Game of the Year 2020

I opened my game of the year post last year with a rambling preamble about how the year went, and looking back it's kind of nice to have an idea of how I felt about that 2019 from when it was still fresh in my mind, so I guess I should keep with the format and do another one. It probably shouldn't be surprising that I spent most of 2020 inside, semi-mindlessly playing video games and trying not to focus too hard on the daily news. Aside from the obvious, usually bleak, events that colored 2020's news, it felt like a year-long summer vacation; not in the sense that it was relaxing and fun, but in the sense that the days largely blurred together at a certain point, and I don't have a whole lot to show for it. This sensation was only made stronger by the fact that the yearly events of the video game world completely did little to catch my eye, with the industry's E3 "replacement" falling completely flat, coming across to me as a shining example why publishers need an event like E3 more than they think, and few of the major releases of the year interesting me to begin with. Honestly, if someone were to tell me next-gen console hadn't actually come out this year, I might almost believe them. That said, I also felt the same way after last year's E3, so I can't honestly say whether its recency, a trend, or just a coincidence.

Amidst all the goings-on the year, I honestly didn't get around to playing ten whole games that came out in 2020. So, while I do still have some games I'd like to get around to as well as some I don't even have yet, I decided that instead of rushing through those games just to put them on the list it, would be more worthwhile to acknowledge the games of 2020 that I did play, as well as those that aren't necessarily video games, didn't come out in 2020, or that I didn't get a chance to play myself.

Honorable Mentions

Best Concept: Blaseball

The community surrounding Blaseball was not one I actively engaged with too much, in part because I didn't have much to contribute when it was super active and in part because I got enough out of seeing what was already there and what was being added to it. From the game itself, with a greatly sped-up and absurd twist on baseball to the community surrounding it, which routinely produced great character designs and narratives based on little more than a few names and basic mechanics. At times I wish I had been a bit more involved, but the weeks where Blaseball was at its peak were a blast regardless, just to have a kind of cool fan community surrounding something for a little while. And hey, I even learned a thing or two about baseball along the way.

Best Introduction to a Centuries-old Game: MahjongSoul

I had always written mahjong off as a game I would never understand. It would show up occasionally as a side activity in various games, and sometimes I would entertain a match, only to realize within minutes that I had no clue what I was doing. Then one day in August a friend introduced me to MajSoul, and guided me through a couple of games. Since then, I've wound up playing a match at least every other day because, as it turns out, mahjong is fucking great, being less luck-based and requiring more thought than something like poker, while still having plenty of room for big risks and unexpected victories. MahjongSoul as a client... is more of a mixed bag, coming saddled with some (arguably optional but undeniably absurdly overpriced) gacha mechanics, which weigh down what's otherwise one of the most engaging and newbie-friendly mahjong interfaces I've seen.

Best Game I Couldn't Play: Half-Life: Alyx

I feel like this would have been a definite contender for my top 5 games of the year, had I actually played it. However, I don't have a VR headset and, even if I could have gotten one, I wasn't about to spend that money on a headset for one game. Yet still, I had to know how Valve could possibly tackle the monstrous and seemingly-impenetrable legacy that the Half-Life name has clung to in their years of absence. So, instead, I watched a bunch of different playthroughs of it on Twitch and Youtube throughout the course of the year. Whether or not it feels as good to play as it looks, or whether Valve can make good on the promise of this game and tackle a Half-Life 3, I can't say. However, Half-Life: Alyx makes the strongest case I've seen in years in support of the notion that Valve can still put out games with the same level of quality that they did back in 2010. I came to PC gaming a few years after Episode Two came out, and only got around to playing through the series in 2015, but in the bold narrative decisions, creative new enemy designs, and even just the way environments and characters look and move, I feel that sense of excitement and amazement that had always permeated discussions of the series, but that I had never quite had.

Best Old-Internet Content Rabbit Hole: Worlds Chat

There's something really fascinating to me about old MMOs, especially the chatroom focused ones like Worlds. I think it's because they usually had a pretty strong focus on user creation and customization, but did so before there were really standards around how environments should be built or how avatars should look. Enter Worlds Chat, a game released in 1995 that is somehow still up to this day (these days the parent company mostly just sues any game that infringes on their super basic patents, but that's a story for another time), which I started looking into some time in September. The official "worlds" present in Worlds are already a relic in-and-of themselves, from "Blair Witch World" to "WWF New York" and "Hanson World", but the different user-made worlds that are still accessible are fascinating, and may as well be the main attraction. I easily spent hours throughout Autumn rummaging through whatever worlds I could find, seeing everything from monochromatic art pieces and jumbles of polygons arranged erratically and set to equally haphazard music, to quiet early-polygonal countryside homes, and recreations of famous video game levels. As far as being a social space, Worlds is fairly quiet these days, but as an exploration game Worlds is an experience that deserves to be seen firsthand.

Most Wasted Potential: Trackmania (2020)

I've never been terribly fond of racing sims, but after hearing a bit of chatter about this year's new Trackmania (and after seeing StarWarsMetallica, if the above entry didn't make it clear enough that I have a soft spot for goofy internet bullshit), I decided to give it a shot. Surprisingly, I really took to it as I tried out some of the courses on offer in the free version. So, once I felt I knew enough to at least play the game, I went to hop into a community server and... nothing. After looking around, turns out a subscription is needed to play on unofficial servers, and access to everything the game has to offer will run a player at least a $25/year subscription. What I saw of the game seems like it could be really cool, but I'm not about to pay $25 yearly just to see if I would really stick with it.

Games of the Year

Genshin Impact

I played a lot of dubious f2p anime-style games as a young teen. Mabinogi, Fiesta Online, Microvolts, Rusty Hearts, the list goes on. None of them were particularly good, mind, even the best ones tended to fairly grind-heavy and laden with microtransactions, but that didn't stop a younger, more anime-loving Fran from giving them a fair shake. It's been a long time since I had the energy or the interest to try out every random anime game that passed my screen, but Genshin Impact reminds me just a little bit of why I used to do that. It's definitely got its fair share of issues with grind and monetization, but there's an incredibly charming core beyond that. The world is vibrant and blends a serious plot with a light-hearted sensibility in a way you don't see too often. Will I keep up with all of the updates and follow along the main quest as it releases? Probably not. But it's still a pretty solid way to kill a few hours.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!

To say every CSD plays roughly the same would be an understandable statement. However, with CSD3, it really clicked for me the ways in which each game plays around with its setting and supporting mechanics to highlight different aspects of the core game. Whereas CSD1 was a mix of management sim and typing game, encouraging the player to push themselves to adapt to the best available menu, and CSD2 removed the management aspect in favor of requiring the player to be ready for any dish, CSD3 presents a halfway point between them, focusing almost solely on the cook-typing and letting the player pick what they want each day's menu to be. This doesn't always work in its favor (I'm still not fond of the medal system, and the ease of cooking the same dishes ad nauseum can make some of the more difficult ones intimidating at first), but it's different enough to easily stand on its own aside the previous two, and just as much a blast as either one. (Plus, Whisk and Cleaver are simple, but effective and incredibly endearing companions that really carry the apocalyptic food truck journey of the story mode.)

Hylics 2

No other game I've seen has dared approach Hylics' sense of style, and that's both for the best and an absolute tragedy. The sun-melted, hazy soundtrack, blown-out-dot-matrix claymation visuals, and offbeat enemy designs turn what would be a somewhat standard RPG into an unmissable, unforgettable experience, one which Hylics 2 takes to another level. Hylics 2's main evolution over its predecessor (besides an increased length) lies in the switch from 2D to 3D environments. While the change is at times barely noticeable, the moments when it did become apparent only made me appreciate more the accuracy with which the style of the original has been recreated. Also, having an actual plot to follow this time around helps just a bit, as much as I appreciated the first one's intentional lack thereof.

Hades

Honestly, for a while there I had given up on rogue-likes. There were still a couple that I played from time to time, but I found myself increasingly frustrated by how easy it is to simply lose a run's worth of progress in games like Spelunky and Binding of Isaac, as well as just how much time and effort it takes to get into most rogue-likes. It's partially for this reason that Hades sat in my library from a good few months after early access release, untouched until it finally hit 1.0. Yet once I finally did play it, I immediately fell in love. Completely missing are the reliance on RNG, overwhelming amount of information, and frustrating lack of progress that drag down so many rogue-likes. Instead, the core of Hades is incredibly simple and easy to understand, the upgrades almost all feel viable in their own way, and even a run that ends in Asphodel still makes progress towards upgrades and abilities for future runs. Add on top of that the usual SuperGiant level of polish, and Hades was immediately Game of the Year material, and was definitely a competitor for the #1 spot on my list, even if it didn't quite make it.

Game of the Year: Umurangi Generation

I'm a sucker for photo modes in games, hell, a large chunk of my playtime in Dishonored 2 and Hitman 2 is due to Nvidia Ansel. With this in mind, I sort of knew going in that I would at least enjoy Umurangi Generation, but everything about it landed perfectly for me. The great soundtrack and environmental design, the ample selection of interesting things to photograph, the melancholy of the world contrasting the laid-back nature of simply being unable to do anything about it, it all fits together so perfectly. From start to end, Umurangi Generation hit me in a way that no other game did.