It’s almost that time of year, gamers! The time when we all gather to see the nominees for The Game Awards – gaming’s version of the Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys, all rolled into one awesome package. While the nominees in all the categories are pretty spectacular, let’s focus on the coveted Game of the Year (GOTY) award for 2018. There are six amazing nominees this year, and the list even includes one indie game!

We here at PCU always do our best to get our hands on the most highly-anticipated video games every year. A lot of our time is spent playing, dissecting, critiquing, and reviewing games so that you all (who aren’t early adopters) will have an idea of what you may be in for when you go out and buy these games. This year, we think we’ve done pretty well, as we got reviews out for four out of the six games that make up the GOTY nominations. Still, our reviews are just our opinions. We always like to hear feedback from you, our readers, on what you thought of these incredible games. So, let’s talk a bit about each nominee, and then we’ll have a poll to see which one YOU think should win this year’s award.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

• How much extra stuff there is to actually do in this game
• How big the world is
• How AMAZING (see what we did there?) the gameplay and cutscenes look
• And how much fun it is to play.

Marvel’s Spider-Man sits among our gaming team’s favorites. Not one of us disliked it. Even the DLC is a lot of fun to get into! Nothing about this game felt tacked-on, unnecessary, or clunky. It truly was a joy to play – netting a 4.5 out of 5 from us – and we would not be surprised if this one got top honors at The Game Awards.

God Of War

This year’s continuation of the life and struggles of Kratos was also an epic adventure, and incredible to play. With a rating of 4.7 out of 5, this ranks as one of the best games we’ve reviewed here at PCU. This game took a Leviathan Axe to our emotions, as well as pounded us in the face with action and beautiful settings. Between the scale, the settings, the combat, and the incredible story, I know that a lot of folks are rooting for Sony Santa Monica’s God of War to win Game of the Year.

Assassins Creed Odyssey

As the resident Assassins Creed fanboy of the PCU staff, I was pretty psyched to get my hands on this title. There had been so much hype behind it, with the ability to choose between a male and female protagonist, as well as the branching dialogue choices (just to name a few things). The game was damn good, but was not quite up to the level that I had come to expect from one of Ubisoft’s top franchises. Sure, I gave it a 4 out of 5 on our scale, but with just some minor tweaking to the facial animation and the voice synch, this game could have easily gotten a perfect score. We’ll have to wait and see what the folks at The Game Awards say.

Red Dead Redemption 2

C’mon… Y’all HAD to know that this would be one of this year’s nominees for GOTY. Rockstar Games’ seminal series was one of the most-hyped games of 2018, and for good reason. This was, by a good margin, the best game we’ve reviewed to date. Red Dead Redemption 2 earned our top score of 5 out of 5, and costing ourwriter Jordan a lot of time away from his wife and forgetting to eat. I mean, it takes a SERIOUSLY good game to keep us away from food, people!It’s also not very often that a game which doesn’t have some fantastical aspect to it grabs our attention this readily and just won’t let go. Red Dead Redemption 2 doesn’t rely on crazy abilities, supernatural happenings, or huge amounts of firepower to get its point across. It’s just a super solid game that really lived up to the hype.
If this game doesn’t come home with Game of the Year, there are going to be a lot of shocked gamers out there. From its top-notch story, to the amazing graphics (Holy cinematic camera, Batman!), to the vast amount of things to do in the game, this was a very impressive title.

Monster Hunter World

Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed that we didn’t get a review out for this title. I have several friends who played it, and none of them were disappointed in the slightest. The game featured (what I’m told was) some really good gameplay, solid menus, and a fun story. Not having gotten our hands on it here at PCU, we really can’t speak about it too much. However, the following that it’s garnered within the gaming world suggests that this title deserves to be a Game of the Year contender.

Celeste

This was one of those games that, even though a few of us love independent games, slipped right under our noses without us even realizing what a gem it could be. Celeste is an indie platformer by a couple of Canadian developers, Matt Thorson and Noel Berry, who put this title together in four days for a game jam, and then fleshed it out as a full release for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and even Windows PC, Mac, and Linux machines. The story revolves around a young mountaineer named Madeline, as she climbs the titular mountain and solves hundreds of challenges along the way.
From the looks of the trailer, and all of the game screen shots out there, this one has a lot of charm, challenge, and fun to it. It’s gotten an average of 91.25 out of 100 from Metacritic, and top review scores from a bunch of other gaming publications. It was also the recipient of this year’s Audience Award at the Independent Games Festival Awards. We may have to check this one out.

So there’s what we have to say about the Game of the Year nominees at this year’s The Game Awards. Now we want to get your thoughts as well! Take our poll down below, and vote to let us know which game should get the top spot this year!

 

The Game Awards will be streamed live on YouTube and on their website on Thursday, December 6th, at 8:30pm Eastern Time (5:30pmPacific).