HF Game of the Year 2018 - Red Dead Redemption 2 Wins

[Osprey]

I put off voting (until it was too late) because my vote wouldn't have made any difference, but I probably would've given it to Subnautica. As such, you might consider Subnautica to have 3 votes instead of just 2... big difference, I know.

 

[Papa Francouz]

TW3 is another incredibly impressive game that I didn't enjoy engaging with mechanically (movement, combat, etc.) Just an issue of preference when it comes to third-person combat. Though in The Witcher's case it's not as steep of a climb as RDR2; Red Dead makes The Witcher look like Devil May Cry in terms of fluidity, tbh.

Definitely agree with your last point - a large part of me hanging up my horseshoes in RDR2 before I beat the game was due to the choppiness of the pacing. The side quests were so arbitrary and inconsequential in RDR2 that I felt any motivation to play the game was sucked out of me after I did one. This is where my main point of contention lies between comparing RDR2 and TW3 - I felt that every side quest in TW3 had meaning and an interesting payoff for asking players to take time away from the main story quests.

As for preferring different combat mechanics, that’s fair. Different strokes for different folks, and all that. I loved TW3 and thought it accomplished more than any other game in recent history in nearly every aspect, which made me question your original post. Your point makes sense given context.