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| (Shout out to Ars Technica for this sweet complication image I totally stole.) |
I think it's safe to say that 2020 wasn't a great year for a lot of us. At the very least, it was unlike any year any of us have ever experienced. I'm fortunate enough to work in a field that didn't require me to miss any work, and I'm thankful for that. However, 2020 was without question the worst year of my life. Between June and November, I lost many people that I loved. I lost two friends, one of which had been one of my best friends since high school, I lost an uncle, I lost my Pastor and mentor, and most devastatingly of all, I had to say goodbye to my mother.
I spent the great majority of 2020, especially the latter half, trying to escape what seemed like a never ending cycle of loss. I returned to old standbys like Stardew Valley, sinking probably another 50 hours into it between the co-op farm I started with my wife and restarting it over again on Switch. I replayed some of my favorite classics like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Super Mario World. But I also kept myself busy by burying myself in work, picking up many extra days just to take my mind off of stuff. Because of this, I missed out on a lot of big games this year. Big both in terms of their triple-A status and their immense runtime.
When I started this article, I went through and looked up all the games released this year and was surprised to find that I played a little over 20 games, and among the ones I played, there weren't many stinkers.
As always, these games of the year lists that I do every year are strictly personal preference. If you liked some of the games I was disappointed in, that's cool. I'm glad you liked them. If you hated some of the games that I loved this year, more power to you. Just don't get mad at me when I get on my soapbox about how people treated The Last of Us Part II at release.
AGENTS ARE GOOOOOOOOO! (Also, spoilers ahead for some of the games I'm talking about.)
Most Disappointing
Paper Mario: The Origami King
No franchise has burned me more than Paper Mario. I don't know why Nintendo insists on making new Paper Mario games that have such ridiculous combat gimmicks, but Origami King might be the worst they've ever come up with. I bought Paper Mario: Sticker Star on release day and couldn't understand how someone at Nintendo thought "Yeah, a limited number of attacks in a turn-based combat RPG, that sounds like a good idea." Just terrible.
Then there was Paper Mario: Color Splash on the Wii U. I was smart enough to avoid that one. Then there was Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam on 3DS, which was excellent because it's exactly what we wanted it to be. It was a standard turn-based RPG in the vein of Thousand Year Door and the rest of the Mario & Luigi series.
Then we arrive at Paper Mario: The Origami King, and once again, I wasted my money by buying this game on launch day at full price. Paper Mario: The Origami King is a perfect example of a game where they got everything right except the most important thing. The graphics, the writing, the humor, it's all there. Then there's the combat. If it were a turn-based RPG like the games I mentioned, it would probably crack my top 5 of the year. Instead, we have a circular grid that surrounds Mario, and each battle consists of nothing more than a few enemies shuffling themselves around on the grid and you adjusting it to line them up for a more powerful attack. You don't gain experience points, you don't level up, you don't acquire new attacks or abilities (at least not at the point that I stopped playing), and every time I engaged in combat past the first few battles, I was more annoyed than excited.
So much wasted potential with this series over the last few generations. Oh, and one of the bosses is a literal box of colored pencils.
Honorable Mention: Streets of Rage 4
It was fine. That's why it's disappointing. It was just...fine.
Biggest Surprise
Journey to the Savage Planet
In 2019, one of the biggest surprises for me was The Outer Worlds. This year, Journey to the Savage Planet came along and was like "Hey, what if you played The Outer Worlds, but your primary objective is to just explore a quirky and fun planet and not have to worry too much about the combat, inventory, and dialogue?"
I didn't know much about Journey to the Savage Planet going in. I had heard about it, but hadn't been following it and had no idea when it was supposed to be released. Then it dropped on Xbox Game Pass and I thought "Sure, why not?" I started it up and was immediately taken in by its bright, colorful palette and sense of humor.
If The Outer Worlds is "Fallout in space" then Journey to the Savage Planet is "bite-sized The Outer Worlds." It's not going to take you 40 hours to see everything Journey has to offer, you can probably crank everything out in a dozen hours or so. I find that to be refreshing, and that's the perfect length of a game for someone like me.
Honorable Mention: Gears Tactics
I gave Gears Tactics a try because of my fondness for Gears of War and found a surprisingly deep and enjoyable tactics game.
Best 2019 Game I Played in 2020
Control
Last year, I named the remake of Resident Evil 2 as my game of the year. If I had played Control in 2019, Resident Evil 2 would have taken a backseat. Control easily would have been my top game of last year. However, I picked it up at the end of the year when it was on sale and didn't get around to playing it until early 2020, henceforth, here it is.
I'm a huge fan of Remedy, and with the exception of Quantum Break, which I haven't played, their games rank very highly for me in terms of my favorite games on their respective platforms. Alan Wake is one of my all-time favorite games and there's no game that I want a true sequel to more.
From the very get-go, I was enthralled in Control's world. All of the supernatural cover-ups, the government conspiracies, the crazy setpieces, the characters that are just slightyly off, trippy sidequests, it's all so expertly crafted. I'm not usually the type of person to read data logs, journals, or whatever other written lore you find strewn about in video games. Typically in a game like Fallout 4 or The Outer Worlds, I'll read the information in the first few computer terminals I come across, but after a while I just start skipping it all. Not so with Control. I read every single piece of lore and collectible I could find and loved every redacted word.
There are few games that I can remember where I felt as empowered as I did in Control. There's just something special about leveling up to the point that you can telekinetically lift a forklift and hurl it at your enemies. Most of the time I relied on Jesse's powers rather than weapons, and it wasn't uncommon for me to walk into a room and just start grabbing stuff with my mind and throwing it at dudes. It was never unsatisfying.
And there were so many great areas and memorable moments that left an impression like the Black Rock Quarry, the recreation of Ordinary, the Ashtray Maze, and of course, Dr. Darling's music video. I was waiting for the Ultimate Edition to play the DLC, and now that it's been released, I intend to return to the Federal Bureau of Control once again.
Honorable Mention: Luigi's Mansion 3
I've been playing through this off and on throughout the year with my wife when we have time. It's an excellent co-op game and has the trademark Nintendo charm.
24 Year Old Game I Was Right About All Along
Super Mario 64
I understand why Super Mario 64 is an important video game. I understand it's relevance to the industry. And for a lot of people my age and those of you a few years younger than me, you probably grew up with Super Mario 64 and it holds a very special place in your heart. I understand and respect all of that.
However...
Since 1996, I have never shied away from my opinion that Super Mario 64 is an overrated video game. Important? Yes, absolutely. Good? In no way, shape, or form. I think it's undoubtedly the worst 3D Mario game and probably the worst Mario platformer. That may sound strange when Super Mario Sunshine is on the same cartridge, but while Sunshine certainly has its flaws, if given the choice, I would pick Sunshine over Super Mario 64 ten times out of ten.
And listen, guys, I bought Super Mario 3D All Stars with the intention of giving it another fair shot. I didn't like it when I was a kid, and then I tried to play it again on the Wii Virtual Console and felt the same way. That was over 10 years ago. I thought to myself, I've matured a lot as a gamer over the last decade. I've grown, my tastes and preferences have changed, I'm going to play Super Mario 64 again and I'm sure I'll love it this time.
But I didn't. I'm sorry, everyone. The controls and camera are just so bad. I quit out of many levels because of how much I had to wrestle with the camera, making it difficult to gauge certain jumps and leading to several deaths in a row. And don't get me started on the flying controls. I didn't even bother trying to get those stars after the first try when given the opportunity. Super Mario 64 certainly isn't all bad. A lot of the music is great, and some of the levels are very smartly crafted and none of them feel too similar to the others, but it's just not enough to get me to look past how poorly the game plays.
In conclusion, Super Mario 3D All Stars did nothing to convince me otherwise on my opinion on Super Mario 64. It was bad in 1996, and it's bad in 2020. If they did a full remake of Super Mario 64 with modern tech, I have no doubt it would look and play outstanding, and I think that's what we were all hoping for when this was first announced. But until that day comes, my opinion stands.
Luckily, this collection comes with Super Mario Galaxy, which is probably my favorite game of the last 20 years.
Most Unnecessary Remake/Remaster
The Mafia Trilogy
I've been playing video games my entire life. The PS2 and Xbox 360 are, respectively, two of my favorite consoles. Whenever I talk with friends and we reminisce on those consoles about our favorite games, I've never heard anyone say "Yeah, I really love the Mafia series." The general consensus about the Mafia games is that they're alright, but nothing special. So when I heard they were remastering the Mafia series for current consoles (last gen consoles now, I guess?), my eyebrows were certainly raised. Then they were released and had a whole host of technical issues, particularly Mafia II, from what I understand.
I had a similar reaction to the announcement of The Mafia Trilogy as I did a few years ago when they were remastering L.A. Noire, which was "But why?"
Honorable Mention : The Wonderful 101
Remember that mediocre game nobody bought on the Wii U? Well now you can not buy it on the Switch!
Worst NPC
Tiny Tina
This is less a 2020 "award" and more of a lifetime achievement kind of thing. I don't think Tiny Tina appeared in any of the Borderlands 3 DLC released in 2020, but I hate her so much that she will forever be the Worst NPC. Tiny Tina sucks. Kill her, Gearbox. Please. Murder that girl and don't let her come back.
Game I'm Most Sick of Hearing About
Among Us
I have nothing against Among Us. I'm happy to see a small game get the credit it deserves, especially in this case where the game hit its stride long after release. That's such a great story. But just because I'm happy for the game doesn't mean I can't still be sick of hearing about it.
As someone who worked in video game retail for years, I saw many games come and go. I watched many games take children by storm because it became the hot new Twitch game, leading me to be inundated with questions from customers about merch and various other things. It was Minecraft, then it was Five Nights at Freddy's, then Pokemon GO, then PUBG, then Hello Neighbor (which is the most God awful game of the bunch), then Fortnite, and now Among Us. Luckily, I've exited game retail and don't have to answer questions about when we're going to get Among Us plushies back in stock.
Again, I don't dislike Among Us. I've played it. It's cute, it's fun, I have nephews that are obsessed with it, and it's the most adorable thing ever. But I'm definitely sick of hearing people say "You're acting pretty sus."
Honorable Mention: Doom Eternal
Seriously, Luke, shut up about Doom Eternal.
Game Most Sent To Die
Battletoads
Remember a while back when Microsoft announced they were making a new Battletoads game and no one cared because Battletoads is a trash series and people only pretend to like it because it's somewhat of a cult NES game?
Remember when Microsoft didn't say another word about it and then released it with exactly zero advertisement or fanfare because they realized that no one cares about Battletoads because it's a trash series and people only pretend to like it because it's somewhat of a cult NES game?
That's what happened in 2020. I played it for about 30 minutes because it's on Game Pass, and it deserved exactly the amount of advertisement it got. If I had a "Worst Game of 2020" category, Battletoads would probably win (lose?).
Worst Game of 2020
Battletoads
Yup, I was right.
Worst Title
Pandemia: Virus Outbreak
What a poorly titled game to be released in 2020.
Honorable Mention: Whatever the Kingdom Hearts III DLC was called. I'm not going to look it up because I don't care about Kingdom Hearts, but I'm sure it was really, really stupid because it was DLC for a Kingdom Hearts game. It probably had a hyphen, ampersand, colon, semicolon, or any combination of the four in the title.
Best Title
Pandemia: Virus Outbreak
What a perfectly titled game to be released in 2020.
Honorable Mention: Beautiful Punching Dudes
Surely, someone has created this game by now.
Best Retro Game
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
A rule of thumb for me in general is that I have to buy Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on every generation of console so I always have a way to play it on a system that I currently have hooked up to my television. I always get the hankering to play SotN around Halloween every year. Last year, Castlevania Requiem was on sale on PSN on one of their end of the year sales. Despite already being able to play the Xbox 360 version on the Xbox One, I decided to pick it up for the addition of trophies, having the original version of Rondo of Blood, and because I just preferred playing PS4 over Xbox One.
I had played the remake of Rondo on Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles on PSP many years ago, but had never played the original version, so after playing SotN for the umpteenth time this year, I followed it up immediately with Rondo of Blood. Castlevania has long been one of my favorite series, so having not played Rondo--the direct prequel to one of my favorite games ever--needed to be rectified.
What proceeded was what I consider to be the best 2D Castlevania. I have a particular fondness for the original Castlevania and Super Castlevania IV, and it was hard for me to put another 2D Castlevania on a higher level than those, but here we are. Between the branching and secret paths, multiple playable characters with unique abilities and endings, excellent boss fights, stellar soundtrack, anime-inspired cutscenes, and a tough but fair difficulty curve, in addition to controlling well, it's hard for me to deny Rondo's greatness.
Game the Internet Cried About the Most Because They're a Bunch of Babies
The Last of Us Part II
Whenever the Internet doesn't like something, their naturally reaction is to create a petition to have people redo the thing they didn't like. It happened with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it happened with the finale of Game of Thrones, and it happened with The Last of Us Part II.
In all of those instances, my response is "Deal with it, nerds." You don't have the right to demand anything from anyone. You don't own the rights to Star Wars or Game of Thrones or The Last of Us, and until you do, you can't cry and tell Disney, HBO, or Naughty Dog that the story that they created has to be redone just because you don't like it.
I'm not saying that you can't be upset by how things played out. My favorite film of all-time is Terminator 2: Judgment Day. But when Terminator 3 was bad, and Terminator Salvation was average, and Terminator Genysis was a dumpster fire, and Terminator Dark Fate was the "true continuation of T2 and retcons the other films" and then proceeds to kill John Connor and has nothing to do with the original two films that I love and adore outside of a couple of characters, I didn't get my panties in a twist and review bomb the later films and demand that they be re-filmed. (Also, spoilers for Terminator: Dark Fate, I guess)
The Last of Us is in my top ten games of all-time. I adore it. I played it multiple times on both PS3 and PS4. The story absolutely hooked me and had me actually caring about characters in a video game, which very few games have been able to do. The way they showed the progression of Ellie and Joel's relationship was told beautifully, and it was the crux of the game. The Last of Us is about a fungal outbreak causing the downfall of modern society, but the story of the father-daughter relationship between Joel and Ellie is what drove the game. By the time the credits roll, you love them, and you understand Joel's internal struggle and why he ultimately made the decision he did.
But with the sequel, Naughty Dog wanted to tell a revenge story. Was I happy that they decided to kill Joel so early in the game in order to tell their revenge story? No. Joel was my favorite character in the series, as he was for a lot of people. Was I happy that Naughty Dog deceived us with pre-release trailers and made us believe that Joel played a much larger part in the game than he did? No, I wasn't happy about that, either. Was I happy that they turned a sweet, innocent girl like Ellie into the most awful and unlikable character in the game? No, I hated that.
What I'm getting at is that you're allowed to feel however you want about The Last of Us Part II. No one is allowed to tell you how you are or aren't allowed to feel about a game, or movie, or TV show, or whatever. You're allowed to hate the game, and you're allowed to express your opinion, but at least do it with respect and don't act like a child. Any time Naughty Dog posts anything on their social media pages, it's bombarded with negative comments from people hating on the game.
If you want to petition anything pertaining to The Last of Us Part II and Naughty Dog, petition the insane amount of crunch and poor treatment the developers had to deal with from their bosses over the course of the game. But you won't because BAD GAME IS BAD AND I WANT GOOD GAME!
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, it's almost time for my top 10 games of the year. But first, some notable games I did not play this year, just so you know why they didn't make my list:
Ghost of Tsushima
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
Cyberpunk 2077
Immortals Fenyx Rising
And now, the top 10 video games I played in 2020.
10. Astro's Playroom
I had no intention on owning a PlayStation 5 until about this time next year. I'm lucky that I'm finally in a place in my life where paying $500 isn't going to break me, but I still try to be as thrifty as I can, and I figured by Christmas 2021 there would be a sale or at least a bundle. However, I had a friend gift me a PS5. He didn't have to, I didn't ask him to, but somehow he was able to acquire one and just showed up at my doorstep and surprised me with it. I tried to offer to pay for it but he refused. I doubt he would want me to reveal his identity, but if he's reading, thank you again, man. It was one of the few bright spots in a truly terrible year for me.
So, a few days later when I finally had the opportunity to play something, the first thing I played, naturally, was Bugsnax.
Then I played Astro's Playroom and became very sad that I never splurged on the PSVR in order to play Astro Bot. Astro's Playroom may be a pack-in game, it's short and easy, but it's a nice little romp through the history of PlayStation and shows off the capabilities of the DualSense controller very well.
As far as pack-in games go, it's not Super Mario World or Wii Sports, but it's quite fun and certainly worth the few hours you'll spend with it.
9. Carrion
I remember first seeing a trailer for Carrion about a year before its release and being stoked. I've made my love for the metroidvania no mystery, and the idea of playing one where you control the monster sounded like a neat twist on the genre. And it was. However, I think I let myself get a little too psyched up for it prior to launch because I did find myself a little underwhelmed when the credits rolled.
The controls were sometimes a little wonky, and combat was trivial for the most part. The greatest enemy in Carrion is the world itself. And no, that's not me trying to say that the game does some great job with the world-building aspect of the story, I mean that there's no map and that's the most infuriating aspect of Carrion.
Carrion is technically a metroidvania, but is still pretty linear. The game is broken up into several areas, each acting as it's own metroidvania (if you've played Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, it's similar to that). On their own, the lack of a map isn't an issue, but if you want to backtrack to find power-ups you may have missed, it's likely that you'll get lost because of its confusing set up.
Like any good metroidvania, if you take the time to explore and find secrets, you're so overpowered by the end of the game that the later sections become trivial. Despite my complaints, Carrion was still a lot of fun. Once you get a hold of the way the monster moves and understand its special abilities and how to use them to your advantage, you feel unstoppable.
Periodically, the game changes the action up to have you control a human and play short puzzle sequences and to give the game some exposition. At first these sequences don't seem like they're going anywhere, but they do pay off in the end.
Perhaps it would have been better for me to go into Carrion with tempered expectations, but even though I wasn't as into it as much as I thought I would be, it was still a fun romp that didn't overstay its welcome. I think it will secure a similar place in my gaming life as something like Limbo. It'll be a game I come back to every so often and replay between big releases like video game comfort food.
8. Journey to the Savage Planet
I've already said a bit about Journey to the Savage Planet, so I won't be long-winded here. At this stage in my life, I prefer to play smaller games rather than huge, open-world RPGs. I still play a good amount of both, but if given the option, I'll choose a more focused 8-12 hour game as opposed to one that's going to take me weeks or months to complete.
It had a few sections that left me scratching my head, but for the most part I always knew where to go and what to do and it didn't waste my time, which I appreciate.
7. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2
Few games fill me with as much nostalgia as the early Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games, and I say that as someone who wasn't nearly as into them as my friends were at the time. Thinking about those games transports us all back to a simpler time when the biggest worries we had were whose house we were staying at that night and which pizza place we were ordering from.
These remakes are every bit as good as the originals and do exactly what you want a remake to do: it added to the games we love while being true to the spirit of the originals. I know that alterations were made, but I was able to jump right into all of my favorite levels and pull off all the tricks I used to without even having to think about it. It was like getting on a bike again.
However, I've never been good at Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. I'm good enough to complete the challenges, collect the SKATE letters, find the secret collectibles, and so on, but I would be screwed in the competitions if it weren't for the manual. I'm just not good at finding those lines and pulling off those insane combos. Once I completed all of the objectives in each level, I was done with the game. I'm not the type to try and improve my best scores because, again, I suck at these games. Although, I have to say that the first time I heard "Superman" play on the Warehouse level, I was instantly 14 years old again. That memory will never leave me.
6. Resident Evil 3
I'm of two minds on Capcom's latest remake in their beloved horror franchise. On one hand, I was always a huge fan of the original game, so just the fact that this exists is awesome. On the other hand, they cut a lot of things from the original game that I would have loved to have seen in this version.
On one hand, it still looks and plays like the RE2 remake from last year that blew me away. On the other, it's obvious that this one game didn't receive the same kind of attention as RE2.
I always loved the original Resident Evil 3 because of how much you got to explore of Raccoon City. In this remake, you no longer get to see the Raccoon City newspaper office, the clock tower, the park, and they even cut the only other boss character, Gravedigger. Gravedigger terrified me as a kid, and I was most looking forward to seeing how they updated the monstrosity, only to find that it wasn't in the game.
RE2 updated Mr. X and made him into the most memorable part of the game. I remember talking with friends at the time how great Nemesis would be if they also planned on remaking RE3. Nemesis was fine, but failed to induce the same kind of anxiety that Mr. X did. I think part of that reason is because Nemesis shows up so often in the early stages of the game that fighting him didn't feel like a real threat after the first few encounters.
RE2 was very similar to THPS1+2 in that it modernized one of my favorite games. It didn't take away anything unless it was necessary, it added things to subvert expectations, and by the time I finished the game, I couldn't wait to restart and play with the second character. RE3 is still a competent remake of a beloved classic, but in some ways it feels like a budget game.
I've spent most of this entry talking about the bad, but Resident Evil 3 is still a very good game, especially if you're a fan of the series. It still controls great and gives you a lot of incentives to play through multiple times. I had a lot of fun unlocking the special weapons and replaying on harder difficulties, and being able to blast through the game in just a little over one hour with the infinite rocket launcher was actually quite a blast.
Technically, Resident Evil 3 doesn't have many flaws. But for longtime fans like me, it left a lot to be desired. What it took out far outweighs what it added, and that's a shame, because RE3 should have been competing for my favorite game of 2020 instead of not even cracking the top 5.
5. Grindstone
Okay, I'm cheating here, because although it was released on Switch just this past December 15th, technically Grindstone was released in 2019 on Apple Arcade and MacOS. However, when you read that it was released on Apple Arcade and MacOS only last year, I'm sure most of you will allow me to give it a pass.
Grindstone is a puzzle game made by Capy, who are responsible for creating one of my all-time favorite games in Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, an outstanding strategy puzzle game released on Nintendo DS and then later on digital storefronts. Given that fact, I was more than happy to give Grindstone a purchase when a friend suggested it. I've only recently started playing, but I've been hooked. It's one of the most addicting games I've played in some time.
When you look at Grindstone, you definitely get the mobile game vibe, which may turn off some players, but once you dig in and really begin to understand the mechanics and unlock new and interesting upgrades, I promise that the mobile game vibe will be a non-issue.
The basic explanation is that Grindstone is a matching game where you can chain as many attacks together as possible as long as the enemies--referred to as "creeps"--are the same color. Making a chain of 10 or more releases a gem onto the board, which will allow you to change your attacks to a different color of enemy mid-chain. Each level has three objectives: defeat a minimum number of creeps to unlock the door to move on to the next stage, collect a treasure chest, and defeat a special enemy to receive their crown. Only the first objective is necessary, but treasure chests contain extra crafting material for special weapons and health regens, and the crowns allow you to unlock new areas and boss battles.
Grindstone is one of the better short-time games you can pick up right now. You can certainly play it for long stretches like I have, but it's also one of those "I have five minutes, I can play a level" kind of games.
4. Ori and the Will of the Wisps
The only complaint I have about Ori and the Will of the Wisps is how poorly it ran on my Xbox One S at launch. I do my best not to use the word "literally" incorrectly, so trust me when I say that, at launch, certain areas in Ori and the Will of the Wisps would freeze for 1-5 seconds literally every 10 seconds or so. The game crashed on me 5 times. Twice I got stuck inside walls and couldn't get out, necessitating another restart.
When the game decides it wants to be a big boy and run correctly, it's everything I wanted in a sequel to one of my favorite games of the generation. It added boss fights, new abilities, new traversal options, side missions, and a checkpoint system. The new checkpoint system does mitigate a lot of the challenge and strategy that Ori and the Blind Forest had, but I don't consider it a downgrade. At worst, it's a lateral move. It also doesn't hurt that both of the Ori games are absolutely stunning to look at.
One thing that the Ori games do almost better than anyone is player movement. When running properly, few games feel as smooth as Ori, and chaining all of your abilities together without losing momentum makes you feel like a digital parkour runner.
Ori's story is told with minimal dialogue, instead relying on the environment to shine a light on the underlying sadness permeating the world. The way the characters interact with one another conveys a genuine friendship without having to say a word. Throughout the game, and definitely at the end, Ori and the Will of the Wisps can genuinely make you shed a single, manly tear.
I'm sure the major technical bugs have been patched, so playing it now is probably a much smoother experience for someone playing on anything less than an Xbox One X. If you haven't jumped into this one, you're definitely missing out on one of the better 2D metroidvania titles in recent years.
3. Marvel's Spider Man: Miles Morales
Over the summer, I went back and finally got around to playing the DLC for Marvel's Spider Man. It was great, of course, and considering that I hadn't played the game since it's 2018 release, I was overjoyed to find that it's a very easy game to jump back in to. I was able to get back into the swing of things (pun intended) within a few minutes. I even went back into the main game and finished the crime missions, which was the only trophy preventing me from obtaining the platinum. I actually set aside an entire afternoon and did a little over 60 of them. It was monotonous.
That was honestly my only complaint. There was just too much to do. Which is why Miles Morales is much more up my alley. Sure, it didn't have as involved of a story, it didn't have as many villains, and as someone whose knowledge of Spider Man lore comes almost entirely from the Sam Raimi films, it didn't have many characters I recognized in general. But Miles Morales took the Uncharted: Lost Legacy route and told an concise, roughly 8-10 hour story. That's perfect for me. If you want that platinum, add on a few more hours.
I actually have no idea who Miles Morales is outside of this game (and his brief role in the 2018 game). However, this game made me want to get to know him. I know he's the main character of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and I've heard great things about that film, so I'm planning to watch it in the near future.
When it comes to the gameplay, if you enjoyed the 2018 game, there's no reason you won't like Miles Morales. Swinging is as natural as ever, and combat is mostly the same, but why change what works? The amount of tech that Miles can use in combat is much reduced from Peter, but Miles' special abilities more than make up for it.
There are still plenty of side missions and collectibles to distract you, and in general I found the side missions in Miles Morales to be much more enjoyable. I didn't care for the environmental challenge or pigeon collecting missions from the original. The latter of which does make one appearance in Miles Morales, though it leads into a bigger side mission. I was also very happy to find that stealth missions were abandoned for this sequel, which were perhaps my least favorite parts of Spider Man.
As much as I loved 2018's Spider Man, I think I like Miles Morales more because of its shorter run time. It doesn't try to do too much, and is still able to pull on your heartstrings the same way the original did.
2. The Last of Us Part II
Despite my complaints about The Last of Us Part II that I wrote about earlier, the reason it ranks so highly for me this year is because the gameplay is just perfect. It's the best stealth game since 2015's Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Well, it can be if that's how you decide to play it. You can certainly go into every encounter guns-blazing if you so choose, but I don't think that would be wise, especially on harder difficulties.
The Last of Us Part II is, without question, the most controversial game of 2020. When you take into account the immense amount of fan backlash the game suffered and continues to suffer to this day, how could it not be? When TLoU2 was announced and that first trailer was shown, I was torn. On one hand, I would have liked Joel and Ellie's life together following the credits to have remained ambiguous. Would Joel ever Ellie the truth? If so, how would Ellie take the news? Would they be content in Tommy's compound? I loved that Naughty Dog didn't give us all the answers. There's a part of me that wanted a sequel, but wanted it be about an entirely different group of people and how they're dealing with things in their part of the world. But then again, I love these characters and want to spend more time with them and see how their relationship has grown over the last several years. And that's what we got.
The story is the primary reason The Last of Us Part II remains so polarizing. It holds absolutely nothing back. It's a very adult game. The original certainly had its moments, but not nearly to this degree. As mentioned earlier, this is a revenge story that shows how the desire for revenge leads to a never-ending vicious circle of violence. I hated watching Ellie's descent into uncontrollable rage, and if there's one thing I didn't expect, it's the fact that the character we were programmed to hate for the first half of the game became the more likeable of the two playable characters. Don't get me wrong, she's also a detestable character, and her desire for revenge is what sets the events of The Last of Us Part II in motion.
Despite how much I love The Last of Us Part II, I'm honestly not sure if I can say that I enjoyed playing it, if that makes sense? The game is brutal from start to finish. It never lets up. You eventually get to a point where you expect everyone to be dead at the end, which isn't too far from what actually happens. The brief moments of tranquility only serve as bookends to hours and hours of torture-porn levels of violence. Beating a woman to death as she begs for her life, witnessing a disemboweling, the torture of a young girl, bludgeoning countless people in the most detailed way that gaming has ever seen, The Last of Us Part II is relentless. At times, it feels like nothing more than an Eli Roth movie where everyone is the antagonist.
All that aside, much like the first game, I found myself enamored with the world, coveting every note I discovered to understand how things went down in Seattle during this fungal apocalypse. I wanted to know exactly what happened that led to the war between the WLF and the Seraphite cult. As hard as the story is to handle at times, Naughty Dog always does a masterful job of world-building.
The world-building, combined with the top-notch stealth gameplay, is what keeps you going. Even though I feel that The Last of Us Part II is about ten hours longer than it needed to be, the areas that felt like filler were still incredibly fun to take on. I was fastidious with how I approached each encounter, doing my best to get through them without alarming enemies in hopes of getting through unscathed and made liberal use of the traps at my disposal when things did break down. My favorite combat sequences were those featuring both human and infected enemies, allowing you to strategically pit the two against each other to reduce the cleanup you'll have to do afterward.
Not to beat a dead horse (R.I.P. Shimmer), but I understand all the complaints levied against The Last of Us Part II. Personally, the direction they went with the story didn't bother me. It wasn't the route I would have taken if I were the one writing it, but I appreciate the risk Naughty Dog took. It's not everyone's cup of tea, and I definitely don't hold it in the same regard as I do the original, but I think The Last of Us Part II is a wonderful but flawed game where the good still outweighs the bad.
1. Hades
I don't play a lot of rogue-likes. Most of the ones I have played don't hook me and I fall off quickly. Every now and then, though, a rogue-like gets its claws in me and I become obsessed with it. The first one to do so was Rogue Legacy. I adore that game. Then came Dead Cells in 2018, a game that I still play fairly regularly thanks to its developers continued support.
And then, there's Hades.
Hades isn't just the best rogue-like I've ever played. It's one of the best video games I've ever played. Period. I intend to do a top ten of the generation list soon, and you can expect Hades to be very high on that list. It's on another level.
The very nature of rogue-likes is a weird one. You play, you die, then you start again from the beginning with things slightly changed and a little stronger than before. The hardest thing for a rogue-like to do is to have a story that actually makes sense in the context of the world. But Hades pulls it off. In fact, that story is one of Hades' greatest strengths, which is not something you can say of many games in the genre. When you die, it makes sense why you start over with things slightly changed. When you succeed, it makes sense why you need to succeed again and again. When you see the so-called "end of the story," it makes sense why you would keep going.
Hades is named after the titular god of the underworld from Greek mythology, a topic that I've had an interest in ever since I first saw Clash of the Titans as a kid. I love the personalities of each Greek god, and over 50 hours into the game, their dialogue has never once repeated. The amount of love and time that went into writing Hades is admirable.
As great as the story is in Hades, the story isn't what keeps you playing in a rogue-like. It's also not the combat itself, though it, too, is stellar. In rogue-likes, what keeps you going is the sense of progression. You start your first run, and then you die. Maybe you'll level up. You start your second run, and you get a little further. After that, maybe you'll level up again. Then maybe you'll make it to a boss and get absolutely smoked and think "I will never beat them." But you keep going, you keep grinding, and eventually, you do beat that boss. Hades does this better than any other game in the genre that I've played.
Hades is played as a series of rooms with the goal to defeat every enemy. Once you do, you choose from three "boons" pertaining to the Greek god offering it. These boons act as perks that may alter your abilities, increase your strength, or any number of other possibilities. After choosing your boon, you move to the next room, with the icon on the door showing you what type of upgrade the room contains. Sometimes it's another boon from a god, sometimes it's currency (which can be used between runs to unlock permanent upgrades), sometimes it's the ferryman, Charon, who acts as the game's merchant, sometimes it's a health upgrade, and sometimes it's something else entirely. Oftentimes the room has more than one door, allowing you to choose which upgrade you want to strive for.
In time, you begin to become familiar with which god's boons you're most proficient with. For instance, I always choose an Ares room in hopes of getting the "Blade Rift," which is a boon that transforms your projectile attack into a giant, whirling blade that can deal massive damage. I'm also likely to pick Dionysus or Hermes if they're an option. What keeps Hades fresh with each run is that there are so many different gods and upgrades to choose from that each run feels completely different, and it's fun to experiment with abilities you may not have chosen before.
Additionally, Hades has several weapons to choose from, and each can react to the boons you choose differently, allowing for an almost infinite number of possible builds. Speaking of the weapons, they work hand-in-hand with Hades' progression system. You'll have certain weapons you gravitate toward more, and others that you avoid at all costs. But again, as you gain new abilities and learn how certain boons work, even your least favorite weapons (the bow and railgun, for me) can become a favorite, making you want to see all the possible builds you can create. Case in point, the last weapon I beat the game with was the bow. I used it once when I first unlocked it, and then never again until I had beaten Hades with every other weapon. The second time I played with the bow was the most dominant run I ever had, crushing each boss and barely taking a hit the entire time. Suddenly, the bow became one of my go-to weapons.
Oh, and you can also unlock permanent upgrades to each weapon, allowing for even more creativity with your builds.
I've been going on for a while now, but I still feel like there's so much about Hades that I haven't covered. I encourage every PC or Switch owner to play it. It's one of the best overall packages in video games this generation. It has a beautiful, cel-shaded aesthetic, great voice acting, a story that will have you captivated, and incredibly satisfying combat. If I hadn't made the conscious decision to move on from Hades, I would still be playing it and still would have barely scratched the surface on the amount of content it's holding.
Do yourself a favor and play Hades.
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