God, that was a weird one, huh?
As a rule, gaming took fewer hits from 2020 than most other aspects of the entertainment industry—a few delays here, the occasional massive, discourse-destroying trainwreck there—but overall, pretty smooth sailing. As such, our annual list of the year’s most interesting games takes two fairly divergent paths: Those games that gave us comfort and connection in this most bizarrely hermetic of years, and those that pushed the boundaries to provide something fascinating and new. The push-and-pull there has been endlessly intriguing, as a two-year-old mobile game suddenly became the topic of congressional interest, old franchises learned some shockingly new tricks, and Bugsnax did… well, whatever the hell it is, exactly, that Bugsnax did. (Horrify us with cartoon food monsters, mostly.)
The A.V. Club’s Games team is here to present our picks for our favorite games that came out in 2020 (or, at least, gained prominence in same), focusing as much as we can on games that we didn’t already cover with our mid-year piece—so no Last Of Us II, Final Fantasy VII Remake, or other faves from the top-half of the year. As always, we’ve eschewed a formal ranking in favor of our breakdown of the Games We Liked—complete with our “I liked ____ because ____” formulation for getting our preferences in order. Feel free to read the list, and then click over to the comments to give us your own takes on what went right and wrong in 2020 (Video Games Only edition, please); we’ll take some of your answers for our traditional Games You Liked feature that’ll run next week.
And now, without further ado: The games!
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I’ve only played Valhalla from this list. I liked it overall, including less focus on looting a million weapons to either sell or disassemble. But I felt like it lacked some of the historical trivia/context I liked in the other games. Yes, there’s still a database and Sean’s snarky tone is kinda back, but there’s no historical map overlay, and the database itself feels very thin. That combined with an era that doesn’t have the strong architectural references of many of the other games made it fall a little short on the history geek stuff I really loved from the other AC games I’ve played.
The best game of the year (Which was a complete package with very few bugs) was Crusader Kings 3. How that is not on your list and Marvel Avengers is on your list is something I would like to hear an explanation of.
Because enjoyment of different games is inherently subjective?I love the Paradox Interactive grand strategy games, but they’re still a bit of a niche genre.
I mentioned this back at the half-year point, but I liked Final Fantasy VII Remake because it made itself accessible for newbies like me. The original game is so venerated within gaming culture, and I pretty well missed the boat on playing first time around. Going in with next to no knowledge (I knew Sephiroth kills Aeris and that’s about it) I was glad to find that, though there were a number of references happening around me (that I was too oblivious to see) it didn’t in any way hinder my enjoyment of the game. Quite the opposite: it has stellar production values, and a really great combat system (something I’ve generally liked less and less in JRPGs). And though I don’t have the same 20+ year attachment to the characters, I still found myself taken with them, thanks to great writing and performances. What’s more, it’s kind of fun to be in the know; for the first time in forever, I finally get to be one of the fans who “gets it” when it comes to Final Fantasy VII.
It was a weird year, game-wise. The trend of “playing not as much as I used to” continued and I really felt out of the loop. At the same time, the 2020 releases that I actually did play made it onto some lists:
As somebody who both has liked liked Supergiant since “Bastion” and finds rogue-likes a near-perfect genre if you’re looking for short, focussed sessions that do feel meaningful whenever you get to it, it’s no wonder that Hades is my game of the year. I stopped playing once I had beaten the overworld boss for the first time. (There are other rogue-likes that I have played more — sometimes even up to the point where I got frustrated with the fact that my will was not strong enough to put it aside. I think that the focus on narrative in “Hades” gave me a feeling of satisfaction by reaching an “ending” that was actually very welcome. It’s really a culmination of everything Supergiant does well.)
Other than that, I liked Ghost of Tsushima because it did its job as a Japan-Kitsch-travel-simulator. In the first year in ages that I didn’t travel abroad (when you’re living in Switzerland, “abroad” is basically everything that’s more than a 3 hour ride away), the one thing I missed most — yes, more so than movie theaters, restaurants, concerts — was travelling. I have been living in a state of constant flashbacks to tiny memories (often of trivial moments) of travels and voyages I have done in the past. So I was glad that a friend of mine gave me his copy of “Ghost of Tsushima”. As somebody who basically never plays any recent AAA games, I was pleasently bamboozled by all the pretty and flashing lights. And I enjoyed playing the role of a badass ninja who fancies himself a samurai for a while. Mind you, I was perfectly aware of all the issues the game has, and I put it away after some 10 hours without any regrets. I mean, it’s downright tasteless in a lot of ways, done by a team who seemingly never saw more of Japan than a tacky Instagram album, and thinks that BEAMING IN ALL THE PRETTIES ALL THE TIME makes for a ‘gorgeous game’. Still, those leaves and onsen spots made me sigh in nostalgia.And, speaking of which, I liked Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 because I was glad to see that the design still holds up tremendously well, and that Tony Hawk is seemingly a nice person. In a year full to the brink with unpleasantness in the human departement (I read way too much coverage of the US election, and I can say that the overall reactions on Covid killed all my hopes that humanity will ever be able to pull itself collectively together to actually address climate change), THPS’ update was full of small moments of… well, decentness. Not only that the cast was updated, being now more diverse than ever, but the fact that the name “Mute Grab” was changed to “Weddle Grab” was just… nice. Nobody expected this. The fact that they did it anyway is just… well, nice. It’s not only a great game, but also seemingly a nice one. And sometimes, we tend to forget how important it is to be nice to each other.The greatest gaming related moment in 2020 to me, was a different one, though: The Undertale anniversary concert. You see, ultimately, I think that there are two things that are true about Undertale is, whatever your hot take on the game might be: 1) The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. 2) It’s been inspiring a lot of really positive (in the broadest sense of the word) emotions among a shitload of (young) people. The anniversary concert basically was both of those things amped up to 11. It was glorious, and the fact that what was a small one-man-project grew so visibly into… well, all of this, made me remember again why the indie revolution in this medium once felt like the greatest thing ever to me.
For me personally, the best game of the year is AC: Valhalla with ease. Just that story and character arc was such an awesome experience to play through. And as I keep mentioning in discussions, Eivor is without any hesitation my favorite AC protagonist so far.
While a little bit cheating, runner up is Horizon Zero Dawn. Yeah, it’s already few years old, but the PC version came out this year and I finally was able to play. The world and the thought put in to it really blew me away and, again, the story was just fantastic. Aloy was a real surprise as a character as I didn’t have that much expectations for her, but found utterly charmed and rooting for her by the end.
Like your Horizons, my favourite games of the year were RDR2, RE2, and Doom, so I get where you are coming from. I also still really enjoy SW Battlefront II several years on.
While a little bit cheating, runner up is Horizon Zero Dawn. Yeah, it’s already few years old, but the PC version came out this year…No qualifier necessary for this pick. I mean, the A.V. Club itself included Among Us, a game that came out in 2018. Yes, it just came out on the Switch, but that was only notable because the original version figuratively exploded on PC this year.
I try not to use “literally” as an intensifier, too, but I’m struck by how underwhelming it sounds in comparison when you read that something figuratively exploded, even though it’s correct.
I’m fascinated by how some people insist that “literally” should only ever be used in a literal way.
Are there any other words people insist on using correctly that bother you? I’m unsure why it’s fascinating when people strive for clarity.
I use it all the time as a joke, which is really the only way to use it anymore. The problem, if it helps, is that sometimes you really do mean something in the literal sense, but you can no longer use the appropriate words because it’s been hijacked. I can’t really think of a good replacement word, either.
I guess you have to specify “literally literally” now. And by “now” I mean “for now”. It’s just one stage of the arms race. OF THE LITERAL ARMS RACE. But what’s fascinating is that “literal” and “figurative” precisely account for the fact that words can be used either literally and figuratively, and yet it seems so hard to comprehend that this applies to these very words as well.Language is fascinating, and linguistics is fascinating. and linguistic is a descriptive science, nor a normative legislation. It’s about observing, classifying, understanding actual usages of languages. Its flexibility in practice, and the efficiency of this elasticity (how speaking “wrongly” sometimes conveys a message more accurately than correct grammar would allow), how its playfulness functions and why. It’s the opposite of normative pendantry. It’s a report of how people do communicate in reality.Lots of shocking things there, to those who are attached to language, and reticent to its bending or evolution. But once you let it go, and look at things scientifically, all these productive misuses are actually marvelous. And the common subversion of “literally” is really a fun phenomenon. Especially as, in practice, contexts makes is most often pretty clear whether “literally” is meant literally or figuratively. And when there’s an ambiguity, it tends to be played for laughs all the more.
Internet-speak is to blame, and as the English language continues to die, there are probably quite a few for me, lol.But there’s particular phrasing taking over that is starting to get to me, and it’s “verbing” things that aren’t verbs. Like the commercial with the slogan “This is how we science.” Or the other commercial with the statement “No matter how you family.” Aaarg! I understand casual people talking this way online, but professional companies? Am I crazy in caring about this?? I got a slogan for all them: Grammar Still Needs to Matter.
Agreed. In taking a look with properly caffeinated eyes at what I wrote earlier, I should’ve done without the “figuratively” as it’s understood. Damn limitations on Kinja editing…
Sorry. I didn’t mean to criticize, actually. I just thought it was interesting that because literally is used as an intensifier so often, it actually somehow makes figuratively seem like it does the opposite (at least to my brain) even though it shouldn’t.
I appreciate your sentiment, but no apology necessary on your part. I knew you weren’t criticizing. And you make a good point about how “figuratively” can weaken. I wouldn’t be surprised if the strengthening and weakening from “literally” and “figuratively” eventually get codified into English scholarship since the language mutates so much.
Literally is being used as an intensifier, and “figuratively” is not one of those. But literally is literally not the only intensifier available, and its continual use as the only one is what is causing its debasement. “Totally”, “utterly” and “completely” are all out there, you know?
I sometimes forget how amazing that game was. I still remember how hours
and hours into the game I was before I started messing around with
the…what are they called…the sonic boom arrows so you can blast the
weapons off enemies and use them against them. So GD satisfying.
I’m playing AC Valhalla now. It has its moments but I feel like putting it on a list is just due to the inertia of the series. It didn’t improve on Odyssey, which was a great game, and I think it even suffers in comparison. It’s also frustratingly buggy.
i’ve played every mainline AC game except for Odyssey (and now V). While they’ve always been popular, this is the first time I’m hearing true praise for the franchise. Is it that much better than previous games? I’m a huge fan of the series, but Origins took me 4 months playing daily (unemployed) and I heard Odyssey was even more of a slog.
Looking back I haven’t played a lot of stuff that was released this year (at least not yet.) Maybe I can’t even fairly judge. But DAMN is Hades terrific. It’s just the best feedback loop I’ve ever seen, you go out and smash things, you eventually die, you get rewarded with cool story stuff and interactions with neat characters and also tangible improvements to your abilities and new options. A bad run will still yield some results at home, but the good runs feel really nice and you just keep getting a bit better.I haven’t gotten to the credits yet but it’s just a great pick-up-and-play game. Also I don’t think we talk enough about how great Dusa is.
I’m pretty surprised TLOU PTII isn’t on here considering the pretty positive review published here (although it was by A.A Dowd who obviously liked Miles Morales better which is plenty fair). I get that there were a lot of valid criticisms of it (plenty I agreed with, plenty I did not and plenty I had that no one else seemed to) but in my mind, no game had that level of detail, beauty, emotion and grand scale to just blow you away no matter how miserable it gets. Like I definitely wouldn’t say its the best of the year but no game comes close to the intense visceral feelings of that game and to me it’s a pretty impressive achievement no matter it’s flaws.
They explained in the intro that they weren’t including any games that they put into the best of list they made halfway through the year, which included games like TLOU2 and FF7: Remake.
yeah, I feel like TLoU2 gets a weird amount of hate/disdain for not telling a happy/fun story. Video games have an expectation to be “fun” that we don’t bring to literally any other form of media — no one would try to claim that Grave of the Fireflies or The Handmaid’s Tale are poorly made because they aren’t fun to watch. In my opinion, TLoU2 doesn’t quite stick the ending but still has some of the flat-out best writing, voice-acting, and animation we’ve ever seen in a video game.
I know its not Kotaku or anything , but Homescapes???? I mean it should be avoided for its string of terrible terrible adverts alone.(also I know its a favourites list rather than a BEST list , but Star Wars :Squadrons exists you know :))
Yes. It’s embarrassing. And bad. Scammy mobile app companies don’t need AVClub’s endorsement.
What can I say? The game brought me peace. Of course it doesn’t need my endorsement; it’s not making any “best of” lists, but there is a zen calm it induces.
ah that’s fair enough !I’m probably over critical of mobile games , since a lot of them are literal skinner boxes , having said that Card Crawl on android has been taking up a lot of my spare time .https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinytouchtales.cardcrawl&hl=en&gl=US
The issue with it is that this game successfully built up its visibility through the massive spamming of misleading advertisement (non-representative gameplay) in commercial slots bought on other apps. And that is not cool behavior. People have been complaining a lot about it, to the point where these ads were eventually removed. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54509970Now you can argue that “games should be judged on their own merits”, but it’s really not what the AVClub has accustomed us to. On the opposite, the AVClub tends to take down a notch the promotion of cultural products associated with unethical behavior. There’s a tendency here to take ethics in account when reviewing games, movies, etc. So yeah. Seeing such companies rewarded here of all places makes me twitch a little bit.
You mean it’s not a pull-pin logic puzzle game to save the butler dude from hot lava?
I’m not a huge fan of the Skinner-box techniques that abound in far too many mobile games (and a lot of the AAA games, if I’m being honest), but I can understand the comforting appeal of them. Would you rather the critic be disingenuous and pick something else just to impress the readers? But, if there’s a game you think should be on the list, why don’t you follow the article’s advice and make your case for that game? Make a compelling enough case and it might make it into the reader’s picks list.
Immediately pre-pandemic, when the fact that I was unemployed felt like a shameful personal failing instead of a reality I shared with half the people I knew, I was addicted to this dumb phone game called Animal Restaurant. I played it multiple hours a day. It was incredibly stupid and pointless, but unlike Homescapes, at least it was pleasant to look at.
Hades is great and probably my game of the year but I’ll put a controversial choice here and say Cyberpunk 2077 is in close running. Granted if I had been playing on console I would probably not feel that way but on my new machine it runs great and the genre is one my favorites. I’m enjoying the story and the game just looks amazing at times.
Yakuza Like A Dragon is my fav of the year. Flipping the gameplay to rpg style was a brilliant move. It’s like Yakuza and Persona had a baby.
Am I the first person to put Genshin Impact on this list? I’ve played my fair share of f2p games over the years. The games typically ride the wave of forcing you to draw (for in-game, often paid, currency) to get an ideal unit for the next big in-game event. (I coincidentally have Final Fantasy: War of the Visions running on my iPad as I type this, which started a Raid event this week.)GI still has a rotating “banner” of limited-time characters, but they end up plugged into the same Zelda-clone as all the other characters. Importantly, leveling these characters requires the same amount of grinding out boss battles and collectibles as any other character; there is no ability to optimize your character via in-app purchases beyond the banner / draw mechanic itself. Honestly, GI feels more like a “real game” than the Avengers game I paid $30 for which has microtransactions baked into so many aspects of the game’s service model. I have yet to put any actual money into the title…but I feel as though I should to support a game that allegedly managed to turn a profit in its first few weeks of operation. This is the game I play on PS5 while I wait for most of the “real” 2020 games to get their next-gen coats of paint (coughcoughCyberpunk2077PS5releasewhen?coughcough).
How exactly does one include Homescapes as an example of a comforting game in 2020 and leave off Animal Crossing?
i can only assume it comes from a desire to not have the same “best games” list as every other website. it does help that they frame the list as “favorites” instead of “best,” though.
If we’re counting late-to-the-party titles, I finally played Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and easily devoured 110+ hours of it. The game is “open world” enough to give a sense of freedom, but the mission-based deployment (choosing a mission from the interface, selecting the minimap drop-point, and only then do you enter the open-world area) helps compartmentalize the flow of activities so I wasn’t overwhelmed with the “open world fatigue” I get from the Ubisoft open-world titles I’ve tried.Even though the story is incomplete, there was enough bonkers Kojima storytelling and meme-worthy line delivery to keep me amused throughout the mainline missions. There’s even a pandemic plot line which, in 2020, hits as downright uncomfortable or darkly hilarious depending on your sense of humor. But really, what got me hooked was just the buttery-smooth feel of how Venom controls. It was super easy develop a “flow”, which hooked me right into the title’s gameplay loop (deploy—>mission—>nearby side ops—>back to base—>management—>repeat).
It also helped that I only paid around $8 for it on a Steam sale.
I know this is a cliché complaint, but I watched that Wasteland 3: Official Gameplay Trailer and hoped to see some, you know, gameplay? There is literally *zero* gameplay footage in that trailer. Words mean things!
Hades’ god mode was a lifesaver for someone with dum-dum fingers like me, and it was the first roguelite/like I’ve played that I didn’t feel completely frustrated and bored after the first couple of hours. I really appreciated being able to experience the gameplay and story and aesthetics like everyone else, but at my skill level, and in such a way that I never felt like I was cheating. Beating Hades—and then subsequently beating Hades—was such a rewarding experience, even if I could only do so at ~40% damage reduction. In terms of sheer hours devoted to a game, however, Animal Crossing: New Horizons takes the cake for me, and I’m a little surprised it didn’t make the list. It offers, dare I say, a more rewarding home/life simulation experience than a predatory mobile game published in 2017, but to each their own. Close behind Animal Crossing in terms of hours logged is Crusader Kings 3, which, with the new character designer, is an improvement over its predecessor in just about every way. I’m still annoyed that you can’t design your own coat of arms, but at least the randomly generated COAs don’t look like absolute butt like they did in the last game.
The staff didn’t want to repeat games that were in their mid-year “Best Of” list, like Animal Crossing, so they can talk about games from the latter part of 2020.But yeah, agreed on New Horizons. It can get a little hectic stopping my island from being taken over by flowers and weeds – it was my own darn fault for not paying attention – but it is still as fun and charming as the earlier iterations, with enhanced visuals to boot. And the monthly updates always mean there’s something to look forward to checking out, from deep sea diving and artwork hunting to preparing turkey-less Turkey Day meals for a world-class chef turkey.
This is a long post, but video games played a pretty big part of this year for me, so I wanted to write a longer retrospective. Most of the games I talk about didn’t come out this year, but two—both of which I loved—did.Due to the pandemic, this was the first year in a long time where I had enough free time to play through multiple games. Normally, I play through one or two games around Christmas. But this year, when it became clear I would be able to have little time socializing and a lot of time to myself, I bought a PS4 and decided to catch up on the games I’ve missed from this generation. So I played God of War, The Outer Worlds, the Shadow of the Colossus remake, Uncharted 4 (and Lost Legacy), Spider-man, Titanfall 2, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Jedi: Fallen Order, and probably some others I’m forgetting. Of those AAA games, God of War was a clear favorite—it told a great story told exceptionally well and has by far the best combat system of any third-person action game I’ve ever played. Even as someone who has had no interest in the series before the 2018 God of War, I really loved finally playing it now. I also put in the 50-ish extra hours I needed in order to beat Persona 5, which I had started shortly after it originally came out. It’s not the masterpiece that Persona 4 was—it’s characters aren’t quite as well-drawn and the story isn’t quite as grippingly weird—but it’s still a superb JRPG. And no series has a better gameplay feedback loop than the Persona series.
Speaking of JRPGs, I also finally beat Final Fantasy VI after digging out my old GBA SP. I had gotten to the final dungeon in the game about 15 years ago, but at that point had no desire to do the side quests that would make my team strong enough to beat it. I was also pissed I let Shadow die when apparently I didn’t have to. But now, as an older, more patient player, I played through the whole game again. It—along with Chrono Trigger—really is the pinnacle of classic JRPGs. A great, simple combat system with lots of customization, and a huge cast of wonderful characters that you’re actually forced to use as opposed to just making you pick your favorite team and sticking with them from there. But the game that most defined my year was The Last of Us Part II. The original Last of Us is one of my favorite games of all time and was something of a swansong for my relationship with videogames—it was the last AAA game I played before my life just got too busy to play games. When I heard a sequel was being made, I was incredibly skeptical—the ending to the first Last of Us is perfect and I thought that a sequel would be excessive. But it wasn’t. Part II is a masterpiece. Sure, in its sprawling nature its storytelling hits a few more snags than its predecessor, but the game’s ambition pays off more often than it doesn’t. Even aspects of the game I eventually didn’t like—the mid-game twist—grew on me immensely. Every character in the game is endearing, complex, and understandable. So much of the game is spent hoping that people make the right choice. It earns its final dramatic showdown, mining relationships built up over the course of both games to create a catharsis that genuinely left me sobbing. It’s also just incredible as a game; graphically, I cannot think of anything that rivals it, and all of its systems work wonderfully in putting you in the shoes of its protagonists. It also has so many memorable locations and setpieces: the broadcast station, the first time you meet Scars, the hospital (both times you go there), the sniper, the skybridge, the village. There is so much I love about this game—not even the shallow and butthurt discourse surrounding it has spoiled me on it.A side-effect of playing TLOU2 was that it spoiled me on AAA games. I never was a technical or graphics snob—I’m a BioWare apologist—but I now find the uncanny valley of AAA games too distracting. When I try to play other big-budget games, I’m usually just reminded of how TLOU2 did some of the things it’s trying to do, but better. I started Red Dead Redemption 2 yesterday and have been liking it, but part of me just wishes I was playing TLOU2 again instead.This led to the second half of my year being dominated by indie games. Celeste, Inside, and Hyper Light Drifter were excellent, tight, creative experiences. Undertale, a hilarious, heartfelt romp. And Hollow Knight, which I nearly gave up on, proved to suck over 60 hours from my life, making it the hardest game I’ve ever beaten, the first Metroidvania I’ve enjoyed, and the first Soulslike I’ve gotten into. I cannot believe such a game was made by such a small team—it is so rich in lore, content, and design. No game this year fueled as many late-night YouTube rabbit holes (though Undertale maybe came close). After the summer, even as work and scholarly obligations mounted, I found myself drawn to playing Hades, which consumed my life in a way that made it difficult not to play it (the same thing happened for several games mentioned earlier in this post, but I played through most of them during times when I had much more free time than I did when Hades came out). I’ve loved every one of the games Supergiant Games has released (even, and especially Pyre), but, as many have said, Hades represents the pinnacle of their style. So many superlatives have been thrown at the game—how each of its weapons and boons feel distinct but fun in their own way; how it integrates narrative and gameplay; how encouraging it is—that I feel little need to add to the pile. So I’ll just say that it’s the only Roguelike I’ve ever beaten—despite the 30ish hours of Spelunky I played back in the day, I never came close—and that in any year where TLOU2 did not come out, it likely would have been my game of the year.
Congrats on finishing FFVI. My favorite FF by far.
i haven’t played TLOU2 yet and didn’t read your entire post, but i’m about 80% through rdr2 and absolutely love the game.
Red Dead Redemption 2’s opening hours takes some getting used to, but just you wait. Oh boy just you wait…
Advice from someone who desperately wishes to be able to play RDR2 for the first time again: if you’re playing to get the best and most extensive version of the narrative talk to everyone, do all of the optional side quests that pop up before progressing the story, go for a high honor first playthrough, and (I can’t stress this enough) read Arthur’s journal. Frequently.Falling in love with Arthur as a character is a key component in falling in love with the game as a whole, in my opinion, and many of his best moments come from the way he observes and interacts with the world outside of the game’s central storyline.
i love rdr2 and just got to the epilogue. prior to that, i THINK i did about as much of the side quests as possible, excluding the collectathon tasks. my only issue is there was no indication as to whether i was completing all the available tasks, since some only become available when you’re in a specific area (two i didn’t complete before epilogue was confronting the vampire and meeting the prisoner buddies for the third time). i did get the rare achievement of completing a certain subset of quest lines though.didn’t really read the journal much, however.
I’m sad not seeing Tell Me Why on here. That was a wonderful game and a great follow-up to the Life is Strange series. As much as I enjoyed stuff like AC Valhalla and FF7 Remake and Xenoblade Chronicles, smaller stuff like this was a real treat this year too.Runners up: Moon for the Switch, an utterly charming anti-RPG that was originally made for the PlayStation decades ago, but just came out in English for the first time; Deliver Us the Moon, a short but sweet little narrative/puzzle adventure; Control, which came out last year but the DLC came out this year and I didn’t play it until this year so whatever.
Let’s see let’s see I want to participate can I dunno I don’t think I can I will try I’ll do my best.2020 was the year of Steam and obnoxious online DRM because the DRM-free paradise of GOG had became the gamergater’s promised trumpland, and funding that community’s echo chamber became a tad awkward. So, between two compromises I had to choose the lesser one, the one that damages the videogames market more than human rights, the global ecosystem and the rule of law. Yeah. Regrettable, but let’s say, at some point, the acceptability balance starts tilting a bit noticeably towards one evil more than the other.With that weird background. The gaming joys of 2020.1) Watch Dogs. Yes, I cheat. It’s not London, it’s San Francisco. London is still too expensive. But Watch Dogs is really great. It ditches the grim vigilante thriller tone of the original for a more nonsensical fun hipster adventure comedy, and an all-over-the-place stupid plot where self-righteous pseudo-ethical hackers fight the evil corporations that try to do the same exact things as them. But but so much fun. Powerful escapism, cutting through a city by the means of parkour and omnipotent magical hacking. A sense of lightness and freedom, in an ordinary, conventional everyday setting. With a touch of real-life tourism, and a genuine love for San Francisco’s history, culture and landmarks. I’m quite convinced that the 2020 Watch Dogs is just as good (although I imagine London as a more boring city), but it’s not the one I played in 2020.2) Battletech. Was it released in 2020 ? Surely not, but maybe it’s the year it became affordable. Its DLCs are mostly pointless, so its paradoxy cost creep is very avoidable. And it’s a very delightful game, provided you understand its economy and diplomacy system early enough to not burn all bridges with some key factions too early. It’s a turn-based top-down mech sim (well, it’s more or less the tabletop game), but unlike the old Mech Commander RTS, it does give a feeling of stompy stompy weight to you mechs and that is precious. Thanks to some XCOM-like camera work, nice sound effects, and adequately shaking screens, the eagle view doesn’t reduce your sense of scale and weight. The occasional tanks, buildings and trees make your mechs feel huge, and the hits pack a punch. It is not a reskin away from being about running cowboys. It’s full giant bipedal mechanical monsters, with a touch of space opera and space politics (and some marginal sitcom choose-your-own-adventure crew management). A surprisingly solid source of pleasure.
3) XCOM Chimera Squad. Look at that, a true 2020 release. Or is it. I think it is. A light-hearted post-XCOM XCOM-lite, which ruins-the-childhood of videogamers because it confusingly features alien foreigners who are not from here yet aren’t all the bad guys. It’s an Alien Nation setting, in which extraterrestrial migrants work in some police force against fundamentalist terrorists. And it’s just a series of cool XCOM tactical encounters, starting with spectacular go-go-go breach sequences, and exploiting otherworldly abilities that are more often used against you in the series. It’s also cheap in cost and design (lots of comics-panel cutscenes), which make it more comic book than movie-like. A style of its own. But it’s refreshing and tense and stimulating and the top-notch gameplay is no surprise there, it’s the same as XCOM.4) Sorry bit this happens to be the year I’ve played the Telltale Batman series, so it’s listed here. I couldn’t play the GOG version because it had some stupidly forced localization device, and I didn’t want to get the Steam version because of my DRM principles. But there we are. Turns out it’s the best Batman stuff, and that’s all. Ditch the comics, movies, cartoons, you won’t get a better take than that one. It got criticized because, as was often the case with Telltale, there’s a lot of player decisions than only change secondary aspects of the pre-written story. It’s true. I don’t know whether I’ve played a game or watched a movie. I do not care one bit. It’s what it was, and what it was is delicious.5) By the way, there’s a 2020 update/relaunch of Telltale’s Sam and Max. So, this would count as best 2020 game if you didn’t play the old version back then. Because it’s still is one of the coolest and funniest adventure game ever. Let’s use the pretext to shove it in that list.6) Early releases count as 2020-ish, so let’s mention the very playable works-in-progress that is Uboat, a cool ww2 subsim that take the psychological approach of sailor psychological breakdown management, adding a whole dimension to the genre by providing a side-view of the submarine’s innards and its sims-like population. Lots of micro-management for repairs, fatigue, coffee, stress, wounds and existential angst, in addition to the expectedly beautiful water and weather effects and the okay torpedoing simulation. I’m a sucker for naval warfare and sinking boats, what can I say. Deserves a shout out. Likewise :7) Early releases count as 2020-ish, so let’s mention the very playable work-in-progress that is Empire of the Undergrowth, a delightful entomological RTS, a Dungeon Master for ants, that is simply goergeous, lovely and nicely pedagogic. Another bias : should appeal to the fan’s of Bernard Werber’s novel “The Ants”, a scientifically-grounded story told from the perspective of an ant.8) But let’s be honest. The game that dominated 2020, here, is the 2017 Cold Waters. An odd mix of arcade (controls-wise) and simulation (mechanics-wise) submarine gaming. A good teacher of underwater acoustics and 1960s, 1980s and 2000s-era submarine warfare. Beautiful to look at, thrilling for the Red October public, it’s the game I’ve been playing the most, the longest, the most regularly. Campaigns and missions are short, and let you come back for more, without threatening to keep you prisoner for ages. Greatest videogame investment so far. Most important videogame for my 2020. Just like I expect the incoming Sea Power and War on the Sea to be for my 2021. That’s all ? Basically yes.If I had been here the previous years, I would have mentioned Return of the Obra Dinn, World of Goo and The Sexy Brutale, but, nope, too late. So not a word on these. And I also won’t mention Kerbal Space Program because everybody knows. My advice is don’t not play any of these.
I liked Golf With Your Friends because it allowed me to golf with my friends. That sounds silly, but it’s true. GWYF is a janky experience that’s marginally more polished than Cyberpunk 2077, but when you’re playing with your friends, it’s sublime. It turns into a goofy-as-hell party game that bends and breaks the laws of physics. And who hasn’t ever wanted to punch physics in its stupid, ugly face?I liked Timelie because it surprised me with its cleverness. At first blush, Timelie looks like a fairly rote stealth-puzzle game. But as it adds mechanics and complexity, it reveals hidden depths. And then it pulls a twist so jaw-droppingly clever that I still can’t get it out of my head. It completely recontextualizes the game’s earlier puzzles. I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s on par with discovering the “portal paint” in Portal 2. Timelie is Urnique Studio’s debut game, and now they have my attention for anything they put out in the future.I liked Wide Ocean Big Jacket because it felt deeply human. Most video games are larger than life, focusing on fantastical situations. Even small-scale human dramas, like this year’s excellent Tell Me Why, tend to contain fantastical or supernatural elements. WOBJ didn’t need any of those frills: it told a meaty story about teen romance and middle-aged anxieties with a light touch, without ever milking the material for melodrama. It’s refreshing to play a game that takes these issues seriously.I liked Necrobarista because it demystified death by making it more mysterious. That sounds like a contradiction in terms, so let me explain. Necrobarista is about a magical realist coffee shop where the dead go before passing on to the other side. Baristas act as psychopomps, providing words of wisdom and a warm cup of coffee before shepherding the deceased into the afterlife. What awaits them there? The game doesn’t have answers. But by embracing the fact that death is ultimately unknowable, Necrobarista helps us untangle our complex emotions about it.I liked A Summer’s End – Hong Kong 1986 because it evoked a sense of place. Visual novels are tricky affairs. With just some art, music, and prose, they have to transport the player to the game’s setting and make them believe in it. I’ve never been to Hong Kong, and I wasn’t alive in the eighties, but A Summer’s End made me believe in its setting. It presents Hong Kong in 1986 as a vibrant, romantic place, the perfect backdrop for the protagonists’ love story. Everything just fits, and the result is one of the best narrative-focused interactive experiences I’ve ever had.I liked Ori and the Will of the Wisps because it indulged my acrobatic fantasies. The biggest problem with real life (other than disease, chronic hunger, bigotry, and rising inequality) is that I can’t double-jump. I also cannot glide in mid-air or bounce off the walls. Ori fixes that for me. It allows me to indulge my inner acrobat, somersaulting through a gorgeous, hand-painted, storybook world. It controls so well, it’s as if my fingers are merely the conduit for the telepathic link between my brain and my CPU.
Among Us is fun when people don’t drop off soon after connecting, which seems to be rare.Levelhead was my favorite of the year. Very challenging, but fun.
My only real disappointment this year was with Resident Evil 3. I was looking forward to something more open-world, but that game is regimented and scripted within an inch of it’s life. I actually started testing the limits of scripted segments with Nemesis because the paths they wanted me to take were so linear. And the endgame just kind of had me going, “That’s it?”
I’m sure Capcom thought the multi-player would make up for it, but I’ve never been interested in RE multi-player, so that was a lost cause.
A lot of fans would have liked to see an open-world Raccoon City- myself included- but that just wasn’t what the original RE3 was, so I can understand sticking to the core concept (even if over 20 years later, it feels like a missed opportunity). What I can’t understand are all the omissions that made RE3 cool in the first place, including entire levels, and especially the live choices.
I realize this is a ‘favorites’ and not a ‘best of’…but…even so…Homescapes? Jackbox?I mean, yeah, maybe The Last of Us Part II isn’t many people’s idea of a good time, but this is also a year which saw Resident Evil 3, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Trials of Mana, Streets of Rage 4, Sakura Wars, Ghost of Tsushima, Yakuza 5 Remastered, and Yakuza: Like A Dragon. (And I’m undoubtedly forgetting a couple.)Just about every game on that list is either distilled nostalgia and joy or manages to tap into those same emotions for a similar effect.Different strokes, I guess.
We covered Last Of Us Pt II in our best-of mid-year piece, which is why it’s not here. But yes, also different strokes.
Out of curiosity, why does covering something midway through the year preclude it from being in a best-of-year list?
Well then, write a post about one of those games! That’s kind of the idea of this!
I love Fall Guys because it’s so quick and gloriously stupid, you can’t stay mad at it for long. I don’t have the attention span to play games for hours on end. Ironically, Fall Guys’ quick minigames and “just-one-more” attitude has resulted in some 4+ hour sessions for me. Thank god my wife likes the soundtrack or else she’d have gone mad by now.I loved Final Fantasy VII: Remake for changing my mind on real-time combat in an FF game. I usually don’t like combat in a 3D environment, but FFVII:R’s mix of real-time fighting and pausing for some good old fashioned FF menus was beautifully implemented. I enjoyed it so much I doubled back and played FFXII for the first time. (My review of FFXII: mostly great characters, outstanding combat system, lousy story.)
Also, FFVII:R had two bosses that had me in stitches. First was Roche, the insane ex-SOLDIER who rode a motorcycle that thought it was a horse. It was too bonkers to hate. Also, the Hell House. The Completionist described the Hell House reveal perfectly by saying he reacted like Thor screaming “YES!!!” when he sees Hulk in the arena in Ragnarok.
I haven’t played really any 2020 games this year, excepting a brief fling with Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, a game that fulfills the Othello tagline: “A minute to learn…a lifetime to master”. Anyone who claims expertise in that game is more likely claiming that they’ve logged enough time on the game that they’ve gotten a handful of victories. I don’t want to say there’s no mechanical skill* involved in the game, but that it falls pretty far down the list behind luck, a grasp of mob mentality, situational awareness, and adaptation. I like the game and I think it does a lot of things just right; I just don’t have enough time to devote to it so the defeats never really lose their sting.Otherwise, it’s been a mixed bag of titles: Shining Force CD, Persona 4 Golden, The Witcher 3, and, most recently, Sweet Home. At some point, I’m sure I’ll get around to CP2077 (though not on the PS4 anytime soon, I guess), but I’m in no rush…and this article has given me some games to check out as well.*There is a course that has a short wall right in the middle and it usually stopped my progress cold, as I could never quite get the timing necessary to jump and grab the ledge to get myself over the wall.
Hades. Fall Guys.
I like to play point and click adventure games / puzzle games. One of my favorite developers in that space is Glitch Games and they released a new game this past February called Veritas that was great.Also The Pathless released last month and was a fantastic game. Great artwork, an expansive world to explore, and fun mechanics.My two random indie recommendations.
Still playing Red Dead 2. Simply incredible. Can only play games on PC so I’m behind. Sorry.
I’m a big fan of Levelhead, which I can’t stop playing. Among Us is frustrating because people tend to leave mid-game.
fuck whoever makes these slideshows instead of regular listicles
Shoutout to Avengers? Was not expecting that, but I welcome it. Each hero does feel pretty cool to play. This is also my introduction to Kamala Kahn and she’s very loveable. I really like the campaign story.
This is the year that I finally got around to Horizon: Zero Dawn, and it’s easily near the top of my list for gaming experiences this year. My quarantine/WFH life only lasted about two months before I was back to working in person, but I gave a hefty chunk of those two months to the game. Based on trailers, reviews, and catching a few videos about it, I was fully prepared for it to be nothing but pretty cheese with some silly robot dinosaur combat (and, in truth, I’d have been plenty happy with just that), but I got considerably more sucked into the storytelling than I expected. It still is fairly cheesy, in a way that stuff like this can’t really avoid, but it was still pretty compelling and managed to tell a story I cared about. Also, as a female gamer with very limited options for female player characters, I really like playing as Aloy – she’s got opinions, she’s very cool without being “cool,” and there are multiple platonic relationships with male NPCs that are built solely on mutual respect.I still need to finish Ghost of Tsushima, as life/work/other gaming commitments got very busy for me just as I started up the game’s third act, but I’m thoroughly loving that world. I’m less sold on the specific storytelling beats than other people seem to be (whenever NPCs lecture you for using the powers/weapons that the game itself clearly tells you are good and fun, it always just feels like some video game ass video game stuff – you can tell me all you want that I should face breaking the Samurai code as a huge moral dilemma, but that triple stealth kill I just pulled off was cool as shit and made my job easier), but damn does combat feel good and damn is that game purty.However, the two games that have been the most important and most satisfying to me this year have been Destiny 2 and, yes, Animal Crossing: New Horizons. My regular Sunday Destiny 2 day with IRL friends I’ve known for 10+ years has been invaluable as it’s made up almost about 97% of my social life since March. And ACNH, from a series I’ve forever hated as pointless and too cutesy, is still something I play daily, as taking a few minutes every morning to check on villagers and shake all my trees started as a great way to have some sense of routine when I was stuck at home and not working.
I liked Nioh 2 because it scratched my itch for a Souls game in a year without Souls games. (No, the Demon’s Souls remake doesn’t count, since I can’t get a PS5.) I skeptically waited a while to pick this one up. I liked the first Nioh, but it didn’t grip me enough to want more. I never bought any DLC and stopped playing as soon as I beat it. For those reasons, I avoided Nioh 2 on release. But when I saw it on sale for $25, I figured, Why not?And I’m really glad I bought it. It took me a while to really “get it”, but once I did, it reminded me, and I mean this as a huge compliment, of everything I loved about Dark Souls 2, plus great boss battles. At first, Nioh 2 bafflingly places an annoying mini-boss with an almost impossible to read charge attack that’ll kill you in one hit about 1 minute into the first level. After beating my head against the wall in an effort to beat this boss, and almost stopping the game altogether, I swallowed my pride and took the other path that avoided the mini-boss, all the while relearning the game’s systems. The true boss of the level took me quite a few tries to beat, probably more than any other boss in the game, but in a way that felt fair (unlike the optional mini-boss). When I beat the true boss, I was hooked. It gave me all the same feelings of finally defeating a difficult Souls boss; that triumphant feeling of accomplishment that seemed impossible on the first go.And while many bosses match that feeling (although after I settled in, no boss has been as difficult – leaving out the “online” missions for now), Nioh 2 also does exploration extremely well. During the main missions, it’s easy to get lost in the layout of a particular level. To approach every corner cautiously, hoping for a shortcut or shrine but dreading a falling spider or hidden demon (yokai). The game is smart enough to both allow that feeling of discovery, but also to forego it when you reach the boss, almost always a short sprint from the closest shrine. It wants you to feel lost, but then switch gears to “boss time” when you finally conquer the level. And the bosses are mostly successful. Both difficult and fair.Unfortunately, many of the sub-missions feel tacked on. Reused areas of different stages that often don’t fit well with whatever yokai you’re forced to fight. I not-so-fondly remember too many battles inside a tiny arena half-filled with a single huge yokai, battling the camera more than the enemy. These are technically skippable, but not really. Overall, though, those sub-missions are a small glitch in an otherwise triumphant game. I haven’t beaten it yet, and I admit that it’s definitely on the long side, and might overstay its welcome, but even if I stop playing now, it was well worth it.