Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons is one of the most wonderfully clever games I’ve ever played. There’s no hyperbole in that. This is an understated adventure puzzle game that uses gameplay for narrative purposes in the best way.
Co-operative games are great. I adore working as a team to solve problems and experience stories in games. Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator takes cooperative gameplay to a whole new level of role playing and fun.
It has been a genuinely amazing year for games. The sheer variety of games on offer has been bountiful and means everyone has something they can enjoy. AAA offered some excellent big budget experiences. Indies of all sizes created unique and stellar games. There were in fact, far too many games. So much I couldn’t even get to things like Outer Wilds, Heaven’s Vault, Mechwarrior or Resident Evil 2. But the 10 best games of the year 2019? The ones I played are below:
I thought I didn’t really like isometric RPGs. It turns out what I really didn’t like was how most isometric RPGs played. An endless slog of grids and turn based combat getting in the way of enjoying the roleplaying. Disco Elysium is an Isometric RPG. I love Disco Elysium. This is a game that starts with you hearing from your ancient reptilian brain and your limbic system. And only gets more entertaining and weird from there. It’s the kind of game where I failed a skill check upon trying to take a necktie off a fan and suffered a heart attack because I wasn’t robust enough. What I think I’m trying to convey here, and it’s incredibly important, is that Disco Elysium is an excellently written, deeply thought out, exceptionally funny and distinctly weird game about choosing and playing roles. It does that better than every other game this year. Disco Elysium is an Isometric game about reading dialogue, selecting responses and occasionally making a skill check related to your choices. Skill checks roll two six sided dice, add your skill modifier and try to beat a number between 1 and 20. Double Ones is always a fail, Double 6s is always a success. Sometimes these are active. They’ll be you trying to use your physical instrument skill to break open a container, or persuasion to convince someone to help you. Sometimes these will be passive. Your Encyclopedia skill has your brain pop in with an explanation of a world Read More
Violence in an alley, a city on the brink and a vigilante to bring fear to those in power. For a film that was supposed to be a fresh spin on the superhero mythos, Joker is certainly wrapped up in aping Batman’s. (Spoilers Beyond)
There are certain games that just immediately sell the core concept. They tap into an ideal or truth that is universally known and make a fun game from it. House House have managed to accomplish this in Untitled Goose Game. Known Truth: Geese are Horrible. Known Truth: Being a Horrible Goose for a few hours is a hilarious exercise.
A teaser released today from Capcom has hinted at the next title in their Resident Evil series. Project Resistance is coming.
Control might not represent the most average day for Jesse Faden. Finding the secretive government organisation that took your brother all those years ago could be cause for celebration. Finding a dead man, picking up his weird gun and finding that you’re now the paranormally appointed Director of that same organisation could be a point of concern. And that’s before you find out about all of those horrifying mind warping horrors they’ve been studying for decades now. So a rough day then.
San Diego Comic Con and Hall H saw the announcement, and confirmation of everything we will see for the next two years of Marvel movies and Disney+ shows. It’s Marvel Phase 4. It’s time to get goddamned weird.
So what can Nintendo E3 2019 bring? Well, they’ve promised a stack of games coming in 2019. They’re uniquely positioned to take advantage of the fact they’re not moving console generations like Microsoft or Sony. As such, they can show off a whole bunch of games without worry.
