One of my goals for 2020 is to finish more games as I often start and stop or play a select few endlessly. This post contains the first 10 I’ve finished so far.

#1 Little Nightmares

Little Nightmares puts you in the role of a tiny child in a hostile world full of beings intent on turning you into their next meal. From your first barefooted steps the world feels cold and uncaring, and it isn’t long before the game’s atmosphere evolves into something grotesque in the best way.

While there isn’t any dialogue or text, the visual storytelling is spot on. Animations and character designs do a ton of work here, from the way you respawn curled up in corners to the chaos that ensues when the world’s inhabitants fall all over themselves and crawl across the floor to eat you. The environments in particular have a clear progression as you advance, from prison-like stages of the early game to kitchens and twisted restaurants later on, all of it wrapped in the sense that you’re inside the bowels of some giant industrial monstrosity.

The fact that you’re so small and helpless does a lot to set the tone, and there’s plenty of clever design here to remind you of just how much of a hinderance it can be to be too short to even reach a door handle.

The main story is a bit on the short side, but I still have some dlc I’ll be going back to, and I’m thrilled that a sequel is already slated for release sometime this year.

#2 Possessions

I recently got a free trial of Apple Arcade and so have been trying some of the mobile titles there. Thus, the second game I’ve finished this year is Possessions. The concept is simple enough. You rotate your view of various rooms to change the perspective and place displaced items where they belong in the space. At first it seemed like there wasn’t much to hold my interest, but as the items grew in complexity, sometimes requiring assembling objects before placing them or placing objects in a specific sequence, the puzzles became fairly enjoyable.

There’s also a minimalistic story told about the family inhabiting the rooms, but while I enjoyed the short story sequences before and after some levels, I felt there needed to be a bit more done on this front. Some general themes are clear, but other portions could have used some unpacking.

Overall, a cool little game.

#3 Resident Evil 7

A little over a week ago I decided to buy Playstation VR after having tried an Occulus Quest over the holidays. It came bundled with a few titles, RE7 among them. It’s my third game of the year and also the first VR titled I’ve ever finished.

I hear many people say VR causes them motion sickness, but I’ve been lucky enough not to have that problem. In fact I was able to turn off all of the motion sickness safeguards like click turning, tunnel vision, and slower movement without getting sick in the slightest and played the entire game with a headset on from start to finish.

The short of it is that this was one of the most amazing gaming experiences I’ve had in my life.

Despite downgraded textures, I truly felt as though I was inhabiting the Baker house. Without the boarders of the TV screen, there’s nowhere else to look when things get tense, and forcing yourself to walk down a dark staircase into a basement while the sounds of the house pipe into your headphones is an experience unlike any other. More than a few times the game had me staring at a door or a hallway as I worked up the nerve to continue. It’s probably the scariest game I’ve ever played, though I think the VR adds a lot on that front as the immersion is just so much higher. VR is truly amazing, and I can’t wait to see what the PS5 hardware does with it.

VR amazingness aside, the game itself is a masterpiece. It’s like if someone took the formula of the early RE titles and mixed it with the DNA of the best horror films ever made. The influences of the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Thing, Alien, Saw, and others are apparent throughout, woven into a thrilling tale of survival with all of the puzzle solving and ammo scrounging that helps give Resident Evil its teeth.

I could easily write an entire essay on the game (maybe I’ll get my website updated and do just that) but I’ll stop it here for now. If you’re a horror fan, play it. If you’re a horror fan who can afford a VR headset and won’t get sick, play it in VR.

#4 Tetris Effect

I never thought I’d want to play through a campaign mode of Tetris, but it turns out that stacking blocks in VR can be pretty fun. I wouldn’t say Tetris Effect is a reason to buy VR, but I had a fun time with it, and the trippy visuals and music make it a unique experience. I particularly liked when the music itself was made up of sounds that triggered when I turned or dropped blocks, somehow managing to sound like actual music despite being tied to my actions.

This is probably the first time I’ve finished four games in a month since I was a kid, and it’s a good feeling. Let’s see if I can keep things rolling next month.

#5 Transference

Another PSVR game, this one sort of an experimental thriller. Honestly, based on the trailer I thought I’d like this one more than I did. The story of a family suffering under an abusive and controlling father is enhanced by the environment, and to an extent by VR, with repeating stairwells that always lead you to the same doors or rooms that change at the flick of a light switch, but it’s never really enough. The story, while dealing with intense subject matter, doesn’t ever go anywhere other than where it suggests it might in the first ten minutes or so, leaving me grateful that the experience was only a couple of hours. It was an experience, just nothing earth shattering.

#6 God of War (2018)

I actually finished this over the weekend but didn’t have a chance to post. Keeping it brief, I loved the characters, story, and set pieces. The development of the relationship between Kratos and his son is something I won’t soon forgot, and I’ll certainly play any sequel that comes out in the future. However, this type of action game doesn’t excite me like it does some people , so I don’t think I got as much out of it as other people I’ve spoken with. I enjoyed my time with it and would recommend it to just about anyone, but I will say that I didn’t bother with the side content and probably won’t go back to it.

#7 Abzû

Gorgeous game with some cool sequences and visual storytelling. I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much as Journey, but it was definitely two hours well spent.

#8 Banner Saga

Played through this one in a single (rather long) sitting. I wasn’t prepared for just how many boxes it checked for me. Great story, characters, animations, tactical gameplay, and narrative choices.

The game does a nice job with the choices it asks you to make, and I think that’s at least in part because of the resource management involved in keeping your caravan alive. Most choice based games feel like much of what you get is narrative flavor and character development punctuated by the occasional choice with a big impact. Banner Saga has that, but the threat of something like losing supplies or soldiers makes even smaller choices feel like they have much more weight. I’m sure this turns some people off, but as someone who likes tension in a game, it worked for me.

I did find myself wondering at the start how the game would have felt with a permadeath system like XCOM’s, but as I progressed I actually liked that much of the tension there had been moved to the narrative. It’s a different take, having narrative choices in a strategy game kill off your favorite character rather than a mistake in combat, but I think it really worked here.

And those animations. Man, they’re something to look at.

Looking forward to diving into the next installment soon, maybe after I finish a longer title I’ve been chipping away at.

#9 The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan

The first in an anthology of choice based horror games from the studio behind Until Dawn (which I never finished but now need to revisit), The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan was a blast. Cinematic, suspenseful, campy, it was a fun experience walking that line between games and film.

My girlfriend and I played through this one together, passing the controller back and forth whenever the story took a break and we were met by our host in the library to discuss the current state of our bloody tale (I’m hoping they keep him throughout the anthology as I love the framing). It was fun to make choices, speculate on the mystery unfolding, and express our shared regrets when things went sideways.

At one point, after my girlfriend had just managed to get one of our remaining characters cut in two, she looks at me and says, “don’t say anything! You already killed two!”

Fun times and looking forward to the next installment this summer.

#10 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered

Well, I’m in the double digits for games completed this year. Been a long time since I could say that.

I didn’t even know until a few days ago that this remaster was being released (and early on PS4 to boot) but I knew I had to give it a go. It’s been 11 years and the game is still a masterpiece and my favorite shooter ever made. I don’t think there’s a single mission included here that I don’t like. There’s something about fighting a fictional WWIII on US soil and the set pieces included that sets the experience apart from other titles in the franchise. Great writing, mission design, voice acting, music, mechanics, pacing, it’s got everything in one highly polished package. Glad they did this one justice.