2019 has had a wide range of big AAA games to some stellar indie titles, not to mention Xbox Game Pass offering up one of the best values in gaming. When going through my list of my favorite and least favorite experiences of the year, I decided to go with an Awards Show style Game of the Year setup. I have a few standard categories that are pretty typical of lists like this, plus a few others I’ve added as well.
Either way, here we go.
Game of the Year
The Outer Worlds is a game that frankly, I couldn’t stop playing. There are several companions to track down and recruit, stat-based dialogue choices to uncover, and an engaging world that is just begging to be explored. With the title being available on Xbox Game Pass, there is almost no reason not to at least try this fantastic adventure out and lose dozens upon dozens of hours in this strange and colorful galaxy.
Best RPG
Best Action Game
The Surge 2 did what no other Dark Souls inspired game has done so far; it kept me playing. This is largely because the game gives you all the tools needed to confront the game on your own terms with still offering up a deeply challenging experience. The controls are spot-on and the limb dissecting combat is wholly satisfying on a level that I didn’t find in many other action games this year. Surge 2 is not just my favorite action game of the year, it’s one of my favorite games ever made and almost ended up being my Game of the Year, if not for a few technical problems and graphical glitches.
Best Action/Adventure
I waited quite some time for Children of Morta, after seeing only a few precious seconds of gameplay some years ago, and I was very excited to get a review code to try this game out early. The way it allows your use of different family members to create a stronger family unit is just one of the clever systems at play in this procedurally generated dungeon crawler. This is an absolute must-play title that is barely getting any big media attention and that is an absolute shame.
Best Fighting Game
NetherRealm Studios has consistently shown that they are the definitive source of creating the best story-driven fighting games out there. As was the case with Injustice 2, Mortal Kombat 11 is a visually gorgeous game with deep customization and a stellar line up of online modes and progression. While the grind was a bit too insane when the game first launched, it’s seen several patches and content drops to offer a better value for your time. The wacky time-travel based storyline allowed for some interesting match up’s of both old and new favorites, making for one of the most enjoyable stories this year.
Best Horror Game
Resident Evil 2, a remake of the original PlayStation classic, is a damn near perfect game. Not only does the game highlight the best aspects of the original to make it even better, it also makes some smart choices in modernizing the game for 2019. This is another example of how Capcom pretty much owned this year with both this and Devil May Cry 5 and has shown that the publisher fully understands its properties and why they were popular in the first place. With Resident Evil 3 being set for release in early 2020, it’s made Resident Evil a current talking point in gaming culture once again.
Best Strategy Game
A few nit-picks aside, Fire Emblem: The Three Houses was almost the best in the series. That said, this is still a must-play title for Nintendo Switch owners and frankly, a legitimate reason for purchasing the system just to play it. The dynamic of being a teacher and guiding your students in the art of war is a very satisfying approach in developing them on your own terms. With three unique houses, with one of them featuring a massive choice to pick a side, there is so much here to replay, offering hundreds upon hundreds of hours of engaging strategic gameplay and narrative.
Best Character Creation
No game this year had a better character creation toolset than Code Vein. While others could argue to be close, they usually have items locked behind progression or other means, whereas Code Vein grants you everything you need right off the bat to create memorable Waifu’s or Husbandos that you can switch up on the fly during the game. I created almost a dozen characters that I would swap back and forth given the mission, my weapon of choice, and sometimes just for kicks. While the game itself is decent, its creation toolset left a lasting impression for sure.
Best Racing Game
Need for Speed: Heat (Review coming in January 2020)
I’m certainly going to try to get a review out for this during the slower January month, but in case I don’t, then please do not sleep on this year’s NFS. The story is pretty cheesy, but the fact you get to choose and customize your own character really goes a long way to getting you personally involved in this racing adventure. The driving is solid, and the choice of using the day to earn money, and the night to earn rep, is a pretty interesting balance of pushing through a progression system that is always looking to reward you. This is easily the best NFS game they’ve made this generation and one of the most satisfying racing games I’ve ever played.
Best new IP
Remnant: From the Ashes was a game that certainly left its mark this year as being an impressive title with a ton of future potential. After coming off the largely panned Darksiders 3, developer Gunfire Games stumbled upon a very enjoyable formula, borrowing bits and pieces from games such as Dark Souls and Resident Evil 4 with pretty surprising results. While I certainly have a few issues with the title, there is no denying that this is the start of a very memorable franchise that could put the developer on the map.
Best Port
The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt - Nintendo Switch
While I am only a few hours into the Switch version, The Witcher 3 is pretty much my game of the decade, having 100% completed it on the Xbox One, not to mention my obsession with Gwent. This portable version is certainly the less visually impressive way to play this masterpiece, but the fact it can run this good on Nintendo’s portable console is insane. Sure, it’s a tad fuzzy and graphically inferior to the PC or console versions, but everything from the wide-open environments and intense weather conditions is all still here, eliminating any noticeable short-cuts to getting it working at all. This is probably one of the best ports I’ve ever seen and I am constantly shocked I can play Witcher 3 in my car or on the go.
Best Live Service Game
The Battle Royale fad is one that never really got its hooks into me. I played PubG and Fortnite and while there were aspects of each title that I thought were enjoyable, I never once found them addictive at all. Apex Legends took what worked in Overwatch, with a collective of super-powered personalities, and injected them into a fresh new and graphically superior Battle Royale game that is incredibly addicting. As far as I am concerned, this is the BR game to beat, bar none.
Best Indie Game
I had heard bits and pieces about Void Bastards from a few gaming podcasts and when I discovered the game was available on Game Pass, I gave it a go. It only took a few minutes for me to get hooked on its gameplay designs, the colorful comic-book style graphics, and the unique world available to you. Playing as a disposable inmate set out to cross the galaxy is an engaging idea, and the quirky ‘very’ British charm to its enemies makes this one journey worth taking. This is another must-play title that needs more people talking about it.
Best Remaster/Remake
As I’ve mentioned above, this is one stellar release that shows you can resurrect a gaming franchise by going back to its roots. While this remake didn’t change too much of the original’s story or gameplay mechanics, it still breathed new life into the franchise and I look forward to what they do with Resident Evil 3: Nemesis early next year.
Best Female Performance
Ashly Burch - Parvati: The Outer Worlds
For my money, Ashly Burch is the most versatile actor in gaming today. From Parvati to Chloe, to Tiny Tina, not to mention her Youtube series “Hey Ash Whatcha Playin?”, I just simply cannot get enough of her quirky humor and charm. While it was great to see her back as Tiny Tina this year in Borderlands 3, it was her role in the Outer Worlds as Parvati that legitimately got me to care deeply about a character in a video game this year.
Best Male Performance
Chad Michael Collins - Alex: Modern Warfare
There is a single scene that got me in Modern Warfare, a moment with this character that sold me on my choice for Best Male Performance. When a devastating final mission choice is made by Alex, the expression, the sound in his voice, really contributed to this powerful moment. I know it’s an odd thing to give this out due to one single scene, but man if it didn’t stick with me right to this very day.
Best Level Design
Control was a game that I actually really enjoyed, and it didn’t make my list in other categories because it suffered from several technical problems and the fact I couldn’t get the map to work even half the time. Thankfully, the level design made it easy to traverse each location and the shifting aspects of the Oldest House made exploring in this game really impressive. Boss battles took place in locations that felt like a natural fit for the combat and nearly every location present in the game felt like something we hadn’t seen before.
Best Narrative
Apart from a few odd choices in the newest series of main-line films, the outer reaches of the Star Wars universe, such as the cartoons and spin-offs like Rogue One and The Mandalorian, we have been getting some highly memorable Star War stories. Clone Wars and Rebels have been telling my favorite SW adventures for years, and Fallen Order feels very much like those stories in several ways. Cal and his own personal journey, the threat of the Inquisitors, as well as its supporting cast, all combine to make Fallen Order one of the best Star Wars stories in years.
Best Art Direction
Despite how you feel about its fetch quest design, there is no denying that Death Stranding is a visually stunning adventure. Everything from the technical design to its buildable constructs, to its spacious open world, this is one beautifully designed game. The character designs are very impressive, and the very true-to-life design of its open-world forces you to make tough choices on how you will traverse it. Given the game runs on the same engine that Horizon: Zero Dawn used, I’m not surprised that this game looks this good and gets me even more excited for a HZD sequel.
Best Soundtrack
Every time music would start either in combat or during its stylish opening moments, I just couldn’t get enough of it. Hell, I made Devil Trigger my phone’s ringtone for months, something I rarely do as I tend to get bored of certain things rather quickly. Devil May Cry 5 excels in nearly everything it does and its soundtrack is just another aspect of Capcom delivering a wildly entertaining product.
Best New Character
While Nico has been hit and miss with a lot of gamers this year, I was sold on her from the very start. She fits the game perfectly, and it was nice to see such a fun engaging character flush with a noticeable accent, giving her an audio identity that was so different from the rest of the game, and frankly, from almost any other character this year that generally sounded vastly generic by comparison. When DMC 6 eventually makes it debut, I hope that Nico is back amongst the cast.
Worst Game of the Year
Crackdown 3 was a vast disappointment on nearly every level. The gameplay was lackluster, the story forgettable, and it rarely ever felt fun. The multiplayer was also not impressive and frankly, nothing about this game felt worth the wait. If Microsoft wants to come back with this franchise, it needs to modernize it in a way that feels revolutionary instead of applying higher resolution textures to a decade old experience.
Most Disappointing Game
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order
What is so disappointing is that Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 just lacks the capability of making your heroes feel powerful. The struggle bus difficulty is largely ineffective, and the fan-fiction quality story doesn’t help. The cast of characters is ok, but using too many of the MCU characters in a story that is designed around the Infinity Stones just retreads too much on the movies and relies on them to gauge interest to the game. I expected more from this long-awaited sequel and hoped that it would have been something special.
What are your own personal Best or Worst games of 2019? I will mention that I did not have a few games feature on my list that are featured on several other best of the year lists like Sekiro, Disco Elysium, or Link’s Awakening, as I either didn’t play them, did not complete them, or that I felt won any of the awards I have included here. Either way, 2019 had some amazing games and several others that just flat out disappointed, I’m looking at you Senran Kagura: Peach Ball…