GNamer Fantasy Games League (And your Year Four winner is...)

I don't think any one is saying 10/10 means perfect but rather those games that clearly stand out from all the others.

I know it's just my personal take and why I'd never give a 10/10 myself.

Feel like this'll be decided by who can pick up some late round gems

If you can find the Disco Elysium of 2020 you'd be in with a shout

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I can't just be me that's looking at that Master Games list and thinking 'the absolute state of 2020', can it? I've picked three games so far, three that I couldn't give a shite about. I didn't even know that there was an Avengers game being made by Square Enix, no clue.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

Looking at most of our first round picks that’s already looking great. I’m also assuming Nintendo will have something more, AC alone isn’t going to cut it.

Andy sums that one up for me nicely. Some of those 2020 first round picks could very easily be 10/10s in my eyes.

I wonder what the big bidding war game of this year will be? Link's Awakening and Death Stranding were popular last year.

The draft is almost done, I can see a few games that stand out for the counter pick as things that might not come out in 2020 not so many bad games like last year.

I'm also curious about how one game will review that's been picked due to it being on Apple Arcade as both Jenny LeClue and (it's not this) Shante Seven Sirens came out this year on Apple Arcade, with almost zero reviews, then I see Manifold Garden did get reviews and is one of the highest-rated games of the year.

Anyway, I've gone for:

Resident Evil 3. Res Evil 2 is the highest-rated game of 2019 and can see this going the same way maybe only one story will let it down unless resistance is a good mode

Halo Infinite. Much like Gears 5, MS needs a good Halo likely why it will be five years between Halo 5 and Infinite to get it right also Infinite is an XSX launch game and you all know how launch games seem to review better then they should look at the likes of Perfect Dark Zero.

Forza Motorsport 8. This hasn't been announced but we missed FM8 in 2019 as it had been going biannual, I think why we missed it as FM8 will be a launch game for XSX as it will show off the power of the console.

Tell Me Why. It's the new game from Dontnod and people like that Life is Strange, my issue might be it's three episodes that I'm not sure how the reviews work but unlike LiS2 which seems to have been going forever, this is planned to be only three episodes and come out in the summer. That it might get reviewed all in one go

Medal of Honor. This new MoH is from Respawn who make good FPS games, the issue might be it's in VR, then Half-Life Alyx was a first-round pick.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training. I think these review well and it's out real soon (Jan 3rd) that I will get points on the board almost right away.

Did the counter picks do any damage in the 2019 league? I ask because I can see a few making an impact in this new one.

Don't ask Jim about Gears 5.

I'm really optimistic about 2020, as already mentioned it's a great start to the year and it'll only get better as more stuff gets announced. Here's my run down of choices:

The Last of Us Part 2 was an easy choice, easy 10/10 unless they do something silly between now and release.

Hollow Knight Silksong was a pick from last year that I'm sure will be great too, they don't have to do much more to get a high score I reckon, more of the same should be fine.

Biomutant was someone's pick last year that I hadn't actually heard of until I seen it on fantasy critic but looks ace when I looked in to it, I'm expecting big things of this too.

Bravely Default 2 seemed like a safe bet, not played the series before but I understand it's some top tier RPG stuff and the Switch will give it scope to be bigger and better than the 3DS games.

Spiritfarer I've not seen much of but thought it looked like a nice idea with a good look and has been talked about positively in a few places.

My final pick I think is the riskiest, Ghostwire Tokyo which we've not seen much of so far but there's a good team behind it so for a 6th round pick could be really good.

I picked:

Some Games

Some More Games

I don't think there were enough games I knew enough about to be honest. It's telling that people have picked two of mine for counterpicks...

Nah I took a big gamble counter picking vampire the masquerade 2. I only did so because the dev has only made one mediocre game before and the publisher tends towards grand strategy or resource management games, not action rpgs. I think it'll score positively, but not massively so...

I really want it to though. Big fan of the original, even though that game only boots after I install mods!

My first two picks were safe, cyberpunk should be a 10, and nioh 2 could be a 9.

Hellblade is a big gamble. Probably won't come out, but if it does it's a likely 9 or 10.

Carrion, I think will do well. Unique concept at least.

Wasteland 3. A follow-up to a critically acclaimed rpg, should do very well.

Crusader kings 3 - sequel to one of my top ten games of all time. Thought it'd be able to snag it late and did. May suffer from being incomplete at launch though.

I've also bought evil genius 2 for a dollar. Hope it does well, follow up to a classic original.

Balladeer wrote:

I picked:

Some Games

Some More Games

I don't think there were enough games I knew enough about to be honest.  It's telling that people have picked two of mine for counterpicks...

Same here. There's less games that I'm wanting to see do well next year. This year, I was really hoping that the likes of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled and Untitled Goose Game would do well. Next year, I'm honestly not that arsed about any of my games. It's very unlikely that I'll play the new Half-Life, Assassin's Creed or Watch Dogs, and I already know that I'm not interested in Minecraft or Avengers. Shantae and the Seven Sirens is the only game I've picked that I'm likely to buy for myself.

I know what you mean: I picked a PS5 launch game FCOL.

The_Jaster wrote:

Did the counter picks do any damage in the 2019 league? I ask because I can see a few making an impact in this new one.  

Not exactly - they didn't affect anybody's final standings at least, but Balla kept it close with Anthem being a bit of a dud and Smurf and Jimbob both lost a fair few points thanks to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Gears 5 respectively.

To be fair, I think this year will have a fair few people losing points from their counterpicks, so it could change the game.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Balladeer wrote:

I picked:

Some Games

Some More Games

I don't think there were enough games I knew enough about to be honest.  It's telling that people have picked two of mine for counterpicks...

Same here. There's less games that I'm wanting to see do well next year. This year, I was really hoping that the likes of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled and Untitled Goose Game would do well. Next year, I'm honestly not that arsed about any of my games. It's very unlikely that I'll play the new Half-Life, Assassin's Creed or Watch Dogs, and I already know that I'm not interested in Minecraft or Avengers. Shantae and the Seven Sirens is the only game I've picked that I'm likely to buy for myself.

I'm chuffed with mine as I still managed to pick a line-up of games that I personally think look decent and will end up playing for the most part. Maybe that comes with being a late draftee compared to earlier in the draft?

Speaking of my line-up, here's my thoughts on my picks:

Doom Eternal - Most of the potential 10/10s were nabbed by the time it came around to me, but I think this one could still review really well. DOOM (2016) was a cracker and this looks like its predecessor ramped up to 11.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Really surprised this survived the first round of drafts! It was an easy pick for my number two. You can't really get Animal Crossing wrong, can you?

Yakuza: Like a Dragon - Yakuza games are usually safe mid 80s games, but this one is a wee bit of a gamble considering it's now essentially a JRPG. I hope it does well.

Breath of the Wild 2 - My biggest gamble. I'm banking on the fact that this will likely reuse a lot of assets and mechanics from the original BotW and they'll be able to get this released swiftly like the turnaround from OoT to MM. I think some of you share my hope considering nobody counterpicked it...

Gears Tactics - The game that I've got the least affinity with out of my line-up, but it looked like a neat XCOM style game in what we've seen from it, so hope it does alright.

Guilty Gear Strive - I had to have at least one fighting game in my line-up! Guilty Gear usually does pretty well with its biggest complaints stemming from being too difficult to get into, but supposedly ArcSys are working on making this one a bit simpler, so I hope it'll review well on the back of that. ArcSys haven't really had a misstep in a while with their games usually scoring mid to high 80s - I think that's a steal for a last round draft pick.

I did say why I picked mine for scoring reasons and I will play at least 4 of the 6 games, and if MoH was coming to PSVR I would likely play it but it is one I want to see do well to push VR.

Don't care much for Brain Training, just thought be good to get points on the board right away.

I'm not sure about that one myself - I picked Rage 2 last year for much the same reason and I wish I'd held off so I could have had another game in its place which was revealed later in the year.

The final scores of 2019 are up, nothing changed but do feel bad for Jimbob who had three games not release and one seemingly had no reviews thanks to it being on Apple Arcade, then my Gears 5 wiping out of most of his score.

I won my first game Microsoft Flight Simulator, which I had forgotten about till a sizzle reel, people love these games and I hope that translates to reviews.

Also see Cappa pick up Super Meat Boy Forever.

Hey, I'd rather be the moral victor* than the actual victor.

*Note: no actual "moral" victory exists; this is clearly bollocks I've just said there

You're lucky Mas, Flight Simulator was nearly in my original picks.

Flight Simulator was one of the ones I was thinking about picking up for similar reasons. But I'll never play it so I guess I forgot about it after the draft.

I've just gone with the mindset that it'll be good but it's not gonna pass a score in the low 80s, not willing to be proved wrong.

Aye, I think an early free pickup at this stage will be decent for when the bidding wars kick in later on, so I might aim for a wee freebie myself.

I'm going to forget all about the pickups and have to scavenge amongst the leftovers in July or something.

Post Direct pick-ups will be the aim of the game, I reckon.