GOTY 2021

Follow my template, make your own up, do whatever you like. I'm good like that.

Prettiest game of the year
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. The shiniest, next-geniest game I've played so far, and a brilliant advert for those SSDs. Honourable mention to Eastward, which is potentially the most beautiful pixel-art game I've played.

Best multiplayer
It Takes Two was fantastic; potentially the most co-op fun I've had since Portal 2. Horizon 5 was reliably great once they sorted their servers out (which took a LONG time). But I think it has to go to Splitgate which, somehow, is better at Halo multiplayer than Halo Infinite. Fun maps, crunchy gunplay, and a 'why hasn't anyone else thought of this?' portal mechanic that elevates the whole thing.

Biggest disappointment
Back 4 Blood. We played it for about a week then lost interest. A Left 4 Dead tribute act that had none of the original's refinement; it just wasn't that much fun to play.

Best indie game
Make your own mind up what indie means nowadays. I'm going for Eastward. It rambles on a bit, but when it actually lets you play the game it's a delight. Looks and sounds incredible, plays like a modern spin on 2D Zelda. What's not to love.

Best game I haven't played
Deathloop. 10s in every review, but despite owning a PS5 I'll wait til it hits Game Pass. Because Microsoft has ruined the value of games for me.

Game of the year
Bowser's Fury. Bundled in as an extra in the repackaging of 3D World, this ended up being one of my favourite Mario games. Focused, self-contained Mario levels in an open world. If this isn't the future of Mario, Nintendo are silly billies.

Honourable mentions
Metroid Dread, which was almost my GOTY. Psychonauts 2, which was everything I wanted it to be. Halo Infinite, which comes out tomorrow, after I jumped the gun with the GOTY thread.

Prettiest game of the year
Exo One - Fantastic looking environments that have a real sense of the alien to them. It manages to get the atmosphere entirely correct. Hugely recommended.

Best multiplayer
Destiny 2. Crucible continues to be good, Trials has finally become good and the balance patch coming out later today is going to be interesting, making the game less about space magic, and more about putting bullets in baddies.

Biggest disappointment
Skatebird. I wanted this to be good. Like, I wanted it to be so good, and it gets so close but- it's just kind of joyless?

Best indie game
Next Space Rebels. This was a game of the year contender right up until the last minute. It has such lofty goals and ambitions, and it's a game that absolutely couldn't have been made by a large company. Kerbal smashed into an FMV game in low orbit.

Best game I haven't played
Disco Elysium. Just wanna find the time and headspace.

Game of the year
Yakuza 6 - A great end to a great saga.

Prettiest game of the year
It's not really my cup of tea but Microsoft Flight Simulator stops everyone in their tracks when they first see it. I showed it to a friend of mine this weekend who knows nothing at all about modern gaming but rather a lot about aeroplanes and his astonishment was something to behold.

In terms of something I personally enjoyed, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an oldish game now but it got the full bells-and-whistles ray-tracing treatment on Series X this year and it's an astonishing-looking thing.

Best multiplayer
Suprised how much I'm enjoying Halo Infinite multiplayer, even just as a solo player jumping on for the occasional game of Slayer. Maybe it's because it's exactly the same game it was twenty years ago and is entirely populated by tired middle-aged dads who can't aim for shit, but I'll take what I can get.

Biggest disappointment
Forza Horizon 5 was basically the same as the last one but with extra bugs. I bounced off it within days.

I kind of want to say Monster Hunter Rise but that's a bit unfair. It's still a decent enough game but I wanted it to be excellent, and I wanted to play it on something less underpowered than the Switch.

Best indie game
I really loved Last Stop, a enjoyably British narrative game in the Telltale mould that played out like a series of Doctor Who.

Best game I haven't played
Ratchet & Clank remains the only reason I have to get a PS5.

Game of the year
Hitman 3. AKA the sequel to the Game of the Year 2018 which was the sequel to the Game of the Year 2016. It expands upon the two previous games with some creative new levels and then brings the whole thing together in an insanely generous package that seems almost endless in terms of the things it offers up for you to do. The post-launch support has been impressive too and is set to continue into 2022.

Honourable mentions
It's not a 2021 game but I've probably spent more time playing Monster Train this year than anything else.

Prettiest game of the year
Tales of Arise had it's moments, the Town of Viscant is still really impressive to me., quite an underrated game in this aspect actually.

Best Multiplayer
Halo Infinite is GOTY material just from the muliplayer and I presume they're going to add more to it when the full game releases too. The Grappleshot also makes me very excited for the single player campaign.

Biggest Disappointment
The GTA trilogy, I'm actually embarassed I defended San Andreas on here tbh. Everyone else I know who defended this early on also suddenly got very quiet about it too, and the games haven't aged very well anyway.

Game of the year
I will go more in detail later in the FFXIV thread but it is Endwalker by an absolute mile. Even Shadowbringers didn't put me through the ringer as much as this did and no game I played this year can really compete with the MMO aspect of XIV. If I took a long hard look back I would probably say FFXIV is effectively my favourite game of all time in retrospect.

Honourable mentions
HAJIMARI NO KISEKI - the ONLY reason this didn't win is because Endwalkers was even better than expected.

Tales of Arise - Top 3 Tales game in 2021, effectively brought the series back from the dead for me.

Follow my template, make your own up, do whatever you like. I'm good like that.

OK then…

Prettiest game of the year
Acid Death Fantasy for Troika! https://www.melsonia.com/acid-death-fantasy-264-p.asp

Best multiplayer
Alien RPG. OK so most RPGs are multiplayer, but this one puts in a lot of work to make sure that the players have to work together to survive, while also giving them plenty of reasons to stab each other in the back. It kind of reminds me of Paranoia, only serious.

Biggest disappointment
Orbital Blues. The Pitch was fantastic: 70's cop films and nihilist road trips but in space, a galaxy of lawless dust bowl towns. I was picturing something somewhere between Bradbury's desolate Americana Mars and Cowboy Bebop, what I got was some pictures of desert motels and that pitch restated half a dozen times.

Best indie game
Salvage Union. Still in Kickstarter but the Quickstart is enough to warrant this win. You and your own custom AT-AT try to scavenge a living from the bones of future civilisation. stunning art, loads of atmosphere and a light system which still does everything you need it to. https://medium.com/theuglymonster/like-roaches-corporations-will-survive-the-apocalypse-salvage-union-f51e2b0fb6e6

Best game I haven't played
RuneQuest Glorantha. RQ has been around since the 70s but somehow I've never properly investigated it. Glorantha is a world of bronze age tribes where everyday survival, superstition, religion and magic are all completely interwoven. The various clans are all given detailed write-ups, as are the larger Tribes they form, the nations they form, the religions of the many gods layered over that, their magic, and then different species too. And none of it is the same old fantasy clichés, it's all well realised and thought through I'm really impressed. I'm reading the new Starter Set just now and it does a great job of introducing all this without overwhelming. I'm definitely keen to get it to the table.

Game of the year
I have played or run six different games this year, I think my favourite has been Traveller. I'm super impressed with the new edition, the rules are better presented than ever before and their adventures are fantastic.

Honourable mentions
I think Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay deserves a shout out for getting the ten-book re-write of The Enemy Within campaign out the door, thanks in no small part to our friend Happimesses.

Prettiest Game
A tough one. I actually don't think Ratchet and Clank takes it for me, though it can look very pretty at times. Cyberpunk with everything rammed to the max has probably had some of the best visuals this year, though revisiting God of War and the PS5 remaster of Ghost of Tsushima come close. I think, ultimately the winner has to be Last of Us 2. Which was a 2020 game, but there you go (2021 60fps on the PS5 is the only way to play it). I sent my father a photo of it on the TV on the walk into Seattle section as he's a grass scientist and very into plant blindness and the use of plants in various forms of art. The suitably Enslaved-esque human city returning to nature, I assumed, would be very much up his street. He asked what TV program the photo was from. It took about 3 messages backwards and forwards and a video until he actually accepted it was a videogame. Even now I'm not sure he believes it. And the fact there is going to be a LoU TV show now is not helping.

Best multiplayer
A tie between Valorant and Apex. Both have been really enjoyable to play and also watch. The current Valorant Champions tournament has been exceptionally good, with many of the teams incredibly finely balanced. Apex is also a comp favourite, though the loss of Snip3down from the TSM team has been hard to take, as he was essentially the equivalent of a boomer playing the game and someone I could relate to. In both cases I can blow hot and cold on the games if multiplayer gets too depressing, but if I am going to play something competitive it'll almost always be one of these two.

Biggest disappointment
I think the slew of titles I played in a row that were nearly identical (Watchdogs, Ghost Recon, AC etc) sort of generally summarised how disappointing a lot of gaming is. I have been disappointed with the haptics in the PS5 which just aren't good. I've found Immortals and Outer Worlds both strangely underwhelming (and they were both games I thought I'd like). I also haven't yet quite got myself up for ME Legendary Edition. I have finished them all at least 2 times, it's just an old game I know well tends to lose out to other stuff. Plus they have started to date in quite a few ways. Forza 5 hasn't been great. it's hard to put a finger on just why. It looks nice enough, plays well, but…. meh? Battlefield 2042 was a catastrophe. So, hard to say really waves hands generally

Best Indie Game
It's Murder Miners. It'll always be Murder Miners.

Best game I haven't played
Probably Deathloop. And the speed the keys are going down in price by next year I suspect Bethesda will be paying me to play it. I also haven't started it Takes Two yet, but will do over the Xmas break.

Game of the Year
I'm not sure it's been a year with obvious massive tentpole releases (if we have to pick a 2021 release). I've yet to try Halo Infinite SP, but if that's good, with the strong MP package it could be a contender. I suspect It Takes Two might be a massive hit (still not over that bit in Brothers). Neither Returnal or R+C are quite good enough to claim a GOTY title. I haven't played New World or Dread or the latest Pokemon. So, I'm not sure. Games as a service can be the winner. Gamepass. All the games.

Honourable mentions
We had a lot of fun with Knockout City and Wildermyth, both released this year.