By Nelson Schneider - 12/07/19 at 03:50 PM CT
2019 was a challenging year. So many of the “hot, new releases” turned out to be “old things being ported to new platforms,” to the point where, if you pruned all the ports, remasters, and compilations out of the annual release summary, you really wouldn’t have much.
It was also a rough year for exclusives, with little in the way of Game of the Year material hitting any lone console… except for Epic Games. The new Epic Games Store managed to secure exclusive distribution rights for the PC versions of nearly every outstanding multi-platform release in its first year, pissing off hordes of Steam and GOG users in the process.
RPG fans, though, had it roughest of all, with all of the major GotY contender releases being pushed back to 2020, leaving us, like a flock of ducks (or perhaps Untitled Geese) to filter befouled water through our bills in the desperate hope of seining out a nugget of partially-digested corn. Conversely, fans of quality, single-player First-Person Shooters were spoiled for choice.
1. The Outer Worlds
Everyone on the MJ Crew agrees that Obsidian Entertainment’s re-imagining of the ‘Fallout’ universe (which rightfully belongs to them, but was usurped by Bethesda during Interplay’s bankruptcy back in the day – thanks, Intellectual Property Law) deserves the top spot for 2019. The massive scope, the colorful (literally!) characters and setting, and Obsidian’s innate knowledge of what makes a ‘Fallout’ game a ‘Fallout’ game, even when it isn’t a ‘Fallout’ game are all combined to laudable effect, here. Now that Microsoft owns Obsidian, the House of Gates finally has exclusive rights to a good FPS! Took ‘em long enough.
2. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Konami just can’t seem to figure out what to do with ‘Castlevania.’ But that’s okay! Because Koji Igarashi, the father of ‘Castlevania,’ left that terrible corporation behind to forge his own path. That path lead to Kickstarter and the successful 2019 release of “Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night,” which is exactly what ‘Castlevania’ would still be like if Konami didn’t keep crapping it up. A spiritual successor to “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night” – the game that put the franchise on the map and on gamers’ tongues across the world – “Bloodstained” recaptures everything we love about the ‘vania’ part of the Metroidvania subgenre. Here’s hoping we see several sequels of equal quality in the coming years.
3. Metro Exodus
The post-apocalyptic Russian subway proved to be an unexpected hit with the MJ Crew when we first experienced the setting in “Metro Redux.” “Metro Exodus” ups the ante further by pushing beyond the linear into a truly open-world (and some of us just can’t get enough of those).
4. Borderlands 3
Randy Pitchford may be considered The Devil by SJWs, but, honestly, who hasn’t left a thumbdrive full of porn at a family restaurant and threatened their employees? Anyone? Regardless, ‘Borderlands’ is, historically, a fun and goofy FPS franchise with tons of memetic humor and silly, over-the-top weaponry. We were concerned that, after the Live Service dalliance by Gearbox that was “Battleborn,” “Borderlands 3” would also be some sort of Live Service, always-online guff, and that the series’ obsession with in-game loot boxes would transition to a real-world obsession with microtransaction-based loot boxes. Fortunately, microtransactions and loot boxes blew-up in the Games Industry’s face while “Borderlands 3” was still just a glimmer in Randy’s eye. It’s sad that “being more of the same without predatory monetization” is enough to make a new release into Game of the Year material, but that’s the world we live in.
5. Wargroove
While the MJ Crew historically dislikes Chucklefish, the Indie developer behind “Wargroove,” we can’t allow their past (horrible) mistakes with “Wanderlust: Rebirth” to perpetually color our view of them. If we did, we’d have missed out on their unique take on the tactical Strategy genre. “Wargroove” combines the style of gameplay pioneered by Nintendo with their ‘Wars’ series (which dropped off the face of the earth after the release of “Days of Ruin” for the DS in 2008) with cooperative (and competitive, but meh) multiplayer modes and user-generated content. We love it when game developers, especially Indie developers, find a way to shoe-horn cooperative play into genres where it has been historically absent, and “Wargroove” definitely does it right.
