The Highlights and Disappointments of 2020

It’s that time once more, for us to reflect on the year and think about how we can do better in the year to come. Obviously, I don’t need to tell anyone reading this that 2020 hasn’t been great, but that doesn’t mean good games didn’t come out. Pickings are slightly slimmer than they would be in a normal year. And yet, what did come out was generally strong on its own merits.

As a reminder, just because a game doesn’t show up on this list doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s possible that either I missed it or that it didn’t leave a strong enough impression on me to talk about. So without further ado, and presented in a random order, my highlights of 2020 are:

The Disappointments of 2019

While there were many excellent games that game out over the past year, not every one of them lives up. We've got through my list of Highlights for the year, and just as always we too must go through the disappointments of the year in kind.

Every year, I usually find at least one or two games that end up on both lists for different reasons. In compiling this year's collection, I noticed that this happened with far, far more games than usual, for a variety of different reasons.

As usual, just because a game appears on this list doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. All it means is that there are significant aspects of it that I feel detract from the overall whole. Further, this list is presented in a completely random order.

Without further ado, the disappointments of 2019 are:

The Disappointments of 2018

Now that I’ve gotten all the positivity of gaming in 2018 out of the way, it’s time to go into the games that left me unsatisfied. As per usual, just because a game is on this list doesn’t make it necessarily bad. All it means is that, either or technical issues or questionable design choices, it left a sour taste in my mouth.

That being said, the disappointments of 2018, presented in random order, are:

#113: The Disappointments of 2017

Even in a year where so many good games came out, there will always be a fair share of games that didn’t “click”. Maybe they had a new idea that needed to be refined. Maybe there was a lack of polish or it didn’t stand out from its peers. For whatever reason, the games on this list left me wanting.

As a friendly reminder, this does not mean that the games here are bad. You might even like them. What this does mean is that I personally had some issues with it that hampered my enjoyment enough to notice. Without further ado, my disappointments of 2017 are:

#110: The Disappointments of 2016

As I said in my highlight reel of 2016, this has been one of the best years in gaming in quite a long time. That said, no year is free from games that didn’t live up, and this is no exception.

The same rules as last year apply. Just because a game made this list, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily bad. All it means is that when I played it, it had significant problems that really hampered my enjoyment of the overall experience.

So without further ado, my disappointments of 2016 are…