In addition to the jointly selected Top 25 of 2020, Gamer.nl editors will tell individually in this section about the games that have made the most impression on them this year. Because despite the corona crisis, those games ‘just’ kept coming out. Today: Ron Vorstermans with Hades.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not averse to exaggeration. No one is less averse to exaggeration than I am. But when I say that a game does things that other games don’t, I can say that because I play so many different games. I can say Game Y is the best in X – of that month, of that year, maybe ever. That is the advantage of experience in this profession. You can compare titles well.
At least sometimes. Not always. Sometimes it just makes you a pedantic dick.
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Do what film journalists do
At the beginning of this year, I called Ori and the Will of the Wisps “already the smoothest game of the year.” Mediocre take. Yes, that triple jump is source material for a three-part novel series. How smoothly and gracefully do you catapult through fairytale environments? Study food for every game designer. Ori’s magic trickles down into much more than just style. But even then my opinion was premature.
Where does that need come from to want to emphasize which game is the best in what? As reviewers, aren’t we just throwing oil on one of two fires, on hype or hate? Just doesn’t seem right sometimes good enough Lake.
The whole thing about ‘the best game of the moment’ is sincere, but also the residue of an immature industry. An industry that once struggled with quantity. Games have simply become very good, and that’s more fact than opinion. The days when the console market was inundated with mediocrity are long gone. Games are good and the bar for developers is sky high. That should come as no surprise.
In fact, I can imagine that you as a reader will get tired of all the games that critics say you still have to play. Especially in the case of roguelikes and roguelites. They scare. Because they are difficult, because there are so many already, because they all look the same on screenshots. There are so many already rogues that would be the best game of the year. It is to make you crazy.
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Adult
So I get the skepticism. That’s why after Ori I made an appointment with myself. From now on, a game is only ‘the best’ if it has had the time to mature. I wouldn’t advance the content of history books anymore. I started doing what film journalists have been doing for decades. Be cautious. Distinguish wheat from chaff. That has been ‘good enough’ for a film review for years. Game critics can learn in this area from the experienced film critic.
And then Hades came out.
It was mid-September, I gave the game a 10 and called it the smoothest game of the year. Here we go again, I thought. How seriously can game reviews be taken when they are as opportunistic as the average football report? I don’t know the answer, but the irony of my Hades review had not escaped me.
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The studio only worked on the best concept in game development: taking your time. Enough time to make a game that is more than just ‘finished’.
But Hades is an exception to my brand new Ori rule. because Hades is also an exception to the traditional ideas of game development.
Hades does not have to mature in history books. Hades has had plenty of time to mature. Not in the history books, but in the hands of Supergiant Games. The developer did not crunch or premature marketing. The studio only worked on the best concept in game development: taking your time. Enough time to make a game that is more than just ‘finished’. It delivers a game of the outside category, and a review that had to mention that already in September.
Hades shows how ideally things should go, and is reaping the benefits in almost every way. Developers happy, players happy: everyone is happy with Hades. How beautiful is that? A lot is still going wrong in the game industry (crunch, marketing, Cyberpunk 2077), but things are now also much better. The game industry even showed how mature she has become with a game like Hades during a pandemic. Sometimes something to think about.
Don’t get too distracted by the angry reactions about ‘politics in games’, the anger over console shortages, the ignorance about game development. That too is the residue of an immature industry.
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