by wumbo3000
Showing 1-10 of 25 items
5/5 - I hereby declare 2019 the year of Tetris. Tetris Effect (also on this list) is the one that kicked off Tetris Fever for me, but Tetris 99 has the honor of turning it into a full-blown rabid obsession. Obviously the core mechanics of Tetris are timeless, but when you marry that with battle royale trappings, the strategies and decision-making that come out of that are what make Tetris 99 such a compelling game. Do I target my attackers, or target players with the most badges? Should I always try to keep a clean board, or make my stack high so that I can get a lot of players to target me? There are unique elements at play in Tetris 99 that single-player Tetris games simply don’t have, and those wrinkles are what kept me hooked. Along with all that, the game has received continuous updates throughout the year, like adding a daily quest system that allows players to earn tickets so that they can buy new themes. I was already playing Tetris 99 basically every night, but these quests added even more of an incentive for me to jump in there and keep playing. I’m sure there will come a time when I stop playing Tetris 99 on a daily basis, but as of right now, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
1/19/2019 5/5 - Into the Breach is a masterclass in making you feel like a genius tactician. With the game showing you what each enemy is going to do on each turn, nothing is hidden from you, and it is completely in your hands on whether each turn ends up being a rousing success or an utter failure. And there are a ton of different unit types that really change the approach and mindset you have going into each run. No game this year has reached the same level of satisfaction for me as pulling off the perfect turn in Into the Breach.
12/6/2019 5/5 - I know a lot of people became a little sick of the gunplay by the latter half, but I personally enjoyed the gameplay of Control my entire time with the game. All of the powers felt very satisfying to use, with the telekinetic throw and the levitation abilities being the stand outs. Launching a fire extinguisher and hearing the thunk of a metal canister hitting a Hiss right upside the head never got old. And I feel like the combat really hit its apex once you’re able to levitate, as you fly and dash around while engaging with the enemies. But everything else surrounding the gameplay is what elevated Control into one of my favorite games of the year. The concept of the Oldest House is such a great setting for a game, and the way the location plays with your perceptions and expectations is amazingly creative. And most times in video games, the side documents and collectibles you pick up are extremely forgettable, but in Control, I scoured each environment for all of the letters, reports, and videos I could find.
12/27/2019 5/5 - It was going to be hard for Life is Strange 2 to top the first one for me, but I think the sequel comes damn close. Emotionally, I still like Life is Strange 1 more (that just may be because it came first), but mechanically, Life is Strange 2 vastly improves on how it handles player choice. One of the biggest criticisms of the first game was that the final decision basically wiped away all of the choices you made throughout the entire season. The second game directly addresses that issue by ensuring that every single choice throughout all 5 episodes impacts the brothers’ relationship in some sort of way, and the nature of their relationship plays a significant role in how many of the major story beats play out, including the finale of the game. The story does an excellent job at tackling very sensitive subjects, and I greatly appreciate Life is Strange 2 having the bravery to do so, especially in a climate where many developers are actively avoiding putting politics in their games.
2/12/2019 5/5 - Tetris Effect is really the game that sowed the seeds of what would become a Tetris-obsessed year. All of the visual and audio elements coalesce into making a simply dazzling aesthetic, which is then wrapped around the most eternal of all games: goddamn Tetris. And beating the Journey mode on Expert difficulty was one of my most triumphant achievements in video games this year. Every passing day, the winds blow stronger...
7/28/2019 5/5 - I've never played the original Resident Evil 2, but this game is so fantastic on its own merits that no nostalgia is necessary. This remaster intelligently combines the survival horror aspect of the first few Resident Evil games with tight controls that you would expect from a modern third-person action game. And the map deserves special mention for providing the player with so much useful information, especially in a game where backtracking is such a key component of the experience.
11/6/2019 5/5 - The original Link’s Awakening is one of my favorite games of all time. But replaying this remastered version as an adult has made me realize just how straight up weird and wacky this game is. All of the Mario and platforming elements seem pretty insane in hindsight to be in a mainline Zelda game, and there are just some outdated game design principles in here, like an unusually long fetch quest being one of the most important throughlines in the entire game. With all of that being said, this realization won’t stop me from regarding the original Link’s Awakening as one of my favorite games (from my childhood) of all time.
1/4/2019 5/5 - The only WarioWare games I've played before were Touched and Smooth Moves, so getting a compilation of some of the best microgames in this incredible franchise was an aboslute godsend. And of course, the wacky tone that is the heart and soul of the WarioWare and Rhythm Heaven franchises is in full force here as well.
2/11/2019 (The day I got my first chicken dinner!) 5/5 - Leave it to Respawn to make a battle royale of this caliber. The "runnin' around" is what makes Apex Legends such a joy to play. Both the fluidity of the movement and the wide variety of different character abilities give you opportunities to flee or engage at will, and that's often not an option in the battle royale genre.
1/6/2019 5/5 - As someone who was a teen in the mid 2000s, using AIM to talk to my high school crushes was practically second nature to me. Emily is Away uses the wonderfully nostalgic AIM aesthetic to tell a short but surprisingly complex story about the relationship between Emily and player character, and how that relationship evolves over time. But the AIM trappings aren’t purely a visual conceit; the fact that the story is told over a series of instant messages serves a mechanical purpose as well, as it shines a light onto the thought process of the player character’s choices, and how sometimes people aren’t able to express what they’re truly feeling. You’ll see how the player initially writes one thing, only to delete it and rephrase it another way. It’s a minor touch, but it’s very indicative on how the medium people use to communicate can affect the messages themselves. For anyone who has any fondness for AIM, Emily is Away is a game worth playing. And it's free!
