Games you played in 2020

Games
38

Even though I have these games parsed by month, most of these games bled over between two or more months. But, I figured since I was grabbing this list from my played games in the Weekend Gaming Update thread, I might as well list them in order.

I actually played (and talked about) a whole lot of other games this year besides the ones listed here, but rather than waste more time complaining about the ones I bounced off of (or came to realize I didn’t enjoy at all) I figured I would list only those games I genuinely enjoyed (with one particular exception I included anyway).

January:

  • Ancient Planet (Steam):
    This is a very straight forward tower defense game. Some might call it too simplistic to hold their interests, but I’m not a tower defense enthusiast and I enjoyed the time I spent with it. I just wanted a game I could relax while playing and this one delivered.

February:

  • Wolfenstein: Youngblood (Xbox GamePass):
    While I’m not going to tell all those people that hated this game that they’re wrong, I will say that I had a blast playing the game, and genuinely enjoyed the two protagonists. The game isn’t perfect, but it was a solid shooter for my money Gamepass subscription.

March:

  • Divinity: Original Sin 2 (Steam):
    Man oh man, I’ve been playing this game for years. I’ve restarted three or four times, but this year I got further than ever. I probably put 80+ hours into the game this year and I still feel like I’m nowhere near the end. Unfortunately I decided to stop playing because I reached a point where I couldn’t find an enjoyable difficulty setting. One difficulty was simply too hard and unforgiving, and the one just below it felt way too easy and dry. While i respect everything they did with the game, and I’ve had a lot of fun with it, I can’t help but feel like I’m never building my party “correctly.”

  • Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (Switch):
    Back in March I said, “I’ve decided to start killing at least 1 new monsters a week.” That lasted about three weeks. The grind got me down, but it’s a brilliant game I always have fun playing, it’s just hard to motivate myself to pick it back up because I know how much grinding there is waiting for me here. it’s strange, I love playing but at the same time I’m also apprehensive about playing it.

  • Super Mario Odyssey (Switch):
    I completed the basic campaign mode a couple years ago when I got the game, but this year I decided to “finish” the game itself and collect the rest of the moons. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I was fooling myself into thinking I will ever collect all the moons. But I always have fun picking the game back up and finding three or four more.

April:

  • DOOM Eternal (Xbox One):
    I thought for sure this would be my game of the year. Based on DOOM 2016, I didn’t think anything else I played in 2020 would even come close. if I were to limit my favorite 2020 game to those actually RELEASED in 2020, okay, this would probably be in the top spot, but it turns out an older game (mentioned later) managed to give me the best gaming experience this year.

  • Age of Wonders: Planetfall (Xbox One):
    I love this game, I love this series, I love the expansions. This game has had a couple expansions this year, and they’re always great reasons to dive back in for another 50-60 hours before forcing myself to play something else for once. I only have this game listed for April, but that’s only because it coincides with the release of the Invasions expansion. I’ve actually been putting some serious hours into the game all freaking year long.

May:

  • Wonderful 101 Remastered (WiiU) (Switch):
    I loved the game on WiiU back in the day, and I love it on Switch. i actually prefer it more on Switch because of certain updates to the game that allow me to play better without the huge WiiU tablet controller, but I do love all versions of it.

  • Arkham Noir: Case #1 - The Witch Cult Murders (Physical card game):
    The first little spark of interest in physical board games that dominated my summer started here, with this game. I think I discovered this game after watching Tom put up Youtube videos about it. It’s a solo game.

  • Carcassonne (Xbox One Backward Compatibility):
    My sudden passion for board gaming saw me re-install my old 360 digital copy of Carcassonnne. Fun little game to play for a few minutes at a time between other, meatier games.

  • Deep Rock Galactic (Steam):
    One of the latest games I’ve played Co-op with my wife, and the first computer game (that isn’t Hearthstone) we’ve played together in a long time. Great in co-op.

June:

  • Horizon Chase Turbo (Switch):
    What an awesome little retro-racing title. I picked up a few Qt3 friends on my Switch specifically so we could compare times in this game and I could try to come out on top across the board. I haven’t loaded up the game in a few months, but last I looked I was still #1 on every map I played. I could try to deny that this is a call to arms, but I’d be lying.

  • Code Names: Duet (My kitchen table):
    More physical board gaming, but with my wife this time.

  • Grim Dawn (Steam):
    It would be fair to say that I probably put 80+ hours into this game every single year, and I still never manage to finish all expansions with a single character. Well, I tried again this year, but god damn there’s a lot of content, and man do I burn myself out trying to do everything at once. I’m sure i will be seeing this one again next year too. it still has so much to give.

  • Assassin’s Creed: Origins (Xbox One):
    This is the first Assassin’s Creed game I’ve ever seriously played, and hey, I finished it. i spent weeks on the game and enjoyed my time with it. This is a no-negativity post, so I won’t bother comparing certain small things to the Shadow of Mordor/War games which are just a little closer to my heart.

July:

  • Ghost Stories (Board Game):
    This is my favorite physical board game to play solo. it’s not strictly a solo game, but I enjoy it most when played as such. Beautiful game, too. And it dominated my summer.

  • Apocrypha (Board Game):
    I think I spent the bulk of July only playing Apocrypha (solo) day in and day out. I think I played one mission every single day through mid-August and then forced myself to set the game down and try some new things. The game took me days to fully comprehend, and by the end of it I had a pretty good routine going. I think the biggest challenge for me was table space. I learned about this game in a thread Tom created about his favorite solo board games.

  • Lost Cities (Board Game):
    Another co-op game for my wife and I. We bought and played this game a little about ten years ago, but didn’t fully appreciate it. I pulled it down off the shelf again over the summer and it turns out we love the thing. It really clicked for us this time around.

August:

  • Cogmind (Steam):
    I spent most of the month still playing a few board games already listed above, but Cogmind was my first foray back into VIDEO GAMING after being away from VIDEO GAMES for about a month or two. Cogmind is one of the best traditional Roguelikes ever made.

September:

  • Crusader Kings III (Steam):
    A Crusader Kings game I actually succeeded playing correctly. I bouncing off the prior entry of the series a few times and could never quite find that tiny spark of awesome that had everybody else enamored, but CK3 did a much better job of helping me understand what all the fuss was about. The game is so huge and daunting that, much like Monster Hunter generations Ultimate, I find myself enjoying every minute I spend playing, but I find it difficult to ever pick back up because of the monumental task I feel like I’m undertaking every time I think about it.

  • Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen (Xbox One):
    Great game with a cool combat system. unfortunately I think that ultimately the game becomes too easy as time goes on, with the most difficult encounters happening well after end-game, but by that point I had already played so much of the game I was ready to move on. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.

October:

  • 9th Dawn III: Shadow of Erthil (Xbox):
    A fun, inexpensive, little ARPG that I put way too many hours into. it’s no Grim dawn, but it’s super simple and easy to plow through for a few minutes here and there.

  • Return of the Obra Dinn (Xbox One):
    My 2020 gaming experience of the year. I loved my time with the game and it was the perfect spooky Halloween game for me. I can’t say enough good things about this title, from the music, to the art, to the story. Amazing.

November:

  • Sniper Elite 4 (Xbox GamePass):
    I had so much fun shooting people in the face with this game, and I know I shot them in the face because the game features a nice slow-mo bullet cam that shows me precisely how each little projectile obliterated every single target. I ended up buying a few sniper games because of this title. i will get to them soon(ish).

  • One Finger Death Punch 2 (Switch):
    What a great little game, and so inexpensive. I’m currently stuck at a brick wall very, very late in the game, but every minute of the game up until that point was pure bliss.

December:

  • Worms Rumble (Steam):
    A real-time multi-player action shooter, by Team 17, and featuring Worms! My current favorite game to play for twenty minutes at a time between other, bigger games. it earned a very quick positive review form me. It feels good, it sounds good, it is good.

  • Code Vein (Xbox One):
    I finally did it! I bought a game on sale and started playing it immediately, then I wrapped it up immediately. No backlog for this one!

In addition to Worms Rumble, at this point I expect to be playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 (Switch) and one of the Tomb Raider reboot games (Xbox) throughout the rest of the year/month.