Year ReviewWe look back at the highs, lows, surprises, and standouts in video games and around this year.It's been a bad year for good games, but a very good year.
I say not to undermine any particular game, big or small, but rather to help explain why this is the most difficult series of games I've put together since I started writing Kotaku three years ago. While a few games in the following list were shoo-ins, many others did it after internal speculation. When the whole pack is too tight, and too different, it's hard to come up with metrics for comparison and comparison that makes no sense at all. How does one measure a game about shooting muscle bugs against one another by quickly arranging blocks that are shaped differently?
Ask me again tomorrow, or week, or months for the next year, and this list may look different. But while I'm often a victim of restlessness and over-thinking, at least I take solace in the fact that I feel a great sense of power that every game of this series does all the same but equally interesting, and that each one should be played. None of them are one game I've loved since the last decade, but each one will stick with me for years to come.
Anodyne 2: Return to the dust
This is my favorite role-playing game of the year, Anodyne 2 he is adorable, funny, and funny in playful scenes. Sean Han Tani and Marina Kittaka's Maric Kit status, far outweighed by its PlayStation 1 nostalgia, though their delicate programming and display of dirty igamesnewss and muddy backgrounds deserves to be treated on their own. Just like when I played your predecessor, every time I spent Anodyne 2 she felt overwhelmed with wonder, humor, and emotional emotion. When the video game disc started to feel weird, it followed itself into my mind, and told me its life story with a series of dreams that had his mind crossed in my finger as I tried to express it, my memory might look like Anodyne 2.
Control
Remedy's third shot of Frankenstein's corpse succeeds despite many flaws, ranging from frame crashes to third-act shootings that I suspect with all the air I draw until they have resolved themselves. Grouped together from lists of Metroid, fans of public-made creations, and shooters of the past Remedy, a total of Control nevertheless it exceeds the sum of its parts to deliver a brutal night in which the familiar patterns of shooting, putting back, and collecting the trap door into a magnificent lab of occultism, glamor, and horror are all about transparency.
Surprising Death
I didn't expect it to fall Surprising Death, another very bad game. I always enjoy i Metal Gear games away. Their intellectual moments were too difficult for me to reach between all the grotesque and cinematic melodrama. However Surprising Death each of these items felt inhibited by judgment, allowing me to be able to completely deal with concerns about technology, social devastation, and planetary extermination as a result of a road trip using low-key, trans-Atlantic traffic. No other game in recent memory has included menu navigation and high-speed chase with the same description as this high-budget travel simulator, or you have left me feeling disappointed and happy while handling them.
Disco Elysium
I don't like it Disco Elysium at the beginning. Even now I'm not entirely sure I enjoyed the time I spent with it. But no second one I've spent trying to decide how to talk, how to do it, and I think of his political hellscape didn't leave me so impressed and 100 percent sure it wasn't one of the most important games I've played this year. Disco Elysium sounds like a decisive step forward not only in the computer-playing game genre but in the wild, an attempt that has been made for decades to see what kind of complex characters, relationships, and emotional attachments can be compared to the right dialogue tree. Some games use choice as a player's weapon to reveal themselves at the expense of the characters and conflicts they engage in. Disco Elysium you use it to investigate the very issues that tell us why we are making the decisions we make.
Ringo Ishikawa's friends
It was hard to wrap my brain The River Ransom the first time I meet it. Their world is made up of divorce rates that slowly subside after I leave them, and where different things don't happen the next time I return to them. I can eat food not only to cool but to be strong, and to read not only for directions but to increase my stats. All of this is in the same basket that I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the arcade game is on.
30 years later, the Persona Games has pushed this model forward, adding more layers of sophistication to the eight-year-old I could have imagined. Friends of Ringo IshikawaAt the moment, he is a spiritual follower of the River City Model that is marked by how little there is, and how poorly it is talked about by the creation of the player's definition of witchcraft. “Here it is Persona and Stardew Valley by the way Waiting for Godot, ” Kotaku& # 39; S Tim Roger he said about the game earlier this year. All games win or fail in part based on how well they have perfected their limitations. Ringo Ishikawa's friends he greets them to tell the story of a man trapped in a limited land and with a hit line & # 39; em, where simple acts of infidelity such as lighting and spraying cigarettes can take away crowds.
Gears 5
I did not expect to place Gears 5 is on my list when I first finished it. All the new ideas — skills trees, downloads to firearms, exploration of the open world — feel connected to a basic war machine that has been around for more than 10 and a half years. Almost everything there is Gears 5 it is strong, but few moving parts sing. After days of going back and forth, however, I finally came down enough to be able to add it to my list. The Boltok rifle has never felt better, and loading one of its clips onto the Berserker headset has been one of the fun things I've done for this year's game. Similarly, Gears 5Dry deserts and arctic snctcopes are some of the best places I've ever spent time exploring. But when the most effective is in the multiplayer pack their horde mode, the most watered-down symbol for shooting together in any other game, is the easiest of any Gears.
Magic: The Gathering Field
Magic: Gathering has shown in video game form before, for better and for worse. Arena is definitely not a perfect game. It takes forever to refresh, it has a lazy user interface, and my laptop seems ready to burst into flames while using it, something it didn't do with other digital card games like Gwent either It was heard. But it is still difficult Magic: Gathering, with all its wonderful glory, glory, and detailed glory. Aside from not being able to sell cards, it's the same as a real world pin, with new cards being added to both Coast Wizards that they made. Is a great follower of Magic unless there are a dozen or so people to play with, take it out again, for the rest of my life. The court take that and grow it, thanks for easily playing with total strangers on the internet for my favorite bills in the seemingly endless game of abusive and corrupt governance and colorful calculations that grind the real eye of suspension.
Hit The Spire
I played more of Slay The Spire in 2018 than this year, but 2019 is when the game was officially launched on PC and was once again properly deployed to all the console, including Switch, where it feels more grateful to be responsible. All the smart card design and throwbacks shown last year remain unhappy in 2019, but Slay The Spire & # 39; s real deal is up to date and endless success is the fading of other games based on cards based on its formula, such as Dicey Dungeons, SteamWorld Demand, again Bum-Bo myth. They are all great games, but they are not up to date to match the complex design elements with the roguelike dragon Hit The Spire.
Tetris 99
Tetris 99 it's everything I always love about you Tetris but it is twisted into a zero-sum calculation of the war's journey to add another layer of conflict and higher stats, which solves the puzzle faster. It's not the best thing Tetris a game I've never played, but it's the best fight ever.
Total War: Three Kingdoms
Total War: Three Kingdoms he feels completely alienated in every way. Hot guy battles allow for tactical maneuvering, while encounters between generals allow smaller military campaigns to play well. Town building and administration feel improved while full of enough decisions to be added to manage my kingdom. Every choice made during a campaign feels like a good step forward rather than a compromise born of confusion, chaos, or opposing gambling. Everything in this game is color-coded to keep someone like me, notorious for keeping everything organized, from spending a lot of time trying to read the fine print before directing my troops. Total War: Three Kingdoms it's a game I've already been exposed to for hours, and I know that any time I start it right it will immediately threaten me to finish it all night.
Honorable Messions
Hypno Space Outlaws: You made me want to get on the screen of my computer and spend endless time thinking about how the Internet has brought you all the know-how.
Shvel Knight: King of Cards: Returns the Shovel Knight formula-with a good, start-up card game! – and takes away from some of the achievements of this generation's crown.
Danger of rain 2: One of the best and most unparalleled robberies I've ever encountered.
Exotic Animals: I really liked what the game was trying to do, and its ending is procedural, but everything from the frustrating controls to the man-made delivery made every step of the trip feel like a constant struggle.
Android Can Pray: Twenty minutes I will never forget.
Games I Couldn't Play (Enough)
Commitment: I never wanted this tested gem without more than 100 days finding it in my to-do list.
Sunless Sky: Almost everything I would ever want in a game, if I had let it take over my life instead of having a baby.
Fire Cone: Three houses: Modern Fire Cone It was fun to not hate it, except that I bought the Super Mario Maker 2 first and still need to finish making my pretty cloud maze.
Pathologic 2: Someday I'll have a will to return to Pathologic 2 and it will also be my most popular game of 2019.
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