These are my favourite games that were released in 2019. I tried to write a concise paragraph or so detailing what I liked about these games, followed by a short explanation as to what kept that game from being higher up my list. Enjoy! <3
#10 Ape Out
Hotline Miami with a Birdman-like dynamic percussive soundtrack. What’s not to love. Has wonderful, cohesive art design, plays great, manages to tell a story through level design and title cards only. Did I mention the soundtrack? I can’t get enough of it.
Why is Ape Out not up higher on my list? It can be hard as fuck. Like really difficult. Maybe a little too much at times.
#9 Baba Is You
Baba is You is an extremely unique puzzle game. I’m not going to try and explain it, partly because it is so unique, and partly because it is complicated, but I encourage you to look it up if you enjoy puzzle games and haven’t heard of it. I really enjoyed my time with Baba is You this year. There is no better feeling than when you manage to solve a puzzle that you have been staring at for an hour, and then of course you feel like it was SO OBVIOUS THE WHOLE TIME HOW DID I NOT SEE THAT.
Why is Baba is You not up higher on my list? Two reasons. One, occasionally, I felt like I was simply trying all the possible combinations instead of actively puzzle solving, and two, I’ve also grown a little tired of the super-retro graphic style. However Baba is You is so well designed that I felt it still deserved a spot on this list.
#8 Undermine
This is a fun, early-access release on Steam that Kait and I keep picking up again after each new release. It’s (yet another) rogue-like where you travel down different levels of mines, collecting ore and power-ups to increase your stats for the run. In between runs, you get to spend all that ore you worked so hard collecting, and permanently upgrade your character. As Idle Thumbs once dubbed: the ‘meets-meets-meets’ is The Binding of Isaac meets Rogue Legacy. Undermine has pretty, retro-ish style graphics, fun combat which is unique for these types of games in that it is more heavily melee focused, and the bosses and different zones are unique and interesting.
Why is Undermine not up higher on my list? The different power-ups could use a little more variety. Most are concerned with mere stat increases, while only a select few really change the dynamic of the run. Give me more abilities and weird interactions, and less ‘melee swing does more damage’ please. I’m pretty confident further releases will add more of this kind of power-ups, as each release so far has already begun to address the issue. I have played a lot of these kinds of games over the years since Isaac was a big hit, and Undermine is one of my favourite takes on the genre yet.
#7 Gears 5
Honestly, I haven’t played this one as much as I wanted to. Schedules didn’t line up, and a desire to play the campaign through in Co-op held me back from completing it. However, it’s not difficult for me to see that Gears 5 is the best that Gears has ever been. It feels great to play, and it is beautiful. Gorgeous. On PC, the game runs extremely well, and the mouse controls feel perfect, but I can’t emphasize enough just how good looking this game is. Gears 5 is easily the best-looking game I have played all year.
Why is Gears 5 not up higher on my list? It’s absolutely still a Gears game, for better or for worse. While there are new weapons, new maps and cool new co-op game modes, this is still the same Gears game you know from years ago. Marcus is still doing his grumpy old man quips, you are still bouncing around on cover doing the gnasher-dance. It’s a weird criticism, because of course its the same game. It the best version of that game by a country mile, but if you’re already burned out on it, this isn’t going to change your mind.
#6 Dirt Rally 2.0
Probably weren’t expecting this one right? There isn’t a whole lot to say about this game. I love driving rally cars. This is the hot new best-in-class simulation rally game. This game really, really makes me want to get a VR headset.
Why is Dirt Rally 2.0 not up higher up on my list? Some technical issues at launch were a bit of a headache. That’s about it really. It’s a driving game, its fairly niche. Give me a break. 🙂
#5 The Legend of Bum-bo
This is a prequel to The Binding of Isaac, but The Legend of Bum-bo is a totally different style of game. Mostly. It is still a rogue-like, however Bum-bo is more of a deckbuilding type of game more than anything else. The goal is to go through the games levels with each of the different Bum-bo characters, each with their own starting spells and passive abilities, and make your way through the different zones and bosses. For every boss you defeat, you are rewarded with a choice of one new spell, which you are trying to select in such a way to harmonize with your other, existing spells to make hugely damaging combos and/or mana-generators, so that you can make even bigger combos. Bum-bo can give you the same feeling of satisfaction that Isaac did if you play it well, where you get so powerful that it feels like you’ve broken the game.
Why is The Legend of Bum-bo not up higher on my list? It does feel lighter on content then playing Isaac does, but that’s sort of a disingenuous argument, considering Isaac has been out for years at this point, had a remake and 3 or 4 expansion packs added to it. Still, the comparison is always in the back of your mind. Hopefully Bum-bo is supported just as much as Isaac is and over time grows into another massive game.
#4 Control
This game oozes STYYYYYYLE. (Thanks, Giant Bomb). Control takes Fun inspirations from TV shows like X-Files and The Twilight Zone, and puts them all together into something refreshing, and cohesive. Control’s premise is roughly: What if ALL the conspiracy theories were true?
Fun characters, excellent writing, cool story, awesome world-building, fun superpowers, awesome level design, all of this inside a refreshing new IP with a fun new female protagonist to boot.
You don’t have to watch much of this, but just look how stylish these FMV cutscenes with Trench are.
Why is Control not up higher on my list? By the end of this game, I felt like I was playing the combat sections to get through them, to see where the story would go next rather than just enjoying them for what they were. Perhaps the combat encounters became a little bit too same-y after a while. That said, has one of the coolest set-pieces towards the back quarter of the game that I played this year.
#3 Halo: Reach (or Master Chief Collection for PC)
I’m a simple man. I like playing my shooters with a mouse and a keyboard. Even way back in the day when we played an ungodly amount of Halo 3, I wished I could be playing these games with a mouse. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten even farther away from playing anything that even resembles a shooter with a controller. So you can imagine how excited I was when they announced that all the old AND all the new Halo games going forward will be released on PC.
While I fully admit that nostalgia has a lot to do with how excited I was to be playing Halo again, there is no denying that the game is just so much fun. Excellent campaign, fun vehicles, great gunplay, the super-fun physics-based gameplay that Halo has come to be known for, all in a really nifty package that will contain all of the major Halo games to date. While the other games are not out yet on PC, the idea of them coming out one by one throughout next year has me very excited. Drip feed me 343, I’m ready.
Two examples of how much this game means to me and others: at the time of this writing the game has been out for almost exactly one week, and I’m currently sitting at 22 hours played, according to Steam. Example two is this beautiful gift from our old teammate PartiedOutPhil, who is someone who I have never met in person, and still I’ve played countless hours of Halo 3 with back in 2007 (and 8, and 9). Phil was so happy to see the gang back online that he paid the voice actor of Master Chief himself to welcome the squad back to the game. https://www.cameo.com/v/n6oiZpWH0 How cool is that?
Why is Halo Reach not up higher on my list? A few technical problems on launch (weird audio levels, some higher framerate bugs, connection issues, I think my game has crashed twice) that I hope to see patched soon. All relatively minor though, however considering the state the Master Chief Collection launched in on Xbox a few years ago, I can’t help but be a little nervous of it. Also, it is a port of a 13 year old game at this point. It’s great, sure, but the REAL GOTY contender will be Halo: Infinite when it (hopefully) comes out next year, designed from the ground up with PC in mind and with all the modern bells and whistles that we’ve come to expect.
#2 Outer Wilds
This game is so, unbelievably good. I loaded this up not really knowing what it was (thanks to gamepass) and the first time the daylight went out because it was being eclipsed by “Hearth’s” moon, based on real-time orbiting of the moon in the game’s physical space, I was awed. It’s not so much a day/night cycle as you’ve come to expect in video games, it’s the sunlight being blocked by the planet(s). I found the game to be awesome, in the true, actual sense of the word, in a way that I find hard to describe. There is just something so, so special about the scale the game uses. Planets seem far away and massive, yet close enough that you can fly to them in a minute or two in your strangely clunky and low-tech spacecraft.
Exploration feels fun, and somehow not overwhelming, and the mysteries and puzzles of the game are all totally non-linear and solvable in whatever order you come across them.
Why is Outer Wilds not my GOTY? It really is nearly perfect in my eyes. I would only criticize a few of the last late-game puzzles which involve sort of waiting for something to happen, and some slightly unpredictable AI in one specific zone. I can’t stress how SUPER minor these complaints are when compared to just how much I loved playing this game this year.
GOTY 2019: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
The next big game released in my favourite game series of all time. No other series for me has such consistent polish and otherwise perfect everything.
I particularly enjoyed Sekiro because it emphasized how I usually play these kinds of games. Call me weird, but when I play Dark Souls games I find a weapon I like, and I stick with it, and I rarely use any of the huge number of magic spells that are available. I also haven’t touched PvP since the original game. This playstyle of mine fits perfectly with Sekiro’s design decisions. You largely use just the one sword for the whole game, there is no magic (however you do get equipable arm abilities that give you complimentary, additional moves)and there is no multiplayer to speak of. I honestly feel like someone over at Fromsoft was like “Here’s a guy, Kyle, he really likes our games. Lets just make this next one for him”.
By simplifying the build diversity, Sekiro triples down on the consistent polish and excellent encounter design throughout the entire game. Every mini-boss is just a little bit more difficult than the last, every new section of the game feels fresh and exciting and dangerous. The satisfaction you get from internalizing an enemies move set and finding a way to exploit him is second to none. Sekiro is my favourite game of the year.