Best Video Games I Played in 2020
- Borderlands (2009)
Synopsis: Vaults have treasure, and you’re a Vault-hunter. Go get that treasure.
You finish playing Divinity: Original Sin II (see below) and think, “I need something fast paced and mindless after that,” and Borderlands is on sale for ten bucks, and you realize you’ve never actually played the first one all the way through, so you get it, and right from the start you’re like, yes, this is perfect. There’s constant movement, constant action, a new gun around every corner, leveling up every 5 minutes, absurdly short load times, no difficult dialogue trees to navigate, man, this is exactly what you needed.
And then you’re riding high into the final battle with 3 Eridian weapons and a super short cooldown on your Phasewalk which also heals you, and you just can’t lose. And you don’t lose. And then you hit a wall harder than Wile E. Coyote in a rocket-powered ATV.
It’s over. I mean, sure, there’s the DLC, but one of them is zombies and another one’s just an arena and another one’s all about the vehicles which are probably the most frustrating part of the game, and you’ve already got all the best guns and aren’t really interested in the rest of your skill tree (besides which you’re kind of overleveled at this point)—so that’s it.
As you feel the depression setting in, and I’m talking real, chemical withdrawal depression, you desperately start a NG+ of Horizon Zero Dawn, thinking, “This is totally different, this is exactly what I need,” but the game turns to ash in your mouth I mean eyes and ears (also I think maybe NG+ is actually a pretty terrible way to experience HZD even under the best of circumstances). And now it’s time to go to work, which is hard enough as it is these days, and not gonna lie, you almost burst into tears a couple times.
But then you hang out with your friends that night and watch Get Smart (obviously I don’t need to clarify that I mean the show because it’s not like they ever made some godawful movie where Siegfried isn’t even German), and the next day you start Vampyr which so far is a surprisingly good game, and now everything is fine…other than the fascist takeover, the pandemic, the climate crisis, etc., etc. I MEAN VIDEO GAMES, wuuuuuut?
- Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014)
Synopsis: How Handsome Jack got his name.
I mean, the main storyline’s kinda boring because prequel, but the world is fun, with some nice variation from the mostly-desert Pandora, the characters are fun (the Australia of it all is endlessly charming) with some great side-missions, and the new mechanics like low-grav and laser weapons were fun. The Baroness is absurdly broken against goons but then kind of terrible against bosses, so there were some balance issues there (obviously the class is designed for multiplayer, but I couldn’t get either of my roommates to play through more than half of the game with me), but still a cool class, and the other classes seem interesting (especially Claptrap, I love randomness).
So yeah, narratively weaker than Borderlands 2, but the world is more interesting, and it’s better in pretty much every way than Borderlands, and (as with B2, which I didn’t replay because I’ve already played it at least 2.5 times) the more-developed characters and actually having voice-acting definitely helps slow you down to smell the roses so you’re not just on a constant dopamine rush.
- Borderlands 3 (2019)
Synopsis: The Crimson Raiders are on the ropes after the various bandit gangs of Pandora join together under two charismatic cult leaders. To go up against them you’ll need to solve the mysteries of the Vaults—before they do.
With how omnipresent the Borderlands franchise is, and how endlessly replayable they at least want the games to be, it’s easy to forget that this isn’t some Call of Duty– or Assassin’s Creed-style annual moneymaker—when B3 came out, it’d been 5 years since The Pre-Sequel and 7 since Borderlands 2. Still, it feels like a brave choice for a franchise this big to actually buckle down and tell a story, to make a game that feels enough like an ending that it would be hard for them to justify making another entry in the series.
The clues are all there, from a couple significant character deaths, to a big reveal about one of the series regulars, to the fact this game digs into the backstory of the vaults, sirens, and Eridium so much more than the previous games did—the penultimate section of the game takes place on the planet where it all started (not Pandora), which is as Campbellian a structure as you could ask for from a series whose worldbuilding always seems to be catching up with itself.
Also there’s the part where they pretend to tease a fourth game and then immediately negate that tease, which is just a step below flashing “THERE WON’T BE A BORDERLANDS 4” across the screen.
While the first game’s ending was intentionally disappointing and the second’s was a plot-hook, this one actually feels satisfying in a way that I did not expect from a Borderlands game. Maybe that’s just ’cause I have a bias towards melancholy, but I don’t think so. The plot is meatier, the villains are much more interesting, the characters appearing from the previous games aren’t just there to be there (for the most part), the planets are all interesting and distinct—it just all comes together really well. And obviously it does all the usual Borderlands things, with some improvements including a skill tree system that tries to actively encourage cross-tree builds instead of single-tree min-maxing, and vehicles that don’t get stuck on every single piece of terrain (though they are still fairly difficult to steer). Also you can buy inventory upgrades with cash now instead of Eridium, which is now used to buy cool weapons with special effects, which makes a lot more sense.
Also there’s a heist DLC. More games should have heist DLCs. Or main-game heists, for that matter. Or they should just make a heist game. That isn’t Watch Dogs. I’m getting off-topic.
Anyway, good game, good series.
RIP Scooter.
(Also if there is a Borderlands 4 I might be a little mad, but I’ll still play it.) - Concrete Genie (2019)
Synopsis: With the help of a magical paintbrush, a young kid has to save his town from an evil force while also dealing with the local bullies.
The art is great, the gameplay is based enough in exploration (and artistic expression) to stay engaging despite the simple mechanics, the story is familiar in its shape but novel in its details, and for its target audience it’s got great lessons about empathy and community. A fun 4-hour distraction for an adult, but I could see a kid spending much more time with it, especially with the Free Draw mode. - Control (2019)
Synopsis: Jesse Faden’s brother was taken by the Bureau of Control when they were children. With the help of an entity she calls Polaris, Jesse has tracked down the Bureau’s headquarters, known as The Oldest House, only to find them being overrun by an otherworldly invader. Then things start to get weird.
Jesse’s face doesn’t render right in elevators, and that’s fine, because once she gets out of the elevator and enters some new space filled with shifting brutalist architecture, she can tear off pieces of that architecture and throw it at her enemies, and then blow them up with a rocket, all while flying through the air, and that’s what counts.
There’s just something incredibly satisfying about navigating the Oldest House, engaging in fast-paced combat where you actually use all of your abilities, and occasionally pausing to observe some oddity or read some paradoxically mundane inter-office memo. The game really encourages exploration—some of your abilities come from side missions, not the main storyline, so it really pays to go through every door and pick up every piece of paper.
Though there’s spectacle in Control (every new department is introduced with giant boldface type plastered across the novel view), what makes this world so fun to explore isn’t the beautiful sunsets or the way the grass moves in the wind, which is the go-to aesthetic for open-world games with a focus on a hyper-realist environment (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Horizon Zero Dawn), but the fact that you have no idea what’s around the corner or through the next door. The game is a succession of expected surprises (this new area will presumably be different than the previous area) interrupted by repetition and re-exploration, which then leads to unexpected surprises (I didn’t know there would be something new here), and that’s where all of the details come in. Because I keep forgetting to take notes on things I know I’m going to want to write a more expansive review of, I feel woefully incapable of unpacking all of the details in this game, so I recommend watching the Curio video for which they did take notes because that’s their job.
Oh also there’s FMV. I don’t know why they decided to go that way but somehow it works perfectly. It’s a different effect than the trend towards hyper-realistic character models based on the actor playing them, despite the fact that it took me like an hour to figure out whether it was in fact FMV or just really good CG (qouth my graphics-savvy roommate: “It’s both”), and it’s great.
Though it is arguably a horror game, it’s more creepy than scary, and there’s nothing especially gruesome either. And it has a sense of humor that’s not unlike some of the best X-Files episodes.
All in all, a very fun game with a compelling story and, if you play the “Foundation” expansion, an intriguing set-up for a possible sequel that I’m very much looking forward too.
Ok, so this is actually my third addendum to this review (that big paragraph in the middle and the bit about FMV I added a few days after my initial review), and that’s also the point, because I just can’t stop thinking about this game. No other game I played this year has stuck with me the way this one has. The atmosphere is just so well-done, it sinks into you without you even realizing it, and even months later I can still conjure up images from the game and feel that same sense of wonder and smallness in the face of the unknown. Though the combat can be thrilling, I would say do yourself a favor and as soon as the game starts to feel frustrating or grindy, turn the difficulty down or even turn on God Mode and just let the game do its thing without having to worry too much about your health bar. - Dishonored (2012)
Synopsis: Corvo, the Royal Protector, is framed for the Empress’s murder and sentenced to death. But with the help of a group of Loyalists he escapes, and sets out to put the true heir on the throne—and/or to take revenge.
The degree of flexibility this game gives you is really kind of astounding. Like, there’s one mission where, if you have the necessary power upgrade, you can fully skip about a third of the level by just jumping across rooftops. And it’s not cheating, or even cheesing, because the important thing is that the game doesn’t just give you options, but actually supports those options mechanically and with level design, to the point that there’s usually 3-5 ways to do anything.
It’s quite fun, especially for someone like me who enjoys stealth but gets frustrated by games like Splinter Cell or the early Assassin’s Creeds which brutally enforce stealth by making discovery either an automatic failure or just almost impossible to survive. And unlike the later ACs, Dishonored does actually incentivise stealth, both through resource scarcity and through incentivising non-lethal solutions (via how they affect the world and the epilogue) which tend to require stealth. Even that isn’t done heavy-handedly, though, as you can get away with a few deaths per mission and still get the good ending. Playing non-lethal does feel restricting at times, as some of the mechanics, such as turning security systems against your enemies or even just basic drop takedowns, are off-limits, but the challenge is fun if you’re into it.
The narrative is…prettttty boring, but the gameplay makes up for it, at least in the main game (The Knife of Dunwall DLC had a fun first level but was pretty subpar after that and kind of burnt me out, so I didn’t bother playing The Witches of Brigmore).
- Divinity: Original Sin II
Synopsis: As a Sourcerer (not a typo) you can do powerful magic—but you can also attract the attention of Voidwoken, monsters from beyond bent on destruction. As such, the Divine Order has decided to take you to a prison island where experiments are underway to rid people of their connection to the Source—at a cost (think The Golden Compass). Unfortunately for them, you’re also Godwoken, a candidate to be the next Divine and inherit the power of the Seven Gods.
Divinity: Original Sin II is the closest I have ever seen a video game come to mirroring the experience of a tabletop RPG. Of course, it ultimately fails, and while it does have systems in place to mitigate some of those failures, the gap between it and the real thing, no matter how small, is infinitely wide, at least with current technology. The main difference between D:OSII and a tabletop RPG is curation and guidance.
In a TTRPG, you can create a detailed backstory for your character that the gamemaster will then incorporate into the world and the narrative; to have that same experience in D:OSII you have to pick one of the pregenerated characters, and while this still leads to a more interesting storyline than a lot of RPGs where your character is kind of a blank slate with little to no backstory (Bethesda and BioWare both do this), it’s limited to what the writers think the possible arcs for that backstory are. It’s more, but not necessarily better depending on how much you’d rather rely on headcanon.
In a TTRPG, a good gamemaster will consider their player’s character builds and personalities when crafting the narrative, the NPCs, and combat encounters. Depending on how hardcore the group has decided to be, if the players ever stumble into a situation they’re woefully underprepared, the GM can make sure they get out of it one way or another. In terms of personality, D:OSII has the same problem as any other RPG: they can only write so many dialogue choices, and occasionally you’re just not going to find the one you want. In terms of combat, while the game does allow for a wide variety of tactical approaches (for example, the fact that a lot of combat and even most dialogue events affect characters individually rather than the party as a whole is a huge innovation (well, I say innovation, I haven’t played enough of this type of RPG to know how innovative this actually is, but it kind of blew my mind when I first figured out how to be clever with it)), and even takes the effort to design a lot of the encounters to facilitate this variety (e.g. multi-level environmental design to give ranged characters spots to get their high ground bonus), it doesn’t do anything to warn you when you’re entering an area or pursuing a quest that is far above your level, or not suited to your current build.
This is one of those places where it does have mitigating systems, such as a (slightly difficult but still technically useable) flee combat option and (and this is a pretty big deal) easy-to-access and completely free at almost any time respec (that also is easy to use, because you can reassign points individually rather than having to drain them all into the pool and then reassign all of them; also it includes character appearance). And given that the game loads the whole map (including interiors and dungeons) beforehand so you don’t have to load every time you fast travel, using these options doesn’t waste a lot of time. That being said, a level rating for quests would have been much appreciated, as I would sometimes spend an entire play session chasing threads I was too weak to follow and end up accomplishing nothing out of 2-3 hours of play.
Mistakes will happen, though, so the game does store up to 5 autosaves, up to 5 quicksaves, and like 20 full saves. This helps to make up for the lack of a GM who can keep you from regretting your decisions too much, but is also pretty tedious since, as I said before, the game has to load the whole map, so every time you reload it takes a while. Although my final save lists a play time of about 85 hours, with all of the reloading I did, the time I lost to glitches—oh yeah, this game’s got glitches, and they are not fun—and the 2.5 hours that I spent playing for the first time before I decided to start all over again and pick a different character, I probably played this game for upwards of 100 hours, and let me tell you, by the end I was just wanting it to be over.
Of course the main reason for that, aside from the previously mentioned problems, is that I was playing on normal difficulty. I always play a game on normal difficulty the first time, because I assume I will get the intended experience. I realized late in the game, however (like, 80 hours in), that at some point normal difficulty, specifically when it comes to combat, stops being difficult in any interesting way, and just starts being tedious and boring. I played the last 5 hours on “Explorer” mode and spent most of that time wishing I’d made the change much, much sooner. Again, this isn’t so much a problem with the game as it is just a limitation. A GM can craft combat encounters to be fun and dynamic under any circumstance, but a game is locked into whatever settings you have, and it doesn’t know to tell you, “Hey, you might be having more fun if you lowered the difficulty.”
In short, the game can’t guide you, so it tries to give you as many options as possible, which somehow end up being both too much and not enough. It’s so close, and yet so far.
But that’s enough of the negative stuff. There’s plenty of good stuff here too. But it doesn’t all fit my thesis so I’m just going to list it in random order:
— No matter a pre-generated character’s “canonical” build and appearance, you can fully customize them however you want while still having the benefit of their backstory (well, almost fully; you can’t change race, gender, or voice).
— The previously mentioned respec accessibility really can’t be overstated. I’m not great at character builds, so being able to very easily change things up when I realize that I’ve invested my skill points in all the wrong places makes a big difference. Also, if there’s a requirement on a skill or piece of equipment that you’re just one point away from meeting and you really want it, instead of having to grind for your next level just to get that one point, you can go to the respec mirror (you respec using a magic mirror) and just take that point from somewhere else.
— Relatedly, investing points in most skill and ability categories will also confer additional benefits, so if you need to put a point in there because there’s one skill or piece of equipment you really want, but you don’t intend to focus on that category, it’s not as big a tradeoff.
— There are some fun mods, including one that’s lets you talk to animals without having to invest a talent point, and you should use it, because talking to animals is the best. I thought it was just going to be, like, dogs say “I’m hungry” instead of “woof” or whatever, but no, these animals have names, personalities—you can carry on whole conversations with them and even do quests for them. Some of the animals would probably rank in my top 10 NPCs in the game.
— Early on in the game you can find gloves that give you the ability to teleport other people and objects, and holy crap did that completely change how I thought about the game. It really allowed for exploration and discovery and I used them constantly. It’s also pretty handy in combat. Later in the game you get arguably better traversal abilities that don’t require you to wear an otherwise pretty useless piece of equipment (though you can’t use them on enemies or objects the way you can with teleportation), but getting teleportation early on was one of the most exciting parts of the game.
— Exploration and discovery really are a big part of the game. The main storyline is broad enough that you can just be wandering around and stumble onto some bit of information or item or encounter that adds some flavor or reveals some secret or even adds a whole new quest thread to the main storyline. There also various mysteries and puzzles that you’ll come across in the game that you’ll just have to figure out for yourself, and while occasionally I could’ve used a hint or two, it’s not like I don’t have the internet. Moments like these are where the openness of the game really shines.
— Seriously, those split party mechanics, so cool. It actually manages to make turn-based combat dynamic, at least at the start of the encounter. It can also be especially helpful if there’s a bunch of deathfog and you only have one undead party member.
— The broad strokes of the story are fairly typical epic fantasy fare (and I’ve got unreasonably high standards for special-people-are-accused-of-being-the-problem-when-they’re-actually-the-solution narratives after reading N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy), but there are some interesting details, a solid handful of real surprises, and the subplots and side-narratives are generally pretty engaging. Also, even though you don’t really meet any of the main villains until the very end, they’re all foreshadowed exceptionally well, so that you feel their impact throughout the game, and really build up to the final encounter. And you do get to make quite a lot of choices that actually feel meaningful.
Anyway, there’s probably more things I could say about this vast, expansive monster of a game, but I’ve probably gone on too long already. I had a lot of fun (especially for the first 50-60% of the game), got very frustrated, and afterwards was excited to play literally anything else, as long it didn’t have turn-based combat or a four-person party for whom I have to constantly monitor 10 pieces of equipment each.
It’s a great game. Some day, if we’re very lucky, it might even be a good one.
- Hades (2020, technically)
Synopsis: Zagreus, son of Hades, decides to escape the Underworld—but he’ll have to fight his way out.
Looks great, sounds great, plays great, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I love Supergiant games for the sense of discovery you get as you slowly learn more about the world and unfold the narrative, but because I’m already very familiar with Greek mythology there wasn’t as much to learn as there usually is (though I do enjoy their take on the mythos). Also family drama just isn’t really my thing. I hope Supergiant makes another linear game (a la Transistor) at some point. I get that cyclicality has been a theme in all their games so in some ways a rogue-like was inevitable, but the balance between mechanical progression and narrative progression was a bit too weighted towards mechanics in the early game, resulting in mostly just narrative rewards for later runs (so, not great if you’re not super interested in said narrative). Also Zagreus is a little bit whiny (no offence to Darren Korb). Ultimately I had the same problem with this game that I have with a lot of games, where they put more in the game at the cost of it not feeling worth it to actually experience all of it. But since a lot of that is due to my own baggage I wanted to still give it credit. - The Outer Worlds (2019)
Synopsis: A space colony is on the brink of collapse due largely to the fact that the ship carrying its best and brightest (there’s some essentialism inherent in the premise that you’ll just have to go along with) was lost 70 years ago. A mad scientist discovers the ship with all its passengers still in cryosleep, and successfully awakens one of them—you. Now you must help him get the materials he needs to awaken the others and help save the colony from the corporate despots who are running it into the ground.
A game set in a capitalist dystopia made by the studio behind Fallout: New Vegas? Yeah, I mean, I might have gotten a little excited.
And I had fun, I did. Some of the companions were interesting, some of the worlds were neat, some of the dialog options were engaging, most of the plot was solidly built. All very…competent. And there were some highlights—the opening cinematic, Sanjar’s adorkableness, pretty much every line Parvati had, the actual shrink ray, and lots of little funny bits here and there. And I did of course appreciate the wrap up at the end that showed how my actions actually mattered.
But it was no New Vegas. It didn’t have the complexity that New Vegas had, it didn’t make me have stop and think about decisions, and most importantly it didn’t surprise me (other than that shrink ray, I really didn’t think that was going to be an actual shrink ray (oh, and what the secret experiment ended up being)). And if it wasn’t going to be a new New Vegas, it could’ve stood to take more from its other obvious influence, the Borderlands series: a more interesting weapon and/or ability selection could have picked up some of the slack.
Also, they kind of shrink away (or aRAY) from the radical politics implied by the premise. Like, the most effective and relatable anti-Board factions, MSI and The Groundbreaker, are still capitalists. The Iconoclasts are maybe socialists? But they’re also a religion/cult? And they’re kind of a joke for most of their storyline. And if you negotiate a truce between them and MSI (which why wouldn’t you because these idiots clearly can’t survive on their own and who would want to kill sweet adorkable Sanjar) at the end of the game they’re just kind of there, and seemingly at least partially absorbed into MSI. And the Deserters, the only truly successful independent faction, just end up being selfish isolationists, so all in all not great representation for the anti-capitalists. It really feels like reform is the only good option we’re presented with.
The main thing that struck me when I finished the game was how short it was, and that kind of fits with the general simplicity of it all. It just wasn’t as much of what I wanted as I expected it to be, which is at least partially on me. I might have another go in a year or two and see if I can get more out of it, but I don’t know. - The Talos Principle (2014)
Synopsis: You may or may not be a computer program who has to solve puzzles for a mysterious entity who may or may not be God.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. TURN BACK NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW THINGS.
The Talos Principle (and for the moment I’m referring specifically to the main game, not the Road to Gehenna DLC), posits two fundamental qualities necessary for humanity: logic and independence. The former is the purely mechanical aspect of the game: solve the puzzles. Independence is the more interesting one.
If you follow the primary intended path through Talos, the message you will get is pretty obvious: Elohim was telling you not to be curious, not to explore or express yourself, but rather than accept his will on blind faith you tested things for yourself, and that makes you human. You didn’t do what you were told; you were independent. But were you?
It’s pretty obvious to anyone playing the game that ascending the tower is the “right” way to play. For those more dedicated players, they might choose the Messenger ending, but that too requires you to do disobey Elohim and ascend up to Level 5 of the Tower. So, though you are “choosing” to be independent, you’re basically just doing what the game wants you to do.
The game is about choice, but the very nature of the medium is such that choice is limited to whatever the designers allow. This is the fundamental ludonarrative dissonance that is inherent to pretty much any game that involves player choice, but is especially apparent here.
But hey, it’s a good story, fun puzzles, you get what they’re trying to say, so it doesn’t really matter. Anyway, the real highlight of The Talos Principle is The Road to Gehenna, which is one of the few instances where not only did I actually play the DLC (which I rarely do) but I think I liked it better than the main game. I mean, I appreciate all the philosophy and worldbuilding in the main game (and it’s nice every once in a while to just stop and soak up the atmosphere), and it’s an interesting concept, but the DLC is just more fun, narratively. And you actually do get a choice that matters.
Oh, also, an (I assume) unintended side effect of The Talos Principle using a Garden of Eden-style framing device is that it’s basically saying that theists aren’t human. Which is a bit of a hot take.
Honorable Mentions
- Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018)
- Darksiders II (2012)
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)
Certain of Eventual Failure 