Hello Cougs! 2020 is coming to an end. There were a lot of game releases this year, I’ll give you a recap on them. 

Sucker Punch Studios presented Ghost of Tsushima in e3 2018 and it was released on July 17, 2020, as a PS4 exclusive. The game follows Samurai Jin Sakai who wants to protect Tsushima island during the first Mongol invasion of Japan.

 The game has a beautiful Japanese setting. My favorite piece of it was the motion of the grass and trees. I felt amazed at how alive the game felt, not to mention that this game takes place during the Samurai era of Japan. I feel like they did a good job with the cultural environment. There are two options: you can either choose the English voice actors or the Japanese one. I’d like to mention that during the cutscenes, the Japanese voice acting feels a bit weird with the facial expressions in my opinion. 

The fighting mechanics felt a lot like Assassin’s Creed (fighting with swords) but with the sweet soundtrack, it was a great experience. I’d also like to mention that the stances are a good addition to the fighting, especially when you’re outnumbered in the fights.

 I intensity of the stealth kills. Sometimes they give you a slow-motion kill, which is very cool as you see the enemy’s blood splatter, as well as standoffs- basically where you battle 1v1 with an enemy AI. Although there are high odds you’ll win it’s still pretty dope. Although I’m not really a fan of upgrades, I give my regards to the creators of this game. Why? The system is very well done. The enemies aren’t overpowered at a certain level to the point where you need to do a lot of grinding.

A little downer was when I’d fight a crowd and sometimes they just stand there until I defeat the enemies so sometimes the enemy’s are stale. Overall, it wasn’t too difficult to defeat them. The story is alright, but the side quests make the game worth playing for hours, overall this is a great game I’d give an 8.5/10.

Recently, Capcom created a Resident Evil 3 remake. Although this game came out in the 90s, a remake was released on April 3, 2020, which was available on PC, Ps4, and Xbox. The story revolves around Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera as they fight the zombie apocalypse while being hunted by the bioweapon nemesis. The campaign was not really much different than the original one, although the content was removed from the remake. The Clocktower puzzle, Raccoon city park, Factory,and Cemetery were also not included in the remake. These were great areas and I would’ve liked to see them remastered but fortunately, the graphics and the remastered areas make up for it. I am disappointed that the boss fight from the original one, the grave digger boss was removed. It was a great end boss that I would’ve liked to see in the remake especially with the new graphics. 

The new graphics are nice. Running away from the nemesis was fun and intense, although there were times the nemesis felt stale. Switching through your inventory was not difficult, so you’d have a low chance of a hard time. As for the boss fights, they were pretty solid. The soundtrack was a great match with the gameplay, and it felt like an action game more than a survival horror game. It was pretty easy if you’re used to shooter games.

The single-player was solid although it was pretty disappointing seeing cut content. Resistance multiplier released as a co-op for the Resident Evil 3 remake, my thoughts on it was that the gameplay was stale and kinda repetitive at times. There are 6 characters you can pick and the map HUD doesn’t have a mini one, so you have to use the full one which takes up a big amount of space on your screen. You can play as the survivors or The Mastermind. I personally liked playing as a “bad guy”. It was fun because you can control certain zombies, or just mess with the survivors. In my experience, finding lobbies is difficult. Overall, I think it’s more fun with friends. As a remake, I think it’s 7/10.

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War by Treyarch and Raven Software was released on November 13 for Xbox, PS PC. My first impression of Cold War is that MW definitely felt more “finished”. The zombies passed my expectations as I haven’t been able to complete the zombie story yet because in later rounds hordes of zombies ambush. It’s a lot of fun and brings intensity and enjoyment to the gameplay. As for the weapons, nothing too different: you kill zombies to upgrade your weapons and buy doors to open up places. As for the campaign, it takes place in the 1980s during the real-life events of the Cold War. I’m not really sure who I play as because you are able to pick your own name and I thought that was pretty cool. If you played the Black Ops series you’d know who Woods and Mason are. Mason was the MC for BO1 and Woods was the secondary main character for B01 and BO2. They are introduced back into this game as important side characters. I’d assume this game takes place before BO1 because they seem very young. Haven’t finished it yet but what I played is pretty solid so far. As for graphical environments, I’d say they did a good job representing the 80s as the cars and weapons match the 80’s weapons designs. As for the multiplayer, it’s a big downgrade from MW. The multiplayer feels dull- like it’s unfinished, the maps are pretty much built the same as MW maps, and for a bit, it gets repetitive. The inventory is the same as the previous COD multiplayer so it shouldn’t give you a hard time. I really hope they take another approach in map-making, for example, more exposure and fewer places to camp.  I’d give regards to the creators because this game has potential in certain areas like zombies and maps. I hope that Nuketown gets added. I think it would be fun hearing nine-year-olds rage. From what I’d play I’d give 7.5/10 

That’s it for the 2020 gaming recap. What did you think about these games? Did you like them or not?