qolelis on 31/12/2019 at 16:30

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Definitely Heaven's Vault for the language analysis part, the exploration, and the character interactions. After having played through it twice, there are still things left I want to try and closed off areas I might be able to access. Felt like nothing I had played before.

Lorelai (by Harvester games who also made The Cat Lady) for its mix of social realism and the supernatural.

Eastshade has to be here too. Mostly some innocent fun exploring and interacting. On the surface, it's a simple game about making friends. Looking a bit deeper, it's a game about making friends. The lessons learned or wisdoms gained are subtle and merely presented, not pushed. Still left me with a lasting impression when I was done.

What Never Was isn't on the list, but deserves a mention. Well-produced point'n'click puzzle game in 3D in a similar vein as The Room games. Also free. Very short, though, and apparently not meant to be continued, although I just learned that chapter II is being worked on.

icemann on 2/1/2020 at 17:18

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Could have sworn we did one of these lists already months ago.

Anyways. I've not played much of 2019's releases. Of those that I did:

1. The 13th Doll - This is The 7th Guest 3 in all but name. I absolutely loved this. It's completely niche, and 8/10 people would hate it, but I don't care. On a side note, I was one of the few people streaming this game on release. Netted me an absolute ton of views + view time for my youtube channel :).

2. Bloodstained - Now this was excellent. I'd have preferred 2D sprites over the 2.5D style they went with. Gameplay is great.

3. Phoenix Point - This game had me HOOKED from the get go. Then the save game corruptions started happening. Then the crashes, and then the major balancing issues that this game suffers from immensely. I'd been playing the game almost non stop for 2 weeks until I hit that point. So disappointed. Reading on the games forums, the balancing is due to the AI getting harder based on player performance. So if you save scum it actually makes the game harder. I'm not playing this again until they fix the corruptions and balancing.

4. Void Bastards - Starts out great and by the end it was extremely annoying. I'm never playing this again.

3 out of the 4 2019 games I played were games I backed. Interesting.

Renault on 2/1/2020 at 22:05

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I think the most fun I had in 2019 was playing the retro shooters. Amid Evil, Ion Fury, and Dusk (technically 2018 by a couple of weeks) are all awesome and great throwback fun. I really don't even play games like this anymore, but I couldn't get enough of these particular titles. I'm still playing Ion Fury, but I'm also looking forward to Wrath in 2020.

Other Steam games I played from this year are Void Bastards, which was fun for the first 5-10 hours or so then got really repetitive and cumbersome, and I just lost interest. I also enjoyed playing a little Streets of Rogue and Heaven's Vault, but I need to put more time into them before giving them a thumbs up.

I really love games for my Switch, usually shorter indie titles. The best Switch games I played this year were Baba Is You, Forager, Reventure, and My Friend Pedro. Also put some time into Super Mario Maker 2, which is better than it's predecessors (although I miss being able to use the stylus from the Wii U).

I don't know if it's working for them, but thanks Epic for the over 50 free games I got this year from you. It did keep me coming back to their site, which I suppose is the whole point. And I did buy 3 games there this year (Ashen, Outer Wilds, and Observation), which are all supposed to be good, but that I've personally barely touched. I do think a little competition for Steam is a good thing, so I got over my dislike for Epic's store quickly (the free games didn't hurt).

I think the only AAA game I played this year was Days Gone, which was fun for awhile, but got old fast. I put it down and returned to it and then put it down again several times. The world is fun to explore, and getting around on a motorcycle sweetens the deal, but the objectives were progressively mundane and dull (get this thing, kill that guy, over and over), and the story never seemed to go anywhere. Maybe I'll finish it one day, but probably not. I did also buy Metro Exodus, but haven't gotten around to trying it out yet.

WingedKagouti on 3/1/2020 at 11:42

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I'd say that everything made by Bethesda themselves since Shivering Isles for Oblivion has been disappointing.

Starker on 4/1/2020 at 06:11

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It's not like Fallout 3 had a lot of these things either.