The Gameological Awards 2020

Favorite Single Player Game — The Last of Us, Part II

It took me a long time to come around on The Last of Us. The first game was (rightly) celebrated, but when I first tried playing it in 2015, zombie fatigue had set in and I just wasn’t into the combat. Leading up the release of the sequel, I decided to give it another try and I am incredibly glad I did. I understand why some folks have problems with TLOU2. It is brutal, and it is an emotionally draining experience. But I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the most moving thing I saw on a screen all year, be it a game, movie, or TV show. I’ll get more in to the nuts and bolts of why in my spoiler-filled “Favorite Game Moment” award.

Favorite Multiplayer Game — Animal Crossing:New Horizons

What else is there to say about Animal Crossing? It saved us all from the first few weeks/months of quarantine. I think just about every single person I know was playing the game. My gamer friends, my non-gamer friends, and (as I’ll discuss later) even my dad! I’ve been a day-one Animal Crossing fan. I would have enjoyed this game just fine even if there was no pandemic/quarantine. I probably wouldn’t have played quite so much of it, but I was looking forward to it anyway. I would, however, have likely played by myself for the most part, maybe occasionally mailing stuff back and forth to my dad. But the fact that *everyone* was playing it for a couple months really made it a great multiplayer experience.

Hindsight is 2020 — Final Fantasy VII Remake

It pains me that after all these years waiting for a FF7 remake, I can’t just enjoy it for what it is. As soon as they told us it was being released in parts, the first of which would only cover Midgar, I was sorely disappointed. You made us wait 20 years and now we have to wait another 10 just to watch this all play out? But I still bought it on day one, because the original is one of my all time favorite games.

I couldn’t get into it. I tried, but it just didn’t have the charm of the original for me, despite the strong pull of nostalgia. I ultimately went back and finished it, and enjoyed my time with it while I was playing it. But reflecting on the experience, I’m still just as frustrated now as I was a year ago that they’re breaking the story up into chunks like this, and messing with some of the particulars. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

Favorite Replay — The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

This game will probably win this award for the rest of time. I will replay Breath of the Wild (at least) once a year until I’m dead. And it’ll probably always be one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences of any given year. It is just a perfect game. I no longer find anything new to experience in it, I have seen all the game has to show me many times over.

And yet, even without that sense of discovery and wonder, the gameplay loop is so joy-inducing that I keep coming back for more. Here’s hoping the sequel lives up to it.

Backlog GOTY Award — The Outer Worlds

I got this game confused with The Outer Wilds a lot. It didn’t help that they were released in such close proximity to each other. On paper, The Outer Wilds seems like it’d be more my style, but for whatever reason I got around to The Outer Worlds first.

I don’t typically go for this kind of first person RPG where there’s tons of player customization options and side quests and whatnot. I’ve never enjoyed a Fallout game. But boy, did this game hook me fast. I love that it goes by relatively quickly. I don’t have 100’s of hours to dump into Skyrim or Fallout, but The Outer Worlds was finished in a scant 40 hours, and that was after completing all the side quests and DLC. It also made me laugh more than any other game this year. Some of those dialogue options are hilarious. Very much looking forward to the 2nd DLC and hopefully a sequel in the future.

Didn’t Click for Me — Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time

I really thought a new Crash game would have held my attention for longer. But the new masks/abilities just never felt right to me. This is something I was really looking forward to but ended up feeling like a big nothing. I’m sure it’s what a lot of people wanted from the franchise, but it just never did anything for me.

“Oh Yeah, I Did Play That, Didn’t I?” — Paper Mario and the Origami King

You could pretty much swap this out with Crash 4. This also didn’t click for me and I honestly forgot it even came out this year until I was looking through my Switch play history for a good contender for this award. I stopped playing around the 2nd or 3rd boss and never felt compelled to pick it back up. It wasn’t actively bad, just not something I wanted to see through to the end.

Unexpected Joy — Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2

Finally a remake that doesn’t mess with what made the original so enjoyable. This wins “unexpected joy” not because I doubted for a second that I’d enjoy the game. I just didn’t think they’d ever make it, and certainly not with the original soundtracks (mostly) intact. I also wasn’t sure if they could pull off that sense of pure joy that stringing together combos in the first few games granted, but boy did they. These games feel just like they did in 2000, and look like they were made in 2020. This is how you remake a beloved game. Looking at you, Square Enix.

Best Music — Kentucky Route Zero

I’m generally not a big “game music” guy. I like it while I’m playing the game, but I wouldn’t listen to most game soundtracks for enjoyment outside of the confines of the game, with a couple of exceptions. Kentucky Route Zero is one such exception. The atmospheric score is great, but what really has the staying power are the haunting bluegrass renditions of old gospel songs as performed by “The Bedquilt Ramblers”.

There’s one prominently featured in every act, and they were such a big part of building the atmosphere of this game. From the very first time I heard “You’ve Got to Walk” in Act I, all the way to “I’m Going That Way” closing out Act V almost a decade later, the music in this game has been in steady rotation for me for all of that time.

Favorite Game Moment/Encounter: Switching characters in TLOU2

If you are thinking about playing The Last of Us Part II and haven’t had the story spoiled yet, I beg you to please skip this award and read on. Spoilers ahead.

Okay, good. I normally don’t do spoiler warnings, but this one was such a shock for me that I’m very glad I didn’t have it ruined. I hated Abby because the game wanted me to hate Abby. I hated her the way Ellie did, because of what she did to Joel. So when they cut away from the theater, and here we are a few days back as Abby, fresh off killing Joel, I was not thrilled about it to say the least.

But as they made us spend time with her and see things from her perspective, that attachment starts to grow and you genuinely feel for her by the end. It makes it even more powerful when you regain control of Ellie, and you know she’s going to see this revenge thing through, but by that point, you really don’t want her to. Throwing those punches at each other in the final fight genuinely hurt me to do. I didn’t want to press the button. When Ellie finally walked away I shed a tear and applauded in my room for an audience of no one. Job well done, Naughty Dog.

DLC of the Year — Terror on Gorgon, The Outer Worlds

This DLC was excellent. It’s exactly what DLC should be. Non-essential content that’s there if you want more of the game you like. I feel like the DLC waters have gotten so muddied that it can really be anything. For instance, half of New Horizons’ content practically has come in the form of free DLC, but it just all adds up to the one complete game. Terror on Gorgon took me back to the days of some PC games having an expansion you could buy separately that would give you just a bit more.

Most Accessible Game — Animal Crossing: New Horizons

I talked about this in my multiplayer award, but this wins hands down simply because so many people who don’t care about video games either played this game or talked about it because everyone they knew was playing it.

My dad was never a gamer. He didn’t discourage the hobby, but he never really saw the appeal. We played The Neverhood together on PC and he really enjoyed that. But it was never a hobby we shared. Until Animal Crossing came out for GameCube. He was hooked. He would play in the morning before I got up and I’d wake up to presents in the mail. When the DS version came out, he bought me a new DS, took my old one, and got us each copies of the game.

Long story short: if my dad enjoys a game, they’ve done their job at being accessible to your average person. I have countless other friends who hadn’t played games in years and picked up a Switch for Animal Crossing. John Oliver wrote jokes about it. Joe Biden had a damn island in it! It was definitely a shared moment between gamers and non-gamers thanks to the quarantine.

Waiting for Game-dot: Pikmin 3 Deluxe

I have never played a Pikmin game. Somehow I never got around to the original on GameCube, and I’ve just never managed to sync up with this series. Now that it’s out for Switch, I really feel like I should rectify that. But something keeps stopping me from pulling the trigger. Friends: please sell me on this series so I can finally take the plunge.

Game that made me think: The Last of Us, Part II

Many games have you attack a perceived enemy to win the game. Very few games ask you to play as that enemy and understand things from their perspective. This concept is at once revolutionary and almost feels too easy. How has no one else seriously attempted this in a AAA game before? I’ve racked my brain and just can’t come up with any other analogue. Naughty Dog delivered something completely new here. Not just switching characters to Abby, but making you as the player question your entire motive for the game. I am still mulling over the finer points of the story in this game, and will continue to do so for years to come.

WILDCARD: FF7R, graphic design and music

While the final package didn’t do much for me, damn did the nostalgia elements of FF7R hook me. Prettying up the original game was pretty much table stakes, but boy does it look incredible. Seeing some of the iconic locales from the original reimagined is enough to keep me playing the additional chapters that are sure to come in the future. Likewise, the soundtrack pays homage to the original while taking it to exciting new levels. I just wish the narrative team had achieved the same highs.

GOTY: Kentucky Route Zero

I’ve named this game as my GOTY a few times over the last 7 years, but it feels really good to be able to call it definitively now. I was pretty sure Cardboard Computer would stick the landing, but you can’t truly call it GOTY until the full product is out.

Now that it is, I can confidently say this was not only my favorite game of this year, but this decade. Was it frustrating to wait for it to be finished at times? Sure. But I also recognized that it was a 2-person dev team, and this wasn’t even their full time job. They did this for the fun of it, and for fans of point and click adventure games.

I could not be more grateful for the end product. Few games transcend the medium and remind me of great literature, and KR0 is one of them. It feels like a game that was tailor-made for me. I doubt I will experience anything else quite like it in my lifetime.