The Arbitraries (Create Your Own Year-End Award) 2021

Games
21

The Sherman Tank Award for Quality Mass-Produced DLC
Unity of Command II saw three DLC packs this year, and they were all strong additions to the original game. If they keep making it, I’ll keep buying it.

The Sony 720p Award for Best PC Port
I played 200 hours of Nioh 2 on PS4, then another 200 hours on PC. The port isn’t great, but the game is.

The Best Worst Game of 2021
Speaking of bad ports, the award goes to Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, part of the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection that released this year. The most fun trash you’ll play from 2021. Equal parts unfair, stupid, and satisfying.

22

I don’t have VR but I have a real soft spot for crazy/mini golf. It’s like a great unifier in that I think with friends you can’t go far wrong. I can very much imagine it as a prime hangout game!

23

i’d comment on it, but that’d be a spoiler to some other game. I am definitely looking forward to Chicory playing someday on my Switch now though!

24

Best unsolvable puzzle award: Yokoworld

I got into Yoko’s games thanks to a new PC allowing me to play the oh-so-popular Nier Automata. After being done with the first couple of endings, I plunged to the root of it all and played his other games. It’s a wonderful mess of cryptic lores and crazy themes, starring hardly any character worth redeeming through the whole thing — for reasons that are spoilers. I’m still exploring it (I am deep in Nier Reincarnation which is massive), and although as far as gameplay goes, there are not very good by any mean (excepting the first Drakengard’s dragon sequences maybe), they have been my favourite experience this year. All those games are big on reading which leads into…

Best gaming accessory: Old eyes glasses

I had been suffering of headaches and fatigue from two years. I knew I had old eyes, but I didn’t know how much it was stressing out my feeble brain. You get used to compensating.
First time I tried such glasses, a few years ago, I got a bit sick because of the blur on the edges. The few minutes I tried them on before ordering them this year, I was almost crying with joy. I was so sad when I had to go back to my blurry, headachy world for a week till I get my own.
I have had them for two weeks now. Bliss of reading something else than a kindle!

Insanity? Think again @Editer Award: X-Plane stuff

I got big into X-Plane. I had not owned hardware capable of playingg it properly for all my life, and now that I did, I went a bit crazy. I bought lots of hardware. Joysticks, rudder, trackir, you name it.
Gave it all away regularly all year long, each time after buying a new piece, to one of my best friends, because I don’t have the space to play it, nor the physical constitution. I’m a pretty broke person and I had spent most of my year’s earnings on those overpriced toys.
Insanity, yes.

Most game bought: Northern Journey
I just checked and have bought 10 steam copies, mine included. The only people I didn’t gift it to is because they owned it, probably :O
I still have only played a couple of hours of it, but they were so unbelievably good.

25

You also just sold a copy of Northern Journey, @Left_Empty. Well, your Arbitrary, and the glowing review from @krayzkrok that was at the top of the list of Steam reviews when I went to check out the game. It’s on sale for just $8.03 for the next 18 hours, kids!

27

You Find This Tedious in Real Life But…. Games keep coming out about mundane boring things, things we deal with but generally don’t enjoy, lawn mowing, there’s a game for that! The year’s award goes to Unpacking, a delightful game about unpacking moving boxes, it’s not over the top or wacky like Moving Out, it’s just unpacking boxes.

28

Most Delightful Surprise: Dicke Daemonen

This should be regarded as a classic of mid-2000s tabletop gaming. How has no one heard of Dicke Daemonen? It’s a joy - charming on the table, enormously interactive, a simple ruleset that leads to agonizing decisions.

Pic from BGG:

Also (and this is what first attracted me to it) endless “dick demon” jokes.

29

Looked up quickly on the French net: Single run of 200 games nearly 20 years ago. I guess the maths are simple as to why nobody can even have heard of it!

30

Someone alert Restoration Games!

31

Hang on, the French have their own net? Is it better than this one? Is it called… Annette?

32

Minitel Rose, I believe.

33

Games I played that were released in 2021: None

This is becoming a trend. I no longer play games as they are released, but years after.

The most recent game I have played

TITLE PLATFORM RELEASE GENRE PUBLISHER DEVELOPER
Noita PC October 15, 2020 roguelite Nolla Games Nolla Games

And what I am currently playing

TITLE PLATFORM RELEASE GENRE PUBLISHER DEVELOPER
Wasteland 3 PC August 27, 2020 CRPG inXile Entertainment inXile Entertainment

So I think I am at least a solid year behind, if not two. Mind the leather work.

34

Only Brooski and Arrendek care about the year a game’s been released.
But could you provide the codebars of the games you talked about, instead of that weird formatting?

35

Yeah this is the thread for games that you played in 2021 and possibly enjoyed, that may not have been released in 2021!

Game with the biggest patch/update download: AC Valhalla.

For reference.

36

The 2021 Ron Burgundy Award: Wildermyth
I see all the praise for this game, but every time I look at a screenshot or gameplay video, I find it impossible to believe that I’d like it as much as everyone else does. The XCOM tactical combat sounds fine, but the procedural storytelling and attachment to randomized characters do not. It doesn’t help that every games journalist calls it whimsical. I don’t begrudge anyone their amazing experience. It’s just not for me!

Most Satisfying Damage Numbers of the Year: Vampire Survivors
The numbers don’t matter, and you can’t even make them out when the action picks up. But their presence – hundreds of them popping up as you mow down enemies – taps straight into the part of the brain that tells you that you’ve done good things.

37

This quote will come to haunt you when you mature from your silly action games and you’ll be crying at every of the absurd tragic events striking your beloved Sims!

38

I was actually thinking about typing them out in binary.

39

The “I thought I was adding to my backlog but I’m amateur hour compared to @lordcosk” Award – Me

Jeez, 336 on Steam alone??? Slow down, man!

40

I find almost all games interesting, except what @Left_Empty plays. Also lots of stuff from bundles that I probably won’t play, but game count ++. :P

41

Ice cold, man.