2021
Jett: The Far Shore was a game I didn't expect to set down as quickly as I did nor am I particularly happy with myself for doing so. However, as Game of the Year has been rolling out and some voices I really trust - primarily the boys over at Nextlander - have begun discussing this game in detail I suspect I've experienced the best this game has to offer already.
There is a calming atmosphere to this game that's couched in just enough casual dread that is immediately quite appealing. You feel alone in a way games aren't always confident attempting to portray, but that loneliness is short-lived and as your touring party increases it's not hard to sense how elated you'd feel given the same situation and stakes to have a few more friends by your side.
In fact, much of this game's first hour is so striking in mood and tone that it's a real shame how quickly it all falls apart, especially because that falling apart is largely thanks to the game this game asks you to play. Piloting the jet itself isn't exactly cumbersome - it's no Mako - but the international collaboration between Pine Scented Software and Superbrothers is so desperate to design around this jet that they keep dropping new gameplay mechanics on you and none of them feel all that interesting.
I get the impression that at some point during development they couldn't find an engaging way to make the very act of exploring an alien planet in pursuit of a new human home world feel sufficiently antagonistic, and so they fill the world with actual antagonists and gameplay systems that distract from that truly otherworldy feeling the early bits of the game give you.
I was also really enjoying the folksy sort of way these characters were written as well as the made up language they use - it's not often that voice actors given gibberish to read can evoke emotions beyond the comical and absurd, but Miguel Araujo and his team did an excellent job creating an evocative, almost spiritual tone from this cast of characters.
Again, I think this game opens about as strongly as any game ever could and given whatever sale price feels appropriate I wouldn't necessarily recommend against giving JETT a fair shake. Just know that a lot of people seem to have reached the same conclusion as I have about as quickly as I did: in search of a game to tell their story in, this international collaboration unfortunately drives a lot of players away.
There is a calming atmosphere to this game that's couched in just enough casual dread that is immediately quite appealing. You feel alone in a way games aren't always confident attempting to portray, but that loneliness is short-lived and as your touring party increases it's not hard to sense how elated you'd feel given the same situation and stakes to have a few more friends by your side.
In fact, much of this game's first hour is so striking in mood and tone that it's a real shame how quickly it all falls apart, especially because that falling apart is largely thanks to the game this game asks you to play. Piloting the jet itself isn't exactly cumbersome - it's no Mako - but the international collaboration between Pine Scented Software and Superbrothers is so desperate to design around this jet that they keep dropping new gameplay mechanics on you and none of them feel all that interesting.
I get the impression that at some point during development they couldn't find an engaging way to make the very act of exploring an alien planet in pursuit of a new human home world feel sufficiently antagonistic, and so they fill the world with actual antagonists and gameplay systems that distract from that truly otherworldy feeling the early bits of the game give you.
I was also really enjoying the folksy sort of way these characters were written as well as the made up language they use - it's not often that voice actors given gibberish to read can evoke emotions beyond the comical and absurd, but Miguel Araujo and his team did an excellent job creating an evocative, almost spiritual tone from this cast of characters.
Again, I think this game opens about as strongly as any game ever could and given whatever sale price feels appropriate I wouldn't necessarily recommend against giving JETT a fair shake. Just know that a lot of people seem to have reached the same conclusion as I have about as quickly as I did: in search of a game to tell their story in, this international collaboration unfortunately drives a lot of players away.
2019
This game might actually be impossible to assign a score. Compared to Yakuza 3 Remastered it is a huge, huge step up in terms of storytelling and gameplay variety, but in some ways that just makes the game's shortcomings more frustrating.
For example, by virtue of being the first new character players are introduced to as well as being threaded through the other characters' stories as well, Akiyama winds up feeling like the main character of a game the player rarely actually embodies. In some ways that's a neat trick, and RGG definitely weaponizes his charm to lift the spirits of the other characters' fairly dour storylines whenever it feels right, but every time Akiyama appears it's also a reminder that not only is his dialogue the most fun but his combat the most unique. This is especially true if you're marathoning through the games in chronological order, where his kick-heavy combat style truly plays like nothing else in the franchise to this point.
While charming additions to the gallery of misfit gangsters, Saejima and Tanimura are often saddled with gimmicks that make the game more cumbersome than interesting. Saejima, for example, is mostly forced to navigate the city via rooftops and sewage systems due to a high value warrant out for his arrest, which is not only a confusing and convoluted way to get around Kamurocho (albeit a slightly clever way to alter an otherwise constant map) but also highly discourages the pursuit of side quests. Tanimura, by contrast, has free reign of the city in a way no other character does, and yet nearly all of his missions involve him engaging in some kind of one-off mini-game or unavoidable gimmick that often restricts his already all-too-similar to Kiryu move set. Yakuza 4 is full of variety, but sometimes that variety can feel as convoluted as Yakuza's various criminal organizations.
Though if I'm being fair to Yakuza 4, it's main story is so propulsive that there's little wiggle room for dating, MMA training, combat arenas or the SEGA Arcade. Much like Yakuza 3, this game is awful about surfacing its side quests or guiding the player along the way Zero and the Kiwamis do, so I actually came to appreciate this. While Yakuza does an awful job pointing players in the direction of its side activities, its narrative does an excellent job of enticing the player to keep the accelerator revving. For what it's worth, the narrative does offer a very explicit opportunity to swap freely between characters and wrap up whatever loose ends you might want before completing the narrative.
While a classic JRPG trope, that does open the question: what business does a game, or player, have approaching the finale of their tale only to stretch the game from 17 hours to, potentially, over 100? It's a compromise made slightly tempting by the diverse playstyles and personalities of the characters as well as the hitting-its-stride silly writing of whatever substories you've likely seen at that point, but still...
I ultimately decided it wasn't really worth it, in part because the final proper act of this game may not feature the block happy anger management class bosses of Yakuza 3 but it certainly features some of the most poorly designed combat encounters I've yet experienced in this franchise. Far too often enemies can juggle the player character in a never ending series of stuns and knockdowns, in a Game of Death-like marathon fight in which your greatest enemy might actually be your limited inventory slots. The combat in Yakuza 4 is rarely hard but it is frequently cheap and somehow even more infuriating than 3 due to the more aggressive enemy A.I.
It's also hard to ignore that much of the final story beats lay the animé bullshit on thiiiiiiiiick while also matching the ending to Yakuza 2 practically beat for beat. Yakuza 4 spends so much of its time being a small (if absurd) story about how four strangers are all emotionally tied to the same state-wide conspiracy that a lot of its final hours can feel as desperate as they are repetitive.
In other words, I spent much of this game waffling between a 3.5 and a 4, but I think I ultimately have to settle even lower, a strong, bold-faced 3. For all the ways this game improves on that meandering installment and all the fun little hooks and twists there are in the story's mid-section, an eventual abundance of purely frustrating combat encounters and some true lack of imagination in the more Machiavellian aspects of the game's story make for something I definitely couldn't recommend as a cold turkey entry point to the Yakuza series, but would also advise those looking to binge the series as I have been that the game is quite enjoyable - with some very significant caveats.
For example, by virtue of being the first new character players are introduced to as well as being threaded through the other characters' stories as well, Akiyama winds up feeling like the main character of a game the player rarely actually embodies. In some ways that's a neat trick, and RGG definitely weaponizes his charm to lift the spirits of the other characters' fairly dour storylines whenever it feels right, but every time Akiyama appears it's also a reminder that not only is his dialogue the most fun but his combat the most unique. This is especially true if you're marathoning through the games in chronological order, where his kick-heavy combat style truly plays like nothing else in the franchise to this point.
While charming additions to the gallery of misfit gangsters, Saejima and Tanimura are often saddled with gimmicks that make the game more cumbersome than interesting. Saejima, for example, is mostly forced to navigate the city via rooftops and sewage systems due to a high value warrant out for his arrest, which is not only a confusing and convoluted way to get around Kamurocho (albeit a slightly clever way to alter an otherwise constant map) but also highly discourages the pursuit of side quests. Tanimura, by contrast, has free reign of the city in a way no other character does, and yet nearly all of his missions involve him engaging in some kind of one-off mini-game or unavoidable gimmick that often restricts his already all-too-similar to Kiryu move set. Yakuza 4 is full of variety, but sometimes that variety can feel as convoluted as Yakuza's various criminal organizations.
Though if I'm being fair to Yakuza 4, it's main story is so propulsive that there's little wiggle room for dating, MMA training, combat arenas or the SEGA Arcade. Much like Yakuza 3, this game is awful about surfacing its side quests or guiding the player along the way Zero and the Kiwamis do, so I actually came to appreciate this. While Yakuza does an awful job pointing players in the direction of its side activities, its narrative does an excellent job of enticing the player to keep the accelerator revving. For what it's worth, the narrative does offer a very explicit opportunity to swap freely between characters and wrap up whatever loose ends you might want before completing the narrative.
While a classic JRPG trope, that does open the question: what business does a game, or player, have approaching the finale of their tale only to stretch the game from 17 hours to, potentially, over 100? It's a compromise made slightly tempting by the diverse playstyles and personalities of the characters as well as the hitting-its-stride silly writing of whatever substories you've likely seen at that point, but still...
I ultimately decided it wasn't really worth it, in part because the final proper act of this game may not feature the block happy anger management class bosses of Yakuza 3 but it certainly features some of the most poorly designed combat encounters I've yet experienced in this franchise. Far too often enemies can juggle the player character in a never ending series of stuns and knockdowns, in a Game of Death-like marathon fight in which your greatest enemy might actually be your limited inventory slots. The combat in Yakuza 4 is rarely hard but it is frequently cheap and somehow even more infuriating than 3 due to the more aggressive enemy A.I.
It's also hard to ignore that much of the final story beats lay the animé bullshit on thiiiiiiiiick while also matching the ending to Yakuza 2 practically beat for beat. Yakuza 4 spends so much of its time being a small (if absurd) story about how four strangers are all emotionally tied to the same state-wide conspiracy that a lot of its final hours can feel as desperate as they are repetitive.
In other words, I spent much of this game waffling between a 3.5 and a 4, but I think I ultimately have to settle even lower, a strong, bold-faced 3. For all the ways this game improves on that meandering installment and all the fun little hooks and twists there are in the story's mid-section, an eventual abundance of purely frustrating combat encounters and some true lack of imagination in the more Machiavellian aspects of the game's story make for something I definitely couldn't recommend as a cold turkey entry point to the Yakuza series, but would also advise those looking to binge the series as I have been that the game is quite enjoyable - with some very significant caveats.
2021
FIRST OVERALL FAVORITE GAME OF 2021
703 hours played - and that's the least amount of hours I've played The Show since MLB The Show 16. Yet I accomplished more with less friction and more efficiently than in any previous year of Diamond Dynasty. Where so many Ultimate Team modes are finding more and more ways to antagonize their players and goad wallets out of pockets, Sony's San Diego Studios have zagged and searched furiously for ways to give the players what they want. Yes, of course, there is the grind of all grinds at the core of MLB The Show, but at the periphery is none of the bullshit, none of the gambling mechanics (packs, sure, but trust me when I say no reasonable person spends a cent on this game's packs and it's designed for that to be the case) and none of the obfuscation.
San Diego Studios has built an incredible baseball sim purely on presentation and gameplay, then built this mode designed entirely around taking advantage of players' nostalgia and desire to watch meters go up while card collections swell in size...only to focus exclusively on how to make those goals more achievable and constant for players. What they're doing should be one of the biggest stories in modern gaming, bucking every trend in its field and garnering unheard of positive sentiment as a result. This has been going on for years now, and has played no small part in how much time I've been willing to give this franchise - 900 hours into both 17 and 18, 800 into both 19 and 20 - year in and year out.
It is the perfect podcast game, it is the perfect barely pay attention and read the news game. You can treat it as a clicker if you want to or an insanely competitive, the best players in the world succeed three out of ten tries online competitive experience if you want to. MLB The Show 21 is the rare game that wants to cater to everyone and for whom reaching everyone is their one and only design goal. I haven't played less and less of this game over the years because I don't want to play it as much as I'm used to or am exhausted by a formula that's only seen slight alterations over the past five years. No, I'm playing the game less because San Diego Studios has made their game more and more accessible, easier for players to set long-term goals for themselves, achieve those goals and then accept that's the end of that year's grind.
Baseball is a beautiful game, and over the past five years The Show has reminded me of that. After several years listing it somewhere in the middle of my lists on this website out of deference to the annual sameness of it all, in a year in which I couldn't decide between two truly exceptional throwback titles, it's finally time to give San Diego Studios and their exceptional sports sim its due as the one game as a service that truly wants nothing more than to satisfy its fanbase no matter the cost to its overall value on an accountant's spreadsheet somewhere. Thanks for everything, SDS. Here's hoping you keep it up into the next generation and beyond.
703 hours played - and that's the least amount of hours I've played The Show since MLB The Show 16. Yet I accomplished more with less friction and more efficiently than in any previous year of Diamond Dynasty. Where so many Ultimate Team modes are finding more and more ways to antagonize their players and goad wallets out of pockets, Sony's San Diego Studios have zagged and searched furiously for ways to give the players what they want. Yes, of course, there is the grind of all grinds at the core of MLB The Show, but at the periphery is none of the bullshit, none of the gambling mechanics (packs, sure, but trust me when I say no reasonable person spends a cent on this game's packs and it's designed for that to be the case) and none of the obfuscation.
San Diego Studios has built an incredible baseball sim purely on presentation and gameplay, then built this mode designed entirely around taking advantage of players' nostalgia and desire to watch meters go up while card collections swell in size...only to focus exclusively on how to make those goals more achievable and constant for players. What they're doing should be one of the biggest stories in modern gaming, bucking every trend in its field and garnering unheard of positive sentiment as a result. This has been going on for years now, and has played no small part in how much time I've been willing to give this franchise - 900 hours into both 17 and 18, 800 into both 19 and 20 - year in and year out.
It is the perfect podcast game, it is the perfect barely pay attention and read the news game. You can treat it as a clicker if you want to or an insanely competitive, the best players in the world succeed three out of ten tries online competitive experience if you want to. MLB The Show 21 is the rare game that wants to cater to everyone and for whom reaching everyone is their one and only design goal. I haven't played less and less of this game over the years because I don't want to play it as much as I'm used to or am exhausted by a formula that's only seen slight alterations over the past five years. No, I'm playing the game less because San Diego Studios has made their game more and more accessible, easier for players to set long-term goals for themselves, achieve those goals and then accept that's the end of that year's grind.
Baseball is a beautiful game, and over the past five years The Show has reminded me of that. After several years listing it somewhere in the middle of my lists on this website out of deference to the annual sameness of it all, in a year in which I couldn't decide between two truly exceptional throwback titles, it's finally time to give San Diego Studios and their exceptional sports sim its due as the one game as a service that truly wants nothing more than to satisfy its fanbase no matter the cost to its overall value on an accountant's spreadsheet somewhere. Thanks for everything, SDS. Here's hoping you keep it up into the next generation and beyond.
SECOND FAVORITE GAME OF 2021
I'll probably write something more verbose and definitive about this game at some point. Been mulling playing it over on a harder difficulty for the Platinum for a while now. I said I'd be succinct about Psychonauts 2, and if there's any game on this list I go on and on about forever it's this one, but all I've to say for now is this:
This was my Spiritfarer, this was my Florence, this was my Invisible Inc. This is the game for which I cannot understand there isn't universal praise, that single handedly grasped the power of video games to challenge and please in equal measure that no other game this year quite put its finger on. I had a great time, I had a hard time, I struggled and I succeeded and by the time I was done I wanted a sequel so immediately and so badly I could have leapt out of my desk chair and caught a train directly to Ember Lab's offices in California if only I weren't so stuck in my chair, stunned that the credits were rolling and that was all I could have for now of this incredible game.
A sequel might not be in the cards - first of all, the game's ending doesn't exactly beg for one nor does the general public seem to be clamoring for this game the way every last one of you should be - but no matter what, Ember Labs is on my radar in a way almost no first-time studio ever has been in my thirty-plus years of gaming. What a lovely, lovely surprise.
I'll probably write something more verbose and definitive about this game at some point. Been mulling playing it over on a harder difficulty for the Platinum for a while now. I said I'd be succinct about Psychonauts 2, and if there's any game on this list I go on and on about forever it's this one, but all I've to say for now is this:
This was my Spiritfarer, this was my Florence, this was my Invisible Inc. This is the game for which I cannot understand there isn't universal praise, that single handedly grasped the power of video games to challenge and please in equal measure that no other game this year quite put its finger on. I had a great time, I had a hard time, I struggled and I succeeded and by the time I was done I wanted a sequel so immediately and so badly I could have leapt out of my desk chair and caught a train directly to Ember Lab's offices in California if only I weren't so stuck in my chair, stunned that the credits were rolling and that was all I could have for now of this incredible game.
A sequel might not be in the cards - first of all, the game's ending doesn't exactly beg for one nor does the general public seem to be clamoring for this game the way every last one of you should be - but no matter what, Ember Labs is on my radar in a way almost no first-time studio ever has been in my thirty-plus years of gaming. What a lovely, lovely surprise.
2021
THIRD FAVORITE GAME OF 2021
Psychonauts 2 was the most singularly stunning experience of 2021. Given its long, bizarre road to digital store fronts and aspirations to revive a style of game long thought dead through an intellectual property that was never more than a minor cult classic in its own time, the deck felt pretty stacked against Tim Schafer and crew for most of Psychonauts 2's production. Especially given the game's original director left halfway through production, there was no reason to expect the most heartwarming, intelligent, thoughtful storytelling of the year to come out of Double Fine's perpetual joke factory.
It's also, importantly, an amazingly beautiful game. While the XBox Series X experiences certain benefits the Playstation 5 does not and both consoles can make the Playstation 4 version look like a discarded chunk of coal at times, no matter how you gave this game to yourself you were greeted with some of the most confident art direction in years as well as the most imaginative level design of the entire generation, full-stop. In the same way DmC: Devil May Cry shamed so many third person action game designers with its explosive, propulsive ambition and design madness so to is Psychonauts 2 an experience that never lets its foot off the gas. While the gameplay isn't always the most satisfying the same can never be said about the environments you're enacting said gameplay within nor the story you're chasing down every last morsel of.
And the writing, holy shit! From primary cutscenes to random NPC banter while scanning for a clue where to go next, this is Schafer and his writing staff's most potent, clever, hilarious script since Grim Fandango, easily. I'd square Psychonauts 2 with anything in his catalog to be honest, and I could be convinced it's the best work he's ever done. Psychonauts 2's characters are just a delight to listen to and watch animate, so full of life and personality in a way that's almost overwhelming.
POSSIBLY SECOND, POSSIBLY FIRST
Psychonauts 2 was the most singularly stunning experience of 2021. Given its long, bizarre road to digital store fronts and aspirations to revive a style of game long thought dead through an intellectual property that was never more than a minor cult classic in its own time, the deck felt pretty stacked against Tim Schafer and crew for most of Psychonauts 2's production. Especially given the game's original director left halfway through production, there was no reason to expect the most heartwarming, intelligent, thoughtful storytelling of the year to come out of Double Fine's perpetual joke factory.
It's also, importantly, an amazingly beautiful game. While the XBox Series X experiences certain benefits the Playstation 5 does not and both consoles can make the Playstation 4 version look like a discarded chunk of coal at times, no matter how you gave this game to yourself you were greeted with some of the most confident art direction in years as well as the most imaginative level design of the entire generation, full-stop. In the same way DmC: Devil May Cry shamed so many third person action game designers with its explosive, propulsive ambition and design madness so to is Psychonauts 2 an experience that never lets its foot off the gas. While the gameplay isn't always the most satisfying the same can never be said about the environments you're enacting said gameplay within nor the story you're chasing down every last morsel of.
And the writing, holy shit! From primary cutscenes to random NPC banter while scanning for a clue where to go next, this is Schafer and his writing staff's most potent, clever, hilarious script since Grim Fandango, easily. I'd square Psychonauts 2 with anything in his catalog to be honest, and I could be convinced it's the best work he's ever done. Psychonauts 2's characters are just a delight to listen to and watch animate, so full of life and personality in a way that's almost overwhelming.
POSSIBLY SECOND, POSSIBLY FIRST
2018
FOURTH FAVORITE GAME OF 2021
This will be the slightest blurb here because this game was so widely praised last year, both by Giant Bomb, its guests, other publications and most importantly the users of this very forum. Who cares what I have to say about it - not me! All I'll say is I was gifted a Switch in January by the benevolent bar manager of the bar that'd gone mostly service industry-only during the worst of the pandemic, a watering hole for those of us who had no choice but to go outside and make the most of it.
Day after day in 2020, we attempted to claw our way out of a very real hell in order to be seen by the real world as more than just our occupation or position in society.
Finally playing Hades in 2021, I saw a lot of myself in Zagreus. Well, apart from the cool boons and the knowledge I'd emerge from a pool of blood fully prepared to do it all again should I die by any number of hell demons and their variants.
This will be the slightest blurb here because this game was so widely praised last year, both by Giant Bomb, its guests, other publications and most importantly the users of this very forum. Who cares what I have to say about it - not me! All I'll say is I was gifted a Switch in January by the benevolent bar manager of the bar that'd gone mostly service industry-only during the worst of the pandemic, a watering hole for those of us who had no choice but to go outside and make the most of it.
Day after day in 2020, we attempted to claw our way out of a very real hell in order to be seen by the real world as more than just our occupation or position in society.
Finally playing Hades in 2021, I saw a lot of myself in Zagreus. Well, apart from the cool boons and the knowledge I'd emerge from a pool of blood fully prepared to do it all again should I die by any number of hell demons and their variants.
2021
FIFTH FAVORITE GAME OF 2021
I'm such a damn jerk. I watched the IGN Devs React speed run earlier this fall after getting my PS5 and constantly waffling over whether I should make a move on Returnal. On the plus side: PS5 exclusive! DualSense examples galore! So pretty! Great for listening to podcasts! On the negative? $70 price tag. No saves. Hard as fuck. The negatives constantly outweighed the positives until I watched that video. I thought: that's it? I can do that! Who said this game was hard? Certainly not Bloodborne players.
Shortly after, the game went on sale for $40 and Housemarque patched in-game saves so it was a no brainer: I was gonna buy this game and kick its ass.
I have not, so far, kicked its ass. But I have had an awesome time! In fact, the inspiration to buckle down and write this post was just a few hours ago, as one of the best runs I'd ever had in this game ended with an ignominious fall down a pit after another of my patented Jump-Dashes Into Hell I've come to know myself so well for. It's, like, my absolutely favorite game within a game to play. I couldn't tell you when in the run I'll accidentally end it by falling into a pit of nothing thanks to my own panicked inputs, only that it will happen and I will laugh maniacally in frustration. Like a FromSoft game, that has been this game's most magic gift: I just today played this game for nearly two hours, excitedly collecting some very interesting sounding power-ups, some very useful feeling weapons and conquering some typically seemingly insurmountable challenges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjSSjlaIHO4&feature=emb_imp_woyt
But more than anything, Returnal is always an emotional experience. Tension, fear, elation, anticipation, giddiness, trepidation, total sadness. It's all in there. See that clip I posted above this paragraph? I nearly cried when I died there. I felt the tears welling up. I booted up these forums and started writing this blog to quell the pain. I really can't tell you how exasperatedly I shrieked in fear when I arrived at the bridge (which leads to the boss) only to find that waiting for me - sometimes, after all, the bridge has no enemies guarding it at all.
If I were any better at this game (and, again, check out that clip: I'm such a fucking wimp) it'd easily be my Game of the Year. The music, the set dressing, the bullet hell, the sound effects, the enemy designs. This is an absolutely remarkable game that I'm just not fully cut out for yet and may never be.
I can't wait to play more.
I'm such a damn jerk. I watched the IGN Devs React speed run earlier this fall after getting my PS5 and constantly waffling over whether I should make a move on Returnal. On the plus side: PS5 exclusive! DualSense examples galore! So pretty! Great for listening to podcasts! On the negative? $70 price tag. No saves. Hard as fuck. The negatives constantly outweighed the positives until I watched that video. I thought: that's it? I can do that! Who said this game was hard? Certainly not Bloodborne players.
Shortly after, the game went on sale for $40 and Housemarque patched in-game saves so it was a no brainer: I was gonna buy this game and kick its ass.
I have not, so far, kicked its ass. But I have had an awesome time! In fact, the inspiration to buckle down and write this post was just a few hours ago, as one of the best runs I'd ever had in this game ended with an ignominious fall down a pit after another of my patented Jump-Dashes Into Hell I've come to know myself so well for. It's, like, my absolutely favorite game within a game to play. I couldn't tell you when in the run I'll accidentally end it by falling into a pit of nothing thanks to my own panicked inputs, only that it will happen and I will laugh maniacally in frustration. Like a FromSoft game, that has been this game's most magic gift: I just today played this game for nearly two hours, excitedly collecting some very interesting sounding power-ups, some very useful feeling weapons and conquering some typically seemingly insurmountable challenges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjSSjlaIHO4&feature=emb_imp_woyt
But more than anything, Returnal is always an emotional experience. Tension, fear, elation, anticipation, giddiness, trepidation, total sadness. It's all in there. See that clip I posted above this paragraph? I nearly cried when I died there. I felt the tears welling up. I booted up these forums and started writing this blog to quell the pain. I really can't tell you how exasperatedly I shrieked in fear when I arrived at the bridge (which leads to the boss) only to find that waiting for me - sometimes, after all, the bridge has no enemies guarding it at all.
If I were any better at this game (and, again, check out that clip: I'm such a fucking wimp) it'd easily be my Game of the Year. The music, the set dressing, the bullet hell, the sound effects, the enemy designs. This is an absolutely remarkable game that I'm just not fully cut out for yet and may never be.
I can't wait to play more.
SIXTH FAVORITE GAME OF 2021
I simply cannot get the above image out of my head. As you can see, I've played a fair amount of this game and yet have a handful of facts to present:
• I have never solved the case
• I have never seen the above scene
• I have never seen more than just a couple of scenes you can find in a quick Google image search for The Final Cut, or at least the particular contortions of either the environment or the player character
• I'm not sure how much of what I haven't seen I ever will see, because this game scares me
All of this might lead a reasonable person to assume I should just go ahead and make some assumptions myself: that this game is more intricate, more detailed, more lucid, more hallucinatory, more interesting, more conversational, more intellectual, more more more than anything else on this list. You're probably right. Disco Elysium is confounding and stupendous and well worth the recommendation.
But it's also got kind of a horrible map, across three saves with very different characters I've found it a little too easy to get stuck in some pretty bland ruts depending on your build, and most importantly the PS5 version (I've posted this review to the PS4 version on account I'm still playing the PS5 version, but also because the game launched with some egregious bugs I think this rating should recognize) doesn't seem to accept I'm fine just reading the text (as accomplished as the voice acting is) simply because I read much faster than these actors would ever speak and I'm the sort that hates closed captions specifically because it spoils vocal performances. This is a personal pet peeve I wouldn't really knock the game for specifically.
In any sense, plenty of other people have gone to great lengths to describe this game's baffling greatness in ways I don't have the energy to right now. All I could do at the moment is complain about the little things that nag at me, that cause me to restart the game on a new save every few months and gladly twist and turn through its political intrigue all over again.
Again: 49 hours, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.
I simply cannot get the above image out of my head. As you can see, I've played a fair amount of this game and yet have a handful of facts to present:
• I have never solved the case
• I have never seen the above scene
• I have never seen more than just a couple of scenes you can find in a quick Google image search for The Final Cut, or at least the particular contortions of either the environment or the player character
• I'm not sure how much of what I haven't seen I ever will see, because this game scares me
All of this might lead a reasonable person to assume I should just go ahead and make some assumptions myself: that this game is more intricate, more detailed, more lucid, more hallucinatory, more interesting, more conversational, more intellectual, more more more than anything else on this list. You're probably right. Disco Elysium is confounding and stupendous and well worth the recommendation.
But it's also got kind of a horrible map, across three saves with very different characters I've found it a little too easy to get stuck in some pretty bland ruts depending on your build, and most importantly the PS5 version (I've posted this review to the PS4 version on account I'm still playing the PS5 version, but also because the game launched with some egregious bugs I think this rating should recognize) doesn't seem to accept I'm fine just reading the text (as accomplished as the voice acting is) simply because I read much faster than these actors would ever speak and I'm the sort that hates closed captions specifically because it spoils vocal performances. This is a personal pet peeve I wouldn't really knock the game for specifically.
In any sense, plenty of other people have gone to great lengths to describe this game's baffling greatness in ways I don't have the energy to right now. All I could do at the moment is complain about the little things that nag at me, that cause me to restart the game on a new save every few months and gladly twist and turn through its political intrigue all over again.
Again: 49 hours, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.
SEVENTH FAVORITE GAME OF 2021
I really, really, really, really, really liked this game.
I wanted to love it.
Ratchet & Clank 2016 revived something in me I thought was long dead: my love of the simple, 3D platforming collect-a-thon married to the unique and imaginative minds at Insomniac when it comes to weaponry and environmental design. I beat that game and then I leapt enthusiastically into New Game+ to collect the few trophies I'd missed the first time around as well as fully upgrade Ratchet's impressive arsenal. Not even the laughably bad story - lifted from the much-derided computer animated film released that same year - could keep me from falling head over heels for that game.
But perhaps that was as much time and place as the quality of this game? Hard to be sure, and I'd rather not interrogate it. The game is absolutely a powerhouse graphically, all the better for an animation style that's always favored bright shiny things and all the ways they can go boom and break apart. So many combat sequences in this game feel like a real "fuck you" to Knack and Knack 2 as the particles and effects fly all over the screen as if it were the second night of the Rolling Loud Festival or something. The guns remain effortlessly fun and the primary/secondary action of the L2 trigger is fun throughout, while the gameplay does a terrific balancing act of being approachable for kids but complicated enough for adults.
Essentially, this is just a grand new console showcase that doesn't break what doesn't need fixing, and while I might not be as over the moon about it as I was its predecessor that's no knock on this game. Highly recommended for anyone who can get their hands on a PS5 in the future and loves platformers, probably for as long as it takes for another one of these to come out.
I really, really, really, really, really liked this game.
I wanted to love it.
Ratchet & Clank 2016 revived something in me I thought was long dead: my love of the simple, 3D platforming collect-a-thon married to the unique and imaginative minds at Insomniac when it comes to weaponry and environmental design. I beat that game and then I leapt enthusiastically into New Game+ to collect the few trophies I'd missed the first time around as well as fully upgrade Ratchet's impressive arsenal. Not even the laughably bad story - lifted from the much-derided computer animated film released that same year - could keep me from falling head over heels for that game.
But perhaps that was as much time and place as the quality of this game? Hard to be sure, and I'd rather not interrogate it. The game is absolutely a powerhouse graphically, all the better for an animation style that's always favored bright shiny things and all the ways they can go boom and break apart. So many combat sequences in this game feel like a real "fuck you" to Knack and Knack 2 as the particles and effects fly all over the screen as if it were the second night of the Rolling Loud Festival or something. The guns remain effortlessly fun and the primary/secondary action of the L2 trigger is fun throughout, while the gameplay does a terrific balancing act of being approachable for kids but complicated enough for adults.
Essentially, this is just a grand new console showcase that doesn't break what doesn't need fixing, and while I might not be as over the moon about it as I was its predecessor that's no knock on this game. Highly recommended for anyone who can get their hands on a PS5 in the future and loves platformers, probably for as long as it takes for another one of these to come out.
TENTH FAVORITE GAME OF 2021
Much like P.T. never left my PS4, this will likely never leave my PS5 in case I need to introduce some woeful soul to this incredible experience for the first time.
While Radiohead is in a unique position with essentially infinite money and a fandom of basically unrivaled voraciousness, I wouldn't be surprised if this is something that more and more artists pursue as a promotional tie-in to their album release advertising.
Much like P.T. never left my PS4, this will likely never leave my PS5 in case I need to introduce some woeful soul to this incredible experience for the first time.
While Radiohead is in a unique position with essentially infinite money and a fandom of basically unrivaled voraciousness, I wouldn't be surprised if this is something that more and more artists pursue as a promotional tie-in to their album release advertising.
2021
Anybody who knows me knows that I never miss an opportunity to rant about how far this franchise has fallen, besotted by an addiction to MyTeam card pack sales and MyPlayer Virtual Currency sales that has left the MyGM mode in shambles and the core competency of the game - the simulation of the game of basketball - in many ways stuck in the halcyon days of its single player efforts, which inarguably crested a decade ago with the introduction of Michael Jordan and the Jordan Challenge in NBA 2K11 - though the mode's follow-up, 2K12's NBA's Greatest, was arguably more comprehensive and feature complete.
NBA 2K22 is still all of that - it's gross, it's opportunistic, it's most interesting mode for older basketball fans - MyTeam - is still more casino than card collecting video game and still more "Christ we have to figure out how to make Shaq relevant in the modern NBA" rather than "hehe let's see these scrawny modern centers deal with the size of speed of the man who once played Steel on the big screen!" MyGM hasn't seen a significant investment of resources since, I mean, since 2K12 if we're being honest, though they'll always pay their lip service. And the game ultimately still slips into a bit of a scripting trap too often, a legacy issue dating back to the Dreamcast days that stands out all the more after two decades of basketball gaming and the competition completely snuffed out. It's online performance is also still fucking trash - I really don't understand how anyone could enjoy playing this game competitively with the state of the input lag, but I suppose that's been going on for long enough who has time to care anymore?
That said, the number's right there: 34 hours, honest as can be. For all its faults, NBA 2K22 is a great showcase for the newest consoles, MyTeam's abusive attitude towards players can't obscure that baseline dopamine hit of collecting even your least favorite favorite players from your childhood, and in the parlance of Deadspin (R.I.P.) Remembering Some Guys, while the on-court product might not look or feel exactly like basketball looks or feels these days but thanks to a new locomotion and animation branching system at least doesn't feel like giants stomping through a mud field anymore.
In other words, NBA 2K22 is still kind of terrible - but if you're a basketball fan, it's alright? Ugh.
NBA 2K22 is still all of that - it's gross, it's opportunistic, it's most interesting mode for older basketball fans - MyTeam - is still more casino than card collecting video game and still more "Christ we have to figure out how to make Shaq relevant in the modern NBA" rather than "hehe let's see these scrawny modern centers deal with the size of speed of the man who once played Steel on the big screen!" MyGM hasn't seen a significant investment of resources since, I mean, since 2K12 if we're being honest, though they'll always pay their lip service. And the game ultimately still slips into a bit of a scripting trap too often, a legacy issue dating back to the Dreamcast days that stands out all the more after two decades of basketball gaming and the competition completely snuffed out. It's online performance is also still fucking trash - I really don't understand how anyone could enjoy playing this game competitively with the state of the input lag, but I suppose that's been going on for long enough who has time to care anymore?
That said, the number's right there: 34 hours, honest as can be. For all its faults, NBA 2K22 is a great showcase for the newest consoles, MyTeam's abusive attitude towards players can't obscure that baseline dopamine hit of collecting even your least favorite favorite players from your childhood, and in the parlance of Deadspin (R.I.P.) Remembering Some Guys, while the on-court product might not look or feel exactly like basketball looks or feels these days but thanks to a new locomotion and animation branching system at least doesn't feel like giants stomping through a mud field anymore.
In other words, NBA 2K22 is still kind of terrible - but if you're a basketball fan, it's alright? Ugh.
Bloated beyond all belief, full of pitiful side quests no sensible person would ever endeavor to complete and large open areas with little excuse for their existence other than "hey, Uncharted doesn't do this, ya jerks!"
That being said, it's still rooted in the same core combat and exploration loop that earned the previous games so much praise, drenched in a graphical sheen so ridiculously impressive that playing it on my base PS4 in the middle of winter, I often wondered if this wasn't secretly the most outright gorgeous video game of the generation.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is quite lacking in the creativity department and plenty's been said about Lara's questionable role in her own stories, but that's also just what this genre is and it's perfectly fine to both acknowledge the cultural quandries of the swashbuckler without letting it dilute the core fun of the experience. I'd say that if either The Discourse or somewhat mixed critical response dissuaded you from giving this game a shot, keep an eye out for a sale! It's cool!
That being said, it's still rooted in the same core combat and exploration loop that earned the previous games so much praise, drenched in a graphical sheen so ridiculously impressive that playing it on my base PS4 in the middle of winter, I often wondered if this wasn't secretly the most outright gorgeous video game of the generation.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is quite lacking in the creativity department and plenty's been said about Lara's questionable role in her own stories, but that's also just what this genre is and it's perfectly fine to both acknowledge the cultural quandries of the swashbuckler without letting it dilute the core fun of the experience. I'd say that if either The Discourse or somewhat mixed critical response dissuaded you from giving this game a shot, keep an eye out for a sale! It's cool!
2019
Early in the year I came across a free month - or was it $0.99? - trial of EA Access and decided to give it a shot. Despite not caring much about football since, oh, 2013 or so (and especially after the Kaepernick debacle) I found this game weirdly compelling. I get why a lot of modern Madden players complain about this game - they all play Ultimate Team, and that mode sounds predatory in a supremely evil way - but I think the Franchise mode is actually pretty cool. I hadn't touched the mode since Madden NFL 14 or so, an era of Madden I would confidently describe as "dogshit" and was surprised to find a bunch of fun and sensible RPG mechanics tucked into the mode in addition to all the usual bells and whistles the mode has had for years. The game's got a good, dynamic commentary system thanks to using no-name voice actor dudes instead of established TV personalities (or that's the impression I get anyway) and the practice modes that give your players XP based on your performance are also really good at teaching football, something that's become way too complicated for the average person to understand.
These 11 hours were crammed into a little under a week, and when I dropped it I dropped it, because the knees on these players still look ridiculous and the running game still feels like a comedy of errors once the new graphic shine wears off, but my impression of this game was surprisingly pleasant given how down Alex Navarro has been on this franchise for, I dunno, most of his life? I used to almost exclusively play Madden and NCAA franchise modes as a kid while devouring new and favorite albums, and it was really refreshing to spend a week during the early optimism of Biden's presidency reliving a bit of my childhood.
These 11 hours were crammed into a little under a week, and when I dropped it I dropped it, because the knees on these players still look ridiculous and the running game still feels like a comedy of errors once the new graphic shine wears off, but my impression of this game was surprisingly pleasant given how down Alex Navarro has been on this franchise for, I dunno, most of his life? I used to almost exclusively play Madden and NCAA franchise modes as a kid while devouring new and favorite albums, and it was really refreshing to spend a week during the early optimism of Biden's presidency reliving a bit of my childhood.
2017
In a word: immaculate.
Sure, there are things to quibble with. The melee combat is...juvenile at best. Just ignore it. The story of this game may very well be the best of its generation...and it may have been told in the most cumbersome way imaginable. I found that kind of hard to notice in the moment, though it did sting on my NG+ play. While the on-the-fly crafting is a marvel of moment-to-moment tension during battle, the crafting system as a whole is tedious trash and the game offers up much too much materials and straight up junk for what it has to offer on the other end.
And the training grounds? Boy do they seem to expect you to play this game in a way that would require an insane level of situation awareness given the level of chaos that tends to build in damn never every combat scenario.
I'll never forget how afraid I was of the very basic, raptor-like enemies for the first ten or so hours of my first playthrough. I was cautious, eager to sneak by and avoid combat altogether as much as possible. When we did get into fights, I'd just as often give up and run away as see the encounter through. It only got worse as the sawtooths and ostrichs slowly got added to the mix. This game was straight up terrifying for a long time.
But you get your tools, you learn their patterns, and at some point...bang! Like no other game I've ever played, Horizon just made sense. Rope these things down here, lay these sorts of traps over here, stick these kinds of tripwires there, always, always, always have percussive arrows to blow these fuckers apart piece by piece...it became an elegant dance for me. I beat the game, and then I beat it again on Ultra Hard+. I tried to get into the DLC when it released but I was rusty, so I waited a year...and then played the entire game again, on Ultra Hard+, again.
If you read enough of my reviews you'll be aware that I'm genuinely pretty awful at harder video games, so when I CHOOSE to make them hard, that's when you know I've reached some alchemical fascination with a game and it's combat mechanics. Horizon, to me, is magic. It's what I thought was going on in Contra III: Alien Wars all those years ago with my trusted Game Genie plugged in to make sure I'd have a good time, only the training wheels are off and the only good bot's a dead bot.
I'll reiterate that I loooooooved the story of Horizon: Zero Dawn, I thought it was a clever interpretation of the Skynet mythology and was delivered at exactly the right pace. But I can definitely admit/accept that it was told in about as ramshackle a way as you could tell it, even if it made sense in the lore. I worry that Horizon really doesn't have much story left to tell, especially considering so much of what surrounded that - from voice acting to motion capture to the actual, present day political "intrigue" - was often mediocre at best.
But this combat, man. This combat...Horizon Zero Dawn is without a doubt the best feeling video game I've ever had my hands on, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what Guerilla have up their sleeves for a second crack at it.
Sure, there are things to quibble with. The melee combat is...juvenile at best. Just ignore it. The story of this game may very well be the best of its generation...and it may have been told in the most cumbersome way imaginable. I found that kind of hard to notice in the moment, though it did sting on my NG+ play. While the on-the-fly crafting is a marvel of moment-to-moment tension during battle, the crafting system as a whole is tedious trash and the game offers up much too much materials and straight up junk for what it has to offer on the other end.
And the training grounds? Boy do they seem to expect you to play this game in a way that would require an insane level of situation awareness given the level of chaos that tends to build in damn never every combat scenario.
I'll never forget how afraid I was of the very basic, raptor-like enemies for the first ten or so hours of my first playthrough. I was cautious, eager to sneak by and avoid combat altogether as much as possible. When we did get into fights, I'd just as often give up and run away as see the encounter through. It only got worse as the sawtooths and ostrichs slowly got added to the mix. This game was straight up terrifying for a long time.
But you get your tools, you learn their patterns, and at some point...bang! Like no other game I've ever played, Horizon just made sense. Rope these things down here, lay these sorts of traps over here, stick these kinds of tripwires there, always, always, always have percussive arrows to blow these fuckers apart piece by piece...it became an elegant dance for me. I beat the game, and then I beat it again on Ultra Hard+. I tried to get into the DLC when it released but I was rusty, so I waited a year...and then played the entire game again, on Ultra Hard+, again.
If you read enough of my reviews you'll be aware that I'm genuinely pretty awful at harder video games, so when I CHOOSE to make them hard, that's when you know I've reached some alchemical fascination with a game and it's combat mechanics. Horizon, to me, is magic. It's what I thought was going on in Contra III: Alien Wars all those years ago with my trusted Game Genie plugged in to make sure I'd have a good time, only the training wheels are off and the only good bot's a dead bot.
I'll reiterate that I loooooooved the story of Horizon: Zero Dawn, I thought it was a clever interpretation of the Skynet mythology and was delivered at exactly the right pace. But I can definitely admit/accept that it was told in about as ramshackle a way as you could tell it, even if it made sense in the lore. I worry that Horizon really doesn't have much story left to tell, especially considering so much of what surrounded that - from voice acting to motion capture to the actual, present day political "intrigue" - was often mediocre at best.
But this combat, man. This combat...Horizon Zero Dawn is without a doubt the best feeling video game I've ever had my hands on, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what Guerilla have up their sleeves for a second crack at it.
1999
Look, I can't give this game a perfect score because, well...the orphanage plot line is right there, stupid as hell, right? Pretty much all of Disc 3 is right there, frustrating the hell out of anyone experiencing it for the first time. The draw system is tedious if you're older than, say, 16 years old with any kind of social life and most importantly child soldiers, salaried or otherwise, are NOT COOL.
Oh, but did you hear the one about the floating high school that nobody knew could float until some of the kids wound up in its shockingly elaborate sewage system where they discovered a gigantic slug who happened to manage the school's finances but also wanted to sabotage it for his own political gain? From his office IN THE SEWER?
Beyond the bonkers aspects of FFVIII that work purely on the strength of their insanity, it also introduced me to a lot of things that still fascinate me about big, AAA games. Cinematic cutscenes that actually look like a film director shot them, weird in-game social networks you can't interact with but feel endlessly compelled to check in on, characters that start out presenting as one sort of archetype only to eventually peel back a layer or two and reveal a complex underbelly.
Then there's also the two bits of game design that I think are actually brilliant: Triple Triad, which needs little introduction. Sure, one could argue the game allows for players to ruin the game forever by accidentally playing too much too soon on Centra or Dollett and that the methods for avoiding those cursed rule sets are, um, ARCHAIC but that's what guides were for in the late '90s, baby!
Likewise, I think it's actually pretty brilliant that the game allows the player to set its difficult, but that this decision is tied to NOT leveling up. I find it both a mechanical and philosophical challenge from the game designers that they would tease all these big numbers and systems that make them even bigger, only to hide in plain sight that the most efficient way to progress through the game, actually, is to keep the numbers small. Ubisoft would never!
Lastly, the music, well, that's just a given, yeah? Bangers on bangers on bangers. One other cool thing, though? That terrifying moment when you discover the Island Closest to Hell and forget to equip or haven't learned the no encounter skill yet, stumbling into T-Rex variants that are level 100 no matter what and have no regard for your pitiful existence. Not only does it remind the player of a fear they likely haven't felt since early in Disc 1, that first time they hit and the character they've chosen likely goes down in one hit? Ew, disgusting.
Truly lastly, Ragnarok for best airship don't @ me. I played this game for thousands of hours to completion at least 15 times as a kid. I had a dedicated FF VIII save card. My word is my bond.
Oh, but did you hear the one about the floating high school that nobody knew could float until some of the kids wound up in its shockingly elaborate sewage system where they discovered a gigantic slug who happened to manage the school's finances but also wanted to sabotage it for his own political gain? From his office IN THE SEWER?
Beyond the bonkers aspects of FFVIII that work purely on the strength of their insanity, it also introduced me to a lot of things that still fascinate me about big, AAA games. Cinematic cutscenes that actually look like a film director shot them, weird in-game social networks you can't interact with but feel endlessly compelled to check in on, characters that start out presenting as one sort of archetype only to eventually peel back a layer or two and reveal a complex underbelly.
Then there's also the two bits of game design that I think are actually brilliant: Triple Triad, which needs little introduction. Sure, one could argue the game allows for players to ruin the game forever by accidentally playing too much too soon on Centra or Dollett and that the methods for avoiding those cursed rule sets are, um, ARCHAIC but that's what guides were for in the late '90s, baby!
Likewise, I think it's actually pretty brilliant that the game allows the player to set its difficult, but that this decision is tied to NOT leveling up. I find it both a mechanical and philosophical challenge from the game designers that they would tease all these big numbers and systems that make them even bigger, only to hide in plain sight that the most efficient way to progress through the game, actually, is to keep the numbers small. Ubisoft would never!
Lastly, the music, well, that's just a given, yeah? Bangers on bangers on bangers. One other cool thing, though? That terrifying moment when you discover the Island Closest to Hell and forget to equip or haven't learned the no encounter skill yet, stumbling into T-Rex variants that are level 100 no matter what and have no regard for your pitiful existence. Not only does it remind the player of a fear they likely haven't felt since early in Disc 1, that first time they hit and the character they've chosen likely goes down in one hit? Ew, disgusting.
Truly lastly, Ragnarok for best airship don't @ me. I played this game for thousands of hours to completion at least 15 times as a kid. I had a dedicated FF VIII save card. My word is my bond.