2018 has been an incredible year for gaming. We’ve had some amazing titles, both new and remastered classics, released across both consoles and PC. There have been some record-breaking sales for console manufacturers (well Nintendo at least), and there has been a whole bunch of peripherals brought to the market this year including the return of long-time-no-see legendary brand, Mad Catz.
But what has been our favourite and least favourite moments of the year so far? Read on to find out the views of, mine, and fellow FULLSYNC staff as we reflect on the past 12 months and discuss what we’re most looking forward to in the year to come.
OhMyJosh
2018 has been a bit of a turbulent year for me personally. With so much going on in my personal life, I just couldn’t find the time to devote to FULLSYNC, writing articles and reviewing games were just the last thing on my mind. I was even at a point where I was questioning if I even enjoyed gaming any more.
But part way through the year I downloaded Paladins on my Switch. It brought me out of a dark hole I was in and I’ve slowly been falling in love with gaming again ever since. I’m still playing across multiple formats to this day, attempting to become good enough to go pro with my buddy Cheez.
I have managed to play some other games besides Paladins though, although it always ends up back on before I finish any gaming session. What may surprise you however is that my favourites this year aren’t any of the big AAA titles like Red Dead 2 or God of War, in fact, I’m still yet to play either. No, this year I’ve really been enjoying the more simple games that take me back to my childhood like Spyro: Reignited Trilogy on PS4 and Pokemon Let’s GO Pikachu for the Switch. Both just fill you with nostalgia and helped me remember why it was I fell in love with video games in the first place.
In terms of peripherals and tech, we’ve had a few bits and bobs to review over the last twelve months from projectors to Switch cases and more. And it’s safe to say I’ve been fortunate enough to have received my fair share of awesome stuff. But my favourite pieces out of everything has to be the Element Gaming monitor and the Edifier S350DB speakers. Both proved to be excellent value for money and of the highest quality, and I truly would be lost without either of them now.
Hopefully 2019 will be a kinder year, one with absolutely no drama, and one that is going to see FULLSYNC level up. We’ve lots of plans which will help us kick off the new year with a bang and hopefully we’ll be seeing more people online and in person as we look to get out and about to as many events as we can.
But most importantly let’s hope next year will be a good one for gaming. I’m sure we’ll see more rumours about next-gen consoles coming out, lots of new tech released and even more games. Personally, I am craving more news on the development of Borderlands 3, but until then, I guess I’ll just have to look forward to titles such as Days Gone, Anthem and the remake of Resident Evil 2.
Krii
In terms of 2018 I have to say that it was very underwhelming in terms of gaming. Ironically it was looking the opposite mere weeks into the year with the announcement of the imminent launch of Battalion 1944, a game I was trusting into all my hopes of a redo of the Call of Duty 4 era. Sadly, the launch was troubled with inadequate servers and other unplanned issues and all the promise of a new competitive game, along with some 75% of the community, were lost.
Later in the year I had the enormous pleasure of being on the commentary team for the first ever Tekken National Cup, a 12 hour marathon of a session.
Games wise, although a lot of great titles were released, I feel I played quite little compared to other years, and it was mostly a matter of not having the willingness to actually sit down and play. My most played games, apart from my trusted Tekken 7, have to be God of War, which I believe to be one of the finest games ever made, and Dead Cells. I’ll be honest, I took up the latter because it came in for review and it was gaining a lot of hype and clamour on social media, but boy am I thankful. It’s such a well executed game in its simplicity that you will find it hard to believe it was done by an independent studio. Motion Twin deserves all the praise they have received in 2018, and I sincerely hope their 2019 is even better. That would also mean the whole gaming landscape is at a plus.
I’d like to conclude my essay of a piece with a resolution which I hope to keep – I will OPEN, play and beat any game I purchase this year – including Kingdom Hearts 3 which I ordered a week ago, way back in 2018. Then, maybe, I will start tackling my backlog of games I was incredibly hyped for; up until they arrived into my mailbox.
So long 2018, and welcome 2019! May we be able to fill you up with gaming news and reviews and maybe even new or revamped segments throughout the year! Thanks for following us!
Nil Games
2018 was a smashing year all round for me with 90% of my favourite franchises getting new, fantastic entries – Yakuza, God of War, Super Smash Bros, Red Dead Redemption. My personal highlight was Spider-Man, getting the chance to swing around New York in HDR just ticked too many of my boxes for anything else to be in with a chance to compete. I finally got around to playing Nier: Automata and rediscovered my love for Nintendo, which has opened up a massive backlog of stuff to revisit.
The biggest letdown for me was My Hero Academia: One’s Justice. It had such potential with the series’ wide array of weird (albeit massively imbalanced) cast and it was just a generic beat’em’up with little more than novelty value.
2019 doesn’t have quite as much in terms of quantity for me but Kingdom Hearts III is the big one, as the life sized Keyblade I preordered will testify, and I’m thirsty as one of those guys who spends his life commenting on Instagram model selfies for more news on the mysterious Persona developments and Judge Eyes. Bring it on!
Friends of FULLSYNC
Bryan Field (VR HERE)
I think the biggest thing to come out of 2018 in gaming for me personally was RDR2, I preordered it on PS4 Pro for the release date and slowly completed the main story, which was insanely great! Then I went back to it and began exploring the best open world I’ve ever experienced so far in a video game, spending so many hours looking around different forests and building in the old west, it did not get boring. After buying my Xbox One X I bought RDR2 again after reading mostly about how much better it ran and looked on the One X, I didn’t think it could look any better but it really did!
But let me talk about my other passion and that’s my job, yes my job! I run VR Here Virtual Reality centre in Liverpool, some of you may already know this of course. My VR highlights based upon seeing the industry from this point of view may differ from say someone who has a PSVR or PC powered HMD at home. Getting our first motion platform VR machines in December was a really great moment, testing out new games is always fun but one that sticks out is After H VR – an ESports VR FPS which is shaping up to be really amazing. We have loads of ideas for 2019 which include inviting streamers to use our equipment so they can showcase and try VR on their channels, seated VR experiences will always be something we introduce too, giving people a chance experience VR games that are best played sitting down.
My most anticipated VR title for 2019 may surprise you but it’s the sequel to the super popular Job Simulator – Vacation Simulator. For us, this will be sure to be another massive hit at VR Here.
@Lostalunatic
Streaming was very up and down towards the beginning of the year, mainly because of the fact I didn’t have a game to focus on, but then came along Dark Souls 3! It’s by far my favourite game of the year and it comes with an amazing community too. I have enjoyed progressing through the Soulsborne series and have many more “souls-like” games planned to stream in the new year.
Myself, @LionsideTV and @Feeblemew merged our Discord servers and have started to build and grow our community together. A tip for streamers that I have is that if the enjoyment of streaming has been taken away by something, such as your schedule or a game, change it up! I am excited to enter 2019 with a goal to get as much enjoyment out of streaming as possible and I am hoping to make it to either Twitch London or Twitch Con Berlin.
