I couldn't post this on the 1st, but I can post it today!
It's time to look back on 2019. As we're to do at the start of a new year, like a tradition. See what worked, see what didn't... the usual. On top of all this, we also have a chance to look back at the entire decade, since we're now officially in 2020! Let's hope those twenties won't be roaring too much. I also could start by looking back at the entire decade, since I began this blog in 2013... But Heck no, I've done so much, I wouldn't know where to start.
You know what they say: "Thank God it's over". I hear this every year, and I can always see the point; even if it's been a good year on a personal standpoint for some (as it hasn't been for everyone), on the regional and international scene it may not have been too great. It's been a year of huge changes, huge social outbursts. Thing is, we say Thank God it's over, but unless we all work towards making 2020 better, we'll be saying the same about 2020 in 12 months. It's a massive collective effort; not gonna lie, it also takes a lot of courage. So, let's all work towards making 2020 a better year. If possible, not only for ourselves, but for everyone.
Blog-wise, although I was halted by severe hiatuses this year (most of which were caused by my job), I still managed to review a decent number of games. A lot of them in Steam Packs, of course - so this year, I feel I did way more quick reviews than ever before. It's no secret that between my hobby and the job that pays me, unfortunately the job has to come first... However, I've still managed to squeeze in a review here and there, so I'm pretty happy about that. Without further ado, my yearly tradition: The lists!
My Top 10 favorite reviews of the year
10. Hidden Folks. As part of an early Steam Pack this year, this is a game I received as a gift, and I was quite happy to play through it. I enjoyed the resulting review...
9. Scanner Sombre. Another quick review, and one that ended the very last Steam Pack for this blog. I've figured it would be much simpler, from now on, to split the quick reviews into separate articles. Thankfully, I ended this with one of the best games, one that legitimately made me go wow as I was playing.
8. Frederic: Resurrection of Music. Hands-down one of the games I most enjoyed playing this year. I think one can actually feel how happy I am with it throughout my review.
7. Animal Kingdom: Wildlife Expedition. My first game review of the year was for a game that had no indication it would ever be good, being generic bargain bin stuff - and yet, I liked it a lot. Once again, I believe that interest could be felt in my article. I started the year very strongly.
6. The Angry Birds Movie. I had to cut down on pretty much all long reviews this year. This one has just about the right length I should aim for: Two parts for a movie review. On top of it all, the film gave me a lot of material to work with.
5. Indie Pogo. Officially the review that got me the most positive feedback this year, and I'm happy it did. I certainly think it turned out quite well, in part because the game is fairly simple.
4. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. With the bad rep video game movies have had for decades, I think it's great that we're finally seeing more and more good movies based around video games as a core plot element. This sequel to the 1995 Jumanji movie was much welcome, and although it didn't go quite as far as I would have wished, it nonetheless impressed me. I love the review that came out of it.
3. Top 12 reasons to play a game. Without claiming I did a lot of research for it, I can say this is one of the better lists I've made for the blog in its 6.5-year history. I like the points I bring up, and the examples are pretty telling as well.
2. Tattletail. This late-year review is one of those articles where I say "screw it, let's have fun", and the result is usually much better than the average bare-bones discussion of a game's features (looking at you, review of Smash 3DS). It was definitely great to write it as a false advertisement for the company that makes the Tattletail toy, always keeping that Holiday whimsy all while keeping that sense of dread that belongs to horror.
1. Octodad: Dadliest Catch. Oh wow, I went all-out in that one. I re-read it and I was laughing my ass off the whole time. Unique idea for the review, which leads to an interesting discussion of the game, its plot and features, and it ends with the perfect joke.
The 10 worst games reviewed on the blog in 2019:
10. Yomi. It's a well-made game, no points there. It's #10 on the list mostly because of my own issues with the card game, which I feel relies a bit too much on luck, and the system that makes you pay to add half the available roster, and pay more for any additional card packs you might like.
9. Uncanny Valley. As a horror game, it does an alright job at setting up an atmosphere, and some of the scenes are certainly quite interesting, but the gameplay itself turned me off entirely to it. The consequences system could have led to something fine, but I didn't really notice a difference.
8. Turbo Pug. Funny for a moment, but the procedurally-generated world means that you've got to be an absolute master at controlling the little pug if you want to get anywhere far within this game. Self-imposed challenge? Knock yourself out. For everything else, I'll pass.
7. Greyfox RPG. I can say this RPG Maker game at least attempted to do something different - whether or not it succeeded is up to each person. I do think the concept is novel, but the set-up is somewhat poor and, though it leads to interesting moments, I don't think its flaws save it.
6. Rolling Sun. Talk about tech demo! More like "A game we made to test the tech". It ebgs the question why the game was then sold. It sure looks nice, which is the point of the engine used for it... but there isn't much else there...
5. House of Caravan. Two words: "A matchbox." While there are good puzzles here and there, much of the exploration is boring and annoying, especially since there's very little you can do unless you can find matches, one at a time, and light lamps, one at a time...
4. Bomb Defense. I always feel bad bashing someone's first game (or what seems like it). This game fails to deliver on every promise; it's not Tower Defense, and its mechanics are annoying, especially in how precise you must be in everything to have even the slightest chance of beating a level.
3. Nuked Knight. 2D platforming at its worst - you can never be sure where to land. It wouldn't make the list if it was merely hard, as I can respect a hard game (even if it can make me swear). But the poor programming behind it certainly put the game into unfair territory.
2. Rising Islands. An unresponsive, buggy camera; 3D platforming that requires tmost precision in both movement and timing; these two items put together are already troublesome enough, but couple it to a handful of annoying elements of game design and you get, hands down, an insanely hard game that isn't worth the effort. The less said about glitches the better...
1. Only If. So incomprehensible, so inexplicable, that I couldn't even bring myself to play much of it. There's no rhyme or reason to the changes of scenes, and whatever was playable wasn't exactly good either. Sorry if this was someone's first experiments in game design... this is why experiments usually remain buried inside one's computer.
The 10 best games reviewed on the blog in 2019:
10. Hidden Folks. Another simple puzzle game that can be played by anyone... as long as you can fiund your way around gigantic, enormous, immense maps in which you need to find often small characters or items. A great challenge.
9. Monster Loves You!. A narrative with branching paths that takes you through the life of a monster, all the way to either an unremarkable death or the transformation of the entire world for the better or for the worse. It's worth playing just to see what you can end up with.
8. Tattletail. The concept of combining a virtual pet to a horror game still feels fresh. Though the game has a few flaws, it's a fun ride as long as you don't mind getting spooked here or there. I've grown attached to the Tattletail, what can I say?
7. The First Tree. Breathtaking visuals combined with a discussion on human life. Almost free exploration all throughout. I loved to play through this so much, I completed it in one sitting.
6. Frederic: Resurrection of Music. While playing the piano keyboard took me some time to adapt, I eventually got the hang of it... mostly. From then on I enjoyed level after level of completely crazy retooling of a Chopin track in any possible genre. I have a thing for music games, even if my talent at them is limited.
5. A Normal Lost Phone. This one has a great story, one that becomes increasingly relevant as time goes. It's aided by the gameplay, simple but effective, in which you hunt for clues and find your way around a phone to uncover the secrets of its previous owner. All while remaining fun and even somewhat cute.
4. Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS. Of course I would rank a Smash game pretty high on the list. I had a LOT of critiques for the game itself, but it packed so much content that I was willing to forgive some of them. It's not like most of those critiques were relatively minor stuff after all...
3. Scanner Sombre. It's barely horror, but the true interest here is to create your own path as you progress, using the Scanner in order to find the platforms and roads to take, as well as any minor interactions to be had with the environment. It's a reflective experience more than a horror one, with one of the most unique gameplay elements I've ever seen. How many games go "There's nothing but darkness for 99.999% of the game, now you go make some light in there"?
2. Indie Pogo. As a young mascot fighting game, it still has room to grow and improve - but if it keeps the same quality standards as it had when I reviewed it, we'll have a fantastic game deserving of being played at fighting game tournaments. I bet anything that this is already in the plans.
1. Octodad: Dadliest Catch. I think I made such a great review for this one precisely because I love it so much, but also because it's the perfect blend of comedy and gameplay - while I wouldn't call it perfect, it's definitely the game I reviewed this year that I loved above any other.
The 10 wishes I had for the blog in 2019, and what I managed to achieve or failed to achieve:
10. A great anniversary review - failed in spectacular fashion, as I literally did not post a single thing during the month of July.
9. A Sonic Month. Once again, failed... but I have a hunch that it's coming for 2020.
8. More Steam Packs. Half-achieved, until I realized midway into the year that splitting the Packs by having one game per article was simpler.
7. A redesign of the site. Nope, failed.
6. Update everything on the blog. Didn't quite get to do that. Hell, I didn't even take some time during the year to update the ARCHIVE!
5. A proper Halloween special. Does Tattletail count? No, it was a month later. Welp, nope I guess.
4. More streaming. I've experimented with Twitch and Discord, but overall I didn't stream all that much. I probably could do more.
3. Create title cards for old reviews. ...Nope!
2. Less long reviews. I guess, with the long hiatus I had to take, I succeeded... though I had a few long reviews, most were fairly short.
1. Create a stronger community. I may not have succeeded yet, but the Discord server still exists - although I've yet to find people to join it...
The 10 wishes I have for 2020:
10. A review of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the blog's anniversary in 2020. I'll try to squeeze in some time to write that.
9. Once again hoping I can write a Sonic Month in there. Already planning to cover Sonic CD, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, and Sonic and the Black Knight for it.
8. The big review of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which I am in the process of writing. Snark about Bethesda's current situation might or might not be in there, depending on how mean I feel on any day.
7. Once again, I hope to edit the extra pages of the blog - an update on the Archive is particularly needed. In fact, I might be doing that as soon as this article is published!
6. Less hiatuses. I can't promise no hiatuses, but I can try to have less of them. Or shorter ones...
5. More quick reviews. In order to prevent myself from going a long time without a hiatus, I can definitely go with short reviews. I still have a whole bunch of quick games I could review at any moment.
4. More reviews of Nintendo games. I don't know if I can do it, but I will try! Ironic that this goes into a wishes list, considering in the early years games on Nintendo consoles made up 100% of the games I reviewed...
3. Two or three VGFlicks movie reviews. I'm not running out of material anytime soon, as there are old video game movies I haven't looked at yet, and a lot of movies from the past 5 years that would be available.
2. A redesign of the site. I swear I'll try to get this done!
1. I will attempt to once again create a stronger community for the site. Hopefully, this time, it'll work.
Last but not least: The "Reviewed games" folder on Steam currently contains 75 games, as I tend to delete the games I review negatively - no point in keeping them around, right? Anyhow, I think it's time to do a bit of cleanup, and at the same time I might also make a new list of favorites.
Taking out 4 games:
Auditorium
The Howler
Nuked Knight
Yomi
New list of favorites:
3D Ultra Adventures Minigolf Deluxe
Bastion
Castle of Illusions
Cuphead
DuckTales Remastered
The First Tree
GemCraft - Chasing Shadows
Goat Simulator
Indie Pogo
Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Grand Theft Auto V
Quiplash
Rayman Origins
Shantae: Risky's Revenge
Surgeon Simulator
Tattletail
Undertale
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist
Expect a new retrospective in 2021!
