PA Game Of The Year 2018 - And the winner is?

Infidel

2018 GOTY Results! (click to see detailed vote breakdown)

(Previous Game of the Year results: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014)

While we've had declining numbers for participation every year, usually losing up to 10% of voters, this year was quite the drop with only about half the voters we had last year. End of an era? Time to shake things up for the future? Discuss.

Anyways, looks like people still like to SMASH:

Top 20 Overall

1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (NS)
2. Spider-Man (PS4)
3. God of War (PS4)
4. Into the Breach (NS, PC)
5. Dead Cells (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
6. Monster Hunter: World (PC, PS4, XBO)
7. Octopath Traveler (NS)
8. Celeste (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
9. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4, XBO)
10. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (PC, PS4, XBO)
11. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
12. Hitman 2 (PC, PS4, XBO)
13. Subnautica (PC, PS4, XBO)
14. Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! (NS)
15. Dragon Ball FighterZ (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
16. BattleTech (PC)
17. Forza Horizon 4 (PC, XBO)
18. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (NS, PC, PS4, PSVITA, XBO)
19. Tetris Effect (PS4)
20. Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (PC)

System top 10s:

PC

1. Into the Breach (NS, PC)
2. Dead Cells (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
3. Monster Hunter: World (PC, PS4, XBO)
4. Celeste (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
5. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (PC, PS4, XBO)
6. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
7. Hitman 2 (PC, PS4, XBO)
8. Subnautica (PC, PS4, XBO)
9. Dragon Ball FighterZ (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
10. BattleTech (PC)

PS4

1. Spider-Man (PS4)
2. God of War (PS4)
3. Dead Cells (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
4. Monster Hunter: World (PC, PS4, XBO)
5. Celeste (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
6. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4, XBO)
7. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (PC, PS4, XBO)
8. Hitman 2 (PC, PS4, XBO)
9. Subnautica (PC, PS4, XBO)
10. Dragon Ball FighterZ (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)

XBO

1. Dead Cells (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
2. Monster Hunter: World (PC, PS4, XBO)
3. Celeste (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
4. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4, XBO)
5. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (PC, PS4, XBO)
6. Hitman 2 (PC, PS4, XBO)
7. Subnautica (PC, PS4, XBO)
8. Dragon Ball FighterZ (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
9. Forza Horizon 4 (PC, XBO)
10. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (NS, PC, PS4, PSVITA, XBO)

NS

1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (NS)
2. Into the Breach (NS, PC)
3. Dead Cells (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
4. Octopath Traveler (NS)
5. Celeste (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
6. Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! (NS)
7. Dragon Ball FighterZ (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
8. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (NS, PC, PS4, PSVITA, XBO)
9. Valkyria Chronicles 4 (NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
10. Donut County (MOBILE, PC, PS4, XBO, NS)

Mobile

1. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (NS, PC, PS4, PSVITA, XBO)
2. Donut County (MOBILE, PC, PS4, XBO, NS)
3. Fortnite (MOBILE, NS, PC, PS4, XBO)
4. Iconoclasts (NS, PC, PS4, PSVITA)
5. Timespinner (PC, PS4, PSVITA)
6. Batman: The Enemy Within (NS, PS4, XBO, PC, MOBILE)
7. The Jackbox Party Pack 5 (NS, MOBILE, PC, PS4, XBO)
8. Florence (MOBILE)
9. Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia (MOBILE)
10. Holedown (MOBILE)

Alternative vote counting:

First Past the Post

1. Spider-Man (PS4) (8)
2. Into the Breach (NS, PC) (8)
3. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (NS) (7)
4. God of War (PS4) (6)
5. Monster Hunter: World (PC, PS4, XBO) (5)
6. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC) (5)
7. Octopath Traveler (NS) (5)
8. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4, XBO) (3)
9. BattleTech (PC) (3)
10. Subnautica (PC, PS4, XBO) (3)
11. Valkyria Chronicles 4 (NS, PC, PS4, XBO) (2)
12. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (PC, PS4, XBO) (2)
13. Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! (NS) (2)
14. Dead Cells (NS, PC, PS4, XBO) (2)
15. Tetris Effect (PS4) (1)
16. Sea of Thieves (PC, XBO) (1)
17. Hitman 2 (PC, PS4, XBO) (1)
18. Celeste (NS, PC, PS4, XBO) (1)
19. F1 2018 (PC, PS4, XBO) (1)
20. Deltarune: Chapter 1 (PC) (1)

Approval

1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (NS) (34)
2. Spider-Man (PS4) (28)
3. Dead Cells (NS, PC, PS4, XBO) (28)
4. God of War (PS4) (27)
5. Into the Breach (NS, PC) (26)
6. Octopath Traveler (NS) (21)
7. Celeste (NS, PC, PS4, XBO) (21)
8. Monster Hunter: World (PC, PS4, XBO) (20)
9. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (PC, PS4, XBO) (17)
10. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4, XBO) (17)
11. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC) (16)
12. Subnautica (PC, PS4, XBO) (15)
13. Dragon Ball FighterZ (NS, PC, PS4, XBO) (15)
14. Hitman 2 (PC, PS4, XBO) (14)
15. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (NS, PC, PS4, PSVITA, XBO) (13)
16. Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! (NS) (13)
17. BattleTech (PC) (12)
18. Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (PC) (11)
19. Tetris Effect (PS4) (11)
20. Donut County (MOBILE, PC, PS4, XBO, NS) (11)

IRV

1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (NS) (34)
2. Spider-Man (PS4) (28)
3. God of War (PS4) (27)
4. Into the Breach (NS, PC) (26)
5. Monster Hunter: World (PC, PS4, XBO) (20)
6. Dead Cells (NS, PC, PS4, XBO) (28)
7. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC) (16)
8. Octopath Traveler (NS) (21)
9. Celeste (NS, PC, PS4, XBO) (21)
10. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4, XBO) (17)
11. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (PC, PS4, XBO) (17)
12. Hitman 2 (PC, PS4, XBO) (14)
13. Subnautica (PC, PS4, XBO) (15)
14. Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! (NS) (13)
15. Dragon Ball FighterZ (NS, PC, PS4, XBO) (15)
16. BattleTech (PC) (12)
17. Deltarune: Chapter 1 (PC) (11)
18. Tetris Effect (PS4) (11)
19. Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (PC) (11)
20. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (NS, PC, PS4, PSVITA, XBO) (13)

Vote exports (as requested last year):

You can download the votes as a CSV.

File format is:

line 1: count of games (G)
line 2 - G+1: game ID, game name
line G+2: count of voters (V)
line G+3 - G+2+V: voter ID, rank 1, rank 2, rank 3, etc.

A simple example file would be:

2
1,"Super Great Game"
2,"Even Better"
3
1,1,2
4,2,1
5,2

BionicPenguin

Being the only person to vote for Monster Prom tells me more people need to play it.

Jazz

F1 2018 just scrapes into the FPTP top 20. I'm proud to have voted for that game as my #1, it was fantastic. (As with F1 2017, it only gained two votes, a #1 and a #2, only this time @davidsdurions and I went the other way around! )

davidsdurions

Jazz wrote: »

F1 2018 just scrapes into the FPTP top 20. I'm proud to have voted for that game as my #1, it was fantastic. (As with F1 2017, it only gained two votes, a #1 and a #2, only this time davidsdurions and I went the other way around! )

It would have been #1 if it wasn’t for me being fully enamored by Octopath Traveler. That game on Switch was just too fun.

Will be super interesting what could be improvements to F1 this year. They really nailed sound for 2018.

Jazz

davidsdurions wrote: »

Jazz wrote: »

F1 2018 just scrapes into the FPTP top 20. I'm proud to have voted for that game as my #1, it was fantastic. (As with F1 2017, it only gained two votes, a #1 and a #2, only this time davidsdurions and I went the other way around! )

It would have been #1 if it wasn’t for me being fully enamored by Octopath Traveler. That game on Switch was just too fun.

Will be super interesting what could be improvements to F1 this year. They really nailed sound for 2018.

Especially as there's no new tracks on the calendar this year. They tend to get creative when that happens, since building new tracks takes a lot of development bandwidth. I'd love to see classic tracks return, though. I had a ton of fun with them in F1 2013.

OT looks pretty great, no worries

Jazz

Also, looking back on the previous years linked, does anyone else think (obviously with the benefit of hindsight) that we, as a forum, got it wrong for the 2015 awards?

Specifically the top two being the wrong way round.

Henroid

Holy crap Dead Cells and Celeste brought it home. Nice!

Lavender Gooms

I'm just going to keep saying it:

More people need to play Crosscode.

Rami

Jazz wrote: »

Also, looking back on the previous years linked, does anyone else think (obviously with the benefit of hindsight) that we, as a forum, got it wrong for the 2015 awards?

Specifically the top two being the wrong way round.

W3 blitzed F4 in 1st place votes though

sergiocornaga

Infidel wrote: »

While we've had declining numbers for participation every year, usually losing up to 10% of voters, this year was quite the drop with only about half the voters we had last year. End of an era? Time to shake things up for the future? Discuss.

I'm a little sad to see numbers dwindling to this level. On the bright side, individual votes are more powerful than ever! The only way of potentially causing a resurgence that I can think of at this point is opening it up to more communities again, but I hope to read some other ideas.

On the results page I couldn't help but notice Pokémon, Torna –, and Kleu’s". Is this something that can be easily fixed?

Jazz

Aistan wrote: »

I'm just going to keep saying it:

More people need to play Crosscode.

It is conspicuous by its absence from those lists. And it is so much better than that. I've only really started it but already it is pretty extraordinary. And its sales numbers on Steam aren't bad at all.

Still, it's coming to Switch this year, so hopefully it does well there too!

KoopahTroopah

Cool to see Dead Cells and Celeste up there, kind of sad that Spider-Man beat out God of War though, not enough BOY! IMO. Saw Smash being #1 from a mile away, too much of a good game for it not to be.

All those seem like great games though, with the biggest outlier being Hitman 2? I thought that got average reviews.

mcc

Haha wow, surprised (but it's cool!) to see Obra Dinn so high (especially in first place votes!!). It's such a strange game, it's exactly the sort of game I love but would never expect a lot of people to like. Nice to be wrong about that.

Infidel

sergiocornaga wrote: »

On the results page I couldn't help but notice Pokémon, Torna –, and Kleu’s". Is this something that can be easily fixed?

Character encoding is being handled differently in many different spots, when I fix it in one place it breaks in another! I’ll take a look.

urahonky

I'm comfortable with that list! I'd probably put God of War above SSB, but I'm not complaining.

cooljammer00

I'm actually a little surprised Obra Dinn placed as low as it did. It seems like one of those games where either you played it and really enjoyed it, or you didn't play it. Maybe it's got CrossCode syndrome.

Also Spider Man was robbed.

Ivan Hunger

Surprised Dragon Quest 11 didn't make any of the lists.

Very surprised that I'm the only person who gave it the #1 spot.

Then again, Octopath Traveler ranked seventh overall, so maybe it's just a case of most of the JRPG fans around here also being Nintendo fans, so they naturally gravitated to the one that's on their preferred platform.

Undead Scottsman

This might be the first year where I haven't beaten a single game in the Top 10 (and aside from 20 minutes of Celeste, I haven't played any of them either)

Spent a lot of game time in 2018 on No Man's Sky and Stellaris.

EDIT: If you extend things out ot the top 20, I've beaten a whole 2 games (and played 20 minutes of Celeste)

Elvenshae

Infidel wrote: »

While we've had declining numbers for participation every year, usually losing up to 10% of voters, this year was quite the drop with only about half the voters we had last year. End of an era? Time to shake things up for the future? Discuss.

I gotta be honest with yah, I didn't even realize that voting had started. The last couple of times I'd looked at the stickied thread title, it was still getting nominations, and I kinda just kept eliding over it each time I flipped through the forums. Oops?

BRIAN BLESSED

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

All those seem like great games though, with the biggest outlier being Hitman 2? I thought that got average reviews.

Hitman 2 is a really good-ass game whose biggest crime was that its improvements are iterative and not evolutionary

It is in all respects a better game than Hitman 1, especially given that it includes the main content of the first game in the package, but reviewers took umbrage with its value proposition

Infidel

Elvenshae wrote: »

Infidel wrote: »

While we've had declining numbers for participation every year, usually losing up to 10% of voters, this year was quite the drop with only about half the voters we had last year. End of an era? Time to shake things up for the future? Discuss.

I gotta be honest with yah, I didn't even realize that voting had started. The last couple of times I'd looked at the stickied thread title, it was still getting nominations, and I kinda just kept eliding over it each time I flipped through the forums. Oops?

Was the same process (new thread, post link in previous) that we usually follow. We don’t officially do anything outside that an stickies, but I’ve heard anecdotally that there has been a lot of pushing GOTY voting in various threads and there wasn’t much seen this year.

Mr_Grinch

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

Cool to see Dead Cells and Celeste up there, kind of sad that Spider-Man beat out God of War though, not enough BOY! IMO. Saw Smash being #1 from a mile away, too much of a good game for it not to be.

All those seem like great games though, with the biggest outlier being Hitman 2? I thought that got average reviews.

I'm massively struggling to get through God of War and am tempted to just drop it. I'm finding it a massive slog. Alternatively I unlocked practically everything in Spider-Man, which is extremely rare for me. So from a personal perspective it's the right order for me!

And I think declining numbers are probably more a sign of the times. The forums in general aren't as popular, communities gather in different ways, this place is certainly quieter than it used to be. Next year I'll probably pass on the duty of the starting thread to someone else, I didn't really do much else this year

TelMarine

I think the theme for me the past few years is slowly making my way through older games with a few exceptions.

cooljammer00

Yeah, Hitman 2's biggest sin is "It's too much like/is just more of the first one", which isn't a problem at all because that first one was great.

SoundsPlush

Chalk me up with those that completely forgot about it.

Would have voted for Dead Cells though, so I'm glad to see it place top 5.

Dragkonias

Oh...I totally forgot to vote...

But if I'm being honest 2018 was a pretty light year for me. So many of the games I was looking forward to got pushed back to 2019 and I was mostly clearing up my backlog.

Pooch

Glad to see Into the Breach in the Top 5!
And I guess I have to play more Smash

Thanks for doing the poll again!

AnnWa

Surprised Smash did so well, I should check the game I guess xD
Wondering why Detroit didn't make it to the list , meeh

Pooch

AnnWa wrote: »

Surprised Smash did so well, I should check the game I guess xD
Wondering why Detroit didn't make it to the list , meeh

I think Detroit is on there: #74?

RandomHajile

Pooch wrote: »

AnnWa wrote: »

Surprised Smash did so well, I should check the game I guess xD
Wondering why Detroit didn't make it to the list , meeh

I think Detroit is on there: #74?

That may be a spam bot or something? Only signed up and posted that well after the poll ended. I mean, I may be wrong and if I am I apologize, but a new signup wouldn’t have been eligible for the vote that happened prior to them signing up, so they wouldn’t have skin in the game.

Jazz

I freely admit Detroit is both a game I want to play, and one I'm quite happy to wait for until I find it for very cheap.

RandomHajile

Jazz wrote: »

I freely admit Detroit is both a game I want to play, and one I'm quite happy to wait for until I find it for very cheap.

It’s fine! The analogy to racism is preeeettty thick, but there’s still something to it.

Mr_Grinch

I voted for it on the day the poll extended, which was actually after the date on the form, @Infidel opened it up for an additional two days.

I debated not voting for it, it's sat waiting for me to play it whilst I slog painfully through the rest of God of War, but based on the strength of the demo, which I played a number of times, I know I'm going to love it.

But it's cool to hate David Cage games, in the same way it's cool to hate Nickleback so I can see why it did poorly (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/nickelback-phenomenon-explaining-worlds-hated-band/amp/)

Road Block

I genuinely like all the cage games save beyond. Indigo Prophecy absolutely imploded on itself true. But even the implosion was entertaining. Heavy Rain was genuinely great. Beyond was a trashfire sadly. And Detroit was hugely entertaining, just brought down by not being as smart as it thought it was.

RandomHajile

Road Block wrote: »

I genuinely like all the cage games save beyond. Indigo Prophecy absolutely imploded on itself true. But even the implosion was entertaining. Heavy Rain was genuinely great. Beyond was a trashfire sadly. And Detroit was hugely entertaining, just brought down by not being as smart as it thought it was.

I think Beyond could have been salvaged if Cage had a good editor. Cut out or overhaul the desert sequence, make it chronological, make a believable love interest, add a few better transitions between phases of her life, etc. (That etc is also carrying a lot of weight, I admit.)

AnnWa

Pooch wrote: »

AnnWa wrote: »

Surprised Smash did so well, I should check the game I guess xD
Wondering why Detroit didn't make it to the list , meeh

I think Detroit is on there: #74?

just expected this game to be way higher, cuz I really liked it =\

RandomHajile

AnnWa wrote: »

Pooch wrote: »

AnnWa wrote: »

Surprised Smash did so well, I should check the game I guess xD
Wondering why Detroit didn't make it to the list , meeh

I think Detroit is on there: #74?

just expected this game to be way higher, cuz I really liked it =\

Stick around and remember to vote here next year!

RandomHajile

(For the record it was my #20, which means it beat out another 15 or so games that I somewhere on my list.)

BRIAN BLESSED

I think Detroit has genuinely interesting and compelling gameplay elements held back by the fact that the director of the development team is a mediocre writer who thinks big of himself and passes off cliches and stereotypes with the subtlety of a claw hammer and thinks it's novel that he can score Hollywood talent

Road Block

RandomHajile wrote: »

Road Block wrote: »

I genuinely like all the cage games save beyond. Indigo Prophecy absolutely imploded on itself true. But even the implosion was entertaining. Heavy Rain was genuinely great. Beyond was a trashfire sadly. And Detroit was hugely entertaining, just brought down by not being as smart as it thought it was.

I think Beyond could have been salvaged if Cage had a good editor. Cut out or overhaul the desert sequence, make it chronological, make a believable love interest, add a few better transitions between phases of her life, etc. (That etc is also carrying a lot of weight, I admit.)

God I hated that guy so much. Which actually ties into my other major problem with the game, (although everything else you mentioned is spot on). Why is everyone in this universe an asshole?