And yet, I've not taken the plunge and actually experienced it for myself.
I've owned The Last of Us in some form or another for about five years now, first as a pack-in with the slim PS3 I bought in 2015, and more recently the Remastered version on PS4 thanks to it being offered as a free game with PS Plus some months back. One of two Naughty Dog titles on this list, I've been spurred on to absorb more of their recent output since replaying the first three Uncharted games for my contribution to this year's Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run. I hope to put this negligence right at some point by spending some time with Trico between now and the end of 2020. And considering it's a spiritual successor to ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, two of my favourite games of all time, the fact I've sidelined it up until now seems almost criminal. Similar to Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian has been on my Pile of Shame since its 2016 release. I just need an ideal weekend to present itself and give me the opportunity. Hellblade is the kind of game I could completely lose myself in over a weekend. Also their dedication to tackling the topic of mental illness in a well-researched, carefully-considered way. Partly their commitment to providing AAA-quality production values and story in smaller games at lower price points, which I think is a great way of bridging the ever-widening gulf between the AAA and indie spaces. I bought Hellblade at release primarily to support what developers Ninja Theory were attempting to accomplish with it. I also have all the DLC episodes and Royal Edition content to experience, so I anticipate this keeping me busy for a good chunk of time. The recent release of Final Fantasy VII Remake has brought the franchise back to the forefront of my attention, and with it a fierce desire to play this fifteenth instalment and plug the most notable gap in my Final Fantasy knowledge. I was still a big enough fan to pick up Final Fantasy XV on its release in November 2016, but apparently not enough of a fan to actually play the damn thing at any point between then and now.
I used to call myself a Final Fantasy fan, but I've allowed my interest in the series to lapse in recent years. Those two factors combined have moved Control right to the top of my must-be-experienced list. Second, I've seen multiple accounts comparing it to Second Sight, a sci-fi stealth-action game released on the PS2, Xbox and GameCube by Free Radical (better known as the TimeSplitters guys), which just so happens to be another of my favourite games ever. First off, it's developed by Remedy, the company responsible for one of my favourite action games ever in the form of Alan Wake. Received at the end of last year as a Christmas present from my family, Control appeals to me for a number of reasons. As somebody who approached both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls with very defensive character builds, I suspect it will be a challenge adapting to Bloodborne's apparent focus on more aggressive, high-risk, high-reward gameplay, but it's a challenge I am willing to rise to. While the second and third Dark Souls games are both present in my backlog, the Gothic Victorian aesthetics of Bloodborne are more alluring for me right now. My current experience with FromSoftware's output is limited to Demon's Souls (which I enjoyed quite a bit) and Dark Souls (which I enjoyed quite a bit more). Here they all are, each with some brief thoughts explaining why they're high priority for me this year. This fact has got me asking the question: which ten games would I most like to clear from my backlog in the seven remaining months of the year? Inspired by these thoughts, I've shuffled through my Pile of Shame and picked ten titles that I think would be perfect candidates to devote my game time to between now and the end of the year. That's precisely halfway to my personal goal of twenty games beaten this year. In the past five months I've beaten ten video games (and put an undisclosed amount of time into an eleventh). Ten Games I'd Like To Play This Year (2020 Edition)