The editors and contributors voted for their best game of the year. There have been more than ten games with at least one vote, but you can only win one. Our GOTY 2020 in Meristation.
The game of the year. The GOTY 2020. We all have one. We all choose the best game in those twelve months we’ve spent playing on consoles and PC. But there can only be one name left. In Meristation, as you know, we have been nominating and voting. After our traditional video in which we defend some of the best games of the year, we already have a verdict. A year to leave behind in many ways, although in the world of video games we have had great joys. You only need to see the nominees in The Game Awards to realize the great year that was before us. To which it was necessary to add many other names that were not in the final nomination or had not come out.
One year with, and we cite in order in Metacritic, games like Persona 5 Royal, The Last of Us Part II, Hades, Half-Life: Alyx, Ori and the Will of the Whisps, Demon’s Souls, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Crusader Kings III , Spelunky 2 or Animal Crossing: New Horizons can never be a bad year. And if you add games like Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Doom Eternal, Ghost of Tsushima, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Streets of Rage 4 or Cyberpunk 2077 (on PC, for now), you won’t even we count.
But we have not come here to review the great games of 2020, which we already talked about in our previous report, but to discover our GOTY 2020. And after thirty votes from editorial members and collaborators of the magazine, the name is one. It has been a very distributed year, with a total of 11 games voted by at least one member of the team: the second and third have taken 13.8% of the votes. The winner, 28.6%. The 2020 Game of the Year in Meristation is Half-Life: Alyx.
Game of the Year 2020: Half-Life Alyx
Half-Life: Alyx. Valve’s masterpiece and a turning point for virtual reality has become our game of 2020, picking up the baton from Resident Evil 2, winner in 2019, and proving that fans who were waiting for the return of the saga were right. true: whenever Half-Life returns, something happens in the industry.
It hasn’t been an easy choice, with rivals like The Last of Us 2 and Animal Crossing: New Horizons finishing second and third in Meristation voting. And behind them, other names like Hades or Demon’s Souls Remake, who have also garnered support. Great games that show us that 2020 has been an unforgettable year in the world of videogames, capable of accompanying us in a dark time that we hope to overcome as soon as possible. But .. Why Alyx? What has led a Virtual Reality game to receive more support than the rest?
Alyx is the answer to Gabe Newell’s words long ago, in which he said that if the saga returned, it would be different than expected. And it is, after discovering canceled projects of games and episodes of the series, Alyx has finally been the new one to see the light within the series. And Alyx is a revolution in virtual reality. It’s not just what, linked again to masterful level design and total and absolute immersion in a world that can terrify you without being a horror game. That it can distress you without being an adventure. It is also the how. And Alyx changes the rules of Virtual Reality.
It does so by offering superior interaction and physics, allowing us to feel inside the Half-Life universe like never before. It marks a new zenith and makes other proposals obsolete, from this year and earlier. And it makes you feel like you are in the future of the video game. No experience is like the one that Valve’s game gives us. An experience that is only possible in this format and under these conditions: Virtual Reality.
One of the peculiarities of the game of the year in this 2020 in Meristation has been precisely that those who have played and tried Alyx, have been clear about it. There has been no flight of votes or last minute changes. Alyx was played, it was chosen as the best of 2020. The ability to attract you and fully immerse yourself, never better said, in her world has been key.
The best thing about Alyx is her ability to surprise chapter by chapter. Every time we learn a new action, pick up a pistol for the first time, use gravitational gloves, or simply use a flashlight, we feel like we are doing something special and unique. Even throwing grenades is a totally different experience from what is known. The evolution of the adventure, how it adds and combines new mechanics with surgeon precision, its setting, Alyx’s charming naturalness and its ability to connect with us with great ease or the touch of humor, which is not lacking, are other virtues. . But not the only ones.
Because when Alyx has offered you everything, you have stopped feeling overwhelmed and have begun to dominate your surroundings, then take another turn of the screw. It pushes you to unique sensations and moments. And when it seems that it is already well, the final blow: the connection of the game with the saga. Its location and its context. And the game stays with you forever.
Half-Life Alyx is the most groundbreaking experience of 2020, and in Meristation, it is the Game of the Year. A masterpiece.
