Like every year, there were far more bad games than good ones in 2019, especially when you consider all the crappy mobile game rip-offs. But there were also, as always, a couple that stood out.
Here, in no particular order, are the best video games I played in 2019.
One of the more difficult parts of video game design is finding the sweet spot of difficulty where it’s not too tough and not too easy but does get steadily more challenging as the game progresses.
It’s an issue that undermines Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), a realistic first-person stealth-action sniper game that shooter fans will either find engaging or punishing….and maybe both.
Four years after the disastrous self-titled reboot nearly destroyed it forever, and two years after somewhat redeeming itself with Payback, the Need For Speed series of open world street racing games has made a proper comeback with Need For Speed Heat (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), which is not only the best game in this series since 2012’s Need For Speed: Rivals, and the best installment on this generation of consoles, but the best racing game of 2019.
For years, former Metal Gear Solid mastermind Hideo Kojima has been one of gaming’s more unique voices. So it should come as no surprise that his new open world, third-person action game Death Stranding (PlayStation 4, PC) is also unique — and exciting, and engaging… — even though the main action in this action/adventure game is walking.
While the proposed Monsterverse movie series is deader than a zombie with a gunshot to the head, the Universal Monsters are still very much alive and kicking. Or biting as the case may be. Director Guillermo Del Toro has said repeatedly that his movie Shape Of Water was inspired by Creature From The Black Lagoon, while the creator of the titular creature, Millicent Patrick, was recently the subject of Mallory O’Meara’s excellent biography / memoir The Lady From The Black Lagoon. There’s also the BBC’s upcoming BBC miniseries, Dracula, which clearly owes as much to Universal’s 1931 movie as it does Bram Stoker’s novel, while the entire film series recently inspired the board game Horrified: Universal Monsters.
And now two of their classic pinball tables are being brought back to life in the Williams Pinball Monster Pack for Pinball FX3 (Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Switch, PC, Mac, iOS, Android). Which is good news for both monster mashers and pinball lovers alike.
As fun as Fallout 3, 4, and New Vegas may have been, they’re not great as straight shooters; you really have to use the V.A.T.S. targeting system. But it’s a complaint action fans won’t be making about The Outer Worlds (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Switch), a Fallout-esque open world, sci-fi action role-playing adventure game from the good people of Obsidian Entertainment — a.k.a., the Fallout: New Vegas folk. And while this has its own problems, it still manages to be as effortlessly fun as, well, you know.
In 2018’s Halo: Silent Storm, writer Troy Denning explored a largely untapped time in the life of Master Chief: his life before the events of his first game, Halo: Combat Evolved. It’s a story (and a time) Denning is now expanding upon with Halo: Oblivion (paperback, hardcover, Kindle). In the following email interview, Denning talks about what inspired this sci-fi space opera story, the role the Halo overlords of 343 Industries had in crafting the plot, and what kind of game they could make out of this novel.
In 2009, ’10, and ’11, the people behind the Gears Of War games released three novels that chronicled what happened in this military sci-fi saga between the end of Gears Of War 2 and the beginning of Gears Of War 3. With the new (and excellent) Gears 5 picking up weeks after the end of Gears Of War 4, the good people at The Coalition who made these sci-fi shooters have again turned to the written word to fill in the blanks. In the following email interview, writer Jason M. Hough talks about what inspired and influenced Gears Of War: Ascendance (paperback, Kindle), and whether he took any cues from those previous gap-filling stories.
With every successive game, the Gears Of War series has evolved, adding new mechanics and modes to these third-person sci-fi shooters. But while the same can be said for Gears 5 (Xbox One, PC) as well, the changes are the most fundamental and impactful since the addition of the co-op survival mode “Horde” in Gears Of War 2, and the game is all the better for it.