GxC

I love Animal Crossing. New Horizons provided just that when it came to the lockdown throughout the majority of 2020. I found myself engaged with a lot of my friend group that I otherwise didn't always have time to see or focus on. I'm really grateful that this became the de facto hangout spot for my friends and I. The continued holiday updates gave me a reason to check back on it and even now I still find that charm hasn't faded. You would hope that with the lockdown games with a heavy focus on online cooperative play would receive whatever support they need to ensure a great online experience. Unfortunately, that was and still is not the case with most Nintendo online games. It's exhausting to have to deal with terrible online implications in games that want for your attention as much as Animal Crossing did this year. Here's to a 2021 where Nintendo figures out their shit and people stop accepting mediocre service as acceptable for purchase.

2016's DOOM is probably one of my favourite FPS games ever. Doom Eternal didn't end up rising to the same status as it's predecessor, but it's still incredible. If DOOM is a 5, Eternal is a 4. The changes they made and the focus they put on combat puzzles kept me engaged, while the irreverent story of DOOM and it's masturbatory focus on that story kept me inching further and further away. The continual ramp up of difficulty felt smart. I was forced to approach each new encounter better and more efficient than before. That all combined with a lackluster, yet cool looking, final boss in the Icon of Sin made this game fall just short of the previous game.

Prior to Queen's Gambit igniting a passion for chess around the internet, the newest Clubhouse Games release did the same for me. I never knew how to play chess, or a lot of these games for that matter, but now I can and hey, turns out chess is pretty fun. The other games on this collection did a good job of giving me something to do when I wanted to play something simple before bed.

If I bothered to number this list I feel like Spelunky 2 would be a strong number 2. It's more Spelunky, which is great and kind of exactly what I needed this year. To pick a game up for a short period of time and get mad, but continue to keep going back to it.

2020 did a good job of making me feel older all the time, but this remaster of THPS 1 and 2 made me feel younger in my mind by at least 20 years. Vicarious Visions did a great job in rebuilding those old games into what feels like a smart combination of multiple Tony Hawk games. With the addition of more music and more characters, it was hard for me to put this game down.

I managed to beat the newest game in the Streets of Rage franchise, not that it took very long. Thinking back on it, I'm pretty sure I was finished the story within the week I bought it. The gameplay and music kept me interested to unlock new characters and keep replaying old levels. I think I'd like to see a resurgence of the belt scrolling beat 'em up genre, it definitely holds a special place in my nostalgic heart and I could see myself playing more and more of these.

Hades is an incredibly stylish game, that style is present in every corner and from every action you take. I do need to continue my playthrough, but from the time I've spent with it so far I can tell that dying again and again is not getting old. I would not be surprised to see Hades find it's way on to my list at the end of 2021.

Another 2019 game that took up much of my 2020 time. A small group of friends and I constantly found ourselves falling back into this fast paced online action. I feel like after spending the better part of a calendar year with this Call of Duty title I can say it's one of my favourites from the franchise. I ended up having the exact opposite reaction to the new game and that's why Black Ops: Cold War is not on this list at all. For everything I loved about MW, it felt like that was gone from Cold War and left me longing for 2019's release.

I recently picked this game up on the Steam holiday sale and so far I've sunk around 10 hours into it. This game is just super cool, top to bottom. The character designs, set pieces and voice acting are all top notch. All of this tied with some incredible stealth action gameplay makes for a fantastic experience.

So, I beat Super Metroid for the first time this year on my Super NT, Analgoue's FPGA based SNES. I think all said and done it took me around 10 hours without any guides. And although I didn't receive the fabled bikini Samus, I really enjoyed my time runnin' and gunnin' on planet Zebes.