He's baaaaaaaaaaack.

2021 wasn't the WORST year ever only because 2020 set such a low bar. Curfews, quarantines and cancelled holidays were offset by open summers, (cautiously) seeing friends and family again and, of course, VIDYA GAMES. My trophy streak has reached two years, I've made many friends I'll probably never meet IRL and being a Twitch streamer has brought such a new perspective to my life. Shall we?

As usual, a game doesn't have to be a 2021 release, but a game I played and "got" in 2021. First, the ineligible honourable mentions that I spent many hours with:

Mass Effect Legendary Edition



Even having played the original trilogy very recently (heck, ME3 was my GOTY only last year!), I was very happy to go through the entire thing again on camera. Recreating my "Kim" Shepard, going with Adept instead of Engineer, improving my relationships and also playing so much of that ME3 DLC that I never got to made the Legendary Edition feel so very worth it.

Fortnite



The closest thing I had to a social life for a good while there (hi, Jenni and Hunter!), Fortnite is still fun and I actually enjoy how crazy and almost mugen-like it's gotten. It'll take shutting it down to get me to stop playing at this point.

Rock Band 4



They finally gave us Rock You Like a Hurricane. I repeat. THEY FINALLY GAVE US ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE.

And now, our feature presentation.

10. Donut County



A short, silly, snacky game that really cheered me up with its humour, colour palette and Katamari Damacy vibes. Play it if you get the chance.

9. The Evil Within 2



EW2 improves upon the first game's combat and pacing, AND the story makes enough sense to follow as opposed to the first's game's COMPLETE NONSENSE. XD It gets fiendishly difficult in places and feels more gross than scary most of the time, but Evil Within 2 is quite a ride.

8. L.A. Noire



Cons: the 'open-world' is too empty and the map is too big. The developers almost seemed self-conscious that they were being pusblished by 2K and therefore had to make their game more GTA-like but forgot most of it. But, pros: where L.A. Noire comes into its own is in the atmosphere, the writing and the puzzle-solving, even if they do feel simple at times. Reading people (even if the facial animation has gotten quite weird to look at 10 years later), finding the clues that will trigger responses, wondering exactly what the heck "forensics" means in 1947 and Cole's career progression from its blazing start to dreary end, L.A. Noire is quite wonderful.

7. Metroid Dread



Leave it to the original to show how it's done. While the use of all the face and shoulder buttons did take me a while to get used to, Metroid Dread is such a positive experience that all I wanted to do was keep going long after my brain kept saying "IT'S 6 AM TURN YOUR SWITCH OFF AND GO TO SLEEP." The graphics are gorgeous, the sound is top-notch, the map is big without ever making me feel completely lost and I get that old hand cramping from playing too long, much like my GBA SP gave me during many lengty Fusion and Zero Mission runs.

6. Resident Evil Village



RE8 is an odd duck. It never seems to know whether it wants to be RE4, or RE7, or RE6, or even Doom 2016. And yet for all it's lurching lane changes and flinches of tone, I found the story ridiculously compelling and the gameplay top-notch. The extremely frightening parts are balanced out by over-the-top action in other parts, the villains' cheesiness is spot-on and the tie-ins to previous games completely changes how I feel about RE7, even if Village does pull the same "oh-shit-I-just-remembered-I'm-a-Resident-Evil-game" thing towards the end that 7 pulls. Is Village the best Resident Evil? No. Is it worthy of carrying the mantle? Very much so.

5. Spider-Man: Miles Morales



Miles was somewhat cursed by the law of dimishing returns, but his solo outing proves that the Spider-Man open-world formula is still a winner. Invisibility and electric powers don't hurt either. AND I can't wait to re-play it when I get a PS5. XD

4. Watch Dogs: Legion



I'm still a sucker for a well-done and mindless open-world sandbox and Watch Dogs Legion delivers on that. The story somewhat suffers from the lack of any one main character and certain voices get recycled WAY too often, but I enjoy the "Assassin's-Creed-but-set-today" gameplay so much. The weapons are fun to mix and match, recruiting people with special skills and then USING those skills is a blast, it's just difficult enough while not being punishing and Bagley is such a little asshole. I love it.

3. Steins;Gate



I only started Steins;Gate because I read it was an easy Platinum, and by the end of it I was completely ensconced in its world of accidental time travel, conspiracies, love triangles and numerous other weeb trappings. I felt Okabe's pain, I fell in love with Mayuri, Kurisu AND Faris, I loathed the bad guys and I kept wanting to see what happened next. I never thought a visual novel would get its hooks into me, and I was wrong-wrong-wrong.

2. Mass Effect: Andromeda



I feel it deserved so much more than what history seems to have given it. Ryder and the Andromeda Initiative were so full of potential for the next phase of the ME series and after spending so much time with them I'm truly bummed that this game will never get a follow-up. It looks amazing, the combat is leaps and bounds tighter and better-feeling that the original trilogy (JUMP BUTTON!) and the dialogue between characters is as full of life and before. Is it as good as the original trilogy? No. It it worthy of carrying the Mass Effect name? Yes, very much so.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I tried so hard to be contrarian about Witcher 3, but in the end it sucked me right in. This might be one of the deepest games I've ever experienced. Even at its age, it LOOKS incredible. The acting is great. The writing is fabulous; even the tiniest sidequest has unique characters and dialogue and that's something I greatly appreciate. Being my first Witcher game, I'm certain there are things that are going right over my head, but I'm enjoying myself so much anyway that it largely isn't bothering me.

Witcher 3 hasn't been a game that I've played in sessions of 12 hours straight, but every time I pick it up I know there are ten things to do, I'm happy to do them and, if I'm in the mood, I'm also quite happy to ride my horse across the world while listening to the overworld music and drinking in the scenery. It feels very peaceful, at least until wolves or sirens dare attack me and ruin the mood.

It's almost impossible to get bored with this game. I can go off to another continent to help the Ireland stand-in pick its new ruler, I can complete monster-hunting contracts (complete with unique characters) while using my not-Batman-Detective-vision, I can (poorly) play Gwent for six hours, I can go to a 'poetry reading' and get roped into a million hours of more questing and I can even *gasp* follow the main quest to help Yen find Ciri, even if Ciri's father is the biggest POS I've ever met. I can feel the richness of the world, I can see the amount of care that was put into everything, and even if some of it still goes over my head [unlike all the fabulous boobs ;)], I enjoy it so much that ultimately there is no other choice but to crown The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as my 2021 Game of the Year. Come on, Roach!