Seven years is a good run. Not the longest generation of consoles but not the shortest either. I play a lot of games in my downtime — it’s how I relax. I’m forty-one years old and video games have been with me my entire life. We’ve grown up alongside each other. Today, I’m going to break down the best games of this past generation. This generation was the first in a long time that I didn’t also own an xbox console — I didn’t see the point. Sony dominates the first party conversation and Microsoft dropped the ball this time around. I will also not be commenting on Nintendo games, I have a Switch but Nintendo usually deserves their own post because they continue to march to their own beat.
We’ll begin with ten third party games (or in one specific case, series) that I found to be a cut above the rest. CONTROL delivered an incredibly complex sci-fi story wrapped around a third person action/superhero game. Fans of Twin Peaks and the X-Files would be well served by this one. Tons of performance issues but several patches and now new machines have helped this quite a bit. HELLBLADE: SENUA’S SACRIFICE gave us an extremely moving story about mental illness inside of a barbaric action game. Play this one with headphones on as the audio design is some of the best I’ve ever experienced. KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO TV EDITION was an action adventure title that played as a dreamy metaphor of life and death — of struggle and acceptance. Again, fans of Twin Peaks or David Lynch in general will eat this up. LIFE IS STRANGE has become one of my favorite things ever. Another adventure title with most of its emphasis on story, this entire series pulled every one of my heart strings. The story of two estranged best friends trying to reconnect while solving a series of murders and attempting to alter time to save their town, hooked me. We then got a prequel showing how the murders began and that was pretty great too. The official second season followed two Mexican-American brothers as they fled the police following an extraordinary event ending with the police killing their father. This sort of nuanced story is why I still play games. METAL GEAR SOLID 5 delivered in spades. Kojima’s final effort for Konami before going solo was a wonder to behold. A bit lighter on the typical bonkers Metal gear story but providing us the best gameplay in the series’ history. Metal Gear Solid is my favorite game ever and Kojima is my favorite developer ever. He’s the David Lynch of games — more on him in a bit. RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 is the best game Rockstar has ever made. It started slow, almost too slow for me but by the end, we were given a story that, had it been filmed for television, would’ve swept the Emmy Awards. It still blows my mind that nobody has tried to option this yet. RESIDENT EVIL 2 was remade last year and delivered the best Resident Evil game ever, save for RE4. The new version of the Tyrant is terrifying and awesome all the same. TITANFALL 2 is perhaps the best feeling first person shooter I’ve ever played. Buttery smooth and fluid. Great action and greater fights. WHAT REMAINS OF EDITH FINCH is another adventure title that focused most on story. This time we were given a tragic family history in beautifully rendered little vignettes — like reading a great collection of short stories. WOLFENSTEIN: THE NEW ORDER – The first level of this game sucks, almost to the point that you won’t play further. Mistake. Once BJ wakes up in that hospital, this game delivers insane action, great stealth and surprisingly beautiful writing. I swear, the people who wrote this one had just binged some Cormac McCarthy.
Onto my beloved Playstation.
Five games spoke to me enough to write about while not quite cracking my top ten of this generation. CONCRETE GENIE was whimsical and fun to play. It was full of color and sweet nature while telling a story about bullying and believing in yourself. DETROIT BECOME HUMAN is the best game Quantic Dream has created. A cautionary tale set in the near future that is as much about xenophobia, bigotry and general fucked up-ness in our current society as it is about androids in the future. GHOST OF TSUSHIMA is the most recent release and a stellar one. Full of extravagant art direction, a beautiful score and rock solid third person samurai/stealth gameplay, it delivered everything. UNCHARTED 4 was awesome and supremely polished but also a bit too long. It felt like the end and like nobody working on it really wanted it to actually end. UNTIL DAWN took the teen slasher flick and decided to out Quantic Dream the studio they were attempting to ape. This one arguably should have made my list.
Now, the official first party (and/or PlayStation exclusive) top ten.
10 – DAYS GONE – I was lucky to have waited a few weeks before firing this one up. I understand it was chock full of performance issues at launch but by the time I began my play through, those were largely fixed by several patches. Think Sons of Anarchy mixed with 28 Days Later while playing Syphon Filter. A bit rough around the edges but Sam Witwer gave a phenomenal performance and those horde fights were the stuff of legend.
9 – RATCHET & CLANK – A remake/reimagining of a beloved Playstation staple, this game delivered perfect gameplay, gorgeous visuals and a pretty hilarious story. Play it, you won’t regret it.
8 – UNCHARTED: LOST LEGACY – Where was Chloe in Uncharted 4? She’s right here, lol. This was released after Uncharted 4 and many assumed it was just dlc. No, this was a full fledged game albeit shorter in length than its predecessor. This shorter length really helped keep the narrative focused and thus ended up being the superior entry.
7 – SPIDER-MAN – I have loved Spider-Man since I was a little kid. This is the game I always dreamed I would one day be able to play. The swing mechanics are perfect and the story was pretty great too. (Miles Morales is, for sure, on my 2020 GOTY list)
6 – FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE – This one surprised me a bit. Next to Metal Gear, Final Fantasy is my favorite franchise in gaming. Hell, as a franchise, it is my favorite. Seven was never my favorite entry, I really liked it and from a technological standpoint, the leap from six to seven was mind blowing but it somehow kept me at arm’s length. The intense focus this remake shows and its ability to grow the story around Midgar so much provided me with the most joy I’ve felt from this franchise in a long time. I am and always will be a sucker for Final Fantasy.
5 – GOD OF WAR – This game uses a single camera shot through its entire runtime. That previous sentence doesn’t even make sense but it’s also not false. I still think about this aspect of the game and shake my head, laughing. Sony Santa Monica also made me care about Kratos for the first time in the history of this particular franchise. He was so much more nuanced and haggard this time around. The move to Norse mythology helped this franchise as well. A monumental creation.
4 – HORIZON: ZERO DAWN – Fun. Plain and simple. This has to be the most underrated game of this generation. It was overshadowed by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild upon release and that’s a shame. By the way, BOTW happens to be the most overrated game of this past generation. Horizon did nearly every single thing BOTW did and didn’t sacrifice any story to do it. Wonderful game.
3 – BLOODBORNE – I wasn’t a big Souls guy. Bloodborne intrigued me because of its Gothic horror setting. It reminded me of Castlevania. I played it. I hated it. I died a hundred times before even making it to the first boss. Then that boss, The Cleric Beast, whooped my ass another ten times. I hated the game more. Then I beat The Cleric Beast. I thought I understood the game. I fought the next boss, Father Gascoigne. He whopped my ass to a degree that sent me driving, in a rage, to GameStop. I walked in, no words, and threw the game on the counter. I then said, “fuck this game and I don’t care what you give me for it.” The kid smiled and began to laugh but then talked me into keeping the game. He gave me a few tips. I went home and fought Father Gascoigne again and he whooped my ass a few more times. Then I beat him. Then I beat Vicar Amelia at the last second with only a shred of health left. I dropped my controller and howled. I’ve never experienced exhilaration like that. I then proceeded to be the one whooping ass. Fucking Bloodborne, lol.
2 – THE LAST OF US PART 2 – I’ll keep this short because I’ve already written thousands of words on this work of art. It’s easily my 2020 game of the year and it’s one of the greatest ever achievements in this medium. The story is so deep that you can continue, to this day, to mine new and intimate things from it. I love this game with all my heart. It made me weep more than once. Some of you who are unfamiliar with The Last Of Us are not prepared in any way for what will be unleashed by the upcoming HBO series. This is the best of this medium, save for one.
1 – DEATH STRANDING – I told you there’d be more on Hideo Kojima. This is another one I’ve already written about at length. I had a good feeling I would really dig this game because I have always vibed with Kojima’s work. Our brains just sync. I still wasn’t expecting to love this game the way I did. It’s methodical and satisfying in ways I’ve rarely experienced. The performances are extraordinary. Higgs is one of my favorite ever villains. The musical cues are phenomenal. This is pure, unfiltered Kojima and I loved every second. In a time where our leaders are failing and looking to be as awful and divisive as ever, Kojima gives us art whose sole purpose is to bring people together. It is literally about reconnecting the world. The multiplayer aspects are revolutionary. It’s a game that continues to give me hope in this bleak world. It just may be my favorite game ever created.
That’s a wrap on the generation. I’ll probably return to poetry for the near future but at some point in either December or January I’ll begin my best of year lists. Until next week, love each other.
Open Mouth Insert Words 