Rob’s Top 5 Games of 2021

Wow. 2021 sure was some kind of year for video games. Every game was getting delayed, or released well before it was ready…or released when it should have never seen the light of day at all (Looking at you Avengers!)

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom this year! And to start off the tradition of our games of the year (that we played) lists, I thought I’d continue another tradition around here…so without further adieu

The Top 5 things that actually weren’t so bad about 2021

5 – If you really enjoy getting your brain tickled, then man….you were in a good place this year! Brain tickles for days!!

4 – The constant publishing delays for all the games, meant you always had a release to look forward to eventually playing!

3 – Was a great year if you like glitch compilation videos from “AAA” games!

2- Stadia giving out like 3 or 4 free months, just so you remember that they are still a thing!

and finally

1- Bernie Sanders memes

Ahem…

Anyways, back to the list! As always, these lists are the games that WE played this year, not necessarily what got released this year. We are older gentlemen, who don’t always get to the new-fangled games in a timely fashion. And they are also OUR opinions, so if they don’t match what you believe, or you think our choices are dumb games that no one should ever play…because they’re dumb? We don’t care…take your joy vacuum somewhere else!

Number 5

New Super Lucky’s Tale

New Super Luckys Tale, is a remake of a 2017s Super Luckys Tale, a wonderful 3D platformer that I fell in love with back in the day. With a great combination of likable characters and just right for anyone in the family challenge, this game kept my kids and I transfixed to the TV for 10 or so hours. Its really rare to find a game I feel comfortable playing in front of them, that actually holds my interest (I have played WAAAAAYYY too much Animal Crossings Amiibo Festival on the Wii U), but this game checked both of those boxes for me.

You follow the adventures of Lucky, a plucky little fox whose been sucked into a book, and has to defeat evil cats (or just cats…since the evil part is redundant). The control is super tight, the graphics are drop dead gorgeous, and the writing is absolutely perfect for a game like this. And it’s currently still available on Gamepass for free, which makes the price just perfect to give it a try if you are a fan of 3D platformers.

Number 4

Diablo II: Resurrected

The original Diablo 2 game is on my list of top 5 games of all time, so when Blizzard announced a remaster was coming out, I was all on board. Dropped my money opening day and binge played a chunk of it. So, why isn’t this one higher on the list?

While I still had a lot of fun with the remaster, playing the original game reminded me a bit that sometimes, we tend to look at things through rose tinted nostalgia glasses. The game looks amazing now, and I appreciate all the effort they put into this (the redone cut scenes look amazing too), I am reminded however, that for all intensive purposes, just how much better a game Diablo 3 ended up being. Not because Diablo 2 wasn’t amazing, and honestly revolutionairy for the time, but that Diablo 3 took all they learned on this and improved things.

I still had a wonderful time walking down memory lane with this game, and I honestly enjoyed the fact that I could import the old save file from my level 80 Amazon (yes, I did keep it!), although I kind of wished I could play as her in an online game, although I can totally appreciate why that isn’t a thing that’s allowed. The world isn’t ready for the fury that Slicksta the mazon would unleash upon it!

So, for someone who has fond memories of the game, or has never played it…this is definately worth the play. It may not capture hundreds of hours like it did for me back in the day, but it’s still a trip I’m glad that I took!

Number 3

The Evercade…..all of it!

image from evercade website

Screw it, I’m calling an audible here!

The Evercade platform as a whole has taken so much of my time this year, that I can’t not include it on my top 5 list. The Evercade has been the ultimate way to get bite sized retro gaming done in the brief moments I have between teenager malfunctions in the house. This whole product line from Blaze (soon to be up to 25+ cartridges here) has been such a surprise hit with video game publications (ourselves included, you can check out our review in the posts section).

The idea is a simple one, Evercade licenses retro games from the publishers and puts them on a cartridge, which then runs in emulation. However, the actual production is where they won a lot of us over. First off, every cartridge is an actual PHYSICAL CARTRIDGE, in an actual closing game case, with an actual manual. The collector in me loves having something to collect, and display on the shelf, and the manuals provide snippets on each game as well as the controls.

The Evercade has also become a platform for some indie developers, and publishers to get some of their games available…it has become my favourite way to play Xenocrisis for example. And they have finally started to release Arcade rom cartridges here, to coincide with their Home console the Evercade Vs, which is coming to the Leggo household here later this month (and I will definitely have a review up shortly after)

The Evercade has also brought me 2 Atari Lynx compilations, which I will forever be grateful for…as the Lynx is my favourite handheld console, but the screen on mine is starting to show its age. Having a way to play on a bright, new technology screen (with save states!) has made this purchase worth it alone. Also, the incoming Intellivision collection, along with the two existing Atari compilations helps preserve where we all came from, and allows a new generation to enjoy a time we don’t see much from anymore.

If any of this sounds even remotely interesting to you, a starter pack of either the handheld or the Vs console is available for approximately 120 Cdn dollars, and I honestly can’t recommend it enough for anyone looking for a way to start a classic game collection. I wish the folks at Blaze continued success with this in the future!

Number 2

Lost Words Beyond The Page

Alright, so this might be a first for the page here, but we’ve got our first Stadia exclusive on the Top 5 lists. Well, it was a timed exclusive anyways, but it still counts!

In Lost Words, you play a young girl who has a devastating life event and deals with it through writing in a journal and writing a fantasy story. The game is a side scrolling platformer, and uses words as both a form of magic, and also as physical obstacles in the journal sections. The gameplay switches between the journal sections, where she is working out what is happening in her life, and the story sections as she becomes Grace, the protagonist in the story.

So, the platforming itself isn’t that challenging…there are some puzzling moments, and some hidden firefly collectibles in the story sections. But what makes this games so high on my list this year is the amazing art style, and the absolutley engrossing story. Lost Words does a tremendous job pulling you into an emotional story that you’ll want to play all the way through once you start, just to see what happens. The way the writers dealt with the tragedy and the girls reactions to it hit really close to home, and the kids and I sat there totally engrossed through the whole story as I played through begining to end in one sitting (approx 5 hours or so, if you take your time). The game makes you care deeply about the characters, who are all written with real personalities and react in real world ways.

This game is available for free right now on Gamepass, and is still available on Stadia as well, and I can’t recommend it enough as a game that won’t challenge you game wise, but will tell a story that you will be thinking about for quite some time afterwards. Extremely well done, and looking forward to the next story the developers have to tell.

So, anyone who follows the page or podcast has probably figured out the number one here already….so I will spare everyone the Fallout 76 joke I usually do every year here. Time to retire a classic….which is something my wife threatens me with when I’m misbehaving. Ahem. Anyways…without further adieu

Number 1

Forza Horizon 5

Surprising probably no one, Forza Horizon 5 ran away with this spot for me this year. This game hits all the right buttons for me, a reasonable blend of arcade/simulation mix, with the ability to swing either way through the difficulty settings. The ability to focus on the racing style you want….you like the cross country races more? Do those. Dirt racing? You bet. Want to just spend all day jumping off things as you drive accross the countryside in a VW beetle Baja painted like a Bullet Bill? Do it!

The graphics in this series have always been jaw dropping, but this year it pops even more, with beautiful lush Mexican jungles, and vibrantly painted cityscapes, this game looks great even on lower end hardware. I’ve been playing primarily on a Xbox Series S in performance mode, which goes at 1080P 60fps, but it does have a quality mode as well that is totally playable, which draws at 1440p at 30fps. However…when I want to pick my jaw off the floor, I head downstairs to the Man Cave and play on my PC, where at 4k resolution with all the pretty reflections and rays, it might be the best looking game this year, bar none!

I really like Ryan’s quote on Forza, about it being a comfort food. This is a game that I will go back to and just turn on just to pick a cool car and drive places…and decide where I’m going to go from there. There is literally hundreds of hours of things to do, before you run out of races, and that’s before you hit the DLC, which honestly was some of my favourite content from last time.

If anything in here sounds appealing, I could not recommend a game more to you to try, as it is also free to play with Gamepass. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to jump off a mountain with a Bullet Bill Baja 😀