Quarterlies 2021! The Qt3 forum readers’ choice for best game of 2021 is …

Me, too! This is why, for example, I didn’t vote for Disco Elysium even though I technically could have. Honestly, I have a good old fashioned internal grumble about ports making games eligible again. Give some new games a chance, jeez!

Oh don’t get me wrong, Metroid Dread would have been my top game in this, or almost any other year, regardless.

But I’ll admit Bowser’s Fury definitely gets a large boost from playing with my kids. It is a very good game in general, but the sheer comedy of playing with my 8 and 5 year olds definitely elevates it.

But even aside from all that Qt3 definitely is an outlier with Nintendo in general. More a reflection on the people here than anything else.

I can only speak for myself but I haven’t had a living room console of any stripe since the PS2. The kid reaching “gaming age” will be a reason to pick one up, which would then presumably make the broader range of titles on said console available for consideration (in the highly dubious timeline where i have time to play them anyway - though if I have tenure by that point maybe that’s not a completely insane dream).

I do think the age range has a lot to do with it. I’m not qualified to say, though, because I’m the kid that went straight from an Atari 7800 to a Sega Genesis and only played the NES at friends and relatives places. So, I don’t get the same nostalgia hit with those properties.

I really love the Old World logo and think Tom should have used it for his avatar instead of that thing that looks like a blurry Boy Scout:

Old_World_logo_full

It is cool, I liked it enough to suggest to Soren and team they ought to sell a t-shirt with it.

That’s quite fascinating to me, as it didn’t even occur to me that Old World was in the lead. All the discussions made me think it was just Pathfinder and Wildermyth.

That made me laugh, and felt tied to the discussion about videogame storytelling at Tom’s own list. I wonder if I’ll get into Old World, eventually.

Thank you both of you guys, B and A, for your work on this yearly event.

Old World, Hitman 3, and not a lot more.

Bowser’s Fury was just outside my top 5. I bet a co-op experience would have pushed it up there, especially one as convivial as yours.

That is a seriously great logo.

I got duped the same way. I will note that the forum choosing a 4X strategy title and two RPG’s as the top three games of the year convinces me once again that I’m in the right place.

I just want to second that, this is always really cool and I appreciate the effort that goes into it!

I would have predicted Pathfinder as the winner based on my gloss of the votes, so this was a surprise! I have the first Pathfinder game and Old World both in my backlog and plan to get to them relatively soo–OH LOOK A TWEE INDIE GAME THAT COSTS THREE DOLLARS AND PUTS FEW DEMANDS ON ME!

I said this in another thread, but I honestly hadn’t realized how RPG-centric the forum is until this year’s voting. Which is totally cool! I think, among other factors, the relative lack of many high-profile or crossover RPG titles (like Hades last year, which I think appealed to indie lovers and action gamers as well as RPG players) left a lot of Qt3ers feeling like it was a weak year, while I thought there was an embarrassment of riches given my inability to even remotely keep up with all the interesting indies 2021 offered up.

Thanks to @arrendek and @Brooski for launching and running such a tight ship! I really look forward to voting and seeing the results every year.

This made me curious about vote-getters that were on Game Pass. It seems to have changed a lot of people’s play/purchasing habits lately, but did it bring people to a lot of their favorite games?

Unless I missed something, it doesn’t appear that any of the top 10 are GP games except Mass Effect: LE, assuming you count GP’s included access to EA Play.

Further down the list (in the top 30) are these GP games: Forgotten City, Death’s Door (only recently on GP), Unpacking, Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite, and Psychonauts 2.

I know a lot of the games on my long list I played on GP, and many of those I wouldn’t have tried in 2021 if they hadn’t been (I’m pretty budget-limited for my timely gaming). But based off this, it doesn’t feel like THAT many games got a GP boost.

Thanks for this Brooski and Arrendek! Always fascinating to see how these shake out.

Me neither but what a pleasant surprise!

Yeah, I started this on Game Pass this week and I so very nearly adjusted my list last night to accomodate it! While I don’t think the sequel will have its own ‘Meat Circus’, I did think ‘Look Gregg, you’ve not finished it yet, step away from the edit button’. It’s so creative and I adore the art direction. One for next year’s Actualies I suppose!

I wonder if the nature of Gamepass works against the kind of investment of effort and self that helps make you love a game.

With a 3 and 5 year old, and a vidya-game-averse spouse, this is pretty much the only game we can all play. It’s loony fun, but boy is it a struggle :)

I played a lot of games this year, and played many good ones, but I don’t remember a year when there were more games that I didn’t get a chance to play that I know I will love when I get to them (Inscryption, Wildermyth, and Midnight Protocol topping that list.)

Thanks to Brooski and arrendek for continuing this annual tradition once again. It seems like we’re entering a gaming era with fewer and fewer triple-A games each year, since they take more time and effort to make, and more and more Indie and niche games, so it’s more useful than ever to hear what games people are passionate about each year.

This is the truth. I’ve been playing Super Mario 3D World a lot the last few weeks (I haven’t gotten to Bowser’s Fury yet), and it’s such a struggle. But yes, it’s also loony fun sometimes. Mostly just a giant struggle.

I’ve been playing so many Nintendo games back to back, specifically so many Mario games, and just admiring their design chops while also shaking my head at some of their hardcore decisions. For example, in 3D world, they notice the fact that you’re struggling because you’re dying a lot, so they give you a magic leaf when you respawn. BUT! (And this is a big BUT). The super-cat form that the leaf transforms you into DOESN’T help you with the hard part of the levels, which is not falling to your death. AND it doesn’t transform you into the type of cat that can climb up walls and get to areas that normal Mario can’t get to. So it’s like they’re saying “here, have this invincibility to enemies, but you’ll still likely fall to death and oh yes, if you get any cat power-ups they won’t work”. Er… Thanks for the devil’s bargain, I guess, Nintendo. Thanks a lot.

If Mohawk games adds a DLC to the game in addition to releasing on Steam, won’t it be eligible for new votes?

I kinda wish we included boardgames on this list. I feel like that would be in keeping with the spirit of the QT3 philosophy on gaming.

Unless I’m missing something (certainly possible!), they are. Boardgames are always eligible for the Quarterlies.

And tiny excerpts from movies!