Ron Funches is a comedian who you should see on tour. If you don't wanna get off the couch, his Comedy Central special Giggle Fit airs January 4th at 11pm Eastern.
Hi guys, it’s me Ron Funches, your favorite comedian/actor/Troll character/avid video gamer. I hope you had a wonderful year full of personal and financial growth and that all your family disputes this holiday season be verbal and long distance. It was a good year for me, including recording my own podcast Gettin’ Better and recording my first one-hour comedy special for Comedy Central. Now that the plugs are out of the way, let's get into the top 10 games this year that got the Funches Seal of Quality.
P.S.: I have played Smash Bros. Ultimate for about two hours at the time of this deadline and while I'm pretty certain it would crack my top 10 list, I have not played it enough to give it anything more than an honorable mission.
10. Astro Bot Rescue Mission
I don't care much for VR games despite owning both a Vive and PSVR. I find most of the games to be simple shooting galleries that I would never touch if they weren’t in VR. Astro Bot is different. If feels like a charming classic platformer that would have been just at home on a Nintendo 64. Every VR trick this game uses actually adds something unique and special and just having my Astro Bot wave at me when walking by makes me smile like a goof. It is quite simply the best VR game I’ve ever played.
9. WarioWare Gold
I love minigames, I love Wario, I love picking my nose, and this game has all three! The ultimate collection of WarioWare games plus a few new ones thrown in made this my travel game of the summer. Catching up with the Volt family and dancing it up with Jimmy T somehow gave me the feeling of a family reunion and reminded me of all the fun I had with this series over ten years ago. Plus, this game makes the list for simply making me dig out my 3DS again.
8. Tetris Effect
In a year full of big open world games that asked for at least 40 hours of my time and taught me a new game mechanic every single one of those hours till my head spins, it was very refreshing to play a game that I knew exactly how to play and could pick up and put down in ten minutes or strap on the PSVR headset and be entranced for hours. Tetris Effect is the perfect mix of Tetris and Lumines, with classic gameplay boosted by thumping club music and fun visual effects. If I was doing a list of top ten games to play while stoned, this would be number one.
7. Dragon Ball FighterZ
As a lover of all things Gohan and Piccolo I have been waiting for a great Dragon Ball game for a long, long time. The Xenoverse series, while fun, has never scratched that itch and for a long time I just gave up on finding a Dragon Ball game for me. Then came Arc System Works whose Guilty Gear series I’ve always admired but could never quite grasp as a player. They could’ve made this game just like Guilty Gear and I would've been quite okay with that. Instead, they made a mix between DBZ and Marvel vs. Capcom that seems like it could only be accomplished with a fusion dance. This is a beautiful game that is easy to pick up but surprisingly complex. I love it. Its power level is far over 9000.
6. Into the Breach
I’m a big fan of turn-based strategy and tactics games. I’m an even bigger fan of games that remind me of Advance Wars, and I'm the biggest fan of games that let me use a mech to punch giant bugs into buildings (sorry civilians). Into the Breach is a game I found myself playing on flights and the hours just flew by as I replayed the same mission over and over and over until none of my pilots died. That may sound tedious to some, but it’s heaven to me.
5. Overcooked 2
You learn a lot about your friends while playing Overcooked 2 with them. Will they buckle down when the shit hits the fan (Gabe) or will they freeze up and throw the controller across the room (Carlos)? When I played Overcooked last year, all I could think of is that I wanted more levels and the ability to play with my friends online. Overcooked 2 answered my prayers as well as my dream to have a food truck ran by a 75-year-old woman, her 45-year-old black lover, and their pet raccoon in a wheelchair. Family comes in all forms.
4. Marvel’s Spider-Man
The most polished game I played this year. Everything just works. The controls, the story, the way collectibles are kept to a manageable amount. This was the first game in a long time where my son and I fought over who got the controller. Swinging around the city was a blast all on its own. The only PS4 game I’ve ever platinumed and would have been my number one if it wasn’t for the mediocre DLC.
3. Red Dead Redemption 2
This is not a fun game. It doesn’t care about your schedule, it will make you spend 15 minutes or more just riding to the start of a mission. It is slow as fuck and does its own thing. If every other video game is a Golden Retriever licking your face and begging for acceptance, RDR2 is a Siamese Cat barely tolerating its owner, promising to scratch your face if you even try to pet it. I love it. It’s beautiful and unique and slow and weird and full of so many surprises. At one point I stopped asking myself if the game was too slow and thought maybe instead that I have been living my real life too fast. That’s a good game.
2. God of War
Beautiful, fast, visceral, and the first game I ever played that is also an abusive father simulation. I spent many hours trying to throw an axe at snotty little Atreus’ head and I loved every minute of it. A game dealing with the ups and downs and self reflections of being a single father really hit home with me and I’m proud to say I have never thrown an axe at my actual son. I do call him “Boy” now, however.
1. Celeste
Celeste is the story of one woman’s struggle with mental illness and self hate told through the gameplay of Super Mario Bros. 3. If that doesn’t make you excited, we probably shouldn’t be friends. Challenging but not punishing, unless you do the B-Sides. This is a game that teaches you its mechanics clearly without holding your hand and then twists those mechanics till your fingers and brain bleed. Not the prettiest or biggest game I played this year but the one I thought about the most. If someone tells me they just got a Switch I don't ask if they’ve played Mario, Splatoon, or Zelda. I ask them if they’ve played Celeste. It’s the best game of the year.