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Games Played in 2019

I played way less games in 2019 than I have any previous year. But I finished pretty much all of them, which is super rare for me!

Some favorites!

Outer Wilds

Time played: ~15 hours Amount played: 100%

A truly beautiful game. The sense of discovery, paired with interesting worlds to explore, gorgeous music, and satisfying interactions/mechanics make this one of my favorite games of the year, and one of my favorite experiences in a while.

There’s something about a game that so heavily features space travel, but also feels so small. The planets feel so contained and can be traversed in very little time and the people you meet are always alone.

A Short Hike

Time played: ~3 hours Amount played: Pretty much 100%

God i adored this game. It isn’t at all what I expected it to be, I assumed some 45 minute experience where it’s only the platforming elements. I was delighted by the dialogue, characters, and side-objectives! Incredibly cute and charming while still having character outside of that. Fills that niche of game that’s a pleasant world to spend time in. Love the system of being given “quests” that have no real fail state and often no direct reward, and no way to track what you have active. It makes that aspect feel noticeably less gamey, and far more like you’re just interacting and hanging out with these people.

Not to mention of course the wonderful soundtrack and visuals. This lo-fi pixelated 3d look is so solid and well done. I’d be playing and not even notice it at times, which really drives home this idea that visual fidelity really isn’t that important for a lot of games.

Control

Time played: ~20 hours Amount played: main story + a good amount of side stuff

God this game has a style and it executes it so well. The architecture and the way it’s used in game is genius and the graphic design (those screen-filling area-name title cards), menus, and FMV overlays all lend itself so well to this look. The combat i found to often be way too hard and often just annoying. Falling through a hole beneath me to die and have to restart an entire boss fight isn’t exactly fun! But, it was still immensely satisfying to pull an object from behind a Hiss, hit them, and then throw it back in their face. Would have loved an easy mode, or at least checkpointing mid-boss or something!

The rest

Some games that came out in 2019 i need to play still