Sirmax

When you start enforcing contemporary politics into something that just wants to be a game you are asking for disappointment. That people are asking or hoping to get a serious discussion of modern-day politics from a video game, is absurd. People are reading way too much into these things, more than is reasonable.The fact that the game even brings up trans people is itself a way of progress, since the vast majority of games don't adress it, not even most triple-A games.

A game should not be tailor-made to fit contemporary politics, its spoils the game and turns it into political marketing, nothing more. Most of us just want a good game. "Representation"? sure, but is that what every game should be about, what every storyline must focus on by law? no, that's absurd. The developers should be free to tell the story they want to tell. If we start policing them, like much of the US gaming media is already doing, then there's little point of writing a story or creating characters, beause someonone somewhere is bound to be offended since representation is a subjective feeling, something experienced internally, that has as much to do with the person viewing it as it has the actual material.

On a side-note, let's make a list of a 100 representative groups so that every single video game henceforth ticks every single one of them. Not just that, they have to cover each group 100% perfectly. This is not reasonable however. Or just do what the US media already does, and conveniently apply your ethical principles only on occasion, not for every game you come across but for whenever it suits you. Nobody is talking about representation in Nintendo games. Where are the dark-skinned people in Mario for example? But hey they're Japanese, and the US media only apply their principles for Eastern European games, not American, British, and certainly not Japanese games. This racist targeting of developers from certain regions of the world annoyes me. There's such a clear double-standard in this. I have no issues with these topics per se, I have an issue with how the media applies their scrutiny of it: "for some games - developed in these countries - we care about representation, for other games it's completely irrelevant". That does not add up, cherry-picking is the opposite of having principles.

In loose order, only games released in 2020:

1. Immortals Fenyx Rising - I rarely play triple-A titles but this one had so much charm I simply had to get it. It's just fantastic: wonderful visual style, wonderful narration, fun characters, lots of puzzles, highly enjoyable combat, enjoyable environments. I could go on and on. It takes a lot to make me buy and invest in a triple-A game, so this game is extra special to me.
2. Dark Fall: Ghost Vigil - as expected from this developer; a great atmosphere and good puzzles. Also, novel gameplay mechanics that expand what you can do in this sub-genre. I feel that each game in this franchise continues to push what is possible.
3. Port Royale 4 - I've been waiting for this one for many years. It's what I expected and wanted: thinking, planning, optimizing trade routes, building and manufacturing, expanding, tactical combat, immersive atmosphere. Looks great and plays well.
4. Creeper World 4 - another one of my favourite franchises. A perfectly unique and fun mix of tower defense and strategy.
5. Spellforce 3 Fallen Gods - a fun fusion of RTS and RPG, with deep Fantasy stuff.
6. Panzer Corps 2 - hex-based combat + WW2 theme ? sign me up. Can't get enough of this stuff. Wargaming done really well.
7. Hunting Simulator 2 - not as pretty or big as Call of the Wild, but it does its own unique thing - and you can have dogs!
8. SnowRunner - vehicular physics puzzles where some tactical planning is required. Even better than Mudrunner and Spintires.
9. Maneater - the kind of game I've always wanted to play but nobody bothered to make, so I was overjoyed at its announcement. It's a bit grindy for sure, but I think everything about this game is unique, and the mechanics are fun.
10. Art of Rally - you really don't need licenses to make a great racing game. This game captures the core spirit of rally racing and is lots of fun.

Honorable mentions:

* Zombie Army 4 Dead War - a simple formula but that's all I really want from a shooter, and I'm far from tired of zombies. A cool fun game.

* Shadow Empire - a challenging 4x colony-building game, a tonne of depth and options.

* Wizards and Warlords - 4X Fantasy with lots of depth. Very old-school, which is only a plus to me.

* Partisans 1941 - a theme poorly covered in games. I enjoyed the game's historical aspects, and it's tactical combat.

* WRC 9 and MotoGP 20 - two very solid racing titles, the very best in each respective franchise I would argue.

* Desperados III - a formula that really can't fail in my opinion. I'll happily see more of this from this developer.

* Airborne Kingdom and Before We Leave - two awesome games with unique takes on city-building.

* Aquanox Deep Descent - very immersive and captures the undersea atmosphere really well. Fun combat.

What made me angry about the whole Last of Us II drama, was how the mainstream media and the publishers of the game reacted to criticism.

Any valid criticism of the game - i.e. a well-formulated, rational and comprehensive opinion - was being seen as "bigotry" by mainstream media channels like Kotaku, Polygon, RPS, IGN, and others (even GiantBomb to some degree). Not to mention the publisher. They were all closed to any degree of discussion on this matter, making it very clear that if you didn't like the game you were a racist and misogynistic person.

This sets a dangerous precedent, that only the big media channels are allowed to have valid opinions about a game, that if you disagree with them you're simply a bad person.

My reaction was unusual because I had no investment in this franchise at the onset: I did not play the first game because it did not interest me, and I had no intentions of playing the sequel. If every critic of the game was being perceived as racist and misogynistic, what does that make people like me, who had zero interest in this franchise? The critics were willing to spend their money and time on these games after all. People like me were not. So by the mainstream media's criteria, I must be some kind of anti-christ for not having the interest to play the Last of Us II, even it was offered to me for free.

What got me invested in this game's discussion was the above-mentioned phenomena. How the mainstream gaming media tried to exert control over how we criticize games, and when it is valid to criticize a game. They made it very clear that you cannot criticize a game that supports their real-world political ideals. They forced a political agenda upon the franchise, that if you didn't like the game you were just an angry Trump suporter (which I'm not by the way, I seek to replace all politicians with an artificial intelligence).

The way the mainstream media and the developers/publishers responded made people even angrier, and made more people angry. That they were being pushed into a political definition, that their opinions of the gameplay and story didn't count by default.