Community MetaCouncil's PC Games of the Year Awards 2020

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Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
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Downunder.
Wok I'm casting my ballot soon, I promise. I have an extra week off from work so I've been gaming non-stop since NYD. I'll come out for air soon and write down what I need to write ... soonish. :dana_blanket:
 

Dragon1893

MetaMember
Apr 17, 2019
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Gonna make a list with the handful of 2020 games I played in order of preference :p
 

eonden

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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This is gonna be a chonky list in here for my GOTY Awards. It was a much better year when looking back, with a ton of great games both big and small:

My Goty List:

5.- Hades
Perhaps one of the most polished roguelites games ever, with a very interesting story and a good framing device behind the "death and replay". Otherwise, the "usual" Supergiant flare, with some amazing graphics and music and a gameplay that once it clicks, it just feels fun.

4.- Paradise Killer
Surreal world with a murder mistery? I love every single word out of it. Combining an open world with a proper detective game is something that i have always wanted since LA Noire was just OK, and this small indie did it perfectly.

3.- DOOM Eternal
DOOM Eternal just tries to ape the prequel and it does improve on it in scale, Doom Eternal is more and most of the time better than its predecessor, with more action, more tear, more blood, more metal. DOOM is back, and it is great for it to be back.

2.- Yakuza Like a Dragon
Surprise of the year. I have always liked Yakuza games for their story and goofy characters, but the janky and (for me) non enjoyable combat always acted as a barrier for me to fully join in and play it. And then, they added a full on turn based rpg combat similar to DQ (one of my favourite franchises). The combat really needs some improvements in the sequels, as a ton of the attacks require positioning to be optimal and you have no control over that, but it helped me go over some of my problems with previous Yakuza games and fully enjoy it.

1.- CK3
The sequel to one of the best games ever had one of the highest mountains to overcome given that most of what made CK2 great was how it evolved from a more standarized Grand Strategy game at launch into a more traditional tabletop rpg with each expansion, adding more interesting mechanics along the way. Everyone feared a lot of those additions would be stripped in the new game, to be put in place later on with expansion, but except for some of them (such as republics), most are in the game at launch, in a better more seemless package.
That would be enough to put it as a GOTY contender, but the game also made it way easier for newer players to pick it up and play and made the role playing element more crucial and interesting, making it perhaps, as good as CK2 (full content) right now.

Honorable mentions (in any order):
Horizons Gate - An amazing open world RPG that should get a fuck ton more recognition than it is having. You have the ability to do nearly whatever you want. Rad Complex should be a developer that any RPG or tactics fan keeps an eye on from now onwards.
MB2 Bannerlord - potential for greatness, meh launch but can be easily polished
P4 Golden - great old game, Atlus pls send SMT3HD.
Umarangi Generations - one of the most interesting "gameplay" and world designs
MS:Flight Simulator - one of the biggest achievements in gaming ever
Factorio - one of the best games of all time, should have been in the top 5 if not for the tough competition
Half Life Alyx - would be number 2, but given the competition and there being another category for it, I moved it to mentions
Hylics 2 - improvements in all fronts from one of my most beloved hidden gems in Hylics 1.

Ongoing Game of the Year:

Among Us
I am gonna be honest, this was a tough year for Ongoing Game of the year and Among Us wins because of how big of a monumental shift it was in gaming. Among Us resurgance shows the importance of social games in one of the toughest times for most of us, and how even if great games can easily be missed in the ocean of gaming they still have sometimes the chance to surface. As a game, Among Us is also a nice take on WereWolf / Mafia / Town of Salem with more of an open floor to do murder and fixing stuff.

Honorable mentions (in any order):
Sea of Thieves - SoT is probably the best game to play Coop with friends when you just want to chillax. Rare has done a great job crafting new interesting combat without making the game completely feel like a general Skinner Box you need to be playing every single day.
No Mans Sky - Hello Games keeps on trying to bring to life the game they promised years ago, and as every year, they get closer and closer (you could even say they have already reached that objective some time ago).
Factorio - Factorio is one of the most interesting and deep simulation games. In my heart it should be in the GOTY or Ongoing, but its just such a hard year for both categories I find it hard to give it a place in them.

EA Game of the Year:

Ultrakill
DevilMayQuake.com. New Blood continues their greatness on taking the "90s shooter" genre with new spins, this time taking the "spectacle hack and slash" (or whatever the full name is) approach. Great shooting, great enemy variety, great hidden secrets, great everything lets be honest. Anyone who loves shooters should just throw money into the screen to play this.

Honorable mentions (in any order):
Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord- potential for greatness, meh launch but can be easily polished
Hardspace: Shipbreaker - One of the best chillax games ever. You get to dismantle
Due Process - One of the more interesting tactical shooters games,with a planning stage that will easily go to shit because it always go to shit. Anyone who likes Siege, Valorant, or CSGO, should get it and try it. Even if you dont like it, it will help you better plan in those games.
Satisfactory - Technically 2019 game, but like Factorio one of the best chillax games, with the main problem being how much the bottlenecks and grind feel sometimes when compared to Factorio.

VR GOTY:

Half Life Alyx
One of the best games of the year, exclusive to VR. It might not be the most ambitious game in VR (Boneworks probably is), but the polish and combat just feel perfect for anyone wanting to see what "VR can do" and what "VR is about". The environments truly feel alive and the setpieces really make it feel like you are there. The story keeps a nice pace, being simple but effective on directing you over what you need to do at any moment.
Also, any VR game that requires you to pick things up needs to copy the RUSSELLS. Probably one of the most low key gamechangers in VR, it just felt so natural once you got the hank. Thank gor H3VR copied it ASAP.

Honorable mentions (in any order):
Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners - a great shooter that just lacks the polish from HLA. I hope we see similar stuff coming from VR devs more often.
Star Wars Squadrons - a great dogfighting game in VR. It just lacks the proper VR controller support, as playing with a controller while on VR feels... off.
Population One - I do not like BR, but BR in VR with this kind of combat feels very interesting.

Turd of the year
Warcraft 3 Reforged
So we had a remaster of one of the most influential RTS games ever, only for it to come in the most dissapointing way, with only small changes to it, fucking up a ton of the charm of the game. It also somehow managed to clamp down on the mod community! And to improve it, it also retroactively fucked up the previous owners of the game with an update to the previous version of the game.

Honorable mentions (I dont even need to comment on them cause they are all self explanatory):
Amazon launched a game and then unlaunched it
Stadia exists?
Are the 2020 graphic card real?
Sony launching Horizon on PC
 
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Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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Thanks for your great work with organising this vote, Wok . Some interesting game's released this year and even quite a few I got to play. My number one is probably a fairly common choice, but I tried to go for lesser known games for my other choices.
 
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Wok

Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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For info, I have already voted (and won't change my vote), so I can look at current data and run preliminary computations of the results.

For the main award, we currently have a few ties in the top 10:
  • 2 games tied for positions 4-5,
  • 3 games tied for positions 6-8.
The ranking should change anyway as a lot of votes are usually cast close to the deadline. However, there might still be ties in the end.

As with previous years, I have currently decided not to opt for a tie-breaker, because it could get a bit arbitrary.

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Long story short, there may be ties, and I will do as with previous years: keep the ties as they are.
 
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Wok

Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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If you appear below, there is a chance that you have not cast your ballot yet!



Thank you for doing this! Can't wait to see what everyone votes for.:D
Thanks for doing this again! Looking forward to the results!
Better post something so I can get the instructions to post Tell Me Why as turd of the year. Let's go!
That time of the year again, huh. Thanks for organising this as always, Wok !
I'm gonna vote for fortnite
replying to vote etc
I will be voting, still have a few games to finish prior to the deadline
Replying to vote.
Quoting to vote :)
Voting ended?
Still a couple of weeks left to get your votes in!
I didn't play many 2020 games but the ones I did play were fantastic.
Would love a link to vote :)
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
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If you appear below, there is a chance that you have not cast your ballot yet!
The problem is that I have no idea which of the games I played last year were released in 2020. Is there any way to figure this out without manually going through 90+ Steam store pages?
 
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Wok

Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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The problem is that I have no idea which of the games I played last year were released in 2020. Is there any way to figure this out without manually going through 90+ Steam store pages?
You can use the Steam library. You only need to display your list of games, and sort it by release date.



You will see something like this: anything between Jan 1, 2020 and Dec 31, 2020 should be fine.



Release date is shown at the bottom of the cover.



If you have not added many F2P games, the list of candidates should be small. Otherwise, you may want to create a dynamic collection of games which you have started at least once, and then sort this collection (rather than your whole library of games) by release date.
 
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gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
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You can use the Steam library. You only need to display your list of games, and sort it by release date.



You will see something like this: anything between Jan 1, 2020 and Dec 31, 2020 should be fine.



Release date is shown at the bottom of the cover.



If you have not added many F2P games, the list of candidates should be small. Otherwise, you may want to create a dynamic collection of games which you have started at least once, and then sort this collection (rather than your whole library of games) by release date.
well shit. now I have no excuse, except I still think it's only Cloudpunk.... i'll look into this and get back to voting :D
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
3,982
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You can use the Steam library. You only need to display your list of games, and sort it by release date.
I didn't even know this was possible. Thanks a lot m8, voted!

I only played 4 games that were released in 2020 by the way. I'm a (very) patient gamer nowadays. :)
 
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Ruvon

Chaotic writer
May 15, 2019
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cabinetdechaologie.wordpress.com
you may want to create a dynamic collection of games which you have started at least once, and then sort this collection (rather than your whole library of games) by release date.
That's precisely what I did.

But watch out for games released on Steam after being released "elsewhere" :blobeyes: before (like Observation) though.
 
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Wok

Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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For info, there are now as many voters for GOTY 2020 as for GOTY 2018, and 8 days left before the vote ends.



With 17 additional voters, we would be on par with the vote for GOTY 2019.
 

kio

MetaMember
Apr 19, 2019
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I didn't play that many 2020 games but I think I can at least put a top 3 list.
 
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Wok

Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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[UWSL]There are 6 days left before the vote ends.[/UWSL]

Paging people who have posted in this thread and have not voted yet:

lashman, Ascheroth, #Senpai, Kvik, Xclash, xxr, gabbo, oipic, PC-tan, BlackRainbowFT

Paging the rest of the people who have voted at least once since we have started this GOTY trend, and have not yet posted in this thread:

uraizen, Bonfires Down, Exzyleph, FunktionJCB, Knurek, Durante, Nabs, Smash, MonthOLDpickle, Echo, SpectrumWarrior, DeejayDoom, Hektor, low-G, zkylon, Kyougar, Eriugam, Rockin' Ranger, suiko, NeuralProxy, Gevin, sauce, daxy, Big McLargehuge, sprinkles, KainXVIII, Nzyme, Kuro, prudis, TioChuck, itsamiracle, His Majesty, Milena, Tart Toter 9k, Blizniak, d00d3n, Lain, Taborcarn, Theswweet, Dandy, xinek, BO7AMMOOD, Flips, m_dorian, Kandrick, Derrick01
 

Pommes

Hey you! Have a nice day!
Jun 4, 2019
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Replying to vote.
Only played very few games ( :disappointed-face: ) and because of that my selection of 2020 games is limited.
That makes it easier to choose a best game :smart-thinking-blob:
 
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