No, the the virus hasn’t found me. Yes, I’m behind and the stress of the world falling apart around me maybe contributed to the lateness of this post. Remember the first thing I posted this year? About how this is gonna be such a fun year for new creative projects and shit? Well, hindsight’s 2020.

As a being riddled with depression and anxiety, I’ve thought about getting my writing done (here and otherwise) every single day. I’ve been trying to write a horror novel, one that I think you’ll enjoy if you like anything on this site, but this year just hasn’t been conducive to writing fictional horrors when there’s so much going on right now to actually be afraid of.

But this isn’t a LiveJournal and you’re not here to read one. This preamble does serve a purpose going forward, however: I don’t have the energy to rank Games of the Month right now. And maybe I won’t ever have that energy again, who knows! This month you’re getting one game from March and one game from April.

I realize you might meet this information with a shrug, but trust me, this is something that has caused me stress for literal years. Ranking games can be fun! But just finding a lot of the stuff that comes out every month can be a struggle. There are so, so many small games that come out every single day it’s impossible to actually see everything that’s out there. And still, leave it to my brain to personally feel responsible for each one I miss or don’t have a chance to cover. On top of all that, attempting to quantify an ordered ranking of every month’s games? It’s not feasible for me anymore, and I have to stop pretending that it is. Having a Games of the Month post at all is better than me sitting in quarantine thinking, “Wow, maybe Nioh 2 is better than Persona 5 Royal.” and vice versa ad nauseum in between bouts of sheer panic because I looked at the news.

 

TLDR: Games of the Month aren’t ranked anymore because my brain is broken. And this one’s a two-monther because of quarantine stuff, that part’s not permanent.

Enjoy the show!

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Oh right, video games!!!

 

Half-Life: Alyx

Half-Life: Alyx isn’t just a great Half-Life game, it’s an incredibly good introduction to what virtual reality is capable of. Sure, a lot of what’s on display here feels a bit too gimmicky for its own good at times, but having Valve tune a combat system to a VR setting really shows us what we’ve been missing. No matter how many weird 3D menus they make me rotate, I will continue to do them if they let me run around my actual room and feel like a scrappy rebel taking down an army.

I have a bit more to say about Half-Life: Alyx here in case you missed it.

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Super Mario Maker 2  3.0

Wait just a second. Before you think the quarantine ruined my brain and made me decide Mario Maker is the Game of the Month every month, listen up. They made this old one even better.

They finally added the thing everybody wanted since the announcement of the original non-Super “Mario Maker,” a World Map Maker! Bad news first: you can only upload one World at a time. That sucks, it’s dumb, and it’s very Nintendo. Everything else about it? *chef kiss*

Yes, making Mario levels is the best thing about Mario Maker. They added a bunch of new objects and enemies and all of that and that’s excellent. But letting me make a Super Mario World map? And put my own levels into it? The greatest novice game creation machine in the world now feels like you can build a whole video game from the ground up, not just bits and pieces of one.

The editor, though it’s clearly testing the waters for Mario Maker 3, is shockingly diverse already. You can place enemy icons on the map to make the traditional Hammer Bro fights. You can hide castles underwater so that some levels only appear after certain criteria are met. There’s even a handful of unique Toad House mini games tossed in for good measure to spice up your map. I already loved Super Mario Maker, but this feels like we’re getting much closer to what they always meant this series to be.

There’s a lot of room for improvement here, like how there’s not a way to make secret exits or hidden warps. But for a free update to a game that I’ve been playing for nearly a year? Definitely worth the six hours I spent crafting a world when the update went live at midnight.

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Honorable Mentions

Nioh 2 – A vast improvement over the original in every way. Better level design and bosses show that Ninja Theory is taking the right lessons from the best of From Software.

Final Fantasy VII Remake – The first hour seems great! The mix of turn-based and real-time combat isn’t something I’ve ever seen before, or something that should be as fun as it is.

Persona 5 Royal – Persona 5 is a bit of a mess, and Persona 5 Royal does its best to tidy that mess up. Really enjoying it a lot more this time around… I’ll still never finish it.

Doom Eternal – There’s a good game in here somewhere, I just haven’t had the patience to dig past the occasional god awful level design and general clutter to find it.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – If you want a series of chores to do while looking very, very cute, have I found something for you. If you want to not stress yourself to the limit trying to get home by real-world 9pm to buy something from the shop before it closes? Maybe admit that your brain just isn’t cut out for this kind of thing and play more Mario.

Half-Life: Alyx’s slow start doesn’t do it a ton of favors. I’ll admit, I’m over a decade out since my last Half-Life 2 playthrough (I’m due, I know.) but I remembered Half-Life being fucking awesome right? Thankfully, after a couple hours(!!) of VR tutorializing, Valve stops playing their hand so close to their chest.

Tech in the Half-Life universe has always been fun as hell to toy with, and luckily the Gravity Gloves are handy enough to carry a few hours of wandering. Point at anything in the environment, hold the trigger, and flick it towards you. Whatever you aimed at will come flying at you and you can catch it in midair. It’s awesome just about every time. You’ll explore some sewers and city streets. You’ll pick off some head crabs and a combine or two. You’ll solve a surprising variety of puzzles. And then, a handful of chapters in, you have your first serious combat encounter with some heavily armored bruisers.

I cannot exaggerate how goddamn good the combat in this game can be.

Did you play Doom 2016? Do you remember how the level design and weapons and systems all came together perfectly to make you feel like the coolest person alive? Well, since Doom Eternal shit the bed this go around, Half-Life: Alyx is here to pick up that particular torch and start running with it.

Imagine the most excited you’ve been in a video game combat encounter, and that was my experience with the first heavy gunner fight in Half-Life: Alyx. It absolutely ruled. I, as a physical human being, had to crouch and hide and run around a room to outsmart a bunch of soldiers. You can sneak, you can rush, you can hoarde a bunch of grenades and hope for the best. The level of creativity in player solution is almost certainly more limited than what it feels like in the moment, but it’s also the only game outside of Superhot to make me feel like I’m beating these dudes in a real-ass fight. I ducked under shotgun fire, blind fired from behind cover, all of that shit. We’ve done it a million times in games before, but man, VR! And it’s not just that it’s in VR. I’ve played plenty of shooters in VR before. Half-Life: Alyx has a pedigree of people who know exactly how to balance a fight, give you juuuust enough ammo and grenades to scrape by, and make you feel like there’s no way in hell you’re gonna survive. And then you do! Remember when these people made Left 4 Dead? Man, I’ve missed ’em.

I know I’m a huge sucker for virtual reality to begin with and those not already converted may not be convinced, but believe me when I tell you Half-Life: Alyx put me in a game in a way I’ve  never felt before. Sadly, I’m visiting someone else to use their VR set and with the virus being what it is… yeah I haven’t gotten to play the game in a month. But, again, I’m not joking when I say that my heart is racing just thinking about being able to play it again. And it highlights how much not fun I’ve had with Doom Eternal so far, but that’s a different discussion for a different day.

The game isn’t perfect by a longshot, though! The first couple chapters are super boring! Some of the secrets feel so arbitrarily hidden that you’re forced to just do the air flick thing at random and hope a collectible comes flying towards you. Grabbing things in VR can be unwieldy, and those headsets just aren’t comfortable enough yet to play for more than an hour or two at a time. BUT: I just can’t imagine having the same experience with the combat if it wasn’t in virtual reality, as much as it sucks to say. I do hope that Half-Life: Alyx, through mods or otherwise, becomes accessible to more people, even at the risk of losing a bit of its soul. It’s still a good Half-Life game! There’s smart writing (Russel’s chatter in your ear is always welcome), a cool Ravenholm tribute section (this is a horror game when it wants to be!), and just generally clever puzzle design throughout. If you have any way to get your hands on this thing, you gotta give it a shot.

It’s back! I’ve been looking forward to hopping back on this wagon for a while. First things first: I haven’t played the final episode of Kentucky Route Zero yet. I’ve been playing the game on and off with chapter releases since 2013, but I’m due for a full replay before hopping into the ending. I’m super excited to do it, but this month wasn’t it. Kentucky Route Zero is a game that I’ve cared a lot about since I played Act I seven years ago(!!!), and I don’t want to do it the disservice of rushing through. I expect it to be good, so there’s that. On to the show!

 

#1. Lenna’s Inception

Another month, another good Zelda-like. Though I don’t think it’s as strong of an offshoot as, say, Ittle Dew 2, Lenna’s Inception is a solid action RPG with enough of its own identity to give it a recommendation. Read my full thoughts on it here.

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#2. TemTem

In the two or three hours I’ve spent with TemTem so far, I’m glad to say it’s a super confident Pokemon thing. Even after spending (and continuing to spend) dozens of hours in Pokemon Shield, CremaGames love for that series shines through and keeps pushing me forward. If you’re remotely interested in Pokemon or have wondered where the series could go if built by a different set of hands, TemTem is the real deal. The monster designs are a bit hit or miss, learning a brand new batch of odd type matchups has been difficult but not unwelcomed, and the early access state the game is in has me wanting to hold off just a bit until there’s more polish. But even as early as the game is (the full release isn’t expected until next year) there’s already a lot here to like.

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#3. Journey to the Savage Planet

Did you like Metroid Prime? Did you like Borderlands 2? Welp, doesn’t matter if you do, Typhoon Studios sure did. You’ll go through the motions of exploring an alien planet and grabbing double jumps and grappling hook upgrades all while your AI partner quips relentlessly in your ear. Yes, it’s kind of a weird mashup… but surprisingly one that works! I think the writing here is significantly wittier that a lot of what’s on offer in the Borderlands games (i.e. it’s actually funny on occasion) and I’ve enjoyed just roaming around this weird, colorful space world. There’s some good 3D platforming and exploration here with some shallow but infrequent FPS combat tossed in for good measure. Sure, the comedy writing on display leans toward throwing spaghetti at a wall, but the funny jokes are legitimately well-delivered and memorable. I did run into a game-breaking bug in the first two hours that required a fresh save, but I’ve been told that specific issue has been fixed and shouldn’t happen anymore. I guess if the fact that I lost two hours of progress and willingly redid all of it doesn’t speak for itself, not a whole lot else will.

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Honorable Mentions

 

The Pedestrian

I’ve been pumped for this after hearing about it years ago and… uh, it isn’t quite what I expected it to be! I enjoyed what I played quite a bit, but of no fault of the devs I expected a pure 2D platformer instead of a puzzle platformer. It’s a good one of those, though, if you’re in the mood for one!

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Lightmatter

A decent first-person puzzler with a desperate desire to be the next BioShock. Some of the writing is terrible, but the occasional good bit of dialogue and the puzzles themselves were fun enough to warrant a light recommend.

Another year, another list where I predict Super Meat Boy Forever will be in my top ten and it doesn’t even come out. We’ll see this time I guess.

January of last year was when I called 2019 “staaaaacked” with good games. Turns out it was! Maybe a year without one real crowd-pleaser like a God of War or a Witcher, but a lot lot lot of smaller things came out to make up for it. If there’s a genre you love, 2019 had at least a couple of entries that were worth your while.

For record keeping’s sake, here’s my predictions from the beginning of last year. The addendums in parenthesis are some quick thoughts so we can put that year behind us and talk about those sweet 2020 releases and make more bad guesses.

Game of the Year 2019 Early Predictions:

Devil May Cry V – (Good not great! I don’t like playing as V.)

Super Meat Boy Forever – (still not out!!)

Animal Crossing Switch – (March 20, babyyyy)

The Outer Worlds – (like a bunch of these, I didn’t put much time in. Seems cool so far, though.)

The Last of Us: Part 2 (not out)

Doom Eternal (also not out, but I have some THOUGHTS about this one)

Resident Evil 2 (I’m a scared baby and also didn’t give this the time it deserved yet)

Judge Eyes (ugh, I own it put have only played it for an hour. It was a very good hour.)

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (I’ve made my peace with this thing, check out my 2019 GOTY list)

 

Honorable Mentions:

Rhythm Doctor (not out)
Trials Rising (good but weirdly flawed)
Ooblets (not out but gimme!!!!!!!!!)
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (made the list, was about as good as it could have been)
Manifold Garden (didn’t grab me like I expected it to. not a huge collection of neat puzzles to solve like antichamber like i wanted)
Tunic (still coming and still looks great!)
Knuckle Sandwich (2020 don’t let me down)
Anodyne 2 (good and weird, not as good and weird as the first game)
Yoshi’s Crafted World (super solid, not a goty game)
Dreams (kind of sort of out, I had a ridiculous time with this thing and I’m excited for a more official release)

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So what about 2020? There are, as always, too many games coming out. Hopefully I get to play some of them.

 

Game of the Year 2020 Predictions:

 

#1. Elden Ring – A Fromsoft game hot off the heels of their latest and worst (but not terrible), Sekiro? I was a bit put off just on the recency bias, but after reading some developer interviews I’m becoming pretty hopeful. A larger scale Dark Souls with more customization than ever? The PR seems to be pushing “more” and “bigger” as the key adjectives this time around, and a new generation of Dark Souls with those in mind could lead to many a dream come true.

#2. Doom Eternal – Doom 2016 is a rare example of what I believe to be a near perfect video game. The combat is fluid and balanced in a way that makes you feel incredible after every single fight. The unexpected but never unwelcomed 3D platforming is super tight. And the Doom Slayer is just cool as hell. Rip and tear, baby.

#3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Unless you’re part of The Initiated, you have no idea how pumped I am to get my hands on another one of these. How in the world was New Leaf nearly 7 years ago?? Let’s hope for a true upgrade to online this time, and not like Sword and Shield where the online stuff somehow got worse.

#4. The Binding of Isaac: Repentance – I will probably continue to play The Binding of Isaac until I die, expansions or not. This will hopefully just make those hours even better.

#5. Cyberpunk 2077 – One day I’ll play The Witcher 3. If I don’t before September, maybe this will show me a bit of what I’ve been missing. I’m also more apt to drop hours into an first-person than a third-person one. Weird, I know, but true.

#6. Super Meat Boy Forever – After Team Meat Split, Edmund made The End is Nigh with Tyler Glaiel. It’s a superior game to Super Meat Boy, so let’s hope this alternate timeline of a second sequel from Tommy Refenes has just as much game to back it up.

#7. The Last of Us Part II – I haven’t replayed The Last of Us since mid-2013, and I remember less and less of it every day. I do remember, though, thinking it was a fantastic third-person shooter with a story other games of this budget rarely care to match. I’m due for a redo, but if I end up without the time hopefully Part II will do its duty and remind me what makes these games tick.

#8. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 – The first one is an RPG classic, and they’ve been saying and doing enough things right to tell me this one should be, too.

#9. Knuckle Sandwich – This weird and varied old-school RPG looks better the more I see of it. As long as the turn-based stuff has enough wrinkles to keep me mildly engaged, I’ll be happy to engage with it just to get to the next incredible bit of dialogue, game show appearence, dream sequence, cannibalism, rhythm game, etc, etc, etc.

#10. Hollow Knight: Silksong – I will follow Team Cherry wherever they end up going. If, for now, they plan on serving up a sequel to the best Metroidvania game of all time? That’s alright with me.

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Honorable Mentions:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 – I have some real doubts this one is coming in 2020, but if it does I’ll be the happiest a person can be. So don’t expect it.

Hades – I’ve yet to play the Early Access version, but the Supergiant pedigree and the wild amount of buzz around it lands it squarely on my radar.

No More Heroes III – I like the cutscenes and watching dumbass action setpieces more than I actually enjoy playing either of the first two games. Either way, this will be a game with bad combat and great cutscenes, or good combat and great cutscenes. I’ll honestly take it either way. That’s what YouTube’s for.

Tunic – I’m a sucker for a Zelda fan making a Zelda game. I play a ton of them every year, though, and they tend to blend together after a while. Tunic seems like one that may end up sticking out from the rest.