The 2020 Gaming End of Year Thread

[Bobfoc]

Dragon Age has been confirmed as something that will have a presence at the show. The main writer of the series has just left Bioware, though, so who knows how a new game would turn out?

[OctoberRaven]

On 09/12/2020 at 17:55, Rukaru Shida said:

Death Stranding certainly was something.

True story, Death Stranding came up in conversation between me and my dad the other day. My aunt walked in, asking what Death Stranding was. I replied "The game where Norman Reedus swallowed a baby", to which my aunt immediately understood what I meant and said "oh yeah, that game"

[RPS]

Polygon has released their top 50 games of the year: https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/14/22166004/best-games-2020-ps4-xbox-one-switch-pc-series-x

Hades is #1, followed up by Animal Crossing, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and Kentucky Road Zero rounding out the top 5. 

[Gongsun Zan]

This year has been a bit of a step down for me in terms of video gaming. Last year I played Pathologic 2 and Disco Elysium, both of which have firmly entrenched themselves in my Top 10 favorite games of all time. I don't think anything has come close to that this year. A bunch of thoughts on what stood out to me this year: 

• Gears Tactics: Started out promising, but feels more like a proof-of-concept that a full fledged game. Not enough mission variety, and lack of depth makes the last third of the game a slog. 
• Wasteland 3: This was an enjoyable old-school isometric experience that felt closer in spirit to the original Fallout games than whatever Obsidian/Bethesda has become (I hated The Outer Worlds), but it doesn't really do anything to lift itself from good to great, and the last act is a little underdeveloped. Except maybe the soundtrack, which is awesome. 
• Crusader Kings 3: It's a good step forward and a solid base game, but it suffers from not having the benefit of 50 expansions like Crusader Kings 2. That said, I'm really excited to come back to this in a couple of years. 
• Battle Brothers: I really like this game, but I can't figure out how to progress from mid-game to late-game so I always end up getting stuck there. 
• Darkwood: Great atmosphere and intriguing lore, but like with most survival horror games there comes a tipping point where you have so much ammunition the game stops being scary. It might be more tense if you play on the pseudo perma-death setting, but on the default difficulty it seemed like I could just die without any consequences. If I had to pick I'd say that this is probably the best game I've played this year. 
• Sunless Skies: It's a better game than Sunless Seas and Fallen London, but I didn't find the lore as interesting. Also got a bit too grindy towards the end, so I never finished it. 
• Persona 5 Royal: I think I just don't have the stamina to complete long games, and the pacing of this one just doesn't help. This is my second attempt to finish the game, and although I managed to go a little further, I just run out of steam 50 hours in. 
• Suzerain: The first two hours with this game hinted at a ton of depth, as though every choice I made matters, and I was on the verge of declaring it my GOTY. Then I finished the second two hours, and it turned out that most of my choices didn't matter. I felt pretty cheated TBH. 
• Paradise Killer: I give this game 9/10 for the first 90%, and 2/10 for the last 10%. The first part of the game you go around doing detective work and interrogating suspects, and it's honestly one of the best in the genre I've played, with a really engaging mystery with plenty of twists. But the last part (which is where you make your accusations at trial) was disappointingly simplistic and felt emotionally unsatisfying.  
• Fall Guys: Best mindless fun I've had all year until hackers ruined it (maybe it's been fixed now, I don't know). 

In terms of board games, most of what I ordered that was due to be released this year was delayed by Covid-19, but on the bright side, I've got a whole bunch of stuff that are supposedly slated to arrive in the next couple of weeks. Plus it seems that Wave 3 of Kingdom Death is finally going to ship next year, so I am extremely excited for that.   

 

[Paton]

1 hour ago, Gongsun Zan said:

Fall Guys: Best mindless fun I've had all year until hackers ruined it (maybe it's been fixed now, I don't know).

It's not fixed.