It was like one of those old odd years (as in number, not strangeness), 2014 and 2016 again. By which I mean it was a year of a lot of good games, but nothing that will go down as an all time great here (I said that at the time about 2013 and that looks pretty foolish now (note, I don;t think The last of us has aged that well, lets hope 2 does).
First the honourable mentions. A trifecta of first Person shooters. far cry new dawn was classic far cry game play (always fun) but with a very forgettable story, something about evil sisters. Rage, an even more forgettable story with a totally unnecessary open world but with fantastic gun play. Finally Borderlands 3,another fun game but way too long despite barely doing any of the side quests (how ever did I used to have the time to do them all in the first 2, seems completely impossible now (maybe there were just less good games)), could've been with doing half the length. Next, Team Sonic racing, probably my favourite carting game since Sega and all stars transformed) though i'd be the first to admit I'm biased by the IP (but I'm pretty certain that's how basically every carter is judged (that said, top tip, Cars 2 a pretty decent example of the genre (thanks gamepass)). I want to just mention Death stranding, much like with Read dead 2 last year I'm not being a hipster by not mentioning it , it was good but much like Borderlands went on way too long. Same goes for Days gone. And finally, the game that basically comes 5th which is Shakedown hawaii, I did a whole post on that many months ago, unlike any other game coming up so you can go and read what I thought about that elsewhere.
Outer worlds
Finally, a new Bethesda games studio game, and it isn't full of bugs and doesn't look like it was released in 2009 rather than 2019. Oh wait a minute, this was Obsidian and not Bethesda, who would have thought? (except for everyone like me that knows Bethesda games studios last great game was Fallout 3 (released in 2008, 12 YEARS AGO!), which came out before Obsidians' Fallout new vegas, a game they made for bethesda to keep the IP relevant). Anyway, this game looked great, the story was great and condensed, it was only 25 hours long as well (yes,this is a long time, yet still about 1/4 of the likes of Skyrim or Fallout 4). It looks great as well, especially for a game with such a wide variety of settings. Finally the game I've been waiting for, for over a decade, however, as you can gather from my preamble it's not exactly the most original idea for a game and although it floors the last decade of Bethesda game studios games it didn't leave me in awe in the ways Oblivion or Fallout 3 did.
You my also like: South park the stick of truth
Resident evil 2 remake
Never played it before. The first Resident evil game I played was 7 Then 6, sighing noise). Crazy, right? The reason is as a kid I was terrified of horror games, and I carried this stigma for the best part of 20 years and have missed so much, especially that now I love horror films. This game was totally fresh to me and despite it featuring some 90's cheese, it plays great, the setting is great, the story is great, all the good stuff. Even without playing the original I can see why this is a classic. My only real problem with it is Mr. X, not because he was scary (funnily enough, despite my love of horror films, basically nothing scares me anymore (well, not in entertainment media anyway)), but annoying as hell. I'm trying to play a game here mate, not constantly having to go all the way back to a safe room just to get back to fetching an item like I was doing before you wasted 10 minutes of my very un-valuable time. For this reason I recon I'm not going to Like Resi 3 remake as it seems like Nemesis does this the whole entire game, at least this only lasted for about a third of it, sheesh.
You may also like: The evil within 2
Bloostained: ritual of the night
The symphony of the night successor i've wanted my whole life, by which I mean since around 2016 when I played it for the first time (yet another classic I missed by holding on staunchly to my Sega Saturn (Robopit FTW)). So, after Konami decided to stop actually making games (apart from PES (better than FIFA)) when Kojima left after MGS 5, it became pretty clear there wouldn't be another Castlevania game, but Koji Igarashi said no, I'll make my own damn castlevania game (without the license). So, if you ever played Symphony of the night, you'll get this game straight off the bat, the deliberate gameplay (that means slow, but not crap), the exploration (did someone say Metroid-vania, or can't you use this here? (metroid-stained? (seems like a description of a Nintendo fanboy (AKA every member of the gaming media))) and the puzzle solving. It feels great to play, the setting,atmosphere and music are all fantastic and it even looks great, especially as it's 2.5D (lazy bastards). Great addition of some rudimentary RPG systems as well like making your own weapons and health kits. My one real gripe is the bosses, as you should know by now, they annoy the hell out of me, and some of these were infuriantly tough.
You may also like: Castlevania symphony of the night, obviously
Control
Finally Remedy made a game I really liked. Personally I found both Alan wake and Quantum break decent, but nothing special, but this really clicked with me. I thought the fighting, especially for a third person action game was really solid, especially with some of the psychic powers, it felt really hard hitting and real (or as real as pulling chunks of rock from the floor with your mind and throwing them at enemies can feel). I really liked how the games' progression worked, the addition of new powers and upgrades to your weapon felt well timed and always important. Yet gain, I loved the setting (that seems to be coming up a lot) and it looked beautiful. The story seemed really intriguing but could have done with more fleshing out and seemed to have a lot of plot holes in it.
You may also like: Gears of war (pick one).
And the winner is... Resident Evil 2 remake. I just really liked it.
To catch up, this means:
2013: last of us;
2014: South Park: stick or truth;
2015 Rocket League;
2016: Doom,
2017: God of War;
2018: A hat in Time;
2019: Resident evil 2 remake
That's how you use semi colons, right?
It's got to be said though, 2020 looks like a banger. Doom Eternal (out now!) last of us 2, Ori 2, Cybrepunk, Biomutant, Resi 3, man-eater and whatever the new consoles bring (let's be honest tough, early new console games usually suck.)
Addendum, There may be a lot of spelling and especially gramatical errors as the spell check isn't working.
