I keep meaning to do more discussion threads. I’d really like to encourage comments (and likes and shares!) here at diabolical and I’m trying to figure out how to do that better. Maybe discussion prompts at the end of posts?
Back when I wrote at The League Of Ordinary Gentlemen, a culture and politics blog I helped found many years ago (along with many talented writers, including Freddie deBoer) and which has since become Ordinary Times, there was a very robust commenting community. I’d like to encourage more of that here, though perhaps the world has simply changed and people engage more on Twitter and Facebook—which is totally fine, of course!
In any case, as one piece of that effort, more discussion threads! This one is simple. What are your favorite games of 2021? They don’t have to have come out in 2021, you just need to have played them. Does one stand out above all the rest? Or did you play a bunch of games? And if video games aren’t your thing, maybe tabletop or board games?
Someday my copy of Gloomhaven the board game will arrive along with my Frosthaven (which I backed on Kickstarter). Othercide looks really cool! Great list!
I keep hearing about Gloomhaven. Every time I look it up in steam though something about the preview turns me off. I’m typing this one handed while trying to get the kids ready for school so I can’t look it up now to see what bugged me, but what’s so great about the game?
The best of the game are the core mechanics. They heavily reward your learning and improvement, and the improvement of the characters. They are also simple but very cleaver.
The combat strategy is very much like a puzzle. You have to find the best combination of cards for each character and combo all those considering also your enemies movements.
Each character is also very unique and there are 17. So there is a lot to try and test.
Each character has a deck, so there is that deck building component too.
Now.
Gloomhaven have many great things, but it is time demanding and have a not so friendly learning curve. It is also not graphically impressive and the campaign narrative is just ok.
A friend of mine played it and thought it was ok. It wasn't something he found so atractive.
There are also times i couldn't play it because i don't have the mental energy for the game and found something more relaxing a better experience.
Fine fine fine. I had one of those Capitalists-probably-have-cameras-in-my-house moments when I turned on Steam last night a couple of hours after reading your comment and it immediately alerted me that Gloomhaven ("one of the games on your wishlist!") was on sale for 20% off. That's what we call serendipity. It had to be purchased; no choice at all. So now I know what's going to keep me up all night tonight. :)
I hope you like it. It can be a little difficult at first -it was for me i lost several battles before i win my first :P. But the joy when you start to get it! ohh, the pride, the joy! :P
before my GPU died, at around the middle of this year, I was mostly playing EVE Online. I had joined a massive group (Goons) to participate in the game's biggest ever war. For the most part, it was fun. Only left when I disagreed with something that group wanted, and it didn't help that the war kinda got...boring? Quit the game, again, shortly after. EVE is an on and off and on and off again kind of thing.
No other space game, for me, has really given the same feel of scale/scope. It's also, for the most part, a very pretty game.
Put in more time into Star Traders: Frontiers after that. Still fun, but I still managed to Not finish it. lol
I think the next game I enjoyed was Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Solid game, runs sort of ok w/ settings lowered even on my CPU's UHD 630 integrated graphics. My playthrough has stalled, tho'...just need to get back to it, as I think I'm close to the end before I stopped.
A recent game that I enjoyed, but haven't decided to pay for the product, yet, is Songs of Syx. I'm playing the Free Demo from Steam. It's a city/kingdom builder.
It has lovely music from an artist I follow on Youtube (Jasinka), and the game itself seems pretty good, so far. Part of the reason I'm hesitant to buy it is the whole Early Access thing, and seeing the developer reply to questions about this or that update with something like 'it'll be in the next update in about 3 months'. I've put it on my wishlist and will keep an eye on it...and maybe even keep on playing the demo (Steam says I've spent ~34 hours on it already).
A game I won a copy for, and really enjoyed the demo/beta of, but can't enjoy at the moment (I'm sure it'll 'run', tho' lol...but not fun), is The Riftbreaker. ARPG and base-building/tower defence hybrid. I really want to play it already.
I bought a game last night, after briefly trying its demo just before the Steam Sale ended: Vagrus - The Riven Realms. Looks quite good, and I enjoyed the demo. I'm gonna play it shortly. :P
Oh, and Dune 2.
Using the Dune Dynasty thing, which updated some control features (e.g., group selection and unit groupings, hotkeys), I played through all 3 Houses' campaigns again after...decades.
Nice, I don't think I've played any of these other than Kingmaker (which was fun, a little rough but still cool) but sounds like a lot of good, time-consuming gaming!
since writing that wall o' text, I managed to sink more than 25 hours into 'Vagrus - The Riven Realms'.
Quite interesting. It's tough, but it does give that whole 'sense of achievement' thing when I manage to finish a task. Also, you can save scum lol. Lots of reading, tho'.
I’m going to stick with games released this year, and go with Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. If you’re a crpg fan - and that’s the majority of what I play - this is on your must-play list, I think. I’ve dumped a ton of hours into but aren’t anywhere near done. I keep staring over to try different builds.
Like Kingmaker, the game can be a bit of a mess - it attempts way too much. But what works works great. character advancement, tactical turn-based combat, wacky adventures, fun NPCs, a great alignment system, a world responsive to your choices, huge replayability - it’s great.
I played the samurai trilogy of Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima, and Nioh (1, not 2 yet). I had a lot of fun with all of them but the standout is Sekiro. From Software just keeps churning out such well-designed titles, I absolutely love them. Sekiro is my GOTY.
I’m glad to see some love got Sekiro. I never got far - not even far enough to form an opinion - but I love From games, and I thought Sekiro got way too much bad vibes just because it wasn’t a Soulsborne game.
Yeah!! Sekiro is also a difficult game but the levels are just fun to play and it feels so rewarding when you finally beat a tough enemy. It takes a while for the combat to 'click' though.
Although not a Souls game, there are several ways that you'll recognize Sekiro as a true From game. Pretty visuals and levels with lots of verticality and looping shortcuts and such, and frequent opportunities to use level environment or looted items for extra benefit in enemy encounters...
I hope you give it a try again. Practice with Hanbei, and there is no shame in getting stuck. Sekiro is after all difficult. As long as you win in the end it doesn't matter how you got there, that's the Ashina style after all.
Kena is probably my overall game of the year, it’s immensely charming and I loved the somber tone of the story. Eastward is moving up the ladder pretty quickly though, for very similar reasons. The characters definitely stand out and I’m liking the direction the story is going after about 10 hours
Loved Kena. Need to finish my review! So charming, such great gameplay and graphics, and just a knock-out debut game from a new dev. Haven't played Eastward, will check it out!
For the games NOT released this year, I'm attempting a run through all three Baldur's Gates Expanded Editions with the same character (gotta get that Big Metal Unit!) I haven't done that in fifteen years. Always fun, and trying to whet my appetite for BG3 dropping next year.
I've also been playing some base-building games: Satisfactory and Factorio. They're amazing, but they quickly become "you need to be like an engineer and a creative one to build past this point". As much as I like them, they fit comfortably in the "too smart for me" games, like everything Paradox releases.
Also been playing some survival games, which are starting to equal crpgs as my favorite genre. The Forest, Subnautica, and Valheim are all excellent.
Been playing a lot of Game Pass. I have so many games on the back play list from my Wii, Wii U, Switch, PlayStation 3 and 4, and XBox 360 and One and so little time as of late that I actually don't think I'll ever play them all. This year Psychonauts 2 was fun, Katana Zero, Immortals Fenyx Rising, Ghost runner (a surprise hit with me), Mortal Shell, Resident Evil 3, and Zombie Army 4: Dead War. The game I wish more than anything to be what the hype made it to be was Cyberpunk 2077. The game I got versus the game I thought I was getting were completely different. It's not a bad game by any stretch, I've played worse, but it might go down as the most disappointing game I've ever played by a country mile.
Video games have been my savior. I started Guild Wars 2 a couple years ago and I still have lots of things to do. Valheim is another one of those, all the things to do games. I also played D&D. Both fifth and third edition. A little Ascension.
Having a family and working long hours means I'm always late to the party and take forever to finish games (in 1-hour chunks over months), so most/all of these came out prior to 2021.
Best I played this year by far was Ori and the Will of the Wisps (top 3 platformers of all time, took everything great about the first one and just refined it further)
Also good, in no particular order:
The Messenger (I'm a sucker for meta games and the 8 to 16 bit time mechanic is masterfully done)
Spiritfarer (I'm guessing this is like Stardew Valley lite without the time pressure? relaxing for playing while listening to podcasts)
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (playing with headphones is really immersive)
Gears 5 (finally caught up with this, was the only Gears story I actually got engaged in, i.e. as more than background macho yelling)
Actraiser: Renaissance (though I don't recommend going for the platinum like I am as it's super-grindy)
Also played a ton of No Man's Sky, which I love certain aspects of but find progression to be painnnnnfully slow in.
In no particular order:
Gloomheaven (wish i could have the original boardgame).
Solasta
Kenshi (i discovered it recently).
Total War Warhammer (Likely in my list for years to come).
Warhammer 40K Battle Sector.
Othercide (The concept, the art!).
Chess (i have to confess i have been playing a lot).
Someday my copy of Gloomhaven the board game will arrive along with my Frosthaven (which I backed on Kickstarter). Othercide looks really cool! Great list!
I keep hearing about Gloomhaven. Every time I look it up in steam though something about the preview turns me off. I’m typing this one handed while trying to get the kids ready for school so I can’t look it up now to see what bugged me, but what’s so great about the game?
The best of the game are the core mechanics. They heavily reward your learning and improvement, and the improvement of the characters. They are also simple but very cleaver.
The combat strategy is very much like a puzzle. You have to find the best combination of cards for each character and combo all those considering also your enemies movements.
Each character is also very unique and there are 17. So there is a lot to try and test.
Each character has a deck, so there is that deck building component too.
Now.
Gloomhaven have many great things, but it is time demanding and have a not so friendly learning curve. It is also not graphically impressive and the campaign narrative is just ok.
A friend of mine played it and thought it was ok. It wasn't something he found so atractive.
There are also times i couldn't play it because i don't have the mental energy for the game and found something more relaxing a better experience.
Fine fine fine. I had one of those Capitalists-probably-have-cameras-in-my-house moments when I turned on Steam last night a couple of hours after reading your comment and it immediately alerted me that Gloomhaven ("one of the games on your wishlist!") was on sale for 20% off. That's what we call serendipity. It had to be purchased; no choice at all. So now I know what's going to keep me up all night tonight. :)
I hope you like it. It can be a little difficult at first -it was for me i lost several battles before i win my first :P. But the joy when you start to get it! ohh, the pride, the joy! :P
before my GPU died, at around the middle of this year, I was mostly playing EVE Online. I had joined a massive group (Goons) to participate in the game's biggest ever war. For the most part, it was fun. Only left when I disagreed with something that group wanted, and it didn't help that the war kinda got...boring? Quit the game, again, shortly after. EVE is an on and off and on and off again kind of thing.
No other space game, for me, has really given the same feel of scale/scope. It's also, for the most part, a very pretty game.
Put in more time into Star Traders: Frontiers after that. Still fun, but I still managed to Not finish it. lol
I think the next game I enjoyed was Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Solid game, runs sort of ok w/ settings lowered even on my CPU's UHD 630 integrated graphics. My playthrough has stalled, tho'...just need to get back to it, as I think I'm close to the end before I stopped.
A recent game that I enjoyed, but haven't decided to pay for the product, yet, is Songs of Syx. I'm playing the Free Demo from Steam. It's a city/kingdom builder.
It has lovely music from an artist I follow on Youtube (Jasinka), and the game itself seems pretty good, so far. Part of the reason I'm hesitant to buy it is the whole Early Access thing, and seeing the developer reply to questions about this or that update with something like 'it'll be in the next update in about 3 months'. I've put it on my wishlist and will keep an eye on it...and maybe even keep on playing the demo (Steam says I've spent ~34 hours on it already).
A game I won a copy for, and really enjoyed the demo/beta of, but can't enjoy at the moment (I'm sure it'll 'run', tho' lol...but not fun), is The Riftbreaker. ARPG and base-building/tower defence hybrid. I really want to play it already.
I bought a game last night, after briefly trying its demo just before the Steam Sale ended: Vagrus - The Riven Realms. Looks quite good, and I enjoyed the demo. I'm gonna play it shortly. :P
Oh, and Dune 2.
Using the Dune Dynasty thing, which updated some control features (e.g., group selection and unit groupings, hotkeys), I played through all 3 Houses' campaigns again after...decades.
Still one of my favourite RTS games ever.
Highly recommend.
Nice, I don't think I've played any of these other than Kingmaker (which was fun, a little rough but still cool) but sounds like a lot of good, time-consuming gaming!
since writing that wall o' text, I managed to sink more than 25 hours into 'Vagrus - The Riven Realms'.
Quite interesting. It's tough, but it does give that whole 'sense of achievement' thing when I manage to finish a task. Also, you can save scum lol. Lots of reading, tho'.
I’m going to stick with games released this year, and go with Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. If you’re a crpg fan - and that’s the majority of what I play - this is on your must-play list, I think. I’ve dumped a ton of hours into but aren’t anywhere near done. I keep staring over to try different builds.
Like Kingmaker, the game can be a bit of a mess - it attempts way too much. But what works works great. character advancement, tactical turn-based combat, wacky adventures, fun NPCs, a great alignment system, a world responsive to your choices, huge replayability - it’s great.
I'll have to check it out. Haven't been playing many CRPGs lately but that sounds promising.
I played the samurai trilogy of Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima, and Nioh (1, not 2 yet). I had a lot of fun with all of them but the standout is Sekiro. From Software just keeps churning out such well-designed titles, I absolutely love them. Sekiro is my GOTY.
I’m glad to see some love got Sekiro. I never got far - not even far enough to form an opinion - but I love From games, and I thought Sekiro got way too much bad vibes just because it wasn’t a Soulsborne game.
Yeah!! Sekiro is also a difficult game but the levels are just fun to play and it feels so rewarding when you finally beat a tough enemy. It takes a while for the combat to 'click' though.
Although not a Souls game, there are several ways that you'll recognize Sekiro as a true From game. Pretty visuals and levels with lots of verticality and looping shortcuts and such, and frequent opportunities to use level environment or looted items for extra benefit in enemy encounters...
I hope you give it a try again. Practice with Hanbei, and there is no shame in getting stuck. Sekiro is after all difficult. As long as you win in the end it doesn't matter how you got there, that's the Ashina style after all.
*for, not got. Fuck autocorrect
Kena is probably my overall game of the year, it’s immensely charming and I loved the somber tone of the story. Eastward is moving up the ladder pretty quickly though, for very similar reasons. The characters definitely stand out and I’m liking the direction the story is going after about 10 hours
Loved Kena. Need to finish my review! So charming, such great gameplay and graphics, and just a knock-out debut game from a new dev. Haven't played Eastward, will check it out!
For the games NOT released this year, I'm attempting a run through all three Baldur's Gates Expanded Editions with the same character (gotta get that Big Metal Unit!) I haven't done that in fifteen years. Always fun, and trying to whet my appetite for BG3 dropping next year.
I've also been playing some base-building games: Satisfactory and Factorio. They're amazing, but they quickly become "you need to be like an engineer and a creative one to build past this point". As much as I like them, they fit comfortably in the "too smart for me" games, like everything Paradox releases.
Also been playing some survival games, which are starting to equal crpgs as my favorite genre. The Forest, Subnautica, and Valheim are all excellent.
Oh, you are a lucky guy! :D I hope they made Frosthaven for pc too.
Really late to this (no order):
-Tales of Arise
-Trails in the Sky Second Chapter
-Resident Evil 8 (Dimitrescu and Beneviento levels were amazing)
-Persona 4 Golden
-Disco Elysium Director's Cut (once in a decade RPG)
Been playing a lot of Game Pass. I have so many games on the back play list from my Wii, Wii U, Switch, PlayStation 3 and 4, and XBox 360 and One and so little time as of late that I actually don't think I'll ever play them all. This year Psychonauts 2 was fun, Katana Zero, Immortals Fenyx Rising, Ghost runner (a surprise hit with me), Mortal Shell, Resident Evil 3, and Zombie Army 4: Dead War. The game I wish more than anything to be what the hype made it to be was Cyberpunk 2077. The game I got versus the game I thought I was getting were completely different. It's not a bad game by any stretch, I've played worse, but it might go down as the most disappointing game I've ever played by a country mile.
Video games have been my savior. I started Guild Wars 2 a couple years ago and I still have lots of things to do. Valheim is another one of those, all the things to do games. I also played D&D. Both fifth and third edition. A little Ascension.
My second child was born in February this year, so I've had a lot less time for gaming than usual.
The games I've had the most fun with in 2021 are definitely Metroid: Dread and The Outer Wilds (I'm currently finishing up the brilliant new DLC).
I've also been enjoying Shin Megami Tensei 5 and Tales of Arise.
Having a family and working long hours means I'm always late to the party and take forever to finish games (in 1-hour chunks over months), so most/all of these came out prior to 2021.
Best I played this year by far was Ori and the Will of the Wisps (top 3 platformers of all time, took everything great about the first one and just refined it further)
Also good, in no particular order:
The Messenger (I'm a sucker for meta games and the 8 to 16 bit time mechanic is masterfully done)
Spiritfarer (I'm guessing this is like Stardew Valley lite without the time pressure? relaxing for playing while listening to podcasts)
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (playing with headphones is really immersive)
Gears 5 (finally caught up with this, was the only Gears story I actually got engaged in, i.e. as more than background macho yelling)
Actraiser: Renaissance (though I don't recommend going for the platinum like I am as it's super-grindy)
Also played a ton of No Man's Sky, which I love certain aspects of but find progression to be painnnnnfully slow in.