There’s a discussion to be had about “games of the year”, what that means, how to pick them, whether that’s a meaningful discussion at all… I don’t really have much to bring to it. I could outline the arguments, but you know them already. Instead, I’m just going to talk about some (mostly great) games that I played this year, and hopefully inspire others to check them out. These are in no particular order.
Also, some games I wanted to get to, but just didn’t have the time or prerequisites: Inscryption, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, Gunfire Reborn, Psychonauts 2 (which I did watch like three times and is probably the actual game of the year), Loop Hero, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, FFVII Remake Intergrade, Axiom Verge 2, the Outer Wilds DLC, fuckin’ Disco Elysium (still). Also, imagine telling teenage me that they would make a new Pokemon Snap and remake Diamond/Pearl and I would barely play either game. There’s too many damn video games.
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A game about sneaking aboard ships and stealing tech, assassinating or abducting people, or commandeering ships. Plays like Hotline Miami by way of Superhot. I found the difficulty curve pretty fun, because it’s mostly about learning how you can take advantage of the game systems to do some absolutely ridiculous shit. Would be even better if it had a real-time replay system, a la Katana ZERO, because at the higher end it’s definitely about teleporting into a room and gooning five soldiers in the blink of an eye with a combination of guns, shields, and thrown wrenches.
A game about assassinating just, the worst motherfuckers, often via sheer nonsense. The game-to-game transfer of maps and unlocks is a mess, but the games themselves are just a lot of fun, and have the right tone and humor to them. If you’re like the one person who hasn’t checked these out yet, definitely try one.
A game about carving up old, abandoned spaceships to get out of debt. Nails the tone of “blue-collar post-Americana, in space”. I played enough of this in early access to know I wanted to hold off until the full release. Lets you do some goofy physics-y shit with grapple beams, too. (Edit: since writing this I played another 22 hours, despite it not yet being at full release. Excellent game.)
You know what this is. Also, nobody really knows what this is. I wish it had been able to fully commit to low-/no-combat MGSV. Felt unique enough to play that I don’t mind recommending it, and might revisit it someday. Has some great acting and some top-tier Kojima insanity, for better and worse.
Probably in my top five games of all time. Competes with Undertale and Dwarf Fortress in terms of “size of dev team to game quality” ratio. Excellent character and environmental art. Diverse, meaningful music, satisfying SFX work. Feels great to play from start to finish. I felt that the expressive character animation and musical themes combined well with the writing to really make the characters pop. Very polished, as well, and it’s clear time was spent thinking about making the game play smoothly. I’m not sure what Konjak has lined up next, but I’m eager to play whatever it is. An absolute diamond of a game.
It’s picross. It controls well on mouse or on gamepad. The music and background are soothing, if eventually repetitive, but the humorous titles of completed puzzles stay fresh. A great “one of those”.
Jan was absolutely right to push for this to end up on the top ten of its year. An absolutely insane narrative that I can’t believe works — but it does. I have nothing to say about the gameplay, but really, most of the fun is theorizing about what the fuck just happened and trying to figure out what the hell is going on, at pretty much all times.
Donut County, but if you controlled a raincloud. Deeper gameplay, but maybe not as much of a narrative. Cute and fun; tried it on a lark and ended up knocking out the whole thing.
I’m kind of glad I put this off for two decades — I wouldn’t have clicked with it in 2001. Undoubtedly the best vibes of any game in the series. I’m not sure what I mean by that… I guess it just has a very real atmosphere to me? Plays well enough, too; ditching the ATB system was a refreshing decision. A very solid Final Fantasy.
I wrote a review on here on this, and my thoughts on it then are going to be more coherent than anything I can say now. I’ll just reiterate that I really like the quality and diversity of the characters, and I think it serves as a great example of how to write, and how to handle, trauma.