Good evening. I am Smevilles, your steward.

Smevilles, me old mate! How have you been? I haven t seen you since I played that dusty old adventure game Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time back in the 1990s. Remember? You were the steward aboard the ill-fated ocean liner, and you used to ha ha you used to come into my first class cabin and tell me about the ship s layout. Your moustache and juddering facial animations used to make me smile. It s good to see you. What are you doing these days?

Oh. You re still on the Titanic. Right.

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As we rapidly approach the end of the year, it s time for everyone to look back over the past twelve months of stuff and turn it into neat little lists of what was best. Like games, yes, but also telly and photos and, as we shall see, music. After all, is there a better way of celebrating the end of the year than to take 10 of the finest tunes of 2018 and run them through the finest rhythm game of 2008? I certainly can t think of anything. Let s Audiosurf.

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Every year RPS goes into hibernation for Christmas and New Year. It’s cosy for us, but harsh for you, scavenging for scant nutrition on the permafrost. So here are the RPS Christmas crackers. Every day you get a joke, until we wake up on January 3rd, sluggish and grouchy. If you love us and want to leave a present (or just want to unlock more articles) consider joining the RPS supporter program. Have a good holiday. Now: the cracker!>

Q: What is Kassandra and Alexios favourite musical?

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I realise, at the end of 2018, that I ve spent much of the year digging back over games released in 2017 and earlier. That s in part because I ve been subject to the demands of evil overlord Graham, but also because I ve been trapped in the gravity well of monster timesinks like Destiny 2 and Divinity 2. When I did reach escape velocity, I cherished my time in the kind of small-and-perfectly-formed games that 2018 did so well: Dead Cells, Celeste, The Banner Saga 3. All of which get honourable mentions in my list, but get beaten out by (more…)

The first and only expansion pack for Dungeon Keeper was, I think, the first time I experienced true disappointment about a game I’d bought.

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Every year RPS goes into hibernation for Christmas and New Year. It’s cosy for us, but harsh for you, scavenging for scant nutrition on the permafrost. So here are the RPS Christmas crackers. Every day you get a joke, until we wake up on January 3rd, sluggish and grouchy. If you love us and want to leave a present (or just want to unlock more articles) consider joining the RPS supporter program. Have a good holiday. Now: the cracker!>

Q: What is Prince Evan’s favourite Christmas hymn?

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It s been a pretty stinking great year for indie games. We ve seen the release of several long-hyped darlings (finally) as well as a few surprise hits that went on to dominate newsfeeds. You easily could have missed them, though, what with all the big budget map fest games making huge waves this year. I know there are about a million games demanding your attention right now, but if you have some time over the holidays, each of these titles experiments with or otherwise builds on their genres in a way that stands out amidst all the noise.

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Every year RPS goes into hibernation for Christmas and New Year. It’s cosy for us, but harsh for you, scavenging for scant nutrition on the permafrost. So here are the RPS Christmas crackers. Every day you get a joke, until we wake up on January 3rd, sluggish and grouchy. If you love us and want to leave a present (or just want to unlock more articles) consider joining the RPS supporter program. Have a good holiday. Now: the cracker!>

Q: What do you call it when the snakes get too loud on the boat again?

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I’m sorry, dear reader. I have failed you. I was unable to get this to you in time to save your Christmas dinners. Your beef wellingtons, unwell. Puff pastry, unpuffed. If only you had had this collection of free games about cooking — only then could your Christmas dinner have been truly spectacular. I am here to rectify my error. There’s always New Year’s.

Now: where to look for guidance? Sure, there’s Cooking Mama, Overcooked, Cook, Serve, Delicious, The cooking minigames in Breath of the Wild, The cooking minigames in Skyrim. No game with cooking in it is bad (it’s the law) and also cooking games teach you how to cook in the real world! Slice, dice, and sear. Let’s get started.

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I’ve felt like I’ve been drowning in good games all year. Monster Hunter: World, Hitman 2, Red Dead, God Of War and now Smash Ultimate are all easy to lose dozens of hours to, and are masterfully crafted. But none of the year’s blockbusters really resonated with me.

Here’s five smaller games that did (plus some bonus mentions) which sent me running to Twitter to wildly gush over and try to convince people to try them. Four of the five are very systems-driven games, but all have hidden depths; the deeper you dig, the better they get. In no particular order…

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