I am not going to lie, I really haven't played that many new games this year and spent most of my time digging into the ever-growing backlog. Like most Steam users, my library never stops growing. So I have decided to cut my list down to my list to just the top 5 games of 2019.

5. Star Trek Online (S16, S17, S18)

Okay, yes, this isn't a new game and in the eyes of many, it's not a very good one, but it is one I have enjoyed for many years and made a lot of friends through. This year they stepped it up a notch for seasoned players, introducing many new ways to get high-end gear and ships. It's now easier than ever for end game players to make really good builds.

4. Apex Legends

Respawn Entertainment's entry into the battle royale genre really came out of nowhere and took the gaming world by storm. No one was really expecting the next entry in the Titanfall universe to be a battle royale game, but it really was something we never knew we needed. The super fast-paced squad-based shooter took up many of my nights, as me and a few friends got together at LANs to play this over a few beers.

3. Wargroove

This was another game that I don't think many players saw coming, I know I certainly didn't. This is a turn-based tactics game, much like Advanced Wars. It's a style of game that really hasn't had many other Iterations, so to see someone making one in 2019 was amazing.

2. My Time At Portia

As a long time fan of the Harvest Moon games and Stardew Valley, this one was right up my alley. Everything about this game is super cute and the cartoon style is kind of reminiscent of games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. It is a time sink that gives you the feeling that you have to do one more project to build one more item for your community.

1. Control

I really feel that if there is one game everyone should play this year; this is it. Remedy did a great job with almost every aspect of this game, from the setting, story and visual design, to the stellar soundtrack and really tight fast-paced combat. As a fan of the band Poets of the Fall, I was glad to hear them reprising their role as members of the fictional band Old Gods of Asgard for the soundtrack. The take on an open-world game is really something different, as you work your way through the strange labyrinth-like building, that is the Federal Bureau of Control, it becomes evident that there is more to this place than it first leads on, as you travel between dimensions.

On a technical level, the game is impressive as well, with a massive focus on its destructible environments, which you will literally use as a weapon a lot of the time. It is hard to not look on in awe, as in some of the larger battles, chairs, table, bits of wall and just about anything else gets blasted, not just everywhere but into hundreds of pieces. This really makes the super-fast combat feel impressive and that your superhero like powers are tearing the place apart.

Control really is another great release from Remedy, and it's my Game of the Year.

(12/20/2019: Please note that this blog was edited by the GameSpot staff)

So once again I have returned to STO (Star Trek Online) for season 8 and I found myself once again in STFE (Special Task Force: Elite), testing out the new ship Obelisk Carrier; a top level ship players can pick up for free at this time. It took me a while to get used to the set up of a carrier, as I tend to fly the high DPS escorts, but after a couple of different set-ups, I found this slow support beam ship really fun to fly.

This sort of ship really can't turn and while it's two wings of fighters can lay down quite a lot of fire, they are fairly weak. So the DPS of this ship is highly variable. It plays a much better support role. With is high hull strength it is a good tank, and it's large amount of engineering slots can provide a lot of support.

For gear I went with beam weapons and additional armour and shields, to provide a decent broadside, while me ship sits in the fray.

Ship Setup

Fore Weapons: 3x Antiproton Beam Array Mk XII [Acc] [CrtH] [Borg]

Deflector: Adapted M.A.C.O. Positron Deflector Array Mk XII

Impulse: Adapted M.A.C.O. Combat Impulse Engines Mk XII

Warp: Obelisk Subspace Rift Warp Core

Shields: Adapted M.A.C.O. Covariant Shield Array Mk XII

Aft Weapons: 3x Antiproton Beam Array Mk XII [Acc] [CrtH] [Borg]

Device: Shield Batteries, Weapons Batteries, 2x Auxiliary Batteries

Engineering Consoles: 2x Electroceramic Hull Plating Mk XI [Rare], x1 Monotanium Alloy Mk XI [Very Rare], x1 Assimilated Module

Science Consoles: 2x Field Generators Mk XII [Rare], x1 Emitter Array Mk XI [Rare]

Tactical Consoles: 2x Antiproton Mag Regulator Mk XI [Rare]

Hanger: 2x Obelisk Swarmers

I decided to go with the Adapted M.A.C.O. set and two Field Generators with this ship, so it had almost 15,000 shields per side, and the Emitter Array to improve shield healing. So with it's total 61,000 hull and the Electroceramic Hull Plating & Monotanium Alloy to protect against the Borgs Plasma and Kinetic attacks, this monster is a real tank.

In the image above you can see that with this gear, you have plenty of energy to spare, so locked my weapons at full and put the shields as high as they would go next. This allows this ship to output a lot more damage and tank really well. As for the officer slots, I went with mainly healing, slows and de-buffs. These are some of the most important skills needed in STF if you're not playing a high DPS ship.

So as a summery this is a good all round ship, while it's no escort for DPS, it's also no weakling and will provide your team with a lot of much needed support and healing.

If you have any questions or if you enjoyed this and would like me to do more on other ships please leave me a comment below.

Come in grab a drink and some snacks. We are here to celebrate the 365 weeks, 2557 days, or for those of you who still haven't looked over to the left and done the math the 7 years I've been a member here at GameSpot. Many of you will know me and many of you will have seen me around, but almost all of you wont know that I've actually been using GameSpot since the late 90s.

Over the last 7 years I've had lots of ups and downs. Ive been forced in and out of jobs due to the poor economic state.  I've come to terms with my dyslexia and the depression it causes.  I've travelled and seen many crazy thing, scary things and wondrous things. My tastes have changed a lot over these 7 years, I now eat meat, I dont just wear black anymore and I'm now more open minded with music. But over these years something hasn't changed, my love of gaming and my love for Gamespot, my go to gaming site.

Not to say that nothing has changed here at GameSpot, quite the opposite. Like the content it covers, the site has had many changes. Layouts and programs have come and gone. So have members and staff. Many of which I've joked with, argued with, and had a lot of fun with. Even with the changes I've always felt that my contribution was welcome and wanted as a member.

So I'd like to take this time to say thank you. Thank you the members I've had so much fun with. Thank you to the staff, the ones who are here now and the ones who have gone. A special thank you to my local team GameSpot UK. Finally a very special to the community managers and the moderators, who do so much work to make sure we the members are having a good time.

Here's to a great 7 years and hopefully another 7.

GAME ON!!!

For International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Captain Synthia has set a number o' quests t' find some buried treaaye. X marks t' spot where you can find them.

Now for some Sea shanties

Alestorm - Shipwrecked

SWASHBUCKLE - Cruise Ship Terror

Abney Park - Airship Pirate

Running Wild - Pirate Song

Erock - Pirates of the Caribbean by Hans Zimmer Meets Metal

Once again this years E3 has flooded our minds with new and exciting games for us to look forwards to in the future. While not everything we wanted made an appearance, we were still spoiled for choice. After seeing the backlash over the presentation of this years Readers Choice awards. I decided to build a version closer to how the older voting systems worked. While not as elaborate in design, I and many users felt it was a simpler and fairer way to judge what as a community we felt was the best of E3.


Overall there was quite a good turn out and a lot of the regular Fuse crowd voted. With such a wide range of cool looking games on display this year, the votes were spread over quite a large range of genres and styles, showing the the diversity of the Fuse community. Almost every game received at least one vote.


While it was very close, after the the votes had been counted and double checked. Three games stood out as the clear cut winners. So I am proud to give you the Fuse top 3 games of E3.

3rd Place: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

2nd Place: Tomb Raider.

1st Place: Assassin's Creed III

Maybe we'll see a similar out come from the Reader Choice awards but at this time it looks like we'll be lucky if they ever announce the winners.

I would like to take this time to thank everyone who voted. This really could not have been done with out you. To the Fuse Community, thank you.

So I haven't really been able to do my weekly blog and I've decided that it was stating to be a little too forced. I started these to try and improve my writing in general, as I have quite bad dyslexia and writing anything at all is a challenge. When I was younger I was really ashamed of it and learnt to cover it up quite well. I don't really know how many people read my blog or how many of them would even be able to guess I have these problems. I really want to keep writing these blogs, as I feel that by writing even a little helps me in the long run. I am however going to make some change to the how often I do them. I couldn't keep up with doing them weekly and honestly they started to feel a bit pointless. So from now on I'm going with at least once a month.

In other news...

My old GPU that was in my main rig finally cooked itself and while I probably could have resurrected it, I got it a much needed upgrade.

I upgraded from this old power hungry nVidia flagship GPU the 8800GTX, which even today is a monster of a card. To a ATI HD 6850. This little card uses a bit less power and with the ASUS directCU V2 it's a lot cooler. For the price it's probably the most bang you can get for your buck today. In terms of computer graphics this is a £100 nuclear bomb.

Music!

So to round this off lets have a few tunes I've been enjoying recently :)

Shinedown - 45

Rise Against - Hero Of War

Love and Death - Chemicals

And something a little diffrent. I really like the video to this one.

Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know (KDrew Remix)

Games

Mass Effect 3

So I haven't posted about what I've been playing in a little while now, mainly because I've only been playing a few multiplayer games on and off. It's also because I've been playing a game that has been in my mind since I finished the second game and I've been savoring it like a malt whiskey.

The Mass Effect trilogy is by far one of the best Sci-Fi stories in games so far. In my opinion it is what Star Wars was for films but for games. Throughout the series the choices you made had effects that tailored your own story. So with the save I made in the first game, it felt like even in the end chapter of the third that it was my story and that the choices I made through out the series were still playing out.

As far as gameplay, in ways it's come miles from the first game. They have refined the combat again from the second and it feels even more fluid. The guns as fun to play with, during the exciting set pieces and the enemies have a good variety. Though I will be glad I won't have to face another wave of brutes and banshees again. As far RPG side still feels really toned down and still lacks the diversity the first game had.

Graphically all these games have been fairly impressive, both technically and artistically. Using lots of effects seen in films to immerse the player and aid the story telling. This is for the most part true of the third game. A number of bugs some times ruin the carefully crafted moods of the game. A number of times shaders would go crazy, causing some extremely distracting shadow flickering and some animations would be interrupted abruptly.

These problems are mere nit picks compared to what I'm about to talk about. Everyone probably saw this coming and I will keep it spoiler free. I was determined to like the ending, I thought that if Bioware had done so well up to this point, there was no way they could mess this up. I keep replaying the last ten minuets of the game in my head. I still can't believe that was how it ended. My feelings on it are mixed and I can't decide if I like or hate the ending. It didn't make much sense at all and it really didn't offer much closer to the series. I wasn't expecting what happened, that's for sure.

In conclusion I did enjoy the the game and unlike a lot of people, I'm not going to write off a good 30 hour game because of the ending.

Music!

Lets start this off with some rock :)

KMFDM - Light

Paradise Lost - The Rise Of Denial

Dope Stars Inc. - Two Dimensional World

With the release of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP on PC, here's a track I like.

Jim Guthrie - The Prettiest Weed

I'll finish on something Bioshocky.

Publicly Anonymous ft Veela - Killings

So you may have been wondering what has happened to my blog these past few weeks. Well I decided that I wasn't ready to write about what I was playing just yet (I'm sure some of you will have guessed what game I'm talking about). I'm due to me been rather busy, I'm still not at that point yet.

So to make this blog a little less pointless.

Music!

Peter Hollens & Lindsey Stirling - Skyrim

Mint Julep - Aviary

Seasons After - Cry Little Sister

Age of Oppression - Skyrim Cover

You Can Hear The Cry Of The Planet - A Tribute To Final Fantasy VII