PSA: We also have a podcast version of this list breakdown which can be listened to here. Make sure to subscribe!
Let’s call a spade a spade here. 2020 was a rough year for many people. Thankfully if you are a gamer though, you were treated to one of the greatest years in gaming history. Narrowing down a top 10 list was difficult, but then putting the final ten in order was even harder. I decided to break the list down into three categories. The top ten, six honourable mentions and then a list of seven games I think could have made either of the two former categories should I have been able to pause time and play everything this year.
So without further adieu, lets begin with the honourable mentions.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Maneater | Cards on the table. I love sharks. So when a game where you play as a shark and terrorise humans was announced, I was all in. What we got was a really fun package. Sure, it was rough around the edges and often ran worse than it should have, but it was a damn fun time and for that reason, I recommend picking this game up. There is also now a free next-gen upgrade, although unfortunately despite the better resolution I am told the framerate still suffers 🙄 Our full review.
Creaks | This stunning puzzle game from Amanita Design, the team who brought us Machinarium, is one of the sleeper hits of 2020. It never got the credit it deserved and I am here to try and right that wrong. If you like intuitive puzzles and a beautiful, unique art style then you won’t be disappointed. Our full review.
Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners PSVR | The only thing stopping this outstanding VR game from sneaking into my top ten is that the stealth could do with a little work. Skydance Interactive did an amazing job putting together one of the best VR games I have ever played. Scavenging, resource management and more all come together with an art style that mimics the Telltale Walking Dead series. I just wish at times you didn’t feel like you got unfairly spotted. Our full review.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time | I was so happy when Crash Bandicoot was faithfully remade in 2017. The collection did so well that you just knew we would see a new entry in the series. The question was, could Toys For Bob take what they had learned restoring the classic entries in the series and put that knowledge into practice with a new game. The answer: yes, they absolutely could. Crash 4 is not only a great game – it may be the best Crash Bandicoot game ever. It is also brutally hard, so have a pillow at the ready to cry/scream into. Our full review.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2 | Over the course of the PS4/Xbox One generation we have been spoiled with excellent remakes of classic games. This was definitely a trend that continued with Tony Hawk. The games feel just as quick and responsive as ever, with improvements from later games even applied to improve the experience. If you ever enjoyed the old Tony Hawk games or are a fan of gameplay loops with high score chasing, you can’t do much better than this. Our full review.
Hotshot Racing | This game came out of nowhere for me. I saw the art style and it instantly reminded me of Indie title Virginia. As soon as you blast round your first few corners you can tell that the game offers something special. It’s one of these racers where the lead is never safe and getting maximum drift on each corner is vital to building your boost. There was also free DLC recently that adds even more value to this already great package. Our full review.
Games I Didn’t Put Enough Hours Into
Budget Cuts – Twin Mirror – Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – Sackboy: A Big Adventure – Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope – Cloudpunk – Hades.
TOP 10 OF 2020
I loved Mafia II back when it released in 2010. It was my first introduction to the series and while I always considered going back to the original, I never felt that urge due to it being dated even at that time. So when they announced it was being remade and showed off those incredible screenshots I knew I was all in. The result was an excellent game that by all accounts stayed true to the original while improving on it.
The absolute highlight for me was how linear the story was despite the open-world setting. I love open-world games, but sometimes a narrative can lose its focus when you have 50 open quest markers on the map and despite the urgency of the next main mission you are just able to spend two hours doing side jobs as an Uber driver or some nonsense. Granted you do feel in the end that the map maybe wasn’t utilised as much as it could have been but I wish more games were bold enough to take this approach. Mafia III would certainly have been improved with this formula. Our full review.
This game is likely to appear much higher on most gamers lists, but honestly, I am just shocked I finished the game let alone mentioned it in this article. I bought the original Final Fantasy VII when it came to PlayStation and I remember being so excited by this big-budget, heavily advertised THREE DISK game. I went home and played a few hours of it with my friend, genuinely wanting to love it, but it was just a massive disappointment. The turn-based combat was a complete turnoff.
Even when I played the short demo of the remake that was released at the beginning of the year I wasn’t massively impressed. It looked and played alright, but it still didn’t seem like my kinda game. The hype train at release won me over though and boy am I glad it did. It isn’t even that easy for me to explain why I enjoyed it so much.
I thought the story was decent, although didn’t connect with me fully. The gameplay was fun for the most part, but hack and slash combat has generally only been something I would stick with for an hour or two and the graphics while looking great in places equally were found wanting in others. In the end, it boiled down to the characters for me. The cast was absolutely superb and it carried me through the game. Barrett, Tifa and Aerith were the three standouts but I loved them all.
On another day this could have placed higher on my list. As often tends to be the case with Ubisoft open-world games, while others were experiencing glitch after glitch, I was riding around London in awe of the futuristic London setting. I was a massive fan of Watch Dogs 2 and this carried on that same addictive gameplay loop but in a new open-world playgound.
The ‘be any character’ mechanic definitely hindered the story, but it was a cool idea and one that opened up interesting new gameplay possibilities. The lip-syncing was admittedly terrible, but if you set your expectations going in that this wasn’t going to be some super serious, gritty story then it was easy to overlook. If you loved WD2 as I did I think you’ll enjoy this third outing, so long as you can avoid the bugs. Our full review.
Long term readers of the site will know that I am a huge fan of VR. Pistol Whip originally released on PC in 2019 but at the time my only VR headset was the PSVR so it only came on my radar when it launched on PlayStation in July. The game takes the Beat Saber formula and replaces lightsabers with guns, adding in the wrinkle that you need to shoot to the beat.
The game is fun, addictive and a really good workout. The soundtrack is thumping and really lets you get in tune with the beat. It’s hard to make a direct comparison to Beat Saber as Pistol Whip had the advantage of coming later, but I do think it has managed to take the crown of best rhythm-action game for me. Our full review.
I have gone on record in various tweets saying that I think the PlayStation 5 launch lineup is the best console launch in history. One of the main reasons for that bold statement is Spider-Man Miles Morales. Insomniac Games took everything they learned from the 2018 game and improved on it for this second outing. Sure, it’s a shorter experience, coming in at around 7 hours to complete the story, but I love when games respect your time and there is no time wasted with Miles.
There is plenty to see and do around New York and the Christmas aesthetic is an instant win in my eyes. Strong performances, cool powers, a touching story and did I mention it’s set at Christmas time?! These factors and more come together to make this stand out as the best Spider-Man game on PlayStation platforms.
We are now getting into the territory where putting a number on something is really difficult. Astro’s Playroom may have came packed in for free on PlayStation 5 but it is one of the most well put together platformers I have ever played. I was worried that the follow-up to the sublime Astro Bot Rescue Mission would fail to deliver due to being a glorified tech demo, but those fears were put to bed after about 5 minutes.
Every corner of this experience is filled with some PlayStation nostalgia. There are Astro Bots all over the 4 worlds recreating famous games and almost every movement is mapped to a new feature of the Dualsense controller. It can be completed in around two hours with the platinum taking roughly double that, but even once the last trophy is popped keen PlayStation fans will want to return down the line.
It was honestly a difficult decision whether to include this title at all given all the controversy around it. In the end, I have settled on the fourth spot, but honestly, if the PS5/Series X port releases next year and is bug-free I could see it winning in 2021. The game is that good. I have been lucky enough so far, a little over 60 hours in, to have only had one hard crash and the odd glitch, but that’s running the game on PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility. Players on base PS4 and Xbox One have been subject to a much lesser experience.
That’s not to say the game doesn’t inherently have its flaws – it does. When driving around the world feels a bit empty only for it to magically populate as you slow down and spin the camera, but the design of the world, depth of the characters and depth of the side missions just make the whole experience so addictive. Side content is every bit as engaging as the main quest, which is really impressive. It’s the Fallout game in a setting I care about that I have always wanted.
I don’t even want to admit how many times I switched this around between the number two and three spots. Like other games on this list, if it wasn’t such a stacked year it could have walked away with all the glory. Animal Crossing is a triumph in every sense of the word. It is incredibly addictive and exceptionally well made. You can pick it up with the intention of doing a bit of daily weeding and lose about three hours in the blink of an eye.
It also shouldn’t be understated that it came along at the exact right moment. The game released four days after the first COVID-19 lockdown here in the UK and it really became something for people to lose themselves in during such a difficult time. I myself ended up ill, presumably with the COVID virus at the end of March and having Animal Crossing to keep me busy while sweating it out on the couch was an absolute Godsend. Our full review.
In a ten-day span, I put nearly 60 hours in, eventually having to cut myself off because I was getting nothing else done. There is always something to strive for. The carrot is always dangling and keeps you coming back. The special seasonal events also deserve a mention. While I managed to pry myself away from the game just after the Easter event my son has never stopped playing and I watched on with envy as he had a blast with both the Halloween and Christmas events.
This being at number two is likely to be controversial, but let’s be honest, it would be every bit as controversial if I had it at number one or not on the list at all. Such is the hysteria that surrounds Naughty Dog’s latest title. It really is a shame that the game wasn’t able to have a normal release and be judged on its own merits. Instead, we were subjected to clowns trying to “cancel” it weeks before it even came out. All because of spoilers – some of which weren’t even true.
Look I get if you played through the game and decided you didn’t like where Neil and the team took the story. That’s a fair criticism and one I can understand. But people calling the game trash and no good need flagged for stupidity. The game is a technical masterpiece from world design to animation and graphics. It truly pushes the limits of the PS4 and is a prime example of what can be achieved at the end of a generation.
SPOILERS INCLUDED: The story as a whole it completely won me over. At first, I thought Naughty Dog were on a hiding to nothing trying to get me to care about Abby, but it worked. By the end, she was my favourite part II character and on par with Eiley in the series overall. I would have preferred an ending where Eiley accepted Abby in the end and there was some sort of bond between the two that could have carried over into part III, but I’m not about to whine online about it like a large infant. Our full review.
Readers of my Games of the Generation post will have seen this coming, but for me, there was only one choice. Ghost of Tsushima is an absolute masterpiece and on most days, it is my favourite PlayStation 4 game full stop. I can’t recall a game with more satisfying swordplay and the graphics are just jaw-dropping. They also managed to engineer the best load times I had ever seen in an open-world game. Even now, with the PlayStation 5’s super-fast SSD drive, the load times between Ghost on PS4 and Assassins Creed Valhalla on PS5 are comparable.
Speaking of Valhalla, I have always loved the Assassins Creed games and playing some of that recently confirmed a fear I had after finishing Ghost. Sucker Punch outflanked Ubisoft at almost every turn with this game and have made it hard to go back. This is a location that AC fans have wanted for a decade and while I firmly believe Japan is the setting of the Assassins game after Valhalla, they better have something pretty special up their sleeve if they want to avoid looking like a cheap imitation.
A big thanks for checking out my top 10 games of 2020 editorial. A reminder that you can check out the podcast version here. Make sure to subscribe to Pure Dead Gaming on your podcast service of choice for new episodes every Thursday.
Let me know your thoughts on my picks on Twitter @VDZEMedia and until next time, be like Jin! Proceed with honour.
-VDZE 🧐