Alex's Top 10 Games of 2019

Well, here we are again. Another year passed, insert your "I feel so old" anecdote here. It's been an interesting year in gaming for me. The previous couple of years had so many quality titles, I've spent quite a lot of my time catching up on gems I didn't get round to in the year of their release - however, as you'll see in the list below, I didn't spend 2019 living completely in the past.

Speaking of which, this is of course also the conclusion of a decade - I'll have some retrospective thoughts on that in a separate update quite soon (that's right - two blog posts in the same year).

But let's not get ahead (or behind?) of ourselves. Chances are you know how this works - I have done this one, two, three, four times before - but a quick reminder: these are simply the ten video games I enjoyed the most over the past year, ranked by said enjoyment. Not all were released this year, but trust me, it'll be more interesting this way. Let's begin.

10. American Truck Simulator

I'm indulging myself slightly by including this here, but I think that fits the indulgent way I play American Truck Simulator. This is a game I picked up as soon as it came out, over four years ago, so it's not something new to me this year - even by the rules I created myself for these Top Ten's, it probably doesn't deserve to be on here. Nevertheless, in 2019 I have played this and its sister-game, Euro Truck Simulator 2 for many hours, and I keep coming back - especially after each update pushes the borders back further to include yet more of the world to haul cargo across.

I'll back up (pun intended) briefly to explain that these games are, as the names suggest, slightly realistic simulations of driving lovingly-virtualised lorries across vast distances. Concessions are made to make it workable as a game - the world is scaled down, so that for example, travelling from San Francisco to Seattle takes a little over an hour in real time - and time is sped up in game accordingly. Landmarks, particularly when you approach an urban area, are of realistic proportions, but the highways in between are more digestible while retaining the sense of an unending road leading off into the distance, the environment gradually changing as your journey progresses. It's a beautiful, serene game that I reach for whenever I want to relax.

...Or when I decide to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time. This has only led to a couple of vehicular incidents.

9. Super Mario Maker 2

And now for something completely different. The follow up to a Wii U game I largely missed out on, with Super Mario Maker 2 Nintendo have once again shown off the incredible things that can be done when they let their remarkably innovative and talented playerbase make levels. I'm typically more interested in playing than creating in these types of games, but I was taken aback by how much pleasure I found in putting together two (slightly trollish) creations. There are many, many tools at your disposal, and while that can be daunting, I always felt reassured that whatever I made would be built upon the solidity of Mario's platforming mechanics, and therefore it would at the very least be playable, and perhaps even fun, for the players who would encounter it.

It's hard to put into words how inventive the SMM2 community can be. Over the summer and then the autumn I came back to the game on an irregular basis, and found that while I'd been gone a particular theme of level creation had taken hold. At first it was short, chaotic timed levels, then it was levels overflowing with buzzsaws, before moving on to more expansive courses, often subdivided with different types of challenges and requiring collection of a red coin or key from each one... This isn't even touching on the levels that focused more on storytelling, or making a working table tennis level, or a first-person horror level - I just can't enumerate them all here. There was and still is a lot to dive into, and it's striking how few low-quality levels I saw.

And yet despite all this creativity, I do have some criticisms of SMM2 that individually would be nitpicks, but they add up to a bit of a bummer. Firstly, I'm still shocked there's no easy way to see levels made by friends on Nintendo's (subscription-based) online network. It's not impossible to find your friends' creations, but it is needlessly complicated. A partial solution is to mark a creator as a favourite, which I used to try to curate a feed of levels from players I wanted to see more of, who soon numbered in the dozens. This level feed, however, is only ever sorted by most recent uploads - after a while I was seeing the same names more frequently, and while the levels were generally interesting, there wasn't the variety I wanted or in fact any filtering available for different types of levels. I also couldn't find any menu with a simple list of the usernames I had favourited, and even my own history of levels played only goes back so far - I have no way of revisiting creators I encountered when SMM2 had just been released and seeing what they have come up with since. In short, the game fails in many ways to showcase swathes of fascinating creativity, a problem sadly carried over from the Wii U original. Rant over - it's a very good game, but it could and should have been even better.

8. Outer Wilds

I can think of very few video games with a better opening hour than Outer Wilds. You wake up in front of a campfire looking up towards the night sky, before at your leisure exploring the small town that elegantly teaches you most of the skills you'll require for the rest of the game, while concisely establishing the premise of the game's world. Within minutes you then launch into space via a ramshackle craft that looks like a lunar lander constructed from wooden floorboards and tin foil. Everything takes place within a deceptively small solar system: the various planets loom over you as you approach them, but examine your spaceship's HUD and you'll note that the distances gets no higher than a few kilometres. As someone with hundreds of hours on record in the exhaustively one-to-one scale space sim Elite: Dangerous, I found this aspect of Outer Wilds to be charming and freeing at the same time. The developers achieve a stunningly adept balance of depth and restraint in the design of this little universe, one that won't occupy most players for much more than 10-15 hours, but if you're anything like me, you'll find yourself thoroughly obsessed for the duration.

I can't really say much about the narrative, as every detail you uncover has the potential to thoroughly please, and it all adds up to something very special. Despite some significant differences in genre I'm inclined to draw a comparison with The Witness, in that the primary commodity you collect to advance is knowledge - each fragment of information points you towards the next discovery, allowing you some agency regarding the route you take through the story. I say some, because there is one other mechanic I've left out so far: every 22 minutes, your progress is halted and you are whisked back through time to the game's opening moments. This allows you to apply all that knowledge you've acquired in new ways as the world-state has reset. I could understand some players finding this frustrating, as the time-loop inevitably interrupts some fascinating moments, and the very existence of this mechanic can encourage one to rush everything and savour nothing. Personally, I found the story justification for this more than adequate, and the time limit was sufficient that I got into a rhythm and frequently found myself triggering it early (an ability unlocked once your character learns the benefits of meditation). It does however tie into my one major criticism of Outer Wilds: the euphoria of discovery in the early stages was unfortunately matched by excessively obtuse leaps of logic in the final sequences, exacerbated by the necessity to wait out most of the 22-minute loop in order to access the next piece of the story's jigsaw. Perhaps I was too impatient, perhaps it was the contrast of having a handful of secrets left to find versus the plethora in the beginning, but it left a sour taste at the conclusion. I'd encourage anybody to give Outer Wilds a try, as long as they have no qualms resorting to Google at some point.

7. Return of the Obra Dinn

If you thought a lorry-driving simulator sounded boring, how about a game centred on an insurance agent inspecting a 19th century cargo ship? It's certainly an unusual premise, and a lot more exciting than it sounds. The Obra Dinn arrives in port missing every one of its sixty-plus crew members, and the player's task is to deduce the fate of them all, using only their trusty notebook and... a magic pocket-watch that transports them to the deceased final moments. When you find someone's remains, you're treated to a brief piece of audio (if you're lucky, dialogue revealing certain identities) followed by a three-dimensional freeze frame of the character's death. These sequences, combined with a few choice materials in the notebook such as a passenger manifest, provide all the clues necessary to establishing every individual's name, cause of death and perpetrator, where applicable.

The presentation of Return of the Obra Dinn is what really sets it aside. The visuals are deliberately retro, evocative of Mac games of old, but realised with the detail and sophistication of a modern video game. It serves as a reminder that polygon counts and resolution are not necessarily a yardstick by which to measure every game - most characters are distinguishable and recognisable despite the low-fidelity nature of the graphics. And the soundtrack is transcendent, firmly locking the game's identity into place and creating amazingly dramatic moments every time you investigate a crew-member's ghastly demise (check out the trailer below to see for yourself). All of this should come of no surprise once you're aware this is the work of Lucas Pope, creator of Papers, Please and one of the most widely-respected game developers around.

As with Outer Wilds, the story is core to the experience and I wouldn't dream of spoiling the fun. All I'll say, is that I attained more familiarity with minor characters in Return of the Obra Dinn than I have with the protagonists of many big budget titles. I think that alone is a worthy achievement, and the fact it's 7th in this list is merely testament to the quality of those after it.

6. The Outer Worlds

Not to be confused with number 8 on this list, The Outer Worlds is one of those games that seems to hit all the right notes just by existing. It appears to have been explicitly designed for nostalgic fans of the Fallout series, particularly those who: loved the writing and characters of New Vegas but were disappointed by later entries in the series; enjoyed the post-nuclear apocalypse but would be interested in the same style of game in a different setting; desired a lot more opportunities for skill-specific speech checks; prefer quality over quantity. If you hadn't guessed, all of these describe myself, and judging from the game's reception I think I'm far from alone.

The Outer Worlds is set in sci-fi future that takes certain aspects of capitalism to an uncompromising, but darkly plausible extreme. Spaceborne travellers to a distant human colony are indentured to the corporations that funded their transportation, and over the many decades elapsed by the point of the story's beginning, concepts such as freedom and human rights have been thoroughly eroded. All of this is communicated through top-notch dialogue with NPC's; by the imaginative, distinctive set-dressing of the various exploitative corporations; and by a treasure trove of story-rich missions. An early quest sets the tone with the revelation that to commit suicide is considered a heinous crime, because it amounts to destruction of company property, with the damages to be charged to the bereaved next-of-kin. To be clear, other narratives within the game are more lighthearted, but almost all are influenced by this pointed subtext made clear from the outset.

The combat, I am to understand, has some depth on the higher difficulties. I decided to play on the default, normal setting, and found it functional initially, and before long, effortlessly easy. Perhaps I only have myself to blame, but in this situation I never feel like making the gameplay more difficult after becoming accustomed to a lack of resistance. This resulted in my progression through The Outer Worlds feeling rushed, and despite how much I appreciated the narrative I found myself breezing through everything somewhat mindlessly, having to force myself to pay attention. It's probably not a valid critique, given its self-inflicted nature, but halfway through the nostalgic novelty began to wear off and the experience did not feel quite as special. Nonetheless, this was a welcome return to one of my favourite types RPG's.

5. Control

Whatever the opposite of a 'hiding to nothing' is, Control was on it. Thematically it draws pretty much equally from Twin Peaks, The X-Files and The Twilight Zone. Its gameplay is an evolution of other games by developer Remedy such as Max Payne and Alan Wake, i.e. expertly executed third-person shooting with just the right balance of challenge and power-fantasy gratification. The game's initial moments are both bizarre and engrossing. The protagonist, a woman named Jesse, enters the headquarters of the Bureau of Control (imagine the FBI if it were run by Fox Mulder); it is deserted except for the Director, who after meeting Jesse promptly shoots himself in the head. Jesse is now the new Director, all the Bureau's portraits now display her face, and she is soon informed by characters including her deceased predecessor of an extra-dimensional threat to humanity that has, for now, been contained within the building. Colour me intrigued.

Beyond this enticing premise, I have to emphasise how consistently enjoyable I found Control. The combat, as I have described above, is satisfying and rarely gets old. Standard point-and-shoot mechanics are supplemented by a versatile telekinesis ability, a gameplay component that promised much but was ultimately flawed in titles such as the previous generation's Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Environments are varied and visually compelling while remaining consistent with the Bureau's paranormal focus, and more than a little bit influenced by an architectural style I now know is called "brutalism". Side missions are doled out regularly but not overwhelmingly, and all of them added layers of world-building that I found at least interesting, often fascinating. My only complaints are fairly minor - checkpoints are spaced out slightly too far apart, and there are some bosses that can go utterly fuck themselves. Fortunately, many of the latter are optional, and the rest of the game is certainly still substantial if one was to ignore them. I'm told additional content is on the way, which is excellent because I will happily return to the Bureau of Control.

4. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

When I started playing Hellblade, I understood it was recommended I put on headphones, but declined to do so, preferring as usual to use my PC's speakers. Moments into the opening cutscene, I exited the game, plugged in, and booted it up again. You see, the titular protagonist, Senua, suffers from psychosis (among many things - hers is a pretty unforgiving world). Credits in the opening titles make it clear the gamemakers had endeavoured to make this an authentic depiction of this specific aspect of mental health. Doubting, questioning voices punctuate the action frequently, chiming in with such helpful pointers as "where's she going? You're going the wrong way"; "she's scared, she can't do it"; and much more along those lines. Even leaving aside how laudable it is to represent so respectfully a condition readily exploited in media as a generic form of 'madness', I found this to be a remarkable feature and one I can't recall seeing hearing before in a video game. It fits the narrative and the action in a very intelligent way, so I suppose I should briefly explain what's going on in Hellblade.

Senua is a woman from northern Britain in the 8th century A.D., who has journeyed far from home in an attempt to rescue her lover from the Viking underworld, who was... killed by Vikings. Some of this is laid bare at the start and some is made clear through the mythological set-pieces encountered throughout the game. Having played 2018's God of War previously, the setting felt familiar but still brimming with enticing Norse mystery. Kratos was also an outsider in his tale, but the mist-shrouded islands of Hellblade felt more threatening because a) Senua is mortal and not a god, and b) she brought a troupe of undermining stowaways along for the ride, in her head. The combat takes liberal cues from the Soulsborne series, in the form of intimidating sword-and-shield fights and the crucial timing of dodging and parrying. My whispering cohort became more help than hindrance with this as the game went on, warning of enemy attacks and using directional audio to maintain a constant immersion. I never regretted putting the headphones on.

The gameplay is, to be honest, stressful, both as a person holding a controller and a person empathising with the protagonist. Some players might find it overwhelming to the point of off-putting, but personally I found the difficulty high-pressure, but ultimately not insurmountable, and the challenge only heightened my appreciation of the themes described above. Your mileage may vary, but in my opinion this is an emotionally powerful, innovative game, and I'm very glad I played it. I was even happier recently to hear that a sequel is in the works.

3. Astro Bot Rescue Mission

As it turned out, 2019 was the year I got into Virtual Reality. With a PlayStation VR headset at my disposal, I experimented with a few games, most of which were very interesting in their exploration of what is in some ways a new format of video games. Fortuitously, the PSVR bundle I acquired included Astro Bot Rescue Mission, a game that instantly and joyously demonstrated the potential of VR.

If I describe Astro Bot as any other video game, it might sound cute but unremarkable. You manoeuvre a small robot mascot through 3D levels in search of his fellow small robots, along the way taking out brightly-coloured spiky adversaries and collecting coins. Experiencing this in VR is transformative - partly because the immersive perspective of VR makes every tiny interaction with the game enjoyable, but moreover because of the many ways the game revels in its Virtual Reality. For example, every adorable robot you collect jetpacks upwards before landing on the virtual PS4 controller that stands in for the real-life Dualshock 4 you are holding, waving at you gleefully before storing themselves in said controller. Certain levels also play on your perspective in this third-person platformer: very early on you are presented with a mirror that reveals you to be a mother-like robot directing the diminutive Astro Bot's actions. The game exploits this in a number of interesting ways, such as headbutting destructible sections of the scenery, or heading a football back towards an enemy who kicked it at you. It's fun and endearing throughout, and I enthusiastically completed everything there was to do in the game.

Admittedly, I'm a prime target for this game: interested in VR, nostalgic for platform mascots of the past such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. But I must emphasise how well Astro Bot just works. Simple, colourful graphics make for an engaging world. Clever use of the player's perspective within VR leads to innovative level design. Perhaps most significantly, the VR experience negates depth perception when judging a jump between platforms, which has been a fundamental problem in this genre that could only ever be worked around - but give the player camera control in a 3D space, and the problem disappears.

I've only just dipped my toes into the VR space, and, who knows, it may end up as a rather niche fad. Either way, Astro Bot Rescue Mission shows great promise for VR.

2. Forza Horizon 4

This one is fairly straightforward - Forza Horizon 4 is a phenomenal racing game. Set in Edinburgh and the surrounding Scottish countryside, I've had a spectacular time over many dozens of hours wrestling supercars around tight city streets, crashing ATV's through farm hedges, teasing rally cars down dirt tracks, and so much more. This fourth entry in the open world spin off to Forza introduces seasonal shifts on a weekly basis, rotating through spring, summer, autumn and winter. This results in some wide-ranging adjustments to how the cars handle - snow and ice on the roads in winter, dirt roads through the woods turning to mud in spring, and so on - but personally I particularly appreciated the aesthetic changes this brings. This is already an astonishingly beautiful game, and regularly refreshing the visuals only served to highlight the stunning visuals on display.

I've spent almost all my time with FH4 ploughing through its substantial single-player content - I'm always reticent to dive into online modes when there's so much to be experienced solo, and while I get the impression there's a side to the game I haven't really engaged with, the online activities inserted into the open world weren't particularly compelling to me. In any case, there's an atmosphere of an endless summer (despite the seasonal changes!) imbued throughout the game via the soundtrack and the "Horizon Festival" that serves as an excuse for all these adrenaline-junkies tearing up Scotland's wonderful surroundings. I think this makes me less willing to get out of my comfort zone, because... well, they made this zone so very comfortable.

I don't think there's much more to say - Forza Horizon 4 looks incredible, the driving feels amazing, and if I ever do get on board with its online features, I'm willing to bet there's a lot to enjoy there as well.

1. Beat Saber

My game of the year is a rhythm game - not so long ago I could not have imagined myself saying that. I'd always taken it as a given that my sense of rhythm was non-existent, whether it came to games, musical aptitude, dancing, poetry, anything. As a result, attempting to play rhythm games such as Rhythm Heaven, Guitar Hero, etc. has typically been an exercise in frustration - I could see how fun these types of games were, but a basic lack of ability was getting in the way. Beat Saber allowed me to break through this mental block I have regarding rhythm. I think there are a few reasons for this, and those reasons also happen to be why it's a fantastic game.

Firstly, it's a VR game. Something I noticed the first time I tried VR was that immersing yourself in the game world fundamentally changes the experience. Unlike playing on a television, the game takes up your entire field of view; distractions are all but eliminated. Beat Saber, for those unaware, is a music game that puts two light-sabre-like swords in your hands, and sends cubes flying towards you to be slashed in half in time to the music. Red cubes are to be attacked by the red sword in your left hand, blue cubes to be bisected by the matching blade in your right hand. There are a couple of other elements to the game, but by and large that's it - it's a wonderfully minimalist game, and the VR aspect helps to instil a meditative focus while playing. Mind-talk and fidgety distraction often get in the way of my interaction with rhythm games, but the all-encompassing nature of Beat Saber does away with these.

Second, the music is bloody excellent. The base game includes a decent selection of tracks created for Beat Saber, across a variety of genres, occasionally blending them to great results. Being an active participant in the music also encouraged me to absorb myself in types of music I don't normally listen to. Naturally, the genres I already appreciated were a source of enjoyment too. Music packs from popular artists are also available to purchase, and it's worth the expense. Not only did I have more excuses to play the game, I was also exposed to bands I was less familiar with, and it turns out I'm a big fan of Imagine Dragons now? Anyway, the musical content is great, which is of course crucial for almost any rhythm game.

And thirdly, it's an active game - physically moving your body is a different form of interaction than pressing a button, and in my case this helped break me out of bad habits that caused me to fail at other rhythm games, such as hitting a note too early and jarring myself out of the rhythm. The notes in Beat Saber would be physically out of reach if I tried to do that, so I don't. The aerobic movements encouraged by the game's flow make everything feel natural (although the higher difficulty settings for now seem beyond me). Of course, all of this also makes the game a form of exercise, which is gratifying as I am painfully conscious of how lax I can be in that regard. This inevitably means I get an endorphin rush when playing - you could perhaps partly blame those sneaky brain chemicals for Beat Saber taking the number one spot.

Sometimes less is more - this is a very cool game that does one thing extremely well. Beat Saber is definitely my Game of the Year.

Honourable mentions for games that almost made the cut:

Yakuza Kiwami & Kiwami 2 - Maybe not as exceptional as 0, but I'm still loving the Yakuza series, and looking forward to working my through all of them.

Assassin's Creed: Origins - A return to form for the series, running around ancient Egypt stabbing fools was awesome.

Sniper Elite 4 - Slow-mo bullet porn.

Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse - Still holds up, and justified my purchase of the Mini Mega Drive.

Rez Infinite - another stunning VR tour de force. 

A Plague Tale: Innocence - a bleak tale set in 14th century France during the Black Death. So many rats.

Hypnospace Outlaw - 90s-era geocities sites recreated as a video game!

One Finger Death Punch 2 - breathlessly punching thousands of stick men to death.

Death Stranding - definitely not a great game, but certainly unusual.