Welcome back, connoisseurs of creepy culture! I’m back with the second half of my 2019 list. Every year, God himself decrees that everyone that wishes to consider themselves worthy of an E3 badge must write a ranked list of their favorite games. This isn’t hard if you’re a writer for something like IGN and can just sort the Steam sales chart by most profitable and call it a day. But if you’re like me, a lot of your favorite games don’t really fall unto any justifiable scale of quality. For example, one of my favorite games of all time is Unreal 2, in large part because the shotgun reload animation was super dope.
With my previous list, I ranked the best games of 2019 month by month. My hope was to get a good spread of the year’s titles, and not just focus on the blockbusters that came out closer to awards season. While compiling that list, I found a number of titles that deserved to be recognized for some extraordinary things they did that might not fall into any rational human’s categorization. These are qualities that matter to me, but I wouldn’t suggest they put it on their resume. To be clear, these are all positive categories. Just categories that only matter to the incredibly nerdy or uniquely deranged.
Once again, the rules are as follows: Every game on this list I played to completion. However, since DreadXP is relatively new and I was previously spending the year fighting heat-related illness for the City of Phoenix, not all of the games have a full review up. If they have a review, you can click the title to read the full review. If they don’t I’ll do my best to fix that in the coming month. Only games that fully released for the first time this year qualify. Also, no remasterings. Remakes are okay, as long as they are sufficiently original to qualify as a new game. If your favorite game is not on this list, it might be on the next list. If it’s not on both, maybe I didn’t play it. Or maybe I just didn’t like it. I’ll let you decide which infuriates you more.
The “Meth-Lite” Award For Replacing One Addiction With Another – Dauntless
I’ve made no effort to hide that I suffer from serious substance abuse issues. It’s a part of who I am, and something I spend a little bit of time every day keeping under control. Like many of my compatriots in recovery, we find ways to transfer out addictive behaviors to new, hopefully less harmful habits. Some drink gallons of coffee. Some vape 2 pods a day. Some bang people fresh out of rehab. For me, my most recent solution is Dauntless. Dauntless is Monster Hunter for the Fortnite crowd. It’s free-to-play, has a heavy focus on cosmetics, and is somehow even grindier than Monster Hunter: World. I haven’t missed this many deadlines since I started playing WoW in college. Luckily, it’s not an addiction I have to shamefully hide from my family. Dauntless is far better than your typical free-to-play offering. The combat is fast, monsters complex, and progression immediately understandable. If you’re a fan of tight combat and an incredibly steep sliding scale of difficulty, then give Dauntless a shot. All you have to lose is your free time.
The “I Spent All My Money On Meth-Lite But I Still Want To Game” Award For Best Free Game – Entity
Historians of the future will judge if my increasing adventures into the library of itch.io are the beginning of something grand or the first symptom of the coming dark times. For every 15-minute micro-game I deem worthy of an article, there are a dozen more that are purged from my hard drive like my browser history when my mom asks if she can Google something. It’s all worth it when I come across something I would truly otherwise never have heard of. In Entity‘s case, it led to an entire series I had never heard of. If you haven’t played Entity... why haven’t you played it? Go play it right now. It’s 20 minutes long and completely free. It’s part of the Scythe Saga Universe, which is more a vague collection of ideas than an actual canon. It spans across both music and games and is definitely worth checking out if you need a new rabbit hole to dive down. It’s not SCP level deep, but what have you got to lose? If not, still check out Entity. It was made in a week and will make you wonder why the fuck you haven’t made that simple game you’ve been meaning to create for ages.
Most Number Of Asterisks Required To Describe While Still Being Undeniably Amazing – Disco Elysium
You’re probably already aware that Disco Elysium is quite good. It got four awards at The Game Awards, and a number of professional internet grumpy people have broken their typical trends to likewise praise it. That being said, I haven’t seen many reviews that can succinctly describe just what the fuck Disco Elysium actually is. At the core, Disco Elysium is an RPG about a cop trying to solve a crime. That being said, RPG comes with a bit ol’ *, since pretty much every RPG convention gets thrown out of a window. Rather than specialize in specific abilities, you level up aspects of your personality. This can range from Reaction Speed to something called Inland Empire. The higher the level of your “skill,” the more likely it is to trigger a success roll in conversation. However, investment in a specific personality also locks you into it. If you succeed in rolling high Half Light, you might be incapable of controlling yourself in social situations. It’s a fascinating way to “play” a “role” in a “game.” And don’t even get me started on the moral* choice* system*. If you’re the kind of person that loves witty writing and tomes full of dialogue, then Disco Elysium is for you.
Best New Horror Game – Song of Horror
Song of Horror is a game that came out of absolutely nowhere. I had never heard of it. No one I knew had ever heard of it. It just showed up in my inbox one day from a PR company I rarely work with. I installed it mostly out of a desire to procrastinate on more pressing projects. Song of Horror proceeded to blow my fucking mind. An old-school horror game in the vein of Alone in the Dark, Song of Horror is a modern testament to the power of classic design. An overwhelming dread permeates the levels, as a malevolent entity known only as “The Presence” stalks you at every corner. It doesn’t hunt you in the traditional sense, instead triggering at semi-random intervals and requiring you to successfully complete a minigame to stave it off. As a result, you’re never sure if that thumping sound or sudden visibility of your breath is a prelude to an attack from The Presence or just the game fucking with you. It’s a fantastically tense game that never sacrifices scares for playability or vice versa.
Best Expansion That Is Basically Its Own Game – Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
Monster Hunter: World was a massive, wonderful game. The only downside was knowing it would probably be a few years before we got another one. Capcom looked at us, saw our frowns, and said, “Oh, you want another one? Well, if you insist!” And bam, we got Iceborne. If Iceborne were the product of a lesser franchise, it would be its own game. It adds a massive new zone, with enough content to double your already 100+ hour playtime. The new monsters are both challenging and unique, with even returning models getting a whole new slew of powers. Iceborne is exactly what fans wanted, and is a testament to how not all massive companies are deaf to the cries of their audience. Bravo Capcom, now give me more outfits for my Palico.
Making The Most Of A Dead Franchise – Blair Witch
Calling Blair Witch a franchise is the byproduct of only the most wishful of corporate thinking. There have only been three Blair Witch films in its 20-year run, with three loosely related games that no one remembers. Young people couldn’t give less of a shit about The Blair Witch Project, a sentiment proven by the catastrophic flop of the 2016 Blair Witch film. With nowhere to go and a rapidly decaying IP on their hands, Lionsgate threw a Hail Mary to a European studio known for making at least two good spooky games. Bloober Team announced Blair Witch in June and released it in August. It’s a move more commonly associated with surprise new content for mobile/live service games. And yet, somehow, Bloober still made a great game out of the whole mess. Say what you will about the stupid secret ending conditions (which I did in my review), I’ll remember Bullet’s silly dog face far longer than I remember… actually I can’t even remember any of the characters from the film.
The “Actually People Can Hear Me Scream Just Fine” Award For Best Space Horror – Observation
Observation is a game that could have also won the “Best New Horror Game” award. You play as the AI (SAM) for a ship that has recently suffered an unknown catastrophe. All of the crew are gone, save for the medical officer Emma. Emma is just as confused as to how things got all fucked up, and the two of you begin working together to figure out just what happened. It’s a perfect depiction of space horror, where claustrophobic pods serve as your only refuge from a vast and deadly cosmos. The sense of isolation and impending dread is bleak, and only elevated when you realize that your meager space station has somehow been transported all the way to Saturn. From there, cosmic horror mixes with modern tech to create a truly unique and terrifying experience. Developer No Code is a rising star, and we will watch its career with great interest.
Yes, Strategy Can Also Have Horror Elements Award – Age Of Wonders: Planetfall
I’ve gotten in some pretty lengthy arguments with people about whether or not genres like strategy or card games can ever be “horror.” Personally, I think there’s nothing in the entire catalog of Resident Evil or Silent Hill that can compare to the sheer dread of playing your bomb and seeing your opponent tapping their blue mana in response. When you drop the need for jump scares and closets to hide in, there’s something to the scale of strategy that conveys a whole new dimension of dread. Case in point, Planetfall‘s Assembly faction. A race of ancient cyborgs, the Assembly long ago lost the ability to reproduce naturally. Conquering new people, they harvest all of their organs and convert their brains into extra RAM. Each faction is littered with these macabre little details, painting a world far more gruesome and terrifying than some psycho at a summer camp.
Most Potentially Amazing After Some Expansions – Remnant: From the Ashes
When I reviewed Remnant: From the Ashes, I acknowledged that it was ultimately a victim of its own ambitions. The game was fantastic for the first 20 hours. When you’re discovering new things, Remnant delivers a remarkably diverse and satisfying experience. It’s only once you start seeing the limits of the world that the cracks begin to show. There aren’t quite enough bosses, weapons, armor sets, and variable objectives to really make the premise work. It’s the kind of thing you only notice when you’re on your second playthrough. The bitter irony is that Remnant is good enough to keep you playing long enough to see its shortcomings. With a few more content packs, I could easily see this being a 5/5. So for what it’s worth Remnant, I believe in you.
Best Depiction Of The Grimdark Future of the 41st Millennium, Where There Is Only War – Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2
It’s damn near impossible to do the Warhammer 40k universe right. This is a world where the good guys frequently nuke their own planets when someone has the audacity to suggest that maybe we should have some democratic reforms. Galaxy devouring space bugs sweep the cosmos looking for their next meal, and a swirling vortex of demons is the cosmic equivalent of a freeway. It’s absolutely bonkers, and anything close to a relatable character is textbook heresy. This is why the Battlefleet Gothic: Armada series deserves praise for embracing the premise so wholeheartedly. Sure, Admiral Spire is as close 40k gets to a Mary Sue. But the opening scene of Armada 2 is an Imperial battleship trying to suicide gloriously into the Chaos fleet, only to find that the nefarious Chaos objective was to suicide even harder into a planet. That’s pure Grimdark goodness.
Boldest Destruction of Own Timeline – Mortal Kombat 11
You have to respect a game that realizes it’s fucked up its own story so bad that it just throws up its hands and calls a mulligan. Mortal Kombat has done that not just once, but twice now. You may recall that MK9 was just titled Mortal Kombat, and served as a reboot for the series nonsensical canon. It was a bold play that worked out and established an entirely new world where most of the good guys were now undead antagonists. MK10 expanded this, introducing a whole new generation of heroes. I’m guessing these new kids on the block didn’t resonate with audiences, since MK11 backpedaled so hard on this new timeline that it literally destroyed its own universe. While MK9 was content just starting over from MK1, MK11 is starting over from before the dawn of time. When the credits roll, everything you know about the Mortal Kombat universe is done. There is no universe to even continue. Even the dinosaurs didn’t happen. I’m guessing that Ed Boon just wanted a blank slate to start over with. Well, you got it. Just don’t chicken out with MK12 and bring everyone back as Black Flash time ghosts.