The American technology site The Verge, among the most read and authoritative in the world in the sector, has published as always its list of the ten most beautiful video games of the year. There are all the major consoles, and many different genres: shooters, role-playing games, reboots of old classics and even one that is based only on footage of real actors (no sports video game, however). On the other hand, there is no Death Stranding, one of the titles that has been talked about the most and that Matteo Bordone loved a lot, who had reviewed it here.
Bordone, Francesco Fossetti and Alessandro Zampini of Joypad spoke of the best video games of the year and those awarded at the Game Awards, an important annual event held in Los Angeles, or “Run, Jump, Shoot”, or the former video game video series has now become a podcast. You can listen to the first episode here, and subscribe on the main podcast platforms to not miss the next ones.
Baba is You
PC, Nintendo Switch
It is a puzzle game, that is, a video game based on the solution of puzzles, developed by the Finnish independent producer Arvi Teikari and which The Verge defines as “incredibly cute and intelligent”. It is based on the manipulation of the rules themselves of the puzzles: by moving bricks with simple phrases written on them, the landscape or objects and the way they interact with each other are changed. For example: in some cases you can change the character played, replacing the “Baba” of the words “Baba is you” with “Rock is you”, and thus starting to control a stone instead of the normal rabbit. It is an “enchanting exploration of how video games build their narratives around completely abstract rules”.
Control
PC, PS4, Xbox One
The Finnish company Remedy Entertainment developed it, the Italian 505 Games published it, and it is a third-person video game in which you play an agent of a secret US agency that deals with paranormal phenomena. The controlled character also has paranormal powers, along with a special weapon with many functions. It's a mix of The X-Files, Jeff VanderMeer's Area X Trilogy, and Metroid and Zelda video games, writes The Verge, which explains that Control is more about exploration than action and shooter parts. , of the agency headquarters, full of mysteries.
Devil May Cry 5
PC, PS4, Xbox One
It is the fifth chapter of one of the most famous video game sagas, much awaited because it was released eleven years after the previous one (a reboot was released in the middle). The protagonist Dante is a demon hunter who must avenge the death of his mother by beating more or less horrendous monsters. In this round the usable characters are three, and the gameplay has been developed in order to encourage elegant and “stylish” fights. As The Verge writes: «There is a scene in Devil May Cry 5 where one of the protagonists, dressed in leather, lifts a motorcycle, breaks it in two, and uses the pieces as a weapon to kill the demonic monsters. Do you need to know more? “.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Nintendo Switch
It is the latest chapter in a saga that has only been available for portable devices for over ten years. It is a role-playing video game based partly on fighting and partly on social interactions between the characters, whose narrative lines are also deepened thanks to the many animations. The setting is fantasy, inspired by the European Middle Ages, and the protagonists are students of an academy. The Verge writes that the strength of the video game is how the parts of strategic combat and social simulation are joined together, as well as the construction of the story and the choices it imposes on the player.
Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
Nintendo Switch
It is the reboot of one of the most famous video games of the nineties, Link's Awakening, from the Zelda series and released in 1993. The setting of the game is that of Game Boy video games, with the graphics and playability of 25 years later. The story is always that of Link, the protagonist of the series, who has to leave the island on which he was shipwrecked, solving puzzles and fighting against funny creatures along the way.
Outer Wilds
PC, PS4, Xbox One
It is set on a mysterious planet, which the protagonist must leave within 22 minutes before the nearest star explodes in a supernova. You can't do it right away, of course: but with each repetition you collect some more clues, you explore a piece of the solar system useful to solve the riddle. Basically a Groundhog Day with rockets and alien species gone. “It requires a certain dedication to get to see the credits: but there won't be another game that will give you so many profound things to do”.
Pokémon Sword and Shield
Nintendo Switch
According to The Verge it is a game that has managed to reinvent a series that has remained almost the same for a long time, maintaining the foundations that made the Pokémon franchise so popular but adding new elements and improving the existing ones: “it is the most complete and fresh chapter in the series for many years “.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
PC, PS4, Xbox One
It is set in the sixteenth century in Japan, in the so-called Sengoku period, and has as its protagonist a shinobi – that is, a ninja – without one arm, who must save the noble to whom he has sworn allegiance. It was developed by FromSoftware, the same studio as Bloodborne and Dark Souls, and it was one of the most awarded and celebrated games of the year: according to The Verge it is fun even if you are not very good at playing it, because every time you understand exactly the why you died.
Telling Lies
iOS, macOS, PC
It is a video game made up of real movies, in which well-known actors such as Logan Marshall-Green, Alexandra Shipp, Kerry Bishé and Angela Sarafyan also appear: it is a “desktop thriller” in which you have to analyze and compare different video calls to understand why the protagonists are supervised by the NSA (to which the hard disk with the videos belongs). It was made by Sam Barlow, who in 2015 made a similar video game called Her Story, which critics liked.
Untitled Goose Game
PC, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One
It is a game with a strange and rather haphazard story, developed by Australian House House after a protracted discussion about geese started from a stock photo shared by one of the employees. A joke that went too far, practically, and which however received a lot of positive reviews and good success, since it was for a while the best-selling game for the Nintendo Switch. The plot is very simple: you play a duck and you have to do many small missions in a small English town, driving the inhabitants crazy.
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