2019 Year in Review: Best Game, Worst Game, Most Surprising and Most Disappointing

It’s been about a year since I started blogging about games again.  The combination of goings on at work and a new year’s resolution led to this whole thing and frankly, I can’t believe I saw it through.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not stopping anytime soon, I’m just shocked I didn’t stop half way through.  I am excited for yet another year of gaming and I have tons of changes planned for next year.

With that said, its time for my inaugural end of year awards.  I have played and reviewed a lot of games this year and its time to go back and reflect.  For these completely fictional awards that I just made up in my head, I will be naming best game, worst game, biggest surprise, most disappointing, most potential for a series revival/sequel and most unique.  First, a reminder of my scores, from highest to lowest.

1. Sonic Mania 9.25/10
2. The Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon 9.25/10
3. Vigilante 8 9/10
4. All star Baseball 99 8.5/10
5. Guilt Gear X2 8.25/10
6. NHL Hitz 2003 8.25/10
7. G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor 8/10
8. Cosmic Star Heroine 8/10
9. Horizon: Zero Dawn 8/10
10. Lode Runner 3D 8/10
11. Mega Man X5 8/10
12. The Legend of Dragoon 7.5/10
13. Warhawk 7.25/10
14. Dark Cloud 7/10
15. Battle Toads/Double Dragon 7/10
16. The Magical Quest Staring Mickey Mouse 7/10
17. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence 7/10
18. NFL Gameday 98 7/10
19. The Grandstream Saga 6.75/10
20. Mega Man X: Command Mission 6.5/10
21. Mega Man X6 6/10
22. Dark Rift 6/10
23. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles 6.5/10
24. Mega Man Battle and Chase 5.5/10
25. World Heroes II Jet 5/10
26. Aero the Acrobat 5/10
27. Shadow Madness 5/10
28. Doom Troopers 5/10
29. Quest 64 5/10
30. Rad Racer II 4.5/10
31. Primal Rage 4.25/10
32. Joe And Mac 4/10
33. StarFox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet 4/10
34. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 3/10
35. Mickey Mousecapade 3/10
36. Star Wars 2/10
37. Days of Thunder 2/10
38. Eye of the Beholder 2/10
39. MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch 1/10
40. Rise of the Robots .25/10
41. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends 0/10

I should note this isn’t in exact order, I didn’t take the time to rank games with the same score.  There are also a few score adjustments that I wanted to make.  When I started this, I didn’t want to do any decimals, but its just too hard not to.  Castlevania:Lament of Innocence gets bumped up to a 7.5.  I would also bump Legend of Dragoon up to an even 8 and Grandstream up to an even 7.  Also, I would bump Star Fox Adventures up to a 5.  It’s just too well made even if it is painfully boring.

Anyway, now for the superlatives. For best game, it will come down to a tiebreaker.  Sonic Mania and Legend of the Mystical Ninja ended up with the same score, as both are excellent games.  At the end of the day, I am going to have to go with Sonic Mania.  LOTMN is fun, immersive and hilarious, but it has tons of technical flaws.  While I clearly don’t consider those as harshly as most critics (I’m a gamer, not a programmer), they can still serve as a tiebreaker.  It was a close race, but the Blue Blur edges out the competition for its re-imagining of classic levels, outstanding original content and on-point gameplay.

Worst game wasn’t even close.  The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is atrocious, its a digital moose turd on top of a dead squirrel.  Believe me, that .25 that Rise of the Robots got is a huge difference.  That game is borderline playable, but Rocky and Bullwinkle is absolute garbage.  It might very well be the single worst game I’ve ever played.

Biggest surprise was another tossup between Guilty Gear X2 and Lode Runner 3D.  In the end, I think I have to give it to GGx2.  I had no hope at all for a 3D update of an Apple II game being any good and I was very pleasantly surprised, but I was DREADING Guilty Gear as soon as I booted it up.  I almost turned off the game and just said “nope” after the opening cutscene.  Even gameplay-wise, I kind of new what to expect with Lode Runner.  I had no idea GGX2 would have such a deep fighting engine.

The biggest disappointment would probably be Brothers in Arms.  I’m a history buff, so it was cool to see some care taken to make the game as reality based as possible.  It had great reviews, so I was pretty hyped for it.  Unfortunately, it was so slow, plodding and ugly that I found it completely unplayable.  Call it “tactical” all you want.  It’s not tactical.  It’s. Just. Boring.  Who wants to sit around and wait.  To me, playing something like this is like staring out your window with a controller in your hand and pressing a button every time a person walks past.

Well, that about does it for this year.  I can’t wait to get back at it and start reviewing more games in 2020.  But that isn’t all I am going to be doing.  I have big plans for next year, so I hope both of my readers keep checking back for updates!