Your votes have been cast, and now it's time to reveal the winners!
Best AAA Game: TIE between Red Dead Redemption 2 and Spider-Man
2018 saw many great games, and many of our nominees were worthy of this award, but these two inched out past the competition.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a masterpiece, an experience that anyone who's into cinematic, character driven games should not miss. The follow-up to the original Red Dead Redemption (2010) improves upon its predecessor in basically every way imaginable.
Spider-Man is an open-world game with a much tighter focus than RDR2, but adds another dimension (literally). Insomniac took the superhero game formula that Rocksteady used for the Arkham series and refined it to match our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Runners up: a three-way tie (!!) among Fallout 76, God of War, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Best Indie Game: Celeste
This indie title took the world by storm with its difficult platforming that takes you on a journey up Celeste Mountain. Celeste got its start as a browser game (which you can play here: https://mattmakesgames.itch.io/celesteclassic) and got way more than a fresh coat of paint for its big release.
Runners Up: a five-way tie (!!!!!) among Dead Cells, Graveyard Keeper, Into the Breach, Jurassic World Evolution, and Subnautica.
Best Ongoing Game: Terraria
What can be said about Terraria that we haven't already said. If you've been on this site for long you know how much we love this game. It *is* still in ongoing development, and even though it didn't get an update in 2018, the news and spoilers about the next patch kept us captivated.
Runner Up: No Man's Sky
Best DLC/Update: No Man's Sky: NEXT
Hello Games had a bit of a rough launch with No Man's Sky, but they didn't retreat from it, they doubled down and fixed things. 2018's release of the NEXT update added a slew of new features and depth, and added the much sought after multiplayer.
Runners Up: Jurassic World Evolution: The Secrets of Dr. Wu, and Stardew Valley's Multiplayer update.
Best Mobile Game: Egg Inc.
There weren't many votes in this category, but Egg Inc. received them all. This heavily addictive incremental idler by Auxbrain has quite a following, and with good reason. It was released a few years back but Auxbrain keeps things interesting with contracts (added on Easter of 2018, fittingly) and occasionally update the game with new farm upgrades to buy into and new eggs to research. It nails the gameplay loop to keep you feeling rewarded while not giving everything to you too soon, and it's just bizarre enough to be interesting. I'm literally stopping this post every now and then when I see a drone fly by out of the corner of my eye and when I'm done with it I'm going to prestige and work my way back up over a few minutes. I've been at this for months folks.
So what do you think about the winners? Did your favorite games make the cut?
Best AAA Game: TIE between Red Dead Redemption 2 and Spider-Man
2018 saw many great games, and many of our nominees were worthy of this award, but these two inched out past the competition.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a masterpiece, an experience that anyone who's into cinematic, character driven games should not miss. The follow-up to the original Red Dead Redemption (2010) improves upon its predecessor in basically every way imaginable.
Spider-Man is an open-world game with a much tighter focus than RDR2, but adds another dimension (literally). Insomniac took the superhero game formula that Rocksteady used for the Arkham series and refined it to match our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Runners up: a three-way tie (!!) among Fallout 76, God of War, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Best Indie Game: Celeste
This indie title took the world by storm with its difficult platforming that takes you on a journey up Celeste Mountain. Celeste got its start as a browser game (which you can play here: https://mattmakesgames.itch.io/celesteclassic) and got way more than a fresh coat of paint for its big release.
Runners Up: a five-way tie (!!!!!) among Dead Cells, Graveyard Keeper, Into the Breach, Jurassic World Evolution, and Subnautica.
Best Ongoing Game: Terraria
What can be said about Terraria that we haven't already said. If you've been on this site for long you know how much we love this game. It *is* still in ongoing development, and even though it didn't get an update in 2018, the news and spoilers about the next patch kept us captivated.
Runner Up: No Man's Sky
Best DLC/Update: No Man's Sky: NEXT
Hello Games had a bit of a rough launch with No Man's Sky, but they didn't retreat from it, they doubled down and fixed things. 2018's release of the NEXT update added a slew of new features and depth, and added the much sought after multiplayer.
Runners Up: Jurassic World Evolution: The Secrets of Dr. Wu, and Stardew Valley's Multiplayer update.
Best Mobile Game: Egg Inc.
There weren't many votes in this category, but Egg Inc. received them all. This heavily addictive incremental idler by Auxbrain has quite a following, and with good reason. It was released a few years back but Auxbrain keeps things interesting with contracts (added on Easter of 2018, fittingly) and occasionally update the game with new farm upgrades to buy into and new eggs to research. It nails the gameplay loop to keep you feeling rewarded while not giving everything to you too soon, and it's just bizarre enough to be interesting. I'm literally stopping this post every now and then when I see a drone fly by out of the corner of my eye and when I'm done with it I'm going to prestige and work my way back up over a few minutes. I've been at this for months folks.
So what do you think about the winners? Did your favorite games make the cut?
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Thanks to everyone that voted. It's a fun set of games and I like that there were so many runner ups!