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10. Venba
One of the best ways you can show someone that you love them is by cooking a good meal. Venba is a game that portraits culture, family, and traditions through the power of food. No matter where you come from, this is a language anyone can understand. Just ask Jeff Grubb if you don’t believe us. We poured all our love and affection into that mate we gave him at Summer Game Fest (he is still coming down from that high). Here in Argentina, we are not that connected to Indian cuisine, but we know a thing or two about spreading love by sharing a meal. An asado on Sundays, going to your grandparents house to eat some good pasta, your mum preparing milanesas for you and your friends after school are just a few examples of food traditions that, just like in Venba, can tell the story of a culture and its people. This game is a brief but wholesome experience that’s gonna make you shed a tear or two. It certainly made us cry a few times.
9. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
At E3 2019, we asked the Vice President of FromSoftware in a motorhome at Devolver Digital’s parking lot (it looked more like the set of an adult film than a place to have an interview) if they were ever going to make an "Armored Souls". He laughed at the question and brushed it off. Turns out he already knew they were making one, except it was less of a souls-like than we thought and more of an unapologetic AC experience. There is no game that makes you feel as cool as this. It’s the best mecha anime you’ve ever watched but you are actually playing it. Prior to its release, we used to make jokes about how much time we were going to spend making a spreadsheet in-game and even though customizing your mech is a huge part of the whole AC experience, once you embark on a mission you’ll feel like the coolest dude alive. If video games are a way to fulfill our wildest fantasies, this game allows you to be the greatest mech pilot ever without the whole existential crisis and anime drama.
8. Dave The Diver
Mashups are a beautiful thing. You combine two concepts that shouldn’t go together to make an even greater one. That’s what’s so great about Dave The Diver, a game that blends a diving roguelite action game with how to run a sushi restaurant in the middle of paradise island. It’s also a game that makes us chubby folks feel represented; Dave’s one of us, if he can do it then you can also hunt sharks and serve intricate dishes at the same time (well, maybe not the shark hunting part, but you get our point). There’s a great cast of characters, a lot of humor, a hidden mermaid civilization, Bancho preparing the greatest plate of sushi you’ll ever see and a lot more in one of the most unique games of the year.
7. Cocoon
If we are being honest, we still don’t really know what the hell goes on in Cocoon. It’s a cryptic, weird and fascinating puzzle game that has one of the coolest game mechanics of the year. The first time you realize that that little orange ball you are carrying has a whole freaking world in it, your mind gets blown into oblivion. However, it’s a puzzle game that doesn’t make you feel like an idiot. It’s not extremely hard and you can get by most of the objectives after just a few tries. This is something other puzzle games have struggled in the past; we still have nightmares about some riddles from The Witness for example. But, Cocoon is so brilliantly designed that it manages to both never underestimate the player and also give them the necessary hints to never get stuck. This is a masterclass in puzzle design that everyone should play.