6. Disco Elysium
The dark horse that is Disco Elysium took the gaming world by storm over the past few weeks. And why not? It’s one of the best written and most fascinating narratives yet created in a game. The simple point and click adventure game formula is put to shame by Disco’s relentless adversary: your own psyche.
Gamers are tuned to choose options they believe will advance the story or achieve the outcome they want, and Disco is structured to mess with us. Talking ties, absurd dialog trees, and the ability to fail at just about everything make Disco Elysium a truly special experience. It doesn’t account for absolutely everything, but it gets as close to that as we’ve seen a game go. Sweeping emotional changes happen with no notice, with internal character dialogue that closely mirrors the human decision making process.
5. Resident Evil 2
There was a bit of a kerfuffle around this pick. Do Remakes count? We decided yes (though remasters probably don’t), and thank the gaming gods we did so – leaving Resident Evil 2 off this list would be absolute heresy. A brilliantly remade version of the classic horror title, RE2 still scares the pants off of people who don’t know it, and this implementation of Capcom’s REengine looks unbelievably good.
Not content to just spit out an old game for full price, Capcom really put in work on RE2. It’s brilliantly set up for speed runs, offers a ton of different costumes, music, and routing options, and plays incredibly well.
Sure, the puzzles and inventory management are a pain, but we were glad to see those callbacks intact, juxtaposed against the ultra modern visuals. Whether or not you have any nostalgia for the Resident Evil franchise of old, RE2 Remake is a fantastic title.
4. Jedi: Fallen Order
Warts and all, Jedi: Fallen Order climbed pretty high on our 2019 game of the year list. Unlike some of the main line movies, Fallen Order tells a story that carries some weight. It builds characters organically, and by the final moments you’ll be deeply invested in their well being. Fallen Order throws nostalgia in to sweeten the pot, but stands strong on top of characters like Cal, Greez, and BD-1.
It does something that any great spin off has to do – explore an area that we don’t already know about. Star Wars fans are desperate to re engage with the franchise in a new way, and Jedi: Fallen Order absolutely nailed that side of things.
It does feel rushed though. Scripting doesn’t always work, there are plenty of problems with the console versions, and the combat doesn’t feel perfectly dialed in – we think it could have used a few more months of polish. If that’d happened, there’s a decent chance Jedi would stand atop our list.
One more page to go in our ten best games of 2019!