Abby Russell is a comedian and former Content Producer with Giant Bomb. Like everyone else, she is currently riding out the pandemic and streaming regularly to twitch. You can also follow her on twitter, instagram, and YouTube.
Wow! I’m finally writing a top ten list, no longer as an employee of Giant Bomb! Somehow things feel so different and yet... exactly the fucking same. It’s probably because I get paid one million dollars a word, like usual. Wait. They AREN’T paying me to write my list this year?? Fuck!
I’m not saying anything new here, but this was such a strange year for so many reasons. And my gameplay choices were no exception. Spoiler alert! Pretty much everything listed below will have some form of multiplayer interaction in it. I think that is partially due to me not being particularly enthralled by the big-name, single player games that came out this year, and partially just because I think we all had to learn new ways to socialize.
The Last of Us II felt overly long and transparently manipulative in a way that kept me from feeling affected by the story. And Cyberpunk 2077 just never really hooked me, all jank and drama aside. Watch Dogs: Legion offered some exciting possibilities with inhabiting any character you see in the world (my first and favorite recruitment was a middle aged, lesbian hair dresser named, Susan. I mean HELLO!!). But ultimately the gameplay was fun, and not really doing much else new.
Below are my favorite games I played this year, but really, my favorite things I did this year was hang out with friends, old and new. And these games were simply the best way to do that.
10. Minecraft
Minecraft! In 2020! Who would have thought!
I played A TON of Minecraft when it first came out, and haven’t really touched it since. Playing it with the GB crew was such a nice and relaxing respite from everything else this year. Not only was it a great way to hang out with everyone, but I also found it a really soothing escape during a very tumultuous summer. I loved going out exploring and simply getting lost in the mines. The gameplay is just so satisfying. It’s simple and easy, but there are so many moments of surprise and creativity. This was one of the few stream games that I actively wanted to keep playing even when the cameras stopped rolling.
9. Demon's Souls
In a year where so many of us felt our lives were on hold, playing a game where I could actively feel myself improving and making progress was a godsend. My general gameplay loop with the Souls games is this:
- Discover a new area.
- Spend a few deaths learning it and feeling like I’m making major progress.
- Make it to the boss and die immediately.
- Get impatient and keep dying on my way back to the boss again and again.
- Lament that the game is not actually that hard it’s just tedious and unfairly punishing for the sake of being punishing.
- Lose a lot of souls in the process, probably.
- Finally beat the boss and declare it one of the best games ever, actually.
- Do it all over again in the next section.
It’s a fun time! And playing it on my Twitch streams has been a nice way to combat the frustration by being able to ask people if I am going the right way or if I’m going in circles and my efforts are for naught.
8. The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan / Little Hope
I have played many a scary game in my day, and I am so excited to see the genre start to embrace cooperative gameplay more fully. Until Dawn was such a spectacular unofficial couch coop game, and the Dark Pictures Anthology doesn’t just incorporate that cooperative storytelling into the game, it builds upon it and makes it better.
I played both Man of Medan on my twitch with my buddy, Casey Malone, and for Extra Life with Vinny. Having moments where each player is making choices that will affect the other's story is so simple and ingenious. I ran into a few bugs during my time with Little Hope, but I loved the overall experience so much that I cannot wait to see what the next installment brings.