Technically only 3 games that came out this year, spent a lot of time playing older systems (bought a psp and gba sp).
I did play a lot of Hades, Spelunky 2 and Origami King and finished FF7R. None of them made it anywhere near this list.
The Ac!d 2 inclusion isn’t a Rorie pander either. Since only playing it on its release 15 years ago my memory was that it looked great and the gameplay was ahead of its time, but there was always the question in the back of my mind of if it was rose tinted glasses... having replayed it in 2020 it turns out it wasn’t. That game still rules.
As a healthcare worker in a major hospital 2020 has been a tough year emotionally and physically. Unfortunately it left little time for play video games. I know my #1 choice is from 2019 but it just felt good to play a video game ass video game too escape the day to day.
Glad to see a decent amount of Murder by Numbers love in the comments, this brings me joy. I just started the new Ori game, really liking it so far, I see a lot of others also enjoyed it.
My biggest surprise of the year was the fact that I played a jillion hours of Spelunky 1 and bounced off of Spelunky 2 like a super-powered trampoline. It is FAR too dense with threats and seems to be hyper-obtuse just for the heck of it, I couldn't even bring myself to finish the game once.
Damn, no love for Desperados 3 in this thread? I haven't been as pleasantly surprised by a game in a long time, it's so fun and clever, I was constantly excited by it.
I felt good that making this list was harder than I wanted it to be. Here are some comments on my process:
- Hades is the best hands down. The game is *so* good. It makes Dead Cells less fun and that's insane.
- Satisfactory should be on this list, but it is still early access and I played more of Factorio and Rimworld
- Last of Us Part II is pretty incredible. The story isn't as good as the first game, but there are *pieces* of the story that are better than some pieces of story in the first. That is weird to say, but I stand by it.
-Tony Hawk is great but I flew through it and haven't gone back too much yet.
- Animal Crossing is the Pandemic game of the year. It is the best thing out there right now, but it is also the worst. There are so many stupid things they should fix/improve in that game. I love it, and I hate it. I started this list with Hades at 1 and Animal Crossing at 10. Not since Mario Maker 2 have I looked at a game and so easily been able to say "This game would be much, much better if they just did A., B., C., etc."
- I might come back and kick Monster Hunter off of this list. It is only here because Iceborne took so long to come to PC.
Games I didn't get to or that fell just short:
-Spiritfarer - installed but unplayed.
- Ori 2 - Game seems neat but I fell off of it. It looks beautiful, but I'm lost in that world now.
- Bloodstained - game is great, but it is like a filler game. I played it and did all of the quests but I find myself forgetting it a bit.
- Golf on Mars - Good phone game but I haven't stuck with it like Desert Golfing.
- Tabletop Simulator absolutely should be on this list, but it didn't come out this year and I'm just gonna make a top ten board games list instead.
Still haven't finished some of them. But until now I have probably spent the most time on Persona 4 Golden for PC this year. Although I can see Spelunky 2 overtaking that, as I played the previous Spelunky for years.
And with due respect Among Us is obviously not a 2020 game, or we could consider Rust too now that it's popular among streamers. Hades can be considered 2018 too for that matter. But we will see what the judgement on these is.
Just like last year most of the time I've spent playing Game Pass games, so Microsoft is doing a great job with that still.
Hades is a Perfect game. Everything is done phenomenally. Supergiant Games never fails at delivering excellent art, diverse sound design and music, and above all smooth but nail-bitingly tense and brutal gameplay. All of this combined hits the just the right pleasure center in the brain. I never thought in the year that brought us Spelunky 2 I would be completely entranced in a different roguelike. *Chefs Kiss*
Cyberpunk is a troublesome game for many reasons, but somehow I managed to put 45 hours in to reach an ending, and immediately started a second playthrough with a completely different build. It's the Skyrim 2020 remake that I didn't know I needed.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons came with a fire and intensity that took over months of my life. It became a drug to me. I couldn't go a few hours without it. It's the warm hug that we all needed in 2020, but I fear that I've lost interest and have already missed out on a few events. I really need to clean up my town..
I only put 2020 releases on my list (Tetris Effect Oculus Quest, Bug Fables Switch, Among Us ???) but I also played Alan Wake for the first time because of the Control DLC and thought it was decent. I replayed some comfort games too, mainly Portal, Portal 2, Terraria, Minecraft, Borderlands 2, and the games in Super Mario 3D Allstars.
Also shouts out to a clever indie game called "Empty." out on iOS this year, it's a free game about colors and minimalism. I would include it but I had played on itch before 2020.
This is it, this is the list. I dont know if thats my final order, but im pretty sure this is the full list. Oh wait, i need to add Tony Hawk and then thats the list.
This was the first year since 2017 I had access to a console (PS4 + Switch) and PC. Because of that, and just having less time to play games overall, I found myself playing a lot of older titles. All told, it was a great year for games even if they didn't all come out in 2020.
Also, this was my first ever Animal Crossing.. but woweee the game flow and UX are bad enough to warrant exclusion from my list. Props to anyone with that much patience.
This is my list for this year. Played about 15 games in 2020 that came out in 2020 (overall played like 80 games this year, but the rest didn't come out in 2020). So yeah, put hundreds of hours into Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and it was fun, meaningful, and help me a lot with all the stress of this year.
Doing a quick look over the comments, and am seeing a lot of the same games, so i guess this year won't be too wild... well, not the community GoTY....
I see that Paper Mario: The Origami King isn't on many list, and i understand that, but that game has/had the biggest emotional moment (this year) in gaming for me. But its one of those that has to take you by surprise, so if you just youtube it, it won't land. So am guessing it won't get its due, since most people won't play the game naturally and get hit by the feels. Heck, even saying there a emotional moment is kind of a spoiler. So i'll stop talking about it, other to say, play the game if you can or have any interests in it.
This was super hard for me this year. I played probably an above average, for myself, number of games but really had to scrape for 10 that came out in 2020. I only probably had 15ish officially 2020 games out of closer to 50+ games I began last year.
And frankly some were technicalities. Yakuza 7 was a 2019 game. "Technically" :p
But that's what really got me. I call it the Hollow Knight problem. Hollow Knight didn't really blow up until it came to console. It's a game that is a slam dunk for a top 10 Goty lists but most people who played it did not play it in its launch year.
I played a ton of games that were "new releases" off the PC that I wanted to vote for only to realise, for example, "Oh wait, Cross Code came out in 2015?". Another game that, I'm pretty sure, eclipsed it's prior user base on the Switch alone, but can't be on their 2020 Goty.
I mean my actual 2020 list ignores years entirely because who cares but you know what I mean.
Was having trouble filling this out. 8-10 I only played a little bit of. This year, I played through Disco Elysium, The Outer Worlds, replayed Dishonored 2 as Emily, and played through a lot of Assassin's Creed games besides Valhalla.
It's the first year I don't have any console games on my list. The triple-A industry only produced massive dissapointments this year. But there were some real gems on PC as usual.
People are sleeping on Clam Man. If you just want to play something fun, wholesome and short, this is for you.
And if you want to build space ships, minecraft-style, and explore the universe with them: check out Avorion!
Only played 6 games that came out in 2020 this year. So the top 6 of my list are games released this year. The bottom 4 are great games that I played for the first time this year and deserve a spot on my list.
I'm honestly really sad that Petal Crash has been so overlooked that it's not even on the wiki. it's a really fun, cute, and inventive take on Puzzle Fighter. it's only 10 bucks on switch give it a shot!
This year didn't have a ton of games I loved, but the few it did provide made a huge impact on me, basically my top 5. Persona 5 Royal took one of my favorite games of all time and made it arguably my favorite of all time, with an exceptional epilogue and a whole slew of quality of life additions. FF7Remake is a remarkable game in so many ways, but at the end of the day it's the combat that is just so freaking fun that puts it over the edge. Hades, come on, it's Hades. Paradise Killer is a criminally underlooked indie gem with one of the most unique world settings I've ever encountered - if you're a fan of games like Danganronpa/Phoenix Wright, this is a MUST play. And 13 Sentinels, what a story.
Many of these were not technically 2020 games, but 2020 was not a typical year and these are the games that I enjoyed most this year. Big Shout Out to Tabletop Simulator (2015) keeping me and my friends together and entertained through a global pandemic!
MHW is the PC release of Iceborne, which took up a lot of my time in the first half of the year. Nioh 2 for me was a surprisingly amazing sequel and I'm absolutely looking forward to the PC version coming out in a few months. Might sink another 100+ hours into that game this year because of it. My #10 spot was between FF7R and Genshin Impact, and even though I've probably spent a good 250+ hours on Genshin this year, I don't necessarily think its a great game.
Spiritfarer destroyed me this and was maybe too long, but what a wonderful game full of color, no extra paid content, no season pass making it feel like work to play. It presented a story of death during a year we saw more of it than we have in a long time. It was so good. Hades using a story of greek mythos to relate to real life family problems and crafting a story into a rogue is incredible. Blaseball brought me together with gamers in a way few have in such a long time. I use discord for the first time and playing along with games, rooting for Dominic Marijuana, creating gifs (Not Owned, We Rent) was a perfect distraction along with Among Us.
Here's where mine ended up at. TLOU2 took the top and it wasn't particularly close. That's an all timer for me and I generally remain baffled by the cool reception the gang gave it when it came out. The coolness around Alyx I understand more given the access issues around VR, but Valve came in John Wick-style and declared "I'm thinking I'm back!" and put out a hell of a game. FFVIIR was so much better than I was expecting... I'm glad that Square mostly got it together to make that thing really work. The award for raw hour count goes to Hades, that game leapfrogged Breath of the Wild for overall playtime on the Switch and I did not see that coming. I haven't quiet finished Cyberpunk, but I was surprised at where I found myself putting it. There's just something about it in spite of all the issues. And hey, three PS5 games!? Nice work, Sony.
I haven't played many games this year due to lockdown here in the UK and so spent a lot of time watching boxsets on iPlayer, Netflix and Sky with my wife. I have been working from home most of the time and the chair and desk is the same place I work and play games. So after 8 hours it's hard to sit back there and play some games.
I have played some retro games on the Switch (Breath of Fire 2, Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana). The kids bought the new Animal Crossing but I have not touched it as I don't want to mess their game up with the single island and all that.
I have also played a ton of Borderlands with my son split screen on the PS4 (1, 2, Pre Sequel and 3 plus the most of the DLC across all games).
I also played The Division 2 again but this time on PC because it was on sale for £2.50. 60 FPS combined with NVME speeds for loading made the game such a pleasure to replay over the PS4. Felt like an old man having to look at the XBOX One controller though when a button prompt is displayed.
This year I hope to get a PS5 and finally play Spiderman. Other than that I can't see much that interests me this year so far.
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