WingedKagouti on 31/12/2020 at 11:38
I also got my hands on Hades, which I still think of as a 2019 title since it was available in Early Access then, but it was officially released in 2020. So I guess that's another title from this year that I can heartily recommend.
Nameless Voice on 31/12/2020 at 13:19
Desperados 3 was... solid, but somehow lacking something.
I'm not sure what. The mechanics were fine, the characters were well-written (better than Desperado 2, anyway, which I bounced off hard), but it seemed to be missing some magic to make it truly special.
I think a part of that problem was the writing. The characters had a lot of personality, but didn't really have particularly interesting goals and motivations. The levels themselves were good on their own, but they didn't really build into an interesting narrative.
Still probably my favourite game of 2020, with Doom Eternal a close second.
Doom Eternal... had its own problems, which I've talked about at length in its own thread. It was generally a solid game, but for me the heavy emphasis on very low resource caps and constantly juggling with replenishment mechanics took away from what made Doom 2016 great.
Tomi on 31/12/2020 at 20:12
I only played two and a half new games this year, I think. Mafia: Definitive Edition, Art of Rally, and the Melody of Mystery DLC for Trine 4. (yeah yeah, DLC doesn't count, but since I don't have anything else to put here... :p) They were all excellent, Art of Rally probably provided me the most joy out of those, but as a whole you can't beat the Mafia remake here. It's not only my GOTY, it's also the best remake that I know. They've managed to capture the feeling of the original game so well, and the improvements are pretty much all for the better, which is almost an impossible task when it comes to a remake of an old classic.
Aja on 1/1/2021 at 01:54
I am currently downloading Hades! My game of the year is undoubtedly Animal Crossing because I played it for "180 hours or more" according to my Switch, and I still try to play for a half hour or so each day. Apart from Paper Mario, which I've only played for a few hours and so it's too soon to judge, I haven't really played a lot from 2020. I have a heck of a wishlist, though. I guess I'll save that for the what-will-you-play thread.
Renault on 1/1/2021 at 04:32
As usual, I'm more focused on playing stuff from 2-3 years ago. But here's some faves from 2020 I managed to tackle:
The Last of Us 2 - I personally didn't like it as much as the original, but it was still great.
Amnesia Rebirth - Solid game from Frictional. Main downside was that gameplay wise it was just more of the same.
In Death Unchained - This is kind of cheating. Still, my favorite and most played game from this year, VR or otherwise.
Lies Beneath - Just started this recently. Its a really cool comic book style VR Survival horror game.
Dreams - Awesome fan game creation tool for the PS4, for both flat and VR. It's pretty amazing to see what people can make with this thing.
Edit: Forgot about...
Until You Fall - Really well done sword fighting game for VR. And this thing is a friggin' workout too.
Thirith on 1/1/2021 at 16:24
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what was released in 2020 and what I just played first in 2020. Still, here are some of the games I enjoyed a lot last year:
* The Last of Us Part II - I prefer the original and what it does with its characters. Part II is too intent on repeating the same handful of points regarding revenge and redemption and its ambiguities are less interesting IMO than those of the first game. Nonetheless, I love the craftsmanship and artistry put into the game, and I am certain I'll play it again at some point.
* Hades - Malf mentions the 'hipster pretentiousness' of Supergiant, and I think I know what he means, but I greatly enjoy the style of Supergiant's games, the aesthetic, the overall package, because it's unique in gaming. Hades is the first game of theirs where I would say that the polish and loving care extend to the gameplay. Admittedly, I also wish that Hades wasn't quite as great at being addictive as it is, because I want to finish all the storylines, but at the same time I wish I could quit the game, because run after run after run does become something of a grind.
* Half-Life: Alyx is a fantastic use of VR and a great continuation of Half-Life 2. It actively made me want Valve to continue the Half-Life story, after I'd pretty much given up on it. It's also a fantastic use of VR in pretty much every respect, and it managed to surprise me repeatedly. I'd expected supreme craftsmanship, but... I didn't expect Jeff.
* Star Wars Squadrons - This is the game that I've been dreaming of since I was a kid and first watched the attack on the Death Star (on Betamax, no less!). I don't think it's perfect, but at the same time it feels perfect when I'm in VR, holding on to my (cheap-ass) HOTAS and zeroing in on that pesky TIE Fighter or X-Wing. I very much hope the game was successful enough that they'll do more of these - what I'd love most, though, would be VR-capable remakes of the original X-Wing and TIE Fighter games using this engine and these assets. I don't care if the rest is done relatively simply: I just want to do more campaigns that put me in the cockpit of those iconic spacecrafts.
Starker on 1/1/2021 at 19:38
There are quite a few games I might consider to be pretentious: Bioshock Infinite, Kojima's games, anything David Cage makes... but Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre are not among them.
Thirith on 1/1/2021 at 22:58
I don't think they are either, but I can see how their tone can strike some people as such, though (to refer back to what Malf said) hipsterish more so than pretentious.
Starker on 2/1/2021 at 09:55
That makes it sound as if their games are the way they are out of some kind of indulgence, but everything I know about the development seems to suggest that it was born out of necessity and the constraints of having only a few people to make the game, meaning they had to leverage the things they had as best as they could. For example, with Bastion, they didn't have the money to do animations to convey the story or do anything complex, really, but they also didn't want to interrupt gameplay with text or cutscenes, so that's the reason they went with narration. Not because they were trying to be "ironic" or "put on airs" or "try to seem deep" or anything else the words hipster and pretentious would suggest.
Quote:
(
https://www.supergiantgames.com/blog/in-depth-writing-bastion/)
If there's one main underlying point in all this, it's that everything we're doing with the narration in Bastion is there only to support the specific type of play experience we're making. Everything from how the narrator character sounds and how he talks came about purposefully as part of the exploration around gameplay concepts and game themes. Bastion is hardly the first game to use narration to deliver story, so we never set out to pursue the idea of having a narrator purely for the sake of being different. Instead, we're pursuing it because we realized it worked well for the game we wanted to make and for the process we're using to make it.
demagogue on 11/1/2021 at 15:15
All right, here's my top 10 as I'm thinking about it right now.
10. Scourge Bringer. Slick platformer, spiritual successor to Celeste.
9. Art of Rally. Zen driving.
8. Tear Down. Mix of methodical sandbox strategy and quick 3D platforming. Not often a game can capture both of those elements in the same levels.
7. Hades. Slick gameplay loop, really easy to get sucked into it.
6. Outer Wilds. Really imaginative adventure game, great story, great gameplay, great puzzles.
5. MF Flight Sim. I like flight sims & exploring Google World and this is the best way to combine those things. Downside is that a lot of the most out-of-the-way places aren't very developed yet, but when they are, man, does it look good.
4. Nimbatus. I like games where there's a sandbox for crafting your own things, in this case drones, especially if it's completely open ended and especially if you have to play exactly the things you make in an open ended way, in this case mixing movement, collection, energy, defense, and attacking capabilities with your drone designs and see how they handle different design demands by the procedurally generated planets. This is the best game that does that coming out this year.
3. G-String. That old HL2 feeling.
2. Noita. I just like how open & sandbox it is ultimately. You can play it as a roguelike, but you can also just explore and play with the systems as you like.
1. Control. I haven't gotten much into it yet, so it's kind of an expectation going by videos & what I've seen so far. Not really an immersive sim, but it has an immersive surreal world and cool gameplay.
I imagine Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, and Halflife VR Alyx would go on the list if I played them. Maybe the new Ori game.
Honorable mentions are: Stilt Fella :cool:, Cloud Punk, Manifold Garden, Virtua Verse, World of Horror
If I included things like mods, FMs, indies, and DLC then: Painter's Wife (TDM FM), Snowed Inn (TDM FM) ... oh, I'm going to have to look into DLCs and indies, so I might come back and edit this in later.