The game we love best from afar and pining to play
The nominees for the Anan Award for Best Game We Didn’t Play are:
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
- Hades
- Half-Life Alyx
- Maneater
Deliberation Summary
The Best Game We Didn’t Play Award is named after our GM crew member (and a dia.log – The Gamer Matters Podcast regular) Anan, who plays the least games among us here each year. Due to time constraints or budget, we usually don’t cover all the games we wanted (we’re still a small independent media outlet), So this award gives a reason to put games on our radar.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ checkbox-filling chore game/sim is the escapism mood of 2020. With most of the world went into lockdown, it’s the best (and safest) way to enjoy the outside world. Its casual appeal and creative output potential (hence the nomination on the Best Meme Generator award) is something to be remembered of this year. But it lands on this award since Switch games (even first-party titles) don’t come cheap, and only one of us has a Switch now. Guess who.
Similarly, Half-Life: Alyx signals Valve’s return to form of making good video games. It’s a legitimate VR system-seller as evident on the VR headset shortages leading up to its release. Unfortunately, we don’t have a VR setup yet- rest assured when we do this game is on top of our list.
Meanwhile, Hades is another Supergiant Games banger. We are fans of the indie developer, and it’s great to see this formerly Early Access rougelike based on Greek mythology is collecting so many accolades and praise. At least for one of us, the combination of rougelike and Greek mythology isn’t really a must-buy but that’s a personal preference thing, not a knock against the excellently polished title.
Maneater is the “Shark-PG” we just can’t believe is real. Why not make Jaws an evolving shark with loot and open-world elements? And go all ham with the tongue-in-cheek corniness along the way. This landed on the nomination thanks to the oddity of Epic Games Store’s sales. Whenever the store give out a $10 USD coupon that would entice to buy at least one game, games like Maneater gets a discount to make it not eligible for a $10 USD off. Maybe it’s for the better- it landed here on our awards list thanks to that.
But the common denominator among the 3 panel of juries is this one game that has the word “Microsoft” in the title but we forgot until the end of the deliberation. Microsoft Flight Simulator is also heightened from 2020’s pandemic woes- most of us can’t travel abroad so why not fulfil that fantasy in a video game/simulator. It also helps that the open-world here is literally the entire world (but understandably with different levels of asset quality- something the developers continue to update with the release).
Despite being on Xbox Game Pass, we just didn’t have time and some of us prefer to wait for the release on Xbox consoles before taking flight. And as such, we are awarding the Anan Award for Best Game We Didn’t Play to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020!
Tomorrow, we will be revealing the most normal of our awards: Best Racing Game. The nominees (well, one nominee) on the other hand, may not be as such. Stay tuned.