henke on 22/12/2021 at 09:02
This year wasn't all that great for games, was it? I mean I played plenty of good stuff, but compared to the last few years it was a bit underwhelming. Also I don't think I played any new VR games this year?
Henke's Top 10 of '211. SableA wonderful, low-stakes coming-of-age story where you drive a hoverbike around an alien desert and help people out. I liked it a lot.
2. Heavenly BodiesI never really care about achievements, but I'm currently trying to 100% this thing just because I wanna squeeze every drip of gameplay out of this physics-based astronaut-game. This sort of thing is my bag, baby!
3. Metroid DreadFirst Metroid I ever finished. It's a good one.
4. GravitreX ArcadeUnderrated game of the year right here. Only 6 Steam user reviews, and one of them is mine. It's a retro arcade lander physics type thing where you control 2 ships and often have to switch between them to get past obstacles. It's great and if this thing is even remotely appealing to you, you should buy it.
5. Very Very ValetIt's like Overcooked but you're parking cars at fancy restaurants. The gameplay is very slick and fun.
6. Forza Horizon 5Vroom vroom!
7. DeathloopStab stab!
8. FilcherLike everyone I had a hard time with some of the design decisions in this initially, but once you get into the groove of this game it's a very compelling stealth-experience with an engaging story.
9. Bump The Waymaker DemoPlays like Jump King, but with much more interesting level design and characters. Very challenging and compelling. I hope one day it will become a full game. Also, you can't play this.
10. LakeA nice and chill game about working as a postal worker in a small town for 2 weeks and getting to know the locals. This is basically what I wanted from The Good Life.
Free game of the year that you should play right now:(
https://torfi.itch.io/a-firm-handshake) A Firm Handshake - It's free, it's short, and I don't wanna spoil anything by telling you about it. Just play it and feel all the feelings.
Honorable mentions:Rain On Your Parade
Mini Motorways
Zeepkist (EA)
Tricky Machines
Nuts
Skate or Don't
Starboy
Unpacking
Insurmountable
Omno
Cruelty Squad
Underland/Underland: The Climb
Day Repeat Day
Golf Club Wasteland
Intravenous
Ynglet
Disappointments:Psychonauts 2 - I think I played through most of it. Got to
the lady with 3 personalities, one of which is a librarian. Aaaaaand it just never really won me over. There's some nice moments here and there. Visually a lot of it is very imaginative and fun, but naah.
The Good Life - I kickstarted this Sweary game and spent a weekend really trying to enjoy it, but it's mostly just kinda annoying and unengaging.
Mario Golf: Super Rush - If you want a fun and breezy golf game on the Switch, just play Golf Story.
Our previous Best Games Of The Year lists(
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150997) 2020 | (
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150275) 2019 | (
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149432) 2018 | (
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148501) 2017 | (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147367) 2016 | (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146083) 2015 | (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144820) 2014 | (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142865) 2013 | (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140656) 2012 | (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137856) 2011 | (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134184) 2010
demagogue on 22/12/2021 at 13:03
It's that time of the year.
The field was pretty thin this year.
It should probably be acknowledged that it was a lousy year all around, so understandable not much got released.
Also it's weird -- well anyway for me since to this day I'm still working remotely -- how 2020 and 2021 just bled into each other, so half the games I think of coming out "this year" came out last year.
Anyway, looking down my game list by date, I can note that a lot of games on my list are pretty indie.
I may have to resort to some DLC.
- My GOTY is Sable without a doubt. A few foibles aside (if you're going to make a hoverbike cruising game, you gotta make your hoverbike cruise smoothly! That's the whole rush of it), I was completely immersed in that world. I loved the exploration side of it. I loved the little tiny corners of storytelling, lore, & little secrets to it.
After that, there's a grabbag of games I liked, but a lot of them tended to be on the casual & bitesized side. It's not like I was turned off of big ambitious games, I just didn't play (m)any from this year.
- Death Trash I love the retro look & the atmosphere of the world, and it plays a bit like the poor man's Hyper Light Drifter, slick enough. But it's noticably unfinished and some of it is a bit amateurish.
- Labyrinth City. It's a kid's kind of maze game.
- Dorf Romantik. A slicker version of Carcassone, which has been my go-to casual game to kill a little time for a long time, and this has kind of taken that role.
- Rain on Your Parade. Even putting aside the fact I feel contractually obliged to prop my fellow TTLGers games, I actually like mixed bag kinds of games, where it takes a concept and runs it through lots of vignettes. And maybe I was thinking about it explicitly on design grounds more than most, but it did give me lots of ideas and ways of thinking about design.
- Signal State. It's trying to be Zachtronic-like. It's not. But cool enough anyway, just because I'm a fan of modular synthing.
- There are games like Townscaper & The Ramp, but those are like candy. Really bite sized.
Other games I played that I wouldn't put on my top list but I still have opinions about:
- This Land is My Land. Ugh this is cringe. Who would make game where you play as a Native American and so blatantly alienate Native Americans with it? It's like you have one job with a game like this that you have to get right... But I've got some Western themed projects I'm working on, so I'm still getting lots of ideas from it, which are legitimately good ideas if they were packaged in the right way.
- Buddy Simulator. I get what it was doing, and it was competent enough. Maybe after a certain age I'm not as obliging to let a conceptual game play out its idea unless it's got some really fresh ideas (like Outer Wilds).
- Adios. This is kind of in that same category, but this is better. It's a kind of modular puzzle/walking sim with some decent storytelling going on. I like a lot of the design ideas, but maybe the story just isn't working for me yet. I haven't finished it, so I can imagine the story really ramping up as it goes on and my opinion of it getting a boost.
- Loop Hero. This game got a lot of hype, but honestly I don't really get it. I get that it has a clean just-one-more-turn gameplay loop that should be addictive on paper. I just never got invested enough in it to care about the next turn.
DLC:
DCS: the Hind came out, and it's kind of a cool copter, the closest you might get to a flying tank, but it's pretty unwieldy.
X4: Cradle of Humanity has been a pretty cool expansion.
Speaking of which Avorion kicked out 2.0 which has been a really, really cool update.
Things I got that I haven't played yet, but I imagine they're good:
- Deathloop. I mean it's an Arkane game.
- The Forgotten City, which has been a mod for a while, it seems
- Breathedge, a Subnautica clone in space.
- Nuts. The screenshots really intrigue me. I can't install it because I get some Unity error, so I suppose I'll only be able to play it on some future computer. So that's a shame.
- Combat Mission: Black Sea. This is the yang to GravTeam games' yin. Maybe most importantly it has playback, which GravTeam games don't ... for a genre that really needs playback or why are you even bothering to simulate things happening 4 miles away that I'll never see?
- Before Your Eyes. The little blurbs about it that I've caught make it sound intriguing. I don't want to know anything about it so I can go into it fresh & let it do its thing.
I guess that'll do it.
Jason Moyer on 22/12/2021 at 13:24
The only new game I played was Quake Enhanced. So good job Quake Enhanced, you're GotY.
Starker on 22/12/2021 at 13:41
Turns out the only new game I played this year that was worth a damn was Psychonauts 2. It was kind of hit and miss in places, but a few times it managed to capture the old charm for me -- the pancake making scene in particular had me roaring with laughter.
Thirith on 22/12/2021 at 15:35
Quote Posted by Starker
Turns out the only new game I played this year that was worth a damn was
Psychonauts 2. It was kind of hit and miss in places, but a few times it managed to capture the old charm for me -- the pancake making scene in particular had me roaring with laughter.
I'm finding it difficult to summarise how I felt about
Psychonauts 2. I found it eminently charming, and there's a lot that I liked tremendously. I enjoyed hanging out in this world and with these characters. But my feelings are all quite mellow, whereas I loved the original
Psychonauts. Which may simply be a case of the second game being a great continuation but a continuation nonetheless, where the first game was more fresh and surprising. I also don't think that
Psychonauts 2 had any worlds as memorable as the first game.
Out of interest: which other new games did you play this year, Starker? I'm wondering if there were any that I really liked which you thought weren't worth a damn.
henke on 22/12/2021 at 15:38
Forgot that Quake Enhanced came out as well, that should've been on my list somewhere. Didn't think I could get excited about Quake again, but the new MachineGames episodes were brilliant.
So glad to see SABLE as TTLG's GOTY so far. :cheeky:
Nuts was ok, but A Firm Handshake, by the same developer, was even better, and FREE! (
https://torfi.itch.io/a-firm-handshake) EVERYONE PLAY IT!
I promise I will stop going on about A Firm Handshake just as soon as everyone here has played it ok
WingedKagouti on 22/12/2021 at 15:51
I've only played 2 games from 2021 as far as I know:
Loop Hero
Sonic Colors: Ultimate
SC: U is basically a HD version of Sonic Colors, but on systems that didn't get the original. Good game, can hearthily recommend if you enjoy the modern 3D Sonic games.
I would never have purchased Loop Hero, but it was an EGS freebie so I gave it a go and have had a decent amount of fun.
Of the two, I think more highly of Sonic Colors, but Loop Hero is still good if you just want to spend a bit of time.
Starker on 22/12/2021 at 15:59
Quote Posted by Thirith
Out of interest: which other new games did you play this year, Starker? I'm wondering if there were any that I really liked which you thought weren't worth a damn.
I think the only other one that was current year was
Encased, a game I kickstarted, but it ended up being kind of a disappointment. Also, one that I have, but haven't gotten around to playing yet is
The Good Life, so maybe it's a surprise waiting.
Also, taking a quick look at year end lists, there are some big name games (that haven't been mentioned in this thread yet) I didn't get, because they didn't really manage to raise my interest enough:
Far Cry 6Hitman 3Halo InfiniteDarkest Dungeon 2Quote Posted by Thirith
I also don't think that
Psychonauts 2 had any worlds as memorable as the first game.
Yeah... Maybe the cooking gameshow level, but not much else.
Yakoob on 22/12/2021 at 21:58
<3 <3 <3 thank you for the TTLG love
Hmm I'll need to look through my game list. I never buy games on relase so lots of games I play are actually a year-few old, I don't even know what released this year from my library lol.
I think my GOTY would go to
(https://store.steampowered.com/app/1073910/Before_We_Leave/) Before We Leave which is a hexagonal city-builder that has the hook of slowly expanding to different islands, then different planets, and creating elaborate supply chains between all of them. It's one of those few games that sucked me in like crack, I'd play it for hours on end because there was just one more thing to do! I also appreciate there isn't really a fail condition, so resolving supply chain issues never crosses the barrier from "slightly frustrating" to "rage quitting" (which I did on Control, lol)
I was super intrigued by
Inscryption's demo but haven't picked up the full game just yet. It seems like it might also be a contender.
Quote Posted by demagogue
-
Loop Hero. This game got a lot of hype, but honestly I don't really get it. I get that it has a clean just-one-more-turn gameplay loop that should be addictive on paper. I just never got invested enough in it to care about the next turn.
Same here, it'd prolly be my biggest disappointment. It really felt like Grind: the game. It took resource management and idle games, and mixed their worst aspects. It's an idle game where you can't really idle, because you constantly need to fiddle with your inventory and upgrades. It's a resource management which doesn't give you enough control to make the management interesting.
The building tiles mechanic is pretty unique, but it quickly became secondary to the constant inventory micro-management and watching battles you have no control over. I also missed out on figuring out synergies, because the game did not explain them to me and I didn't even know they were there.
When I got to my 4th loop and realized how slow the meta-progression is going to be and how many pointless loops I'd need to do to power up enough to even beat the first boss, I just gave up. Grind: the game.
WingedKagouti on 23/12/2021 at 08:28
Quote Posted by Yakoob
When I got to my 4th loop and realized how slow the meta-progression is going to be and how many pointless loops I'd need to do to power up enough to even beat the first boss, I just gave up. Grind: the game.
Having actually beaten the first boss, the big challenge in that was getting good tiles to put around the campfire in the loop. When the boss spawns, he fills the unclaimed tiles around the loop campfire with a special type of tile that boosts his power, so you can either hold on to a bunch of Oblivion cards (to nuke those tiles) or fill the space around the loop campfire with tiles of your own. As with Roguelikes there are a ton of systems not actively explained to the player and experimentation is heavily encouraged.
