Hello. Here are the best videogames from 2019.
SAYONARA WILD HEARTS
Simogo
Sayonara Wild Hearts features a sequence where a skull-faced opponent belches an ocean of neon teal vomit that must be surfed with a motorcycle and improvised as pathway to fight a rapidly evolving demon succubus. This will be the most amazing thing you have ever seen. Sayonara Wild Hearts’ rapid fire delivery of divergent levels—tracking down a nocturnal wolf pack, driving across a neon night time Arizona highway, outsmarting a pair finger-snapping and reality-altering greasers—is a constant source of inspiration and power. It’s over in an hour, but its ability to draw optimism and astonishment from the player lasts longer than anything else from 2019. Nathan Steven’s review.
RESIDENT EVIL 2
Capcom
Resident Evil 2 survives the horror of summiting a twenty-one year old apex. Time-worn mechanics, either left abandoned or considered obsolete, are accountably refashioned through an agile interface and a relentless commitment to creating tension. Resident Evil 2’s pervasive sense of dread, the handshake between past and present, remains delightfully, gruesomely in place. My review.
HYPNOSPACE OUTLAW
Tendershoot, ThatWhichIs Media, Michael Lasch
Hypnospace Outlaw presents a precise simulation of the apex of 90’s internet culture. Separating anarchic innocence from hubristic malice is the objective while soaking in the garish spectacle of a lost time is its gratuity. Twenty years removed, Hypnospace Outlaw exposes the dividing line between the internet as a digital frontier and its current status as a corporate hellscape. My review.
RITUAL OF THE MOON
Kara Stone
Ritual of the Moon takes five minutes from twenty-eight consecutive days to consider, measure, and test the variable nature of morality. It’s a cycle of play that finds a rhythm with the player’s social and behavior conflict, and questions that seemed trapped in ethereal ambience reveal honest and unexpected conclusions. My own introspection and negligence, as it turns out, have a lot in common. My review.
CONTROL
Remedy Entertainment
Control is the convergence and execution of every skill Remedy Entertainment has accrued over the last twenty years. The eerie sense of place, using a winding mythos as a support structure, surreal full-motion video sequences, the lure of attractive empowerment and steady, inspired combat coalesce into the ultimate expression of Remedy’s unique talent. Hooking Alan Wake and Quantum Break into Control’s lore (an Easter egg by any normal definition) is best interpreted as statement of intent. Remedy has finally found a heading and a vessel for all of their weird and singular ideas. Control gives their audience (and critics) the confidence to follow any direction they happen to be going. Steven McGehee’s review.
OUTER WILDS
Mobius Digital
Outer Wilds’ compact clockwork universe does more with twenty-two minutes than its spacefaring peers can imagine in a lifetime. It treats curiosity as a Möbius strip and trusts its network of divine secrets will drive the player toward a reasoned conclusion. By turning away from the zeitgeist, Outer Wilds’ sublime presence can only be defined as otherworldly. My review.
SEKIRO:SHADOWS DIE TWICE
FromSoftware
There is no satisfaction in immortality. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice proves its thesis by matching the resolve of its protagonist with the potential of its player in a performance choreographed by agonizing lessons and industrious rehearsals. When it’s showtime, presentation seems instinctive and proficiency feels powerful. Sekiro demands immense competence, but, once its needs are met, the payoff is irresistible. My review.
APE OUT
Gabe Cuzzillo
Ape Out parades the alliance between thunderous jazz and an irritated bloodthirsty gorilla. Two unrelated objects defined by being out of control are both under your control in the form of a violent top-down brawler. Symbols crash when gorillas and humans clash and the performance is beautiful and preposterous. My review.
SHAKEDOWN: HAWAII
Vblank Entertainment
Shakedown: Hawaii energizes its open-world satire with the transparent and ruthless cynicism of modern commerce. Its antihero’s flagrant and invincible dishonesty would go beyond parody if it weren’t kept in check by the player’s underhanded complicity. I want the money numbers to go higher, too. And I’ll destroy or ruin anyone in Shakedown: Hawaii’s lush pixel paradise to see it through. My review.
DEATH STRANDING
Kojima Productions
At 60 hours (and only half way through the game), I understand any perspective that views Death Stranding as (1) a mundane, out-of-time walking simulator, (2) an overly indulgent collection of pretentious nonsense, and (3) a bad climbing game. And I love everything. I love that it feels like a 2004 PlayStation 2 idea kitted out with a 2019 AAAish budget. I love walking around in a cold wet Iceland masquerading as a fallen United States. I love investing resources to collectively build infrastructure. I love packing my Huge Truck up with a bunch of packages and plotting a perfect route across a region. I even love when everything goes south, the fucking B.T.’s ruin my afternoon, and I have to spend an hour putting the pieces back together. Death Stranding has a vibe and energy that, while indistinguishable from Stockholm Syndrome to passersby, is wholly unique in the space of Big Console Games. Popular gaming culture has long speculated what kind of game Hideo Kojima would direct if Konami didn’t regularly put a gun to his head and ask for more Metal Gear. Death Stranding is ostensibly the product of that freedom and it is exactly as divisive and weird (and sometimes misguided) as any of his past work. It is a mess that I can connect to my heart. Nathan Stevens’ review.
Past year’s top ten lists: 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018
Because I am normal, here is a spreadsheet of every game I have finished since 2007.
Other games I greatly enjoyed this year:
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – I was so worried Bloodstained was going to stumble and crash out of the gate. After Mighty No. 9 (a game I completed!) the idea of an auteur resurrecting a neglected-but-beloved style of game transformed from promising to precarious. Wishes, even when enabled with money and goodwill, weren’t guaranteed to come true. While Bloodstained had its technical issues, its design, pace, and tone were consistent with the expectations of a modern Castlevania game. Koji Igarashi and his team at ArtPlay outfitted Bloodstained with a complex play space, myriad player options, and a pitch-perfect level of gothic goofiness. With the dearth of a proper Castlevania anywhere in sight, Bloodstained’s comfort is its own novelty.
The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED] – The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED] prevails through its devotion to the garish glitz and grime of its early 90’s apocalyptic techno/retro-future. It’s a complete aesthetic that romanticizes graphical antiquity and idealizes a parallel with the maximum of its era’s volatile culture. The artifact of The Eternal Castle may be invented and artificial, but it’s no less effective in proving its power. My review.
Judgement – Judgment swerves Yakuza’s circuitous criminal conspiracies a few degrees off course before turning up at familiar intersections of violence, eccentricity, and drama. Novelties surrounding its private detective facade, however, breakdown into tests of patience instead of pragmatism. Judgment may be an honest amendment to Yakuza’s doctrine but its most refined and exciting practices are also its most routine. My review.
Devil May Cry 5 – Lavish pop-goth theatrics and profusely ridiculous violence compose the bible to which Devil May Cry 5 remains unabashedly faithful. Whether engaging with micro-intricacies buried deep inside its three protagonists or simply opting for maladroit participation, both approaches are furiously consumed with making the player look and feel extraordinary. Devil May Cry 5 is flexible, confident, and genuine Devil May Cry. My review.
Jupiter & Mars – Jupiter & Mars presents a sincere restoration of the radical environmentalism that permeated pop culture in the early 90’s. Steering its pair of dolphins through a neon post-human wonderland measures against its persistent undercurrent of despair and culpability. Jupiter & Mars lets players smile at what’s left while scowling at the wreckage we’re doomed to leave behind. My review.
Lucah: Born of a Dream – Lucah: Born of a Dream is a neon crash of allusive storytelling, deliberate top-down combat, and distressed, manic ambience. Its indirect means of expression risks losing the player in its internal contradictions—it’s hysterical and tender, it’s demanding and soothing—but tenacious pandemonium is also its objective. Lucah: Born of a Dream seeks an audience that can relate to its world without needing to make explicit sense of its features. My review.
Metal Wolf Chaos XD – Metal Wolf Chaos XD is a time capsule from 2004 that allows its recipient to survey the United States’ enthusiasm for boisterous violence and blind patriotism. The President stomping around in an eight-gun mech suit and delivering outrageous dialogue while suppressing a coup is nakedly hyperbolic, but it’s also a lens to an outsider’s interpretation of mid-aughts American culture. Metal Wolf Chaos, in addition to presenting a clumsy but capable action caper, has only improved with age. My review.
Astral Chain – Astral Chain is the latest and most accomplished model of PlatinumGames’ ability to combine stylish action with player agency and accessibility. Exhausted storytelling and haphazard platforming also continue to underline their limitations. If Nier: Automata sought balance between power and ambience, Astral Chain finds power in power. It’s a pure, grandiose spectacle. My review.
Daemon X Machina – Built from pieces thought too inscrutable to survive 2019, Daemon X Machina is sincere in its appreciation for a bygone era of mech action games. It understands the charm of assembling giant robots, the appeal of blasting exotic weapons, and the fantasy of combining both together in dozens of pleasing arrangements. Daemon X Machina revels in its esoteric reverie. My review.
Final Fantasy VIII Remastered – Final Fantasy spent a decade constructing idols and Final Fantasy VIII demolished every one of them. Its elaborate, extravagant, and chaotic parade of ideas marched toward an evolutionary dead end and ensured there would never be another game like Final Fantasy VIII. Even by Remastered’s distressing modernization, Final Fantasy VIII’s paradigm shifting idiosyncrasies still showcase one of the most fearless and contemplative models of its medium. Final Fantasy VIII is a classic for people immune to the charms of classics. My review.
Neo Cab – Neo Cab’s malevolent tech-noir is a vehicle for exploring, and ultimately surviving, the tenacity of its passengers and the ambivalence of its driver. As a narrative adventure Neo Cab is full of conflicted, enigmatic, and sophisticated characters all vying for validity in a tortured world. As an opaque lens on social responsibility and morality, it’s as distressing as it is compulsive. Neo Cab’s tech-addled dystopia is a travelogue to the pain and purpose of being human. My review.
Untitled Goose Game – Untitled Goose Game is a body-swapping fantasy that transforms any would-be suburban miscreant into a waddling force of mischief and destruction. Instead of putting your finger in everyone’s freshly baked pie, you menace around town and devastate an ordinary Saturday afternoon. Untitled Goose Game is a philosophical exercise to determine if the conniving will of a large annoying bird is either innate programming from a bored deity or a product of our broken society. My review.
Everybody’s Golf VR – Everybody’s Golf VR’s devotion to (and immersion in) the ambience of golf transcends its simulation-oriented peers. As I swing a virtual club with one of my physical hands on a course populated by dinosaurs, instead of feeling lost in the abstract, I’m committed to refining and improving my shot. Everybody’s Golf VR‘s affable pragmatism and judicious feedback grant access to a sport I had always considered too distant and aloof to negotiate. My review.
SEGA AGES: Virtua Racing – With Virtua Racing, M2 proves the Switch is a capable showcase for Sega Model 1’s divine austerity. As a three-course arcade racer with one car, Virtua Racing only goes as far as its $8 price tag. Through the lens of arcade and Sega enthusiasts, however, this port of Virtua Racing looks like it should be preserved under glass. How lucky we are to be able to pick it up and enjoy it. My review.
I spent a lot of time writing a 20th Anniversary Retrospective on R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 and the most stylish and well-composed racing game of all time deserved every single word.
I spent a lot of time making Retrograde Amnesia: A Xenogears Podcast Series with Chris. I don’t know why, exactly, two busy adults decided to produce, record, and tirelessly edit 35 episodes (at present) of audio podcasts specifically focused on a single 21 year-old PlayStation game, but here we are. It’s a lot of work and a lot of time and yet we’re already dreaming about what game we’ll play for season two.
I was probably too hard on Vane. I’ve always wanted a game to feature giant open world and fill it with almost nothing. Gratification should be direct result of exploration and contemplation achieved only through a vast expanse of empty space and occasionally provocative alien structures. Vane, or at least the first third of Vane, did all of this with its exotic and iridescent desert. The rest of the game was a technical nightmare filled with awkward platforming and chaotic physics puzzles but, when I think about Vane now, all I remember is soaring around that awesome desert. My review.
I still don’t really like The Legend of Zelda. After I whiffed on Breath of the Wild, I thought returning to a more traditional Zelda experience might work as a fitting contrast. So I picked up Grezzo’s remake of Link’s Awakening, a game originally considered among the Zelda’s best by people who would know better. I love the tilt-shift aesthetic and I think Link, and every other animate object in Link’s Awakening, is cute as a button. I could spend all day exploring the gorgeous overworld. Every dungeon felt like a nightmare. I finished the game (and I love sequences like this) but I’m hesitant to say it was a positive experience. I just don’t enjoy the process of puzzling out interconnected rooms and employing a variety of contraptions to meet an end. Zelda isn’t for me, and that’s fine.
Best Soundtrack For A Game I Did Not Play: HEALTH, Grand Theft Auto Online: Arena War. If Slaves of Fear (Health’s proper 2019 album) hung black drapes and threw everything in the room into a tree shredder, their soundtrack for Arena War restored the dynamic hues that occupied the weirder corners of Death Magic and Get Color. No God in Thunderdome, in particular, sounds like a track left off the former, while Bloodsport is the closest thing that exists to an uptempo dirge. When I’m running, Bloodsport makes me want to run so fast my heart explodes. It also makes me want to fight people, presumably to the death, even though I have never been in a fight. Bloodsport is what plays inside Skynet’s robot steamroller thing that crunches up human skulls in the Bad Terminator Future. In any case it’s no surprise that one of my favorite bands pairs so well with Rockstar’s output, even if Rockstar stopped making games I care about playing.
Most Disappointing 2019 (tie): Team Sonic Racing and Trials Rising. Team Sonic Racing, the long awaited follow-up to Sumo Digital’s Best-of-its-Generation kart racer, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, traded a treasure chest of Sega artifacts and multi-dimensional racing action for mortifying roster of Sonic’s worst friends and a collection of horribly executed team racing mechanics. Seeds of good ideas are there, but every single one died before it got out of the ground (read my review of Team Sonic Racing).
I am at more of a loss with Trials Rising. One of these two things is true. Either I’ve played so many Trials games that I am no longer charmed by its cycle of failure and triumph, or Trials Rising’s alienating monetization schemes and bizarre, grind-focused progression detonated an otherwise indestructible bounce house of guaranteed elation. It’s a shame because Trials Rising was better than its predecessors at teaching players how to actually play Trials, and its tandem bike mode was a hoot.
Impossible wish, 2020: I hope aspects of Final Fantasy VII (or the first part of it) are radically different from its original form. I also hope certain pieces and moments are exactly the same. It is impossible to satisfy both of these expectations at the same time. The chemistry that’s going to compose the remake to end all remakes is as volatile as it is exciting and I can’t wait to see how it turned out.
Pleading wish, 2020: I deeply wish The Last of Us Part II understands silence and grandeur are as important to the experience as violence and whatever Naughty Dog is going to pass off as combat. I understand the marketing folks who create trailers are literally a different department than development and design, but, right now, The Last of Us Part II looks like a game doubling-down on the dark and gritty melodrama lifted straight out ofThe Walking Dead. I want it to drop the pretension and remember the giraffe sequence was the moment of the first game. This will not happen.
2020’s Day’s Gone Award For An Expensive Game That Is Fine But Forgettable: Marvel’s The Avengers.
I wanted to play: Cadence of Hyrule, Killer Queen Black, SaGa: Scarlet Grace, The Outer Worlds, Mortal Kombat 11, Metro Exodus, Super Mario Maker 2, Remnant: From the Ashes, Eliza, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Shenmue III, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Disco Elysium, Tetris 99, Telling Lies, Baba Is You, Crackdown 3, ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove!, Yoshi’s Crafted World, Life is Strange 2, Ghost Giant, Void Bastards, What The Golf?, Sky: Children of the Light, Devotion, A Short Hike, Gato Roboto,Grindstone, The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa, Ion Fury, Dragon Quest XI S, Cube World, The Tourist, Concrete Genie, Risk of Rain 2, Ringfit Adventure, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and everything coming out of Dreams.
Looking forward to in 2020: Cyberpunk 2077, Dying Light 2, Doom Eternal, Twin Mirror, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Axiom Verge 2, Sports Story, Humanity, Paper Beast, Kentucky Route Zero Act V, Xenoblade’s Switch port, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Persona 5 Royal, Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers, Ghost of Tsushima, Psychonauts 2, Elden Ring, Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, Ghostwire Tokyo, Resident Evil 3’s remake, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, Shin Megami Tensei V, and Final Fantasy VII…along with next-gen console madness and its underwhelming slate of launch games.
