The year is over and we’re well into 2020, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still talk about our favorite 2019 games. This was the year where I was maybe more impressed with the indie landscape than the AAA one, with some of the most inventive and atmospheric games I’ve played to date. I was also able to go to PAX for the first time and made some of the best memories of my adult life there.It was also a great year for movies with critically acclaimed hits like Uncut Gems, Dolemite Is My Name, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. 2019 was also a garbage year in many regards but we’re gonna bring that 2020 energy and focus on the good stuff that’s ahead.
Amid Evil/Session
I struggled on which one of these to cut from my list, and since a major part of writing these lists is to hopefully introduce more niche titles to people that haven’t discovered the game yet I felt it was best to just include them both.
Last year I fell in love with DUSK and its bridging of retro shooters with modern touches, and Amid Evil does the same. Now where DUSK was more evocative of a Blood or Quake, Amid Evil brings back those good Hexen vibes as you play as the “Champion” who’s kitted out with a devastating arsenal of magical weapons to decimate your enemies with. From a spinning axe called “Axe of the Black Labyrinth”, to a staff that launches literal planets, there’s no end of fun toys to play with here.
Session isn’t a shooter. The only thing you’re shooting is some video of a sick kickflip I’m about to do over two benches. Since EA refuses to make another Skate game developers crea-ture Studios have taken it upon themselves to do so. With Session they’ve made probably the most difficult to get into skating game, but also the most satisfying. Pulling off a successful grind is a jubilant moment in and of itself. Doing a flip trick into a grind then tricking off it into a manual? You’ll feel like the birdman himself.
Disco Elysium
I’m not very far in Disco Elysium, which my playtime would make you think otherwise with the hours I’ve already dumped in the game, but I’ve honestly only explored maybe a block of the game’s open city. Disco Elysium isn’t for everyone: it’s already targeting a niche market with its isometric point-and-click gameplay but is honing even more on a certain subset within that. The game doesn’t really explain much to you, as your character tends to go off on long tangents that go nowhere other than to serve that character at that moment, the themes it tackles can be as off-putting as the world itself, and the dialog can get existential and flowery. It all makes for an experience I’ve been very much enjoying and can’t wait to dig into deeper.
Best Moment: The haunted bookstore quest
Blasphemous
I’ve never liked games that pitch themselves as “2D Dark Souls”. They never seem to capture the right atmosphere or tight gameplay as the games they’re trying to ape, but Blasphemous finally did it for me. Setting this game in some sort of heavy metal Christian hellscape where an object is turning people into horrid monsters is an aesthetic that is very much my shit. From the creature design to how the protagonist himself looks, I’m obsessed with how this game looks and sounds and would buy a thick book full of concept art for this game.
Best Moment: The Esdras boss fight
What The Golf
I’m not very interested in golf, whether it be in real life or video-game form. Hell, the most interest I’ve shown in the sport is whenever it came up during the classic art-house film Space Jam. It’s a good thing then, that What the Golf doesn’t really concern itself with what golf is as a sport, or even a concept. It’s instead more of a vehicle for goofs and clever game ideas that work best as a brief experience and not encountered ever again. Games have never been great at being funny. Movies are funny. Books are funny. Hell, sometimes even music can be funny, but very rarely do you get a game that you can classify as a straight up comedy which is what this game is. From a quick chuckle to hearty laughs, What the Golf elicited the full range of reactions from me during its playtime.
Best Moment: The SUPERHOT levels no question about it don’t even doubt me bro
Devil May Cry 5
Lately I felt like we were getting to a point where if we hadn’t gotten a sequel to Devil May Cry 4 by this time it probably wasn’t ever going to happen and boy am I glad I was wrong. Continuing their sudden success streak, Capcom knocked this game out of the park with what’s easily the best playing Devil May Cry yet. What it lacks in environment variety it more than makes up for it in pure gameplay with tight controls, fun weapons that I found myself constantly switching around, and three characters that play drastically different from each other and all being equally as fun to use.
Best Moment: The Nero vs Vergil fight
Heave Ho
I fell in love with Heave Ho immediately upon playing it. It’s the perfect type of game to bring out with friends to knock a few rounds out with, that solicits cheers and cries of anguish all at once. Making a daisy chain with your horrid gremlin creatures to get a coin across a precarious gap into the goal and sabotaging it at the most anxious moment is easily the most delicious form of betrayal I’ve experienced in a game in a long time.
Best Moment: Playing this on a massive screen with my friends at PAX while a crowd cheered us on, reacting to our antics.
Pokémon Sword & Shield
I haven’t played a Pokémon game since Ruby/Sapphire where I fell off because I never moved up to a DS, so the move of the franchise to the switch had me eager to revisit a franchise I haven’t experienced in over a decade. It’s safe to say I had a complete blast jumping back into the groove of catching new monsters, training them up, and stomping any trainers in my way. Lots of the quality of life changes added since when I last played are very much welcomed as well and the music is an absolute joy to listen to.
Best Moment: Putting that joke of a rival in his place every time he got overly ambitious
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
In the Souls community you’ll see some defenders of the more traditional Dark Souls side of the genre, and the more cultured individuals who recognize that Bloodborne’s change to the combat is the best. Sekiro took the foundation Bloodborne laid down and ramped it up even further by taking an already aggressive game and making it more so. Throwing it into a feudal Japanese setting with a light tough of folklore and you’ve got one of the most aesthetic games of the year. It’s easily got From Software’s most gratifying combat system to date that constantly rewards knowing when to play aggressively and when to be patient and watch how your opponent will move. Honestly the only thing wrong with it is that headless ape fight because fuck that headless ape fight it’s just straight up bad don’t fucking @ me.
Best Moment: The Genichiro boss fight
Control
From the moment I stepped into The Oldest House I was sold on Control. When I met the bizarre janitor I knew this would be one of my favorite games of the year if it managed to deliver on what it was setting up, and boy did it. Control combines X-Files with some David Lynch in some really interesting ways from the Oceanview motel to the concept of objects of power. I’m not really the type to read whatever collectibles I find but with Control I stopped to read every single one because each offered a delicious nugget into how this absurd world operates. Like I want to know why rubber duckies are banned from the building, hell I just want to know more about the building itself. Control is Remedy at their absolute best: they’ve been known to excel in tight gunplay and engrossing stories, but they’ve never been able to combine the two like they did with Control. And that’s before bringing up the addition of possible new Alan Wake story that’s coming.
Best Moment: The Ashtray Maze sequence
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Sayonara Wild Hearts is a game I immediately fell in love with when I played it briefly at PAX East last year. Fast forward to its release where I smashed through the game in a single sitting and replayed a bunch of my favorite levels right after that. It’s been a few months since then and I’ve had the game’s brilliant synth-pop soundtrack blasting out my car on a near constant basis. The total marriage of the game’s audio and visuals form together into what’s essentially more an interactive album than a proper game, and is one of the few games of its type to elicit a visceral emotional response by the time the credits rolled along.
Best Moment: The twins boss fight
