There's probably going to be a lot of talking and discussion around The Game of The Year during the upcoming weeks and, as this hasn't been a normal year for most, I was wondering which game or games have taken some weight off your back or helped you in any way during this time. Feel free to expand and specify on why and how, and also to let me know if I'm bringing up a topic which has already been discussed :P

I'll begin by saying that this year I had the chance to play Death Stranding and for me it was a very unique and touching experience. Despite the convoluted plot, I was surprised to find myself weeping up a bit in the end, and in a way, it was an excuse as good as any to let go for a moment and reconquer a certain sense of perspective. In these times of isolation and distancing, it certainly was very nice to rediscover in videogames and also in general I guess, a heartfelt feeling of hope. So yeah, a Kojima game, who would have thought.

My highlights of the year so far (out of 57 games beaten):
Micro Machines (MD, 1993) - 7.5 sp/8 mp
Ganbare Goemon 2: Kiteretsu Shougun Magginesu/Go for it! Goemon 2 (SNES, 1993) - 8 (1p, no difficulty options)
Sonic Blast Man II (SNES, 1994) - 7 or 7.5? (normal, 1p)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (PC, 2000) - 7.5 (beat it as allies, beat almost half the soviet campaign, normal)
Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (PC, 2016) - 7.5 (normal, 98% - all but two MP upgrades)
Metroid Prime (GC, 2002) - 7.5 (normal/default, v1.02, about 72% completion)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (NDS) - 7? (Normal); possibly 7.5 on hard and w/ the improvement hack
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition (PC) - 7.5 (Normal, 85-ish %)
D/Generation (AMI) - 7.5
Star Control II (PC, 1992/3DO, 1993)(Ur-Quan Masters remaster, 2011) - 7.5
Ratchet & Clank (PS2, 2002) - 7.5
Spider-Man 2 (PS2, 2004) - 7.5
Shaman King: Master of Spirits (GBA, 2004) - 7.5
System Shock 2 (PC, 1999) - 8 (normal, navy)

Mini reviews:
https://minirevver.weebly.com/

Game I most enjoyed this year was A legionary's life. Amazing what can be done with an almost entirely text-based game.
Also played through Dark Sun: Shattered lands and Arcanum, enjoyed both of them. Replayed Deus Ex, was also fun. I also played through Dragon age: Origins, but that was a bit of a mixed experience, lot of missed potential here imo.

I think the most fun this year I had with Supraland, an original combo of first person puzzler, platformer and Zelda-like exploration game which took me by surprise and made me feel totally engaged and enthusiastic like I rarely feel these days with videogames. For the quick (or in the end longer because addictive) action fixes I really enjoyed AMID EVIL, Hedon, and Pirate DOOM (mod).

I also liked playing through the Dark Quest 2 campaign and custom levels, as well as a few community modules for Neverwinter Nights, most notably Madness and Magic (played with NWN EE), Nahende Finsternis + Unterwegs in Sachen Liebe (played with NWN 1.69, German only), The Wizard's Apprentice II: The Talisman and the Eye (NWN2). I teamed up with others to play through the Were Here series, Tick-Tock: A Tale for Two, and Divinity: Original Sin 2 in Co-Op mode, that was nice particularly for the company (and D:OS 2 also for the tactical combat).

Apart form that, I rediscovered my love for Hand of Fate, and nearly completed it this time, except for the last boss which I found too tedious to try and tackle. And aside from Supraland, the greatest surprise to me was SLUDGE LIFE, which I thought would turn out to be cheap trash, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it.

This year I was lucky to play many great games here.

3. Silent Hill 4: The Hole – This was my first survival horror. I was very surprised by great atmosphere and fantastic sound system (this game shows how stereo should sounds like).

2. Blade Runner – After reading about it in December 1997 in computer magazine (SCORE number 48), I played it for the first time, but two times this years and seen three different endings. Graphics full of neon lights makes still deep impression.

1. The Witcher 3 – From all Witchers, this is first game which I can recommend from my heart. Base game is the best, but Blood and Wine is also great. This game made me read all books. I like possible choices, impact later in game (not in 5 minutes after decision), freedom of movement (I could not believed, that in W2 was not possible jump…), sounds (street bands of musicians), …

I can recommend all three games to anyone who did not play them yet.

There is only 1 game this year that really blew my mind and that would be Darkest Dungeon. I'm not a fan of turn based games but I really enjoyed it. It's stressful and difficult but really rewarding. I still could not believe that I finished it without any guides and walkthroughs. I played on the darkest difficulty, which I later found was the setting the developers intended the game to be played, with all DLCs enabled. Highly recommend it for those who want a challenging game.

I've looked into Legionary's life and it looks pretty interesting, did you get something else out of it besides entertainment value? Many reviews here on gog mention the writing and the historical accuracy.

Every time someone mentions enjoying Arcanum my heart beats joyfully. Despite its flaws, that game is really something else, I played at a relatively young age and for me Arcanum's music is still the epitome of nostalgia. Thanks for the lengthy comment Leroux. I also find that these days it's a bit difficult to feel genuine enthusiasm whilst playing, sometimes even pushing through a game has more to do with the expectation of something exceptional to come rather than with the game being exceptional on its own. Right now I can only recall "Sayonara Wild Hearts" as the only game I've played recently which nailed me down to my chair until I finished it.

On that note, I've written down the games you mentioned and I didn't know about ('Tick-Tock: A Tale for Two', 'Sludge Life' (reminds me of Jazzpunk a lot), and Supraland), hopefully in the future I'll get to try them out and share a bit of your enthusiasm. That's for sure another way in which games can help us out from time to time. I also read about the Blade Runner game on a computer magazine when I was a kid! Mine came with a CD demo which I couldn't install because our computer was less powerful than a calculator. I must have read that article dozens of times. I'm glad you brought it up. How did you find going back to the graphics and mechanics of the adventure games of old? Genocide2099, my intention with the post was to talk about games which were able to take some weight out of our backs, not add to it! Or maybe Darkest Dungeon is like ultra-running and there's a point after which all the suffering turns into blissful nirvana?

I played a few chapters of Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights (nonEE) with my kids. That was a wonderful experience. One hated it. And another despised it. And another just liked to spend time with Dad. That was really really in the year. Now everyone is a bit older and asking to play again. So I got them all done cheap laptops from black Friday walmart ($150 Pentium gold, 4gb ram, 128 Gb ssd) for Christmas and we're going to get nerdy!

Bjgamer sent me Warlords Battlecry 2 in memory of Brandon. It was rather touching to experience someone else's loves in that way. I'll be playing that with my kids, too. I'm completely stick on chapter 3 mission 2 (light side) right now. I've played it probably two dozen times and keep losing. I'm trying to learn to be better at the game so I can continue it.

Star Wars Squadrons was special. My brother and I always wants to play TIE Fighter together when we were kids. We got a very tiny shot at it when XWvTF came out, but I recall one of us but having hardware that really supported it, so it was terrible. Since then, we've played Ace Combat and lots of IL2. And then 2 years ago, he went to prison for something he didn't do and was going to be there for you to 40 years. I was crushed, as you can imagine everyone else was. The short of it is that the legal system can get you even when you do everything right. But thankfully, the Supreme Court heard his case and he was released this year. And the first thing we did was load squadrons and play for hours.

Company if Heroes and Heroes of the Storm are always big for me every year.

Tony Stewart's Racing has been the best dirt track game I've ever played.

And lastly, Drakensang. I'm loving getting back into it. Did those who know me, I love terrible and good games. I find the ingredients I need to enjoy a game are often love, uniqueness, and imagination. And Drakensang had those. It's not as put together as a AAA RPG, but I find it you put a game together too well, it starts to feel wrong. Anyway, I love this game

I usually play old games (from 90'), so it was not a shock for me. Personally I consider graphics as only part which could be considered old, especially people, but still it has its magic. This game is about atmosphere supported by look, music and sound and also about possibilities, different walkthroughs (each game is different, then previous one) and surprise (at least for first playthrough). In my opinion it is significantly better than original movie, not to mention last movie...

Of games I actually bought & Played this year: Hypnospace Outlaw was easily a highlight among the 500+ games I obtained. (Thanks, Itch.io!)

Well, this pandemic made me get into GOG and rediscover and discover some great games, so here are them:

- Battlezone 98 Redux and TRO
- Quake 4 (and False Dawn)
- Far Cry and Far Cry 2 (a masterpiece)
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein
- F.E.A.R. and F.E.A.R. 2
- XIII (the original, not the remake)
- NOLF Series
- One of the Sherlock Holmes games, don't remember which one (the others are in my playlist...)
- Vangers: One for the Road (yay!)

I'm currently playing:
- Deus Ex
- Tron 2.0
- Brothers in Arms: The road to Hill 30
and trying to play Assassin's Creed (the original one), but I'm too confused by the controls. We'll see.

I did play Celeste this year, along with a zero cost indie RPG called Rxcovery. Also, I've started playing Ikenfell (it won't run on my desktop, but will on my low-spec laptop).

Edit: Also, shortly after the lockdown started, I played a bit of Morrowind. Note that the game's main plot does involve contagious disease, so it might not be that much of an escape from the current reality.

You got the point of the post like no other Tallima, thanks for taking the time to write down what videogames meant for you and how did they help you and your family this year.

It was very nice to read how you're bringing your kids together around certain games. I can imagine roleplaying in Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights in good company is miles better than doing it alone. Well, I guess that could be said about almost anything really, but uniting people around a shared experience (especially in times of isolation) is something which games can excel at, and that's kinda great. On that note, the story about your brother made me consider what do I have in common with my siblings, not videogames unfortunately, but reading about how you got to play Squadrons together was very heartwarming and sounds like tons of fun.

Your comment reminded me of the apex of terrible games, so to conclude I'll suggest a game which might ruin your life, 'Bushido Blade', A PSX game that's so bad that it might even be considered abandonware at this point, although after looking it up, it turns out some deranged individuals organized a tournament around it on 2018. And this was supposed to be about videogames helping people... Well, there goes the point of this thread, killed by no other than Bushido Blade, it makes sense.

Thanks for reading through my broken autocorrect. :) I'll have to try Bushido Blade. Terrible games are awesome.

My higlights of this year, or the games I have played the most. In no particular order:

Creeper World 4
Mindustry
Skyrim: Special Edition (heavily modded)
Astroneer
Amid Evil
Shapez.io
WoW: Classic
Satisfactory
Factorio
Spyro: Reignited trillogy
No man's sky
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE

edit - ohhh, and Journey to the Savage Planet. Really liked that one, very fun