2020: My Year in Gaming

Hello dear readers and welcome to my final post of 2020. Here I’m taking a look at all the games I’ve enjoyed this year, so sit back, relax, and join me for Shoot the Rookie’s gaming review of the year.

This has been an unprecedented year in so many ways and the games industry hasn’t gone unaffected, with delays to some major titles and strong sales for others that were lucky enough to have finished development in time for lockdown. My gaming however has been largely unaffected by this and I continued in my usual way of playing games slowly and enjoying them to the max.

I’ve seen people talking about their game completions for this year numbering over one hundred, but this just isn’t my way. In all I’ve completed seven games this year and started or continued a bunch of others, so my intention here is to fly through them picking out some things I particularly enjoyed in each of them, and hopefully you’ll find something you like!

Completions

Persona 5 – completed in January

My first Persona game went straight up there as one of my favourite games of all time! Featuring a wonderful cast of characters who I still miss hanging out with and a wealth of excellent gameplay elements I just thought it was amazing and undoubtedly one of the most stylish games I’ve ever played.

Deadly Premonition – completed in February

This surpassed all my expectations after drunkenly buying it and then promptly forgetting I had done so. I’ve already written up my experience comprehensively, but to summarise I think it makes up for its many shortcomings by creating one of the most compelling worlds and cast of characters I’ve ever seen in a game.

Nier Automata – completed in February

Beautiful with a wonderful soundtrack, it features the kind of super fast and slick action you’d expect from Platinum. The different gameplay elements are quirky and the characters are quite interesting and whilst I found some of the world a bit dull, some of the locations were absolutely stunning. All in all I enjoyed it a lot, but I still don’t completely understand the hype.

Astral Chain – completed in March

Fantastic sci-fi action game, again from Platinum, that ticks all the boxes. It looks great, sounds great and has an interesting story and a world with some really cool locations. I’m not a big fan of the silent protagonist thing, or the stupidly hard final boss, but this is a really excellent game that I hope gets a sequel.

Final Fantasy X – completed in July

After many years of putting it off 2020 was the year I finally experienced this game and it did not disappoint. Yuna and Tidus are excellent leads and I enjoyed the battle system, even if other gameplay elements (I mean Blitzball) didn’t really do it for me. It was nice to play a JRPG that featured both romance and tragedy, as they are two things I’ve been missing in the genre.

Resident Evil Zero – completed in August

Another one that I’ve already talked about a lot, but for the first survival horror game I’ve played by myself this was an excellent game with a lot of style. Even playing on easy it was great at creating atmosphere and the partner based combat and puzzles was a cool feature that I’d like to see more of in the series.

Deadly Premonition 2 – completed in September

After playing the first game I just had to get this one when it came out and it certainly lived up to my expectations. At this point I’m not sure if the brokenness of these games is a deliberate quirk, but the fact that this is so broken and yet still so brilliant certainly makes it unique, and once again the characters (particularly Patti) and the dialogue were amazingly realised.

Now playing

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition

The Switch remaster of my favourite game was always going to be a big thing for me and I didn’t spend too long thinking about whether or not to get the collector’s edition. I’m now well over a hundred hours in and the only thing that’s changed for me from when I played the original is that I now love everything about it even more. Especially Riki.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2

I’ve got this on the back-burner to dip into every now and then and I have to say I’m really enjoying it! I know it had a lot to live up to, but having never played the original I came to this fresh and have been really impressed by the design of the stages, the slick move-set and of course the soundtrack.

Fitness Boxing & Fitness Boxing 2

I wrote recently about how despite its faults, Fitness Boxing had helped me keep fit during lockdown, and in the last few days I’ve taken the plunge and invested in the sequel. It seems good so far, although the free dlc that includes ‘No Mercy’ Lin is still scaring me quite a lot! As if she wasn’t scary enough anyway!

Life is Strange

I just finished episode one of this game I’ve been meaning to play for years and so far I’m really enjoying it. I’ve never played a game primarily driven by choices before and I definitely get the appeal even though it is quite stressful making those choices not knowing what the outcome will be. It has a cool, creepy vibe and I’m excited to see what happens next!

Still playing

Tales of the Abyss

I’ve been playing this game for… let’s see… maybe 5 years? Maybe not quite that long? Who knows! Anyway I really like the Tales series and Abyss is no different, it’s just that I can never find time to sit down and play my 3DS. I’ve managed about 30 minutes with it recently and I’m hoping this will spur me on to finish it in 2021. I honestly feel I owe Luke and the gang at least that!

Project X Zone 2

Another 3DS game and another one where a large number of years have passed since I started it, but I really never want it to end! I wrote about it in detail ages ago but for anyone who doesn’t know, this is the best crossover and silliest game ever to exist. I’ve given up on hoping for a third one so I’m just gonna have to keep playing 2 forever!

…and there we have it! My whole year in gaming! I may not have played many newly released games this year but I have had a fabulous time playing these varied titles and I can’t wait to see which games catch my eye in 2021!

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So that is it! 2020 is almost at a close and lots of fantastic games have been played. But what about you? Maybe you’ve enjoyed some of these titles too, or perhaps you have some different favourites to recommend? Either way let me know below in comments.

To sign off for the year I would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has been with me this year – your support means a great deal. I hope the state of the world will improve in the near future, but until then let’s all look after each other eh?

Thanks for reading,

Pix1001 x