I've been sitting at my computer, staring at my keyboard, trying to think of a good idea for an article to write about the games that released this year. And for the life of me, I can't think of much to say about 202o. Hades is undeniably the game of the year for me by a landslide, but at this point, everyone and their grandma knows about it. Everyone's been singing its praises in regards to its awesome combat, great story, lovable characters, and gorgeous artwork. So adding yet ano♔ther article about how fantastic Supergiant Games' latest gamingꦏ achievement is to the pile feels kind of redundant.
Like Hades, most of the games I enjoyed this year came from smaller, independent developers. Obviously, the massive pandemic made things much harder for everyone involved in the game industry. But with or without Covid-19, it seems li🦹ke this was always going to be a disappointing year for triple-A studios.
As 2019 was about to end, I remember thinking about the stacked year that 2020 was shaping up to be. We were finally getting 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cyberpunk 2077! And 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 7 Remake! There was going to be a remake of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil 3 as well! And a game based on the Avengers! I ✤bet that new The Last of Us sequel is going to make so many people happy!
Of course, there was no way for anyone to know that 2020 would be a year spent indoors slathering each other with as much hand sanitizer as we could horde, but the games looked exciting and enticing. If anything, being stuck indoors was a blessing since we had so many titles to look for♌ward to. Unfortunately, most of the triple-A game🍬s this year, for me, didn't deliver.
Not everything was a heartbreaking failure. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Doom Eternal delivered more great FPS action (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:even on the Switch!) 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Animal Crossing: New Horizons allowed friends and family who were separated by the pandemic to still communicate by visiting each other's islands and looking for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the best turnip prices. While I personally thought 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:it had a bit too much filler, Final Fantasy 7 Remake was a solid experience t♓hat provided a near-lethal dose of nostalgia.
And if you ignore 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the rabid ramblings on the internet, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us Part 2 was a fantastic title that refined the first game's stealth mechanics and told a great story about loss and revenge. Was it as good as The Last of Us? Nope, but it was stil꧒l pretty dang good.
Aside from those games and a few others, just about every major release failed to captivate me. Resident Evil 3 is fun to play, but it's so short and devoid of content that it feels like a bit of a rush job (which it might have been since it came out only a year after Resident Evil 2). It was so short that Capcom added in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil Resistance as a bonus to justify it being a $60 purchase. That w🦂ould have been a good deal, but Resistance is a pretty flimsy multiplayer title that doesn't quite make up for RE3's brief runtime.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel's Avengers should have been a home run. You've got Captain America, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and other beloved superhero favorites. Veteran actors like Troy Baker, Nolan North, and Laura Bailey were on board to bring these characters to life. And the studio behind the game was Crystal Dynamics, the same group of people who managed to successfully reboot the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tomb Raider franchise (even if that last sequel was pretty me💟h).
And what did we get out of that? A buggy, boring Desꦺtiny clone full of microtransact𓆉ions. For some reason, the executives at Square Enix saw the disasters that were Anthem and Fallout 76 and said, "man, we gotta get one of those!" It really shouldn't have been hard to make a good Avengers game. Yet, it came out, and everyone quickly grew tired of fighting the same robots over and over just so they could get the Hulk a new pair of pants that had🎉 +1 resistance to poison.
And then there's Cyberpunk 2077. Frankly, I'm impressed by what CD Projekt Red managed to accomplish this year. Over the course of about a week, the studio went from being one of the most beloved game studios in the world to a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:snake oil salesman. That's got to be a record. Even Bethesda and Hello Games managed to hold onto a few tattered shreds of respecꦚt when their disastrous games launched.
CD Projekt made its game seem like it would be the most immersive RPG experience ever and then put out an alright open-world shooter with wonky AI and the most bugs I've ever seen in a🍨 major release. I have never before played a game where at any time I could fall through the map, randomly lose my pants, or see an NPC appear out of nowhere and strike a T-pose. I don't think they should even bother patching🥃 it anymore. As it is right now, it's so busted that it's practically a work of unintended comedic genius.
🧸When I think about the games thaꦯt really impressed me this year, there are few if any triple-A games that stand out. The biggest hits of this year were all small indie gems that exploded in popularity.
I've already mentioned my love for Hades, but Supergiant Games managed to create a more compelling and immersive experience with their isometric rogu𒁏elike than CD Projekt could with their sprawling, big-budget, open-world game. Hades has character development, excellent dialogue, and fluid combat. Cyberpunk 2077 has giant billboards where a creepy dude leers at a bikini-clad butt.
Seriously, that bil💎lboard is every✅where. What the actual hell CD Projekt?
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout took the concept of battle royale games and placed it in the world of platformers. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Phasmophobia allowed friends and strangers to team up to hunt ghosts. Among Us didn't release this year, but it exploded onto the gaming and streaming scene out of nowhere in 2020 and is now 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:as popular with kids🐻 as🔜 Fortnite or Roblox. Besides those indie juggernauts, there was also a wide array of other smaller releases like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Risk Of Rain 2, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ghostrunner, Carrion, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spiritfarer, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, and other game💙s that did somethinಞg new, unique, or just plain interesting.
The mediocrity of the triple-A titles released this year can't be attributed to the pandemic alone. Thanks to corporate greed or unhealthy work conditions - that usually involved crunch or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:flat out harassment - most major, blockbuster games that came out felt uninspired, derivative, or unfinished. T🐼wo of the most anticipated games of all time released in 2020 and they were outshone by a tiny mobile game about multi-colored spacem🐭en. That says it all right there.
2020 was a crummy year for games - and in general - but at least something like Hades came out of it. This year showed us that it's the smaller indie developers who are making the games that matter. Among Us is a bonafide sensation, and games like Fall Guys and Phasmophobia turned out to be bigger mains🎀tream hits than the most recent Call Of Duty or Assassin's Creed sequel. While the big-name publishers failed to justify their $60 price tags - which is now $70 because hey, why not? - indie studios picked up the ball that triple-A studios dropped hard.