by Alex Quevedo
2019 was one hell of a year for me, but mostly on a personal level. In the gaming area, things were a little tough. Where does it fit in when you are trying to accomplish several major life elements? Definitely on the side when things cool down, or when stress needs to be diminished. But then when things kick into gear and the time for games is back, video game stress comes in! It’s great. Let’s take a look at what I can rank this year – they’re kind of all games!
5. Beating Red Dead Redemption 2 – Xbox One, PS4
Me: This is a 2018 release and it doesn’t count!
Also Me: IT TOOK YOU THAT LONG. IT COUNTS!
2018 things definitely impacted my ability to play through RDR2 in a timely manner, but it was also so, so long. I finally wrapped things up in 2019 and finished my review. It was good! It was a solid story that lets you live out some fairly hardcore Western fantasies, primarily hampered by its over attention to detail for not much of an impact.
4. Stranger Things 3: The Game – Xbox One, PS4, Switch, PC, iOS, Android
For being enough of a cash grab to synch up with season 3 hype, Stranger Things 3: The Game was cute and solid enough. It had the nostalgia factor going for it, but if it had been a game straight up about Alexei questing for Slurpees, then we would have had a Game of the Year on our hands.
3. Jedi: Fallen Order – Xbox One, PS4, PC
Here’s that video game stress I mentioned at the top. Despite the aggravating but nonsensical difficulty doubled down on with a terrible save system, Jedi: Fallen Order was a commendable single player effort by EA and Respawn Entertainment. If you want to smash things up with a lightsaber and do some Jedi jumps, you have everything you need (and a cuteboi droid to go with it).
2. Gears 5 – Xbox One, PC
It was so good – until it ended. Shifting to Kait Diaz was the perfect move for the game, but it suffered from an incredibly abrupt ending that shifted so much to simply being a transition for a future Gears 6.
1. Life: Like, Real Life
I’m cheating a bit with this one because if I didn’t rank this number one, then it would probably come across a little too weird. January saw me finish my first full marathon at Disney World (dressed as Iden Versio of Star Wars Battlefront 2!). May 4 was my wedding day, a day that will be long remembered (though no Kenobis were lost). October saw my wife and I move out of an apartment and into a home, and saw me buy a hybrid car. All of these things required so much love attention and the payoffs were worth it. But I did get in Comic Con International in July!
In 2020, I’m certainly hoping to finish up my backlog of games from notable 2018-2019 releases, but also tackle bigger 2020 releases like Marvel’s Avengers, The Last of Us 2, and Cyberpunk 2077. Maybe whatever else Keanu Reeves is in, too, should he want to pop up in any other games.