By: Tyler Miller

The year is finally winding down guys. 2019 is really about to be over. It’s been a long year, but it’s also been a great year with a lot of great games that came out. Just like last year, I want to look back on everything I played this year and share my thoughts on each of them. I put out reviews for some of these games, and impressions/thoughts for others. Some of them I wanted to talk about but never got around to, so now is the time that I’ll share my thoughts on them.

I somehow managed to play more games this year than I did last year (a whopping 29!), and a good number of them I managed to play to completion, which makes the task more impressive in my eyes. So just like last year, I’m splitting the list into two posts. This post will cover half of the list with 14 games, so without further ado let’s do this!

Just Cause 4

The first review I did this year was for Just Cause 4. If you didn’t read that review, I thought the game was pretty bad. I had hoped that the game would be an improvement on Just Cause 3 and make me want to just go crazy and have a blast in the world like Just Cause 2 did, but alas that wasn’t the case. The story was way too serious for its own good and tried to make me care about stuff that I had no reason to care about. The graphics and AI were rough across the board. It just simply wasn’t fun to play. The Just Cause franchise is all about blowing stuff and causing chaos, but somehow they managed to make a game where doing that is boring and pointless. I can’t deny that the improved physics and grappling hook tools were cool, but there was no real practical use for any of it in combat. I walked away from this game disappointed and really hoping that any future games in the series take a good hard look at what this game did wrong, and do the exact opposite of it.

Life Is Strange

I had heard about Life Is Strange for years before finally playing it this year. I had heard all the acclaim it had received, but for some reason I just never had any interest in it even though it’s similar to Telltale games. Fast forward to this year when I decided to give it a shot thanks to it being in my Playstation Plus backlog, and boy was I pleasantly surprised. Life Is Strange is a really good game that tells a great story which pulled on heartstrings a couple times. The brief summary is that you play as a girl named Max Caulfield who goes to this prestigious art school. She discovers she has the ability to control time and does what she can to try and uncover a mystery surrounding the school with the help of her friend Chloe.

The relationship between Max and Chloe was so real and portrayed incredibly well. I wanted nothing but the best for them, which made some of the decisions that I had to make all the more stressful. Their relationship is at the heart of the game and I truly loved every bit of it. It’s one of the most realistic relationships that I’ve seen in a game. I also really liked the time control twist that was thrown into the game. Being able to make a dialogue choice and see how it plays out, then be able to go back in time to before I made it and do something different made me really take my time and contemplate what I thought would be best to do or say. I’ve yet to play the prequel Before The Storm or Life Is Strange 2, but they’re definitely on my list of games to play.

Final Fantasy XV DLC

It’s been years since I played Final Fantasy XV. I got it when it launched and absolutely fell in love with the game. It had great characters, an engrossing world, fun and addictive combat, beautiful graphics, an amazing score, and a great story (a decisive take, I know!). After I completed the game though I just never got around to getting the DLC. Earlier this year I made sure I rectified that and played through all of it. Episode Gladio was definitely my least favorite of the four additional episodes. Gladio is a cool guy and it was fun to play as him, but I felt like his chapter was a bit short and didn’t really add all that much to the story that I didn’t already know. Episode Prompto was better since it was longer and gave me more to chew on both gameplay wise and story wise. It made me really care about Prompto more and gave me the chance to use some fun weapons. Also, more Aranea is always a plus. Episode Ignis was probably my favorite one to go through since it brought a whole new perspective to one of the game’s most important scenes. Ignis is also just a fun character to play as. This chapter also had an alternate ending that would’ve ended the game’s story a very different way. It may not be canon, but it was a fun take to play through.

The final add-on was Epsiode Ardyn. Now I liked this episode from a gameplay perspective and a story perspective, but at the same time I wasn’t that big of a fan of some of the story decisions they made. It was great to get more backstory on Ardyn and get a better understanding of how he ended up being the guy that we see in the main game. Unfortunately, the story starts to fall apart for me near the end when it starts to give different reasons for why things happened in the main story. I know that this was supposed to be the first of a few more add-ons that would ultimately give us a totally different ending for the game, but the changes that were made started to border on fan fiction for me and just didn’t fit into the already established and solid story that the main game told. Overall though, I enjoyed my time going back to Final Fantasy XV. It definitely made me want to replay the base game once again.

Kingdom Hearts III

The big daddy itself. Kingdom Hearts III was released this year guys, and it was a great game. It’s one of my favorite games of the past decade! I still can’t believe that this game is a thing that I can actually hold in my hands and say that I’ve played. The game may not have been perfect, but I still had a great time with it from start to finish. The gameplay was greatly improved from previous titles and worlds were what I always wanted them to be. Graphically it was a sight to behold and Yoko Shimomura didn’t disappoint with her score. Sure the story could’ve been better overall, but it did a good job bringing the Xehanort Saga to a close. I’m excited for the ReMind DLC to drop later this Winter so that I have more KHIII story to play and pore over for months and years. I just really hope I don’t have to wait another 13 years for the next main entry in the series.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season

Oh Telltale Games. It’s a shame that you all had to go, but at least you got to finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season. As I said in my review of the final episode, “It’s tough to say goodbye to Clementine and Telltale Games, but they both went out on a high note.” This was definitely one of the franchise’s better seasons, with decisions that I felt held more weight than some previous ones, as well as a more interesting story and some interesting gameplay changes. Being in the Lee role this season and having to try and raise AJ the best I could while doing what needed to be done for our survival made decisions tough and developed the relationship between AJ and Clementine in very interesting ways. While the very end of the season could be seen as cheap, I liked the way that things wrapped up. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to a character and a series that I had loved since the very start.

Bayonetta

Character action games aren’t really things that I play. I’ve played the infamous DmC: Devil May Cry and Vanquish, and the list ends there. No particular reason, it’s just the way the cookie has crumbled. So when I got my Switch last year, I just knew that I wanted to give Bayonetta and its sequel a shot because of how much acclaim they’ve received and the fact that I like action games. I’ve only played the first game, but I liked it for the most part. The combat was fun and Bayonetta herself is a really cool character. She doesn’t take shit from anyone, but has a heart and charm about her that shows she isn’t all business. She’s down to have fun with whatever crazy situation is going on and I loved it. The story was by far the weakest part of the game for me. It was completely ridiculous and I didn’t care about what was going on at all. I was simply along for the wild ride that the game took me on, and that’s honestly all I wanted from the game.

Black Ops 4

Man I had such high hopes for Black Ops 4. When I reviewed the game, I felt like it was such a great game. One of the best in the series in fact! But then things started to take a downturn with the post-launch content. I wrote a whole post about it. I still fully believe that gameplay wise, this is one of the best Call of Duty entries. And overall I had more fun with it than I have with this year’s Modern Warfare. But I would be lying if I said that how things were handled post-launch didn’t disappoint me some and sour my opinion of the game a bit. Rumor has it that the 2020 Call of Duty game will be a brand new version of the Black Ops brand, similar to how this year’s game rebooted the Modern Warfare brand. I’m really hoping that Treyarch can pull it together with a quality release that has a very successful post-launch season.

Metro 2033

I’ve had the Metro 2033 and Last Light remaster in my Playstation Plus library for a while now, but this year finally decided to take the plunge and see if I would like the games. It’s not often that I ever say this, but dear god is Metro 2033 not a fun game to play at all. It’s sluggish and janky as all hell, making the simple act of playing the game a trial. Enemy animations are janky and robotic in a way that reminds me of games from the PS2 generation/beginning of last gen. I’ve only played a handful of times, but I haven’t finished the game yet. I don’t even remember where I last was since I haven’t played the game in so long. It’s a game that I would like to finish because the world is really interesting and the story has me intrigued. But I absolutely do not like the way the game plays at all, and for that reason I dread playing it every time I look at it on my PS4 home menu. Maybe I’ll get around to finishing it, maybe I won’t. With what the next few months look like gaming wise, I probably won’t though.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

I’ve played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on and off throughout the year. It’s a game that I can boot up whenever I want to quickly kill some time and just fight against the computer. I would definitely spend the bulk of my time with the game whenever a new DLC fighter came out. This year has brought us Piranha Plant, Joker, The Hero, Banjo & Kazooie, and Terry Bogard. Each of these characters has brought something new and different to the table, and I found myself becoming really fond of each of them. I think Joker was probably my favorite one because he brought a whole lot of visual flair along with him. I haven’t played Persona 5, but seeing the victory screen transition the same way that it does in that game along with the music just makes me giddy every time. Terry’s a lot of fun to play as though, so I find myself gravitating to him a lot. There’s a whole new set of fighters coming next year which I’m excited for because I want this game to be supported for as long as possible. I also want my boy Sora in the game too, so getting more chances for that to possibly happen is always nice.

Days Gone

I have to admit that I wasn’t too excited for Days Gone in the months leading up to its launch, but I got bit by the hype bug about a month before its release. The game ended up being pretty good, but fell just shy of being great. For starters the story was great, although it did take some time to get to that point. It was pretty interesting and the characters were compelling. Once the story had its hooks in me, it didn’t let go for the remainder of the game. That’s the thing though. The game was far longer than I actually thought it was going to be. The game could’ve ended up being shorter if there were a couple changes to the game design. Why did I have to do literally every mission in order to progress the story? Why would I leave a settlement with no missions, only to get a call mere minutes later from someone I just saw at that settlement telling me to come back for a mission? Why were some of these missions literally just a cutscene? This all caused the game to be longer than it really should’ve been. And while I did like the story that was told, I feel like it could’ve been shorter overall.

The game was a fun one to play thankfully. What was probably my biggest disappointment with the game though was the fact that the hordes that were one of the game’s biggest selling points weren’t introduced until near the end of the game. And once they’re introduced, you see just how many there are across the map. I wasn’t so into the game that I was about to go all around and clear out every single one of the hordes when I was right at the end of the game, but I did take out a couple of them. There were also some technical issues that I came across while playing that took me out of the experience. Frame rate issues would appear every so often, as well as textures not completely loading in and characters popping up out of nowhere. Overall I enjoyed my time with the game and would definitely like to see a sequel, but Days Gone didn’t blow me away like I hoped it would.

Final Fantasy VII

I’ve wanted to play Final Fantasy VII for years, but never got around to. I tried playing it on my phone a few years ago and made it all the way out of Midgar, but it wasn’t the best way to play the game. Fast forward to this year and the game is now available on the Switch, which marked the perfect occasion for me to try the game out again. After playing through the whole game, I completely understand now why people love that game so much. Its story is amazing and the characters are charming. Each member of the crew was someone that I loved dearly, even if I never used them. And even though I knew about the BIG moment that everyone talks about, it still hit me hard right in the feels.

I will admit that I used the cheats the Switch version has to get through the final gauntlet because it was just frustrating me way too much and I just wanted to finish the game. And also, the game’s ending is just bad. If I had no knowledge of the follow up movie Advent Children, I would’ve been highly annoyed with the ending and the lack of closure that it gives regarding anybody in the game. Ignoring all that though, playing through the game this year just made my hype for the remake next year skyrocket.

Cuphead

When Cuphead was first announced in 2013, I was floored by its unique art style. I wanted to play it so badly, but I didn’t have an Xbox One so that wasn’t happening. That all changed when the game was released on the Switch this year. Trust me when I say I wasted no time in jumping on that game. Now I haven’t beaten the game, and I haven’t played it too much since I first got it. But I have enjoyed the time that I spent playing the game. I heard that it was a difficult game, but it’s much harder than I thought it would be! That’s not the reason I haven’t played the game that much. The real reason is that there are just so many other games that I want to play and simply not enough time to play them all. I’m going to get back to playing Cuphead and beating it some time. It’s going to be competing with a lot of other games for my time next year, but I promise to make time for it.

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection

In anticipation for Borderlands 3, and because I just wanted a nice throwback game to play for a little bit, I downloaded Borderlands: The Handsome Collection for free with Playstation Plus this summer and jumped back into Borderlands 2 for a bit. I initially did it with the intention of just playing the brand new DLC they released for the game that was a bridge between Borderlands 2 and the upcoming game, but then I saw that I had to go through a process to try and bring over my old character. I didn’t want to just play with a random level 30 version of Axton though. I wanted to play with the Axton I had made all those years ago. So I promptly started the game over and got maybe about a third of the way through the game. It was a fun trip down memory lane for the time that I spent with it, but then I put it down to go through some other games. I still have the game on my system and might go back to the collection if only so I can play The Pre-Sequel since I never did when it first came out. I am afraid though that I won’t have as much fun with it since I’m playing Borderlands 3 now and I’m worried that The Pre-Sequel just won’t feel as good to play. I could be wrong though! Never say never.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order

Imagine my surprise last year when Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order was revealed at The Game Awards. The original game was one of my favorite superhero games ever when I was a kid, and I always wanted another entry in the franchise to be released. I was so happy when Ultimate Alliance 3 came out and was good because that’s all I needed it to be. A fun beat ’em up where I could play as some of my favorite heroes and cross paths with other cool characters, all while turning my brain off and just enjoying the mindless action. I wasn’t expecting anything more than that and I didn’t need anything more than what I got. It came at the right time on the right system and I couldn’t have been happier with it. I don’t think I’ll be getting the DLC for the game because I got what I wanted out of it. I am hoping that we do get a sequel that continues to deliver the goods on some crazy superhero fun.

That’s the first half the list folks! Tomorrow we’ll wrap this up by talking about the final 15 games I played this year, so come back to see what I played and what my thoughts are on those games. Leave your thoughts down below in the comments as well and let me know what you all think about the games on this half of the list.