Wiper

Hey @Benny, just to check, have you begun collating entries yet? I've a few changes to make to my list, and was wondering if I need to quote and mark my changes, or if I can just edit the original post at the moment.

12 hours in here; it's very much "Uchikoshi does Ace Attorney", for good and for ill. It features full branching and nicely twisty narrative, but trades thought-provoking puzzles and out of control conversations with a bizarro cast for (literal) dream-logic puzzles and the full Ace Attorney "interview every suspect from a menu of options and click on every hotspot" exploration sections. The way the branching is handled is... interesting. No plot spoilers, but a potential mechanical one if you want to go in completely blind (though the game will literally spell this out to you after the very first dream): I'm enjoying it a lot - I'd put it on about a par with 999 at the moment - with an enjoyably twisty story and suitably odd cast of characters. It does, as you'd expect, an excellent job of drip-feeding you bits of information and letting you figure things out in a satisfying way. On the downside, I do wish that 'pervert' wasn't a defining character trait of the protagonist, and there have been enough moments in the game of overly-convenient dramatic timing and/or severe cases of idiot protagonist to undermine things a little. Also, one word of warning: I got the Switch version, and it has serious performance issues at certain points in the game, with frame-rates occasionally dropping to the point where moving the cursor and clicking on things becomes tricky, and with loading times mid-conversation that really spoil the flow of things - I've even had to crash out twice due to the game getting stuck trying to load assets in. The portability is convenient, but unless the game gets patched I'd have to recommend going for the PS4 or PC versions to (hopefully) avoid those issues.

I've been completely put off the whole idea through regular use of geeknson tables at a local gaming cafe (MEGAN tables, I think); I play a weekly game of D&D there (using modular tiles, miniatures etc.), and we've quickly realised that there's just no point to us ever adapting the table into 'gaming' mode, as it's a faff to do, and we inevitably end up getting drinks and food and, frankly, there just isn't enough space when it's converted to do both, so it's far easier to just use the table as, well, a table. I suppose if we had one at home it would be convenient for storing games in progress away, but that convenience doesn't really justify the cost.

Just to put the final nail in the coffin, Undertale is one of my favourite games to come out in the past decade, and would have been my first choice from your list.

I can't think of anything earlier than Mel Croucher's Deus Ex Machina (1984):

Definitely a different game to Mario Kart 8.

A mixture of triads, two-tone schemes, flat shading and thin washes, depending on the squig: The yellow squigs are both the same triad: P3 Moldy Ochre, highlighted with Cygnus Yellow and with a watered-down Khador Red Highlight shading the recesses. A thicker layer of Khador Red Highlight provides the orange splotches on the smaller squig (though they're not really visible in the photo). Oh, and the giant squig's tongue is just the lighter part of the triad: Cygnus yellow, shaded with Moldy ochre. The orange squig is Khador Red Highlight, highlighted, predictably, with Moldy Ochre; no additional shading bar the natural sinking of orange into the recesses. The pale pink squig is just a nearly wash-thin layer of Fulgrim Pink, accented with Dorn Yellow pustules (mmm). The teal squig is P3 Arcane Blue, accented with old Citadel Colour Regal Blue. Both green squigs are P3 Iosan Green: one applied thickly in multiple layers, one watered down and applied in a blotchy pattern (which definitely looks better/grosser in the flesh). The red squig is Citadel Evil Suns Scarlet, with Citadel Mephiston Red as a highlight, and Citadel Gal Vorbak Red gums. The barely visible splotchy blue squig is simply a wash of Citadel Nighthaunt Gloom (ah, lazy painting). The grey squig Citadel Eshin Grey, with Citadel Russ Grey horns. The purple squig is P3 Beaten Purple, the purplish-brown Citadel Gal Vorbak Red, the hot pink old Citadel Colour Warlock Purple, all applied in two layers for a flat look. More lazy painting. Probably of less interest, but the whites are P3 Morrow White, the black outlines plain old Vallejo Model Color Black, and the generic claws are either Eshin Grey or Russ Grey, depending on the squig. Of note: all were applied thin, from a wet palette, to an unfashionably white-primed base, allowing them to pop with minimum effort.

After eight years' hiatus I've returned to the fold, returning to the army that last brought me back to Warhammer. Well, sort of: a decade ago I returned to the wonderful world of Orcs & Goblins, starting with a simple unit of night goblins to ease myself in. I built from there, but it was the goblins I started with, and I was always fond of them - despite my crummy paintjob. Old, crummy image of old, crummy goblins. And some orcs. So, it's only natural that I would return to the fold in light of the resurgence of night goblins - or, rather, "Gloomspite Gitz" as they're now called. Ah, copyright-led naming decisions... Naturally I gravitated towards those angry little fungi, newly in plastic, and have painted a small herd of the buggers, alongside Zarbag's Gits (mostly not pictured - the pale pink and cyan squigs are from that set, and were the first that I painted), plus the Looncurse loonboss on giant cave squig. Which, yes, I had to pay over the odds for. With them done I've some hoppers/bounders to do (including some of my old, untouched metals), one of those fancy new plastic mangler squigs to get through, plus some supporting troggoths, because why not? And once those are done, well, there's always Forge World... Squigs feeling almost as angry as I am to be at work I've limited myself to no more than 90 minutes per model (not counting priming), and I'm quite pleased with how they came out. Having experimented with both "realistic" shading (those with icky worn teeth and the like) and cartoon shading (those with white teeth and high contrast shading) I think I'm happier with the latter, so that's what I'll be aiming for with the rest of the force. I'm not building to play, but I'm looking forward to having a reasonably sized army of raging blobs!

No strategy or tactics required, with victory decided by who has the biggest, best army? In a Games Workshop product? Surely some mistake

A tricky one this year - nothing that completely stood out, but a large body of great games which are difficult to pick from. And then there's the games of the decade, which was horrendously difficult to whittle down. I foresee changes. Game of the Year A1. Ace Combat 7 A2. Fire Emblem: Three Houses A3. Judgment A4. Total War: Three Kingdoms A5. Astral Chain Honourable mentions to Observation, The Outer Wilds, Outward, The Occupation and Wargroove. Biggest Disappointment of the Year (game, hardware, or anything else) Z1. Resident Evil 2 I feel bad having to put this here, because it was a really impressive, by all accounts very good reimagining. It was just massively personally disappointing because it took my favourite game of the series, made it absolutely gorgeous, then rendered it unplayable for me by upping the terror factor past my ability to cope with it Z2. Z3. Z4. Z5. Sound Design of the Year S1. Ace Combat 7 S2. The Occupation S3. Resident Evil 2 Visual Design of the Year V1. The Eternal Castle V2. Total War: Three Kingdoms V3. The Outer Wilds Writing of the Year W1. The Occupation W2. Judgment W3. Observation Gaming Format (System) of the Year F1. Switch Publisher or Developer of the Year P1. Sega Best Supported Game (released pre 2019) of the Year B1. No Man's Sky Your game of the year that didn't come out this year (basically what is your favourite game you played this year that came out in 2018 or earlier) X1. Day of the Tentacle. Thought I'd replay it to celebrate (at last) once again owning a physical copy; turns out it's still the best point and click adventure ever made! Best game character of the year C1. Kaito-san (Judgment) C2. Claude (Fire Emblem: Three Houses) C3. And the big one: Game of the Decade D1. Gone Home D2. Rock Band 3 D3. Virtue's Last Reward D4. Life is Strange D5. Prey D6. Alpha Protocol D7. The Witcher 2 Just to be clear, that's not a typo. I loved The Witcher 3... but I loved The Witcher 2 more. For all of W3's grandeur, its scale, its endless deep side-quests to enjoy and flesh out the world, I actually prefer W2's tighter format, its focus on a single story, its bravery in completely locking major sections of its narrative and world away depending on your choices. They're both great, but 2 is the game I find myself returning to. D8. 80 Days D9. Tales From the Borderlands D10. The Banner Saga 3 Really this is a vote for the whole series, but as the game where everything finally comes together, the choices you made in the first and second games coming home to roost and showing off what a developer can achieve when they make game-straddling consequences a primary concern, this is the one that impresses the most. Honourable mentions to Ace Combat 7, Binary Domain, Celeste, Dishonored 2, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Ghost Trick, Her Story, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Night in the Woods, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Tacoma, The Witcher 3, The Wolf Among Us, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Undertale, and What Remains of Edith Finch.

It's very different, is the only real answer I can give. It's definitely a worse third-person shooter, but then Vanquish is a significantly worse brawler. On balance, I prefer Astral Chain, but it's very different in pretty much every way; different combat, different storytelling, different aesthetic, different structure.

Yep!

We are - you press A and regain health after the finisher; some finishers (against stronger enemies, I think) also trigger a "legion return" prompt at the end of the animation to draw back your legion after it excises the enemy's cube, though what hitting or missing the prompt actually changes isn't entirely obvious.

Yeah, Tyranny is lovely, if oddly overlooked. Well worth a go for that price.

As far as I can tell you gain health no matter what, but perhaps it increases with a well-timed return of your legion.