The Best, Worst, and Blandest of 2021 – Zero Punctuation

5th Best

We’ll get to it right now, as it happens. There was only one game that took me by pleasant surprise as it transitioned from bland hipster navel-gazing to psychedelic cosmos-spanning rock odyssey direct from the subconsciouses of all four of the Beatles while they were on one of the less harrowing drugs. The Artful Escape. That I must sadly relegate to 5th Best because this a top 5 list of games, not of things where you just hold right and occasionally repeat some notes back to it like you’re playing on a Simon machine powered by a very inefficient exercise bike.

5th Blandest

As always, Blandness is the opposite of both good and bad. Like a coin with a yin-yang on one side and a dead blobfish on the other. And that sums up my feelings toward Resident Evil Village pretty well. I don’t particularly like or hate it. Some bits were good. The rest was all over the place and full of too many rehashed ideas. Like a dream that I thought was getting sexy for a while but then I got lost in my old high school and woke up when I realised I was late for the bus.

5th Worst

The trouble with these rankings is the lack of nuance. Is it really fair to call Twelve Minutes the fifth worst game of 2021 if I was somewhat liking it right up to the end? In this case yes, because that ending undermines everything leading up to it. if you get dragged into an alley by an angry chef and disembowelled with a broken bottle, your subsequent Yelp review probably isn’t going to focus on the restaurant’s lovely filet mignon.

4th Best

I hope you’ll forgive some self-indulgence, my 4th best is a game intended mainly for fans, but I’m a fan and it’s MY list. Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said that in a functioning democracy, if a man likes Persona 5 Strikers it is his duty to rebel, even if he believes himself the only one? Just as it is everyone else’s duty to say they thought Guardians of the Galaxy was better? Paraphrasing, obviously. Yes, Persona 5 Strikers. It’s got energy and life and the soundtrack’s really fun to put on while you’re kicking a homeless man to death.

4th Blandest

You know, it’s bad enough that triple-A games are a constant parade of bland open world swill, but it’s really taking the piss when indie games get profile boosts for aspiring to be the same fucking thing. Ooh, come and join the popular kids’ table, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, you’ll fit right in with your bland world design and Disney Pixar characters and unspecific vaguely spiritual theme that’s slightly environmental but not so much that it offends our investment company that’s also got shares in Oil-Drenched Seabirds PLC.

4th Worst

Again, calling this game one of The Worst leaves no room for nuance, and I’m as confused as to whether I like it as I am by most of the qualities of SWERY games. Ultimately, The Good Life is, by every imaginable measure, an almost inconceivably badly designed game, but it’s still got a certain charm. I wonder if it’s more a because than in spite of situation. If SWERY took a fucking game design lesson one of these days he probably WOULD get a lot less interesting.

3rd Best

With its wealth of ideas and somewhat astonishing depth of gameplay variety that’s simultaneously very tightly designed and very accessible, small wonder that It Takes Two was the Game Awards upset game of the year. But I just can’t rank it any higher for its weak connecting plot and excessive bad dialogue. I refuse to lower my standards, industry. I still aspire to a better world. Where video games can have strong writing AND good design, and every home has an extra tap in the kitchen sink that dispenses lager.

3rd Blandest

I recently published a video essay arguing that video games may have already peaked at a point between 10 and 20 years ago, and when commenters ask “oh how can you say that” I point to games like Back 4 Blood and everything else with no greater ambition than to remake shit from the afore-specified era under a rice paper thin disguise. At Ubisoft announcing the Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell remakes. At basically every indie game looking like it belongs on the PS2. And then I point again and make a sort of mad starey face.

3rd Worst

And even when all they’re doing is regurgitating old shit the modern industry still finds ways to fuck it up. Abe’s Exoddus was a fairly low key quirky stealth puzzle platformer and Oddworld Soulstorm is about as much as you’d expect from a reimagining of it that felt the most logical additions to the formula would be a crafting system and the occasional giant robot fight.

2nd Best

Like anyone who dressed up like Robert Smith in the 90s, video gaming must never be allowed to forget its dalliances with trends, and so I felt one of the time loop games from this year should be acknowledged. Deathloop? No. Twelve Minutes? No, in an even more contemptful tone of voice. The Forgotten City, then. All the slightly janky Uncanny Valley skiing holiday fun of a Skyrim quest except with incredibly solid writing and more than two voice actors.

2nd Blandest

Always a struggle picking my bland five, having to think back and remember the games I least remember things about. Number two instantly earned its place when I was going down the list of reviews and my eye very nearly skipped straight over it like a limousine over a homeless man’s foot. It’s Outriders. It was a third person shooter, it was post apocalyptic, I’m pretty sure there was a skill tree in there somewhere, but at that point my mind’s eye slips off it and starts thinking about pies instead.

2nd Worst

So often games are bad because they’re hackneyed, or lazy, or cynical, or end with incest pregnancy drama, so the games that had the best of intentions but are bad because of pure ineptitude are the kind I still prize the most highly. Some games just come out on stage, try to hike up their belts and rip their trousers right off. My second worst game: Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood. Just refreshing plain and simple bad game classic with more subtitles than redeeming qualities.

Best Game

This probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who noticed I was kind of reaching for things to complain about in my review, but, fine, Psychonauts 2 is just as engaging and imaginative as Psychonauts 1 and is the good kind of sequel that expands upon rather than wallows in its predecessor. It is, however, still a sequel. And I can’t be as enthusiastic as I would’ve been for an original IP. Although it might prove my earlier point, since it’s a sequel to a game from the PS2 era. I’m making the mad starey face again.

Blandest Game

Guess what – blandest game of 2021 is a shooter. Double guess what – it’s a World War 2 shooter. Possibly not the one you’re thinking of. Because while blandness hangs off of World War 2 shooters like nipple tassles on your mum when she’s working nights, that blandness is thrown into even sharper relief when paired with new technology. Yes, it’s Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. Thanks for coming to join the VR party, World War 2 shooters. Now leave the wine bottle you brought and piss off.

Worst Game

But our worst game of 2021 is a rather unique vintage, that combines its mystifyingly bad design choices with an unflinching earnestness that makes it car crash fascinating, like a chorus line dancer with a compound fracture, spraying blood from her exposed shin bone over the front row with every high kick and trying desperately to smile. Yes, it’s Balan Thunderpants. This may very well be the sort of thing SWERY would make if he took a game design lesson. If it was a lesson given by a slug. In a burning dumpster. In the middle of a busy road. Who doesn’t know anything about game design.