General Gaming ~*D1P's Games of 2020*~

[crispy4000]

Completed Pyre.  Solid 8.5/10 game.

I loved the sports combat.  It takes a little while to feel like you know the in's and out's, but once you do, it's amazing.  I only wish there was an online versus mode, because this would have been a fun game to watch competitively.  RPG elements in leveling up your team are also really good, as expected.

The only places it stumbles a bit is in the conversational bits, where it leans in a bit too hard for my tastes.  And while I enjoyed that nothing ever felt too high stakes on the world map, it takes way too long to get from one match to another (though every bit of it is gorgeous).  There is a fantastic twist about 1/4th of the way through the game which sets up how the narrative will work going forward, and has huge implications from a gameplay standpoint too.  But the payoff of the ending is kind of weak from a presentation standpoint.  Visually ... not audibly.  Those who finished it will know what I mean.

 

Transistor > Pyre > Bastion

 

Will pick up Hades on sale.

2020 games

A Short Hike
Broken Age
Crash 1
FF7 Remake
Flower
Hellblade
HoB
Hollow Knight
Inside
Journey
Portal
Pyre
Ratchet & Clank
Spider-Man (and DLC)
Spyro 1
Supraland
Uncharted 1
Uncharted 2
Uncharted 3
Undertale

[Fizzzzle]

I'm about to dive into Greedfall. We'll see how it goes. I haven't actually finished a game in months outside of AC Odyssey.

[Fizzzzle]

After actually having started it, from what I've played so far, I think Greedfall could have been a GOTY contender if it was released 10-12 years ago. Combat isn't as clunky as I thought it would be, there's some wonkiness with the dialog, and it's VERY poorly optimized (for a game that looks like it came out in 2009, if I run it on Ultra settings, it puts my framerate right down at about 30fps).

 

We'll see how it goes. Judging by the fact that it took 4 hours to get through the prologue, I'm guessing it's gonna be a long one.

[silentbob]

Finally completed a new game since Spider-Man for my PS4, and that game is Spider-Man: Miles Morales.(PS5) Shortish story but a well done, thoughtful and emotional story. Graphics look great and keep jumping back and forth on Fidelity/Performance mode for the game, and I kind like both. I still have a few side missions to complete but apparently I’m 88% complete 

 

I bought the deluxe edition and will download the original game soon to play the expansion packs I never bought/played on the PS4

[Dre801]

Finally finished Control.  Fucking hell, what a bizarre game.

 

The Order 1886 - way late on this one.  Still quite a looker of a game; too bad the gameplay didn't match the visuals, seemed to be too focused on cinematics.

[SaysWho?]

Demon's Soul Remake -- Already a good chunk of the way into my 2nd playthrough with a new build.

 

If you've been wanting a DeS remake because it was one of the Souls games you missed, you will love the game, but there are some things to know since it's the first entry.

 

1) There are fewer checkpoints -- You're not going to find checkpoints shortly before bosses as you would in later Souls games and Bloodborne. You have to think of each part of each world as an old-school Mario level in the sense that you have a beginning and end, and there's no Mario World checkpoint in between, so get to the end and beat it or else you're starting over.

 

There are shortcuts, and like the best Souls games, you'll get to know the worlds and paths pretty well. Another reason why it's like this is because

 

2) Bosses are easier -- Bosses are not the highlight of the game as something like Bloodborne is. Bosses can have strats that trivialize them, and sometimes the best equipment to get through a level will make the same boss significantly easier. That doesn't mean you'll kill them all in one shot; they're certainly much easier for me in my second run since I know the strats. But if you were fighting something like Lady Maria or Defiled Watchdog every time you get to the end of the level, I'd wager that this would cross from challenging to frustrating.  

 

3) Demon's Souls -- As the name of the game suggests, you're going to get souls from demons (bosses). As Souls games tend to do, you can get lots of souls for upgrades, but in the hub area, there will be magicians who will take those souls and give you cool spells. You can exchange or cash them depending on what you want, but it helps to know your options. I dun goofed my first runthrough.  

 

4) Soul Tendency -- Like a karma system, you have "soul tendencies" for each world, and certain characters/events will only happen when you're full-on white/black on each world. The good thing is you don't have to commit to a soul tendency for a full playthrough as you would something like inFAMOUS or Mass Effect. You can get pure white and then easily get it to black in the same runthrough. As far as how to influence the tendencies, it may be better to find out on your own.

 

5) The game holds up very well -- It helps that this is a beautiful game and performance mode is near perfect, but the gameplay and level design and enemy placement all hold up. There's a lot to enjoy, and kicking off the new gen with a JPRG with a cult following that people can play online again or play for the first time is cool, especially if people want to jump into the Souls series but don't know where. Now you can play the game that started it all.

 

 

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All -- When I first played this game, I thought the last case was the only good one, though it was the best case I had played in the series. Now, I think it's arguably stronger than the first game despite two wonderful cases the first game ended with, including the bonus case with Ema Skye. The first case has some hilarious breakdowns from the killer, the second was a solid case, the third was funnier than I remember, and the fourth is still likely the best case due to the swerves and unique circumstances surrounding it.

 

Now for Trials and Tribulations!

 

2020 Games

 

Death Stranding

Overcooked

Resident Evil 3 Remake

Yakuza Kiwami 2

Resident Evil 3 Remake (Hardcore playthrough)

Overcooked 2

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

The Last of Us Part II

Ghost of Tsushima

Persona 5 Royal

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Demon's Souls Remake

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Just a few more hours to go until this thread is unpinned!

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Alright - I'm FINALLY getting around to doing this and considering that we're more than halfway done with 2021, this definitely qualifies under the "better late than never category"

 

Rage 2: Rise of the Ghosts DLC (PC - Bethesda Game Launcher)

I suppose that it was only fitting that I started the thoroughly miserable  year that was 2020 by playing the DLC for a game that I just wanted to get the heck off of my SSD to make room for other games that I was actually interested in playing.  As I stated when I first played Rage 2 back in 2019, the actual FPS gameplay of Rage 2 is very, very good - it's just that EVERYTHING ELSE about Rage 2 ranges from mind-numbingly mediocre to outright bad, and this DLC did nothing to change that dynamic.  Thankfully, it was mercifully short and I could uninstall Rage 2 and never look back.

 

DOOM Eternal and The Ancient Gods Part I DLC (PC - Bethesda Game Launcher)

After scrubbing Rage 2 from my PC, I immediately plunged into the sublime experience that is DOOM Eternal.  From my perspective, DOOM Eternal set a gameplay standard by which all other similar FPS titles will be judged going forward for a long time to come and quite frankly I don't see it being matched until the inevitable Quake reboot.  Gameplay design analysts vastly more experienced than I have produced copious amounts of text and video delving into the intricacies of DOOM Eternal's elements and how they effortlessly blend to create perhaps the most seamlessly fluid FPS experience that the genre has witnessed in a very, very long time.  For my part, DOOM Eternal is the only time I've ever come close to achieving the mythical "flow" state in a video game where thought and action became inextricably linked and I was truly "in the zone".  Hell, at the end of practically every session of DOOM Eternal, I was physically and mentally spent, but also exhilarated at the thought of the challenges that awaited me in next one! 

 

If I had any complaints about the game, it would be (a) sometimes the first-person platforming could be a little wonky and it would take a few attempts to get the idea of the timing of the execution, (b) the story was incomprehensible nonsense with far too many Proper Nouns That You Had No Freakin' Idea About Unless You Read The Codex Entries and there was TOO MUCH story compared to DOOM 2016, and (c) The Ancient Gods Part I cranked the difficulty level up to a ludicrous degree when compared to the end of the base game (at least initially - this was adjusted in a subsequent update).  However, these are but minor quibbles when measured against the overwhelming greatness that is DOOM Eternal.  Bring on that Quake reboot, id!

 

Quantum Break (PC - Steam)

Once DOOM Eternal was in the books, I decided to return to Quantum Break a game that I'd started in 2019, but had put aside.  Upon playing it again, I remembered why I had stopped playing Quantum Break in the first place:  it's an impressively boring game.  Quantum Break has a lot going for it:  pretty good graphics, a nicely articulated "lived-in" art style, and a couple of actors from The Wire who don't phone it in at all.  However, that's about as far as I'll go with my praise as just about everything else -- the gameplay, the story, the non-The Wire actors -- are all great cures for insomnia.  Really, there's nothing memorable here at all, especially in when it comes to the time-manipulation powers that we've seen many, many times before. 

 

Quantum Break takes the concept of time-manipulation and really does absolutely nothing interesting with it at all.  In fact, as @Xbob42 pointed out to me when we discussed this game, TimeShift did a VASTLY better job with presenting interesting time-manipulation powers back in 2007.  It almost pains me to say it, but the most interesting part of Quantum Break for me was the SyFy-quality TV show that was a remnant of the combination of MS's "TV TV TV" push for the Xbox One and Remedy's desire to be seen as something more than merely a "videogame studio".  I wouldn't call the show "great" by any stretch, but it was a welcome break from the snore-inducing gameplay.  Remedy, let's just pretend that Quantum Break never happened and move on, shall we?

 

Control and The Foundation/AWE DLC (PC - Epic Games Launcher)

Following my disappointment with Quantum Break, I was in two minds as to whether I really wanted to delve into Remedy's next project, but the overwhelmingly positive reception for Control along with its Secure/Contain/Protect (SCP)-inspired premise intrigued me enough to overcome my loathing of the Epic Games Store.  And was I ever glad that I did!  It genuinely appears that Remedy learned its lessons from Quantum Break, stripped away all of those elements that made that game such a chore, and refocused their efforts on engaging (if sometimes a bit limited) gameplay and a decently compelling story.  The setting of The Oldest House with its minimalist, brutalist design and Metroidvania-like exploration elements pretty much hooked itself into me quite nicely, and I was determined to uncover every nook and cranny and read/listen to every letter, report, recording, etc. 

 

Control really did hit all of my relevant gaming motivation centers in a way that Quantum Break NEVER came close to sniffing.  As far as negatives go, I do agree with complaints that the actual utility of the powers is limited in the sense that once you level up a couple of them -- most notably "Launch" -- you're pretty much going to use those exclusive for the entire campaign.  It's really not that much of a downside, but I do hope it's something Remedy revisits in any sequel.  As for the DLCs, I'd say that The Foundation is the vastly better of the two in that it introduces a very interesting new area to the game and ties-up a loose end from the base campaign.  Despite its obvious tie-in to Alan Wake, the AWE DLC simply doesn't seem as consequential as The Foundation and that's perhaps due to its production being heavily impacted by the COVID epidemic.  All-in-all, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed my time with Control and it really represented a helluva comeback for Remedy from the mediocrity that was Quantum Break.  I'm genuinely looking forward to whatever Remedy has planned and will even endure EGS once again for it.

 

Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

The final game that I completed in 2020 was Sucker Punch's open-world samurai epic.  Not only did I complete this game, but it has the distinction of being only the second game for which I've earned a Platinum trophy (the first was Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, in case you were wondering - which I'm sure you weren't!).  Thinking back, I think that I was in the right "mood" for a game like GoT at that point in the latter stages of 2020 and to be frank, I'm not sure that I would've been so engaged with a game like that at any other time.  You see, I'm pretty sure at this point that I really only have a limited amount of tolerance for the type of game that GoT represents.  If I had to quantify it, I'd say that I probably only have one "Ubigame" (and, yes, I do consider GoT to fall squarely in that sub-genre) in me per year.  Fortunately, GoT fell squarely on what I would consider to be reasonable/manageable side for an open-world Ubigame and the map wasn't an eye-glazing mess of activities.  It was this limited scope of activities that contributed significantly to my overall enjoyment of GoT because I never felt overwhelmed by all the game had to offer (take note of this Ubisoft). 

 

While the main storyline itself was nothing to set the world on fire (A samurai story about reclaiming your "honor" or whatever - wow, that's totally NEVER been done before!), it was compelling enough to keep me going and if anything, it was elevated by the quality of the side quests.  The combat gameplay was certainly enjoyable if not completely original, but sometimes the gameplay wheel just doesn't need to be reinvented, only refined.  I really do think that GoT is a game that's definitely better than the some of its parts, none of which are particularly outstanding on an individual level, but in combination, they come together in just the right way to elevate them.  I'm unsure if I'll be "Day One" for the Iki Island DLC, but when the right mood strikes me again, I have no doubt that I'll spend time with Jin & company in their new adventure.

 

So, that's what I completed in 2020.  I know that it's not a very long list at all, especially considering that I was in lockdown for most of the year just like everyone else, but I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that I do take a long time to finish games when compared to most others so that's the reason!  As for 2021, I've actually completed more games in the first half of the year than I did for the entirety of 2020 and my goal is to update that thread within this actual calendar year Thanks for enduring my rambling - I've had this post gnawing at me for quite some time and I'm glad to finally get it out!