Well Valhalla isn’t misery porn, so yeah, pretty much by default.
That list put Hardspace: Shipbreaker on my radar. That looks exactly like the kind of thing I would enjoy. There’s a thread for it; I’ll have to check it out.
I noticed earlier today that it’s on sale on Fanatical, too!
Tempting. What is Fanatical, and why is it cheaper than Steam?
Steam key reseller. Some of those stores are above board, and some are not. Fanatical is legit–apparently they’re owned by Focus Multimedia, who started as a budget publisher of PC games. As I understand it, publishers sell keys to retailers like Fanatical, who run bundles and sales to capture audiences looking for deals.
It’s a complicated market, and there are quite a few bad actors. It also just feels weird to buy Steam keys from another store. But along with Humble, Fanatical is probably in the top tier of legitimate sellers.
(We have a thread on the more questionable sides of the reselling practice)
It is a 2018 game though, and there isn’t even any “early access” or “new platform” excuse available to try to make it a 2020 release. The tricky bit about making it eligible is coming up with a role that permits this but doesn’t let the list fill up with evergreen live games.
Hey, there was a Switch port that came out a couple of days ago! That’s enough of a fig-leaf for any sticklers, right?
But seriously, IMO there’s no need to bother with an excuse, as it’s all arbitrary and subjective anyway.
Digital Foundry’s John Linneman does his list:
Of particular note, he put Prodeus at #6. It just got released in Early access last month, but he says that even if the developers stopped working on it today, the game that’s there now is one of his favorite games of the year. Prodeus is a retro shooter that’s been mentioned a few times in our retro shooter thread.
I’ve been watching DF videos for a while but this was the first year I sorta paid attention to John Linneman specifically (following him on Twitter), and I really like his personal taste in a lot of stuff as well as how objective he and the rest of the DF crew are in their technical analysis.
So anyway his list was awesome, I really enjoyed this video.
Yeah, I really enjoy his descriptions even when our tastes don’t agree. Re: Disagreement: Like I’ll never play Streets of Rage 4, since I played a LOT of those kinds of games in the 80s, but never enjoyed any of them. And I love how he praises the orchestral track in Ori and the Will of the Wisp, but then heaps praise on that 90s era Sega game’s music and Streets of Rage 4 the same way even though they sound like garbage to me in comparison. But I appreciate the fact that he likes it a lot.
And I’m also very jealous that he gets to play a new Half Life game.
Once this pandemic is over, my brother here in town bought the latest Oculus. Once I can go visit him again, maybe I can play Half Life: Alyx at his place.
More best-of lists of games you (may have) never heard of:
I’m definitely gonna have to give Cloudpunk a shot.
Stay FAR FAR AWAY from the Switch port.
Well that’s a bummer. I bought it a few weeks back but hadn’t fired it up yet.
I really wouldn’t call a Microsoft published sequel to a Microsoft published game indie but that’s just me.
It’s also pretty clear Huntdown getting snubbed is what’s going to annoy me about lists this year especially these more indie focused ones.
Dangerous link , my Steam wishlist says thanks!
I kept thinking Cloudpunk was Frostpunk, and I wondered why everyone in the Cyberpunk thread kept talking about a strategy game set in a frozen wasteland.
The top ten posts thus far in the thread are:
#10. 16
#9. 20
#8. 2
#7. 23
#6. 11
#5. 9
#4. 31
#3. 30
#2. 14
#1. To be revealed on New Year’s Eve
My list is still being written but while the site I do it for is small fry, you’ll be pleased to know Huntdown is on it!
