So I finally have a good name for my best game of the year
awards and because this is what everyone does at this time of year it's time to
hand out the awards. To the winners there's no actual trophy or anything but
you can print out the picture of the trophy if you want if you're really
determined. However as my blog is a site no-one has really heard of any
developer who gives a damn about winning something here will likely just put
"Game of the year award winner" and then their category and not
mention the site. You know like Elder Scroll Online did that one year with its MMO of the year win which no-one
knows what site it came from.
So as this is the first time doing this on this blog I should go over my rules and criteria for what can win:
- The games eligible for winning are literally any game regardless of its release date as long as I played it this year. This means unlike many other game of the year lists any games could in theory walk away with an award. Part of this is due to my belief that in the world of gaming a failed launch means nothing as long as your game works. Your game might take time to find its audience and suddenly could get one even after you've moved on thinking it was a failure you may find you end up being able to come back to it thanks to that new audience that discovered it.
- I don't have to have reviewed a game yet to give it an award which means games I've played and not finished yet for various reason or just not written reviews for are eligible to win awards too.
- Early Access games are eligible to win but as I have a personal policy of steering clear of Early Access games normally until they're done it's unlikely one will win.
- The links included here will be to the home page's of the game except if it mentions review or how I've previously talked about in which case it will be to said review etc. If I can't find a home page it will be the game's Steam Page.
Pearl in the Sea of shit:
Winner
Yes winning yet again is Pokemon GO which is still being expanded, still coming up with new ideas and unlike Sword and Shield it's not having to deal with Dexit
The Veruca Salt Award
Awarded to the game I want NOW
Winner
What it's coming this year, could it really
be any other title than Cyberpunk 2077?
Blue game of the year
Adult entertainment, Blue movies all names for the
same thing and you better believe I'm giving an award for this category because
this is a genre often looked down upon by so many. It's a genre titles do
take craft and effort to pull off well.
Winner
Metropolis Lux Obscura
I think I've seen some people put this on worst game lists before. Those people are idiots. The match 3 can at times be difficult but once you understand and develop a strategy for it then things will go swimmingly. Unlike most other adult titles the match 3 isn't to get to the porn it's as the game's fighting mechanic with different icons in the match 3 having different effects. The story itself really does feel like a grimy noir film with a seedy mob underworld in the town that you get sucked into. I played the game without the uncensor patch and it was fairly explicit so I can only imagine just how far it goes once patched.
The Impact Award
This is awarded to the game that I feel had the most impact on me. A game that made me feel things the most or left a lasting impression on me
Winner
Alone
A testament to what can be done with just pixel art and stock sound effects this is a game I could play with headphones on in a crowded room and feel just oh so tense and isolated. The game just builds up the tension with the sombre music then will put in a random bird call. The wind seems to howl as the snow falls and you hear distant wolves howl making you fearful of what's to come as the music drives you onwards with a melody that sounds like it was based on a ticking clock as your characters skin tone changes as hypothermia draws nearer. It may have a fair few flaws but damn it I didn't enjoy this one.
The Spork award
Behold the spork an amazing piece of innovation in cutlery or a refinement of cutlery whichever way you view it the spork was an innovation. So this award is to celebrate those games that are innovative either in refining their genre or just starting to define a new genre or subgenre.
Runners up
Wailing Heights
When I say it's a game with a music themewhat do you expect? A Rhythm game? Maybe something like DDR? Well in the case of Wailing Heights you get an adventure game with more in common with present point and click games than anything else. It deserves credit for showing a game with a music theme can actually be more than just the normal kind of genres they full into such as Rythm style games. Also the character switching idea is fun and feels like it was well done.All You Can Eat
A point and click adventure game that has come up with a way to do such a game without the huge amount of hand done animations. I don't think I've seen a point and click style adventure game done as a comic book before and I think All You Can Eat Deserves at least some recognition for that even if it's not winning the award.Winner
A Roguelite Metroidvania.........A Roguelite Metroidvania. A Robot Named Fight is very much an achievement for its developer to have managed to pull off the idea quite as well as has been done here. Lots of different possible combinations of power ups you can end up with often with different possible ones to get past the same obstacles. E.G. you might get a light orb to help you through dark areas or you might just get a robot shell that emits a glow instead. The fact that via procedural generation the developer has managed to make a game that functions and doesn't create impossible scenarios is very impressive and really does open the door to having more games use procedural generation to allow them to have more replay ability. This also is an actual Metroidvania witch back tracking to find hidden upgrades or sometimes upgrades required to progress (often with a boss guarding major upgrades). The most impressive part is the developer is funding further content (that everyone who owns the game will get for free) via patreon which, yeh that's a very cool thing to do to help even further expand a game that already came with quite a lot of content.
It's Chocolate honest award
Awarded to the game that on an initial look might look bad but is in reality something actually quite nice.
Runners up:
Verdict Guilty
A fighting game with no online multiplayer based round the
idea of cops and crooks fighting it out. Somehow it manages to be really quite
good with a number of different cop and criminal stories in the single player
story mode which range from Cliche' but enjoyable police stories to touching
tales of peoples struggles to comical tales of misadventure. Somehow the single
player story mode makes this feel worth-while playing.
Winner
Yes winning its 2nd award this year is Alone an indie pixel art game that initially looks like nothing special and is priced low enough you almost expect it to be some cobbled together mess but somehow it's not. It's a well made game with amazing little touches and uses all the tools it has to build a atmosphere of tension, isolation and foreboding. Alone shows just how much can be done with a minimal graphics but a lot of attention to detail.
Comedy game of the year:
Not all games are glum serious affairs and that should be celebrated too. Something isn't just art because it makes you feel sad something can also be art because it makes you laugh too. Why should something only be considered art worthy of praise or attention due to making you feel one emotion and not another? This award exists to celebrate the world of well crafted comedy games.
Runners up:
Dragon a Game about a Dragon:
Communist sheep. COMMUNIST SHEEP. I don't think I should have to say much else to at least get a grin but that's just part of this game that presents itself as some childs hand drawn adventure come to life but is in reality a game more than happy to make self aware jokes about its premise, characters and likely the audience who'd even discover such a game.Crush Your enemies
Over the top Barbarian conquest played for comedy value with literal Fuck tents sorry recruitment huts and lots of immature humour. Also some pretty well written character based humour segments too.Winner:
Aerannis wins this award due to the sheer amount of effort put into the concept
and honestly how much it was willing to push the envelope knowing it would
likely offend people. You see the game is set in a "Feminist" future
utopia that's shown as actually being a dystopia. Feminism has won and finally
eliminated the patriarchy by killing all men. The new world has everyone as
lesbians and the TERFs forced to live in a different area of town. The world
has posters almost parodying language used today about how "Men exist and to be careful".
Also outside of the TERF district everyone seems to have neon coloured hair. It feels so well done you almost can't tell it is all mean as a joke because it's on the level of something like Utopian parrallel from Marvel but with missions about eliminating plants that have started emitting testosterone and talking about how it is related to violence it really does clue in players paying attention to it being a joke.
Game of the Year:
Runners Up:
Alone
A runner up here because of its surprisingly high quality and amazing atmosphere building. It doesn't quite win the award however due to the fact that while very great in some aspects it does have issues I talked about when I reviewed it previously that stop it winning this yearShantae and the Pirates Curse.
The Shantae series is one I'd vaguely heard about but never played until this year and just wow it's good. I'm shocked this series doesn't get far more attention because other than the odd little thing I could nit pick if the rest of the games are as good as The Pirates Curse is so far then it's a very solid series that deserves far more love for feeling almost like a 2D version of Banjo Kazooie or similar. It is just a charming fun well made platformer.
A House of Many Doors
Take the complex story telling idea and Rogue Lite nature of something like Sunless Sea or Sunless Skies, Tune it to make progression feel quicker and then create a far better combat system with some quite surprising strategic depth and you have a game of mystery, horror and discovery where you are in control of the adventure. One moment you might be running from royal guards another you might be watching in horror as a crew member skin comes off and walks away on its own into the night. This is strange game but one that actually feels far above similar titles and actually superior to its better known companions.Winner:
Into the Breach
Initially when I heard about this game I kind of dismissed it. People were on about how great it was and I looked at screenshots and went "Meh looks ok I might try it later". Christmas 2018 I bought it but didn't start playing it until after New Year's day so at the start of 2019. I've played near 30 hours of it. I've unlocked all the pilots; I've unlocked all but the final secret mech squadron; I've beaten the game as all but the custom; random and final secret squad; I've done 2,3 and 4 island runs to victory.
I have loved my time with Into the Breach and honestly will likely still come back to try and get to that secret squad. The design is amazing with the turn based combat working well and each of the islands having their own quirks and hazards. The games AI also shines for the fact it will force you to make difficult choices between risking civilians being injured to complete your other objectives or sometimes accepting damage to your mechs to prevent damage to objectives or civilians and the AI will often work to put you in a situation where you will have to make those choices. Will you for example sacrifice a time pod which gives extra gear and a special pilot to stop the enemy going after the objective or do you accept failing an objective in favour of potentially better gear from the time pod? This is a game that gives you stories to tell and share of the time a single pilot's brave sacrifice won you the day or the time you came up with a weird move that somehow worked. The game is just so well designed and allows so much experimentation in your play leading to the discovery of quite deep mechanics allowing you to turn the enemy on one another or find ways to avoid the enemies doing damage.
For those who have no clue what this game is. It's Pacific Rim the game basically but with a Rogue Lite element to it where if your mech squad fail to defeat the giant bug threat you can jump to a new timeline with your main character (carrying over experience) and try again. As you win or lose in the different timelines you will find more pilots to pick from each offering different bonuses and gain access to more mech squads each of which has their own play styles and mechanics to learn. You can also (as far as I know) find pilots from previous successful runs who will keep their exp levels too in the time pods but if you do lose one of the more permanent pilots they will reset their level as you'll be training a brand new version of them from another timeline. This is likely one of the best games about fighting basically Kaiju since I played War of The Monsters a long time ago and it's a testament to amazing game design and effort if any licence owners for Kaiju stuff or similar had any sense they'd be reaching out asking for Subset Games to do games about their properties in this style.
Into the Breach is my game of the year and I can say quite happily in this case BELIEVE THE HYPE round this one, it's that damn good. GO BUY IT NOW.
Now for those of you who have read my stuff for a while normally I'd end with a silly MMO of the year award but this time I don't feel like it. This is a new blog and at least this year I feel I should treat my game of the year list as maybe a little more serious. So all that's left to do is thank you for reading, thank the winning developers here for making such fun enjoyable games and do have a look at them and consider picking it up. Finally even though I've done my worst games of the decade list I should say
"Indie developers or AAA quake in fear for my worst games of 2019 awards draw near"
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