Top 10 of 2021
And so ends the year twenty twenty-one: filled with crushing ennui and sparse moments of levity in the long run. Beginning with the days of a government that refuses to please, and into a new chapter where they face the Sword of Damocles. It'll be difficult to know if they'll ramp up their decrees as the planet continues to uptick its degrees. They could rest on their laurels and continue to disappoint as the country reaches its cultural flash point. Yet as I write this intro in rhyme, I'm reminded of the games that were at their most prime. So for the sake of everyone's sanity, I invite you all to check out the games I recommend to humanity.
But before we get to the main list proper, it's best to look at the ones that faced the chopper.
Honorable Mentions
Biggest Surprise - Halo: Infinite
I couldn't tell you if I've ever enjoyed a Halo game. Every now and then I squinted into a window where a lot of people seemed to be having fun and I was tortured that it just never clicked for me. Between the levels that stretched on for extended periods, to the mishmashing chaos of bullets and lasers, and even just the dryness of the writing and characters in the story campaigns, it really only served to push me away from getting down with it.
Still, I played through every one of them and had a thermometer for what the general consensus was among fans, which was that the original trilogy from Bungie was really beloved while the change of developer hands to 343 Industries hasn't treated the series very kindly. A lot of blame can be placed on going back to the same well over and over again, despite the finality of the overarching story in Halo 3, and generally being a disservice to the lore and characters that folks have grown to love over the past two decades. For me, having not been weaned on Halo, I couldn't really differentiate what substantially changed for the franchise other than that I was getting genuinely tired of the same old song and dance it was going through.
For the lead up to Halo: Infinite, it seemed like the writing was on the wall. Putting aside the arduous development time of the open-world entry to the series, a lot of people's patience has run out wholesale years before it even landed. The fact that it was aping blueprints from Far Cry and other games of their ilk painted a picture of a game that seemed creatively bankrupt and just couldn't iterate further. Halo, as a franchise, seemed like it was out of chances.
And yet, somehow, they managed to put out a really good game that felt and looked fresher than any release up to that point. The multiplayer working right out of the gate had me hooked for several days before the campaign dropped, giving me that good, competitive itch I've been hankering for. The story mode, while having its faults, had an amazing gameplay loop thanks in part to the addition of the grappling hook, allowing Master Chief to just zip across the giant ringworld with ease and giving the player enough freedom to explore the space as they see fit.
Despite having not finished the main story yet, I am shook at how much of a blast I've been having with a Halo game for the first time. That being said, the plot could very well wander off into bonkers city and let me down in some way. But my initial impressions of it, at the time of writing, has been strong enough to have me sticking with it for awhile.
This Kinda Came and Went, Didn't It? - Deathloop
Arkane put out a lot of bangers, huh? Between the Dishonored titles and the Prey reboot thing from 2017, they have, at the very least, injected their games with a lot of interesting systems that lent well to the immersive sim genre. Even if the story or gameplay for them faltered in some way, there was always something intriguing about the crafted worlds they made and how the players engaged with them.
With Deathloop, a new one of those with the hook of a repeating day, it seemed right up a lot of folk's alleys. It allowed players to pick and choose what story threads to follow, hunting down information that said a lot about the state of the world and its characters. But with that, it came at a cost with its level of freedom, the four main areas cut off from each other and can only be traversed by advancing the day. The fact that there was no grains in the hourglass, draining the time away, for the player to keep tabs on made the world feel simultaneously hands-off and restrictive.
I initially didn't mind how the game guided the player so frequently, what with tutorial messages and story hints popping up to carry over into new loops. Outer Wilds was a good crash course in that regard. But the rate at which I was finding new stuff felt like information overload. I could only throw up my hands and go “Sure! I guess!” as a window told me a tidbit of info that I gleamed completely differently from an in-game document or conversation.
As egregious as the morality systems were in the Dishonored games, they definitely could have been expanded upon with a new or interesting hook. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater in this one made the experience of exploring the world or getting into encounters feel a little samey after a few, short hours. On one hand, it was neat to not feel too guilty about mowing down mobs of enemies, as you know going in that their lives will just repeat again and have no moral quandaries about cracking the necks of cult members, but on the other hand it just made dancing in and out of stealth on a frequent basis so tiring.
Having not finished the game, I can't say for certain if anything about Deathloop really pulled me in. I liked the interactions between Cole and Juliana quite a bit, as they had no shortage of petty words for each other, but those can only go so far. For me, there was a lot to like about the world and characters, but never enough to make me revisit it for long periods. Perhaps one day I'll finish it once I mentally prepare myself to push through all the tedium.
Biggest Letdown - Twelve Minutes
Sometimes I ask myself if I'm the biggest mark on the planet.
All of the pre-release trailers for Twelve Minutes, depicting a man trapped in a timeloop and unable to escape his apartment, had me hooked. The level of freedom and reactivity it offered was something I could get down with, especially in such a small environment that asked the player to consider their entire environment.
For the most part, that's exactly what I got, and I was really enjoying myself with it up to a point. The harrowing presentation of the home invasion and the way it gamified the nature of timeloops, how they erode the well-being of its characters as they look for any means of escape, is not really explored or touched upon in other timeloop games. Sure, it was frustrating to repeat the same actions over and over again, but it felt intended in some regard here. There are a ton of ways to give the player that feeling, and to Twelve Minutes' credit, when it was working, it met the player halfway as they poked away at the obstacles. I felt like a genius for some of the solutions, only to sit and stare at the pieces for extended periods for a few of the others.
All that being said, hoo boy did this game drop the ball hard with its plot twist. Despite really enjoying about 80% of the game, I can't in good conscious recommend it it anyone what with the way it wraps up its story. That last 20% really put enough of a damper on what was otherwise an interesting game, and had me combing over every square inch of that apartment to see if that really was the conclusion. “This can't possibly be the ending” I told myself. “Why would it leave the player on that note?”
I pondered that question for awhile, and one of the only answers I got was: “It's probably because I'm the biggest mark on the planet.”
Best Game with Pals – Gartic Phone
It's a drawing game. It's a telephone game. It's both!
Simple and easy to get into, I've had a ton of laughs with folks on Discord booting up sessions of this browser game, seeing how much we could sabotage everything by entering dastardly prompts for others to draw, only for the other shoe to drop when we're tasked with painting someone else's disaster of equal measure. And then it came time to squint and turn our heads at whatever the hell someone scrambled to slap together at the last second.
Never before has flipping through congealed failures of art been such a riot since, heck, Drawful!
Best Replay - Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
Hey, it's one of the best RPGs of the last decade! And with more stuff!
Even if you've already played it once, the new additions, whether they be the questlines that said more about the state of the world or the exquisite voice acting on display, is well worth the revisit to the rain-slicked streets of Martinaise.
For the rest of you who haven't dived in, what the heck are you waiting for?! It's one of the funniest and most unfairly well-written games ever made! The 24 different voices in your head ain't gonna shout at themselves, are they?
Best Nier - Nier Replicant ver. 1.22474487139...
Nobody in the world probably feels more vindicated than Nier fans watching the West, which had an undeserved lukewarm response to its original release, get a second shot at playing one of the most endearing and quirky games in recent memory after having their hands on Nier: Automata. Well, Yoko Taro, probably. But the fans are a close second!
Though a bit of an odd duck of a game at the time, with it switching up styles of gameplay every so often, it was all in service of the themes and presentation of the story, which switches gears between funny and heartfelt to touching on themes of loss and sacrifice in a cruel world. That this is the first time people outside of Japan could play as brother Nier was also a nice addition.
All that being said, it could have done without that whole gardening questline again. I mean sheesh!
Best DLC - Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye
As evidenced from earlier, heck from even my 2019 list, Outer Wilds was one of my favorite games ever. The clockwork nature of its solar system and the way the pieces of the puzzle interacted with the story and its world was more than enough to get me to recommend it to every person with even the vaguest passing interest in games. The tight nature of its design made me think it was impossible to follow it up in any capacity.
Boy howdy was I wrong.
Echoes of the Eye not only introduces a new story to the doomed world that the player inhabits, but it also veers so close to being an actual sequel to the base game! Just when I was comfortable getting back into the groove of Outer Wilds again, making discoveries and having a new pallet of knick-knacks to interact with, it pulls back the curtain to the other half of the game and revealed an entirely different aspect that completely blew me away. Turns out, lighting can strike again when a game this good reserves enough surprises along the way and wraps up its intertwined gameplay and story, much like how the original did.
Aside from a few frustrating stealth moments that had me banging my head against the solutions, everyone who played Outer Wilds proper can expect to be surprised all over again with the secrets that lurk inside the treacherous, but awe-inspiring, hostile world that's been added. It's just that dang good!
Old Games of the Year
#1 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
So I finally got around to finishing that there Wild Hunt after playing it on and off for a good three years. Although my eyes did glaze over during parts of the endgame as there was still a bevy of icons to visit on the map, I steeled and worked myself through the main story, which paid off as well as I could expect. Following aging Geralt being a father figure and reconnecting with Ciri through a parade of interesting and endearing characters still holds up extraordinarily well. Every quest had been gone over with a fine-tooth comb and it's staggering to think the amount of quality that has been poured into its world.
While it is tough to talk about the attention to detail as all the stuff regarding the work culture its development team, CD Projekt Red, went through came to the forefront in the lead up to Cyberpunk 2077, what's here is still amazing in its own right but not an endorsement of the pain the individual workers must have gone through to get it up and running. No open-world RPGs have been this well-realized and I'm glad that I finally got the chance to see it to its end.
#2 Hitman 2016
This is probably my biggest regret for games that I've never had the opportunity to dip into, even as I heard everyone around me swear by it. Five years later, and I can finally be among the rank of people to shout at others to play this hokey murder-fest.
The amount of solutions that players can make Agent 47 pull off as the game eases them through a rotating closet full of disguises, and effectively taking out the most frustrating trial-and-error aspects of the previous Hitman games, is nothing short of astounding. I found myself in numerous situations that I pulled myself out of by the skin of my teeth, because I remember to play by the game's rule that every NPC is a giant, colossal idiot who can't remember the face of the guy with a barcode on the back of his head. The humor of Hitman does a ton of heavy lifting, with a lot of the targets tempting fate while the bald, scowl-faced man hovers in their general direction.
All that's left now is to set aside time for the other two games. There's never been a better time to drop giant chandeliers on smug, rich jerkwads... only to mistime it, get fed up, and just shoot them in the face.
#3 Yakuza 0
Okay, there was one other game I regretted not getting into way earlier.
Aside from being an extremely, tightly-paced crime story about a parade of interesting characters dealing with the aftermath of a bungled mob operation on the brightly-lit and lively streets of Kamurocho, Yakuza 0 is also a game where its main hero buys up property by walking directly up to the building in question from the street and presenting it with a briefcase full of money.
That, in itself, is reason enough to play it.
Game of Yesteryear - Spiritfarer
And, finally, I would be remiss without talking about one of the first games I played at the beginning of this year.
Although there were a lot of clunky, weird bugs to Spiritfarer that bogged down a sizable chunk of the game, such as the flags to the main story not checking unless I restarted it for some godforsaken reason, the main hook where you are tasked with looking after the spirits of the deceased before they ultimately decide to pass on for good tugged at my heartstrings more than any other games in recent memory. The optimistic outlook it had for saying the final farewells for close friends, family, and loved ones served to elevate what games can do to build up emotional connections with characters and relationships. It's a game where the main systems of interactions in place, cooking, gardening, weaving, building,... and hugging, serve to intertwine the player's role in the story and the bonds they have with the colorful characters along for the ride.
Spiritfarer is a game where the core message is to look back fondly at all the accomplishments a person made throughout their lives, cherishing how they impacted those around them, and telling them to not be afraid to move on when the time comes. It tells us that everyone we've ever met will hold a place in our hearts, through both the painful bouts and uplifting moments, and how they shape us into who we are. For that reason alone, Spiritfarer was one of my favorite games that didn't come out this year.
Stuff I Got Recommended but Haven't Played
Maybe I'll get to these this coming year, or maybe I'll be swamped as usual, because that's the life of a grad student. I have a lot on my plate! So I'll just relay these to y'all if you have more time on your hands than I do:
Right, now onto the list proper:
10. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
Look, I gotta flex my Playstation 5 ownership in some way in the wake of the worldwide shortages. I'd rub it in the faces of those who were unfortunate to wait in an automatic queue for over an hour to get a shot at acquiring one if the reality of the chip shortage hurting the tech world wasn't so depressing. Eat dirt, crypto-jerks!
Oh, right, and that new Ratchet and Clank game was pretty swell, too. While I was initially a bit bothered by some of the signposting in a few of its stages, invisible walls being the main hangup, it was so dang impressive how quickly the game cycled through so many sequences, thanks in part to the fast loading offered by that new, fancy console. The satisfaction of vacuuming up all the bits on screen from the mayhem never fails to get old, which is basically a staple of the R&C series.
I would say “it's another one of those”, because, let's be honest, there wasn't a whole lot it could have iterated on. But then I remember the dodge upgrade you get fairly early on in the game and how cool the visual effect on it was. I was honestly thinking of renaming this spot “The Best Dodge Move of 2021” because holy jeez that jaunt move looks amazing every time.
9. The Forgotten City
I'll just say right here and now that there are a ton of qualifications that come with this one. It doesn't take a genius to know that The Forgotten City was originally based on a Skyrim mod and developed into its own, separate yet standalone title. In true Bethesda-jank tradition, all those characters staring bug-eyed at the player character as they go through trees of dialogue make it extremely clear what the devs originally worked with.
It also feels like there were a couple of oversights that could have been addressed, what with the main story revolving around what constitutes as a sin as everyone in the underground, communal town is at risk of turning into gold the moment somebody slips up. The final sequence, for instance, felt a tad bit optimistic about the state of the world and didn't quite go in enough for my liking, biting off more than it can chew.
All that being said, there was still enough to like about this time loop game, wherein a society is on the verge of a catastrophic collapse from an unseen force. What constitutes as a sin is frequently examined, with clear oversights and blind spots being brought up and acknowledged, sometimes to devious intentions. Characters were endearing and memorable, what with them always on edge because of their environment, but also because they often veered seamlessly into dark humor and philosophical postulating at the right times. Getting into arguments with citizens and authorities from the Roman Empire was the icing on the cake.
I also really loved poking around the world and following the short yet effective quest threads, uncovering facts and tidbits of Roman history and architecture. The cherry on top of it all, it being a time loop game, was that the player character was never burdened with having to repeat the same labors over and over again, with pickups and knowledge carried over into new loops, which certain other games of its ilk could have taken a cue from.
8. Death's Door
Alright, let's see how well I can sum this up:
You're a cute crow plopped into the pencil-pushing, bureaucratic world of the afterlife, and are tasked with retrieving the overdue souls of monster lords that inhabit desolate yet colorful worlds to meet the quota put forth by your typewriter-hunched, corvid co-workers. That alone is worth the price of admission.
Apart from the combat, which was challenging and hit all the right spots one can expect from an isometric action game, Death's Door had a ton of charm to it, with its revolving door of its rich and funny characters doing a ton of legwork to help the little crow reaper along its journey. Though short and simple, its lively sections and boss encounters is more than enough to recommend to folks.
7. Psychonauts 2
This sure was a long time in the making, huh? I'm just glad it managed to land on its feet extraordinarily well, considering how many other titles with decades-spanning follow-ups tend to stumble and miss the mark.
Taking place not long after where the original Psychonauts left off, it really feels like a game that's been teleported from 2005 and into the present day, but with more of a mirror sheen polish. The writing and humor of still holds up exceedingly well, with its cast of characters and mind diving vignette stages shaping the story and world of the psychic organization. Psychonauts 2 was more of that, but with a bevy of new ideas and concepts for Raz Aquato to roll through, and how it expertly fleshed out and approached them with a genuine level of maturity.
On that note, this and another game that appears later on in my list are what I can hold up as examples of visual style and presentation giving context to the world of its characters, something that the interactive medium of video games really needs to embrace more often. Delving into the minds of its characters was a treat to behold, whether you are dumped into a competitive cooking show with sentient foods and hand puppets, or just vibing to a psychedelic soundscape of a rock legend. Psychonauts 2 has a ton of surprises worth checking out.
6. Metroid Dread
They saved the Metroid series.
Let me repeat: They. Saved. The. Series!
With the last “proper” game being the abysmal Other M, Mercury Steam really had their work cut out for them. Taking place off the heels of Fusion, which incorporated some of the elements of the aforementioned stain on the franchise, the only real direction they could have taken it was working around all the hindrances introduced in the character-ruining game, and reestablishing Samus as the tough and confident heroine the series was known for. But they did it. By God, they somehow did it!
All that being said, Metroid Dread is still a well-designed game in its own right. While it has the usual sprawling world design the series has been known for, filled with its ecosystem of remarkable enemies, it still manages to be a tense and exciting romp. Despite the size of the map, I never once felt lost in its maze-like structure, thanks in part to the clever level design.
The new addition of the E.M.M.I. encounters, while sectioned off, provided a level of panicky suspense, high-tailing myself away from the murderous robots in a way that I haven't felt since the SA-X from Fusion. I may have banged my head against them here and there, but they were quickly corrected because I, more often than not, missed a crucial bit of signposting that the game clearly had in front of me, blinking like neon lights in my idiot face.
Samus is back and better than ever, and that's enough of a reason for its inclusion. Now here's hoping Prime 4 is the second in the one-two punch to get everything back on track, if it even releases in our lifetime.
5. Resident Evil Village
Just when I think this series has given us everything, along comes Resident Evil Village as it dares to ask “What if we made it even stupider?” God bless you, Resident Evil. What would we do without you?
Aside from being a schlocky camp-fest that hasn't been seen since Resident Evil 4, the newest entry takes players to new heights as it depicts the life and struggles of one Ethan Winters' poor hands, going through so many trials and tribulations as hordes of monsters seek to separate them from their comeback-deficient owner. Just as you think his palms and fingers have had enough, along comes a new monstrosity that is dead-set on giving him hell. Somewhere in the mix was a tall vampire lady and a man I can only describe as Libertarian Magneto. I lost count of the times I had a big, idiot grin on my face, wondering how it would top itself next.
Oh, and it also had one of the spookiest mansion sections ever seen in a big-budgeted triple-A release, the likes of which have really only been found in smaller, indie games.
You're too pure for this world, Resident Evil. Maybe next time you can have us play as a character where every monster wants to surgically remove his kidneys or something.
4. Cruelty Squad
This game disgusts me. On just about every level. It's revolting.
I hate how the world, the character models, the environments, and even the in-game user interface has been bathed in a graphic design fever dream, with clashing colors and strobe lighting around every corner. Never before has a game so successfully captured what nausea feels like in interactive form.
I hate how repetitive and irritating the music is. Its twanging synths on a constant and noticeable loop, lending a sense of madness that the player has to contend with.
I hate the character upgrades and the body horror imagery attached to them. There's an intestine grappling hook that flings you across an entire level, a double jump that makes your character propel themselves upwards with the contents of their rectum, and an orifice that regenerates ammunition like a jaw with a never-ending supply of teeth..
I hate the volatile and repulsive world, with the player character in the role of a hitman taking down prestigious targets that openly and gleefully partake in human suffering. Human lives that are categorically valued based on the organs in their body, sold and shared on the easily accessible stock market, a capitalistic hellscape at its absolute pinnacle.
And I hate the Funko Pop collector that you're targeted to kill. Somehow, those awful things persisted longer than they should have.
Every single element is so sickening that I can't help but respect it on some twisted level. So here we are, the video game equivalent of a, deservedly, angry and pessimistic public art piece, on full display to the surrounding town, and I wouldn't take it any other way.
3. Solar Ash
A late entry to my list, mostly in part to it coming out at the very tail-end of the year, but no less deserved with how how cool the presentation and world was.
I would have been totally satisfied if Solar Ash's main attraction was the immensely satisfying skating and traversal system, with the main character pulling off sick flips among the clouds in a world-shattering black hole (it makes sense, trust me), before boosting my way across the gorgeous sights and sounds of the crumbling universe. Heck, I would have been more impressed if its addition of large-scale boss fights, reminiscent of something like Shadow of the Colossus that tested my quick thinking and reflexes as the pressures and danger mount, was where it drew the line.
See, Solar Ash had all of that while also delivering a core message about humanity, or whatever multitude of species within counts as it, putting off cataclysmic events as they bicker pointlessly among themselves, ignoring whatever fleeting moments of time they had left. The fact that all the characters who were thrust into the situation, while being generally well-rounded, have disappointments and grievances to share about the state of their predicament, was both the cherry and icing atop the cake.
At times, it's harrowing and delves into pretty upsetting territory, but it has instances of hope every so often so it isn't all doom and gloom. For me, that was enough to make it pretty high on my list.
2. Inscryption
I could talk about the many times Inscryption pulls the rug out from under the player in between the times it beats them down with a hammer in a somewhat unforgiving, yet narratively relevant, manner, but to do so would be a disservice when you could just go play it and find out for yourselves. Although it has a bit of a slow start and could have used a bit of fine tuning for its deck-building component, the best I can do is recommend folks go in as blind as they can, power through some of the tougher segments, and watch as the game unfolds its true nature.
What else can I say but “Stoat is GOAT!”
1. Devotion
It's really odd how many games from 2019 keep crawling onto my personal lists. But to hell with it, if I put Pathologic 2 on last year's for nebulous reasons, then Devotion, which technically re-released this year, is plenty deserving of a spot on this one.
There's a lot you can infer from Red Candle Games' horror masterpiece just by looking at it. Compared to their previous title, Detention, it ditched its side-scrolling survival-lite gameplay with a visually striking and beautiful depiction of a lived-in apartment, reminiscent of other games like P.T. or What Remains of Edith Finch. As I said earlier on in the list, this was the other example I hold up when I mentioned games taking advantage of its visual style to lend to the tone of the story. Where it draws similarity to Detention, however, is the team's willingness to not shy away from societal and political topics. For Detention, it showed the perspective of students under the White Terror period of martial law in Taiwan and how much psychological and emotional suffering it put on the general public. For Devotion, it took things closer to home by painting a elegant yet foreboding picture of a small family falling apart thanks in part to religious fanaticism and hubris.
Before I go on, I should stress that Taiwanese mysticism and culture is not my area of expertise, and I'm not gonna pretend that I know every facet that Devotion covers, as evidenced by its inclusion of Cigu Guanyin. What I instead want to say, as someone who had relatives experience something roughly equivalent, is how well it portrays decay and personal struggles a family goes through from blind attachment to faith, draining the well-being of everyone involved and taking a turn into truly dark territory. Everything Devotion touches upon, whether it be the unrelenting financial strain a family unit goes through, chasing intangible goals that erodes the soul rather than healing it, and even the parental shouting matches that takes a toll on their children's outlook of the world, all of that checks out and then some.
While trademark scares associated with horror games are somewhat restrained here, the real master stroke that Red Candle Games employs is the anxiety-tingling sense of dread it slowly builds up as the story unfolds. Every little new piece of information the player learns about the state of Mei Shin, the focus character and daughter of screenwriter Feng Yu and retired singer Li Fang, brings with it a painful and dark truth as her parents react and attempt to compromise their livelihoods as they slowly fail to maintain a healthy family. What follows is a string of scenarios as it runs through the six year history of the household. Career stagnation, health issues, and dire personal issues are all on the table here, and they're all treated with a tinge of apprehension and anguish. Devotion is one of the few games I can think of where its gameplay segments lend emotional and thematic weight to the narrative, having the player partake and witness some of the roughest and grief-filled moments.
While it's not a particularly long experience, Devotion manages to say everything it needed to, very elegantly might I say, because it tackled its topics exceedingly well. I should emphasize that while horror is ripe ground for approaching topics like these, it can often go very, very wrong and harmful, and I have nothing but commendation for the ones that hit it out of the park.
For that reason, among many others, I can recognize Devotion as my personal Game of the Year.
Take care and see you in 2022, folks...
