Last year I wrote down my ranking of the games I played in 2020 but I never got around to posting them. This year I’m putting them up. This ranking only includes games released in 2021, not the many, many, games from prior years that I played. I am also not including games that I bounced off or did not put substantial time into, though I didn’t finish every game on the list. Whether an unfinished game got onto the list or not depended on whether I felt like I understood enough about how it played and how I felt about it to comfortably rank it. Most of these games I’ve written more substantially about elsewhere, and you can find my opinions on my blog or in the forums for the relevant games.

This list is mostly for my own purposes, to keep track of what I played and what I thought about it. I may write up a longer list including every game I played at a later date, and I have some ideas I want to reflect on to write up later too, but for now this is my list. Next year I hope to get to at least 30 games but we’ll see. 23 is already quite a lot for me.

I also noted what games I played on Game Pass because that's how I accessed so many of these games and it shows the value the service provided me, though I played older games on it too!

23. WEREWOLF: THE APOCALYPSE – EARTHBLOOD

Monotonous, janky to the point of seeming unfinished, and relentlessly dull, I played this game with relatively low expectations and it failed to live up to any of them. It’s not the worst game I’ve played in my life but it’s one of the worst I’ve finished in recent memory and it’s a missed opportunity for a property that could be made into a great game and had a decent AA studio behind it. Probably at least partially a victim of COVID, this is a game where you play as a mighty werewolf who spends most of his time sneaking around bland offices. Blech.

22. BALAN WONDERWORLD

Perhaps the most infamous whipping boy of 2021 games, Balan Wonderworld is legitimately bad. It has a few defenders and some genuinely good music and decent level design in points, but its laborious costume system, baffling one button control decision, and numerous other issues (including a frustrating camera and a story that was removed from the game to be sold as a companion novel) doom it to mere curio status. I was excited for this game at the beginning of the year, put off by the demo, and only ended up playing it because a friend bought it for me. Thanks, bud.

21. RAIN ON YOUR PARADE (GAME PASS) (NOT FINISHED)

This game has you playing as a cloud who goes around disrupting various events by raining on people and things to cause chaos and destruction. Later levels have you doing everything from zapping folks with lightning to raining volatile substances down to cause fire to sneaking through a base in a parody of Metal Gear Solid. The problem is that none of it plays great. It’s adequate for the purposes of the jokes, but the jokes aren’t particularly funny and I ran out of steam before 50 levels was done. Not a horrible game and one that I could see some people enjoying, but none of it feels great and slogging through annoying gameplay for some very mild chuckles wasn’t worth it for me.

20. F.I.S.T. FORGED IN SHADOW TORCH

This game irritated me the whole way through. There’s the bones of a good metroidvania in here somewhere but the garbage storytelling (and so much of it), frustrating imprecision, weird interruption mechanics, and various other frustrations meant that it was just good enough not to abandon but mostly a bad time. It has camera problems. In a 2D game. In 2021. What? It wouldn’t take that much work to fix it and make it a legitimately great game, but they didn’t do that work. I don’t like it.

19. KENA: BRIDGE OF SPIRITS

This game got great reviews and I kind of understand why, but it never clicked with me. It’s pretty for an AA release, and the combat is okay but there’s a lack of enemy variety, most of the puzzles tended towards the annoying rather than engaging, and I thought the bosses were too damned hard for the kind of game that it was. There were also some technical issues that made my playthrough less enjoyable, chief among them that I hated hated hated the camera (though you can turn the worst aspects off in options.) I really wanted to like this one but I just didn’t. It’s not a terrible game and I understand why it resonated with others, but it didn’t with me.

18. RETURNAL (NOT FINISHED)

Another game that didn’t resonate with me at least in part because it was too difficult. Even more so than with Kena I can appreciate what Returnal is trying to do and even what it does well, but the spooky alien aesthetic isn’t really my thing and I didn’t love the weapon feel or the aliens. The world felt unpleasant and hostile and I didn’t want to spend time there, and I got tired of making successive runs without feeling like I was making progress and being forced into using weapons I didn’t really enjoy. Just too bleak and repetitive a game for my tastes. I may finish this one at some point but I don’t look forward to returning to it.

17. THE MEDIUM (GAME PASS)

The Medium is a game of medium quality. Ha! A pun. Skulking around an abandoned communist Polish resort has its charms and the graphics are genuinely quite nice, but despite a strong main character the story didn’t really work for me in the end. The parts where the game tries to be more than an adventure game and introduces stealth or fleeing action sequences annoyed me, as did the strange attempt at combat. It’s a game that’s still worth playing for its atmosphere and characters, but one that ultimately garnered more attention for its split screen gimmick than for the actual game presented, and for good reason.

16. SABLE (GAME PASS)

This contemplative exploration game pulled me in at first and managed to be intermittently engaging as I picked away at it over the course of the rest of the year, but ultimately it’s a little too empty and, for lack of a better word, boring, for my tastes. I like the idea of a low key game with a small story and I loved the graphics and music, but the game can be frustrating at times when there’s an apparent climbing route that doesn’t quite work when you get up to it, and managing the location of the bike is a constant chore. These are specific choices made with thematic intent, since the game is about growing up and there are false paths and frustrations to be had in that process, but eventually I got the point and I was still left with the annoying mechanics. Well worth playing nonetheless.

15. CHICORY: A COLORFUL TALE

This game is gorgeous and unique. It is a draw ‘em up about coloring in a black and white world but more importantly about self doubt and imposter syndrome. I loved a lot of what this game is going for and I really loved the sound track, but in the end I found it a little bit shallow and unsatisfying. I admire the intent and I mostly enjoyed my time with it but I’m probably just a bit old and jaded to fully engage with the message.

14. THE GUNK (GAME PASS)

A very light 3D platformer with some basic puzzles that gets by on story and charm. The Gunk has you exploring an alien planet cleaning up clouds of ‘gunk’ that are suppressing the natural life of the world and resolving your issues with your life partner while she grumbles about your debts and tends to your small scavenger ship. I was expecting more from the Steam World team but this is what I got and it’s a pleasant and low key way to pass four hours or so. Approach it expecting a decent, chill, game about exploration and you’ll have a good time.

13. ECHO GENERATION (GAME PASS)

This 80s and 90s pastiche has a pleasant look and plenty of amusing absurdity. It also has a far better soundtrack than it has any right to. It’s a short, light, RPG adventure game hybrid and I found it pretty charming, if not much more than that. I would liken it to something like The Touryst, with which it shares a lot of aesthetic similarities. It’s a fresh take on an old genre and worth a playthrough for the humor and weirdness.

12. THE WILD AT HEART (GAME PASS)

This game has one of my favorite aesthetics of the year, with a really nice 2D look, good music, and charming character designs. As a Pikmin clone that simplifies the formula I appreciated that it was doing something different from most indie titles, and I found the story charming and intriguing. Unfortunately it has a lot of small interface issues that can make it a frustrating experience and keep it from getting higher on this list, but I enjoyed my time with it. If you love high production value indie games and especially Pikmin then this is a game that’s worth your time.

11. OUTRIDERS (GAME PASS)

I didn’t experience any substantial technical issues with Outriders so I’m judging it as a game for what it offers, specifically as a single player experience. That ends up being an overly long kind of forgettable campaign with some pretty good but not perfect third person shooting action. The best thing about Outriders is the way that its mechanics encourage you to play it as an in your face action game where teleporting behind enemies and shooting to heal are winning strategies and sitting behind cover plunking at them is not. This makes it feel different from other games in its genre, and that’s a good thing. The worst things about Outriders are the boring enemies, bad loot odds, mediocre boss fights, and choppy story. Not to mention a campaign that just drags at the end, throwing you into more environments than you’d expect but not doing anything particularly interesting with each new chunk of the map you open up. This game isn’t quite sure whether it wants to be live services or a one and done campaign and it ends up not nailing either of them. I still enjoyed the shooting until it got boring, and some of the areas you explore are pretty impressive. A messy, problematic, but overall fairly fun game.

10. LOOP HERO (NOT FINISHED)

I ultimately gave up on this one because it’s very repetitive and progression eventually slows to a crawl. The strategic elements of tile placement are where the actual game play is and it’s kind of opaque and confusing, but I got pretty far and I found it a very unusual and engrossing game for the time I put in. A combination deck builder, idle game, and strategic tile placement title isn’t something I’d have thought would work as well as it did. It’s fascinating to see

9. CRUIS’N BLAST

This game is a confusing oddity in 2021. It’s a legit port of an arcade game that plays like it was made for the N64 and looks like it runs on the Dreamcast but actually came out in 2017. It doesn’t have a ton of content and it’s almost unimaginably janky for a modern game that costs $40 at MSRP, but damned if it didn’t hit all my nostalgia buttons for the simple arcade racers of yore. It’s loud and colorful and takes itself just as seriously as you’d expect any game where a neon unicorn can race against a triceratops and a hovercraft would, which is to say not at all. I didn’t play this for very long but it made me feel and remember things that no other game did this year.

8. FLYNN: SON OF CRIMSON (GAME PASS)

A fun little platformer that’s halfway between a traditional stage based game and a Metroidvania, its charming graphics and engaging combat are enough to carry it through its relatively short running time. Plenty of variety in enemies and abilities, a satisfying upgrade system, and tight controls make this an excellent fit for anyone who misses 32-bit style 2D adventures. I wouldn’t call it a must play, but it’s a good choice for anyone craving retro style platforming action.

7. LOST IN RANDOM

The second funniest game I played this year (after my top game of the year) and a really creative and fun adventure overall. I loved the world building and characters, was impressed by the sound track, and really enjoyed much of my time with the game. The reason it doesn't rank higher is that the combat is just so-so and there's a lot of it. If the weapons were more fun to use or the pace of the battles were brisker or there were more interesting powers to discover it would be in the upper echelon of my top 10. As it was it felt like it ran out of gameplay ideas about half way through, and it was very focused on combat in the back third or so, making it a bit of a chore to finish. Still worth the time, especially since the story wraps up pretty tightly for a video game.

6. THE ASCENT (GAME PASS)

This game is a throwback to when PC RPGs did not hold your hand and were more focused on presenting complex world building than being player friendly. Not nearly as hard as those games of yore but capturing much of the spirit that they had I was glued to this for a couple of days despite its issues. If you’re in the mood for deep world lore and some decent shooting action mixed with a fair amount of frustration and some annoying backtracking you’ll have a good time here. I was especially impressed with the dialog, which managed to be believably savage for people living under totally unbridled capitalism in a hostile and broken world.

5. DEATH’S DOOR

This cute and absurd little Zelda clone perfectly accomplished what it set out to do. It provides good combat, good puzzles, a striking look, memorable boss fights, and a very original story. It’s about 10 hours long and it’s a pleasing adventure for its entire run time, wrapping things up nicely at the right moment. Sometimes execution matters more than ambition, and Death’s Door exemplifies that. It doesn’t try to do anything but repeat a formula with a little narrative twist, but it’s such a fun, playable, experience that I couldn’t help but really like it.

4. RATCHET AND CLANK: RIFT APART

I have played the entire Ratchet and Clank series barring some PSP spin off games over the past couple years and I really like the series. Rift Apart was another very solid entry and one of the best looking games I’ve ever played. I was concerned about them separating Ratchet and Clank from one another, which they’ve done before in A Crack in Time and I did not really appreciate, but here it worked much better and the new characters are all great. It’s more Ratchet and Clank and that’s a very good thing. An extremely solid action platformer with broad appeal.

3. FORZA HORIZON 5

I love the Forza Horizon series. It’s my ‘default’ gaming when I can’t think of anything else to play. The bright, welcoming atmosphere and fun mix of exploration and racing have struck a cord with me from the first game in the series now through the 5^th entry. That being said, we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns. Having played Forza Horizon 4 on and off for the last few years Forza Horizon 5 definitely felt like more of the same, and in some ways worse. I like the idea of the new expeditions campaign but the actual ‘story’ missions were kind of boring with uninteresting rewards. The map has a ton of variety but didn’t quite satisfy me as much as England did. I still love this game and will play a lot more of it but I’m hoping the series does more to reinvent itself the next time out. That being said I own the expansion pass and they’ve done crazy things with that in the past, so I might not even have to wait that long to see it freshened up. Still a great time, even if it’s not the series peak for me.

2. SUPER MARIO 3D WORLD + BOWSER’S FURY

Okay, Super Mario 3D World is obviously not a 2021 game, but Bowser’s Fury is new this year and it’s pretty much a stand alone game so I’m including this package. I had a fantastic time with Super Mario 3D World after the first few levels, but Bowser’s Fury was a revelation. I loved this tiny island-themed Mario package and I really hope the next Mario game takes some inspiration from it. The soundtrack is also next level good. Bowser’s Fury shows that just because a game is short without a metric ton of content doesn’t mean it can’t be a wonderfully polished experience. I don’t know if it’s my favorite 3D Mario but it certainly stands up there with the best the series has to offer, which is saying quite a lot. Wonderful.

1. PSYCHONAUTS 2 (GAME PASS)

Something about this game didn’t click for me during the first quarter or so, but after it lets you leave the Psychonauts headquarters and explore the area around it I was hooked and hooked hard. An above average 3D platformer with fun powers mixed with one of the best stories in all of gaming and some spectacular level design and locales, I genuinely loved this game. Psychonauts 2 is the rare game that will stick with me long after I completed it, with characters I genuinely cared about and liked. It’s optimistic in a way that most games for adults aren’t, and continuously surprising and delightful. If I’m measuring games by how much they made me smile then this is easily my game of the year.