What's the GOTY so Far?

With the Game awards around the corner what do you guys think the GOTY is so far? I'm personally waiting for Cypberpunk to be released before I make my top 5.

Flight Simulator.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon. It's not the best technically, and it can be cumbersome, but damn it's the game I needed this year.

(Hades is right next to it though.)

With the way this year has been, it's hard for me to think of any earth-shatteringly good games that would get wide recognition, but personally my top games so far are probably Yakuza: Like a Dragon, FF7 Remake, Ghost of Tsushima, Persona 5 Royal, and maybe Trails of Cold Steel 4. Still working on Yakuza, Trails, and AC Valhalla, with hopes to get to Cyberpunk before the year ends, but I kinda doubt it.

Hades for me. My husband and I will do runs side by side and talk about it. He's a bit further than I am so I've seen the later game stuff (he's in the epilogue now) but even still the gameplay is so great and the characters are all so endearing I want to keep playing for myself. I just really enjoy it.

Bugsnax is also up there for me. It was just a game that I really got into and finished in two sittings. Felt like the game I was waiting for lately.

Either Hades or Deep Rock Galactic for me. Sunk hundreds of hours into both this year.

Hades is one of the only new games I've played this year, so that for me.

If I were to say game I've had the most fun with this year though, either No Man's Sky, or XCOM 2. Both older games but played the hell out of both this year.

Astro's Playroom

I've really liked Hades and it'll probably be GOTY for me. Spiritfarer is up there too, but I gotta play more of it. KR0 came out this year too and I need to finish that up.

I feel like my list is weird this year. In a pretty good way. Maybe all this time alone has forced me to look for new experiences and branch out from the kind of stuff I know I like.

Last of Us 2 landed really well for me. I've heard the criticisms, but they either don't bother me enough or I flat out read it differently. This is, probably, my favorite game of the year.

Spiritfarer is the nicest game of the year, and easily in my top three. I saw it on Game Pass and without so much as reading the synopsis I loaded it up and stuck with it until I saw the credits. I can't remember the last time I even played a game with no expectations, let alone been surprised by one so much. It has a few issues, but hugging Atul makes up for most of them.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2 is a collection of the second and third best Tony Hawk games. This is a better than "looks like how you remember it" remake. It updates the mood and mechanics of these two games, and brings them gracefully into 2020. The opening cutscene that transitions from the old pros to the young pros of today made me emotional. Imagine how highly I'd think of this if they had included Pro Skater 3.

Windbound seems like it came and went, and nobody really gave it the attention it deserved. It's a rogue lite thing with the aesthetic inspired by Breath of the Wild and mechanics of a survival game. You can turn off the rogue stuff and play it like a more traditional action game, and it might even work better that way. Maybe nothing more satisfying in all of games this year than making and sailing your first boat.

Maneater is the exact kind of wanton fun I needed earlier this year. It's kind of shallow, but it's only precisely what it needs to be to get across its joke.

Superhot Mind Control Delete would likely make my top ten list, but I'm about 50/50 on the stuff they introduced either being great or very much not what I want in a Superhot game.

Saints Row The Third Remaster an excellent remaster of an excellent game. Not all the humor lands as well as it did, and reliving this game again did remind me of some of its weaker points. Still, this is an amazing way to experience a game that puts the player first in a way we see less and less these days.

Yakuza Like a Dragon and Fuser would probably make that list, once I play them more.

Tetris Effect Connected is really compelling, but the network issues I've had bum me out.

Pumpkin Jack is a Halloween themed 3D platformer. It gets so much of that vibe right, but the main character doesn't really have an arc and it felt like a missed opportunity. Still, it punches above its weight class.

Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order is the game I skipped last year that I would put on a top ten list if I had a time machine. It does a better job with thematic story telling than even most of the movies do. A Souls inspired game about the acceptance of failure.

Tony Hawk was the game that brought me the most joy in 2020. Hades would be my #2. I'm frothing at the mouth to play Demon Souls and Yakuza. No luck getting next gen consoles though.

Hades or if you've had a chance to see it, Flight Simulator.

Out of the (few) 2020 games I've played this year, I'm in the Hades for GOTY camp. I haven't 100% completed it yet, but I'm somewhat close to having done so with 75 hours played. The game has been an utter joy for pretty much everything except for my right thumb for a brief moment - at the end of September, I was foolish enough to do more than two full runs in a row speedrunish style with many pacts of punishment hammering the attack and dodge buttons rapidly in rhythmic concert causing some slight, temporary strain on said thumb and the nerves connecting to it. Other than that, Hades is from top to bottom, as I like to call it, a good video game.

A secondary and much more divisive choice for my GOTY would be The Last of Us Part II, but since I only watched it being played through (while myself playing Civ V in the background at times no less), I don't feel comfortable making it an official nominee. Just writing down my brief appreciative appraisal of the game from a non-playing perspective and to have something for like-minded or opinion-differing passers-by to nod or shake their head to, respectively. Or for anyone else to shrug with minimal effort, as in 'who cares'.

Hades, I'd be surprised if it doesn't win most of the categories it was nominated for in the Game Awards.

For those curious, the Game Awards GotY contenders are:

• Doom Eternal
• FF7 Remake
• Ghost of Tsushima
• Hades
• Animal Crossing: NH
• Last of Us Part II

Best Game Direction is the same games, but:

• remove Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing
• add Half-Life Alyx

Basically every major award category is FF7 Remake, Ghost of Tsushima, and Last of Us Part II, and then they sub in 1-3 other games depending on category. Non-Hades indie games exist strictly in the Games for Impact and Best Indie categories. The genre awards get more specific.

If it's not Cyberpunk, then based on the demo, that new Hyrule Warriors seems like a strong contender. Otherwise, I haven't really played anything that came out this year that I would call mind-blowing.

Played so few new games this year... but my top 3 thus far would be Fall Guys, Ori & The Will of the Wisps and Streets of Rage 4.

After all the initial enthusiasm, I feel Animal Crossing: NH is gonna get a bit lost in the shuffle what with Abby leaving before GOTY. Alex, Ben and Jan will probably bat for it, so I could still see it finding its way into the lower reaches of the top 10, but certainly not the lock it seemed for actual GOTY back in March now. I think the fact it hasn't been mentioned thus far in this thread really says a lot about how the past six months have transpired.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Especially now with the Series X upgrades, that game is damn near perfect.

Esports categories with no Starcraft nominations is stupid as hell

Ａｎｉｍａｌ　Ｃｒｏｓｓｉｎｇ　Ｎｅｗ　Ｈｏｒｉｚｏｎ

@sombre: A very low number of the Game Awards voters are likely to consider StarCraft II an active esports scene. The scene is shrinking, the game is no longer receiving content updates, and most of the voters probably care more about shooters and League than they do about the largely nonexistent genre that is RTS in present day. Maybe SC2 is still a great viewing experience, but in terms of public perception it is largely invisible in 2020.

@ghost_cat: I might have to agree with this. Yakuza is frigging awesome.

Hades is the clearest choice for me in years.

Some stuff I need to get to (including Hades) but it’s still FFVIIR for me. Also really liked Wasteland 3 which I just didn’t hear enough people talk about.

Factorio. waited for it to leave early-access. was worth the wait.

Between how much I love it and how it somehow managed to arrive when the world needed it most, I'm gonna have to give it to Animal Crossing.

Not having played it but hearing a lot about Genshin Impact. That was released this year right?

Toss up between Hades and Persona 5: Royal for me. P5R is more of an expansion though so i’d give it to Hades.

THPS/Hades/Valhalla

Animal Crossing for me, even though I dropped off it hard before the summer update and not touched it since, it was still the majority of my life for a good few months.

Hades next.

Hades for me and it's not even close. I'm betting the staff pick will likely be Hades as well.

FFVIIR, Ghost of Tsushima and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (and almost definitely Yakuza but I haven't gotten to play it yet) are all up there, maybe 13 Sentinels would be number 1 if I had to pick.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 for me, though I need to play more Hades. Also really digging Bugsnax and Flight Sim. Wish I had time to get into TLOU2, Yakuza, Tsushima and Valhalla this year but I'm probably only going to have time for Cyberpunk before it ticks over to January.

Hades.

(Provisional) Game of the Year (Pre-Cyberpunk Edition): Nioh 2

I am an unabashed fan of the first Nioh, so I was pre-disposed to like this one, but Nioh 2 is everything you want from a sequel. It doesn't mess with what made the first game good (*cough* Doom: Eternal *cough*), but adds onto it in interesting and meaningful ways without being overwhelming. I'm 70 hours in and still mastering new weapons and discovering little itty-bitty gameplay nuances that weren't apparent at first. This is likely going to be the game I keep going back to in between major releases for long time to come.

Best Game That's Probably Good But I Haven't Played It: Hades

Everyone who has played it loves it. It certainly looks the part when I see clips of it. And I always respect what Supergiant does even if I don't always like the end product (loved Bastion, hated Transistor, skipped Pyre). I'll definitely pick it up when it comes to XBOX or Playstation, but I don't own a Switch and can't justify getting one just for a single game.

Most Disappointing: Doom: Eternal

And it's not close. I could write an entire book about how much I loathe the game design going on here, but I'll just stick to the highlights:

1. The general aesthetic of the game just sucks. It's nothing but garish, ugly, distracting colors that don't fit the universe or what you are doing beyond screaming "Arcade attract screen!"
2. The UI and menu design is atrocious and alternates between too small to be useful, and unnecessarily cluttered and hard to parse.
3. The enemy designs are far too comical and as a result you no longer feel like a badass when killing them. Remember how creepy the basic zombies in 2016 were when they just had that hole where their face was supposed to be? Yeah, neither did the folks at Id. You can't feel powerful when the stuff you are killing is played for jokes.
4. There's no flow to the combat, partly because it is so f'ing rigid with what weapons you are supposed to use and partly because of its tedious focus on bespoke chainsaw and glory kills, both of which repeat far too often, take too long, and lose their novelty after about 5 minutes.
5. Story? In a Doom game?
6. Platforming? In a Doom game?

I hate this game.

Best "One of Those": Ghost of Tsushima

Ghost shows what would happen if Ubisoft ever took more than 5 minutes to actually think about Assassin's Creed before reskinning it for the next entry. The game looks great, and feels great to play. The story kind of drags in the middle and the stealth is sort of "eh" when compared to the melee combat, but I'm usually too busy challenging entire enemy bases to standoffs to notice.

Most Pleasant Surprise: Star Wars: Squadrons

As someone who remembers Star Wars when it was actually good (Before the Dark Times. Before Disney.) I admit that I wasn't expecting too much from a Star Wars game produced by EA, but this one kind of snuck up on me. It actually manages to faithfully reproduce a lot of what made the old TIE Fighter and X-Wing games great. Well, maybe not reproduce exactly, but at least translate what my nostalgia remembers of those games and put it on modern consoles. The devs still seem incapable of escaping the "one good person in the Empire immediately defects" cliche, and the campaign and modes are kind of limited, but at this point, I'll take any good Star Wars I can get my hands on.

Best Game That Probably Wasn't a Big Hit, But Dammit It Should Have Been:Dreams

Look, Dreams is cool. Like, the very idea that anyone was able to come up with even a semi-workable game builder on a console is mind-blowing to me. As far as I'm concerned, the people who pulled it off are some sort of A Beautiful Mind John Nash-ian level geniuses. There's undeniably some really cool shit that people produce with it, and I'd really love to see something like this succeed and gain traction. But then I get about four tutorials in and just go "Nope. No way can I do this. I already have a full time job and can't add another one to learn how to do this."

Either Doom Eternal or FFVII Remake.

It's between Hades and FF7remake.

Night in the Woods... but I have played (and re-played) mostly older games this year...

For myself, I didn't play a ton of 2020 games, and a few of the ones I did play I found downright underwhelming (Paper Mario, Carrion), so GotY for me is very easily Hades.

I don’t want to say what my overall GOTY is yet, but I’ll drop in my top 5 in Alphabetical order and a little description on why I love them:

Animal Crossing New Horizons: This is my most played game of the year. I put many hours into making my island looking as good as possible as well as trying to fill up my museum with new Fish, Bugs, and Fossils. Fallen off the game since then but I can’t deny the amount of time I put into it.

Cook, Serve, Delicious 3: A game that has a very Into the Breach addictive quality to it of you planning you menus before playing a level, and making sure you serve your food exactly how the customers want it in order to get a gold. It also inspired me to make real food from different parts of the world that I never heard of if it weren’t for CSD3.

Hades: A game I’ve been playing a lot lately and I definitely see why this game is so highly regarded. Satisfying Combat that feels even better when you have a good build. A very engaging storyline with memorable and well voiced characters. Oozes a wonderful art style in game and is just a masterpiece in Roguelike games. Dusa and Skelly are some of my favorite characters this year. And Dionysus is a hunk.

Them’s Fightin’ Herds: Hey Remember that one game Ben was training for EVO before it got cancelled? Welp, I picked this game up off of a Steam Sale and frankly, this is some of the best Online gaming experiences I ever played. It uses GGPO which is some of the best forms of Rollback Netcode and has some of the smoothest online play for a fighting game out there. Not to mention this game has a great (albeit incomplete) story mode where you explore the world like a 16 bit JRPG and the fights are both fun and special (whenever you fight another playable character they do attacks that can’t be done in a standard match).

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2: A masterful remake of the 1st 2 TH games with some elements of 3 thrown in such as Revert. It was honestly so much fun learning how to play Tony Hawk again and the gameplay felt so satisfying to play. Started off with Tony for some big air combos for the first tour. Then I Switched to Kareem Campbell for more of a grind focused/street skating run on the 2nd tour. Not to mention the music is a great collection of classic TH music and new tunes that blend into the game so well.

Most of this is a matter of taste, but the combat in Doom Eternal flows amazingly well. You definitely don't have to use specific weapons on specific enemies, but there are some situations where certain weapons will be much better than others. There's a rhythm and an intensity to Doom Eternal's combat that I fell into immediately and I loved it both times that I played it. Easily my GOTY and I don't really see anything being better.

As far as aesthetics go, the game is so fast and frantic that being so colorful made everything stand out well, which made it easier to see what I needed to do while whirling about the battlefield.

I also loved the platforming, found it a lot of fun to swing and climb around after intense battles, and I found the story better than I expected, though still cringe-y and unnecessary.

Marauders suck, but there's only a few of them throughout and they're not really that hard to deal with.

The Ancient Gods isn't a great DLC, though. Cramped combat arenas, way more Marauders because someone high up on that team REALLY loves those guys, and Spirits suck even more than Marauders.

But other than Doom Eternal? I don't know. What other 2020 games have I played this year? Factorio came out this year and it's also one of the best of its kind, but I have a hard time considering it a 2020 game when I first played it three or four years ago.

I think Wasteland 3 might have wound up pretty high on my list but I can't reinstall it. Thanks, Windows store, for fucking up a game I was really enjoying. I should go buy that game on GOG, it was great.

I really should play Ori and the Will O The Wisps as well, that's the kind of thing I might enjoy a lot of.

I spent most of this year playing old games and CRPGs without actually finishing all that much, so I don't really have much to say about 2020 in gaming. It wasn't a bad year, it wasn't a great year, it was all right.

Hades, followed by Ghosts of Tsushima and Miles Morales.

My current top 3 is: TLoU2, Doom Eternal, and FF7 Remake. In that order I'm pretty sure. There are a few great-looking games I haven't put my hands on yet like Ghosts, Hades, Cyberpunk, HL: Alyx. I'm sure there's a game there that could throw FF7R out of my top 3 but I loved TLoU2 and Doom Eternal so damn much that I don't think those are coming off.

Really just being overwhelmed by all of the 2020 "That happened THIS YEAR" moments in this thread. This year shaped up pretty well to my tastes, especially under the circumstances. There are a few games I love (Doom Eternal, Hades, Spelunky 2, Persona 5 Royal), and a whooooole bunch that go from like to really like, like Valhalla, Ghost of Tsushima, Gears Tactics, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, (somehow) Dragonball Z: Kakarot, Paper Mario: Origami King (although the end portion was...not great), and Shantae and the Seven Sirens. I still haven't played enough of Miles Morales to decide if it is different enough from Spider-Man for my taste, and I need to give the FFVII Remake and Yakuza: Like a Dragon a whirl. But overall, a pretty good year. The only game I remember really just bouncing off of is The Last of Us 2, despite how well done it was. I got to the second stealth segment and was already tired of the stealth...I want to go back with hopes that maybe I'll feel differently later.

I have no clue how I would pick between Doom Eternal and Hades for GOTY, honestly.

After my initial play I thought there was a decent chance something could come along and dethrone The Last of Us Part II, but even just halfway through my New Game+ run I can tell that people who didn't think the game played amazingly well jut didn't let themselves have fun. And I should know - once the turn happened, I wound up kicking the game down from Hard to Very Easy and sprinting through all of it in search of the things I was supposed to be so upset about, to the point I didn't stop and smell the roses.

The game is a wonder even just to slow walk through, even if it's a bit of a pain since the walk speed is very slow. But I wanted to really feel like I was on Ellie's journey thorugh Seattle s o I walked through every interior and around most exteriors soaking it in. Sound design is of course impeccable, but the level design is also wildly inventive for a stealth combat game of its scope. I haven't felt so free to improvise in a space since Metal Gear Solid V and all of the weapons feel awesome.

All of the flaws are fair game, but for me they just don't matter in the face of all this game does well. If The Last of Us stood out for being the perfect example of gameplay and story working together in tandem to fully invest a player in its 10-14 hours, the sequel is a perfect example of how big budget games can take huge swings and challenge their audience in meaningful ways, and perhaps even come off all the better for being so divisive in their approach to those swings. Even if I didn't like the gameplay as much as I do, it's clear to me that no other game defines gaming in 2020 like this one does.

Except for Hades which, irony of ironies, I can't play since it's a console exclusive. That'd probably be my game-game of the year if I ever get to play it.

Honestly, the highlights of my year were hitting the 1,000 hour mark Fallout 4. And since I never finished Doom Eternal, FF7R, Persona 5 R, Uppers, and Cyberpunk isn't out yet, my GOTY for 2020 is Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot until further notice. ...though I didn't finish that one either.

Despite 2020 being a venereal disease of a year, my GOTY contenders thus far are (in no real order):

Hades

Risk of Rain 2

Genshin Impact

Animal Crossing

Deeprock Galactic

Hardspace Shipbreaker (early access)