Board 8 > Ranking all the games I played this year (Yakuza, TLOU2, Bloodborne + more)

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 12:38:41 PM
#1:


Here's the list in alphabetical order:

Bloodborne
Borderlands 3
Call of Duty MW2 Campaign Remastered
Call of Duty WWII
Control
Goat Simulator
Metro Exodus
Nioh 2
Tekken 7
The Last Guardian
The Last of Us Part II
The Witness
Valorant
Watch_Dogs 2
Yakuza 0
Yakuza Kiwami

Write-ups coming very soon, place your predictions now
I'm sure everyone could guess what my #1 is based on my history of favorite games so y'all take a crack at guessing #2 or something

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plasmabeam
12/17/20 12:44:56 PM
#2:


I'm playing Bloodborne right now. Waited so long because I hated Demon's Souls back on PS3.

So far I'm enjoying it. Just beat the Blood-Starved Beast the other night.

Oh, and Father Gascoigne can go **** himself.

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 12:51:39 PM
#3:


plasmabeam posted...
I'm playing Bloodborne right now. Waited so long because I hated Demon's Souls back on PS3.

So far I'm enjoying it. Just beat the Blood-Starved Beast the other night.

Oh, and Father Gascoigne can go **** himself.
I got lucky and beat him on my first try, but there are definitely a good few bosses in Bloodborne that can go fuck themselves. It's the only FromSoft game I've played to date and it was a toughie for me.

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plasmabeam
12/17/20 12:57:57 PM
#4:


Solioxrz362 posted...
I got lucky and beat him on my first try, but there are definitely a good few bosses in Bloodborne that can go fuck themselves. It's the only FromSoft game I've played to date and it was a toughie for me.

Strangely enough, I almost beat Father G on my first try. Then it took me 15 tries after that (plus the Music Box) to finally win.

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 12:58:54 PM
#5:


There are three games on the list I decided to not formally rank alongside the others, but I'll discuss them in the place where I'd place them if I were to include them. So, instead of starting at #16, we'll start at #13.

#13: Goat Simulator

This is a game that has no purpose. It is funny in a "lol wtf is this" kind of way for about 10 minutes before it becomes boring and pointless. Even with more than the initial area to explore, there is not much to enjoy here. It lives and dies (very quickly) by its quirky gimmick. Also, it includes a bad flappy bird clone.

I mean, I guess the point is that it's really awful, right? But that doesn't make it any more worth your time. Watch a YouTube personality play this for a few minutes and you'll never have to think about it again.

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 1:05:47 PM
#6:


#12: The Last Guardian

It's not a good thing when the main thing your game is designed around doesn't work.

Trico is your dog-bird friend, except he's the kind of friend that just says "Yeah, uh huh, yeah okay, no way, oh no, wow, cool" when he's listening to you on the phone. He only listens selectively and frequently ignores your commands. If the idea was to make Trico feel like he's an independent creature that doesn't have to listen to you because he has his own free will, then congrats to Team ICO I guess. At the end of the day, it doesn't make for a good video game.

Outside of that, the story took way too long to make a meaningful move, the controls and feel of the game are some of the worst of any major title I've played, and the camera frequently shoves itself right up Trico's ass where you can't see anything. The story ended up being fine, albeit not enough to inspire good feelings toward the rest of the game. It's a bad case of extreme flaws outweighing moderate strengths.

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plasmabeam
12/17/20 1:09:18 PM
#7:


The Last Guardian has been in my backlog since 2016. Still haven't found the motivation to play it, but since it's short I'll probably fire it up soon.

Any tips to make my playthrough as smooth as possible?

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 1:17:03 PM
#8:


Not Rated: Yakuza Kiwami

I didn't like Yakuza Kiwami much. It's the worse of the two Yakuza games I played by a good margin, largely owing to its weaker story and weaker consistency of tone.

The charm of Yakuza, from what I've gathered, is the spectacle and the zaniness. While Yakuza 0 (we'll get around to it) pulled these things off with no issue, Kiwami didn't hit the mark for me. It attempted spectacle with its literally explosive ending, but it was too unbelievable to allow me to continue suspending disbelief, and it couldn't find the sweet spot between taking itself seriously and being a caricature.

If you haven't played a Yakuza game yet, gameplay consists of a standard beat 'em up that you can largely mash your way through with a bunch of minigames to toy with whenever you want. It's not very engaging, there's too many throwaway minigames, and typically the better minigames are games you could go play outside of Yakuza (such as Koi-koi and Mahjong). But this isn't really what Yakuza is all about anyways, so I could forgive shortcomings in this department if the story made up for it. It doesn't.

I'll leave this game unrated because it's quite faithfully based on the original Yakuza. I realize I'm judging what is basically a game from 2005 under standards from 2020, so I'm likely being unfair to it. As a remake, I'm sure it does its job just fine.

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 1:21:47 PM
#9:


plasmabeam posted...
The Last Guardian has been in my backlog since 2016. Still haven't found the motivation to play it, but since it's short I'll probably fire it up soon.

Any tips to make my playthrough as smooth as possible?
Your enjoyment will likely hinge on whether Trico works with you or not. I think the key to enjoying it is being patient for the story to show its hand, because it takes a while but it's the best part of the game. Try not to get too frustrated if Trico isn't functioning properly. You may try reloading your checkpoint if he seems really inattentive to your commands. I had a glitch come up where he would only fly off in a direction when I hopped off his back, but I didn't realize it was happening until after I wasted 5 minutes waiting on him to finally move.

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Murphiroth
12/17/20 1:22:33 PM
#10:


Gotta play Yakuza on higher difficulties to get the real tech going, can't mash through there.

Heavily disagree about the games not being engaging, they're super engaging to me, moreso than most games nowadays.
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NFUN
12/17/20 1:26:22 PM
#11:


imagine disliking a game that has the MAJIMA EVERYWHERE system
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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 1:27:42 PM
#12:


Murphiroth posted...
Gotta play Yakuza on higher difficulties to get the real tech going, can't mash through there.

Heavily disagree about the games not being engaging, they're super engaging to me, moreso than most games nowadays.
It's not necessarily that Yakuza's design can't be engaging, just that the beat 'em up part didn't engage me when I played it. Yakuza 0 was engaging in its own way, which I'll get to once that one comes up.

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plasmabeam
12/17/20 1:29:56 PM
#13:


Murphiroth posted...
Gotta play Yakuza on higher difficulties to get the real tech going, can't mash through there.

Heavily disagree about the games not being engaging, they're super engaging to me, moreso than most games nowadays.

I didn't like Yakuza 0 (aside from the story), but if I play Kiwami, I might have to pump up the difficulty.

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Xiahou Shake
12/17/20 1:31:12 PM
#14:


Kiwami is definitely one of the weakest Yakuza games IMO. The Majima Everywhere system is good fun but it's just too slavish to the extremely dated original game otherwise and largely makes poor decisions with 0's combat system. Playing it just makes me wish I was playing 0 instead.

Definitely agreed that the series' combat shines much brighter on higher difficulties though - it never gets overly hard but you do have to actually think about what each of the games has going on.

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 1:50:30 PM
#15:


#11: Metro Exodus

This may have been the largest disappointment of the year for me. It's the game I've most recently finished this year, and it's not a good note to go off of, so I'll be playing another game to wash the taste out a bit.

What I thought the first two Metro games excelled at were how they were drenched in atmosphere and defined by their effective setting. The shooting was functional but not a strength of the game, and the characters/plot were just good enough to make it worth your time. Basically, these were solid games that had room to improve. When I heard about Exodus, I heard about how great the graphics were and how levels were being expanded on to make larger areas. I thought it could be a great game. Yet in Exodus's attempt to take a step forward, it simultaneously takes a couple steps back.

The "open-world" style levels make up most of the game, and they had me missing the tight corridors of the underground. Two of them are too large, too open, and too empty for their own good, while the third is more of a linear level trying to trick you into thinking its open world. For the first two, you'd think that an empty level would contribute to the desolate atmosphere of Metro, but when combined with Exodus's sluggish pace and heavy/slow feel, it's more boring than atmospheric. It's a game that didn't need to attempt the open-world style in any form and shouldn't have.

Additional crimes of Exodus are the abhorrent input lag on console versions that make for a dreadful shooting experience, the unforgivable sound design featuring poorly acted characters that talk over each other, the vague morality system that the game doesn't bother to tell you about, and the driving on the car level.

I don't think Metro is in the league of the worse games I played this year though. It does enough with the journey it takes you on to be memorable at the least, and there are some moments of genuinely incredible tension. And, while the character models are par for the course in today's big titles, the environments are really nice. I'll especially remember ziplining back towards the home base train at the end of a level while overlooking an irradiated lake barely being held back by a dilapidated dam.

It could've been a great game, but suffers too many flaws to be good.

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 2:03:09 PM
#16:


#10: The Witness

At this point in our rankings, we're sitting at about a 5/10 score. I considered not ranking this game, but it's an original experience of its own, so I included it. I simply feel like your enjoyment of this game is dependent on how you view it. If you're a fan of puzzle games that force you to bend your mind in pretzel loops to overcome the challenges presented, you'd love The Witness, because that's the core of it. You may also like it for the admittedly very pretty island it takes place on, with all the secret wonders that come with it.

Personally, this game isn't really my cup of tea. I think some of the best pure puzzle games are the free games I can find on Kongregate, and they're best experienced in short bursts of 30 minutes to an hour. The Witness instead presents some of the toughest puzzles you'll find, and the time-to-complete can easily go upwards of 15-20 hours depending on how much you struggle with it. It's not how I typically enjoy a puzzle game. I ran out of mental stamina frequently while trying to push through the Witness, mainly on some of the later sections. I still appreciate the thought that was clearly put into this game though. The puzzles are mostly well-designed, and as I said, all the different areas of the island are very pretty.

This is a game where your mileage may vary based on your disposition towards what it is.

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 2:03:46 PM
#17:


I'll continue on the rest of this a little bit later, probably tonight.

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Mac Arrowny
12/17/20 2:37:43 PM
#18:


Kiwami 1 is way worse than 0, yeah. The gameplay, story, and characters all take big steps back. I barely saw any of the Majima Everywhere stuff too, since I neglected to do one of the minigames where he appears early on. That system was really poorly executed.

The badass dads substory was the highlight of the game.
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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 6:49:43 PM
#19:


Not Rated: Tekken 7

Tekken 7 is a good fighting game, no doubt about it. It has a well-produced story mode and everything in it is functional. It also has plenty of characters for you to pick from. The lack of a tutorial is a bummer, but there's so much content made by competitive players explaining how to play that it's probably no big deal.

I say all of that to say this: I am a competitive fighting game player, and my favorite FG is SoulCalibur VI. I am literally at pro level in that game. I have taken a tournament set off of the best North American player in SCVI. I judge every fighting game by a standard that is set by SCVI, and therefore I cannot be a fair judge of the quality of this game.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of how the combo game works in competitive play. The insane wall carry that every character has means that combos can do absurd amounts of damage on a majority of good hits (in SCVI this is not the case). Also, so many characters, especially some of the DLC characters, have insane gotcha tools (Geese, Eliza, and Fahkumram immediately come to mind) that makes it to where learning their matchup is a MUST at any level of play past the most casual level. In SCVI, you can generally get a good grasp on the game before needing to worry about things like that.

Bonus points to the Tekken team for putting some good netcode in their game with one of the recent updates though. Hopefully that comes to SoulCalibur soon.

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Solioxrz362
12/17/20 7:03:18 PM
#20:


#9: Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 felt like a solid "meh". It's a rather disappointing game considering how fun Borderlands 2 was. I'd even say it's less enjoyable than The Pre-Sequel on the whole.

The core of Borderlands is still there - insane human enemies, monster-like creatures that have no regard for your life, bombastic/zany NPCs, lots of explosions, and lots of loot. Nothing about that is any different. Yet, it's getting old. Borderlands 2 improved upon that formula from the first game by upping the stakes of the story, having better characters, a more impressive world, and more climactic boss fights. The Pre-Sequel maintained that, and Borderlands 3... maintains it again. The Borderlands games are not short games, and I think 2 + TPS gave me enough of this exact mold. Borderlands 3 needed to do a bit more than have new playable characters with new action skills to keep things interesting.

Borderlands 3 also seems to have no idea how to follow up the feat of Handsome Jack, because the villains here aren't nearly as exciting or interesting. They make you hate them, but in the wrong kind of way. With Handsome Jack, wanting to kill him made the game more enjoyable. With the twins in BL3, wanting to kill them was a result of them being too annoying to bear.

At the end of the day, if you liked Borderlands 2, you probably will still like Borderlands 3 to an extent. As I said, the pillars of the series haven't been removed. I thought it was okay, but I wouldn't play it again.

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Solioxrz362
12/18/20 2:18:10 AM
#21:


#8: Yakuza 0

Now we're officially in the realm of games I could recommend. Yakuza 0 still suffers from some of the same issues as Yakuza Kiwami, but it features an intriguing set of characters with strong stories, interesting motivations, and fun interactions. It knows exactly when to take itself seriously and when to go all-out on its trademark absurdity. And it has maybe the best minigame between the two Yakuza games I've played (Cabaret Club Czar is awesome).

As someone who had never played a Yakuza game before, I was interested in Majima's storyline from the instant it started. Having no idea who the character would turn out to be, I saw him as a badass and cool character with a lot of mystery to uncover. Kiryu's storyline took a bit longer to get going, but his involvement with Tachibana soon becomes just as intense as Majima's side of things, if not more intense.

Once again, gameplay was the big detractor here for me. On Majima's side, the breaker style was simply too easy to run through enemies with, and on Kiryu's side, the real estate minigame was essentially an idle game you could play on your phone (but it was necessary because of the insane amounts of money you could get). Nonetheless, it still succeeds over Kiwami in this aspect thanks to the fun Mr. Shakedown fights (as long as you didn't get caught by him in an alleyway) and CABARET CLUB CZAR. Who would've known managing Japanese pornstars as they talk to lonely men would be so much fun?


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Solioxrz362
12/18/20 2:35:09 AM
#22:


#7: Bloodborne

If I'm being honest, Bloodborne is a heavily overrated game. It's the first FromSoft game I've played, so after all the acclaim that's been levied on those games, I was a little disappointed with what I got.

Let's start with the storytelling, or rather the absolute lack of it. I've seen FromSoft games get praised for having subtle storytelling, but that's being too generous with what Bloodborne does. The game explains nearly nothing, instead opting to hide its shoestring story out of any reasonable gameplay path. There's a fine line between not hand-feeding the player every nuance and leaving them to starve. This is easily my biggest gripe about the game. I had no narrative motivation to keep playing. Instead, this game decides to live and die by its combat and atmosphere.

Atmosphere can do a lot for a game, and Bloodborne has it in spades. It's genuinely creepy. A few sections really rack up the tension, primarily those near the end of the game with the enemies that induce Frenzy. Those sections were also some of the least enjoyable to play through but that's beside the point. It succeeds on defining its tone early on and never deviating from it.

On the side of combat, I think it's well made but not amazing. Another common FromSoft praise I've heard is that it's usually tough but fair. From my experience, this is only true about half the time. Who in the world could take on all those spiders at once? 3 hunters at once? 5 werewolves at once? When the game makes an attempt to stack the odds against you in a battle, it often goes overboard. The difficulty as a result can feel cheap in some encounters. I also wish that the game explained its systems a bit better, as I would have never figured out some enemies/bosses were weak to "serrated" weapons without googling it. Honestly, I never would have found out some weapons were classified as serrated in the first place.

Don't let that make you think I hated Bloodborne's gameplay though. There are moments that it really shines, such as one boss fight near the very end of the game that for spoiler purposes I'll avoid mentioning by name, as well as the Father Gascoigne battle near the beginning. At times, the sheer spectacle of an enemy makes it enjoyable. When it clicks, it clicks, and you feel like a true hunter when you finally make through one of those tough-but-fair sections.

Overall, I did enjoy playing Bloodborne, but I would rate this as a simply good game instead of one of the best PS4 titles.

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Solioxrz362
12/18/20 3:09:56 AM
#23:


#6: Call of Duty WWII

It probably seems very strange for many people that I'm putting a Call of Duty game directly above literal Bloodborne lol. Let me explain.

I have thought the early golden era of CoD, roughly from Modern Warfare through Modern Warfare 3, produced some of the best FPS games ever. If this game was able to at least somewhat match those, it would be a good game. Yet, the last 7-8 CoD games haven't been consistently worth playing (Ghosts being the one that turned me off of getting new games in the series). When this game was free on PS+, there was no risk in trying it and seeing if it was good, so I tried it out, and I was pleasantly surprised.

The gunplay is just a bit heavier than the typical CoD style, but the multiplayer still plays as competently as ever. One difference between WWII and the MW multiplayers that I really like is that you rarely are able to win a firefight against more than one person unless you have a better position or they miss their shots. It creates a more balanced multiplayer experience. I will say though that a few of the maps here are pretty poorly designed (USS Texas stands out as one of the worst CoD maps I've ever played on).

Even though the campaign isn't something most people play CoD for, it is something that I always look forward to. If it's done well, it's a short and easy-to-digest shooter with solid gunplay and some cool setpieces. That's never a bad thing. WWII's campaign succeeded at pulling that goal off, but also had a surprisingly solid story. It swings and misses on one or two emotional moments, but overall, it's a satisfying experience.

In the end, CoD WWII offered a rather complete package that consistently did what it needed to do. While it's not the best shooter out there, it's worth your time if you've enjoyed some of the CoD titles.

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LinkMarioSamus
12/18/20 4:14:53 AM
#24:


Is Call of Duty still as memetically hated as it used to be?

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Aecioo
12/18/20 5:41:36 AM
#25:


I'm in the minority that thinks Bloodborne is very overrated and maybe the weakest FromSoft game.

The storytelling aspect is the same in all their games, so don't expect that to change if you play some of their other entries (Sekiro actually has the most straightforward narrative by far but there are still a lot of elements hidden from players). The stories are actually very dense but for a normal person to pick up on almost any of it aside from what the game explicitly tells you with dialogue and cutscenes is hard to believe

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ZaziGuado
12/18/20 10:29:53 AM
#26:


Cabaret mini game the best. I would love a sim/management game dedicated to expanding on those mechanics.

Also, if it encourages you at all, Cabaret Club management returns in Yakuza Kiwami 2.

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Solioxrz362
12/18/20 1:46:00 PM
#27:


ZaziGuado posted...
Cabaret mini game the best. I would love a sim/management game dedicated to expanding on those mechanics.

Also, if it encourages you at all, Cabaret Club management returns in Yakuza Kiwami 2.
ooooooh

maybe eventually I'll get around to it then


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Solioxrz362
12/18/20 2:00:33 PM
#28:


#5: Valorant

Man I kinda suck at this game, but I still really enjoy it when I'm playing against people who are around my skill level. Valorant, being a multiplayer-only tactical shooter, requires a good amount of precision and practice before you're ready to face off against most of the online players, as they're already ready to pre-aim your head and one-tap you if you're not careful. I just recently got a gaming PC and this is the first shooter I've played with a keyboard & mouse, so I'm not quite good enough to handle that just yet, but one day I'll be hitting heads too.

What I like most about Valorant is the variety of the playable characters. No agent plays the same as another, even within each of the 4 classes (Duelist, Controller, Sentinel, and Initiator). For example, Brimstone and Omen are both controllers who have smokes to block off sightlines, but Brimstone has an AOE attack to hold back enemies and flush out corners, while Omen has a blinding ability and teleports. So even though these two agents can fill a similar role, Brimstone has more passive or defensive-leaning abilities and Omen has a bit more offensive potential.

If I had any complaints, it'd be that 1) as I said, I kinda suck at it, and 2) the random factor in recoil and lack of complete first-shot accuracy with some weapons frequently has me second-guessing my already shoddy aiming. For the most part, Valorant is a finely crafted shooter that comes packed with challenge and excitement.

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Solioxrz362
12/18/20 2:14:05 PM
#29:


Not Rated: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered

This game came out right in the middle of the initial Call of Duty boom that set it in place as the biggest yearly franchise in gaming, and fittingly, it's the first Call of Duty I played. My FPS experience up to this point in my life was Halo, and boy what a shift it was moving to CoD multiplayer from that. I remember dying online in a split second for the first time and thinking, "What the hell? What did I just die from? Is there armor I can get or something to live a bit longer?"

Before too long, I really did enjoy it, and I also dove into the campaign and spec ops modes. I almost look back on those more fondly than any multiplayer match I've played. I spent a lot of time in spec ops trying to get 3 stars on all missions, and the campaign was just solid. All these years later, coming back to the campaign was a refreshing experience that reminded me why I liked it.

Most of the same praises that can be said of the first Modern Warfare's campaign can be said of this game too, and for anyone who has played it, you'll surely know why it's good. I won't go over too many specifics. This remaster is done well, and the game hasn't aged poorly at all. It holds up very well against most FPS campaigns from more recent years (honestly, it still surpasses most of them). I'm not ranking it because it's the exact same game that came out in 2009 with new graphics and without any other modes.

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Solioxrz362
12/18/20 2:36:16 PM
#30:


#4: Watch_Dogs 2

Despite the lackluster press surrounding the first Watch_Dogs, I thought it was a great game, and I rejoiced a bit when I heard really good things about the sequel. After playing it, I can say it's more of what made the original Watch_Dogs good and less of what people didn't like about it.

WD2 takes itself much, much less seriously than the original did, and for many people, that will be a good thing. I enjoyed WD1's tone just fine, but I enjoyed WD2's brash and comedic tone a lot too. Meanwhile, the hacking is still a good addition to the open world idea, the gunplay is still crisp, and it's overall really polished. On the story side, the characters are enjoyable and it proceeds at a good pace.

If open world is something you don't mind, then there's a lot to like here and not much to dislike. I can't remember having many major gripes about it, if any. However, I think there's a certain bit of pizzazz that it was missing that kept it from being in my top 3. Some games wow you and really stand out. WD2 isn't one of those that stood entirely in its own realm. This is simply a game that satisfied on most fronts. It's great, but not quite fantastic.

The top 3 are where the games began to go beyond the standard of greatness. They found their own ways to stand out in one or more different aspects, or their achievement was being nearly perfect in all aspects.

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Darkinsanity1
12/18/20 3:14:55 PM
#31:


Hmm yeah I can't say I'm impressed with this list when I see two CoD games above a game like Bloodborne, but I admit I have a bias against CoD games and I can see what sort of games you have still yet to rank for ranks #3 to #1.

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Solioxrz362
12/18/20 11:13:56 PM
#32:


Darkinsanity1 posted...
Hmm yeah I can't say I'm impressed with this list when I see two CoD games above a game like Bloodborne, but I admit I have a bias against CoD games and I can see what sort of games you have still yet to rank for ranks #3 to #1.
I honestly think CoD is often viewed in a worse light than what it really deserves. You have to remember that the gunplay is practically always some of the best gunplay out there, especially if you're a casual FPS player. At that point, what you get out of it depends on if you focus more on the multiplayer or single player, because often the single player will be kinda meh and the multiplayer will be pretty fun for as long as you want to keep playing it. But when the single player is good too, a CoD game becomes a pretty well-rounded game, with the major downside being that the single player campaigns are consistently too short.

At the same time, I understand why my opinion of Bloodborne may not be a popular opinion, and I think I failed to give it credit in some areas. For example, I usually enjoy games that offer something new and refreshing, and Bloodborne does pull that off in its setting/style (maybe not the gameplay though - the Dark Souls formula isn't something new anymore). I stand by my opinion that the game is flawed but good.

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Mac Arrowny
12/18/20 11:48:34 PM
#33:


Solioxrz362 posted...
You have to remember that the gunplay is practically always some of the best gunplay out there


CoD shooting feels real bad. Not sure I've played an FPS with shooting that felt worse.
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Solioxrz362
12/19/20 12:29:14 AM
#34:


Mac Arrowny posted...
CoD shooting feels real bad. Not sure I've played an FPS with shooting that felt worse.
play metro exodus

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Solioxrz362
12/19/20 12:46:31 AM
#35:


#3: Control

I'll begin this write-up by saying that I know Control's premise isn't exactly a new idea. I read about the SCP Foundation a little bit after I started playing Control, and obviously Control is heavily influenced by that. It's not even the first game based on the SCP since indie developers have created SCP-based games before. However, no one can deny that Control is that idea brought to life in its grandest and most stunning form yet.

The Old House is genuinely one of the best worlds any game has ever taken place in. It's very rare for any game to have such a strong sense of wonder, where it feels like there's a mystery to uncover or some awe-inspiring structure in every room. Most of the characters aren't too memorable except the main character Jesse, but this is perhaps a side-effect of the Old House itself being the more interesting part of the game, and that's intended.

Fighting the Hiss is usually pretty fun, although it often devolves into picking up the nearest concrete block/bench/whatever and hurling it toward their face with your mind powers. It's not a sophisticated means of killing a supernatural enemy, but it's satisfying nonetheless.

Main story missions remain the meat & potatoes of Control, but the side missions are equally as interesting. So many games fall into the mistake of having cookie-cutter side missions with no exciting story of their own, so it's nice to see Control avoiding that error. It's always nice to have strong side content, especially in a game such as this with it's semi-open world layout.

There's one big detraction I had when playing Control, and it's that the game is just too damn dark. By the time I got the platinum trophy, my eyes needed a break. I'd spent too long looking at dim corridors and rooms only lit by red lighting effects. Obviously this was probably done for atmosphere purposes, but it goes a bit overboard on it.

Aside from that, Control is a game that I would gladly recommend to anyone. It's well worth your money, gives you a good amount of content to enjoy, and has few peers at its level of world-building.

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azuarc
12/19/20 1:35:06 AM
#36:


Borderlands 3 is the only game you played that was also on my list.

Control is the one game you played that is on my watch/wishlist.

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Solioxrz362
12/19/20 2:30:15 AM
#37:


#2: Nioh 2

What a pleasant surprise this game was. The first Nioh was the first souls-like game I'd tried out, and it didn't wow me. It had fun combat and great boss fights, but got pretty repetitive with how much it re-used bosses and levels, and the story was completely tossaway.

Nioh 2 initially feels like more of the exact same game, except it quickly becomes clear that everything is simply better. The boss fights haven't decreased in quality at all, the weapon variety has been improved, a new Yokai Shift mechanic has been added to let you hulk up occasionally, and the story is actually engaging. In my experience, there wasn't a single area of the game where Nioh 2 didn't outclass its predecessor.

It still has the occasional problem where bosses and environments are re-used, but this is less of an issue than it was in the original, and it's honestly the only notable complaint I have. From a gameplay perspective, Nioh 2 was the best game I played this year, but that doesn't quite mean it sits at the very top of my list.

#1: The Last of Us Part II

This should come as no surprise. I've thoroughly documented how The Last of Us was (and still is) my favorite game of all time, while Uncharted 4 places in my top 5 and other Naughty Dog games hold high ratings from me. Naughty Dog rarely misses; they've proven themselves to be possibly the most consistent developer of great games.

It's going to be hard to state exactly why I thought this game was so brilliant despite all the vitriol and detractors its earned because I don't want to spoil anything for people who have yet to play it. I've heard most of the complaints people could possibly levy at this game, and while I understand a good portion of them, I ultimately have to disagree with them. The one negative about this game that I think is 100% accurate is that the pacing isn't quite right. When I realized I was only about halfway through the game, I almost felt sick to my stomach. The story's length is massive compared to most other games in this genre, and at times, the tempo slows down considerably. Some major story beats are separated by a little bit too much distance.

Nevertheless, TLOU2 delivers mountains of memorable setpieces and earth-shattering emotional moments throughout its story. And I think what wins this game so many awards are the narrative risks it took. It asks the player to accept a lot of things that you may not be willing to stomach just yet, but that's what makes it so effective. This isn't a game that wants you to be comfortable. It forces you to handle a story so deeply rooted in heartache and pain that by the end you are left coping much in the same way that Ellie is. As the player, you may not have much agency over what happens, but you are a willing participant, and your authorization to continue the unfolding events is a way to make the game's brutality extra effective. For this reason, I think it's a game you have to play to have a truly valid opinion on whether or not this game succeeds at what it does.

Another narrative piece of the game I adore is how it approaches some of its themes in an indirect way. Of course, the whole revenge thing is front & center throughout every second, but themes of forgiveness, family, and even unconditional love peek out through the bitterness. They are not what immediately captures your attention, but they are what sits at the roots of most characters' actions. It's like the motivations of the characters are at odds with the situations they've placed themselves in and the consequences they incur.

(I hope that was vague enough to avoid spoilers).

To top it all of, the improved gameplay mechanics from TLOU part 1 manage to round out the game and make it the complete package. There's nothing exactly unique or novel about it - you've got stealth, crafting, prone movement, and enemy AI that flanks you (at least on the higher difficulties), all existing ideas - but everything works so well that it's still impressive. The environments that enemy encounters take place in are well-thought out to blend the world and the arenas of combat together.

The exclusion of the Factions multiplayer mode from TLOU part 1 was a disappointment to me, but that wasn't ever the focus of this IP anyways. TLOU exists because it tells a story that tries to push the boundaries of storytelling in video games. And on that front, it has almost no equivalent. Only TLOU1 and the most recent God of War entry are games on this level of production that tell a story so impressive. Hopefully in the future we get more AAA games like this. Whether you agreed with Naughty Dog's story direction in this title, you have to appreciate the way the game dared to engage with an unconventional method of telling its story and challenged players on what they were willing to push through.

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Solioxrz362
12/19/20 2:41:01 AM
#38:


So there's my ranking of my 2020 list. I did this mostly for myself, to organize my thoughts in review of this year's gaming, and to put them out for anyone who wanted to listen. But hopefully some y'all enjoyed reading the write-ups.

I'll bump this for the day crowd later because I posted this at 1:30am like a dummy

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Axl_Rose_85
12/19/20 4:22:40 AM
#39:


Watchdogs and literal Call of Duty over Bloodborne and Yakuza 0. Yeah no. There's controversial but somewhat understandable opinions and then there is just outright bad opinions.
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MZero
12/19/20 4:31:22 AM
#40:


Axl_Rose_85 posted...
Watchdogs and literal Call of Duty over Bloodborne and Yakuza 0. Yeah no. There's controversial but somewhat understandable opinions and then there is just outright bad opinions.

He explained his reasoning, so if you disagree you should counter his arguments. Saying "lol bad opinions" contributes nothing to the conversation

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Solioxrz362
12/19/20 6:26:13 AM
#41:


Yeah, I'd like to hear what made Bloodborne and Yakuza 0 so amazing for you and why you think Watch_Dogs 2 isn't worth being considered as a great game

I understand not thinking CoD is worth being above Bloodborne, that's totally reasonable lmao

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Axl_Rose_85
12/19/20 9:49:41 AM
#42:


Watchdogs was one of the most disappointing games I have played after all the hype leading to its release. It was one of those game that told me, tone down your expectations next time and don't always believe in the hype.

Now I know you are talking about the sequel which did improve some of the issues I had with the original. Key word improve. It wasn't fixed it was merely improved.

Those are about the only good things I have to say about the game though. The driving mechanics is still atrocious. The plot is Mass Effect Andromeda levels of uninspired and the characters are so damn cringe inducing. But all that can be excused if it didn't commit the one cardinal sin a video game shouldn't commit. The sin of being a fucking boring game. The overly repetitive nature of the game and everything being just average is what I remember most from Watch Dogs 2 so yeah I find it laughable that it ranks over Bloodborne in anything.

I could have even somehow excused a bad opinion like this if Nioh 2 wasn't literally ranked 2nd just a few posts later as someone who doesn't like these kind of games. But you literally ranked a soulsborne copy 2nd in the same topic. A game which should have been called Nioh 1.5 instead of 2. In this day and age, a game that is literally an expansion shouldn't have been passed off as a sequel. I have played 100 hours of Nioh 2 doing everything in the game and my god it felt like a deja vu of the original only with worse level design. Only the Yokai shift mechanic makes it distinguishable from the original otherwise it literally the same game.

As for Call of Duty 2019. All I am gonna say is 1 game being a carbon copy of Modern Warfare is understandable. 11 or 12 of them is not. Call it prejudice against the series but it has rightfully earned that reputation from me and a lot of the non casual gaming fanbase. There is a good reason yearly releases are loathed. Even Assassin's Creed now has the decency to not do that whereas Call of Duty continues to be the FIFA or NBA 2K of FPS even in a year where a literal pandemic happened.

I agree with you on Yakuza 0's gameplay mostly. It is a glaring weakness for the series and quite repetitive in nature. I have played the entire series recently from Kiwami 1 to 6 (0, I played it a few years back). 0 is the most polished gameplay-wise but it is still flawed yes. The series however has some of the most memorable storyline ( ridiculous in a very entertaining way) and characters. So if you are playing the game and expecting stellar gameplay then you are absolutely looking in the wrong place. Still I agree somewhat with what you said about Yakuza 0. As for Bloodborne I don't think I can elaborate how I feel about that game with a paragraph or two. I have completed over 1100 games and it is a Top 15 game for me. I won't be able to do it proper justice so I'm gonna stop with what is already a wall of text.
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Axl_Rose_85
12/19/20 9:53:29 AM
#43:


I loved Last of Us Part 2 so your ranking topic is not all bad. Also you share my distaste for The Last Guardian so I hope you know this isn't an attack by any means if it seemed like it came off that way.
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Solioxrz362
12/19/20 1:34:22 PM
#44:


I didn't have the same experience with WD2. Driving felt fine to me, the plot was good (not great, but fun enough to be worth playing through), and I thought the characters weren't cringe so much as the game kept a consistently playful tone. Of course, on any of these three things, I'd never say something like, "these are some of the best characters I've ever seen in a game!" I think why I liked WD2 is that everything was good. There wasn't an aspect of the game I didn't enjoy at least a little bit.

I also was never bored playing it. Perhaps that style of mass-appeal open world game doesn't lose my interest as easily as it loses yours, or perhaps I just have different preferences. If you thought the whole thing was boring then obviously you're going to think me ranking it higher in this list is crazy lol. And that's totally fair.

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Solioxrz362
12/19/20 1:38:48 PM
#45:


Nioh 2 > Bloodborne is a very easy thing for me to explain. Nioh 2 being Nioh 1.5 is not a bad thing at all because Nioh 1 was a very strong foundation with some rather glaring issues, those being the poor attempt at telling a story and the over-repetition of gameplay during the course of a long ass game. On the other hand, Nioh 2 had a very enjoyable story, and the increased variety in weapons plus Yokai Shift made the combat more enjoyable and more varied over the course of the 100+ hours I spent on it. All the best parts of Nioh 1 were kept and possibly even slightly improved on.

Hopefully my issue with Bloodborne's lack of any story explanation is something you can understand. This was a big problem for me when playing it. I kept waiting to have some sense of why I was fighting all these things or who some of the characters were, but in the end I felt just as confused as when I started. I've taken the same route as probably lots of players have and gone to YouTube to try to find out wtf was going on. And while it was nice to see VaatiVidya breaking it down, I still wondered how anyone who didn't bother making this game their life could ever find half of that story.

So, let me take a step back then. Clearly these souls-type games aren't totally focused on the story. If they were, they'd make a bigger deal out of it. I'd be missing the point if I only compared these two games based on the story. The important question then is which game did I enjoy playing more, right?

It was Nioh 2. To start, I enjoyed the faster tempo of Nioh's combat more than Bloodborne's. I also thought the weapons and the 3-tiered moveset each one had in Nioh 2 was a lot of fun to explore. Countering an opponent's strong attack with a Brute Yokai counter never felt unsatisfying, and I thought the boss fights were more consistently enjoyable in Nioh 2.

If you dislike Nioh 2 solely on the principle that it's just too much of the original game (which you also don't seem to have a huge affinity for), I'm not too bothered by that. One of my favorite series is Ratchet & Clank, which has not deviated too far from its core gameplay loop since the day it began, but I'm okay with that because it's dope af and I'd play that shit for days on end with no complaints. Obviously you want to see some changes between games, but I thought Nioh 2 did enough of that to keep things interesting. I made the complaint about Borderlands 3's core loop getting tiring, but 1) I think Nioh's got a better core loop than Borderlands does, and 2) Borderlands regressed in other ways from BL2 to BL3, so it had to do more with its gameplay to be a better game.

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Axl_Rose_85
12/19/20 3:11:54 PM
#46:


I love Nioh. I was one of the few constantly praising it on the board whenever I got the opportunity. Which is exactly why Nioh 2 was one of the most disappointing games of the year for me. If you compare the Souls games to each other or rather every FromSoftware Souls game, each have their own easily distinguishable identity and have very memorable Bosses, areas and lore.

Nioh 2 not only has barely any new atmosphere but it outright reuses Nioh 1's assets hence the feeling of deja vu. The worst offender was one of the final palaces where you refight all the earlier bosses just like the original and even used almost the exact same layout.

Not saying I didn't have fun with the game. I will always be a die-hard Souls fan and Nioh 2 is the sequel to it's best clone. It was good (I mean it is exactly like Nioh 1 but with poorer level design but somewhat better bosses here and there) but I hesitate to call it great given how I have pretty much seen everything the game has to offer 3 years ago.
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Solioxrz362
12/19/20 4:46:53 PM
#47:


Axl_Rose_85 posted...
Nioh 2 not only has barely any new atmosphere but it outright reuses Nioh 1's assets hence the feeling of deja vu. The worst offender was one of the final palaces where you refight all the earlier bosses just like the original and even used almost the exact same layout.
To be fair, if Nioh had changed its atmosphere much, it would've been a misstep. It has to keep that or else it loses its separate identity from other games in the genre. I do think that the tone in Nioh 2 is a good bit brighter than Nioh 1 though, which for me created a slightly more positive atmosphere to the game. But yes, the game does re-use things.

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Solioxrz362
12/19/20 9:35:33 PM
#48:


bump for the evening crowd

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Solioxrz362
12/30/20 9:58:43 AM
#49:


An addendum:

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

This was a very nice shooter. Just finished it yesterday, so it's going on the list.

I did have two major complaints about this game. First, the story takes a bit of a detour near the end that felt really out of place and didn't give any enjoyable gameplay to go along with it. In a movie, it would've been a deleted scene, and I think it should've been like that in this game too. It would've been a fun little bit to play through if it hadn't been in the main story slowing things down before the final assault on Nazis. Second, aiming down your sight is nearly useless except that it enables aim assist. You can't see anything when your sight is aimed down due to the size of the iron sights and the massive muzzle flash. I had more accuracy playing it almost entirely without ADS.

The rest of the game was fantastic. The graphics are gorgeous, as environments look super realistic, metal surfaces shine and shimmer, wooden boxes splinter upon being smashed, and disintegrating things with the laser weapons creates a dazzling light show. Very clean gunplay, dual wielding was fun, the weapons weren't too interesting but they were fun enough, and a competent story to go along. Killing Nazis and blowing stuff up makes for a good time as long as the game is built right. You often had flexibility in how you wanted to play - playing cover based was a bit safer usually, but you had room to run and gun and rush between zones if desired. Also plenty of opportunities for stealth, and enemies lose track of you after you're spotted if you're careful enough. The game's difficulty was pretty harsh, but it was always easy enough to retry, and usually I was dying cause I got caught out in the open which is on me.

I give it an 8/10, and would probably rank it right around or slightly below Watch Dogs 2.

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