My Top 20 New Old Games of 2025 (15–11)

Dystopias, party time, and some cozy couple couch co-op.

Much of my time gaming this year was spent socially. Whether with my partner, with friends online, or with my brother and his family, multiplayer has taken up a good chunk of my time. Still I try to get in as much solo experience as I can, since they tend to be the ones that really get me. I’m a bit of a narratologist you might say. It definitely has nothing to do with me loving my alone time.

As a reminder:

New Old Game: A game released prior to the calendar year being discussed, that being 2025, that I have not played before in any significant way. Usually, that means rolling credits, but this is my list so I get to bend my own rules as I please.

If you’d like to catch up on this years list you can do so here:

My Top 5 Old Old Games.

My Top 20 New Old Games (20–16).

15. Mario Party: Superstars (2021)

I won the first dozen times I played this game against my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. A truly magnificent run of dominance put on display as Waluigi. Ruthless in strategy and nearly a sure thing in every mini-game. Only when my enemies conspired against me did I finally falter.

Superstars is a much better Mario Party than whatever the prior one is called with its nonsensical addition of companion character mechanics. Hated that junk.

14. Biped (2020)

Firmly in the goofy physics puzzler, Biped lands itself in the camp of failure is fun experiences. Controlling a bipedal robot with each of the stubby legs matched to a corresponding control stick, again the shared DNA with titles such as QWOP or Grow Home is obvious. Of course, foundationally, this is a co-op experience on top of its familiar but nonetheless enjoyable puzzle platforming.

Allow me to be a little romantic dork for a second. I met my partner earlier this year in the late spring and we bonded over a number of things, but video games were one of the big ones. Deploying the goofy physics to grief each other — I will never tire of the spinning kick sending my partner flying off the screen — and of course occasionally solving puzzles. Biped is the first co-op experience we completed together over late night Discord calls. Chatting well after both of our brains were fried from over puzzling.

13. Ghost in the Shell (1997)

In a number of ways, Ghost in the Shell on the PS1 is very Ace Combat. A level based game in which you control a piece of high-tech machinery of war. Between missions, top down tactical readouts flash across the screen as superiors chatter and bark orders. It’s a vibes based shooter, leaning hard into the manga’s style but animated by Production I.G. who are responsible for the fantastic adaptions, from the late 90’s and early 2000's.

Of course the humorous thing is that you don’t take control of Motoko. Not Batou or even Togusa. Instead you’re an unnamed rookie trapped in one of the AI spider like tanks, the Fuchikoma. These vehicles are all about mobility as made evident by the constant power sliding and wall climbing required to navigate levels and track down terrorists. Can this be disorienting at times? Yes, but its enjoyable as you zip to and fro; spiraling around every surface of a tunnel or leaping between skyscrapers.

12. Untitled Goose Game (2019)

More co-op romance!

As might have been illustrated by the Biped entry, I can be a bit of a shit when gaming socially. Untitled Goose Game is quite enabling in that regard. Though the virtual harassment isn’t targeted at my dear partner this time.

A truly delightful little pest simulator wrapped in a series of simple object manipulation puzzles, all in a very British theme. It’s as simple as that and even so, quite effective at letting you embody the world’s worst type of bird. As a certified goose hater, thanks to playing on baseball fields the local geese enjoyed defecating all over, this is exactly what I imagine geese would enjoy doing if they had a little more creativity with their dickish ways.

11. Desert Child (2018)

You could just chill on a cool hover bike vibing to the sweet 90’s PC pixelated art style and good tunes and it would be reason enough to enjoy Desert Child. However, there’s also a pretty good game here that feels like the sections of Shenmue where you’ve gotta earn enough money via side-gigs to track down Lan Di. Here though, you’re merely trying to escape a destitute life on Earth for one of stardom as a hoverbike racer on Mars. Along the way you’ll have to earn money to fix up and improve your bike as well as keep food in your belly. You could do that via racing, but you could also help hack a bank or deliver pizza. Two totally equal and morally correct choices.

Desert Child really is a bit size chunk of Shenmue refined and reformed into a few hour experience that holds its own and has some truly delicious vibes. The streets of Mars are initially overwhelming with their seemingly mangled layout and vibrant colors. Eventually becoming a home to the everyday monotony as you scrape by, hoping someday your lot in life will change.