Best Games of 2020 (That I played)

 Its New Years goddamn Day and therefore it's time to look back at all the stuff I played last year and pick a few games to say a short few things about.  Before I get into it though let me just make clear that this is not a "best games of 2020 list", this is a random assortment of shit of games that I PLAYED LAST YEAR.  Meaning stuff I talk about might not be from 2020, I just played it in 2020

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Lets go!

Best Game of 2020

 Looking back at the list of games I beat last year, I didn't actually beat that many games from 2020 so I really have no choice but to give it to Final Fantasy 7 Remake.  While it's sort of annoying that it's being split up into a trilogy, the things they have done with the game play and story are, so far, good enough to have me wanting more.  I'm looking forward to seeing where they go with parts 2 and 3 after the ending of the first one and I'm even more looking forward to seeing more of High Definition Tifa Midriff

Runner up goes to Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne HD Remaster.  I might have put it in my best game slot but its a remake of a game that came out in 2003 so even though I love it, it can fuck right off. 

Best non-2020 Game wot I played in 2020 (for the first time)

This award is for a game that I played this year, that was a first playthrough but didn't come out in 2020, and the winner is 

Challenging yet satisfying game play? Check

Killer soundtrack? Check

Built in counters for hitless/deathless challenge runs? Double check

Furi was easily one of the best games I played this year with its easy to understand yet hard to master game play and it's quirky bosses it pulls you in pretty quick.  Even after you beat it though, the extra difficulty level that comes with new attack patterns to deal with makes a second playthrough even more fun than the first.  It does an annoying thing where during the story you have to slow-walk between each stages but after the first play you can just select bosses off a list and avoid all of that so I guess it can be forgiven.  If you haven't played Furi yet, do it

Most Pleasant Surprise

When I first fired up Illbleed during the (still ongoing at time of writing) Horror Gauntlet, I'll be honest, I kind of hated it.  It has a weird brand of game play where damage can quickly spiral out of control and you can be left completely fucked and hidden traps that have to be marked before passing them can mean that at first, you'll be blundering into game overs constantly, but once Illbleed clicks, it becomes a really enjoyable experience.  With its absolutely bonkers plot about a killer theme park and terrible voice acting you're not only in for a challenging "horror" game but an absolute laugh riot to boot 

Worst Game of 2020

2020 was a special year for me, because Outlast 2 wasn't just the worst game I played that year, it was the worst game I have ever played IN. MY. LIFE.  

Takeshis Challenge, Super/Virtual Hydlide, Action 52 or any other shitty game you care to mention PALE in comparison to the absolute train wreck that is Outlast 2.  I plan to do a longer article about this absolute shit show but to summarize, Outlast 2 is a poorly written, poorly designed "horror" game that relies on nothing more than cheap shock value which will leave you frustrated and angry rather than terrified.  The first game was already a gigantic pile of shit and Red Barrels really outdid themselves on this one.  

Do no play Outlast 2, stay well away.  I could write a dissertation on everything that's wrong with this one and that's what I plan to do but until then just don't play it, don't even think about it.  Some people say that playing video games is a waste of life, and while I don't agree with that sentiment at all, I think that they may have a point when it comes to this one.

Runner up goes to shitty, generic open world zombie game Days Gone for being a boring buggy mess, but still leagues better than Outlast 2

Who Cares About VGX?

Here we go again folks!  It's getting to the end of the year, so it's now time once again for everyone to start putting their game of the year lists together!

If anyone doesn't know what VGX is it's some video game award thing hosted by Spike TV and it involves talking about games for a bit, and then announcing a load of awards given to whoever made the best of whatever category they are pushing.  The show is produced by Geoff Keighley, the man known to the masses as "Dorito Pope", so you know it's probably a load of bollocks.

Now when I woke up this morning it was already underway but having a quick look at my twitter turned me right off the whole thing.  The first thing I saw was that Nintendo announced a new Donkey Kong game, which I thought was cool but apparently the rest of the internet was just complaining about it.  The day has come when people are cursing a new DKC game....and that's a sad day.

So aside from the Dorito Pope the whole thing was hosted by Joel Mchale, who I'm not familiar with but he's not much of a game fan by the looks of things.  From what I saw and heard about the goings on, he spent most of his time looking like he didn't want to be there but he did manage to ask a couple of really awkward questions to certain people, which gave me a little chuckle.

Now I have a bit of a problem with these kinds of award shows because the winners are always really really predictable.  The game of the year winner at VGX was, surprise surprise, Grand Theft Auto 5.  Not that I'm saying that there's anything wrong with GTA5, I've not played it yet, it's probably a good game at the very least however the game of the year really can only go to like 1 of maybe 3 games off the top of my head.  Most of the big review sites will probably give their game of the year award to either The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite or Grand Theft Auto 5. 

In fact, I'll make a bet with people right now, for every major gaming site that gives it's GOTY to something different, I'll give £5 to charity, so make sure you email me and make me aware because I'm not going to go hunting for it.

Not that those 3 are bad games, they are all passable titles, well put together with lots of polish and all that jazz but the fact that every gaming site will give their awards to one of these three is a little boring and sort of smells a bit of that whole "paid review" thing that gets talked about sometimes.  I just wish that they would be more open about what their game of the year could be, so that when I watch I don't just fast forward through nominees because I know exactly what they are going to pick.

I heard though that fucking Gone Home of all goddamn things won indie game of the year.  THIS I don't fucking agree with, because it's barely even qualifies as a game.  If you want to tell me that Gone Home was better that Rouge Legacy, Don't Starve, Gunpoint, Antichamber and many others (that's just going off my sidebar) then take your shitty opinion and fuck off out of my face, I reject your awful taste in video games.  I'm not sure if it actually did though, so if I'm wrong I'll be happy to discover that.

I didn't ignore the VGX completely but what I did see seemed low budget, badly made bullshit.  The reveal about DKC was cool and I didn't see the others but the awards were so predictable I ended up closing the tab and playing fucking Gynoug on the Mega Drive.  Do people actually give a flying fuck about these award shows? They know which handful of games is probably going to win so why bother?

Although if the VGX did one thing right it bored me enough to make me get up from my computer and work through my PS3 backlog for a few hours.