TGAM: Our Games of 2019

A.K.A it's 1998 again, A.K.A Richie and Cunzy's gaming tastes are so on the beaten track that there's a well worn runnel slap bang in the middle of the beaten track, the very beaten track if you like, and that's the only place we'll ever walk. Apologies to all those indies, new IPs, unique genres and innovative games we're only playing stuff we know, stuff we played already, remasters, re-releases and sequels. Looking through the games of 2019 I made myself actual chunder with how boringly quotidian our games list was going to be. We apologise to both of you in advance.

IT WAS ALSO A BUMPER FUCKING YEAR FOR GAMES. It's like 1998 again. The Switch is the new PlayStation and we've not been excited for """"""new""""" releases like this for a long time. I think we picked up almost all of these on launch day and it's been a long time since a year has inspired us to do that. In no apparent order:

Resident Evil 2 (Cunzy & Richie)
Cunzy: You know when you want something for so long that your expectations are built up so much that the reality can never really live up to the hype. We were practically done with the Resident Evil 2 remaster or whatever you may call it before it came out. Surely, it won't be good. Well it was good and a perfect mix of nostalgia and update. There was something strangely refreshing too about a game that was done in just a few hours. It ended. You played it because you wanted to not because the daily logins or sub fees or challenges or endless levelling sucked you back in. I went through 3/4 campaigns in quick succession but have to admit barely touched all the extra stuff they added afterwards. It seemed to really strike a chord with players though who were quickly speed running and smashing the shit out of that game. Likely one I'll return to again and again over the years. Didn't include the line about "That guy's a maniac" though  so 2/10 overall.

Richie:
PC Mods a reminder that human beings cant have nice things:

DMC V (Richie)
Devil May Cry is all you could want in a Devil may cry game and more, the addition of V as a a character was amazing, ignoring the DMC Ninja other universe thing. The "plot" was "good" as good as a mindless demon slaying excuse can get. Surprisingly nice was the game had Zero monetization, "Here have a game, there are different difficulties, and a battle tower, enjoy", you can buy unlockables such as alt colours you would get if you poured several hundred hours into the game.

The whole family is back and more, and also another feverent reminder that human beings cant have nice things:

Tetris 99 (Cunzy)
It's fucking Tetris. Excellent theme remix. Grateful for the extra modes. Despite what I just said up above in relation to Resident Evil 2, all the continued Games As A Service stuff has got me logging in to 'unlock that skin' or 'try new modes' only to re-emerge 4 hours later with sore thumbs and bloodshot eyes. Fucking great. I just wish I could get old man Richie to understand how the Tetris 99 online worked so he'd give it a fighting chance. (Richie: Tetris is not an online game, never was, it was on a gameboy and that was my last interaction with it tetris 99 is an abomination, jumping on the battle royale bandwagon)

Final Fantasy VII (Richie and Cunzy) 
Richie: Arguably one of the first time sinks in video games, yeas sure you can "complete" the game in 30ish hours, but If you wanna get those Ruby and Emerald Weapons killeded you need to sink waaaay more into that. Initially we were not fussed about this release but a brief ill advised soiree, into the podcast Castle super Beast got us hyped for it, even if we were just furious at one of the "presenters" having some rather pervy memories about how some of that shit when down. (Spoilers: Cloud did not do Tifa doggy style while everyone watched)
Cunzy1 1: The music still gets us, unintuitively the pre-rendered backgrounds with Tekken block characters hold up today and we can play it on the go, skip random battles and take snapshots and short clips? I'll see you in 7th Heaven.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Cunzy)
Fire Emblem with Harry Potter where you're put in a position of power over rainbow-haired murderous teens? What. Could go wrong?

Pokemon Sword and Shield (Cunzy and Richie) 
Continuing the Pokemon domination our lives, leaving our partners ever concerned at the growing amount of time spent on it, never mind the merchandise that continues to creep into our homes. Don't even start on our search histories. In short, dexit was over-hyped. game good.

WoW Classic (Richie) 
Ref TGAM 2004-2008: RIP Richie's interaction with other games:

Return of the Obra Dinn (Cunzy)
An indie game? Yes but before you bust my chops for wearing moccasins with no socks to the community jazz jam, this is one of those games that everyone and their dog (the PC folk) was fawning over for a whole year before it got ported to a proper gaming system. I mean, they were right. It's fantastic. A glorious little self contained package of sweetness unlike anything else out there and in no need of sequelising, remixing, updating or any of that nonsense. It's one of those "if you say anything you've said too much about it" games though so just trust me.

Gal Gun 2 (Nobody)
Richie: What we never, no Idea what you are talking about...
Cunzy1 1: What, that game where you shoot schoolgirls in the tits and biff to rid them of horny trolls and get them to calm the fuck down? Never heard of it.