I’ve played a lot of games this year.
I say that as if I’m not the type of person who’s already counted.
I have.
It’s 93.
Of those, I’ve beaten 66 of them, which is easily the most games I’ve ever beaten
in a year.
It’s been nice.
I finally got around some incredible titles that have been in my backlog for arguably
too long, I replayed a few of my old favorites to mixed results, I jumped into a bunch of
multiplayer games where I yelled at my friends a lot, and I tried to keep up with the constant
stream of new titles as best as I could.
I played so many games this year because more than any other time in my life...I’ve needed
them.
On the most practical level, now that talking about games is my job playing them (or having
my wife play them) gives me new things to talk about, and the more experiences I have,
the more videos I can make.
On a more human level, I’m not sure if you knew this, but this year has been...bad.
On a global scale there is more fear, unrest, and uncertainty than there ever has been in
my lifetime.
These things make the normal stresses of life feel much heavier.
On top of that, being safe and playing my part in not making the pandemic worse has
involved a lot of isolation, which gave me far less to do in my free time, and as I am
the type of person who can easily fall into the trap of staring at wall for 8 hours spiraling
into my anxieties, I have needed video games to keep that from happening too frequently.
This year, games have helped me cope in all sorts of ways, and I want to talk about a
few of them that have stuck with me the most.
This isn’t really a game of the year video, in fact, a handful of the titles I’m gonna
talk about came out years ago.
Due to the nature of 2020 though, it is impossible for me to not tie my recent experiences with
games to the current state of the world, so in a weird way every title I’ve played this
year, regardless of when it actually released, will always be a 2020 game to me.
These are the games that got me through this year, and that is how I will remember them,
for better or worse.
So, let’s start at the logical starting point: the first game I played this year.
A Short Hike.
There’s a weird sort of magic to A Short Hike.
Despite being a small game, I found it really easy to lose myself within Hawk Peak Provincial
Park.
The game opens with the playable character deciding to climb to the top of the mountain
in order to get cellphone service.
A simple and relatable enough objective.
As I glided around the island, collecting shells, money, and, most importantly, golden
feathers that allowed me to climb higher, I almost immediately stopped focusing on my
destination and instead got lost in the act of exploring, of talking to the folks on the
island and helping them with various needs.
I always remembered that the goal was to get to the top of the mountain, but by the time
I got there, I had kinda forgotten why, which I think is the entire point of the game.
It’s about taking the time to focus on what’s around you instead of worrying so much about
what’s ahead.
Especially at the start of all the quarantining this year, I found myself drifting towards
games like A Short Hike.
Calm titles that centered around exploring nature and building relationships with others.In
a time where going outside and talking to people was not an option, video games were
a decent alternative.
I, like 99% of people who own a Nintendo Switch, latched onto Animal Crossing: New Horizons
when it first came out.
Honestly just hearing the sound of wind rustling through the trees and water lapping up against
the shore made me more emotional than it had any business doing.
I explored the Far, Far Range of Slime Rancher, gathering various critters to raise and uncovering
the surprisingly moving story of the Ranch’s former owner; I terrorized a quiet and unsuspecting
English village in Untitled Goose Game, and didn’t feel bad about it for a second.
I revisited Pelican Town for the first time in years, and remembered why I fell in love
with the routine of Stardew Valley in the first place.
I built a really, really big tree in Minecraft because that’s just what I do now, and it
gave me the perfect spot to keep an eye on all of my friends.
I traveled to Snaktooth Island, and not only got to know the cast of Bugsnax, but ended
up relating to each of them on a shockingly deep level as I investigated what caused everything
to fall apart.
This year, it was impossible for me not to value the beauty of various virtual worlds
in a way I never have before, even in games that weren’t inherently relaxing.
Whether it was the stunning vistas in Ghost of Tsushima, the lush forest of Ori and the
Will of the Wisps, or the sprawling island of The Pathless, my appreciation for gorgeous
environments hit a new high this year as most of my days were spent stuck looking at the
same four walls.
To be clear, I didn’t entirely replace talking to friends and family or going outside for
fresh air with video games, but they did help fill in some of the gaps that came from the
restrictions set in place to keep us all safe.
In a year that had absolutely no chill, it was nice to retreat into all of these games.
They gave me a chance to relax and reflect on what I was doing instead of always worrying
about things out of my control.
That isn’t to say my year was filled solely with more relaxed and reflective experiences.
It really wasn’t.
Especially over the summer, I started to seek out challenging games.
I played Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy for the first time, leading to a dozen or
so hours of suffering before finally making my way to the top.
I replayed Dark Souls and got destroyed by a few of the bosses who still give me trouble
despite having beaten the game a dozen times by now.
I even did smaller challenges like clearing the Path of Pain in Hollow Knight and defeating
Sans in Undertale just to prove that I could.
Oh and I started “speedrunning” Super Mario 64 to bring a new challenge to an old
classic.
I’m still really bad at it.
Oddly enough the timeframe that I played most of these games was when the stress of the
year weighed on me the heaviest.
That might sound counterproductive but I think taking on these dumb little challenges gave
me something to feel good about overcoming.
The sense of relief I got from clearing that final hurdle in Bennett Foddy and the excitement
that washed over me after dodging Sans’ last attack are feelings that I will never
forget, and in a time where it was so easy to spiral down dark paths, these little victories
helped ground me a bit.
They gave me something to celebrate in a time where things worth celebrating were hard to
find, and that feeling of satisfaction made every failure feel worth it.
And speaking failures that feel worth it...
Hades was pretty much the only thing I did in October.
During that month I played for over 100 hours and got all of the achievements.
It was a problem, but a really fun problem.
I am far from being the first person to say this, but playing a game centered around trying
and failing to escape from hell is, as it turns, quite relatable right now.
To be honest though, while I wish I could spend the next few hundred words talking about
how the various themes of Hades changed my outlook on this year and life in general,
I can’t.
That wasn’t my relationship with the game.
The reason I am talking about it right now, as simple as it is, is that playing it just
felt really good.
Hades has some of the best pacing I’ve ever seen in a game.
It rewards players with new boons, upgrades, items, or currency in each room, and almost
more importantly, it provides interesting and meaningful choices with each of those
things, whether it be which option to take or even just which path to follow.
This made it so the reward was almost always one I was happy to get because I could choose
what best fit my playstyle for any given run.
On the larger scale, between each run, it always rewards players with some kind of progression
whether that be permanent upgrades, new aesthetics for the House of Hades, or story developments
and character growth.
It provided me with a constant flow of dopamine, and even when I failed a run, I felt good
because the game still rewarded me in some way, and it made me just want to get back
into the next one.
In general, it gave me a similar sense of accomplishment as the challenging games I
played over the summer but without nearly as much frustration, and a game like that
was really nice to have in order to help offset some of the stress and existential dread I
was feeling this October.
I needed something that challenged me enough to give me a sense of satisfaction when I
succeeded, but also didn’t make me wallow in my failures, and that is what Hades did.
It made me feel good, and sometimes that’s all you need out of a game.
With that said, sometimes a game making you feel bad is just as valuable, so let’s talk
about The Last of Us Part II.
I know that this game didn’t work for a lot of people, and I’m not going to try
to convince anyone who didn’t like it that they actually should.
The Last of Us Part II takes a lot of risks primarily with its narrative and structure,
and those risks led to it being a terrible time for some and an incredibly moving one
for others.
Especially when it first came out, I saw a lot of arguments about the quality of the
game.
So many of them though seemed based in trying to convince others to view the game in the
same way they did.
But as I heard more and more takes on Part II, I realized that no one else’s criticisms
or even praise would change the experience I had while playing and processing it.
The Last of Us Part II made me feel a lot of things.
Anger, frustration, fear, exhaustion, awe, empathy, happiness as fleeting as it was,
and maybe most of all, grief.
It felt personal.
More than any game I had played before it, I had a very human connection to its world
and characters, and I think a large part of that comes from how dynamic my understanding
of both Ellie and Abby ended up being.
Ellie a character I loved in the first title, grew into a stranger who as time went on,
I found myself repulsed by, but in spite of that I still held out hope that she’d make
her way out of the dark because I didn’t want to give up on the plucky kid I once risked
everything to save.
And Abby, a character I hated for the first half of the game became someone I understood
and while I never forgave the harm she caused, I reached a point where I cared about her
enough to also want the best for her.
I watched both of them grow for better and for worse, and honestly in both cases it was
uncomfortable to experience, but that’s why I am still thinking about 6 months later.
Their lives are messy and painful and human.
I feel like I lived actual shit with both of them instead of just watching a grand adventure
they went through.
It left me feeling raw.
I remember staring at my TV for an hour after finishing, not really knowing what to think
and then spending the next week trying to process everything I had just played.
I spent a lot of time considering how certain things made me feel, and while I won’t act
as if every single aspect of Part II is perfect, I walked away with a connection to the story
that I’ve never had with a game before, and I was pretty sure I never would again…
then I finally played Red Dead Redemption 2.
I’ve never been as pleasantly surprised by a character than I was with Arthur Morgan.
When I started it, I remember wishing I could just be John Marston.
He was the character I knew and cared about, and the idea of experiencing the tales from
his days with the Van der Linde gang sounded like the most interesting path the story could
take.
When I finished the game, I not only liked Arthur more than John, but I liked him more
than any protagonist I’ve ever played as.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a slow burn, and it’s in that slowness that Arthur gets the
chance to stand out.
Where a lot of characters are written to establish a connection to the player quickly through
charisma and humor, Arthur takes his time and does it through subtleties.
This made it take awhile for me to connect to him, but eventually his personality seeped
into me, and I started finding even the simplest of actions to be endearing.
Like the way he responds to others, the way he whispers calmly to his horse, and even
the way he lets out certain breaths.Of course, there are more consequential aspects about
him that I found compelling, primarily the way he changes throughout the game and how
the choices I made as a player changed him as well.
In a lot of ways, the story of Arthur Morgan hits different in 2020.
The player becomes Arthur right when his way of life has started to crumble out from under
him, and he is left to decide how to move forward with what little track remains.
The wide world he once freely roamed continuously closes in on him, and all of this forces him
to start confronting himself.
He grapples with questions he never had to grapple with before: like what is the value
of freedom if it means always being on the run or how does one stay loyal when the group
they’ve sworn loyalty to start to form cracks between each other or what does it mean to
do good after a lifetime of doing bad?
These questions don’t all have easy answers, but in one way or another Arthur and in turn
the player has to address them, and doing so solidified my bond with Arthur in a way
no game has ever done..
I think both Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us Part 2 meant so much to me this
year because they challenged certain patterns of thought that I find myself falling into.
It has become frighteningly easy to slip into the doomer mindset.
Especially in the age of the internet where nuance is in short supply, assuming the worst
in situations and people has unfortunately become pretty standard practice.
And I think both of these games are reminders of the perils that can come from viewing the
world through that lens and also the good that can come from breaking those toxic cycles.
These games are about how a person can’t be defined by their worst or even their best
day; how it is possible to learn to live with someone you can never forgive; how simple
displays of kindness matter.
They’ve helped remind me to pull back sometimes, and instead of always assuming the worst in
the world, take a gamble that love exists and do a loving act.
I know for a lot of people, that’s not what either of these games meant to them, but it’s
what they meant to me, and I will always appreciate them for that.
Obviously video games are not the most important thing in the world, but they have been very
valuable to me throughout this year.
They’ve given me a place to escape to, they’ve challenged me when I needed it most, and they’ve
gotten me to reflect on who I am and what’s important in this life.
I genuinely think they’ve made me a better person, and I plan to take the things I’ve
learned from them with me to 2021.
I don’t know what next year will bring.
I hope there is less existential dread hanging over our heads at all times, but I don’t
know what’ll happen.
Even if things aren’t better, I think this year has made me stronger in a lot of ways,
and I’m willing to tackle any challenge.
So, yeah, I don’t know what next year will bring, but I sure as fuck will be playing
a lot of video games to get through it.