(epic orchestral music)
- [Dan Casey] Explaniac: Episode twenty-five.
It is a period of bitter cold.
Winter's setting in across the land
and it's suddenly dark at like 4:27pm for no good reason.
This leaves us with nothing to do
but press our face against the window pane
and stare wistfully into the middle distance,
thinking only of how we spent the last calender year.
We didn't learn Korean on Duolingo.
We joined the gym, but haven't been in like four months.
If we're being honest, we mostly ordered take-out
and played video games.
And these are the best video games in the galaxy,of 2019.
(retro synthewave music)
- Welcome to Explaniac, I'm Dan Casey and today
we're celebrating the very best video games of 2019.
This was a year that was jam-packed
with some seriously impressive titles,
and choosing the best of the best
was like "Sophie's Choice" but harder,
cause I don't have any kids,
but I do have a lot of video games
that I want to play, and a limited amount of spare time.
Now I'll put a full list of titles
in the description below, and remember,
if I left off your favorite title?
Well, I did that on purpose.
You know what you did Kevin.
You know.
Metro Exodus.
In a time where the narrative-focused first person shooter
seems to be waning, Metro Exodus stands out
as a shining example of the best the genre has to offer.
4A Games' epic harrowing return
to the mutant-filled post apocalyptic wasteland surrounding
Moscow, is as tense, thrilling,
and profoundly rewarding as ever.
Every encounter feels this fight for your life,
which is also how I imagine pre-apocalyptic
Russia feels like, cause I've watched like,
way too many dash cam videos on Reddit,
but that's neither here, nor there.
The Outer Worlds.
If you're like me, and you know that Fallout: New Vegas
is in fact the best Fallout game, period,
then The Outer Worlds was like mana from heaven.
Obsidian basically put New Vegas, Borderlands,
and Mass Effect into a blender, added some
of their signature silliness and world building,
and created one of my favorite new RPG's in years.
From the games memorable missions,
to the subtle ways it punishes you
for repeatedly breaking your legs,
to the visceral pleasure for reducing a snarling bandit
to a pile of ashes.
The Outer Worlds is a total blast
that you absolutely need to play.
Outer Wilds.
I know, sounds like Outer Worlds but
it's actually a different game.
It's fitting that as the doomsday clock ticks ever closer
to midnight, I found solace in a game
that's all about the end of the world.
In Outer Wilds, the world ends every 22 minutes,
and you're caught in this cosmic death loop,
as you go back before the end of days
to try and uncover another clue
that could help you prevent the heat-death of the universe.
It's thoughtful, it's contemplative, it's beautiful,
it's an intensely rewarding experience.
Even when you waste one of your play-throughs crashing
your rocket into the coastline because,
you were way too high or whatever?
Not that that happened to me, definitely some other player,
but you guys know what I'm saying, right?
Fun game.
Slay the Spire.
A perfect storm of popular video game genres,
Slay the Spire expertly blends rogue-like dungeon crawling,
with a surprisingly deep card game.
You will die many, many times, as you attempt
to ascend the spire.
Tweaking your deck, mixing and matching relics
to min-max your stats, and charging headlong into danger,
through the game's constantly shifting halls.
It's the kind of game that you sit down to play
for like, an hour? And before you know it,
the sun's coming up.
Which is to say, the best kind.
Control.
Finally a video game that appreciates brutalist architecture
almost as much as my college roommate James.
This reality-warping, mind-melting story takes you deep
into the halls of the shadowy government agency,
the Federal Bureau of Control,
for a seriously addictive metroid-vania style of adventure,
full of psychic powers, deeply weird events,
and secrets galore.
It's the kind of game that you won't want
to stop playing until the credits roll,
and then you might just have
to start playing it all over again.
Apex Legends.
The worst thing to happen to Mozambique since Vasco da Gama,
is also one of the best games of the year.
As the battle royale genre approached critical mass,
Apex Legends set itself apart with slick gunplay,
adrenaline-pumping action, god-tier traversal mechanics,
and characters that have personality
beyond just stealing dance moves from black artists.
If it can keep up a steady stream of new content in 2020,
it's gonna keep me playing well into the new year.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
At last, something has combined the visceral thrills
of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, with a nightmarish
vision of feudal Japan.
Sekiro:Shadows Die Twice, is quite possibly the best therapy
that money can buy, outside of actual therapy
which we could all pretty much benefit from.
Really hope we get universal health care next year.
You'll be forced to confront your simmering rage head-on
as you battle through its myriad challenges.
You'll come to believe in yourself
as you defeat it's seemingly insurmountable bosses,
and you'll learn to accept your impending death,
because holy sh*t are you gonna die a lot playing this game.
But honestly, that's what makes it all worth while.
Disco Elysium.
Now I know this sounds like a David Bowie album
that was lost in the sands of time and cocaine,
but it's actually one of the best RPG's in ages.
Disco: Elysium puts you in the shoes of an alcoholic,
amnesiac detective trying to solve a murder case
in a city in shambles.
It eschews traditional RPG combat
in favor of dialogue trees and skill checks that,
depending on which skills you've invested in,
will yield wild and unexpected results.
It's whip smart writing, wicked sense of humor,
and inventive gameplay mechanics make this
an absolute must-play, especially if you yearn
for the Halcyon days of isometric RPG's past.
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order.
Now folks, Star Wars has never been afraid of wearing
its influences on its sleeve.
Just as George Lucas synthesized his love of Flash Gordon,
Akira Kurosawa, and old-school movie cereals
into its original trilogy, Respawn synthesized elements
of Uncharted, Mass Effect, Sekiro, and a boat-load
of other titles into the best new Star Wars game in years.
Journeying across the galaxy far, far away
with Cal Kestis and BD-1, felt both familiar and new.
You got to create these epic moments
where all the artifice is stripped away,
and you just lose yourself
in this elemental battle between good and evil.
From using the force, to parkour off a wall,
and just carve through a brigade of Stormtroopers,
to uncovering ancient Jedi tombs,
to beating the ever-loving hell out
of that god damn Oggdo Bogdo.
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order is some of the best
Star Wars in a year full of excellent Star Wars,
and honestly, it may be the best
because it lets me do the only thing I ever care about
in Stars Wars games: force-push doofus' off
of ledges to their demise!
There is nothing more satisfying in gaming
than getting an environmental kill,
especially when you just
f*cking choke slam 'em to oblivion.
F*ck those guys.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
Now the most divisive question of the year
isn't which candidate you're gonna support
in the 2020 presidential election,
it's which house did you choose
in Fire Emblem: Three Houses?
The king of strategy RPG's has returned with a thunderclap
of a game, that puts you in the shoes of a teacher
with a mysterious past, and a teenage military academy.
Basically, it's like Hogwarts but with more murder,
which is saying something,
considering all the murder they did at Hogwarts.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg
for this conspiracy and betrayal-filled narrative,
that encompasses everything from ancient deities,
to kidnapping, to all out war.
It's relentlessly charming cast of characters,
deep tactical combat, and engrossing storytelling
are gonna keep you playing well into the wee hours
of the morning, and the next day as well.
Honestly, play it on classic
for the most rewarding play-through,
and then play it through like,
three more times so you get every ending,
every possible twist and turn this story takes.
And those are the best games of 2019.
There were so many amazing games that came out this year
that weren't on my list, so in that spirit,
please celebrate all of the awesome games
that you played this year, by sharing your favorite titles
of 2019 in the comments below.
And while you're at it, tell me
what you're most looking forward to in 2020.
Thank you so much for watching.
If you enjoyed this video, please like and share
with your friends, and subscribe
to our channel while you're at it.
If you want even more gaming goodness,
be sure to check out past episodes of Explainiac,
where refined nerdist content is streamed.
And thank you again to everyone who tuned
into Explainiac this year. I want to take a moment
to thank some of the awesome people who work
on this show behind the scenes that you may not know.
Talking about folks like Steven Czerwinski, Marhyan Franzen,
and Shiraz Dhume, and the ghost of Erin Vail.
I sincerely appreciate you and everything that you do.
I could not make this without you.
And most importantly, thank you to everyone who took
the time to watch this show, to comment,
to share it with their friends
and be a part of our community.
Truly, without you folks out there,
there would be no show, so thank you very much,
and have a happy and healthy new year.
And remember, not everything in life can be explained,
but for everything else there's this show.