My Top 5 Games of 2021

5) Crusin Blast

At the time of me writing this, it has been *checks watch* nearly 14 years since the world has seen a proper Burnout game. I’ve platinumed Burnout Paradise twice (once with the remaster) and I’ve even played a bit of it on Xbox as well, but no game has really given me the same feeling that Paradise gave me all those years ago. However, there are still some games that get close to scratching that itch. A few years ago it was Dangerous Driving, and a few years before that was Onrush, and this year, that scratch was itched by, of all things, a Switch exclusive port of an arcade racing game?

Cruzin Blast wasn’t on my radar at all, but outside of the solid week where I was obsessed with Bayonetta, it was easily the biggest burst of obsession I had all year. I picked up the game on a whim after seeing some gameplay and hearing just enough positive talk about it, and it really blew me away. 

Now, when I say this is an arcade title, I mean that both literally and genre-wise, as this was something literally played in arcades. Because of that, the polish in this game is super minimal. Graphics look like a really good PS2 game, physics are over the top, and destructible environments and cars don’t leave behind much destruction after the initial damage. But it’s all so colorful, so fast, and so frenetic that none of those facts detracted from the experience. 

Now, I said earlier that this game has some heavy Burnout energy, but the gameplay structure isn’t actually that similar to Burnout. There’s no crash mode, no road rage events, and the only even type is straight races. But, as Errant Signal said in his video on Burnout Paradise, Burnout games are the Hot Wheels of the racing genre, and Crusin leans into that understanding of cars wholeheartedly.

The game delights in giving you the gaudiest, most vibrant vehicles (and sometimes, unicorns) to race through the most impossible, extreme environments. Like, you can drive a Hummer through some Roman ruins, but why stop there when you can also drive a helicopter over a cracked fault line in the middle of an earthquake? That’s what makes these races feel like so much more than just a race. Things will happen throughout a race that subtly change the track from lap to lap, giving you more optional routes and collectibles to find. Much like Burnout, you can take down competitors by raming them, but unlike that game, the mid-air trick system is a bit more involved and way more cartoonish.

Basically, take the destructive, yet playfully juvenile spirit of Burnout, and replace any sense of groundedness left with any and everything that a 12 year would think is cool. This is a winning formula for me, a guy who prefers Saints Row to Grand Theft Auto. 

Now, there are some downsides. While the game has old-school arcade sensibilities, it also has modern arcade length coming in at less than 5 hours to beat, and unless you like cutting down lap times and collectible hunting, there’s not too much replayability. The lack of online multiplayer means I can only get friends in on this when with them physically. And, despite my appreciation of the Switch hardware, I’d love to see what this game could look like on a platform that isn’t 2 generations behind graphically. But none of that matters, because the few days I spent with this game were some of the most fun I had all year, jank and all.

4) Omno

Fun fact, I didn’t really care for Journey back when I played it on the PS3. As I get older, I more and more appreciate the tone and atmosphere it was trying to set, but as a piece of interactive software, it didn’t feel all that engaging to me. Not saying it needed to be some kind of Celeste-like test of will, but when its narrative is so ephemeral and vague, it’s hard to latch on to something in it when the gameplay leaves me hanging as well. Now, I say all that to say that Omno is pretty much what I would have wanted from a game like Journey.

Omno was a game I kept coming back to for a few weeks in the fall and it was such a breath of fresh air for me. I had heard about it from seeing our own Graydon play it on our YouTube channel, and once I saw it on Game Pass, I knew I had to give it a shot. But I didn’t expect to be so enamored with it. It does have a similarly minimal story to Journey, though this has a bit more character development. But what Journey lacked in compelling gameplay, Omno has in spades.

Omno has a bunch of traversal mechanics, from air glides and dashes to staff surfing and teleporting, but the game doles them out in each level. This allows each level to test the player on mainly one mechanic at a time. Even when the game eventually incorporates multiple mechanics, it does so gently and still doesn’t get too complex. The puzzles and traversal challenges always stay simple and easy enough to not contradict the chill atmosphere, but even when it does push back, it does so in a way where you can easily understand how to succeed. Plus, the games’ most challenging moments are completely optional, but I’d recommend tackling them anyway as the game is incredibly short. I got every achievement and found every secret, and it only took me 4 hours to do so.

That brief playtime is actually a positive in this case, as it’s impossible for this game to overstay its welcome. For the last year or so, the idea of putting dozens and dozens of hours into exploring an open world sounds exhausting, but meandering around the open environments of Omno never got tiring. Plus these open levels are a joy to traverse with those aforementioned movement mechanics.

The game is just so different from many of the games I played at the time. There are no high scores, competitive matches, deep narrative choices, or even any combat. Every interaction you have in the game is non-violent and interacting with all of the welcoming, yet bizarre flora and fauna to see how they respond is half the fun of the game. 

If I had to criticize one thing, the story is pretty lackluster. In fact, the final cutscene is a bit of a twist, but it fell flat for me as I didn’t pick up on what the story was leading towards throughout, as I just vibed out to everything else about the game. But that vibe is immaculate, so if you have Game Pass, or think a 4-hour chill experience is worth $19-16 depending on the platform, I highly recommend checking it out.

3) Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

If you created a formula to objectively rank every game released in 2021, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart would probably be at the top of that ranking. It is objectively the best Ratchet and Clank game ever made. Its characters are given more depth and its story is enjoyable but also reintroduces real stakes and danger to the series for the first time in years. This is easily the smoothest any Ratchet and Clank game has played, and the several graphical furnishes and options make sure it’s also the prettiest game in the series as well. And it has a trophy list that nearly perfectly ushered you through just enough content in the game to be satisfied without having to clear a massive list of objectives and collectibles. Unlike most of the games on this list, Rift Apart genuinely feels like a flawless video game, even if I did have one or two graphical glitches when playing.

Then why is it’s only #3 on this list? Well, Rift Apart feels so perfect because it is more of a refinement of a house style than it is of Ratchet and Clank itself. Insomniac is a great developer, my favorite one actually, and I’ve played damn near every single game they’ve ever made. So, from early on, I clearly saw the aspects that make up an Insomniac game: weapon wheels, compelling traversal mechanics, and rewarding upgrade paths. They had elements like these in all of their games since the original Ratchet and Clank in 2002, but they’ve continued to pop up in everything from Resistance to Fuze to Sunset Overdrive to Spider-Man. Don’t get me wrong, many of these games are some of my all-time favorites, and Rift Apart will certainly be up there as well. But after a decade of playing games with this specific gameplay feel, this specific progression, this specific vibe, I’m starting to tire of it a bit. In fact, playing this so soon after Miles Morales might have led to me being fatigued with the Insomniac formula more than normal.

It feels unfair for me to criticize the game for this, especially when I genuinely did love it. Rivet quickly became one of my favorite fictional characters, and even Ratchet and Clank themselves were more engaging to watch this time around. New weapons like the Ricochet gun and the Blackhole Storm were as fun to use as they were to experiment with their upgrade trees. And platforming and jet boot boosting through the world is as fun as it’s ever been. 

But by the end of my time with the game, I felt like I simply just played another one of those, ya know? It didn’t feel like a singular experience that I’ll think back to with a fondness that grows more intense with time. It felt more like playing a Call of Duty campaign, which I pretty much always enjoy, but they don’t often leave an impact on me. Maybe chalk this up to my fuzzy headspace for most of the year if you’d like, but I am so glad that we get a full year break from Insomniac as they work on the next Spider-Man game. I still recommend this game to pretty much anyone, but if you feverishly consumed all of Insomniac’s previous work like I did, to the point where the extended break between Into the Nexus on PS3 and rift Apart on PS5 didn’t even feel that long, then maybe wait until you feel that itch for the formula once again.

2) Knockout City

Back when I was a kid, I was way more active than I am now, and a lot of that is due to things like P.E., Recess, and summer camps all encouraging physical movement more than anything in adulthood. But I didn’t play begrudgingly, as I loved riding my bike, playing kickball, and seeing which one of my friends I could beat in a short footrace. But above all else, I loved dodgeball more than anything. Not only was it a compelling game on its own, with its combo of dodges, catches, and hard hits making for a ballet of close calls and incredible comebacks, but I was also really good at it. I may not have ever had an interest in traditional sports, but I was skinny enough to dodge effectively, never tired of making quick, short movements, and had great hand-eye coordination from playing video games. Dodgeball, and also, weirdly, crab walking, felt like the two physical activities that God very well may have put me on this Earth to do. But, like everyone, I got older, my passions expanded and changed, and my love for dodgeball sat in the back of my mind.

That is until Velan Studios came out of nowhere in the first Nintendo Direct of 2021 with a bizarre trailer for Knockout City. A trailer that was so bizarre that many of those who saw it didn’t really understand what the actual game was, and few anticipated it after that initial glance. Well, I was the exception. Unlike the fun but small-scale Stikbold! A Dodgeball Adventure, this game was a fully 3D virtual version of dodgeball that adapted the mind games, near misses, and hard hits of actual dodgeball. It played off of childhood memories I had long forgotten. So, when I saw that damn trailer, I genuinely teared up.

Well, thank God the actual game ended up being excellent as well.

Now, it’s not exactly the same as the dodgeball I grew up with. It has sprawling maps to brawl out on, not courts that have been split in half for each team. There is no purgatory in the backcourt to place opponents into, nor is there any catching a ball to get someone into or out of that purgatory. And this game is a bit more forgiving, as it takes two hits to knock someone out rather than one. But all of those are worthwhile sacrifices because the changes to the sport here more directly encourage the game to be played like a game more than a rigid sport. In fact, it kind of distills the sport down to its purest form, one where it’s pretty much all about throwing, catching, dodging, or ball acquisition. This makes the game not only more accessible but also just straight up more fun to play. Even with its handful of modes and of special balls, those core aspects remain centered at all times. And it’s a gameplay formula that almost never gets old.

But Knockout City didn’t stop at being a great playing game, it also has the greatest sense of style of anything I’ve played in the last year. It’s like if Jimmy Neutron, Grease, and Jet Set Radio Future had a baby. It’s an eclectic mix of the future (through the lens of the 80s) and diners and muscle cars (through the lens of the 50s). It makes every match so colorful and vibrant that you almost don’t mind getting pegged in the head with a rubber ball for the 96th time that match. And on top of that, it has what is easily the best soundtrack of the year. It’s full of catchy earworms that’ll have anyone tapping their toe in the lobby menu. And overall, sound design is great as well, especially with the satisfying PANG that plays when getting a direct hit on someone.

Now, I’ll admit, while I absolutely adore this game, I haven’t gone back to it as consistently as I would have hoped. As I write this, it is currently in its 4th season of content, and I didn’t even get around to it when it was in its third season. But I did put in several dozens of hours, and in the weeks around launch, it was all anyone could talk about. And the fact it has cross-play, cross-progression, and found new life on PlayStation Plus, Twitch Prime, and Game Pass surely helped it stay in people’s minds for a long time. But now, it’s something I only come to every once in a while, because, for me, that is the ultimate fate of any live service game that isn’t Call of Duty or Apex. But no matter what the future holds for this game, I will always love it with the same intensity that I had when I first learned of its existence and, if only for a moment, felt like I was a 10-year-old in summer camp, knockin heads with rubber balls once again.

1) The Forgotten City

This game is a special one. I had no anticipation for it, but I’ve been hearing about its various forms for what feels like years. I knew about it when it was a Skyrim mod, and I’ve been familiar with it all the way to its release as a stand-alone game this year. What kept it in my memory is how folks talked about it. Or more accurately, how folks didn’t talk about it. There’s been this air of mystery around the title where folks don’t talk about the game past its initial setup and premise. That, and the repeated praise I’ve heard given to the game from folks like Blessing Jr, made me finally give it a go once it hit Game Pass. And oh my God, I am both kicking myself for not playing this sooner and so thankful that I didn’t experience this story until this time in my life.

The game puts you, a self-insert character with your choice of gameplay altering background professions, into a time loop. Basically, you get sent back in time to an obscure Roman city filled with dozens of gold statues. But when any of the two dozen or so citizens, including visitors like yourself, commit a sin, all of those statues turn to life and kill everyone. The loop only occurs when the leader of this city runs to the temple on the edge of town in the chaos to recite the spell that opens the portal that brought you into this world, to begin with, starting you back at the beginning, but with all the knowledge you’ve gained on the previous loop. And you must use that knowledge to figure out who is going to break the golden rule and stop them before dooming the town once again, and again, and again.

I know I keep saying this, but It’s not quite like anything else I’ve played. As you can tell from the other games on this list, I tend to go for games with loads of action and combat or games with immaculate vibes and simple gameplay. The gameplay here is actually pretty complex. Sure, the 10% of action in this game is simple bow combat. But since the other 90% of the game is just talking to people, it damn well better be compelling. Well, it is! The game has a quest log that will not only track objectives but will update when characters give you new information on those tasks. It made the ever-expanding list of things to do way more manageable when I naturally was able to make progress on all of them instead of trying to figure out which one to prioritize. As someone who found the wealth of narrative choices in games like Fallout: New Vegas to be a tad overwhelming, this game narrows that scope and makes solving its many mysteries an achievable task.

And alongside the conversations, the frame of the time loop lower’s the stakes of your mission and invites you to mess with the gameworld in mischievous ways. You might be trying to stop anyone from committing sin, but only you are able to cheat the consequences of it. So, why not lie, cheat, steal, and kill to get the resources and information you need? It plays off of the power fantasy inherent in time loop stories: the power of premonition. In this world, you can have all the answers, Sway, because you can solve problems before they even exist. It’s an incredible frame that made the otherwise grounded stories between the cities residents delightfully fantastical.

All of the built-in conveniences of the game make it feel unique. Sure, as a massive Walking Dead and Life is Strange fan, I’m no stranger to narrative titles. But the nonlinear way in which everything is revealed to you makes me feel more ownership of the story. And this is wild because, at the end of the day, I’m playing the same story as everyone else. But I can solve it from so many different angles that it feels less like I picked one of a few binary choices and more like I figured out my own moves to solve the narrative Rubix cube. And speaking of narrative, I should probably talk about it since its’ the main reason I fell in love with this game.

I’m going to do my best to not spoil the story, but understand that I will be talking about the story without mentioning specifics, so if that is too close for comfort for you, now is your time to go.

The Forgotten City is so much more than it seems on the surface. And when I even say that, it doesn’t even fully encapsulate just how many turns this story takes. All the characters in the game seem pretty one-note, but after talking to them for a while, they reveal their passions, traumas, and backstories and therefore blossom into three-dimensional humans. The plot seems straightforward enough. But before you know it, you’re trying to save folks from committing suicide, playing matchmaker, and spelunking through ruins even older than the ones you teleported to originally. Hell, your original mission to find out who will break the golden rule eventually dwarfs in comparison to the even more grandiose tasks the game invites you to accomplish. And once you accomplish those goals and get the canon ending of the four in total, then you will experience one of the most cathartic and satisfying endings I’ve seen in any work of fiction, game or otherwise.

And let me talk about why that ending is so great. Remember earlier when I talked about how the time loop frame lets you live out the “perfect” sequence of events? All the mistakes and learning happened in a previous loop, so the current one can be where you flawlessly use your knowledge to avoid every hardship and moment of pain. As someone who always chose the karmically good choices in games like Fallout 3, inFAMOUS, and Mass Effect 2, getting to live out this fantasy was honestly satisfying. But beyond those small satisfactions, the canon ending of the game is also the most I ever felt like I “beat” a game. I mean, I did everything right, tracked down all of the leads of all of the mysteries, and discovered, truly, just how deep the rabbit hole goes. And I was rewarded for that work not with a stat bonus or new weapon, but with the happiest ending I could possibly have. Everyone gets what’s coming to them, and I mean that in both good and bad ways. Every asshole has their downfall, and every good person gets’ rewarded beyond their wildest dreams. And with the real world being how it is right now, I really, really needed to see that.

I don’t have to tell you all, but 2020 sucked. But what I didn’t expect was that, despite the new president and a year of experience tackling Covid, not much changed in 2021. To be frank, I did expect this somewhat, as Biden was never my first choice due to my knowledge that he would never be willing to push for the kind of radical change needed in this country. But the last year really put me into a state of perpetual mind fog. Day after day, things seemed not only to refuse to get better but would often get worse. An insurrection would happen at the nation’s Capitol, and some of those responsible would face charges for it, but those in office who most heavily contributed to the event are still free. Covid destabilized our economy and laid bare all of the issues with capitalism, or at least with the way the US has done capitalism in the last few decades. But those inequalities and inadequacies have gone unaddressed and, even in light of new waves of cases and variants, have gotten worse. And for people like me, someone moving on from college and into the workforce propper, it’s often hard for me to imagine any kind of future worth having in a world this fundamentally broken and unjust. 

So, getting a game that is both so engaging but also so willing to handsomely reward you for going above and beyond for other people genuinely brought a tear to my eye. I find it so hard to have faith in things these days, and despair has been winning the battle over my heart more often recently. But The Forgotten City is written as if compassion for others is the default. It believes that differences can genuinely be solved with an honest conversation. It genuinely believes people can be better than their worst moment. It genuinely believes that giving a fuck about humanity and being a good person is something worth doing. The ending really drives this all home, but throughout the game doing these niceties, even when they are inconvenient, always prove to be rewarding. And that’s why The Forgotten City is not only my favorite game of 2021 but it’s made its way into my favorite games of all time.

All this praise and I didn’t even talk about the endearing sense of humor this game has, the relatable portrayal of alternative cultures, the handful of world toppling plot twists, or the fact that all of this excellence took place over just 10 hours! (8 hours for my first playthrough, then 2 hours extra to unlock the true ending) This game is just a masterpiece from top to bottom, and I could talk about it all day, but instead, I’ll leave it there and invite you to play this game as soon as you can.

That’s all from me this year. As I mentioned earlier, 2021 did not end up being the bounceback from 2020 that I hoped, and my exhaustion from the year has shown itself through my gameplaying habits. Simply put, I just didn’t play all that much this past year. I try to at least stick to beating 2 games every month, but I fell a game short of that goal. In fact, I nearly had to scrape together the last few games in this list when my time with Deathloop, Guardians of the Galaxy, Returnal, Life is Strange True Colors, Psychonauts 2, Sable, and a few others was either cut short or just never came around. I’ve been in this brain fog for a long time, and it’s affected my productivity and capacity for personal enjoyment as well. And I’ll give myself credit, I did do some great work this year including my Donda review, my piece on Kane and Lynch 3, and the fact that I finally wrapped up Keepin It 💯. But since it seems like I can no longer wait for the world to “get back to normal” and let everything in my life get better naturally, I will have to force myself out of this funk. That’s what I want to try and work on this year. Thankfully, I have some of the best friends and family a guy could ask for, and beyond that, a loving community of friends from different communities to fall back on. But I gotta do the work, I gotta try to dig myself out of this rut. And I know I can do it too because I got way too many people in my corner cheering me on, so I will do my best to not let you guys down.

So, that’s another 10k words from me and another GOTY article done. I’ll see yall next year, and hopefully, I will have played a lot more games and will be reporting to you all from the other side of this mental molehill. Thank you all, and as I always say, keep it real, and keep it trill.