2021 was a pretty good year for games, if not exactly the whirlwind of releases that we experienced in 2020. This is the year that the current gen consoles really came into their own. It is also a year that I got through a lot of my backlog of games, so there weren't as many games to pick from that actually came out this year.
Without further adieu, here are my top 10 games of 2021.
The game basically follows the same formula laid out by earlier Ratchet and Clank titles, it’s largely linear levels with a lot of platforming and combat. The game’s typically zany assortment of weapons is all there and all feel really rewarding to use. Ammo limitations and individual weapon XP greatly encourages rapid switching of guns in every encounter, even if you find an early favourite.
Rift Apart leverages most of the PS5 systems pretty effectively. The adaptive triggers are used to good effect with a variety of the weapons, and while it may take a little bit of getting used to actually feels like a better way to use them. The real star of the show is the SDD and the load times, or lack thereof. There are basically no loads in the game whatsoever, and all transitions feel totally seamless. This is especially important here because swapping dimensions is a key gameplay element that needs this SSD to work, it isn’t just a convenience feature. The vibration and controller speakers are nice little touches that work well and are not overdone, but they feel secondary to the others.
Rift Apart really feels like the first full-length title on the PS5 that could only truly be done on the PS5. The lack of any load times at all isn’t just a convenience, it is integral to the entire game. I honestly can’t recommend it enough.
Rimworld: Ideology DLC.
Rimworld is a game that never quite clicked for me when it first came out, I like colony-builders but it was a bit more focused on the type of emergent storytelling that just never truly worked for me. It always felt a bit too aimless without any concrete goals to work towards.
Ideology changed all that, by adding the aptly named ideology mechanics. Now every colony has a core list of beliefs that give bonus or malus to your colonists for performing specific tasks. These combine to make every play through feel much more structured. Now you can create a colony of tree-loving space hippies or technology-obsessed transhumanists with actual gameplay backing behind them.
I only started this one in December, and it is telling that it has the most hours played of any game I have touched this year.
Despite all the media promotion, Deathloop was not really a title on my radar until just before release, and I am very glad I gave it a try.
Continuing 2021’s Year of the Time Loop, Deathloop features a protagonist, Cole, who wakes up with amnesia on a beach, only to find himself stuck in a loop of the same day. The game follows Cole as he tries to murder his way out of the loop by killing 8 specific people over the course of a day. Each of these “Visionaries” have special powers and schedules that have to be learned in order to effectively eliminate them.
This was a really fun 30-40 hour self-contained experience that does the time loop thing VERY well.
Speaking of time loops, Returnal was maybe the first big PS5 title released.
Punishing difficulty in a beautiful roguelike package, Returnal was Housemarque's first foray into a third-person action adventure game, and they do it surprisingly well. The story-telling is on point, and truly fits the extremely creepy nature of the game.
The game was unfortunately plagued with some significant bugs at launch (I am still missing half the trophies I should have got credit for) though these have since been fixed.
Oxygen Not Included - Spaced Out DLC.
See my comments on Rimworld, but I love me a good colony-builder. If games like Factorio are about logistics, and Rimworld is about emergent story-telling, ONI is a game about engineering increasingly complex systems.
Spaced Out aims to expand the space-exploration aspects of the base game, which were admittedly a late game mechanic that required very little effort to engage with. Now they are pervasive throughout your session and give you a great many more challenges and opportunities.
Also new biomes, critters, radiation mechanics, etc. really make this a great DLC even if you aren't interested in space travel.
FF7 Remake: Intermission.
The Intermission DLC is a reasonably short add-on to Remake that adds Yuffie as a playable character going through her own unique mission. This mission occurs alongside the events of Remake, so it is not integral to necessarily finish that before playing this one.
Yuffie is a much more fleshed out character than I expected, and while the DLC does introduce a fair number of new mechanics none of them overstayed their welcome. For example, the Clash Royal style mini game of Fort Condor is over after only 6-7 battles, just about the time it starts to feel a bit stale.
Overall this is a good value add for anyone who already has Remake, but isn't going to sway anyone who didn't love the base game.
Griftlands is a deck-building game alongside the lines of Slay the Spire.
What really sets Griftlands apart is that it is a deck-building rougelite with a story. Narrative-focused roguelites have been done before, see last year's Hades, but Griftlands approaches it in a pretty different fashion. You will follow the story of one of three characters, dealing with a series of procedurally generated challenges alongside a core narrative.
As you progress, you will be building two decks for each character. One representing combat and one representing diplomacy. Many challenges can be tackled using diplomatic means or combat, and the appropriate deck will be used for each. Maintaining two balanced decks is one of the biggest challenges of Griftlands, but can feel pretty satisfying to pull off.
If you loved Slay the Spire, definitely check this one out.
As the name would suggest, Back 4 Blood is the spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead. In fact, it is almost entirely the same team, and may as well be Left 4 Dead 3.
Back 4 Blood is primarily a semi-randomized 4-player co-op experience through a campaign of varying difficulties. Every level tends to feature a lot of horde-based zombie combat with pretty good shooting and mechanics. The game features a pvp mode as well, where one side plays as the zombies, but this seems much less engaging than the core-campaign mode.
If you played Left 4 Dead, you know exactly what you are getting here.
Humankind is popular 4X developer Amplitude's first foray into a historical setting.
Previously known for their Endless games, primarily the fantasy 4X Endless Legend and sci-fi 4X Endless Space, this their first attempt at making a worth challenger to Civilization. Which is a tall order, given how much Firaxis has dominated that market.
The result is pretty effective. There is a lot here that will be familiar to anyone who played Civilization, but gone some of the odd anachronisms that Civilization maintained for gameplay purposes.
The core conceit of Humankind is your culture developing over-time. No longer are you the US spawning in Asia in 4000 BC. Now you pick a time-period appropriate culture to adopt, and continue to develop and merge it with other cultures as time goes on. This results in making a pretty unique feeling "civilization" every game, comprised of modular elements of many different cultures. It makes the whole experience feel a lot more organic and believable.
Certain mechanics do still feel a bit awkward, particularly diplomacy and war, but those are things that may hopefully be addressed in future releases.
This one I came to VERY late in the year and have not had a chance to finish it as of yet. This is the second cRPG adaptation of the tabletop Pathfinder series, after Pathfinder: Kingmaker's debut.
Wrath of the Righteous is a pretty fun experience with a lot of interesting storytelling, characters, and character development options. It also has a pretty large strategy meta-game as you function as the commander of a large anti-demon crusade.
The difficulty is unfortunately, very inconsistent. While playing on normal will be a reasonable challenge most of the time, the game sometimes throws random encounters at you that will just wipe you out with no real interaction from your side. Maybe this will be patched, but in the interim make sure to keep your saves up to date.
