These five were a rich seam – I was really on a roll of playing one good game after another in September and October. I’m talking Silent Hill, one of my favorite games, period. A Plague Tale, a game with the best rat-based technology yet designed. Sayonara Wild Hearts, a rhythm game rail shooter queer heartbreak recovery fairytale. Spelunky, one of my favorite roguelikes and a game that now has a series that I won’t stop playing. And my GOTY for 2020, Paradise Killer. I knew that last one was going on my list when I played it, but the more time and other games that go by, the more I’m sure of its quality. What a damn good bunch of games. No wonder a bunch of full length features and articles came out of this list!
Silent Hill
Replaying Silent Hill in 2020, it blows me away like it did 20 years ago. The difference is that this time, I find it less oppressively atmospheric and could only really approach it with appreciation. But with its tank movement, adventure game puzzle logic, potential instant kills, and rough graphics, I doubt that I could recommend this 20 year-old game to most first time players at this point. Unless, of course, they were already into videogame horror and were up for a retro experience. If you’re in that frame of mind, this is a masterpiece that was ahead of its time.
The finale, which blends together the environments of the game in the space-warping Nowhere, is a showstopper that demonstrates how much videogames as a medium can bring to horror as a genre. It’s almost unbelievable that the comparatively tiny (by today’s standards) Team Silent could accomplish this in 1999. Yamaoka’s soundtrack? Unreal. The transitions between fog world and otherworld? Iconic.
For more detail, I wrote one of my favorite pieces of 2020 about Silent Hill over at Gamers With Glasses. Check it out if you want to read more of my thoughts on how the game fucks with space and spatial expectations, and how much more important the space of Silent Hill is than its characters.
A Plague Tale: Innocence
The rats carry this game. It has an excellent first half, full of fear and unfolding horror. It doesn’t shy away from emphasizing how terrible it would be for protagonists to fall into a world of plague, pestilence, and death. While gory, it’s gorgeous, with far better textures and lighting than many games made by larger studios. But the second half falters by relying on combat that, despite a supernatural element, never gets much better. The characterization suffers for it, as characters transform from being shocked by death to casually mowing down inquisitors. This is not a great direction to take their arc, as Amelia in particular struggles so much with the first times she uses her sling on a human. By the time she and Hugo are headshotting guards and ordering swarms of rats to devour them without batting an eye, something more than innocence has been lost.
Ah, well. It’s still an innovative game with an interesting setting, decent character interactions and dynamics, and absolutely fantastic rat swarming technology.
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Beautiful, accessible, and with great care given to the adaptation of its many, many influences. My personal favorite of those adaptations comes late, when some Rez-like rail shooter mechanics really kick in. It was the only area for which I scored a Gold score the first time out. That brings me to the difficulty – SWH gets it just right. It’s easy to dodge obstacles and make it through, but risky and difficult to go for a big score. Thematically, I appreciate how the difficulty works, as well: to do well, the player needs to be brave and commit. The plot is a sweet fairy tale for younger adults, but I expect it resonates across age groups. The art style and character designs, coupled with the OST, will ensure that I go back for another few more plays now and again.
Spelunky
Few games have managed to capture and keep my attention like Spelunky. I would say that it is simple to learn and hard to master, but it is deceptively complex and somewhat difficult to learn. It took me a long time to feel like I genuinely knew how to play in an intentional way, rather than being pushed along by the game’s procedural generation. The coherence of Spelunky kept me going, together with its smooth controls, exploration, and variety of possible runs. It could use fewer one-shot deaths, and I would prefer it if the sequel had moved further on from the trappings of colonial exploration, but nothing is perfect.
I also wrote more about Spelunky and its sequel over at Gamers With Glasses. That’s a piece with more focus on Spelunky 2, but I can’t talk about that game without also talking about this one.
Paradise Killer
The setting, world building, character, music, and art direction really come together in Paradise Killer. While the game doesn’t provide a sense of urgency, it’s still arresting. It’s also a fun ride, with most dialogue and item descriptions providing unfolding details. Those details are rarely boring, unless you’re the kind of person who isn’t fascinated by cosmic beings, eternal demigods, and overlapping conspiracies. All that and it plays like the best voyeuristic parts of an immersive sim, allowing the player to dig into every last locked corner of its map. Sure, there are flaws – once I had narrowed down most of the case files, doing laps around the island to close up loose ends and max out each character let a bit of boredom creep in. But that was all purely optional – it would have easily been possible to settle the trial in the way that I chose even without going for completion. Altogether, even with some minor issues, Paradise Killer is one of the best games of 2020. Hell, it’s the best game of 2020.
It’s also a game that I can’t stop writing or making media about, apparently. My review of Paradise Killer is here, and here’s a video of an interview that I did (together with colleague Christian Haines) with the devs. And I’m not done – I’m currently writing more about it for Unwinnable’s GOTYs.
Previously on the blitz: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Optional Objectives is a contributing editor for Gamers With Glasses. He also writes for a bunch of other online publications and zines, including Unwinnable, Heterotopias, First Person Scholar, Clickbliss, and Haywire Magazine. You can find more on twitter, both @opobjectives and @donaever.
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