2020 Top 5 Highs and Lows in Gaming
2020 was a year… not the best. It wasn’t… it was terrible. Hell on Earth. But for games, it wasn’t so bad. It was a year of great sequels, ambitious games, and many surprises. Can we talk about them?
5. Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord
Fifteen years ago, Mount and Blade: Warband was released. Two years later, Mount and Blade became one of the highest-rated games on all of Steam. The following year, its sequel was announced. Since then, I finished college, got married, had two kids, got a dog (which died), and got a second dog. And then the game was finally released. But was all this waiting worth it? Of course it was! What’s the title of the article? Mount and Blade 2 did something no other game of its kind could. It’s a strategy game, but you control the battle from within it. You fight, win, or die alongside your soldiers. And within the struggle, everything is essential: the terrain, the time of day, the ranks and types of troops, both yours and the enemy’s. All this was within a massive sandbox, with kings to serve and lands to conquer. There are three types of games: strategy, action, and RPG. It’s still in early access and has much to fix and add. But its gameplay loop is so addictive that I am now divorced, lost custody of my kids, and my second dog died.
4. Fall Guys
It is pandemic time, empty streets, and everyone at home with nothing to do. And now? Fall Guys, of course. It is a fun, cheerful game, and most importantly, one that fills this new hole in your social life. And what makes this game so fun? The competition! Being better than everyone else, defeating friends, humiliating them, making them cry by sending them back to the lobby, holding your friends back before the finish line. The focus here is not to win but to make them lose. All this is mixed with the guaranteed fun that comes with an already approved format, but a visual made to become iconic and the personal investment of a deep customization system. Not even the producers expected such success. Because in the first weeks, you could hardly enter a match without the server “falling.” It’s a level of success that’s hard to maintain, but Fall Guys won’t be forgotten. It was the suitable game at the time we needed it most.
3. Half-Life: Alyx
The first Half-Life was innovative by bringing narrative immersion at a time when FPS games focused on being just action games. The second established a structure for story-driven FPS and brought its world to life with an advanced physics system. Combining good physics, story, and virtual reality, Half-Life: Alyx was born. This game was not just a new Half-Life, it was the big triple-A that the VR scene so desperately needed. Indeed, the spikes in VR searches were a side effect of the game’s release. Half-Life: Alyx may not have innovated in the same way as its predecessors, but it used all the established VR concepts to create what will be, for many years, the best experience on the platform. The attention to detail, the meticulous level design, the simple yet brilliant gravity glove, and the head crabs jumping at your face.
2. Cyberpunk 2077
Few games in history have had the same level of hype that Cyberpunk received. Is the release of a game causing the Steam and GOG to crash? Have you ever seen that happen before? It was the best-selling game in twenty-four hours at launch and also broke the record for active users on Steam. Look, this wasn’t a game without flaws and problems, so second place was not exactly what was expected of it. And I’ll talk about all that in a future article, but here it’s about what Cyberpunk did right. Graphics. Because if there’s one thing they studied during these eight years of development was how to put lighting in a game, which was done masterfully. But it’s also a lived-in place. Its setting tells stories, its mega-corporate structures cast oppressive shadows on the citizens below, and there’s a more impressive view at every corner than the last. An excellent RPG, an excellent FPS, but indeed the most important innovation here is being able to choose between three penis sizes.
1. The Last of Us Part II
It’s funny how the two most hyped games of the century (before GTA 6) can also be the most controversial. And in the case of The Last of Us, the controversy was actually about what the game does best: the story. And again, this isn’t the place for a complete discussion about it. Specific points in the story may not have worked as expected, and indeed, some decisions here would divide players. But in the end, I see this game as a perfect mirror of the first, and this wouldn’t have been possible without these points. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if everyone with OCD came together to develop a game? Well, there are the details of the backpack movement, the echo caused by a weapon in a closed space, the physics of the ropes, and the combat. It wasn’t about reinventing but perfecting the animations. The sheer brutality is highly satisfying but so realistic that it becomes disturbing. Well, once again, Naughty Dog was in a completely different league with a game that may not have been for everyone, but it had the courage not to try to please everyone.
