Well, here's my gaming retrospective of 2019. To be fair I bought fewer new games in 2019 than I did in 2018. There just wasn't all that much to attract me. Also I got into Total Warhammer 2 and that, with its time sink gameplay and constant expansions, chewed a lot of my time up. Still. Roughly in the order they came out:
- Lorelai. From the developer of The Cat Lady and Downfall, this is a sequel to R. Michalski's adventures in mental health. Whereas the Cat Lady was about the title character's vision quest to escape her depression, and Downfall was more about paranoid delusion, this is one about its effects on others. Lorelai is the only sane person in a dysfunctional family. The photomontage-style graphics come back as well, as does a cameo from Susan Ashworth of the Cat Lady and I believe one of the side characters from Downfall. Also had a really comfy soundtrack with this
annoyingly catchy number over one of the cutscenes with its gothic style jangly guitars and so forth. Pretty cool really. Also multiple endings. And you can drive an alcoholic to suicide.
-
Ion Fury. Mega. Absolutely mega. It didn't just ape a 1990s shooter, it was a 1990s shooter right down to having a protagonist who spouts pre- and post-mortem one liners, gratuitous toilet humour, big levels full of secrets and easter eggs and shout outs, and ridiculous guns with ridiculous names. For instance, you can get an SMG called the Penetrator and if you find a second one you can dual-wield it (I didn't get this joke until weeks after the game came out btw.) Only downside is some of the boss fights are a bit dull; the final boss is basically a rehash of Doom 2's Icon of Sin. Other than that, great fun. Are you on your knees yet???
-
Greedfall. A Diplomat Is You. Third person action RPG with a colonial-era aesthetic, so sword and pistol combat, big hats, and nice coats. I really liked the aesthetic of this one and the fact that there were often multiple ways to complete quests and that the best ending required you to make choices that didn't appear to be the best ones. I also (slight spoilers ahead) liked how the Malichor was literally a spiritual malaise, if you catch my drift. Some of the companions, though, felt a bit empty especially once you'd done all their loyalty quests. Also the player's own faction felt more than a little underdeveloped compared to the Thelemites (Conquistador equivalents) and the Bridge Alliance (Persian fedora-wearing atheists). I mean, I guess that the Congregation of Merchants was supposed to be a sort of mercantile state like Flanders (the game was developed in Belgium after all) but it felt like "the other one." Still, worth playing. A bit of poison on my blade, and let's GO!
-
Irony Curtain: From Matryoshka with Love. I didn't gel with this. A humorous point and click adventure set in an expy of the Soviet Union but lacking in a lot of, you know, humour. It felt all a bit contrived and unfunny. I had to drag my way through it and I'm normally a fan of pointy-clicky stuff.
- The Outer Worlds. It's not the best choice, it's Spacer's Choice! I liked the setting, which reminded me more of Terry Gilliam's Brazil and Idiocracy than New Vegas, and being an Obsidian game the story beats and quest structure and combat was very comfy, but once again, the companions were underdeveloped. Compare and contrast Pillars of Eternity 2, which went out its way to develop all the characters throughout and often they had banter and passed comment in almost every quest. Worth a go though (hint: you can get it on PC from Xbox Live store if you don't want to fund Winnie the Pooh via the Epic Store.)
I was hoping to get Metro Exodus as well as it looked pretty cool and looks like it is a sort of expeditionary story but being an Epic Store timed exclusive I didn't. I don't trust EGS with my personal data and the Chinese government owns something like 40% of Epic these days.
2020 will most likely be dominated by Cyberpunk 2077 as far as I'm concerned. That being said, I'm also looking forward to Wrath: Aeon of Ruin (an old-school shooter with old-school tech), Doom Eternal (an old-school shooter with modern tech), Baldur's Gate III (which is on track to be seriously tasty), and hopefully we might see Beyond a Steel Sky (the sequel to the 1993 cyberpunk adventure Beneath a Steel Sky) and Technobabylon: Birthright.
