Last year I reviewed my favorite mobile and mobile VR games. Well at the end of the year I used my holiday money and bought a Nintendo Switch. So this last year I spent 98% of my time playing my Switch everywhere. Being a mobile gamer my favorite games were from indie developers and publishers. So for the whole year, I mostly played indie and third party games. “What you didn't get any Super Mario games or Breath of The Wild?” The answer is yes. The third party Nindies team brought some of the greatest indie games from the steam store to a powerful handheld device.
Though I did get a few borderline indie/triple-A games like Payday 2. I also bought Street Fighter II’ Ultra. Besides that most of the games I played was indie games. The first game that comes to mind is InnerSpace from Aspyer who put out the Layer of Fear port for mobile VR. It was great to see them getting in the Switch market though they only put out one other game besides this 360 sphere glider game.
I played it for a good month and I couldn't get past the second or third level. The controls are simple though kind of hard to line up to for opening places. Being 360 it was hard for me to know if I was right side up or upside down at some points. So without trying to get to many headaches, I had to put this game aside. Though if this is your type of game InnerSpace is the game for you.
I remember the first time I played a Nintendo 64 at my next door neighbor's. My favorite game was Wave Racer 64, so getting one of my favorite mobile games Riptide GP Renegade ported to the Switch, I was super excited. It is the best Jet Ski on the Switch with so many tracks, crazy customization to yourself and your wave racer. I really love this game and play it once a month or so. The controls have a learning curve to them but once you get the hang of them you will be a first place champion.
As you remember, one of my favorite games from last year was Layers of Fear. This winter I got a special surprise with the Legacy edition which has only game out for the Switch. The game is the original PC game along with the Inheritance DLC. This game is a great game to play on trips or under your covers when it is cold outside. The controls are very smooth and translate well from what I would think a PC setup would be. Sadly this is one of the few horror games I played though I think it's one of the top 5 ones you should check out beside the Outlast series (which I still have yet to play) and Bendy (which I reviewed a few weeks ago).
One of my favorite YouTube content creators is The Video Game Historian. One day his mini-documentary on Tetris popped up on my home page and I after I watched it I watched everything he ever put out. I learned a lot about Nintendo. Things I didn't realize as a kid, like how Nintendo versions of violent games were censored, unlike the Sega Genesis versions. So when I saw that games like South Park: Fractured But Whole and Payday 2 were coming to this year-old handheld console I was shocked. I couldn't believe I could play online with someone to rob a bank or escape from the cops. Though the one thing that blew my mind was not the bloody violence. It was the mission where I was making meth. I was freaking Breaking Bad on a Nintendo. I'm sorry South Park, as much fun I had playing this great RPG game and being a White Hispanic trans goth male with time traveling farts. Making meth is the craziest thing I've ever seen Nintendo let happen. That and the mini-game controls are near to impossible to do with one hand.
After getting my mind blown with mature rated Triple-A titles I wanted to just relax with a nice story adventure game. I found that escape with Night in the Woods. I game that now that I think of it was another horror game hidden in a great story about finding yourself, while facing your fears and reconnecting to the community you thought once abandoned you. This game is yet another Kickstarter success story, and I'm so thankful for Finji porting this great game that takes you into a very adult Busy World of Richard Scarry story to the Switch. I loved the interactions with the people in the town along with the cute hack n slash dungeon crawler mini-game you could lose yourself in. Along with the bass hero mini-game I could never master, but loved anyway. I played this off and on for months till I finally beat it. This is one of those games that feels like an interactive story, which it really is just that. Another game like this OxenFree, I am super stoked for Afterparty this year. These are my two picks for story based games.
Top-down shooters have been a staple in video games ever since Asteroids. Flowing the game mechanics of the classics, publisher 10tons brings us the follow up to their smash hit Time Recoil with Tesla vs Lovecraft. You play as one of the founders of the modern age Nikola Tesla defending his city against H.P Lovecraft’s monsters. After beating Hotline Miami I thought I had the hang of the genre. Well I was wrong you have hoards of monsters you have to kill to move on and with a fixed control scheme, it is hard to try and get to the next level. Though the game is fun and has a great fantasy ravelry storyline, I'm not very good at the game. This is a great rage game too, just don't break anything.
Speaking of games I'm not good at that I thought I would be, Is one of many love letters to Yero Miyamoto and his beloved Legend of Zelda. The game Hyper Light Drifter, a beautiful pixel art game where you are the drifter, with a sword in one hand and a gun in the other. Along with a teleport action that sometimes goes in the wrong way, or maybe I just am not good at this game. Yeah, I'm not good at it. I've had the game for 4 months and i still can't beat the first boss. This and The Messenger have been showing me that I'm not good at certain video games.
2018 was the year we started seeing mobile games such as Chameleon Run, Fallout Shelter, and Friday The 13th: Killer Puzzles. We also saw a game like Death Road to Canada adding the Switch to its console domination. One part Oregon Trail to one part zombie survival game. I've only play this on my phone so it was nice to use a controller. I think it is a great fit to the Switch along with Don't Starve. It was packed with both Reign of Giants and Shipwrecked DLC content. Though the one thing I was bummed out about was Keli not putting out Don't Starve: Together. My guess is they kinda knew the online service from Nintendo was going to be trash.
The one redeeming thing Keli did to make it up for not putting that out was Mark of the Ninja: Remastered. I love stealth games and I super love Mark of the Ninja. It's up there with my love of Dishonored. I freaked out when i saw this in the Direct. It was the only game i cared about. It is amazing, so amazing that it was used in a holiday Nindies commercial Nintendo made. It was a great surprise just like Drinkbox Studios dropping Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition in the same fashion Eminem did with Kamikaze.
There are so many hidden gems in the eShop you could just miss a 1 or 100. One I missed out on was Horizon Chase Turbo, a homage to classic 16-bit racers that defined a generation of high-speed and frenetic arcade fun like Out Run and Top Gear. This game is super fun though it does have some downfalls. The first thing that takes away from the experience is that every time you play the game you have to re-input your preferred control settings. The second is some of the cars are worse the than the ones you already have. If you're wondering why the game looks like a mobile game, it’s because it’s Horizon Chase - World Tour, a mobile race game from 2015. Though the game handles better with a controller. The touch screen controls is very primitive. After playing the mobile version for 10 mins or so, I do like what they did with the console version. Though it just still has some small issues that could be fixed with patch. We’ll see what’s on the horizon in 2019.
There has been a few classic PC games that have made their way to the best selling console of the year. We got Another World and Flashback. Both games that were genre changing games for their time. I played Flashback and had a lot of fun. It's great seeing these games on the Switch. I hope there are some long time gamers showing these young gamers how great a great adventure platformer can be. Another game that I really fell in love with was Desert Child. It was not made back in the 90s, though it sure feels like could of been on put out by U.S. Gold for the Amiga home computer. You play as a hover bike racer trying to make your way to the big race on Mars. Once you've won enough races to pay for your ticket to the red planet you find yourself doing odd jobs as a pizza delivery boy, kango wrangler, and bounty hunter. You also get involved doing some shady things including throwing races, hacking banks, and breaking public property. The game is really fun with keeping you occupied with making sure you're making the money for the entry fee to the big race. Along with being fed, and keeping up bike maintenance, you also have to watch out for the cops. Yeah if you steal to many bike parts to help you when races, the cops will be on your back. I never out ran them, though I heard you could. Just make sure your money is in the bank, if not you'll lose whatever you have on you. It took a few run-ins for me to start putting money in the back after becoming an ODB. The more clean cuts you are you’re labeled as such, going from Kenny G, LL Cool J to ODB. I beat the game in a few days. Though with getting stuck with one gun the whole game and a new baseball jersey with every new playthrough, the game has great replay value. It's way more fun than Fallout 76, but a lot of games for $15 are. With a great feel and homage to Cowboy Bebop, Desert Child ends 2018 right.
I did buy Smash Bros Ultimate. It took me a week to open all the characters. This is the first Smash Bros. game I ever got. Even though I did buy Brawlout earlier this year. The one thing I don't like about Smash is for me I have a hard time turning around. I have to press left or right three or four times. So I feel like I don't have the best experience I could have fighting sometimes. I am pretty good with a few people and can beat some beginners. Though I don't know if I'll ever master the fighting game.
With being a new Switch owner and not been on the Nintendo bandwagon since the Wii and 3DS. I needed guidance, and I found it with a few YouTube content creators that have a love for this new hybrid system called the Nintendo Switch. My all-time favorite is Arlo, a muppet who is a casual Nintendo fan like myself. I really like his point on games. The games he was really excited about are the games I spent full price on. Even though I should have waited for the holiday sale. I really enjoyed Alex over at NintendoLife. They have some great content on their channel. The Screen junkies of video games is Spawn Wave. With some great gaming news, sales numbers, and showing the inner workings of gaming hardware is something I came to really enjoy this year. As always my favorite all around YouTube gaming content creator is my dude Dyan R. aka Yub. He does a lot of game play videos, did a ton of Splatoon 2 live streams on Twitch, along with keeping meme culture alive with the internet's favorite show Check'n The Yub Reddit. Yub gained over 100,000 followers this year despite 2 major threats to his channel two weeks after making YouTube his full time job.
The publisher of the year goes to Raw Fury. Putting out such games as Dandara, Bad North, and Kingdom Two Crowns. They may not have the most indie ports this year, though we know quality over quantity is the best way to go. I'm really excited for Night Call later this year.
I want to thank Novogamer for letting me have this platform to talk about video games. I also want to thank all the devs and publishers who gave me key and codes to play these games. Thank you to the readers for reading my articles. If you have a Switch always check out eShop for great games and sales.
