Multiplayer games are in abundance every year, but the best one isn’t the most realistic, or allow the most players, but the most fun and quality content. There are a lot of those every year as well, but only one can be at the top.
Call of Duty, being the laughing stock of the game industry, has made a full circle over 10 years later and has become the best multiplayer game this year. With gameplay that hearkens back to the first few games, revisited maps, and all of the addictive action that made Call of Duty the top is now back and better than ever.
Action games are an all-encompassing genre of games that put their action at the front. Anything with big explosives, scripted events, or anything that acts like a Hollywood movie will be in this genre.
Resident Evil 2
RE2 features both action and suspense and the action itself are some of the tensest and edge-of-the-seat stuff I’ve played in a long time. From zombies lurking around every corner to Mr. X on your ass at every turn just makes the game incredibly suspenseful. Conversing ammo and foraging for healing items has never felt better.
The driving genre is a wild card as both arcade and simulators dominate this genre. At any given time an arcade racer and sweep the industry away or a top, not simulator can take over later in the year. The racing genre is one of the most competitive out there.
Wreckfest
Fun. That’s this year’s main word for the racing genre. Wreckfest came out on top by not only delivering the goods that racing fans want such as superb visuals, great physics, and well-made cars, but the game doesn’t’ take itself seriously and is pure fun. Smash, crash, and blast your way through opponents on and off the track. Can’t get more fun than that in this genre.
Strategy games are usually a PC mainstay and end up being killer apps on that platform. As technology, improved strategy games, both real-time and turn-based, leaked out onto consoles more with some memorable games and even some of the best in the genre’s history.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Fire Emblem’s continuous streak of top-quality games is refreshing. In a genre that has been mainly dominated by PC games, it’s nice to see a console game make a break. Fire Emblem has a fantastic story along with some incredibly deep turn-based strategy that isn’t topped by many others.
Fighting games are a very unstable genre in which you don’t know what you’re going to get year by year. You have your franchise heavy hitters and then you get some great indie games that come out swinging.
Mortal Kombat 11
For the last 9 years, Mortal Kombat has reigned supreme as one of the best fighting games on the market. Each year Netherrealm manages to push the series in new directions that feel fresh. I would be more than happy to crown another fighting game, but not many have topped the quality of MK. On MK’s off years is when other games get a chance, but until this series falters it will always remain the top fighter.
Reissue of games has been a hit or miss affair for the last 10 years with some doing a decent job to others completely remaking the game from the ground up. While remakes are more highly regarded than straight-up HD ports or touch-ups, it’s still a great way for a new generation of gamers to experience a classic.
Resident Evil 2
Reissues, HD remasters, remakes, whatever you want to call them, they have been part of our lives for the last 10 years and now we are thankfully leaning more towards remakes of our beloved games. Resident Evil 2 does this better than the rest due to the love and care put into the game. It’s not just a lazily updated game to run on current consoles, but a total from-the-ground-up remake of the game with features to enhance that game for current-generation systems.
There have been many Star Wars games over the last three decades. While some have been fan favorites, there has probably been a Star Wars game in every single genre imaginable. Even with the successful games, there has been one thing lacking from every game that hasn’t been done correctly until now: Jedi battles and lightsaber gameplay. Some of the other Star Wars games may have done it decently, but never as flashy or well done as Fallen Order, but that’s not the only quality this game has.
Fallen Order takes place during the timeline of the original movies, when Darth Vader was still alive. You play as Cal Kestis, a fallen Jedi who is on a mission to retrieve a holocron containing the location of every single Jedi child left. Like every Star Wars story, there is a Sith Lord after you, and in this case, the Second Sister of the Inquisitor Order is after you. Cal rides around with his Jedi pal Cere and pilot Greez. They use Greez’s ship as a hub area in which you can customize your lightsaber (more on that later) and travel around the four planets that the game offers. Each planet is a large open area that you are free to explore, and while you explore these planets, you acquire Jedi abilities and new tech for your droid, BD-1.
The main focus of Fallen Order is the fantastic combat system put into place. The game is incredibly responsive, has beautiful animations, and you really feel like an actual Jedi for the first time ever. You can use light attacks that are used the most, and heavy attacks use up your force meter. As time goes on, you acquire the double lightsaber, and then eventually the dual lightsaber becomes a powerful force ability. Parrying and dodging are keys to staying alive because you can’t just wail on enemies and spam attacks. Each enemy is unique, with its own attack powers. From regular Stormtrooper riflemen and shock troopers to powerful Purge Troopers that have heavy plasma swords, rocket launchers, and flame throwers, You can knock back energy blasts with your lightsaber and throwback projectiles, which are awesome. There are even a few occasions where you get to take down AT-ATs.
Once you acquire more force abilities, they can be used in combat, such as force push, pull, and slow. These are key to clearing rooms or knocking enemies off of cliffs, but they are also used in puzzle solving. There are only a few large puzzles in the whole game, but they are fun and require a bit of thinking and mastering the Force abilities. As you progress, you can use these new abilities to access new areas, such as pulling down ropes, blowing down weakened walls, slowing down fan blades, and more. You can access new areas to open chests that have customization items such as lightsaber parts, ponchos for Cal, and skins for BD-1 and your ship, the Mantis. You can also find Force Echo spots to add to your XP to level up.
So while exploring is completely optional if you just want to enjoy the story sections, there are several bombastic scripted events throughout the game that are incredibly enjoyable. Fighting a giant bird on Kashyyyk, or even running from Tie Fighters on another planet. The scripted events are worth playing alone, and I was highly entertained. This also leads to some amazing boss fights that put your skills to the test, in which you need to time parry and dodge perfectly while learning their attack patterns. While you travel through planets, you can unlock shortcuts, but I found it annoying that you couldn’t fast-travel between meditation spots.
As you gain XP and skill points, you can acquire new combat moves and increase your health and force meter. These are also increased by finding parts of three throughout the game. This is where Fallen Order takes a page out of Dark Souls’ book, as when you meditate, it saves your game there, but if you restore your health, all enemies in the world respawn. This can be quite annoying when you’re backtracking through an entire level to get back to your ship or something, since there is no fast travel feature. I also found that you must master the combat system in order to get through this game, especially at higher difficulties, as you can’t fast travel or move around easily throughout the game besides running away.
There is lightsaber customization, in which you can choose the blade color and the design of the switch, hilt, and various other parts. Sadly, you don’t get more colors until towards the end of the game, but all those chests you spend hours finding contain mostly lightsaber parts. Is it worth spending hours on it? Not really, but at least the chests are completely optional and won’t make you feel guilty for skipping them. Likewise, customization is cosmetic only, and there aren’t any ways to add abilities this way or change the actual shape of the lightsaber or anything, but it’s the most detailed customization we’ve ever had in a game.
With that said, Fallen Order scratches every Star Wars itch I have. The story is great and feels like it could fit into a Star Wars film. The characters are memorable and likable, and the satisfying conclusion at the end of the game makes the short playtime worthwhile. The usual plot twists and turns in a Star Wars film are present here, and it’s just good enough to make you surprised when a new event unfolds. I did feel the game was a bit slow in the beginning, especially if you’re fully exploring the planets and may spend an hour or two trying to find all the paths on the map and the chests. Speaking of the map, this is by far one of the best video game maps ever made. If you aren’t sure where to go, a yellow wall will appear on the map, showing you need to go in that direction still. Shortcuts are green; red objects mean you need to acquire that ability to advance past them, and it just feels so useful, and I constantly refer to it.
The game also looks gorgeous with some amazing vistas, especially at the beginning of the game on Brakka, and this just feels like a high-budget Star Wars movie. With amazing lighting effects, fantastically done motion capture, and voice acting, it has it all. I loved exploring the few planets in the Star Wars universe up close and personal, and the game is definitely memorable for that. I don’t have too many complaints about Fallen Order outside of the tedious backtracking, and the combat can be very difficult to master due to perfectly needing to time everything, but it’s challenging and just satisfying enough. I also wish the story were longer and there were more planets to explore, but that’s only because I enjoyed the game so much that I wanted more.
The multi-platform genre is usually one of the easiest categories to pick as it is usually filled with the best AAA games the year had to offer. This year had so many great games that a lot didn’t make it. While we are looking down the tunnel at the end of a console cycle once again, these are the games that this generation will be remembered by.
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 2 isn’t just a simple remake or reissue, but it sets the standards for how remakes should be. We’ve gone through almost 10 years of yearly remasters and HD collections, but RE2 shows actual love and care for a beloved game that has millions of fans. Everything from the most realistic zombies ever made to the fantastic new perspective, visual fidelity, and turning stilted ancient gameplay into something fresh.
Shooters have crawled their way back out of the depths since 2016 and are just getting better and better. With more sophisticated stories, groundbreaking visuals and tech, and fantastic multiplayer, 2019 was another notch in the shooter genre.
Call of Duty is the laughing stock of the shooter genre and the gaming industry as a whole. It’s amazing to see what one of the most criticized franchises crawl its way back up to the top spot. All it took was inward thinking and back to basics mentality. Modern Warfare has never been a better example of K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid.
Platinum Games makes phenomenal action games with a nearly perfect track record. From Bayonetta to Vanquish and beyond, they have proven that 2D action games can be translated to 3D and done well. With bombastic, flashy, yet deep combat, gorgeous visuals, and crazy character designs, Platinum Games is at the top of the action game developers’ hall of fame.
Astral Chain, their latest opus, puts you in the shoes of anime cop twins who have the ability to control Chimeras, which are astral beings. You are on a quest to stop a mad scientist from unleashing all of these creatures from the astral world onto Earth after a science experience in which the head scientist is trying to perfect the capture. Well, at least that’s what I think is going on. Platinum games are masters of combat, not storytelling or character development. The game goes on for so long with so little information in between that you sometimes forget what’s going on or what the end goal is.
The characters fall victim to this as well. Your character and your twin are supposed to be front and center here, but the entire game falls under stereotypical anime tropes and is just downright boring and uninteresting. Each character gets little screen time or even time to grow as the writing and dialog are drab and snooze-worthy. At least the voice acting is halfway decent for a localized Japanese video game, but it’s nothing that you will remember. I just wish the story and characters were as good as the combat, as this is Platinum’s deepest combat system yet.
You control yourself and your Chimera at the same time. Holding down ZL allows you to move the Chimera around, and holding down L allows you to take control of your Chimera. You can use it to solve puzzles in the astral planes, but it is vital to use in combat. The system seems a bit complicated at first, but you will slowly get a hold of it. When you flash white, you can press ZL to do a combo move with your Chimera, and these are keys to mastering to win. You have a light and heavy baton plus a gun, which I found completely useless, as well as healing items and buffing items. You can switch between five different Chimera that you acquire throughout the game, and these cover all bases of combat. Sword is a fast-paced light damage chimera; Arrow is the only long-ranged one; Beast is a fast-paced zippy dog; Arm is a slow-tromping heavy hitter; and Axe is the heaviest and slowest but provides a shield.
It’s important to use each Chimera based on your enemies, and you also have to level them up and assign bonuses and abilities. You can level up your weapon at the PD headquarters after every chapter, but you can’t buy new weapons, and there is no armor in this game. Any clothing is cosmetic only, sadly. There is one feature that allows you to “maintain” your Chimera but rub crystals off their body, but I saw no benefit to this, or I completely missed the point of it. Fighting through the main campaign isn’t the only thing you can do. There are side quests and missions in the large hub areas, such as solving quizzes for various arena challenges and even some light investigative work. This requires you to talk to people and gather keywords to advance the quest. It’s fun and interesting at first, but these same half-dozen quests repeat through the whole game and grow tiring after a while. The only reward is XP, or items, really; nothing too special.
Then we come across the other issues with Astral Chain. The game bounces between fighting on Earth and in the astral world, which is nice, but they both get tedious after a while. The astral plains are just fighting challenges and puzzles that require shooting down things with arrows, slicing doors, pushing blocks around, etc. They break up the monotony but later become part of it. The most interesting parts of the game are so far and few between, such as the high-speed bike ride through the tunnel, the scripted events, and the massive boss fights. Most chapters are just investing and then an astral plain area to acquire the next Chimera.
My next complaint isn’t just the drab story and characters, but the visuals are very bland and anime-inspired to a fault. There’s no unique look or visual style like Bayonetta; there’s nothing memorable here. All the astral levels look identical, and the same few hubs repeat in every chapter. Everything looks either too realistic for this type of game or just looks too much like a cookie-cutter anime. Even though the enemy designs are boring outside of some of the bosses, everything in Astral Chain just kind of blurs together after a while.
With that said, the combat is fantastic, and it’s enough to play through the 20-hour campaign. Ignore the boring and unfocused plot and characters and the generic visuals, and just concentrate on some good ‘ol bombastic combat that we really don’t get anymore. The game looks good technically for the Switch with nice lighting effects and good-looking models and textures, but I wanted more scripted events and cutting down on the fat with bloated side quests.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !