Agreed! :)
Looks like I’ll be posting my alphabetical list sometime again in the near future to look for dupes. :D
It’s just ‘Outer Wilds’ Tibbs ;-)
I think they’re functionally the same game. I can ammend mine to be “Pokemon Sword and Shield,” but it sounds like I don’t need to anymore?
I have already made accommodations for that particular game name issue :)
Nods in agreement
Yeah I went ahead and “fixed” it for everyone. :)
I didn’t think it was a great year of games. I spent most of my time with games released before 2019. But I still found some new good stuff to enjoy. My choices:
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Wingspan - This boardgame calls on players (alone or multiplayer) to populate a sanctuary with birds. You attract birds to one of three habitats (forest, grassland, wetland), then lay eggs, gather food, manage habitats, and build an engine to do these things more and more efficiently. The hand-drawn illustrations on the cards call to mind the old Audobon guides. The “bird feeder” (dice tower) is charming. The little eggs are cute. After every game, I read about my MVP (Most Valuable Bird), and I usually read about several birds as they hit the table. I find myself looking up at the birds now when I take walks. Playing solo, I can knock out a game in under an hour, and I have played it more often than any boardgame this year. It’s a tad multiplayer-solitaire, and I prefer it solo. This game is as addictive as it is beautiful.
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Disco Elysium - I’m not finished yet, but I’m really impressed with the writing, world-building and innovation in this game. This is a true role-playing game, with emphasis on the “role.”
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AI War 2 - This is a great mix of new features (automatic reinforcements by factories within one jump, fleets, etc) and familiar gameplay (asymmetric war, true raids, deep-strikes, panic, crushing defeat).
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Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order - I don’t care for all the jumping and climbing, but I like the combat, and I love the story. Haven’t finished yet, though.
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Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: The Gathering Storm - I had fun with this expansion. Civ V and Civ VI are my #1 and #3 most /played games in my Steam library (#2 being Star Traders Frontiers). I recognize that the Civ series needs to shake things up more (and improve the AI), but I still enjoy it.
Other 2019 games I enjoyed this year:
Thea 2 - The Shattering. Mostly an improvement on the excellent first game, and now I see they’ve revised the somewhat annoying island system by giving us a pangaea option. On my list of things to revisit.
NHL 20 - I play the NHL series every year, and it’s made real strides in the past couple iterations. The skating and shooting feels right. No game makes me laugh harder than when I play this, incompetently, along my daughter, who is much better at it than I am. Who’d have thunk one would turn to ice hockey for comedy?
Age of Wonders Planetfall - The first AoW game that I kinda got into. It still doesn’t appeal to me as much as I would expect it would. Not sure why.
OOTP 20 - I loved Perfect Team when it arrived, and while I’ve taken a break, I still think it’s awesome. OOTP 20 also made significant UI improvements to the main game.
Imperator Rome - Not as good as Republic of Rome (see below), but a good first iteration of an ancient world simulator.
Slay the Spire - I liked it but after a couple early victories, I lost interest. Only played 12 hours or so. Surprised it’s doing so well here, but maybe I need to give it another look?
Finally, some pre-2019 games that I enjoyed in 2019. Several of these I played more than any game that emerged in 2019. Not sure they belong in this thread, so I’ll edit out if need be:
Strategic Command WW2: World at War. Released in December 2018. With 127 hours /played this year, one of the games I obsessed over the most. It’s a good turn-based global treatment of WW2. It has its flaws, and it annoys me sometimes, but I’m still playing it several times a week.
World in Flames Collectors Edition - Released in 2018, but I didn’t start playing until 2019, and it remains spread out on my biggest gaming table. A boardgame that models all of WW2 on a global scale. The monster game of all monster games.
Star Traders Frontiers - another older game that didn’t grab me until 2019. Wow did it grab me - it is now my #2 most /played game in Steam library.
Hearts of Iron IV - Not released in 2019, but I didn’t really get hooked on it til this year.
Republic of Rome - First released a few decades before 2019! But I discovered it this year, and wow, what a tour de force.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Released in 2018, but I didn’t play it til this year. Was totally hooked until unpleasantness made me abruptly stop.
Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes (iOS) - my guilty pleasure. Released well before 2019, but I played it more than ever this year. I like it, even though it’s FTP mobile gaming, with timers and premium currency and all the other crap; don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Thank you, geggis! :)
Thanks to my backlog I normally play games well after they’ve been released, but this year I managed to play a few new ones as well. MS’ PC Game Pass helped a bit.
Maybe I’ll add comments later. For now I just want to get the votes in before the deadline.
- Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
- Dirt Rally 2.0
- The Outer Worlds
- Age of Wonders: Planetfall
- Void Bastards
Slim pickings for me this year, not played many of the years releases and the one’s I did play didn’t seem particularly memorable, with one exception.
- Disco Elysium
- The Division 2
- Gears 5
- Far Cry New Dawn
- My Friend Pedro
Hrm, my last minute picks. I played more games than this that released in 2019 but would feel uncomfortable putting them on any kind of top list because they were pretty mediocre.
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Slay The Spire - Because it’s just awesome. There’s a guy who beat like 20+ runs in a row on the highest difficulty possible. It’s way more skill based than someone who only plays it a few hours will understand. A beautifully designed game that kept me beating my head against it on and off over the year to truly “beat”.
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Total War: Three Kingdoms - I’m a sucker for Total War games, and this is a particularly artistically gorgeous one and the first entry in the series to have mildly important and interesting diplomacy. Unfortunately Warhammer spoiled me a bit on unit/faction variety. This is still an extremely competently made game, and maybe some DLC in the future will reignite my interest.
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Age of Wonders: Planetfall - A fun entry into a series I’ve always enjoyed but never thought of as classics. It didn’t change my mind about the franchise, but I’ll admit I had a good time with it nonetheless.
Edited to add: Disco Elysium is on my to-do list, and looks great. I agree with whoever said that I probably won’t be able to give a great answer to my top game of 2019 until about 2021 :P
This year a bumper crop of twenty-eight games were eligible for consideration for my list. Shame I didn’t like many of them!
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Total War: Three Kingdoms
After many iterations and misfires, Creative Assembly have delivered the pinnacle of the Total War series. Three Kingdoms delivers both deep and interesting strategy and a rich setting. A fascinating strategic epic. -
A Short Hike
Simple, short and delightful. You’re visiting an island you don’t know. Take a hike to the top of the mountain. A perfect little gem of a video game. -
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
This game may have perfected the art of sword fighting for those of us who like our sword blades to visibly collide. -
Control
Remedy deliver their best yet, perhaps their first game to combine style with meaningful substance. And what style this one has! -
Baba is You
An ingenious deconstruction of the puzzle game.
Shortlisted but didn’t make the cut: Slay the Spire and Outer Wilds.
Many cool looking games came out last year that I didn’t have time to play, the one most likely to threaten this list was Disco Elysium.
It’s been years since I’ve played as many new games as I did this year, and that they were nearly all good was awesome. :)
- Control - I got this for free with a new GPU and wasn’t expecting much. What a surprise!
- Rebel Galaxy Outlaw - This scratched a few decade old itch that I didn’t know I had. Another surprise!
- MechWarrior 5 - As a rabid BattleTech fan, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised by how much I’d like this game, but as a former player of MechWarrior Online, I’ve seen how bad Pirana Games can screw stuff up. Surprised!
- Jedi: Fallen Order - Woo a great single player Star Wars game in the vein of Dark Souls? Heck yeah!
- Resident Evil 2 - Loved the original and this just made it better in every way. Although playing it reminded me just how much I would love another game set in the RE4 style.
- Astroneer Game really improved at release
- Factory Town An accessible Factorio
- Anno 1800 Slave time game done without slaves who knew
- On Mars Best Lacerda yet
- Autonauts They finally figured out how to make programming bots fun and easy.
It seems odd to me to vote for Slay the Spire this year, but since it’s possibly the only ‘2019’ game I played, let alone liked, my list is:
- Slay the Spire : Because it’s Slay the Goddamn Spire
Damn near in that same boat with you, man :)
- Outer Wilds
This mysterious and intricately crafted clockwork solar system hypnotised and occupied my every waking thought. The biggest problem with Outer Wilds however, is that the more you know about it, the less you’re likely to get from it, which makes it exceptionally difficult to talk about. This isn’t just a spoiler thing. Your progress is commensurate with your understanding and knowledge of the system, its phenomena, history and inhabitants, which is acquired through curiosity, investigation, exploration and discovery. That’s the nucleus around which the whole experience orbits. How the game rewards your journey of discovery constantly surprised and astonished me. It’s not only my game of 2019, it’s probably my favourite game. And I’m so happy to say that.
- Return of the Obra Dinn
I’m glad this released on consoles in 2019 because that’s also when I played it on PC! That technicality allowed me to smuggle it onboard. There are so many spectacular, terrifying and bloodcurdling moments in Return of the Obra Dinn, some suspended in animation, some vividly animated in your mind through the evocative sound design, but the best bits are when you cleverly snap clues together and can scratch another crew member or three off the manifest. So here’s to the good ship Obra Dinn, for coming back, and with one of gaming’s finest mysteries.
- A Short Hike
It’s probably the loveliest, most heartwarming, wholesome and gentle game I’ve played in a long time. Well, since the Frog Detective games anyway. And yet, despite being indebted to Animal Crossing, its sweet and genuinely touching story vignettes coupled with Claire’s glorious movement means it frequently soars.
- Void Bastards
Void Bastards is at its best when you’re not comfortable and you’re forced into improvising and thinking on your feet. Without that it’s easy to settle into a (relatively) safe routine grinding out materials for an otherwise tight crafting system. So crank that difficulty up and be a hard bastard (or as near as). It’s beautifully presented with some hilarious dialogue, enemy shout-outs and environmental details. “Oi! Bellend!” being one of my favourites and this being another on board a prison ship:
- At Sundown: Shots in the Dark
At Sundown is a ‘stealth driven arena combat’ game. If you’re in the dark, you’re invisible. Attacking reveals you, as do any light sources dotted around the maps — including cracks of lightning and train headlights. Unlike the similarly brilliant Invisigun Heroes/Reloaded where you move on a grid and aim in the cardinal directions, At Sundown is a lot more granular with full 360 twin-stick aiming and movement. This clicked a lot better with me and my friends and we had a blast. There are plenty of maps with their own hazards and quirks, modes that shift the focus of play, weapons and pick-ups, options to tweak and local as well as online multiplayer. It’s a cracking party game and a firm favourite alongside SpeedRunners and Nidhogg.
- Devil May Cry 5
- Resident Evil 2
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
- Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order
Need more time with: Control, Sunless Skies, Conan Unconquered, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Observation, Void Bastards, Outer Wilds, Astral Chain, Killer Queen Black, Luigi’s Mansion 3
I also bounced off invisigun heroes. Maybe I’ll give this a shot considering especially how much our interests appear to align. :) Have you tried Samurai Gunn? It’s damn good with couch buds.