2020 Quarterlies! Vote for Qt3's Best Game of 2020: "Ok, let's get down to it, boppers!"

Games
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So, that year’s a wrap. And it’s time once again for …

The Quarterlies are the Quarter to Three Year-End Awards for Best Game of [the year that just ended]. We are now a well-oiled machine in which I gesture frantically while @arrendek runs a script behind a curtain that tallies everything and basically does all the work. I’m fine with that. Here is how it works:

Rule 1 : Just list your top 5 games of 2020. @arrendek’s awesome script will keep track of them. Put your picks in order* (see below), so that this is a weighted choice. Your first pick will get 5 points, your fifth pick will get one. Popularity will be aggregated to come up with a final set of winners. Please provide commentary on your picks if you are at all inclined to do so. I will quote them in the wrap up for the winners.

Rule 2 : Any game–console, PC, mobile, etc–released in 2020 is eligible. Early Access games are eligible if they were “released” (whatever that means–showed up for purchase I guess) in calendar 2020. Boardgames are fine. Tabletop RPGs are fine. If it’s a game, it counts, as long as it was first “released” in 2020. (Sorry, no “these are the games I played the most in 2020, even though some came out in 1998.”)

Rule 3 : Revisions to your original post are fine. Revisions as subsequent posts are not fine because the script will only pick up the first one. Only your first post with votes counts, so don’t make a new post to change your votes. Don’t separate your list into multiple posts.

That’s it! WTFLMAOG2G

Voting closes at 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (These American States) on Sunday, January 10th.

(*)HOW TO VOTE

[a] All in a single post, you must post your votes on separate lines, with a number next to the place in your list you are assigning it. Please put a period and a space between the number and the bolded title.

[b] Bold your choices.

[c] You can put other stuff in your list, including discussion/explanation (which is encouraged) and stuff like platform but please do not bold anything other than the name of the game. Don’t even bold the platform, like (PC) . Here is an example from @jsnell that works great.

For reference, the “Year in gaming” article on wikipedia has been used before to clarify what was released in the calendar year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_in_video_gaming

Happy New Year and get voting!

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You can find the results HERE.

3

This is super depressing: I have checked my games, and it turns out they are all actually 2019 games at best, most being older and just released in 2019 or this year on the Switch. Urgh.

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Hmm, there are a lot of games on that wikipedia list that seem marginal to me. Like, can I list Pathologic 2? I played it on PC, and on PC it was a 2019 game, but it’s on that list because it came out for PS4 in 2020. I can’t remember how this has been handled in the past.

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I think we decided that only games that you actually bought off the shelf in a store that came in a standard-sized PC game box are eligible.

6

Nice! Then I will be nominating zero games.

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OK here’s my list:

  1. The Last of Us 2 - Really there has been no better narrative-based AAA game released ever. This was a phenomenal achievement, even if I disagreed somewhat with where they took the characters.
  2. Desperados III - This was an end-of-the-year sale purchase for me and it turns out I really really am enjoying it. I never realized how much I missed the Commandos formula and I hope there are more adopters in the future. I imagine a heist (Thief) or assassination (Hitman) game with these mechanics and isometric perspective and I drool a liitle bit.
  3. Flight Simulator 2020 - I put in more hours on this sim than any other game. Really loved just flying around learning new cockpits and taking incredible screenshots.
  4. Snowrunner - Another game that devoured dozens of hours of time. I think the contemplative slow-roll and beautiful muddy landscapes reminded me a bit of hiking, which I love, and were the perfect antidote to the stress of the pandemic.
  5. Factorio - I fall back into Factorio every few months, but it got final release this year and thus is eligible for the Quarterlies. Still unmatched as a ridiculously complicated, highly moddable, super slick management game.

Honorable mention: Immortals Fenyx Rising - I really enjoyed my (copious) time with this game, and it just barely didn’t make my list. See @tomchick’s review for why it’s good.

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I think I played upwards of 6 2020 games in this, my year of gaming reincarnation (thanks to a new Switch and a sickass PC graphics card – thanks again, those who know, know why). Since I had a TON of catching up to do on both platforms (Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8, Smash Ultimate, Jedi Fallen Order, DOOM, Civ VI, etc.), a lot of time got gobbled up by older titles, but somehow, a handful of newbies made it through, and several of those dominated my hours-played charts in the most wonderful way. Without further adieu, I present “Armando Penblade actually played games this year and liked 'em”:

  1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch)
    What else can I really say? This game more than anything got my partner and I through the pandemic, right from the very start as she was slowly tempted into the game by the cutesy vibes and awesome home designer aesthetics on through an adorable New Year’s Eve celebration while we were drinking and partying last night. Our lil animal pals – Phoebe, Buck, Audie, Zucker, Gladys, Quillson, Sylvana, Rex, Francine, and Gonzo – plus the island staff like Tom, the Nooklings, Isabelle, Blathers, Wilbur, Sable, and Mable have been there with us through it all, and I’m honestly pretty proud of the island we’ve built together.
    With nearly 1,000 collective hours between the two of us in-game, not even to mention the dozens or hundreds more spent watching videos, reading wikis, and hand-drawing island makeover maps with crayons, it’s been our most consistent and relaxing way to spend time together during the shittiest year ever. Big shoutouts to the awesome gang in the ACNH thread here on Qt3, too! They’ve been an awesome resource of advice, trades, stargazing opportunities, and delightful stories all the way through.
  2. Hades (Switch)
    Coming seemingly out of nowhere (I never remember to look at what’s happening in the Epic store app, so the full early access release of this game was a total unknown for me), this amazing roguelike battler stole my heart and my thumb-health despite the fact that I hate twitch-based action games with a passion. Thanks to the awesome inclusion of a gradually ramping difficulty reducing God Mode, I was able to plow through dozens of hours of incredible storytelling, music, voice acting, and art while occasionally feeling like a total badass. Add in an awesome take on Greek mythology, which I’m a huge geek over, and this would have been No. 1 in any year that didn’t have ACNH in it, hah.
  3. Kentucky Route Zero (“TV Edition” - Switch)
    Only just starting to get into this after waiting years for my PC purchase to turn into a proper full game, but playing it up on the TV in the dark with my gf beside me reading along is a hell of an evocative, moody experience. Having both grown up in the rural settings the game conjures (her family’s actually from rural KY, and we’ve both spent a TON of time in the Bowling Green area) and having an appreciation for moody, thought-provoking, gorgeous titles, this is super up our collective alley, even if it is a lot of text, hah. Can’t wait to see where these winding roads and mysterious portents take us!
  4. Dragon Quest XI S: Definitive Edition (Switch/PC – new on PC)
    Unfair, because has been a top-ranking game for me previously on the initial PC release, but finally getting to dig into the Definitive Edition (mostly via my Switch, but my PC copy got upgraded, too, and that came out in 2020) has been a huge treat. So great to see this world and its characters again, especially in a new portable form-factor. This might be a bullshit pick on my part since I’m mostly playing a version from previous years, but IMO, DQ11 is worth cheating a little. Just the most lovely, stripped down, pure JRPG experience. A true bedtime game of relaxing comfort.
  5. Jackbox Games Party Pack 7 (PC)
    Man, the YDKJ team just keep fuckin’ knocking it out of the park with these awesome multiplayer grab bags, and 2020’s entry is no different. In an era of Zoom-based social engagement, games I can easily screencast to friends and play remotely are a true blessing, as it gives me a much stronger feeling of connection than “normal” MP games that lack cameras, hah. The new version of the basic-but-excellent answer-a-question Quiplash is gorgeous and hilarious as always, and the crudely drawn mascot fighting arena game is genuinely a delight. While we mostly played 3, 4, and 6 this year (7 only came out in late October), this one’s gonna be in the rotation for years to come for sure.

Honorable Mention: as I was coming down from my bad Slay the Spire addiction this spring, Monster Train briefly captured my attention for a frenzied three day streak of play, after which I never touched it again. If folks feel like I should drop my DQ11 pick, this would theoretically move up to #5, hah.

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  1. Hades

    Hades nails basically everything it tries to do. It controls superbly, oozes style, has great VO, good graphics, good music, and successfully integerates a non-linear narrative into the gameplay in a way that has not been done before for roguelites. I eventually got burned out by the endgame resource grind, which is the one flaw the game has, but will return to Hades for years to come.

  2. Cyberpunk 2077

    I’ve never been this immersed in an open world game, and probably no game of any kind. I felt connected enough to the world and the characters that even the good ending was enough to make me cry. But the UI is a travesty, and the quest structure of the game is almost designed to steer players away from the best content.

  3. Monster Train

    It’s like Slay the Spire, but was released in 2020. Ok, ok, maybe it has some other things going for it as well :) Monster Train basically goes for far fewer combat encounters but with each one being much more complicated. It gives up on even any pretense of balance. Everything is overpowered in a way that in any other game would be totally broken, but in this game the only way you’ll succeed is by finding and abusing more and more absurd broken combos.

    But honestly, after a month of heavily playing Monster Train, I was back to StS.

  4. Hardspace: Shipbreaker

    Blue collar labor has never been this enjoyable. You work a orbital junkyard on dismantling spaceships. Use a handful of tools to slowly cut the ship to pieces, remembering to do things like drain the fuel out of the system before cutting into the fuel pipes or disconnecting the thruster or whatever. And it’s just such a chill experience to come up with a routine for how to deal with each different kind of ship, and then repeatedly executing on that plan and optimizing it.

  5. Among Us

    I’ve play a lot of social deduction board games games, since some of my friends really like them. They’re all garbage. Either you have too little to work on with the deduction part, or the game is smothered under too much gameplay. Among Us does the same thing in video game form, and it actually works. There are various systems that give grist for the deduction mill, but it doesn’t weigh the game down because the computer will track it. It’s brilliant, and the emergent gameplay generated so many memorable stories for our group.

    The only problem is that you need a lot of players. Minimum of 6, and optimal at 10. My group eventually lost critical mass, and playing with randoms doesn’t sound like a good time.,

This should have been a great year for playing video games, but for whatever reason it turned out that for me that meant obsessively replaying old favorites. As a result, my list of eligible games was way thinner for 2020 than it’s been in the past few years.

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  1. Factorio
  2. Phoenix Point Year One Edition
  3. Microsoft Flight Simulator
  4. Gears Tactics
  5. Troubleshooter Abandoned Children

Play Factorio every 6 months or so when I feel like making a factory and seeing any worthwhile mods.

I never would have purchased Microsoft Flight Simulator but with a new computer and Xbox PC Game pass I figured I would try it and it is beautiful and relaxing.

I like Troubleshooter but would only play through it once.

No idea if Phoenix Point counts but I did not play that many 2020 games and have nothing to substitute for it and the new edition seems to be the game I and others were hoping for (I think that counts for something).

Gear Tactics is listed because it still gives the feel of the shooter in a tactical package.

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Can you bold the titles please?

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My best of 2020!

  1. Hades
    This is basically indisputable to me (even though it barely squeaked past my #2). Hades is nearly perfect. Perfect enough that even though I don’t really care for the rogue-like gameplay pattern, don’t usually enjoy ARPG combat, and always thought the best thing about Supergiant’s output has been their wholly unique worlds… it still enthralled and delighted me. Surely a best-of-the-decade game.

  2. Wide Ocean Big Jacket
    Chances are you’ve already heard me gush about this game around the forum. It’s only an hour or two long. It’s implemented in an intentionally primitive way. It’s just a story about four people (two adults, two tweens) going camping. And yet in its modesty it is also brilliant and lovely. I honestly think the guys who made this game are tremendous innovators in narrative storytelling, on par with Night School and, yes, Supergiant. When you’ve had your fill of the spectacle and intensity that video games heap on us, take a break with this game, and I think you’ll be glad you did.

  3. Spiritfarer
    If Hades was a bundle of elements I usually don’t care for perfectly constructed, Spiritfarer was a game made for me. Exploration! Building! Farming! Meaningful conversation with characters you care about! And all of it wrapped up in an absolutely beautiful hand-drawn, hand-animated art style and Ghibli-esque score. Spiritfarer ranks high because of all these things, even though the later game is a little rough and not all the characters are as interesting as the others. Still, I love a game that really seems to distill the talents and interests of its dev team, and I think Spiritfarer does that in a way that Thunder Lotus’ previous combatty games didn’t.

  4. Golf on Mars
    Desert Golf was a game whose charm was in its iconoclastic simplicity. Its successor could never be so iconoclastic. It’s also not as simple, adding water and cacti and clouds to its procedurally generated golf-scapes. That makes it at least as addictive of a time-waster and definitely a deeper game. It’s unfortunate that along with that new variety comes the occasional hole that can’t be completed, but once you make your peace with skipping one out of a hundred holes or so, it’s all good. I’m on hole number 18,185 and the game is still the perfect podcast-listening activity. It has to be my most played game of the year, by hours.

  5. XCOM: Chimera Squad
    Another game made for me, a guy who will keep returning to Shadow Watch before I break out the old X-Com (although I do love both). The XCOM reboots were real good, but I don’t engage with anonymous random soldiers the way I do with unique characters with personalities and custom weapons and skills. Add in a smaller scope to the battles and strategic layer and Chimera Squad becomes even better in my eyes. 2K clearly thought this was a bit of a filler release, dropping it by surprise and at a huge early discount, but even that only added to the miraculous feeling with this game. I don’t expect the franchise to continue in this direction, so I’m just savoring this XCOM-as-I-would-make it.

The Extended List:

  1. South of the Circle
    A surprising triumph of cinematic storytelling on Apple Arcade. I try any Arcade game that could have potential, and drop most of them after a few minutes. But this blew me away from the start, and compelled me to drive to its conclusion. I hope folks check it out.

  2. Airborne Kingdom
    Full disclosure: My friend’s company made this and I got some early peeks at it. But it’s nevertheless one of my favorite city-builders of late–unique and chill and lovely to look at.

  3. Haven
    I’m not even sure why I gave this a try, but I barreled through it to the end, driven by the pleasant traversal mechanic and the delightful character interaction. Why haven’t there been more games that replace the classic isolated video game protagonist with a couple, equally isolated but isolated together? (The reason is probably “AI”.) Haven’s couple is young, flirty, and sensual in a way that’s frank and that I found very realistic and endearing.

  4. Roll for the Galaxy
    I like Roll better than Race in their tabletop manifestations. I don’t know that I can say the same for the digital version, but regardless, Roll supplanted my Race addiction when it came out. I had played many thousands of Race games and it was finally feeling tired. Now I’ve played hundreds of Roll games. I lose even more often at Roll (and at lower difficulty), but I’m learning.

  5. Desperados III
    Hopefully this isn’t premature–I’ve only played a few levels of this. But I loved the originals (much more than Commandos) and Mimimi really has done impressive work in the genre since Shadow Tactics.

Other Honorable Mentions:

  • The Touryst - Delightful 3D puzzle platformer with a fun sense of humor.
  • Space Bear - Silly nonsense that nevertheless made an impression.
  • Deliver Us the Moon - A solid example of one of my favorite genres, the space fix-'em-up adventure.
  • Murder By Numbers - Solve a Picross, solve a mystery. Easy to enjoy.
  • Monster Train - I found this more colorful and accessible than Slay the Spire, which I tried repeatedly.

Special Recognition for a classic old game rereleased in 2020:

  • Defense of the Oasis

2019 games that I would love to pretend were 2020 games so I could put them on my list:

  • Children of Morta
  • Tiny Islands
14

Doesn’t this rule invalidate (among other things) Among Us, Hades, and Factorio? They both first showed up for purchase in previous years.

15

Can you bold the titles but not the numbers please? (Sorry…)

16

I think he’s just saying that if it went into early access this year, it’s eligible. If it went 1.0 this year – like Hades and Factorio – it’s obviously eligible.

Among Us is such a weird situation. It’s an old game, but the thinking is that it took the pandemic to really bring it to life? I dunno. I mean, I love social deduction as much as the next guy, and I’ve had a great time with Among Us. But there’s no way it can be characterized as a 2020 release by any metric.

-Tom

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My fig leaf is that it’s on Wikipedia’s list :-P

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  1. Monster Train - the Slay the Spire-like I’ve been waiting for since I got tired of relic luck determining the outcome of my Slay the Spire runs. Every decision feels meaningful in MT, ever fight is a huge deal, it’s literally a series of interesting decisions.
  2. Creeper World 4 - basically just 3D CW3 from what I can tell so far, but CW3 is great so who am I to complain?

…and, uh, that’s it? I can’t seem to find any other games I’ve played and enjoyed this year that actually came out in 2020. If I think of others I’ll come back and add them. There’s definitely some interesting stuff from this year I haven’t gotten to yet, though.

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Well I’ll leave Pathologic 2 off the list even though it’s on that Wikipedia thing just because I can’t in good conscience consider it a “2020 game” even though it was ported to PS4 this year.

Hades is obviously going to win.

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  1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - First AC game, 300+ hours, played it so much I burned out of it by October and haven’t even seen snow in it yet. I should look in on it.

  2. Crusader Kings III - It still needs something that I can’t put my finger on.

Didn’t even install Watch Dogs: Legion, didn’t play Hades, that’s not my thing, was into Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla for about four days, Cyberpunk is a hot mess, and that’s about it, I guess. Wasn’t a great year. My interest in games really went downhill at the end of the year.