Tom Chick's top ten games of 2020

It’s odd that I have never heard of this game, and yet it’s better than what is one of the most popular games of the year? I am skeptical.

They are talking about Immortals: Fenyx Rising, once known as Gods and Monsters.

Yeah, I looked it up…it doesn’t look great, but it reviewed ok.

You’d never heard of it? Huh. Bought it during the epic sale. Waiting until I get my 3070 to play it

Nope, even if I saw on it Epic, it was just a bunch of screen shots and a couple of bullet points so I wouldn’t have paid much attention. :-) Was there a thread here?

Edit: Yes, there is.

Edit 2: Ok it looks like it is worth a look.

You also gotta remember how many people played each game, though. Hades has been all over, I doubt that many people even heard of Paradise Killer, and if by SoR4 you mean Streets of Rage 4, I suspect the audience for oldschool brawler stuff isn’t as large as for action roguelites.

Sure, I don’t expect other people to talk about those particular games, I just meant called them out because it’s not like I don’t care about game music. I loved some of Supergiants previous audio work also. I loved Bastion’s soundtrack, and still have it in a non-vocals playlist rotation, I just didn’t see what was so great about the Hades soundtrack specifically. I put almost 100 hours into it, and I probably couldn’t hum a single track from it.

I believe other people loved it, it just didn’t do anything for me.

Yeah I’m mostly in the same boat. I enjoyed the soundtrack but, a few tracks aside, it doesn’t do it for me in the same way as other games I’ve played this year, namely Tenderfoot Tactics, Atomicrops and In Other Waters. Those soundtracks are really special, at least to my ears! Can’t wait to play Paradise Killer and Streets of Rage 4 at some point.

As games are seemingly never ‘done’ any more I kinda think these sorts of lists are increasingly meaningless. In my top 3 this year would be Phoenix Point, which I bought at release and completed last year but has seen such improvement this year it really elevated itself from mediocrity. If I recall, Tom was quite generous and included it in his top ten of 2019, which probably would not have been the case for myself at all.

Sure, you only ever get to make one first impression but I have to wonder which is the fairer assessment, especially in context of recommending it to others now. I mean, is it even possible to play the launch version of it any more (sans piracy)?

Yeah, I only played the Year One Edition properly (and still playing it). I dabbled with the Epic release but realised it needed more time so held off. I’d love to see it on this list given its substantial improvements. Unless it all goes wrong it’s definitely one of my games of the year, which makes me so happy, as a backer and a player.

I hate that guy in the best way possible.

Well, that’s like your opinion man. The PK soundtrack is pretty ambient. Nothing really sticks out there, but I think the Hades one really helps its game. I can’t imagine someone putting 100 hours into the game and not being able to bring up the final boss theme at will, but ok.

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Look, “In the Blood” is straight up fuckin’ awesome and absolutely on my Song of the Year list, too.

My early vote for soundtrack of the year for 2021 goes to Everspace 2.

Now now. Don’t mess with him. All he needs to know is that it’s Korb and not Kolb.

Wow, Zombie Army 4 beating out Hades. Clearly I invested my 79 cents in the wrong Stadia game…unless PGA 2k21 is in the top four!

Dang it, Tom’s been changing the header image on the article, presumably to show games that didn’t quite crack the top ten. Anyone else been keeping track? I remember Miles Morales and today is AC: Valhalla…