Metafilter loves a list

December 15, 2020 2:05 PM

Polygon's 50 Best Video Games of 2020
posted by BuddhaInABucket (58 comments total)

Metafilter loves a list

Really? It wouldn't be difficult to make our meta-list of 20 Worst Lists of 2020, not difficult until we try to rank them.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:20 PM on December 15, 2020 [4 favorites]

My list would be a lot different but I can't disagree with the overall choices.

I had not played any of The Last of Us games when TLOU2 came out in june so did not weigh in but in my own personal listing The Last of Us 2 is undoubtedly the greatest video game ever made, or at least certainly the best story-driven single player video game ever made. Just absolutely astonishingly good and seems really strange for it to be ranked so low here. Truly nothing I've ever played compares to it and I'm having trouble imagining how anyone will ever top it.

Hades was very fun too! :)
posted by dis_integration at 2:38 PM on December 15, 2020

Surprised to see Ghost of Tsushima so far down the list, even if I am getting a bit bored of big open world games. Which is perhaps not an ideal mental space to be in on the day I start playing Cyberpunk 2077. First impression of 2077: huge update, 45GB, after the disc finished loading. Unclear tutorials, overly complicated menus for inventory and skill trees, and the first mission I was free to pick has glitched, so I guess the 45 gig wasn't enough.
posted by biffa at 2:42 PM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've played a surprising number of these games, which maybe explains why I like reading Polygon, and Hades really deserves its #1 ranking. Just as Into the Breach (a previous GOTY winner) won me over despite hating turn-based combat strategy games, Hades has absolutely enraptured me despite my utter lack of twitch-gaming action RPG and roguelike skills.

If you've been putting off trying it because it looks too hard, don't. Turn on God Mode and prepare to have a lot of fun.
posted by adrianhon at 2:53 PM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Tons of great games in this list. A ton of which I've played.

Hades is so good. I've lost dozens of hours to it and I will lose dozens more. What a beautifully crafted, wonderful, gorgeous game. I talk it up to just about everyone I know.

I'm playing through 13 Sentinels right now and it's got it's hooks in me. It's so good. Hopping around characters and seeing how things are all slotting together has been really delightful. This has been my surprise of the year. There's one character who's design is really egregious and stands out, but other than that it's been great.

Murder by Numbers was delightful. I was really sad when it ended because I wanted to jump straight into a sequel which hasn't been made (yet). Really wonderful. That and Paradise Killer really scratched that murder-mystery itch. I wondered where Frog Detective 2 was, but that was released last year. It's also great.
posted by Neronomius at 2:53 PM on December 15, 2020

I have put over 100 hours into Hades. I have every achievement. This is the first game I've ever done that with as I'm not a completionist by nature. Each achievement was through playing the game or engaging with the story; from top to bottom it's a game that respects your time and effort and is constantly aware and commenting on your engagement with it. I'm still not done with the game. It really is something special.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:55 PM on December 15, 2020 [4 favorites]

Man I loved Hardspace: Shipbreaker, but it started making me motion sick to play and I can't go back. What a blast though when I didn't get nauseated flying through space.
posted by Carillon at 2:57 PM on December 15, 2020

This list sucks! How dare they! What were they thinking? They picked THAT as #1!?!?!? WTF!!!!

OK, off to go read the list now.
posted by Frayed Knot at 3:03 PM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Since 2021 will have a Hugo Award for Best Video Game of 2020, I appreciate a list like this. (Even if a lot of them are ineligible, because "achieved cultural relevance in 2020" is not one of the criteria for a Hugo.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:15 PM on December 15, 2020

Well-deserved win for Hades. I loved both it and Animal Crossing but comparing the two makes me realize what a better game Hades is, even though I'm a pretty casual gamer who'd normally prefer AC. (Big credit to Hades for making its easy mode so accessible and allowing me to dig into the game despite a lack of gaming skill.)

Hades takes a premise that should be tedious (fighting the same battles hundreds of times) and makes it feel continually fresh and engaging. Animal Crossing takes a premise that should feel fresh and engaging (designing a whole island) and often makes it feel like a chore. (Why the design commitment to making players click through endless repetitive dialogue menus?! Why is crafting so painful?)

Both games are very dependent on NPC interactions and you can really tell the difference in time spent on that element in Hades versus AC. I think I've played 40+ hours of Hades and never seen dialogue repeat; they manage to bring a real narrative arc to dozens of characters, even minor ones you rarely address. Meanwhile the AC dialogue begins to feel formulaic and stale almost immediately.
posted by Emily's Fist at 3:42 PM on December 15, 2020 [4 favorites]

Very smartly diplomatic of them to push off Cyberpunk to next year's list. They very well could have justified, "in its current incarnation, it's a broken, buggy game, and isn't worthy of the list."

Hades though. It's just a masterpiece.

Gonna have to give Spiritfarer a go; it keeps popping up in my recs.
posted by explosion at 4:01 PM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

2020 has been an amazing year for music (and not much else) but I haven't been following games at all recently. Most of the titles in the list don't appeal to me, but some seem interesting. I did play Spiritfarer a little, and can vouch for it as beautiful, charming, fun and just all around lovely.

13 Sentinels looks rad. Streets of Rage 4 is something I will definitely pick up. What are some other cool, weird games from this year that might be getting overshadowed by the big releases?
posted by Lonnrot at 4:17 PM on December 15, 2020

There's a lot of games on the list that I'm a target for, except I will not play a game that doesn't offer either a woman as the main character, a create-your-own character, or have no avatar at all. I'm so utterly sick of dude-driven narratives; I've played enough of them for two lifetimes at least.

Yes, there are games on the list I will try, though, thanks for posting.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:21 PM on December 15, 2020 [5 favorites]

I am surprised to not see Carrion on many people's 2020 lists. It is definitely not for folks who don't care for gore and it can be easy to get lost, but it is really something new in terms of platforming/combat mechanics and lets you be a hideous, be-tentacled multi-mouthed horror that humans rightfully run screaming from, and that has a certain appeal.
posted by subocoyne at 4:37 PM on December 15, 2020

Wow, I've played exactly one of these, Fall Guys, and I didn't like it. There were a few others I considered, but based on reviews or watching gameplay videos, gave them a pass.

This year I've been playing:

Noita (falling sand + platforming + roguelike)
Art of Rally (lo-fi but gorgeous, arcadey yet great-feeling)
Drag (early access off-road racing game, desperately needs more content)

and older games:
Dirt Rally 2.0 (the realistic one)
Superflight (indie lo-fi game about wingsuit flight)
Bejeweled 3 (don't @ me)
Guild Wars 2 (about as casually as Bejeweled)
posted by Foosnark at 4:44 PM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

I am a bit surprised to see the FF7 remake land so high. I am not a PS4 owner, but the reports from friends I trust is that it is very not good -- either considered on it's own or as a remake.
posted by 3j0hn at 4:45 PM on December 15, 2020

The Polygon list was the expected pure Internet hipster bullshit, or just hateclick baiting (probably: both) which is what I expected. I really wish they'd grow out of it, but everyone needs to put food on the table.

For myself:
1) Ghost of Tsushima (fun + colorful)
2) The Last of Us 2 (perfectly executed but emotionally draining)
3) Crusader Kings 3
4) Hades
5) Among Us

Backlog for 2020: Doom Eternal, AC: Valhalla, Fall Guys, Genshin Impact, Hardspace: Shipbreaker.
Best Early Access of 2020: Satisfactory by Coffee Stain. It's FPS Factorio + Portal humor + pretty graphics
Spent too much time playing: Elite Dangerous

I've been too busy to commit to a full Cyberpunk 2077 playthrough but watched the mostly-linear prologue missions + a few more in a no-commentary Let's Play, maybe 10~12 hours total while waiting to fall asleep the past few nights. Assuming CDPR does their usual excellent post-release support it will be the best game in the last three years after the dust settles - I honestly never believed they would realize the setting so fully, and holy shit did they match the hype in that respect. As released I'd put it just before or after CK3, after compensating for my EMBARRASSING TOTAL DEUS EX FANBOY factor. It's #1 on my list to play when I finally get my grubby mitts on an RTX 3080, and will hopefully have the worst issues corrected by then.
posted by Ryvar at 4:50 PM on December 15, 2020

Cyberpunk being left off the list is definitely a choice.

It wouldn't be my GOTY but if you have access to a high end PC I really think you should play it because the city is just jaw droppingly beautiful.

It gives a similar feeling to GTA V at launch where I'd fly around the city at night just staring at the lights.
posted by zymil at 5:11 PM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

It's a little indie thing but a highlight of this year for me has been the three Dread X Collections from new horror gaming news and reviews website DreadXP. Apparently the first one, released in July, was an attempt to generate some work for devs during the pandemic, and it set the format- a time-limited game jam in which established devs are given a prompt ("make the PT for the game you'd love to make", "Lovecrafting", and "Spoopy", respectively) and produce a small game that gets bundled with the others and sold for ~$10. There's a few duds, as you'd guess, but there's some genuinely good stuff that doesn't overstay its welcome and in some cases represents genuinely interesting innovations that won't be seen elsewhere. Right now you can get all three, comprising 34 games plus the puzzle-filled hubs of Collections 2 and 3, for $20 as a bundle.

Highlights for me are:

Collection 1: "Summer Night" by Airdorf, "The Pony Factory" by David Szymanski, "Hand of Doom" by Torple Dook, "Shatter" by LovelyHellplace

Collection 2: "Touched By An Outer God" by Wither Studios, "Charlotte's Exile" by John Szymanski, "Sucker For Love" by AKABAKA

Collection 3: "Bete Grise" by Amon Twentysix, "Submission" by Corpsepile, "Matter OVER Mind" by Basalt Tower, "Spookware @the Video Store" by Adam Pype and Viktor Krause, and "Chip's Tips" by Torple Dook

That's twelve out of 34 that I liked well enough to call out by name, and that's just my tastes- if you have an interest in horror or spooky games I can't recommend the Dread X Collections enough.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:19 PM on December 15, 2020 [6 favorites]

The Polygon list was the expected pure Internet hipster bullshit, or just hateclick baiting (probably: both) which is what I expected. I really wish they'd grow out of it, but everyone needs to put food on the table.

No, some of us actually have similar ideals and values as the Polygon writers. Also, I absolutely love their video content.

AAA titles bore me. They're predictable in the same way that Marvel movies can be. I like a top games list that prioritizes innovative gameplay over graphics, for example.
posted by explosion at 5:43 PM on December 15, 2020 [7 favorites]

Also indie quasi point-and-click adventure roguelike World of Horror is amazing. It keeps getting updates, but the dev could completely abandon the project now and let it never leave Early Access and I'd still feel like I got my money's worth. It's built for modularity and getting more and more modding capabilities and is edging toward being almost completely moddable, and has an extensive achievements/unlock system that makes the game bigger and more full of things to do the more you play it. The dev also had a game in Dread X Collection 2, "The Thing in the Lake", which features his excellent art style (it's kind of like if Junji Ito worked in MS PAINT) but is way too hard.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:50 PM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Here's my top ten

10 Games
9. Are
8. Subjective
7. Experiences
6. And
5. All
4. Lists
3. Are
2. Arbitrary
1. Untitled Goose Game
posted by adept256 at 5:58 PM on December 15, 2020 [25 favorites]

Looking back at what I played the most this year, my 2020 GOTY was Kerbal Space Program with a bunch of mods.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:32 PM on December 15, 2020 [4 favorites]

Am I really the first to say Blaseball? Between that and that goose thing, who needs anything else?
posted by mollweide at 7:51 PM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Listicle making is a tough gig when your audience has the power of metacritic at your disposal.

A few notable missing items:

A Short Hike (switch release in 2020, maybe doesn't count)
What the Golf? (switch release in 2020, maybe doesn't count)
There Is No Game
Manifold Garden
One Step From Eden
posted by pwnguin at 9:39 PM on December 15, 2020

Man, Hades is great but I'm... Bad at it? So bad. On about seventy attempts and I've got to Hades a few times, got down to a third of his second health bar a couple times, never beaten. Its possible I am just quite bad at video games. But the writings and the vibes are great.

Games of 2020 for me both turned out to be old, in a way - Overwatch over summer, when somehow I got five other people to play regularly and gave us all something structured to do as we improved week by week - and in the last month or so Sea of Thieves, which I've played with a couple pals and has brought some relief of being happily outside and free and beautiful surroundings as the lockdown winter wears on. And there's so much more going on than when I first played it.
posted by ominous_paws at 10:12 PM on December 15, 2020

Wow, weird to hear that Fall Guys made the list, although I guess the whole internet was obsessed with it for about ten days.

Amusingly , just this morning, I picked up Hades because Mrs. Fedora was just commenting on how it feels like it's about time we got Hades, because the entire world has been talking nonstop about it for weeks.

In my case, well, my year's been mostly defined by some combination of Spelunky 2, Picross games, Fantasy Strike (now competitively-fair F2P!) and a replay of Celeste. Probably some others in there too —this year has been a heck of a decade overall.
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:47 PM on December 15, 2020

I have to say Hades starts running out of new stuff after about 140 hours but it is still pretty fun
posted by aubilenon at 11:13 PM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

I am a bit surprised to see the FF7 remake land so high. I am not a PS4 owner, but the reports from friends I trust is that it is very not good -- either considered on it's own or as a remake.

I have been playing it and having a blast with it. Its system design is incredible - not only has it revamped FF7's materia system, which I never liked, but half a dozen other systems from later Final Fantasies and made them work as a cohesive whole. One of the big issues with it is that I don't see how it works in anything other than Normal difficulty - Easy difficulty seems like it lets you bulldoze over most of the game's interesting decisions, and Classic difficulty gets rid of the real-time aspect, which on Normal is key to making each turn feel like a precious resource.

The other big issue, and I've only heard about this, is that some of its plot adjustments towards the end are spectacularly ill-advised. Some of them, to be fair, are great! There's a lot more padding, but most of it is either interesting world-building or character work to give the core cast more depth. It is not high art by any means, but it's a big step up from the original.
posted by Merus at 12:01 AM on December 16, 2020

I'm surprised to see Hades at the top of this and other GOTY lists. Roguelikes (roguelites?) always felt like a slightly lazy approach to game development - instead of elaborately building a game where the difficulty slowly asks slightly more and more of the player, building to a crescendo - the game regularly generates a bunch of random numbers, and hopefully the player gets lucky on some of these random numbers to get the tools they need to meet a rising difficulty. Otherwise try again with some other random numbers.

I love these games though - I have a few hundred hours in Dead Cells, completely adore Slay the Spire, beat Hades with all the weapons on zero heat, and right now I'm playing Enter the Gungeon. I love that runs are unique and there's no save-scumming and the game could be beaten in an hour, if everything lines up nicely and you do your part. I love that you have to make decisions and sometimes they're wrong but you just keep on going and hope something saves you.

Hades seemed to lean more into the joke that you're literally fighting the same bosses and going through the same levels over and over; almost where there's a story behind the game, but it's only released one or two lines at a time every playthrough. It's not a story in the same sense as a normal AAA game or JRPG.
posted by meowzilla at 12:15 AM on December 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Based on my 2020 all 50 of them are still Overwatch
posted by thedaniel at 12:48 AM on December 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best gaming moment 2020: Hbomberguy kills AOC.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:59 AM on December 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'll let Cyberpunk 2077 slide for a few months until they get the kinks worked out. To scratch the cyberpunk itch I played Cloudpunk, which is a voxel game about delivering parcels around a futuristic city in a hover car with a dog AI companion. Some of the conversations go on too long but overall I liked it.

Spiritfarer ended up being a disappointment, and I didn't finish it. It starts off as a low-key game about helping souls to the afterlife, but toward the end I found myself doing timed double-jump-air-dash-glide platform nonsense and it lost me. I'm just not interested in that.
posted by um at 3:35 AM on December 16, 2020

I've got about 20 hours and a differing experience in Spiritfarer -- I am not a power gamer or very efficient, so that's probably enough time for "real" gamers to finish the thing -- and I am enjoying it immensely.

Having recently gone through some experiences, I'm finding it surprisingly emotional as a playing experience, and actually cathartic and healing to a depth that surprises me. It's essentially a fetch-quest-craft game, but so beautifully done that it's taken me almost two dozen hours before it starts to feel chorelike, which is a significant thing for me. I'm going to be taking a break from it for a while because I've been leaning pretty hard into it, but I think I'll find my enthusiasm rekindled after a break.
posted by Shepherd at 5:28 AM on December 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I didn't stick with Spiritfarer. This is partly on me because I mistakenly thought it was only 6-8 hours long and was confused at how little progress I'd made after 4 hours, but I think the repetitive and timer-based nature didn't quite work for me; if I knew it was 20-30 hours I probably wouldn't have started at all.
posted by adrianhon at 5:48 AM on December 16, 2020

No Baldur's Gate 3 or Divinity Original Sin 2?
posted by VyanSelei at 7:04 AM on December 16, 2020

meowzilla : I think part of what makes roguelikes great for a lot of people is it 1) allows a level of difficulty that in a normal game would be claimed as oppressive, and 2) allows a lot of replayability.

As I've given up pancake gaming, my current favourite is In Death Unchained (a VR roguelike). There's three main areas, starting with Purgatory. And when one completes the Abyss one moves into Purgatory II, which is obviously harder than the first time. I hear people talk of making it to Purgatory XXX (there is no ending), but I have yet to complete a full cycle yet. Once you die you start back at Purgatory.

There are some achievements/unlocks that are preserved beyond death; but they tend to make the game harder, with a few powerups. (I.E. An advanced and experienced player sees a different Purgatory 1 than someone who's literally just started the game will see, so going back to Purgatory 1 after death isn't quite as painful as it might otherwise seem).

To me, this difficulty feels quite comparable to Dark Souls (which is widely held as relatively difficult and not novice friendly). Except Dark Souls is the same, every time. So yes, the controls may be a bit persnickety, but you'll never be surprised by a balder knight hiding in a corner; you know the safe spots from archers, and every enemy has a defined zone that they won't be baited to wander out of. So eventually once you've done a SL1 build, and you've helped a lot of people get through boss zones it's just ... familiar. A comforting and still mostly fun familiar, but absolutely surprise free.

Meanwhile even if I'm starting Purgatory for the 20th time that day I need to glance around the corners before/as sweeping into a room; I need to check each roof. Yeah, there's certain patterns that occur within the procedural generation, but never the feeling of being on a hamster wheel. Heck, if I walk into the store/rest zone I need to remember if it was on my left or right side so I remember which way is "forward."

And you mention that in some ways it feels cheap/low resource. I'm not sure about Hades, but IDU as I mentioned has three main zones; about 10 different enemy types (expanded to maybe 20-30 with different weapons, hitpoints and some aggression/behavior (and of course colour/uniform) tweaks) and 3 bosses. This is very much a small-studio game. Which makes me wonder at what a Dark Souls roguelike could end up / feel like. Many more zones; a much higher level of enemy variety. All contained in a world where you don't know where you don't know exactly what's around the next corner.
posted by nobeagle at 8:33 AM on December 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

No Baldur's Gate 3 or Divinity Original Sin 2?

BG3 is still in early access and only has the first part of the campaign from my understanding.

I enjoyed my time with Spiritfarer but I've also been consuming a lot of content around the subject matter which probably helped. I agree with comments here; it makes a really strong first impression but it does overstay its welcome somewhat.
posted by slimepuppy at 8:40 AM on December 16, 2020

I always feel odd when reviewers list gacha as one of the best 50 games in 2020 since the basic idea is just burning money and there are so many more fun ways to waste money already.

I did play Hades but eh, I feel like I ended up liking the idea I had from reading other people's experiences than playing it myself over and over. Also, the reminder that I'm already outside what others consider mainstream games.
posted by chrono_rabbit at 9:40 AM on December 16, 2020

I'm not sure how many of my top games this year are from this year, but it's been a great year to dive back into things that I've only touched the surface of prior.

5) Xcom 2
4) Mount and Blade 2
3) CK3
2) Battletech
1) Apex Legends

Overall it's been fun to get back into things with more of a story and squad based tactics.
posted by Carillon at 9:50 AM on December 16, 2020

I, too, have only played one. Doom Eternal was fun, but I didn't have time to really push it.

Time has been a huge issue for me in 2020. I haven't played many games, and those have been older:

-Fire Watch, which is deeply soothing
-A couple of browser casual games: Civ Hero, a very neat micro-Civ; Pelagium: Origins, a very nice battle/4x.
-Some of Stellaris, but, again, I lack the time to really immerse myself.
posted by doctornemo at 9:56 AM on December 16, 2020

It's interesting to see the couple of comments critiquing Spiritfarer because I've found the game to be thoroughly enjoyable with no substantial criticisms I can think of, but I think the ones you both offered (too much platforming and overly long) are valid. The way I have been playing it has been to let someone else do the parts they enjoy while I watch, and then they let me do the parts I enjoy while they watch. The aspects I find the most fun, they find the most frustrating and vice versa, so it has worked out pretty well. I like the jumpy bits and had no idea the game would get that involved with platforming, so that was a pleasant surprise for me!

Manifold Garden

I know about this game because of this video, which is un-summarizable but really well done. The music impressed me enough to look up the score by Laryssa Okada. I still have no sense of how the game plays, but can say the compositions there are ones I would place alongside the likes of, say, Olafur Arnalds, Johann Johannsson, Nils Frahm, etc. It is very beautiful music.
posted by Lonnrot at 10:00 AM on December 16, 2020

What are some other cool, weird games from this year that might be getting overshadowed by the big releases?
Lonnrot

There's a lot of games on the list that I'm a target for, except I will not play a game that doesn't offer either a woman as the main character, a create-your-own character, or have no avatar at all.
seanmpuckett

Check out Paradise Killer, the main character is a...let's say divinely-appointed detective, a woman named Lady Love Dies. It's a fun murder mystery in a setting that's weird as hell and has a great aesthetic.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:20 AM on December 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

pwnguin wrote:

A few notable missing items:

A Short Hike (switch release in 2020, maybe doesn't count)
What the Golf? (switch release in 2020, maybe doesn't count)
Manifold Garden
...

These three were on last year’s list, with A Short Hike in the top ten.
posted by mbrubeck at 11:24 AM on December 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

Fairly surprised Phasmophobia didn't make the list with how hugely popular it is with streamers, in particular. Despite being, uh, rough around the edges, and still in early-access or whatever, it's also pretty brilliant in its concept and execution. Definitely worthy of mention, somewhere. Currently, the Steam reviews are:

RECENT REVIEWS: Overwhelmingly Positive (66,081)
ALL REVIEWS: Overwhelmingly Positive (151,843)
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 11:36 AM on December 16, 2020

These three were on last year’s list, with A Short Hike in the top ten.

Wow, I just checked out Polygon's previous lists and was impressed. They gave Outer Wilds GOTY in 2019, and the Return of the Obra Dinn #2 in 2018. I adore both of those games and don't think enough people have played them, neither is the obvious popular choice for those slots in the same way that Hades was this year. Great choices.
posted by Emily's Fist at 1:02 PM on December 16, 2020

Hugo Award for Best Video Game of 2020

Yeah, Emily's Fist, when I saw ErisLordFreedom's note about Hugo awards for video games, I immediately thought of Outer Wilds, which is the best video game work of science fiction I've ever encountered. I can't think of a game that even comes close to making its cool science-fiction ideas--and the player's discovery of those ideas--as central to both story and gameplay. Maybe Portal is a distant second (although probably a better game overall)?

If any game ever deserved a Hugo (or better yet, a Nebula), it would be Outer Wilds.
posted by straight at 2:38 PM on December 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

Phasmophobia hooking into Windows speech recognition to let you talk to the ghosts (and letting ghosts track you by your frightened noises!) is one of those low-key brilliant moves that's going to get reused now that somebody came up with it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:49 PM on December 16, 2020 [3 favorites]

I always feel odd when reviewers list gacha as one of the best 50 games in 2020 since the basic idea is just burning money and there are so many more fun ways to waste money already.

I hate that it's a gacha, but Genshin Impact is a genuinely good game, and in fact, can be even more enjoyable if you don't engage with the gacha element at all. It's like, Skyrim is a fun game, but what makes it even more fun is the self imposed restrictions you put on it. I think my Skyrim playthrough with "no weapons or armor" was way more fun than one without. Some players look like they have had a great time playing Genshin Impact without making any gacha pulls (even the free ones the game gives you) because the game was designed to be completely beatable without the gacha part of it, and doing so takes you down quite a different path, where you play mostly with the free characters that people write off as unexciting or weak, and it turns out they are surprisingly strong too. Not everyone gets pleasure out of running a "meta" build that everyone slavishly follows, an RPG is, after all, has part of its appeal tied up in about being unique. In fact, the fact that it is gacha in some ways forces that path: among free to play players, everyone "will" be using a different combination of characters and weapons. In some ways, Genshin Impact could almost be considered a Roguelike, just on a longer timescale...

Currently beaten all content in the game using the (free) main character as my primary, even 3 starring Floor 12 of the Abyss.
posted by xdvesper at 6:28 PM on December 16, 2020

Yeah, Genshin is a lot like Guild Wars 2 in that there is an enormous, very pretty open world that is fun to explore with lots of secrets to find (and even a few puzzles) and you can see almost all of it without spending a penny. The starting area which is kind of in the style of Hyrule from Zelda is beautiful but the second area based more on Chinese architecture (and landscapes?) is really beautiful.

And the combat is actually a lot like playing an Elementalist in Guild Wars 2 except instead of one character hot-swapping between 4 elements and trying to set up various combinations, you're quickly swapping between 4 different characters each with different elemental powers.

But while Guild Wars 2 has loot boxes and you can indirectly end up gambling real money to get stuff, most of the time you can directly buy stuff instead of buying lootboxes for a chance of getting it. Genshin is much more direct about waving cool characters in front of you and letting you try out their fun abilities and then you can only get them from the slot machines that you can pull once in a while with currency earned in game, or more often if you purchase chances with real money. If there's a particular character you want, you might get lucky or you might spend over $400 buying more chances.

I've enjoyed playing it free, but it kinda feels like hanging out at a casino and just eating free food and watching free shows. You're technically not giving the casino any money, but your fun is subsidized in part by some unhealthy gambling.
posted by straight at 9:56 PM on December 16, 2020

Yeah their business model feels unethical but I can't quite put my finger on why.

Of the group of friends I play with, one is adamantly playing it for 100% free, my friend and I are spending what is the equivalent of our WOW / SWTOR MMO subscription to it (buying the $5 + $7 monthly subscription) as a way for us to not feel like freeloaders, and the others have spent hundreds, even thousands of dollars on it.

We're all used to the idea that a premium "skin" in League of Legends might be $15. Proportionally, it's a lot more work creating a character in Genshin Impact: the animation and voice work, story narrative, videoes, are all a magnitude greater in scope. But does this mean you can price it at $150? You could certainly argue that.

As a side note, it also feels a bit like our current tax system: even in more equal society like Australia, 50% of personal income taxes are paid by the top 10% while the bottom 50% pay zero personal tax. In a more unequal country like Malaysia, the ratio is even more extreme: the bottom 90% pay zero personal tax, while the top 10% pay everything.

And I guess lastly, it doesn't feel like "pay to win" because it's essentially a single player game - there's no competitive aspect to it, so you can't really argue that you're being pressured to "keep" up with other players. Even in League you can show your dope new skin off to the 9 other people in the lobby, but Genshin Impact is by far and large played solo. Some people do co-op domains but it's a very undeveloped part of their game.

Feels like I would rather them release new story chapters for free and sell me the chance at new characters, it would feel way worse for me if they give me more characters but made me pay for each new story chapter, although on the surface it would seem like a more ethical move.
posted by xdvesper at 12:57 AM on December 17, 2020

Technically Deep Rock Galactic launched this year and that game is near perfect and not on the list... (Danger Darkness Dwarves). I know I'm an echo chamber about it (go ahead, search comments about DRG I'm #1, #2, and #3, and this will be #4). I stopped playing every day after a thousand hours invested in it - and I can say that if I stop and play one game of it as a break from anything else - I'm back in for a few days and it is still satisfying... It is a rare gem that even with all of the gear and (almost) all of the cosmetics (thanks to a fairly priced dlc) that I don't feel like I've reached the end - the game is just *fun*. Did I mention - cooperative?

With that said, also absent on the list is Cyberpunk 2077. On PC in 4K it is great - like absolutely great, like - great story, Keanu Reeves gives one of his best performances ever. It is worth the growing pains - CDPR has a track record of making things right for folks (well, except the switch folks...) The game makes people say GTA, but it way more Witcher (for obvious reasons). I'm still not sure if this is going to play out as a tragedy or an action piece yet, but wow... yeah, totally neat story. Solid understanding of the source material. Solid understanding of world building. Even with technical challenges for older machines and console hardware - this game is an achievement. I'm finally starting to learn a portion of the map well enough to navigate on my own (of course, at the moment, I'm nowhere near that portion for reasons), but - yeah.. the game is a feat of storytelling and options that AAA gaming companies have not achieved. To be clear - I'm pretty sure you could go through the whole game and not kill anyone and - my god that would be tough but doable...
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:22 AM on December 17, 2020

Huh. I haven't played Deep Rock Galactic, but I am playing Cyberpunk, and I think I disagree with every one of your points. It's not a bad game, and I'm having fun, but I don't think it's great. Top 50 of the year? Ehhh, certainly is for my personal list because I haven't played more than 50 games this year. But definitely wouldn't reach my top 10. The writing, especially the side quests, is nowhere on par with the Witcher 3 (one of my personal favorites). It very much plays like a near future, 1st person GTA to me, both in gameplay and crude humor, but with NPC AI about 10 years behind. I find Keanu's performance all over the place - at times great, at times it seems like someone recorded him reading a dictionary and then cut together the words for the dialogue. I absolutely love the cyberdeck/hacking system, and the story is decent enough to keep me playing, but the bugs... oof. It's no surprise at all to me that it didn't make Polygon's list.
posted by Roommate at 10:32 AM on December 17, 2020

Polygon said that due to the recent release date they're deferring final judgment on Cyberpunk, it'll be eligible for their 2021 list.
posted by Emily's Fist at 11:39 AM on December 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

And speaking of games you don't have to pay for, Epic Games has shifted for the holidays from giving away a free game every week to giving away a game every single day. Starts today with Cities: Skylines, free for the next 20 hours until the next one comes along.
posted by straight at 11:52 AM on December 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Hmm. Apparently the reason everyone has been talking constantly about Hades is that it is very good. Probably shouldn’t have been caught off-guard by this. Probably should have dodge-rolled this realization
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:17 PM on December 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Hades brought me joy, but also physical pain, which appears to be a common problem with me and Nintendo controllers. The Last of Us 2 was an amazing achievement that I never want to play again. Ghost of Tsushima was a contender but somehow blew it for me at the last minute. Don't want to talk about it.

The only game to bring me universal joy this year, was Death Stranding. Started off annoying, but the second area is peak gaming.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:43 AM on December 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Despite the community being utter garbage in most games, I have to say that having League of Legends up there on this list feels right. I slid back into the game this year, having played off and on since....christ, 2010.

The game feels more fun with space for creativity and meta-breaking builds than it ever has. ARAM is a treat, URF is ridiculously silly and fun, and I'm actually kind of enjoying solo ranked q (mute everyone immediately and play support or adc) as well. LoL has never been in a better game state.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:11 AM on December 20, 2020