Deadline for voting is Midnight GMT 24th/25th January
The categories for voting are:
Game of the Year 2020
Ongoing Game of the Year 2020 (Optional)
Early Access Game of the Year 2020 (Optional)
VR Game of the Year 2020 (Optional)
Surprise of the Year 2020 (Optional)
GOTY Award:
Up to 5 choices can be submitted, points based system:
5th Choice (1 point)
4th Choice (2 points)
3rd Choice (3 points)
2nd Choice (4 points)
1st Choice (5 points)
For 1st Choice you will need to write a response on why you have chosen it as your GOTY.
Eligibility:
Any game fully released on any PC platform between 1st January to 31st Dec 2020 is eligible for Game of the Year 2020. This includes remakes and remasters, provided that there is a new executable.
Any game fully released prior to 1st January 2020 which received content updates between 1st January to 31st Dec 2020 is eligible for Ongoing Game of the Year 2020. New content can be in the form of patches, DLC or general updates, but not bug fixes.
Any game released into Early Access (or equivalent) on any PC platform between 1st January to 31st Dec 2020 is eligible for Early Access Game of the Year 2020.
Any game fully released on any PC platform between 1st January to 31st Dec 2019 which requires or recommends the use of a VR headset is eligible for VR Game of the Year 2020.
Any game or gaming event, good or bad, that was released/occurred last year is eligible for Surprise of the Year 2020. It's intentionally broad and vague so pick what you like, I'll parse things down.
As ResetEra is a predominantly English language website, any game getting an English translation in 2020 is eligible.
To prevent a recurrence of 2018s mix up, please copy the title of the game you wish to vote for from Steam (or other platform if only available there) precisely, including trademark notices. (I.e. if you want to vote for Half Life Alyx, put 'Half-Life: Alyx' into the voting form.) I will be parsing the votes to try to get everything counted, but this sort of consistency will help.
Do not:
Vote more than once
Share the link with anyone, it's for you alone and to verify who's voted.
Submit the same game more than once in the same category.
Choose an Ongoing or Early Access game for the GOTY award.
Do:
Feel free to submit games from any PC platform, Steam, GOG, EGS, Stardock, whatever you want.
Feel free to submit fewer than 5 for GOTY. You must submit 1, however.
Contact me if you spot a problem or have any questions about the vote.
I can organise it, but someone else would need to host, someone with a reliable connection. The EU4 game I hosted had some notable issues, especially towards the end.
Anyone playing Paradise Killer? Bought game on a whim during sale and it is now my favorite game of last year. Incredible soundtrack, extremely weird characters, completely batshit crazy lore/world. Haven't finished it yet, but the ride so far has been worth it.
Anyone playing Paradise Killer? Bought game on a whim during sale and it is now my favorite game of last year. Incredible soundtrack, extremely weird characters, completely batshit crazy lore/world. Haven't finished it yet, but the ride so far has been worth it.
I can organise it, but someone else would need to host, someone with a reliable connection. The EU4 game I hosted had some notable issues, especially towards the end.
I think CK3 is probably the most stable Paradox game i have played in MP, but i have only done with like 4 other people lol. Even then, I cant host cause I play on wifi
I'm noticing there are games like Cyberpunk getting really close to maxing out a few threads. Though Cyberpunk could probably do with more even multithreading.
I thought the 2700x might be on the upper end of what's available, but my research wasn't giving me a lot of info. Thanks.
Had to duel this prick to get Josephine out of the engagement.
Josephine showed up to demand to know why I risked my life, as unlike every other day where I'm fighting demons and bandits and hordes of enemies, one nobleman is clearly a death sentence for my Inquisitor.
Well, only really one answer for that, of course. I do appreciate that even here, in a quest that is blindingly obviously all about securing the romance with Josephine, the game explicitly tells you what will happen if you select an option and lets you back out (and break her heart you monster.) Gamers aren't very good at picking up romantic cues, so it's probably for the best they're explicit about this stuff. So that's nice.
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.
Surprise of the year
Atlus coming to PC (P4G)
Out of all the "its never gonna happen", Atlus coming back to PC was probably in the highest tier. And everything changed when the Sega Europe attacked and launched P4G on Steam AT A DECENT PRICE TOO WTF. I dont think nobody would have predicted this in December 2019. And if you did, you should have told us about the fucking ride that 2020 was gonna be you time travelling bastard.
Honorable mentions (I dont even need to comment on them cause they are all self explanatory):
Amazon launched a game and then unlaunched it
There was a Warcraft 3 game I forgot it launched even when I love Warcraft 3
Age of Empires 2 got a new expansion announced more than 20 years after its original launch
Sony launching Horizon on PC
Just for funsies : ballshit surprises that will happen in 2021:
Bloodborne coming to PC - Itsrealtome.gif
Gamepass on Steam- pls MS justdoit.gif
2021 is better than 2020 in general (not videogame related) - pls life
Uzzy unbans anime talk in PC OTs - cats and dogs living together mass hysteria
Nintendo launches a game on PC - because fuck it why not, cats and dogs living together mass hysteria
Stick with it for a while longer; there are no upgrade paths. AMD has previously said AM4 will be supported "through 2020", which all but confirms Ryzen 6000 CPUs will mark the debut of the AM5 socket, and Intel's upcoming Rocket Lake CPUs will be the last hurrah for the LGA1200 socket.
It also occurs to me that I'm 46 hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition and don't really feel close to finishing it. Nice big meaty RPG, good to play in the winter months. Besides the longer this takes the longer I can put off playing a certain other game I bought at the time..
Stick with it for a while longer; there are no upgrade paths. AMD has previously said AM4 will be supported "through 2020", which all but confirms Ryzen 6000 CPUs will mark the debut of the AM5 socket, and Intel's upcoming Rocket Lake CPUs will be the last hurrah for the LGA1200 socket.
It also occurs to me that I'm 46 hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition and don't really feel close to finishing it. Nice big meaty RPG, good to play in the winter months. Besides the longer this takes the longer I can put off playing a certain other game I bought at the time..
I've been wanting to go back to Andromeda, and after finishing (or enduring) Season 4 of The Expanse, has made me want to return sooner than later. I was enjoying the game at the time, kinda.
Andromeda is pretty solid if you dont compare to other ME games. I´d give it a 8/10, after all the patchs. Some dialogues/scenes are hilarious, but the core gameplay is great.
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.
Surprise of the year
Atlus coming to PC (P4G)
Out of all the "its never gonna happen", Atlus coming back to PC was probably in the highest tier. And everything changed when the Sega Europe attacked and launched P4G on Steam AT A DECENT PRICE TOO WTF. I dont think nobody would have predicted this in December 2019. And if you did, you should have told us about the fucking ride that 2020 was gonna be you time travelling bastard.
Honorable mentions (I dont even need to comment on them cause they are all self explanatory):
Amazon launched a game and then unlaunched it
There was a Warcraft 3 game I forgot it launched even when I love Warcraft 3
Age of Empires 2 got a new expansion announced more than 20 years after its original launch
Sony launching Horizon on PC
Just for funsies : ballshit surprises that will happen in 2021:
Bloodborne coming to PC - Itsrealtome.gif
Gamepass on Steam- pls MS justdoit.gif
2021 is better than 2020 in general (not videogame related) - pls life
Uzzy unbans anime talk in PC OTs - cats and dogs living together mass hysteria
Nintendo launches a game on PC - because fuck it why not, cats and dogs living together mass hysteria
Andromeda is pretty solid if you dont compare to other ME games. I´d give it a 8/10, after all the patchs. Some dialogues/scenes are hilarious, but the core gameplay is great.
I'm assuming Andromeda spoils the first 3 games? I've tried jumping into them with mods, but kept encountering different issues (technical/performance, running making me nauseas, those fucking faces), so I decided to wait until the remaster. I'd really like to play something while I wait.
It also occurs to me that I'm 46 hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition and don't really feel close to finishing it. Nice big meaty RPG, good to play in the winter months. Besides the longer this takes the longer I can put off playing a certain other game I bought at the time..
I'm assuming Andromeda spoils the first 3 games? I've tried jumping into them with mods, but kept encountering different issues (technical/performance, running making me nauseas, those fucking faces), so I decided to wait until the remaster. I'd really like to play something while I wait.
Not really, since its a spin off more than a sequel. But knowing the ME story would help to understand whats going on. I would wait for the remaster and then play Andromeda.
Not really, since its a spin off more than a sequel. But knowing the ME story would help to understand whats going on. I would wait for the remaster and then play Andromeda.
Is Crying Sun something like FTL?
I mean, it's free and I should pick up just to increase the eternal backlog, but I'm not getting what the game is about.
So, wondering if Tetris Effect: Connected counts towards GOTY awards. Is it considered a brand new game or, seeing as it will be a free update to existing owners of Tetris Effect, is it a release from last year? Just wondering as I only played 3 eligible games last year (Hades, Tetris Effect Connected and Cyberpunk).
Also been playing this as my lunch break game:-
I am not a master Picross/Nonogram player so take that in to account with the following. As a basis I still think the Nintendo Picross games are the best around (and will take recommendations for others) followed closely by the Konami one.
Played about 70 puzzles in it so far and only just starting to hit what I would consider challenging puzzles. It doesn't help that the fading out of completed clues does it even if you can't mathematically prove it. It has an over reliance on giving you mirrored puzzles as well. So once you complete one side you know the other.
I have come across a couple of puzzles as well that just can't be solved mathematically. Now normally I hit these and you can also make deductive guesses based on what has been uncovered. But in here the ones I hit have too much open space to solve the puzzle (although it may just be outside of my problem solving abilities).
The only real challenge in the game comes from the randomised puzzles, these do not form any real picture. In fact usually when they are solved they end up looking like a QR code. However if you are only in it for the problem solving then these will give you something to think about.
All in all, if you are after proper brain teaser of an Picross game look else where, if you are interested in a little bit of a break then it is perfectly playable and has a decent price.
Is Crying Sun something like FTL?
I mean, it's free and I should pick up just to increase the eternal backlog, but I'm not getting what the game is about.
It's also a roguelike but it plays very differently from FTL. It's more story heavy and often feels like a board game. The space battles are RTS based where you command ships and fire you capital ship weapons while ground battles are fully automatically decided by the stats of your crew. Battles are only a small part of the game. There is exploration, decision making, building a crew, upgrading your ships etc. - it's pretty unique how everything comes together.
So, wondering if Tetris Effect: Connected counts towards GOTY awards. Is it considered a brand new game or, seeing as it will be a free update to existing owners of Tetris Effect, is it a release from last year? Just wondering as I only played 3 eligible games last year (Hades, Tetris Effect Connected and Cyberpunk).
Also been playing this as my lunch break game:-
I am not a master Picross/Nonogram player so take that in to account with the following. As a basis I still think the Nintendo Picross games are the best around (and will take recommendations for others) followed closely by the Konami one.
Played about 70 puzzles in it so far and only just starting to hit what I would consider challenging puzzles. It doesn't help that the fading out of completed clues does it even if you can't mathematically prove it. It has an over reliance on giving you mirrored puzzles as well. So once you complete one side you know the other.
I have come across a couple of puzzles as well that just can't be solved mathematically. Now normally I hit these and you can also make deductive guesses based on what has been uncovered. But in here the ones I hit have too much open space to solve the puzzle (although it may just be outside of my problem solving abilities).
The only real challenge in the game comes from the randomised puzzles, these do not form any real picture. In fact usually when they are solved they end up looking like a QR code. However if you are only in it for the problem solving then these will give you something to think about.
All in all, if you are after proper brain teaser of an Picross game look else where, if you are interested in a little bit of a break then it is perfectly playable and has a decent price.
Sgt-puzzles has a great random generator of nonograms under the name of Pattern if you're willing to tweak the difficulty.
Also checking every possibility is mathematical, it's just less interesting than extracting things out piece by piece... unless you mean something like a checkerboard pattern that has no unique solution at all.
Finished up Cyberpunk last night after about 40 hours. Thought it was okay. I liked the story well enough, the characters were pretty good and the city itself was cool. Gunplay was better than I expected.
The game itself was super janky and the dialogue choices seemed pretty meaningless which was super disappointing. I would give it maybe a 7/10.
All for fun of course, but if my no. 1 does not win I will none the less listen to "Lament of Orpheus" a whole day envisioning it is the no.1 spot calling out for Hades (Don't look it up if you intend to play the game!) .
Sgt-puzzles has a great random generator of nonograms under the name of Pattern if you're willing to tweak the difficulty.
Also checking every possibility is mathematical, it's just less interesting than extracting things out piece by piece... unless you mean something like a checkerboard pattern that has no unique solution at all.
Stick with it for a while longer; there are no upgrade paths. AMD has previously said AM4 will be supported "through 2020", which all but confirms Ryzen 6000 CPUs will mark the debut of the AM5 socket, and Intel's upcoming Rocket Lake CPUs will be the last hurrah for the LGA1200 socket.
If AM5 launches this year with 6000-series as planned, it could still be DDR4 (and thus, shortlived, unless it's both DDR4/5 capable).
Afaik, AMD still has DDR5 scheduled for 2022. (Could be server/HEDT only)
Maybe AMD will give final details tomorrow though.
But yeah, going DDR5 this year, isn't probably going to make a lot of sense, unless you don't care about costs.
Anyways for pure gaming use, you probably don't need to upgrade from 2700x just yet.
Well it looks like that my GPU is lost in shipping. There was no update since it left Frankfurt on December 10th and i just saw on local forum that guy got his package departed from Vienna today and that package was sent on December 21st (departed Frankfurt on January 9th). Only silverlining for me currently is that i didn't get Cp2077 from UK yet that was sent on December 8th but i should just accept that GPU is lost.
