9 Best Hidden Gem Video Games Of 2019

7. Tetris 99

Remnant from the ashes
Arika

Throw out that copy of age-old adages gathering dust on your bookshelf: you most certainly can teach old dogs new tricks. 99, in the case of this modern twist on a bonafide video game classic.

Rather than attempt to reinvent Alexey Pajitnov's winning formula (you can't improve on perfection, after all), Arika tackled its desire to iterate on Tetris by taking a step back and looking at wider cultural trends. If the core gameplay requires no refining, then, the obvious answer is to redefine the parameters of how it's played

Battle royales, as it happens, need not be fought only with guns and gadgets in a needlessly bloated and saturated arena. 99 players inevitably become one through the simple act of obsessively completing neat and tidy rows of tetrominos. No monotonous supply gathering, teammate wrangling or setup required.

Plain. Simple. Perfect.

Contributor
Contributor

Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.