my top 10 games of 2020

So I may, or may not have completely forgotten to maintain my 'games played list', and just spent 20 minutes desperately scouring my game libraries for an indicator of what I may have missed.

So, I'm hoping against hope that there isn't a hidden gem I had a nice afternoon with and somehow completely forgot about, since this list has been written up in one evening. That said, to the inevitable forgotten game(s) of 2020, my apologies. Of the games I do remember on this misty new years eve, I have attempted to put together a ranked list, once again.

In this 2020 hellscape, with the notable lack of university work, a new job with the new year which began working remotely since march (I feel extremely lucky in this regard) and living alone I found myself with a lot of free time. As such, this is the first year since I started logging these that I have actually reached more than 10 games I'd like to include on the list and had to make serious cuts from games I might otherwise have considered including. I could probably still have added them all of course, but for the Novelty(tm) I've crafted myself an actual top 10 list for once. I haven't gone mad though, and I'm still including games not released this year, patient-gaming style (although perhaps not as patient as I've been in the past....)

I also wanted to include some notable mentions which cropped back up again this year - I found myself piling another 40 hours into Celeste endgame content, picked back up Overwatch which has introduced roles queues since I was away and got through trying out a lot of online coop games that we as a group had never been able to coordinate consistently before this year (Phasmophobia, Overcooked 2 and Sea of Thieves leading the way here)

So without further ado, this is what I've come up with this year.

List items

• 

  Ring Fit Adventure

  10.)

  Do I generally enjoy exercise? No. However, this one presses the buttons in my brain to make the happy chemicals, is actually a decent workout unlike many previous Nintendo 'sports' games, I can play it in my living room with the blinds closed and on silent mode so my downstairs neighbours don't throttle me in my sleep.

  Of all the ways I hate to exercise, this is currently the one I hate least (along with the occasional Yoga with Adrienne, which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who so much as wants to stretch).

• 

  A Plague Tale: Innocence

  9.)

  Yep, this one is from my 2019 list as well - as I started playing it around a year ago. I wasn't too sure about it to begin with, but the story really played out to something a little more interesting than I had initially anticipated from the opening hours. It will never be the answer to Hellblade (for me) which I see so many people drawing comparisons to, but the overall aesthetic, story and puzzles made it a worthy playthrough for me, if not one I'd revisit.

• 

  Lair of the Clockwork God

  8.)

  Now this was a fun game. Writing which made me genuinely laugh out loud on many occasions,

• 

  Bugsnax

  7.)

  While bubbled in a household with a ps5, I was given Bugsnax 'to try'. What then ensued was a flurry of snax-collecting, grumpus-pleasing, joyous nonsense for approximately 10 hours across 2.5 days. While the game definitely pushed the grumpus soap-operas on me a little too frequently (I just wanna go and catch SNAX!) this delightful little game left an impression on me.

• 

  A Short Hike

  6.)

  What else can I describe this game as other than a package of delight? Here is a small, compact experience in which a penguin climbs a mountain, and explores an island full of holiday-makers.

• 

  Kentucky Route Zero

  5.)

  I got my copy of Kentucky Route Zero way back around 2014, and have had it sat in my early access purgatory waiting for the elusive episode 5 until this year.

  I was impressed by the cohesiveness of the art and overall aesthetic for a game 10+ years in the making. The narrative this game tells is something I still find myself thinking back to months later, and is definitely one of the most unique games I've ever played.

• 

  Ori and the Will of the Wisps

  4.)

  Ori and I did not immediately get along, due to a poor combination of technical problems (audio stuttering and crashes to desktop) and me ruining the game for myself by desperately comparing every second to the Ginso Tree of the first game, which is ~1 hour of what I consider perfect game design and is a tough competitor.

  That said, once I finally got over myself and eventually received the steam version as a gift, I had a much better time. Once again Ori has smooth platforming, and is a treat to look at and listen to. While the combat took some getting used to, the overall product is a much richer game than the first one (although I'm sorry moon studios - you haven't topped the ginso tree yet).

• 

  Animal Crossing: New Horizons

  3.)

  Yep, it's that game. When I came down with a fever, flu symptoms followed by a cough in early March, one of my first concerns was 'oh no! Now how am I going to pick up my ACNH switch preorder!' I joke of course, but between isolating and the impending UK lockdown closing retail shops, I actually managed to pick up my switch within the only 12 hour window I could safely do so. And BOY was it worth it. Sure, I don't have the greatest town on earth - there's still huge swathes of island which the windflowers are in control of, but the point isn't to have a perfect island. Like so many other people, animal crossing was there for me at a point when it could not have meant more - keeping me in touch with friends, giving me virtual family to check on (Fauna, I would die for you) and generally being a happy, cosy place I could go and hang out while the real world was (at points literally) on fire.

  I may not play animal crossing every day anymore, but I could never have anticipated how important it would have become for a few months of my 2020.

• 

  Hades

  2.)

  I have been a die-hard supergiant fan since I fell in love with Transistor and immediately went back to play Bastion, and later Pyre. When I heard that their next game was going to be a roguelike, and in early access on top of that, my heart sank.

  Why would this company who excel at making great narratives and beautiful scenery dedicate themselves to a genre which typically has barely any narrative, and pretty repetitive scenery?

  When I hesitantly picked up a copy on switch after 1.0 reviews started flooding it with praise, I very quickly began eating my words. Hades is a rich experience with

• 

  Outer Wilds

  1.)

  There was a lot of buzz about this game last year, so I was expecting to enjoy it. However, what I found still exceeded my expectations on a colossal level. The Outer Wilds is a game you can never replay, which is by far the worst feature. If you've ever come away from a piece of media thinking 'I wish I could delete this from my mind so I can experience it again' - this was 10 times worse than that. Of course this is only the case because the game was so enjoyable, and paid such meticulous attention to detail that I felt that everything I had witnessed could be explained within the constraints of this wacky universe where you can run round planets in 20 seconds and inhale oxygen if you stand within 5 metres of a tree.

  It's hard to gush about how amazing this game is without spoiling, so if you aren't familiar I simply have to say go and play it, and for the love of all you care about don't google it and spoil anything.

  I really think this will be a game people reference as a key reference point in 10 years time particularly for the exploration/mystery solving genres.