Kate Robinson, Dashiell Wood and Ferdous Joy's Games of 2020 (also a message from the editors) | Winter Spectacular 2020
Hey, Ollie here.
It’s strange to say that 2020 has been a great year in any sense, most of it felt like a struggle at the best of times and more like the end of a losing battle the rest. But it has really been a great year for startmenu. We’ve only been around since April 2019, and I’ve only been co-editing for 16 months now but in that time we’ve cultivated a truly fantastic community. I’m not tooting my own horn here, mainly because I’m one of the smallest of parts of the whole thing, startmenu is a collection of people both established and soon to be established in the games industry helping each other, raising each other up and self-improving all along the way. Whether it be helping someone find their editorial voice, discover a new work opportunity, make connections with everyone from PR to freelancers or just shit posting and sharing pictures of wooloo, we’re here for each other, we support each other.
So with that in mind, I was very bold about a month and a half ago and asked everyone that I could think of if they’d be up for contributing to our Winter Spectacular. You’ve already seen a lot of guest writers that I’m just delighted to be able to share this platform with throughout the month, but I’d be lying if I didn’t let you know that this was set up for startmenu writers to be able to verbalise their own thoughts on some of the games that impacted them most this year.
But that being said it has been a hard year, and winter is a tough and busy time. So we have decided that instead of people putting themselves under unddue pressure to get a long top ten out, instead, we were going to do some group pieces where folk get to talk a little about the games that impacted them a lot. This is three of those pieces from three very talented and lovely people, from three people I’m proud are on this website and proud are my firends.
Dash Wood
Half-Life: Alyx
Coming free with the purchase of an Index headset, Half-Life: Alyx will be many gamer’s first foray into virtual reality and is also the much-anticipated return of Valve’s over-a-decade dormant Half-Life franchise. Picking up five years before the events of 2004’s Half-Life 2, players get to once more venture into the post-apocalyptic world of City 17 through the fresh new eyes (and hands) of a younger Alyx Vance, Gordon’s AI companion from the previous games. Your journey begins with Alyx escaping from the clutches of the Combine, a totalitarian alien empire occupying the Earth, before venturing into the Quarantine Zone of City 17 in an effort to find and rescue her captured father.
City-17 isn’t the friendliest of places.
Alongside several returning characters, the series’ famous gravity gun makes a triumphant reappearance, albeit now in the form of the all-new wrist-mounted ‘gravity gloves’. These allow the user to pull objects from the environment towards them with a simple flick. Using them to suck supplies towards you as you enter a room feels impressively intuitive and excellent use of haptic feedback each time an item enters your hand makes packing up objects seem almost scarily real. It is also an awful lot of fun to be able to pull anything into your hands at a whim and I found myself gesturing at objects in the real world after extended play sessions and feeling almost a little disappointed when they didn’t come hurtling towards me. The gloves also provide useful information regarding your current health status and your weapon’s ammunition count through little LCD screens which come attached to them which is a nice little way to stop otherwise intrusive UI elements from breaking immersion.
NOPE. OUTTA HERE.
From the decrepit buildings of City 17 to the undead infested metro lines lurking beneath it, each environment you explore is breathtakingly beautiful. Being able to pick up and closely examine any object you find creates a rich world which manages to be one of the first gaming locales that truly feels alive. With a huge number of little easter eggs and nods to other elements of the Half-Life universe, I found myself always eager to explore. On top of this, there are plenty of hidden goodies like ammunition and health kits scattered which reward a careful examination of your environment. Keeping an eye on the world around you is also important as you never know when the next firefight will send you hurtling behind nearby objects for cover.
The gunplay itself is exceptional, with the handheld Index Controllers giving you the ability to interact with your weapons in ways which are simply not possible with a traditional controller. For example, rather than just tapping a key to reload, you must manually insert the ammunition from your backpack and make sure to cock your weapon before it’s ready to fire. Although all this sounds a little tiresome on paper; in practice having to scramble to prepare your pistol while being showered by bullets or slowly approached by zombies is an incredibly tense and quite frankly invigorating experience. Combat is made even more exciting through the superb enemy AI, with the previously laughably incompetent Combine grunts becoming surprisingly effective adversaries. They work together with heavier shield units to try and flank you, take cover in effective positions and constantly flush you out with grenades.
Hearing enemy soldiers shouting to each other to coordinate attacks and commenting on the world around them through radio chatter is just one aspect of the game’s superb audio design. From the appropriately powerful gunshot of each weapon to the pinging of bullets off metal objects in battle, everything sounds just right. The game’s soundtrack is so well integrated that it becomes almost unnoticeable as you play, and it was only listening to it afterwards that I realised just how great some of the background tracks were. Every character’s voice acting is near-perfect, with a particularly strong performance from Rhys Darby who portrays your companion character, Russel.
The introduction of a new hacking mechanic, which has you connecting glowing circuits with a handheld multitool, leads to some interesting puzzles throughout your playtime, but I always felt like they were nowhere as enjoyable as some of the more physics-oriented challenges of the original games. However, any frustration I felt at the lacklustre puzzles were more than made up for by the game’s impactful ending, which, without spoiling too much, is sure to leave anyone remotely familiar with the previous events of the series speechless.
Half-Life: Alyx is an incredibly carefully crafted experience which manages not only to serve as the perfect introduction to the format for beginners but also sets a new benchmark in quality and polish, not only for virtual reality but for all triple-A games to come. If you are fortunate enough to own a compatible headset and for some reason have not experienced the game yet, you might be surprised to hear that I would recommend maybe waiting a while before you play Alyx. It is one of those games which is just so ground-breakingly advanced that once you have given it a go, any other VR titles you pick up afterwards is sure to feel like a little bit of a let-down.
Going Under
Thanks in no small part to its absolutely outstanding pastel visuals, I found sliding into the light-hearted locales of Team17’s colourful office-based dungeon-crawler Going Under to be exactly the easy-going entertainment I needed to keep my spirits high throughout this otherwise overwhelming year.
Welcome to the office. HR already wants to talk to you.
Stepping into the unsalaried shoes of Jackie, the new marketing intern at one of Neo-Cascadia’s shiniest start-ups, it soon becomes apparent that something a little more sinister than a hipster latte is brewing underneath your corporate offices. Descending into the procedurally generated depths of other less fortunate tech companies, this refreshing roguelike delivers hours of exciting exploration punctuated by bursts of captivating combat.
Situated in the sweet middle ground somewhere in between the systems of both Dead Rising and Breath of the Wild, the third person fights in Going Under are a tense mix of improvisation and strategy. Almost all the assorted office junk strewn across the floors of dungeon chambers can be picked and used as impromptu weaponry. Individual items feel pleasingly distinct with a huge range of different types to discover and each bringing their own advantages and drawbacks. For example, whilst an oversized office cactus may look like a tempting choice because of its high damage output, its weight reduces your movement speed, preventing you from dodging effectively. On the other hand, something lighter like a pencil can attack far quicker but this comes at the cost of substantial damage reduction. Some rarer weapons can also carry their own special elemental qualities, like ice or electricity, which provide their own range of bonuses.
Whilst there may be a lot to consider when choosing which weapons to pick up and keep, hovering over any item displays an arrow which quickly informs you whether the object you are looking at is better, worse, or equivalent to the one you already have equipped. Even if you find something you are particularly fond of, however, the transient item durability stops you from ever becoming too comfortable with any of your makeshift melees. Being left frantically scrambling around oncoming enemy attacks after suffering a breakage in my favourite broomstick was undeniably a little frustrating at times; but the hectic nature of every encounter and ease of finding replacements always kept things feeling more exhilarating than annoying.
This is what all office jobs are like right?
Enemies are tailored to fit each of the 8 dungeon’s unique aesthetics which take visual cues from start-ups like online dating sites, cryptocurrency marketing and modern mobile user-interface design. Each dungeon concludes with a challenging boss-fight which is made all the more memorable by the title’s superb soundtrack, featuring an absolutely magnificent mix of minimalist melodies. The cutscenes which permeate your journey are all adorably animated, with a faux SMS interface and some stylish hand-drawn character sprites. Cutscenes bring the game’s dialogue to the fore, which successfully splices an abundance of amusing corporate culture satire with a handful of genuinely heartfelt character moments.
There are a hefty number of upgrades to discover, powerups to unlock and quests to complete along your journey, each brimming with too much depth to truly do justice here. Just know that almost every system is fine-tuned to near perfection and an absolute treat to fans of the roguelike and genre newbies alike. When I think over the titles which I have most enjoyed spending time with this year; I find it at least a little ironic that a game titled ’Going Under’ is the indie entry which rises far above the rest.
Dash Wood is a first-year English student at the University of Birmingham. When he's not churning out reviews of the latest indie gems, he's battling a crippling addiction to the Hitman series. Please follow him on Twitter @DashiellWood, I'm begging you.
Ferdous Joy
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered
You know that feeling you get when you launch a game and hear the title theme and you know that the next 5 minutes to god knows how many hours will just be pure fun? That’s the feeling I get every time I boot up the latest Need for Speed remaster. And that feeling stays way past the title screen and far into the races and chases.
Criterion is back and ready to heat up their engines after their long break from racing games. The Burnout studio made a huge shift in the Need for Speed scene back in 2010 with the original Hot Pursuit and remaster doesn’t disappoint. Mainly because they barely changed anything! Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - Remastered is one of the most barebones remasters I’ve played but in this case that is far from being a bad thing. The original Hot Pursuit was the game that revitalised the NFS franchise after Burnout: Paradise revolutionised online racers and it's awesome to see how, with just minimal changes, the game still holds up really well in 2020.
Speedy car go vroom.
With this being a remaster, the game does have some visual and environmental tweaks. Mainly some slight alterations and additions to the scenery and tracks of Seacrest County, as well as some alterations to the lighting and colour grading of the game. All of these small changes come together to give the game a bit of polish that almost puts some of the recent Need for Speed games to shame. The crashes still look spectacular and are chaotic, especially for a game with licensed cars. Sparks flying and debris flying across the road looks incredible at 4K.
The audio sounds great with minimal alterations. Supercar engines rumble in the background before a race and then thunder through your headphones when you hit the accelerator. And the soundtrack sends me on a nostalgia trip, sitting there with a massive grin on my face while I plough through cop and racers alike like a Bullet Bill on steroids (to the point I’m listening to the game’s turn of the decade anthems right now).
Gameplay-wise Hot Pursuit has always been perfect for arcade racing fans. Being able to tap the brakes a few times to start drifting around corners and then slamming down on the nitro boost to give yourself that extra push on the exit will always feel so satisfying. The game doesn’t have any complex progression or upgrade system, and it doesn’t need it. You just pick a stage, pick a car and drive to your heart’s content. Both racers and cops feel so fun to play. As a racer, you race the finish trying not to be busted by the cops while topping your friend's leaderboard. And as a cop, you drive around taking out racers with a plethora of gadgets. Both feel exhilarating and can get pretty tense when the road gets busy.
I got a need. A NEED FOR HIGH RES GRAPHICS!
The multiplayer was one of the main reasons why I grabbed this remaster. The servers are back online and I get to race and chase some with friends, old and new! The number of game modes available is great and the best part of all, it has crossplay! Players on all consoles and PC can play together and destroy each other online with hardly an issue. It shames me to admit but the promotional trailer for this remaster, albeit cheesy was not wrong at all. The urge to beat my friend’s race times every time I log on continually pulls me back and it feels so satisfying to shave off a few seconds off your run and grab the top spot.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered was such an awesome way for Criterion to say “Hey all! We are back and ready to burn some rubber!” and it became my most wanted game from the first time I saw the trailers.
Hades
52 hours, 55 escape attempts and over 15 thousand foes slain. No, this isn’t the title for the next Spike Chunsoft game. Those are my stats on Supergiant Games’ recent hit Hades! Even with so many hours into the game, I still feel like it's not enough. I want to stop writing and jump back into the wonderful world and amazing combat. I want Dionysus and Aphrodite to tell me that I’m going to get the hell out of...Hell (well the underworld, but you get my point). And then I want Meg to tell me to get the hell back as she beats me to a pulp!
Make like Hermes. And be in a really good game.
I’ve used up all my hell jokes in the first paragraph and sound like a masochist.
Then again, that’s what you have to be if you choose to play a roguelite, especially one as tough as Hades. I’m not new to roguelites/likes, I’ve spent too much time on games like Risk of Rain 2, Binding of Isaac and Dead Cells. Out of all of them, Hades has to be the most rewarding! From the XBLA hit that was Bastion to the modern classic of Prye, it’s no surprise that Hades has an amazing story. Supergiant isn’t new to crafting amazing worlds with pretty visuals and strong narratives. But the thing I always felt their games lacked was strong combat and more-ish gameplay to keep me coming back. So colour me delighted that the thing that caught me hook, line and sinker about Hades was the gameplay.
Don’t get me wrong, the story is beautiful and I’ll get to it in a bit, but the action-RPG combat is phenomenal. You play as Zagreus, the moody, defiant and (nearly) unstoppable son of Hades who is done with living in the gloomy underworld and wants to break free into the world above. You start the game by telling Lord Hades that you’re leaving and will never come back and then dashing out of the House of Hades(after petting Cerberus of course). Then you are thrown into the flames of Tartarus and put into a great tutorial where you will likely die. I sure did. I got ripped to shreds and sent back to the House of Hades (although it is worth noting that you can theoretically beat the game on your first run).
Once I saw Zagreus rise from that pool of blood and get told by Hypnos how he died in an overly cheery voice. I knew I was hooked. Little did I know at the time, that this was just scratching the surface of how Supergiant has intertwined gameplay with their story.
I found myself loving the fact that the characters in the house acknowledged my failure and either pushed me on to fight again or told me to give up. All while burning through hell with one of the game's unique weapons and a bounty of boon offered to me from the Greek Gods.This is why I adore Hades as a roguelite. Common “game-y” elements, like powerups, are molded to feel at home with the setting and story.
Leave me alone traveler, keep reading.
The world never stands still in Hades. It was constantly moving forward with me. Once I jump back into another run, the story or some of the characters move forward too. I don’t want to spoil too much about who you meet and what happens as it's a rollercoaster at times and heartwarming at others, but it’s so worth the time and effort. If you’re good enough, time might not be an issue and you could probably speed through the story in half the amount of runs I did! But I ended up deliberately dying quite a few times just to progress some side stories and to come and offer hugs and nectar to my friends in the house. One being a lovely soft-voiced musician, whose side story I fell in love with and made it my mission to complete before I finished my own main story. I do apologise for not being able to get too much into the story itself. But in my opinion, many of the characters you meet are best left as surprises.
Hades is one of the best roguelites out there right now and you are doing yourself an injustice by not playing it. Whether you are a fan of roguelites or games with a touching and compelling narrative. Hades is not to be missed…
Joy is a games QA tester and EnVtuber on Twitch. When not breaking games, he's usually just posting random stuff on Twitter or trying not to wheeze a lung out on stream. Both being platform names being KillJoy2910
Kate Robinson
Spiritfarer
To a peaceful Christmas.
Will Sawyer in his piece (which will go up soon) tried to convince you that Animal Crossing is the perfect game for the lockdown period, but what if I told you that there's a better alternative where animals cross over purgatory and into the afterlife. Spiritfarer is the game Animal Crossing fans have been waiting for, where CJ and Flick are canonically gay, also there's a classy, smoking deer and a black female protagonist that doesn't conform to stereotypes. Many different backgrounds are featured in Spiritfarer, characters explore their feelings on topics such as lesbian relationships and worker unions, but one of the biggest reoccurring moments of wholesome messaging comes from the comfort of cooking.
The moment to moment gameplay of Spiritfarer involves managing a ship and it's crew, travelling to islands that have significant meaning to passengers, and helping the furry cast make peace with their issues. Most of the game is spent travelling the ocean, taking care of everybody's mental and physical health, this also showcases the best way to satisfy a crew's hunger for adventure, which is with food, obviously. While each crew member has their own dietary restrictions, this presents an opportunity to showcase a minority culture that does not appear often in the video game medium including vegetarian, and veganism. Not only does it present multiple characters with different palettes based on viewpoints, but it gamifies the process of making these dishes, showing players a wealth of food options that can be used to cater to another individual's preferences.
Tying this together are the character designs, that feel very Studio Ghibli-escue, showcasing unique and detailed personalities that can be understood at a glance. This attention to care is used to express non-conformist messaging throughout the game in creative ways. For instance, the vegan snake, Summer, defies the characteristics of the predatory reptile with a love for gardening and using music to 'charm' plants. The cast may be small, but each of the characters are lovingly crafted to evoke a warm feeling for players that associate with marginalised groups. Spiritfarer also manages to connect with a vanilla audience by incorporating mechanics from some of the best casual games, using accessible and engaging gameplay as a vessel to teach.
Spiritfarer does not confine itself to one genre, instead, the gameplay feels more like a ‘best of compilation’. Exploration feels similar to Faster Than Light, management takes the charm of an Animal Crossing game and fuses it with the mechanics of Oxygen Not Included, and movement is as fluid as one of the year’s best platformers, Ori and the Will of the Wisps. This may seem a little overwhelming at first, especially for players that are unfamiliar with these titles, but Spiritfarer gives ample time for players to explore these systems at a calming pace throughout the impressive 40-hour long campaign.
I am equally impressed by the direction, which deviates from Thunder Lotus's other titles, Jotun and Sundered. These action-oriented titles managed to showcase the studio's signature art style, but they also housed sluggish combat systems that hindered enjoyment. It's clear to see the talent of the studio's gameplay designers this time around, as they have managed to create a serene experience that manages to outlast the length of a small RPG. And while it may not consume thousands of hours or allow you to visit a friend's island, Spiritfarer provides the same comforting feeling for players with busy lifestyles, at half the price with characters that will stick for much longer.
