Top 10 Games of 2020
At the end of the year, video game players, developers, journalists, and websites the world over compile a list of the top ten games of the past year and I’m no different. Every year, I review nearly 50 games and I rate them based on their own merits, but how does one top rated game compare to another? For this list, I looked at every game that rated “Buy this game at full price,” including any whose rating was upgraded during my yearly Russell Revisits retrospective. It’s rarely easy to separate the good from the great, but I did my best to preset to you my top 10 games of 2020.
Honorable Mention - Blaseball
I know I know, I said this would be a top 10 but I don’t think I could wrap up 2020 in gaming without mentioning this bizarre and terrific nightmare. Blaseball is a browser-based sports gambling horror democracy-simulator game created by developers The Game Band. The core of Blaseball is gambling on games of Blaseball, a constantly evolving hyperbolic evil twin of Baseball. All of the currency used to gamble is in-game money called Coins, so no real-world money actually changes hands. As players earn more Coins, they can upgrade their moneymaking potential or purchase votes to be used in the elections that happen at the end of every season. These elections can have effects such as teams exchanging players, players being killed, players being brought back from the dead, or adding more bases to the game. But the real joy comes from the game’s Discord server where fans talk about the game, create stories for players, and conspire to defy the gods. In the horrible, lonely year of 2020, Blaseball became an incredible escape by providing a bombastic, unpredictable experience and a creative, welcoming community. You can’t really buy Blaseball, so my rating system doesn’t work, but if you want you can support their Patreon if you like it enough to support it.
#10 - Mythic Ocean
Mythic Ocean was one of the first games released this year and it set a high bar. I was impressed by the game’s excellent writing and design, but what stuck with me the most was the game’s unique premise. In most conversation-heavy games, players maneuver dialogue with characters to shape their futures, usually ending up with some romantic partner because that’s how the genre goes. Mythic Ocean breaks the mold by not making the player the main character basically uninvolved in the outcome of the game. On top of that, there are no right or wrong answers in the conversations and what counts as a “good” ending is up to each player’s own beliefs. With a quick play time, wonderful characters, and a plethora of endings, Mythic Ocean is an easy sell, especially since there’s a free prologue that give players a risk-free taste of the game.
#9 - West of Dead
When West of Dead was first released, I liked it but I wasn’t overly impressed. The game has a unique twist to the auto-aim system: so long as an enemy is in light, the player can easily aim at enemies, but foes in shadow are both hard to see and hard to shoot. Combined with a variety of creative guns and narration provided by Ron Perlman, I thought it was a fun roguelite that did a good job at making me feel cool when I played it. Unfortunately, on first release the game had an unfortunate number of bugs and didn’t do quite enough to explain the game’s mechanics. Luckily, the game has received some updates that have cleared up the bugs. It’s still not a perfect game, but it’s extremely enjoyable in both mechanics and story.
#8 - XCOM: Chimera Squad
XCOM has been a series that scares off players with its challenging tactics and arduous campaigns. I have tried my hand several times at getting into the XCOM games but am inevitably crushed under the mountain of corpses of my brave soldiers. So I was thrilled at the release of XCOM: Chimera Squad because it was the first game in the series that was focused on telling a story instead of testing my skills as a wartime general. With this new approach, players were put in command of a small squad of fully fleshed out characters instead of a horde of soulless automatons. Because of this, losing a squad member in a conflict results in a game over, which might frustrate some XCOM fans, but was a major boon to me since I tend to spend tens of hours losing XCOM campaigns. Chimera Squad also shines thanks to the interesting abilities the squad members can learn and the worldbuilding, especially through the hilarious radio ads for the new businesses that have developed in the new cross-species city.
#7 - Monster Train
There are plenty of roguelite deckbuilder games out there, so how did Monster Train make it onto my top 10 list this year? Quite simply, it’s a top-notch game in ways within and without the sphere of the genre. The feature that impressed me the most was the skillful game design of the game’s five factions. Each of the factions has a very clear identity with unique capabilities that are mirrored in their mechanics. Better still, there have been several post-release updates that added a slew of new content including new faction champions, new cards, and Steam Workshop support. Monster Train wasn’t lacking in content before with the daily challenges, the 25 ranks of escalating challenge modes, and the online multiplayer, but now anyone who buys Monster Train is going to get a whole lot of a good thing.
#6 - Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp
Not unlike West of Dead, when Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp was released I was underwhelmed. There wasn’t much content in the game and major parts like the gallery were absent. The reason I rated Monster Camp higher than West of Dead was because it was selling for about half as much, and that’s the crux of ratings around here. It was a fine way to spend $12 but not the best use of the money. This changed only about a week ago when the developers updated Monster Camp with new content, including a brand new meta-progression system so players can have something to work towards across their many failed attempts to date monster hotties. The developer has also announced they will continue to develop new content for Monster Camp in the future, all free of charge. With all of this, Monster Camp has unquestionably become one of my favorite games this year.
#5 - Wide Ocean Big Jacket
Wide Ocean Big Jacket was released in mid-February and told the story of an uncle, a niece, and their significant others on a weekend camping trip into the woods. I was immediately smitten with this game because of its exceptional writing and fantastic use of time. Ten months later, it is still all of those things, but it is also an escape into a world where going outside and socializing doesn’t put yourself and everyone you know at risk. I already thought this game was a satisfying recreation of the beautiful mundane moments of life, no matter how old you are, but I think it will be even more impactful during quarantine. It doesn’t take long to play, somewhere around an hour and a half, which works in its favor because the game’s story is about how vacations and time with your loved ones is always too short, and the quick time to completion is a mirror of that.
#4 - Paradise Killer
Typically, it’s hard to sell me a puzzle or deduction game because it’s a genre I’ve never excelled at. A good way around this aversion is to make your game about the mysterious death of a cult of immortals and have the suspects be named things like Henry Division and Crimson Acid. This is exactly how Paradise Killer got me to overlook a genre that frustrates me and dive into their delightfully monstrous world. It helped that Paradise Killer was also the first game in the genre I played that didn’t hold my hand from crime scene to crime scene, instead placing me on an island covered in mysteries and letting me sink or swim on my own merits. On par with the mechanics were the characters, complex and perplexing cultists with ludicrous names and great writing. Between the absurd setting, intriguing characters, and baffling crime, I couldn’t help but love this game.
#3 - Ikenfell
Ikenfell tells the story of a young woman breaking into a magical school to learn what happened to her now-missing sister. Thanks to some possibly-related instability in the magical world, protagonist Mariette gains sorcerous powers of her own, and meets students of the school who have been altered by the same mysterious fluxes. I rate this game so highly for two reasons: Firstly, because all the protagonists are wizards, the player is always doing some awesome wizard stuff on each turn like launching a huge fist made of fire or conjuring crystal shards, which makes combat more enjoyable. Secondly, the game’s writing is not only amazing but unflinchingly non-heteronormative. The height of this is the character Glinda, seen on the left. Glinda has a powerful crush on Mariette, but doesn’t feel worthy of asking her out until she first defeats Mariette in a wizard duel. The writing is incredible and so heart warming, and this care and talent is seen throughout the rest of the game as well.
#2 - Spiritfarer
Maybe 2020 wasn’t the year to release a game about the inevitability of death and the loss of loved ones, but I’m still extremely glad that Spiritfarer exists. As Stella, players must guide the souls of the departed into the next stage of existence by giving them a place to rest, preparing home-cooked meals, and helping them process their lingering feelings. Players will manage their ship, expanding with agricultural fields, manufacturing facilities, and recreational areas to better comfort their deceased passengers before leading them to the Everdoor, the gateway to whatever exists beyond death. I don’t know that any other game has ever combined such disparate moods. One minute players will be relaxing, harvesting corn to turn into a tasty dish, and the next they will be weathering a storm of heart-wrenching beauty as a soul passes on. I’m secure enough to admit that this game reduced me to a shuddering, weeping mess on multiple occasions because the writing is just that good.
#1 - Hades
“Oh Russell you’re soooo creative, picking Hades as your best game of 2020 just like everyone else” I hear you saying sarcastically right now to your computer screen. Well you know what? It absolutely deserves it. Hades is an extraordinary feat of game design in just about every aspect. The most obvious triumph of Hades is the superb story that embraces the repetitive nature of the game. Anyone who has played a Supergiant game before knows they craft exemplary stories for their games and in Hades it’s no different, except this time it’s also built around a mechanic of perpetual failure and still tells an advancing story. Obviously, other roguelites have stories, but I’ve never before seen one that develops on both player success and failure. The fact that Prince Zagreus’ relationship with the denizens of the underworld advances whether I escape death or not kept me playing longer than any other game in the genre. On top of that, playing Hades is a blast thanks to the huge variety of content, like the many distinct weapons, the multitude of divine boons, and the almost innumerable upgrades Zagreus can make to both himself and his father’s kingdom. I don’t know that I’ll ever beat Hades, because I’m admittedly just not that good at it, but I’m looking forward to trying many more times to revel in the game’s excellence.
