I don't think I've actually played any games that came out this year.
I've only been playing Skyrim and Warhammer Total War really.
Who'd have thought having a baby would greatly reduce the amount of time I get to play games
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
You shoot a bunch of chickens from long range to try and get them dressed up for their big days, be it a job interview, a wedding, or they just feel like getting spiffy.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I will continue this trend by following the Straightzi Standard of 2019 game, Early Access game, but I'd also like to add :snap: for games I actually "beat" instead of giving up partway through and saying "I'll come back to you some day"...
These are the games that I spent a decent amount of time with in 2019, across all consoles, generally in the order of preference. I'm kind of surprised there are so many 2019 games, but I'm also not because Thank You Game Pass.
Guacamelee 2 :snap: Outer Worlds
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Hollow Knight Creature in the Well (will probably :snap: before the year is through) Deep Rock Galactic Gears 5
Forza Horizon 4 Crackdown 3 Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Yoku's Island Express
Borderlands 2 :snap: Main Game, started Tiny Tina DLC
Aaero
Gears 4 :snap: Supermarket Shriek
Runner Up awards for games that I spent enough time with that I feel like they deserve to be mentioned, but only did a few levels/quests. In no particular order: Kingdom Hearts 3
Sea of Thieves Outer Wilds
Wolfenstein: The New Order
PS4 Spider Man Audica
Eternal Games Without End that I continue to play:
Overwatch
Rock Band 4
I bought the classic Doom bundle that was on sale during the weekend. This is my first time playing Doom beyond the first two levels. Doom is pretty good!
Pathologic 2
Why it worked for me: How do you keep going when all hope is lost?
Notable moment: Becoming diseased in a completely, profoundly failed attempt to save three friends.
Disco Elysium
Why it worked for me: How do we live with the impossible ideals we can conceive of, but not achieve?
Notable moment: A conversation with an old man, interrupted by a bug.
Heaven's Vault
Why it worked for me: A treatise on history, on oral vs. written tradition, on class, on culture, on sentience.
Notable moment: Discovering the translation for the word "of" and pumping my fist like I'd just solo'd fuckin' Ornstein & Smough
Death Stranding
Why it worked for me: Much of the story is very, very stupid. But the mechanical act of enduring hardship to forge connections with people - both NPCs and other players - was deeply satisfying.
Notable moment: Spending an hour gathering supplies from outposts that I'd helped, dragging them over busted terrain, and rebuilding a highway. Going to sleep, contented. Waking to find that 400 players had used that highway, their journeys made easier by my efforts.
Telling Lies
Why it worked for me: The COINTELPRO story I've been waiting for my whole life.
Notable moment: A camgirl has a surprise.
I bought the classic Doom bundle that was on sale during the weekend. This is my first time playing Doom beyond the first two levels. Doom is pretty good!
Classic Doom holds up surprisingly well. Honestly if you just took that design, added mlook and jumping (I me some source ports), I'd probably buy sequels in that style until the day I died.
yeah I don't know when people started taking the VGAs seriously
like I remember my roommate, who was like the super stereotypical "only plays madden and GTA" style gamer insisted that we watch the old SpikeTV version of the game awards, so that we could "find out what the best games are"
but then people who actually do follow game journalism/reviews/development/releases started treating the VGAs as some sort of prestigious ceremony instead of just an extended commercial for new games
The main contributing factor, IMO, was just how bad the Game Awards were when they were on spike. Just cringe-worthy in a way the VGA's have never been. When it was revealed that Keighly was putting them on independently, and could do them in a less "this is what dumbass gamers like" way that Spike wanted, and be more like a traditional awards show, people got excited. The idea is that they would be able to make it a bit more classy.
Sadly, the reality that someone still had to pay for that crap reared it's ugly head, and the show became more about advertising (who didn't get the "classy" memo, as seen with the Hydrobot) and release trailers as the awards kept getting more and more pushed out of the show, frequently getting dropped into a preshows, getting condensed (Winner of GotY is Overwatch; they also won best multiplayer and best action game..), or having 3 awards dropped in a quick five minute segment. IMO, the worst part about it is, like the Oscars, even getting nominated is a big deal as your game even getting mentioned will send a lot of attention your way; but the VGA's fail miserably at mentioning the nominees outside of the very biggest awards.
I've gone to two PAX talks with Keighly about the VGA's (2017 and 2018; I gave up on the VGA's after 2018 so I didn't bother at this year's PAX) and the man definitely has a passion for the industry and gaming (and is a total sport about the Doritos Pope stuff), but he just has no answers regarding how the advertising overshadows (and, IMO, cheapens) the awards.
Still even after that is all said and done, it's still probably the most visible set of game awards in the industry, so people are still going to tune in.
Undead Scottsman on
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I thought Outer Wilds (the indie game) was a shoe-in for my GotY this year, but then I discovered that Astroneer came out of Early Access this year and I love the shit out of that game. I might give the edge to Outer Wilds, though if they could make the planets in Astroneer 2 as cool and unique as the planets in Outer Wilds, that'd probably be like my most favorite game ever.
RE2, Outer Worlds (Obsidian game) and Baba is You (still need to finish that) come to mind as some other really good games from this year. Gears 5, Control, and Bloodstained were pretty good too, as well as Mortal Kombat 11. Link's Awakening was awesome, but all they had to do there is not fuck up a classic.
Before the rules reform in the 90's the only prohibited moves in UFC were biting and eye gouging, if you wanted to shit in your opponents pants and strangle them with their own shitted drawers with one hand while trying to rip off their penis with your other hand like a malevolent chimpanzee only physics and concience could stop you
Before the rules reform in the 90's the only prohibited moves in UFC were biting and eye gouging, if you wanted to shit in your opponents pants and strangle them with their own shitted drawers with one hand while trying to rip off their penis with your other hand like a malevolent chimpanzee only physics and concience could stop you
Wait, so do they now have specific rules against pantscrapping?
@Poorochondriac I bought Pathologic 2 due to your (and Speed's) love of it. I played for a couple hours before I got distracted by...everything else that came out recently, but I intend to get back to it soon.
Definitely agree with Disco Elysium, though I have a different favorite moment: flipping the double-bird mid-air to a bartender right before accidentally crashing into a nice old lady.
I'm not sure I can forgive Death Stranding's story flaws enough to put it in my overall best games list, but building my first road segment and seeing the Likes from other players is definitely one of my favorite little moments this year.
As for Heaven's Vault, it would be a strong contender for my favorite game of 2019 if I was just considering the first two-thirds. But man, it really dragged for me in that final third of the game, and I did not care for how it ended.
Let's see. Looked at a list of games that came out in 2019 and tried to note any I played through.
So this ignores anything I played that came out earlier, like AC Odyssey which I got to early this year.
Slay The Spire
RE:2
FF14 Shadowbringers
Devil May Cry 5
Disco Elysium
Heaven's Vault
Steamworld Quest
A Plague Tale
Observation
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Dragon Quest XI
Control
Blair Witch
Dark Pictures Man From Medan
Gears 5
Judgement
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Outer Worlds
Afterparty (But I really havent played enough yet to rate it)
Boiled down to Top 10
1. FF14 Shadowbringers
2. Disco Elysium
3. Slay the Spire
4. Judgement
5. Control
6. Fire Emblem Three Houses
7. RE2
8. Outer Worlds
9. A Plague Tale
10. Dragon Quest XI
Bunch of stuff from this year I want to get to but havent yet still. Outer Wilds looks real interesting, and does Telling Lies. Also I kind of want to check out AI Somnium Files sometime. And like another 7 games. So I should do a top ten of games I didnt play but want to. Not many games on my played list that I actually just didn't like. Blair Witch is real subpar, but I figured it was on gamepass. Steamworld Quest I wanted to like more than I did. I fell off that one, never finished it. Gears 5 was fine. Everything else I really enjoyed. That's better than a lot of years.
Edit: I feel pretty similarly to Stilts on Heaven's Vault. I adored the vast majority of it, but the ending kind of fizzled for me and dragged on a bit too much for it to win a spot on the 10 list.
Edit 2: I forgot Sayonara Wild Hearts & Ape Out. Also excellent, but I'm not sure I'd displace anything from the top 10. Division 2 I also enjoyed a good amount it's a good middle of the pack game. And Anthem which belongs in the bad pile, although I only played a open beta weekend. Which may not be fair but it doesn't look like it changed all that much.
Poorochondriac I bought Pathologic 2 due to your (and Speed's) love of it. I played for a couple hours before I got distracted by...everything else that came out recently, but I intend to get back to it soon.
Definitely agree with Disco Elysium, though I have a different favorite moment: flipping the double-bird mid-air to a bartender right before accidentally crashing into a nice old lady.
I'm not sure I can forgive Death Stranding's story flaws enough to put it in my overall best games list, but building my first road segment and seeing the Likes from other players is definitely one of my favorite little moments this year.
As for Heaven's Vault, it would be a strong contender for my favorite game of 2019 if I was just considering the first two-thirds. But man, it really dragged for me in that final third of the game, and I did not care for how it ended.
I have a very annoying opinion on the ending of Heaven's Vault, and I recognize that it is a very annoying opinion.
My first playthrough, I didn't care for it. But in New Game+, when you unlock more nuanced interpretations of phrases*, that back third becomes a lot more interesting. It's still not perfect, and I still don't love the arbitrary binary choice you get pushed into, but I had a lot more context and a lot more to think about.
"Play the thing you didn't care for more, and then maybe you'll like it" is, objectively, obnoxious. But New Game+ is really what cemented Heaven's Vault in my top 5.
*I fucking love that I can say "in New Game+, you unlock more nuanced interpretations of phrases." What a game, what a game.
Posts
I've only been playing Skyrim and Warhammer Total War really.
Who'd have thought having a baby would greatly reduce the amount of time I get to play games
Hen Tie Sniper
You shoot a bunch of chickens from long range to try and get them dressed up for their big days, be it a job interview, a wedding, or they just feel like getting spiffy.
Yeah this was me quoting a dev who worked on Jedi: Fallen Order, and apparently was incorrect, my bad
too late you've already been SNIPED
hentai style
they had the Schick Hydrobot
they are beyond parody
i love you, shick-hydrobot-chan
Outer Wealds
That Wooloo really wants to break the fence and get in there
These are the games that I spent a decent amount of time with in 2019, across all consoles, generally in the order of preference. I'm kind of surprised there are so many 2019 games, but I'm also not because Thank You Game Pass.
Guacamelee 2 :snap:
Outer Worlds
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Hollow Knight
Creature in the Well (will probably :snap: before the year is through)
Deep Rock Galactic
Gears 5
Forza Horizon 4
Crackdown 3
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Yoku's Island Express
Borderlands 2 :snap: Main Game, started Tiny Tina DLC
Aaero
Gears 4 :snap:
Supermarket Shriek
Runner Up awards for games that I spent enough time with that I feel like they deserve to be mentioned, but only did a few levels/quests. In no particular order:
Kingdom Hearts 3
Sea of Thieves
Outer Wilds
Wolfenstein: The New Order
PS4 Spider Man
Audica
Eternal Games Without End that I continue to play:
Overwatch
Rock Band 4
More or less lame than hanging out with Jeremy Renner?
Then again Hideo Kojima is a much more private person, still I think I'll go with the devil I dont know and say Hideo Kojima is the less lame hang
Pathologic 2
Why it worked for me: How do you keep going when all hope is lost?
Notable moment: Becoming diseased in a completely, profoundly failed attempt to save three friends.
Disco Elysium
Why it worked for me: How do we live with the impossible ideals we can conceive of, but not achieve?
Notable moment: A conversation with an old man, interrupted by a bug.
Heaven's Vault
Why it worked for me: A treatise on history, on oral vs. written tradition, on class, on culture, on sentience.
Notable moment: Discovering the translation for the word "of" and pumping my fist like I'd just solo'd fuckin' Ornstein & Smough
Death Stranding
Why it worked for me: Much of the story is very, very stupid. But the mechanical act of enduring hardship to forge connections with people - both NPCs and other players - was deeply satisfying.
Notable moment: Spending an hour gathering supplies from outposts that I'd helped, dragging them over busted terrain, and rebuilding a highway. Going to sleep, contented. Waking to find that 400 players had used that highway, their journeys made easier by my efforts.
Telling Lies
Why it worked for me: The COINTELPRO story I've been waiting for my whole life.
Notable moment: A camgirl has a surprise.
and I haven't even played a ton of it, but it's stuck with me
Well get on it!!!
Classic Doom holds up surprisingly well. Honestly if you just took that design, added mlook and jumping (I
The main contributing factor, IMO, was just how bad the Game Awards were when they were on spike. Just cringe-worthy in a way the VGA's have never been. When it was revealed that Keighly was putting them on independently, and could do them in a less "this is what dumbass gamers like" way that Spike wanted, and be more like a traditional awards show, people got excited. The idea is that they would be able to make it a bit more classy.
Sadly, the reality that someone still had to pay for that crap reared it's ugly head, and the show became more about advertising (who didn't get the "classy" memo, as seen with the Hydrobot) and release trailers as the awards kept getting more and more pushed out of the show, frequently getting dropped into a preshows, getting condensed (Winner of GotY is Overwatch; they also won best multiplayer and best action game..), or having 3 awards dropped in a quick five minute segment. IMO, the worst part about it is, like the Oscars, even getting nominated is a big deal as your game even getting mentioned will send a lot of attention your way; but the VGA's fail miserably at mentioning the nominees outside of the very biggest awards.
I've gone to two PAX talks with Keighly about the VGA's (2017 and 2018; I gave up on the VGA's after 2018 so I didn't bother at this year's PAX) and the man definitely has a passion for the industry and gaming (and is a total sport about the Doritos Pope stuff), but he just has no answers regarding how the advertising overshadows (and, IMO, cheapens) the awards.
Still even after that is all said and done, it's still probably the most visible set of game awards in the industry, so people are still going to tune in.
I only have eyes for connecting red string to push pins right now and I think only maybe like two of those three also have that
I have 460 hours in Slay the Spire. It's a shoe in for GOTY.
RE2, Outer Worlds (Obsidian game) and Baba is You (still need to finish that) come to mind as some other really good games from this year. Gears 5, Control, and Bloodstained were pretty good too, as well as Mortal Kombat 11. Link's Awakening was awesome, but all they had to do there is not fuck up a classic.
Edelgard is an anagram for edgelard, which cannot be a coincidence.
They call that a Fecality.
i love that messy thing
Steam // Secret Satan
what about if you shit in your opponent's pants
That's just a Black Mage
“Wrecked ‘Em!”
But say it as one word.
I call that Love.
Wait, so do they now have specific rules against pantscrapping?
Nowadays I mean, in the first few years I think most contenders had more shit and cocaine than blood in their bodies
Definitely agree with Disco Elysium, though I have a different favorite moment: flipping the double-bird mid-air to a bartender right before accidentally crashing into a nice old lady.
I'm not sure I can forgive Death Stranding's story flaws enough to put it in my overall best games list, but building my first road segment and seeing the Likes from other players is definitely one of my favorite little moments this year.
As for Heaven's Vault, it would be a strong contender for my favorite game of 2019 if I was just considering the first two-thirds. But man, it really dragged for me in that final third of the game, and I did not care for how it ended.
So this ignores anything I played that came out earlier, like AC Odyssey which I got to early this year.
RE:2
FF14 Shadowbringers
Devil May Cry 5
Disco Elysium
Heaven's Vault
Steamworld Quest
A Plague Tale
Observation
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Dragon Quest XI
Control
Blair Witch
Dark Pictures Man From Medan
Gears 5
Judgement
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Outer Worlds
Afterparty (But I really havent played enough yet to rate it)
1. FF14 Shadowbringers
2. Disco Elysium
3. Slay the Spire
4. Judgement
5. Control
6. Fire Emblem Three Houses
7. RE2
8. Outer Worlds
9. A Plague Tale
10. Dragon Quest XI
Bunch of stuff from this year I want to get to but havent yet still. Outer Wilds looks real interesting, and does Telling Lies. Also I kind of want to check out AI Somnium Files sometime. And like another 7 games. So I should do a top ten of games I didnt play but want to. Not many games on my played list that I actually just didn't like. Blair Witch is real subpar, but I figured it was on gamepass. Steamworld Quest I wanted to like more than I did. I fell off that one, never finished it. Gears 5 was fine. Everything else I really enjoyed. That's better than a lot of years.
Edit: I feel pretty similarly to Stilts on Heaven's Vault. I adored the vast majority of it, but the ending kind of fizzled for me and dragged on a bit too much for it to win a spot on the 10 list.
Edit 2: I forgot Sayonara Wild Hearts & Ape Out. Also excellent, but I'm not sure I'd displace anything from the top 10. Division 2 I also enjoyed a good amount it's a good middle of the pack game. And Anthem which belongs in the bad pile, although I only played a open beta weekend. Which may not be fair but it doesn't look like it changed all that much.
I have a very annoying opinion on the ending of Heaven's Vault, and I recognize that it is a very annoying opinion.
My first playthrough, I didn't care for it. But in New Game+, when you unlock more nuanced interpretations of phrases*, that back third becomes a lot more interesting. It's still not perfect, and I still don't love the arbitrary binary choice you get pushed into, but I had a lot more context and a lot more to think about.
"Play the thing you didn't care for more, and then maybe you'll like it" is, objectively, obnoxious. But New Game+ is really what cemented Heaven's Vault in my top 5.
*I fucking love that I can say "in New Game+, you unlock more nuanced interpretations of phrases." What a game, what a game.