, B is special attack and activating Final Smash and using trigger buttons is for blocking (for limit) and grappling your opponent. The control is satisfy to play with either Joycon, pro-controller or even GameCube controller. You can play in "Classic mode", events and of course adventure mode known as "World of Light".

The presentation of this game looks pretty nice for Nintendo Switch, its bright, colorful and it is fun for a crossover fighting game with Nintendo characters and third party characters like Snake, Sonic, Pac-Man and Megaman. Speaking of characters, the roster is huge with over 74 fighters you can playing as, unless you counted two more with Piranha Plant from Mario and Joker from Persona 5, even these guys are the one i requested, but im still hoping for good DLC like Shantae, Protoman (the echo fighter of Megaman, or perhaps more third party like Sans from Undertale/Deltarune or maybe Doom Marine from Doom.

The story mod "World of Light" is pretty cool one and probably helpful to unlock the fighters in your roster. Aside from the very surprising opening sequence that it looks like something straight out of Infinity War, you start playing as Kirby in order to not only gathering spirits and even freeing fighters from Galeem and Dharkon. But i won't spoil it, which it has ending choice. For me, i bought the game when it came out in the first day, its like a modern Holy Grail for video game. Then at first, i though its gonna be hard for it, but it was kinda easy to beat, due to the fact that you beat evil clones to gathering spirits and even save the fighters, especially the world is huge for any directions for where you supposed to go and what to do. It took me about one week in order to beat the adventure, it is quiet stressful for all of reasons like fighting harder clone or even bosses like Galeem and Dharkon.

However, the game has some flaws, with as we all know, they remove the trophies (not counted the "assist trophy") to replacing with spirits of offense, defense and grapple. Though its kinda disappointed that il missed them, but the spirits might be useful for depending for what you like in your collection, like in Smash, you can fight anyone with your spirits. And there's the lockable characters (aside from Adventure mode), which at first, its started easy when i unlock one character easily, but as it goes, it gets harder for unfair reason, likely the aggressive AI that it pissed me off, but thankfully, for the effort and picking some easy character to beat,  i manage to completing them all and the roster is done, or does it?

Overall, Super Smash Bros Ultimate is easily one of the best game 2018 that it deserves a potential and worth of waiting with Switch. This is definitely a must have that we can all agree.

Got any good or bad games that i missed? Let me know in the comments bellow

So this is my final top list of the year 2018. So 2019 is already here and im looking forward to be better.

And, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading and im Anthony, signing out.

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