The Top Ten Games I Played in 2020

With Hell Year 2020 behind us and with a good 2021 looking rather unlikely unless a drastic shift in human consciousness occurs suddenly, I’ve been sitting down and playing games a lot. Might as well while we’re stuck inside, right?

Melee netplay with rollback netcode took up a lot of my time until my brain categorized it as Diet Melee and I couldn’t deny the allegation. I miss in-person Melee too much to mention it on the list proper, but know that it remains my favorite game ever by far.

This list is just for fun. I didn’t play ten new releases this year, so it’s just a hodgepodge of what I played, a window into my experiences in quarantine. Bonus points for actually coming out in 2020. First, here are a few… mentions. Not all of them are honorable.

 

Dark Souls Remastered (2011, 2018)

 

OK, I only started this one properly in 2021 but I couldn’t wait any longer to mention it. What a masterpiece! I was too intimidated by this when I first bought it, but that was with a mouse and keyboard, an experience that I’ll just say was rough. On my Switch Pro controller and with much time having passed, it now plays like a dream. Dark Souls has what I now consider to be the gold standard in single-player melee combat, and absolutely incredible world design. As a newcomer to From Software, I’ve been very impressed so far. Overcoming adversity and pushing ahead to keep the Age of Dark at bay has been a wonderful experience, if exceptionally disturbing at times. I can’t wait to finish it and to write about it more. At time of writing, I just finished my first playthrough and already have plans for my next character. For my first, I didn’t do any major sequence breaks other than wandering into Blighttown early, thanks to having the Master Key and natural curiosity. I still rang the Bells "in order" because the ghouls guarding it (it's more Blight than Town) sent me back to the Firelink Shrine bonfire with my character Hollowed. And yet, as after every death, I pressed on. I refused to abandon the game and, as so many NPCs do, allow my soul to dissolve into nothingness within the Undead Curse. Death feels like any other enemy, something which can be overcome. You may lose souls and Humanity, but every mistake can be learned from, and every enemy is beatable.

 

Gwyn, Lord of Cinder, who is surprisingly bad at Dark Souls

The feeling captured time and again by Dark Souls is that of a world gone mad with violence and endless death. The player must find their way, in individual rooms, enemies’ locations and attack patterns, and around the world “map” without a map. I’ve discovered hidden treasures, conquered demons, and linked together this dying world in my mind. Anor Londo is my favorite area, hinted at masterfully earlier in the game and unbelievably well-executed upon arrival. Though everything is neat, clean, and awash in artificial light, there is almost nothing alive within the walls save for a few lonely trees and NPCs. Reminds me of any modern city’s streets, a grim warning about the path we’re on. If you were ever put off by this game’s difficulty, as I was, I implore you to give it another try. It’s a masterclass in setting, combat, and general design.

Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

 

Aside from the stupid subtitle that implies a prequel before there ever was a sequel, and which was already trite back when it released, this game’s combat is just too tedious for me. I vastly prefer other BioWare RPGs that in my opinion have stronger writing, better settings, and better combat than this title. That makes it a never-finished game for me, unfortunately. I’ve tried many times, enjoying the opening quests of each titular Origin enough to play to varying degrees of “finished.” The closest I got was a return to Denerim as a female city elf rogue… whenever that happens in the game. Could be near the end, could be like halfway through. No idea.

The plot of the game would be satisfying, if it ended with the death of a certain teyrn. Not sure, though, and never will know. Long ago, I played until Denerim, but that save file is lost. In 2020, I only made it (as a female human noble) to Lothering Village, basically after the protagonist’s backstory ends and the game begins. Too much MMO combat, not enough DnD… in a game with both dungeons and dragons.

 

Even Alistair looks bored.

See, in no longer working with LucasArts, the studio wanted to make its own brand. So why did they release this unoriginal fantasy RPG that could have been produced by an AI that distilled down other fantasy RPGs? I mean, come on. Mass Effect has plenty of originality, though it did borrow a few story beats from the studio’s writing in KOTOR. So, why does Dragon Age consist of humans, elves, and dwarves that can be warriors, rogues, or mages? There are other races in the game, too, but even the Qunari aren’t exactly breaking new ground, and you can’t play as one. It’s a shame that “trite fantasy” is even a phrase which can be uttered, and it’s all too true when spoken about Dragon Age.

I like Bioware’s writing enough to try this one all too often. Hopefully I remember this list when I think about installing it again as I’m tempted by the grayed-out options of my Steam library.

 

Skyrim (2011)

 

Similar experience to Dragon Age. It’s Skyrim. If you’ve played even five minutes of Skyrim, you know what the gameplay is like. Bethesda releases unfinished, shallow glitchfests and waits for the community to make them into decent games. It’s a time sink that you feel must be fun or you wouldn’t play it, but it’s not really all that fun once you stop and think about it. I modded the hell out of the game that I once somehow played vanilla on an Xbox 360 and had a… time, for the fourth or fifth time, in 2020. I don’t really know why I have so many hours on this game. I won’t post the rather embarrassing number. The mod Take Notes made the experience much better, allowing me to actually play a role and remember a few things, but now I can’t access those notes because inevitably, one too many mods broke Todd Howard’s back. This file collapsed like all the others, saving me from the monotonous quests and boring combat I had once again fallen into. But it did at least look fantastic with a few different ENBs installed, which certainly helped immersion, as did the admittedly intriguing lore, especially when it comes to the Dwemer.

Mafia 2 (2010)

 

Meh. Was fun when I was a teenager. Not so much now. Got to the timeskip and promptly uninstalled. Vito died in prison in my playthrough, I guess.

 

Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

 

What a buggy, unfinished disaster. I feel ashamed to have given CDPR money, but I played it for longer than two hours so now it’s in my Steam library forever. Hopefully they actually finish this dumpster fire by 2022. Now for the real list.

10. Jackbox Games

 

I threw this one at ten because it’s the metaphorical apple compared to the oranges on this list. It’s a great time, no matter which party pack you’re playing, though everyone will have a favorite (mini?)game. Mine’s probably Blather Round as of Party Pack 7, the most recent release. It features players taking turns using pre-selected words to try and get their free-typing compatriots to guess a certain person, place, or thing. The first player to type a close-enough answer wins and gets points. The player forming together the hints from building blocks gets bonus points for how quickly a friend solved it, down to 0 if no one gets it in time.

Other hits include Quiplash and Joke Boat, which similar experiences of just trying to make your friends laugh with some help from prompts. There’s Champ’d Up and Tee K.O., which are about one person having a drawing pad and making things too hilarious to not vote for. Trivia Murder Party is a great outlier where correctly answering trivia questions can stop you from getting "murdered" by the eerily hilarious host, and even ghosts can still win.

 

A Tee K.O. winner. You can actually buy the shirts after the game.

I had a blast with Jackbox at various points throughout 2020. It’s a very laid-back and casual experience to share with friends, which was great in quarantine, even if we had to do it virtually. Discord and jackbox.tv make that easy, and almost halfway as good as being together in-person.

 

9. Halo: Reach (2010, 2019)

 

This one came out in December of 2019 but I played it most in 2020. I didn’t play any of the Halos besides this one on my Xbox 360 because I was too young and into other stuff to play Halo when it was in its heyday. Reach’s multiplayer and varied Forge tools still hold up to this day. But what were they thinking with holding back the Forge for months into this re-release? Come on, 343. Modders were using it months before us regular people, and that was one of Reach’s best features.

 

The story is… fine, I guess. The campaign is fun, even if the writing’s a little underwhelming. The Spartans have more life and arc to them than Chief did, from what I’ve seen of the original trilogy (which is admittedly not much, if that statement offends you). I do remember Halo 2’s “War is Cool” opening where Chief rides a bomb with spikes on it (SPIKES. On a BOMB!) off of one ship to blow up another. I have to say that Reach pulled me in much tighter and I even felt twinges of emotion at times. I beat it on Legendary for the first time with this remake in 2020, which felt great, if a little frustrating at times.

 

The other games of the MCC have come out since my time with Reach. I bought Halo 1. I’m surprised Microsoft didn’t release a Halo One (new game) along with the Xbox One (new console) but that’s neither here nor there. There, in Halo 1, I found a very old game that I had no nostalgia for and didn’t make it far into the campaign before never touching it again.

 

But Reach has so many memorable moments that solidified in my biased mind with this playthrough. My favorite mission is Tip of the Spear, where the opening cutscene had me and my brother screaming way back when. That’s the mission that most feels like a war fought between humans and aliens, a feeling that feels like Halo’s main draw to me.

 

And the multiplayer is incredible. So many great maps. So many fun weapons. The progression system… oh, but they didn’t port Reach’s incredible progression system, did they? No, 343 made it into a shitty BR-style battlepass. Thanks. Most things that Bungie didn’t code are pretty bad with this port, such as the menus.

 

Those are relatively minor gripes, to be fair. Where was I? Right, multiplayer. Assassinations! Hold the melee button behind someone for a flashy kill. Feel like a badass with a dope animation. Hell yeah. Or save your teammate from an assassination with a quick sniper shot. Maybe a case of the only thing cooler than a great shot in hockey or soccer being a great save. I had a blast, as I did on the 360, playing the Invasion game mode. It feels almost like an extension of the campaign in that it captures the feeling of a human-Covenant war in a multiplayer setting. That’s a rare feeling for shooters with campaign-multiplayer splits, where the single- and multiplayer modes are in any way connected.

 

And the map design, as previously mentioned, is great. I feel like the official Forge World maps were depressingly rare in my time with the remake, as The Cage was my favorite back in the day with its long sightlines and tight corridors… but I only played on it two or three times in all my time with the Master Chief Collection.

 

I didn’t spend nearly as much time on this as I thought I would. Just beat the campaign, played some multiplayer, and haven’t gone back in months. I suppose it’s because the golden age of Reach is far behind us. I will say, I’m rather sad that my aim kind of sucks on PC. I used to be a CoD GoD if you’ll believe that, back on the 360. I have no footage to prove it, though, and all I’ve got now is too much aiming experience with the horrid Xbox 360 controller and not enough with mouse and keyboard controls. Speaking of…

 

8. Valorant (2020)

 

I’ve written a lot about this game for Esports Talk, and I’m sure I will in the future. Just a little burned out with Valorant for now, mostly because of my aforementioned shit aim. I played a little CS:GO in 2020 as well, after not touching the latter since 2015. It was hard to pick between the two since CS seems stronger mechanically, but Valorant is jam-packed with personality, vibrant colors, and cool weapons, skins, and abilities.

My main man Brimstone looking fly on the cover of my economy guide.

I went with Valorant for this list because it had a much bigger impact on me personally. I’m certainly not destined to be a top-level player of either title. Still, being able to write about the esports scene for Valorant has been a joy. I also found a few groups to play with, and that made all the difference. It’s just about always a better experience than solo queue, which is how I spent just about all of my time in 2020 with CS:GO. Ranked still just isn't that fun of an experience for me in most games. Feels like a hamster wheel with a few highlights and lots of lowlights, especially if your aim is as bad as mine. No singleplayer content either, but that's to be expected with this heavy of a focus on the multiplayer tournament scene, and the in-game practice tools are surprisingly solid.

 

Valorant is deep and engaging, and the esports scene is really fun to watch if you know the basics, especially after the patches that have released thus far. I think this game will be incredible (or perhaps unplayable, if Riot takes this one in the direction that they took League) in a few years, so I’ll be sticking around for a long while, even though I watch way more than play these days.

7. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

 

I almost don’t want to talk about BotW in detail here. I could write a novel-length post about it. I’ll stick to what was different about last year’s playthrough. I did it on Master Mode. I never beat the Trial of the Sword because there’s a level with two golden lizalfos and I didn’t feel like grinding for hours on end just to mess up stealthing around or to run out of weapons as the annoying bastards regenerated health.

 

On that note, Master Mode’s not great, which is why this game is relatively lower on this year’s list than it would be on my all-time games list. All it does is rank up every enemy by one rank and give them annoying regenerating health when not being actively smacked around. I had hoped for a tweaking of enemy AI and damage values to return that feeling of a hostile world out to get me that I lost around the point of beating my third Divine Beast for the first time. My first playthrough was a cakewalk after that point, and so was this one, but this time all the way through. The Great Plateau was certainly more threatening, but I just snuck around until Link had enough hearts to handle getting hit more than once. The cake in the Master Mode cakewalk just regenerated health if I stopped eating it for a moment, and had an occasional gold finish.

 

That said, the second DLC, which I never played on my Wii U copy of the game but did this time around on my Switch, was just incredible. It added so much to the world, new areas to explore, and a new dungeon that exceeded my expectations. My favorite moment was the glide down Death Mountain to find one of the new Shrines. The Master Cycle Zero would’ve been a profoundly baffling and annoying reward to receive at the end if I’d gone in blind, so I’m oddly glad that the bike was spoiled for me. The Champions’ Ballad is not about the reward at the end, but the journey to that point.

 

I experienced BotW the first time totally unspoiled. I had seen not one second of gameplay or the world, and it was all the better for it, utterly magical. I’ll never forget first seeing a dragon, or stumbling upon Lurelin Village, or building Tarrey Town from the ground up, hearing a new instrument introduced with every new NPC.

 

What a wonderful world.

I waited years before I was sure I had forgotten enough to experience some of that magic again. It wasn’t all there, but I didn’t expect it to be. Instead, I got to explore Hyrule again, now familiar, still lost in a beautifully immersive open world with fantastic ambiance, music, wildlife, monsters, and NPCs. Link is more expressive and more a person than ever before. Some people say this “isn’t a real Zelda game” but those people haven’t played the original. Nothing else in the franchise better captures the feeling of exploration and wanderlust when compared to Zelda 1 like Breath of the Wild. There were some diminishing returns when compared to my magical first playthrough, but this game’s still a masterpiece in 2021.

 

6. Return of the Obra Dinn (2018)

 

If you haven’t played this yet, you’re missing out on one of the most unique video game releases in recent memory. My partner had played it before, and watched me play a few times a week until I finished filling in the fates of each person aboard the Obra Dinn. They offered a helping hand when I was stuck without spoiling too much, which was more than welcome for some of the crew members. Taking it slow was the way to go, since this game has very little replay value once you’ve solved the mysteries it has to offer.

 

If you don’t know the concept behind this indie gem, the idea is that you’re an insurance agent in the heyday of the British Empire, sent to investigate a ghost ship with a crew that almost entirely died. The twist is that you have a magic pocket-watch that can teleport you back in time to the exact moment of someone’s death. An ingenious innovation that allowed Lucas Pope to make this game without having to animate very much, it’s also the root of the game’s challenge. You hear a conversation like a radio play before the scene starts, and then you can walk around the still “image” of whichever death you’re currently investigating. You then fill in the fates of people by matching a picture of them to their name, how they died, and who or what killed them, using templates like “[Bob] was [decapitated] by [a terrible beast],” with the bracketed sections being interchangeable with other options. The game checks for correct fates in groups of three, leaving a nice balance between allowing for some guesswork and not allowing players to just randomly guess until the game says it’s over.

 

Detective games aren’t really my thing, nor are old-timey naval tales, nor is having to swap around the names of the four Chinese topmen until the game says I got them right. Yes, there’s probably a way to tell them apart using your noggin, but it was nowhere near as easy as racial profiling… and encouragement of racial profiling isn’t exactly worthy of a GOTY title (two years after its release). These moments of guesswork were also nowhere near as exciting as actually figuring out who died where and why, and those topmen weren’t the only people I found myself having to guess for.

Another gripe I need to voice is that everyone who ended up surviving the cursed voyage ends up in the same place, but the game offers like six different possible locations for them all. Seems odd to make that a choice at all. There should have either been multiple destinations for them, or this "feature" should have been removed.

 

My personal favorite moment in this wonderfully unique game was having to figure out who died on a certain lifeboat way off in the distance of one of the death scenes, since zooming in on them did not pull them up in the journal, as zooming in on a closer character would have done. Unlike most detective games, Return of the Obra Dinn supplied many eureka moments that felt earned rather than handed out. That alone is worth an appearance on this list, though personal taste and some distasteful moments dictate it landing at #6.

5. Mass Effect Trilogy (2007, 2010, 2012)

 

Yeah, I’m cheating. The remade trilogy doesn’t come out until May 2021. I still played all three of these games last year with tons of mods all the way through. They still hold up after my nostalgia-goggle-donning experiences back in the Xbox 360 days. They, in a first for the industry, carry player choices and the consequences of those choices between all three games. That is the defining feature of BioWare's magnum opus. So, here’s a mini-ranked list right in the middle of our bigger list.

           

3. The third installment is my least favorite but has the best gameplay of the bunch. The ending is just such a let-down after so much good build-up. Many of the missions in this one are fantastic, but our choices don’t matter one bit in the end. Sure, you get a different slideshow now, as of the “We are Embarrassed by the Original Ending, so Sorry; Here’s a PowerPoint Presentation” DLC, but it’s still inexcusable. And you simply choose an ending at the end, as far too many games have done. They should’ve just confirmed the Indoctrination Theory in DLC because it would’ve made a smidge of sense, as opposed to the utter bullshit the player finds on the Catalyst. Choices in virtual RPGs are often illusions compared to their tabletop counterparts, or at least only lead down one of two paths, but ME3 takes that to a whole new level. All I have to say about the “choices” you have in this game: yikes. The RPG parts all but completely ripped from its DNA, ME3 is a disappointment that did admittedly have great mechanics and fantastic multiplayer. The multiplayer did, however, popularize the horrid business practice of lootboxes. Without so much interference from EA, and with more time to finish an RPG where player choices actually impacted the ending, ME3 could have become an all-time classic and a fitting end to one of my favorite gaming trilogies. Instead, it permanently fumbled the ball at the goal line. A shame.

 

TWO Shepards. Image credit here

2. With the best balance between shooter and RPG elements in the trilogy, Mass Effect 2 manages to sturdily span the gap between ME1 and ME3 while introducing great loyalty missions that bring Commander Shepard closer to their crew. These culminate in one of the best finale sequences of any video game, one that so wonderfully reflects the potential of RPGs to have dozens of consequences for player dialogue and actions. With the removal of planetary exploration and many RPG elements, though, I felt a little more disconnected from the Commander, more like watching a movie and less like being the Commander themself. Herself, in my 2020 case, if you were wondering. I’m in the camp that Jennifer Hale plays a better paragon and Mark Meer a better Renegade, but Renegade Shep is just weird. In Mass Effect, you can either be a galactic savior or a galactic savior who is an occasionally murderous asshole. Binary choice in this trilogy is not one of its strong suits, but ME2 still allows you to feel connected to the choices you do make, and not all of them are black-and-white. The ending of Tali’s loyalty mission comes to mind. Shoutout to the Sunry quest in KOTOR – Bioware seems to have a knack for morally ambiguous trial quests. Much of the “streamlining” that was done between the original and this title removed features wholesale. The Mako’s removal meant that the feeling of galactic exploration was gone, replaced by a painfully boring planet scan mechanic, and the removal of the inventory makes the galaxy’s small arms armament feel painfully tiny. ME2 walks the tightrope between old-school RPG and new-school shooter “action adventure” where you occasionally make a number get bigger.

 

Ah, yes. "Reapers."

1. Mass Effect 1 is one of the best virtual RPGs ever, and I’ll stand by that. One could perhaps argue that RPGs have not yet lived up to their potential, of course, and that’s why you’re finding this trilogy in the middle of my list. The class and origin system get the player to feel more connected with the Commander and yet still get us into the action with relatively minor story changes. The game still does a great job of introducing or altering content based on these choices. Saren is hands-down the best villain in the series, a fallen hero with understandable, dare I say "human" motivations. Mass Effect 1 evokes feelings in me that can’t really be put into words. Magic is the closest word I’ve got. The magic of exploring the galaxy, finding flora, fauna, and skyboxes that fill one with awe… feeling like a human explorer caught on various hostile alien worlds, threatened with the rumblings of an ancient machine race hell-bent on wiping out all organic life… forging connections with your crew… feeling like a proper battlefield commander with one of the only RPG + real-time systems I’ve found that works, where you can pause to give orders to squadmates… Mass Effect does all of these things with all the poise and grace you can expect from a game this old… which is to say, not a ton, but more than you’d expect, given its release date. The Codex entries and planet descriptions on the galaxy map do so much for immersion, to further that magic. The unique skybox of each planet visited on the Mako never fails to make me feel like an interplanetary explorer. The aforementioned moral choice system is the singular major issue I have with ME1. Another minor gripe I have is with the relatively tedious inventory system and the lack of cooler weapon models toward the end of the game, with each kind of firearm having only two actual variants and dozens of paint jobs. Still, I’m very attached to this game, and I’d recommend it to any shooter or RPG fan, or anyone that wants to explore space as a semi-believable badass.

 

4. Skate 2 (2009)

 

I wanted to rank this one higher for the funnies of making a 2009 release my 2020 GOTY, but I can’t in good conscience rank it above what you’ll see below. But, damn, EA. What happened to you? This game is amazing! This is back when you made games that deserved to sell well by their mechanics and not just supposedly addicting snorefests designed more to charge credit cards than to engage the player.

 

It’s just… fun! Nonstop skating action, high-speed, high-skill fliptricks, body flips, tweaked air grabs, tweaked grinds, dope gaps, fun races, and sick contests against solid skaters. Now, if any of that lingo annoys you, just imagine the game itself. I played a bunch of Tony Hawk titles with my cousins, and this game blows them all out of the water, to the point that my brother and I sunk countless hours into this title in 2020. We loved just about every minute, minus a few annoyingly hard-to-land tricks, some technical hiccups, and a few lame story challenges. We’ve got an ever-growing collection of clips on our old Xbox 360. Here's my personal favorite, a cell phone recording of a TV, in true 2009 fashion:

The elusive Crail to Tailwalk backflip. Don't mind Zelda chomping on a chew toy in the background.

The parks are the big draw of this one compared to Skate 3, which might edge out 2 in terms of mechanics but just doesn’t have that many sweet spots to skate sesh compared to its predecessor. The only park I enjoy in 3 is the Super-Ultra-Megapark. Now, in 2, you’ve got Danny Way’s Megaramp and park, but my experience there is mostly just doing the Megaramp and the ramp after it before resetting to the top. And there’s S.V. Stadium, the craziest place to land insanely huge air tricks, like the clip above. The Fun Track is really fun, as you'd expect. The Boneyard has the best rail in the game and a dope half-pipe, along with a couple spots to get crazy big air.

 

My personal favorite, though, is the Monster Clubhouse. At first, I felt ripped off for my $200K of virtual cash. But once I did the challenge hosted there, I was blown away by how cohesive and incredible the park was. See, I had been skating it wrong. I tried to go up and around rather than down, like a fool. The contest event at this park showed me to the top of the ramp that I at first thought was just a weird decoration. The top is a perfect place to put a marker down, land a body flip, and go on to shred four awesome tiers of props to grind, air, and plant on as you make your way down to a halfpipe with a bowl before warping back to the top.

 

Just hours and hours of landing sweeter and sweeter tricks. A great experience. Definitely recommend trying it if you have even the faintest interest in skating. Please note, I do not have even an inkling of an iota of interest in skateboarding. I merely have the memory of renting this game and then buying it because the mechanics are just that good, just that fun to learn and execute. My only big complaint there is that too many fliptrick inputs are too similar, which is a bit of a downer. Throwing in more fighting game inputs like dragon punch motions and so on would have been better (in my opinion) than making a hair’s breadth be the difference between a Laser Flip, a Hardflip, and a Shuvit.

 

The other, smaller complaint I have is that, mechanically speaking, your player character and many other skaters are invincible superheroes that can use the Force to pull their board into their hand from anywhere in the world, teleport at will, use super-strength to move even the heaviest of objects, and never get hurt for longer than the fall takes. But the story itself doesn’t play this up at all, which would have added some much-needed spice to some very boring writing. It also leads to some weird moments where Reda, your cameraman, says stupid shit like “Oh my God… I think we need an ambulance,” when your invincible super-skater trips over a bush and scrapes a knee before teleporting back to the spot where they fell. In true EA fashion, the game’s writing is clearly based in asking 6 different committees to survey skaters in order to understand their alien language. Another result of these linguistic committees is that many of the challenges have nearly incomprehensible requirements if you’re not versed in the lingo. Oh, and most (not all) NPCs called my female skater “man” and used he/him pronouns. This led me to believe that she is trans as a slightly better alternative to EA giving that little of a shit about women playing their games.

 

Still, Skate 2 remains a dark horse classic, a remnant of brighter days for the video game industry, and a reminder that mechanics are still king.

 

3. XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012)

I wasn’t sure I played this title in 2020, but there you go. Love me a good technicality. My first playthrough was on the vanilla game, and I played it again in January with the DLC installed. Both experiences were great, and though I was happy to experience the base game, I’d recommend jumping in with the full package. I’m glad I did technically play XCOM: EU last year, because it means I get to talk about it here.

 

Do you like Fire Emblem as much as I do? If so, you’ll love XCOM. The gameplay is very similar – turn-based, grid-based combat with varied unit types to play as and against. Comparable to chess with swords and Pegasi or guns and aliens. XCOM is a departure from the fantasy continents of Fire Emblem, a series that must exist on a planet at least fifteen times the size of Earth with how many continent-spanning wars we’ve seen from Nintendo’s strategy RPG series. XCOM: EU tells a similar story to the original XCOM, an alien invasion of Earth with a global response force. Firaxis definitely gets points for not just calling this reboot "XCOM" like many companies would have. This title has modernized features like… well, 3D models, for one.

 

It’s an experience that I think will hold up to the test of time much better than its already-forgotten original, with many of the same puzzle pieces in place. Procedurally-generated human heroes fight on the front lines against an alien invasion. Though everyone in the vanilla game talks in an American accent and there are only voiceovers for roughly half the languages that your troops would speak in the DLC, it’s beyond easy to get attached to the characters the game produces for you.

 

How could I forget Colonel Kim of Korea, gifted with psionic abilities in addition to her medical prowess, or Sassoon and Owen of Enemy Within, who sacrificed their bodies for humanity, losing limbs to become machines of war, named for my two favorite WWI soldier-poets? My French sniper landing that 30% shot to save my Nigerian heavy trooper is burned into my brain forever, as is Ashley Williams (so named for her voice actress’s Mass Effect character) running behind enemy lines to blast gray after gray in the face with her shotgun, singlehandedly clearing several city blocks. All of these troops allowed missions to tell stories just through gameplay. And that’s something truly special, not often done in the medium of video games. Ocarina of Time is the first that comes to mind; expect a full breakdown of that from me in the future.

 

XCOM does this storytelling-through-gameplay in a unique way. Battles play out in individualized and intriguing ways, using excellent procedural generation balanced with set design elements. Moments like using an explosive to destroy a wall, giving your immobile sniper a sightline to an enemy that’s about to kill a friendly unit, are wonderful to think up and to see play out. The game fosters attachments to procedurally-generated troops and then can kill them off if you fail to command them as effectively as you can… or to save-scum.

 

Mechanically speaking, XCOM turns turn-based combat, which often feels stiff, unresponsive, and unrealistic, into a tactical war. Sure, there are weird moments like melee-focused aliens running right up to someone and then staring at them while waiting to get shot. But the Overwatch ability, which allows a troop to take a turn preparing to fire (at a reduced accuracy, which unlike Fire Emblem is actually a percentage instead of dice rolls disguised as percentages) at anything that moves… this ability allows soldiers to feel more engaged, even on the enemy’s turn. In many SRPGs, most units (especially enemy units) will simply stand still and wait to get hit before returning the favor. XCOM allows for turn-based, strategy-focused gameplay that feels fluid and unpredictable, more like a real war than any competitor that I’ve tried, including Fire Emblem, Wargroove, and this game's rather disappointing sequels.

 

And I haven’t even mentioned the intensely interesting decision-making that happens back at base in this one, like research and unit promotions. The progression from terrified resistance group to psionic band of heavily-armed badasses is exceedingly satisfying. If you’ve never played XCOM and you have even a passing interest in strategy games, give this one a try.

2. Portal (2007)

Another technicality.

This seems a short PLAY TIME for one of my favorite games of all time, but I’ve beaten it a good five times now, maybe more. A few times back on The Orange Box, and now three definitive times on PC. A little under two hours: all the time Valve needed to give us a mind-bending puzzling experience, rooted in understanding an intuitive physics engine and coming up with clever solutions to the game’s presented problems. It’s utterly flawless, just as long as it needs to be, perfect from start to finish… overdone community memes notwithstanding.

 

Portal’s been dissected to death by countless people, and for good reason. I have very little that I could add to the conversation this late in the game. It’s short but oh so sweet, an all-time classic which I hope will be preserved until our civilization is nothing but ruins for an alien species to dissect. Someone, anyone, please put a working copy of this game in your fallout shelter.

1. Spelunky 2 (2020)

 

I didn’t play all that many new releases this year. It’d be nuts to rank this above Portal all-time, but I promised bonus points for coming out in 2020. And it certainly gave me much more value per hours played if you’re a fan of using that metric. It’s all the more impressive that something like this masterpiece came out during an international quarantine. It quickly became one of my all-time favorites, at any rate.

 

The original (Spelunky “Classic,” which I did a few runs of before wanting desperately to go back to 2) was a free treasure-hunting roguelike platformer designed ingeniously by Derek Yu and his devilish algorithms to always have a path to the level’s exit, but plenty of risk and reward for those who tread away from that critical path, and plenty of random elements to keep things fresh from run to run. This design endures all the way to 2020 with the game’s first proper sequel. Spelunky HD certainly feels like one, but it’s “just” a remake of Classic. All three titles use a formula that ensures that the player will have to master mechanics and make decisions on the fly rather than just memorizing enemy locations and level layouts. It feels like anything can happen, for better or for worse. Sometimes, Lord Derek will bestow upon you two Kali altars and Climbing Gloves before you've even fought the boss of World 1. Sometimes, you get no bombs for the entire run and die to a Rube Goldberg machine of enemies flying into each other and eventually your character.

 

Spelunky 2 has an interesting gaming taxonomy. Obviously, it borrows heavily from HD and therefore from Classic, with Derek’s original spelunking formula now fine-tuned to perfection. We've got the ledges and now in the sequel, the platforms from Smash, in addition to unique stuff like ropes and bombs and a selection of roguelike items which unfortunately hasn't gotten much bigger since Classic. With a little of Rogue and a lot of Mario in its DNA, Spelunky 2 offers incredibly fluid and tight controls, and ensures that each run has meaning, even if you die. There’s always something to learn. For example, getting your electronic backpack on fire is a good way to lose 11 HP. Don’t fall on spikes unless you’ve got a means of slowing down your fall, like a Turkey or Cape’s glide ability. Ropes that fall all the way to the ground work, too, as does crawling off a ledge that’s close enough to the spikes. Don’t step on the Octopy enemy if you don’t have shoes, and using the Spike Shoes to do so will actually kill them. Don’t go to the Temple of Anubis unless you want to unlock the characters on that route because DAMN, is that world way harder than the Tide Pool.

 

Spelunky 2 offers choices in the worlds you explore, from 1-1 to 7-4. Five worlds have four levels a la Super Mario Bros. on the NES (that’s why I call them “worlds” and not “biomes” or whatever). The Ice Caves have been streamlined into being 5-1 before you go on to 6-1, after just one level. There’s an extra-special secret challenge for god gamers who ascend past the final “final” boss if my counting has thrown you and you don’t know about a certain Ocean.

 

I spoiled a fair bit of the game for myself by watching gameplay before getting into it, and I imagine that the feeling of discovery for the first players who got their hands on this game was pretty awesome. I didn’t at all mind being relatively prepared for some of the later areas and challenges, though, and World 7 remained a mystery to me until I got there. Many worlds do return direct from Spelunky 1, looking rather similar to their Spelunky HD variants, especially the Jungle. Hell has been tweaked, moved from a final secret challenge to one chosen world 2, and renamed Volcana. On a related note, this game kicks your ass through your skull at every opportunity. It’s one of the most difficult singleplayer games I’ve ever played.

 

But that's honestly a big part of what makes Spelunky 2 so engaging and absorbing. The challenges are ever-shifting, slightly different from all of your other runs, always difficult to overcome, and all the more satisfying for it. You don’t make progress by getting far and hitting checkpoints. You make progress by learning and later executing. Over my 100+ hours with Spelunky 2, I’ve learned about which rewards are worth which risks, about how to navigate common room layouts, about how to deal with enemies and bosses, about how to progress the game’s secret questlines. Once all the pieces come together, and you kick the game back, whether just beating the leader of the cavemen in 1-4 or beating the final challenge Spelunky 2 has to offer… I can think of few better feelings in all of gaming. Defeating a close rival in a fighting game is about all that comes to mind.

 

Not many GOTY lists for 2020 that I’ve seen online highlight Spelunky 2, and that’s flat-out robbery. I’m sure Hades is good too, but I prefer roguelikes vastly over roguelites. The difficulty curve goes up rather than down in a proper roguelike, a genre I was previously unacquainted with. Spelunky 2 was just about the best introduction I could have asked for. Don’t let yourself be put off by a good challenge. Overcoming the thousands of challenges this game throws at you is intensely rewarding, and the game is a ton of fun even before you git gud.

 

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. Hit me up and play co-op Spelunky 2 with me sometime. Stay tuned to this blog for more general gaming content. Follow my work at Esports Talk. And sub to my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/cmcneil, where I've begun to post my poems, short stories, and lyric essays. Here’s to better days ahead of us. I plan to use this blog in the future as a space to post stray thoughts about games that don't fit in on Esports Talk, as well as posting Patreon posts about a month or so after Patrons get to see them... or maybe just the poems. We'll see.