33% of this horrific gawdawful year is over. What is your game of the year so far?

DOOM Eternal.

I literally had white knuckles and elevated heart rate through several demon encounters. I giggled like a child every time I did a glory kill (especially with the DOOM blade; I wish there were glory kills in Wolfenstein because brutalizing Nazis would be.... very nice). It even has a decent story, I love how implacable and unyielding the Slayer is (he’s a violent uncompromising force of nature and he won’t be curtailed) and his interactions with regular humans are hilarious.

Mick Gordon outdid himself with the soundtrack (unfortunate that he couldn’t meet contractually obligated deadlines for the OST). DE is an audio/video tour de force, the HDR is fantastic and this game begs to be played in a high end home theater. I can’t wait to play it with RTX and maybe Dolby Atmos on the gen 9 consoles.

The only game I see dethroning DE is Cyberpunk but it has a tall hill to climb. Oh and I can’t wait for he remaining 67% of 2020 to be over. Terrible time for everyone all around.

animal crossing.

Hmm, probably Bare Knuckle/ Streets of Rage 4 but I'm not convinced it will remain that way, lack of a dash and roll really get on my nerves, bosses are so-so. Lack of certain characters also seems like a miss opportunity. It's a very good revive on a old dead franchise but we've had better Beat em' Ups.

2020 has been alright but a lot to be desired at the same time (as mentioned above). While I've liked quite a few games and would call them very good, they are all flawed in noticeable ways, far from being the best in the genres. While I haven't played D00M: Eternal I haven't seen or read any reason to think I would find it an improvement over 2016 D00M, which itself was bested by Dusk.

-

I have a strong feeling Baldur's Gate III will be my pick when this year is over.

Larian has a great track record, Divinity: Original Sin II is an amazing achievement. More so when considering it was a kickstarter with a narrow budget compared to many its competition. Baldur's Gate III is also being funded by one of the biggest entertainment industries on the planet. So it's extreme talent with a generous budget. Seems like a win-win. Only hesitant I've seen for this game came retroactively from nostalgic fans that hate change. Which always happens when a retro IP is revived.

*Cyber Punk much like the The Last of Us: Part II has fans similar to RockStar. Fans praise these studios way beyond realistic measure, way past what these products even offer. I think they'll be good for presentation and 'acting' but average in every other measure. Personally found TW3 an overall package jack of all trades but master of none (outside the stuff mentioned above). For a sandbox RPG, very good. But the actual gameplay was pretty underwhelming.

Not one hundred percent confident CDProject Red will suddenly change strengths for Cyber Punk, they're trying to be the new Deus Ex and that's a big hill to climb. But I think they'll bring to the table what they did for The Witcher III, which is not my bag personally.

Two Point Hospital. Excellent homage to Theme Hospital. A detailed, deep, and fun sim. Rare these days.

Of the 2020 releases, I've only played RE3. Twas meh. Will definitely get Streets of Rage 4 later, as I liked the second game. (Never played 1 or 3.) Will get Doom Eternal when it has a huge discount. Animal Crossing maybe later. Never played one.

Animal Crossing.

I built an Egyptian/gothic/seaside...town.

This game is worth buying.

I'm eager for the Eternal update and hopefully some DLC in the very near future.

Probably my second favorite game this year, but while a great game its flaws are crippling. Jumping to a friends island is a huge chore, daily use breakable items don't seem to have a purpose outside wasting your time. And on that note, conversations that force you to reread just after a single purchase.

I know the point in Animal Crossing is to go slow and soak in the vibes but it gets very condescending at times. Especially when one just wants to go on for ten minutes and collect fossils.

Ori and the will of the wisp wins by default.

Persona 5 Royal

Easily FFVIIR, then Animal Crossing. Although TLoU2 will likely win in a landslide when it's all said and done.

Does that really count?

Because if it does, then i'd say it's a split between Halo 2 and Doom 64 ;)

Probably FF7R so far.

I haven't got around to playing it yet, but I'm sure it'd be my GOTY so far too.

As for others, I enjoyed games like To The Moon on Switch & Animal Crossing too. But no way they'll be my GOTY.

Animal Crossing New Horizons. This game is a blast. I haven’t really tried much else that has come out this year.

Welp, this topic just made me realize that I haven't played a single new game all year