
2021 has been an odd and difficult year, but it was superb for gaming. With the announcement of the Game Awards nominees, I realized I played more great games this year than perhaps any other year in my life.
2021 was a year that broke our brains just a little bit. You don’t need me to tell you that, and I’ve already spoken about this elsewhere anyway. I finished fewer games this year than any other year in recent memory. As a critic, I’ve generally believed that I should at least make a valiant effort to complete a game before judging it – the more of a work you’ve seen, the more informed your reaction to it will be.
If you’re a frequent and longtime reader of GameCritics, you may have noticed that my output has dried up significantly over the past year. Take a look outside and I don’t think you can blame me. While the hope for a better tomorrow was what kept me running (albeit mostly on fumes) in 2020, that better tomorrow never came, leading to a 2021 in which energy-sapping depression seeped into every aspect of my day-to-day life, right down to my gaming habits. Up became down, hot became cold, and I got way into an MMO for the first time in my life while stuff that would have grabbed me under normal circumstances failed to gain any traction.
I don’t know if 2021 (as a year) was better or worse than 2020 — they were both pretty rough! — but I find myself feeling a tad more optimistic than I did before. We could hem and haw about it until the cows come home, but I do believe that ’21 was a much better year for new releases in ’20, so I don’t feel the need to go overly snarky and make my list entirely out of remasters. This was a great year for games, and I want to recognize the wide variety of brand-new, original releases that captivated me throughout the year.
Last year I was feeling a bit snarky after what I thought was a pretty underwhelming year for new releases, so I populated my top 10 list with nothing but remakes and remasters. I still stand by this choice, as it allowed me to somehow award Dragon Quest XI my Game of the Year three times in a row. Thankfully, 2021 has proven to be a much stronger year. I’m also feeling less dour than I was at the end of 2020, so I wanted to do the inverse and focus this year’s GOTY list on only truly new releases.
Recent Comments