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January 4, 2022

Retrospective 2021


God Damn was this year bad. 2020 deserves a big fat F; 2021, I’ll be more lenient and give a D-. Yes, we’re still dealing with Covid-19. In fact, it’s probably gone endemic, meaning that we’re never going to get rid of it now, and we might just have to learn to exist with it. Perhaps we’ll even reach a point where we treat it like just another disease and not the cause of constant stress and fear that it is now. And hey, we have vaccines against it, and the research in vaccine science over the last two years has opened doors towards treatments for other diseases that have been troublesome for decades, if not longer. As an example, we’re allegedly making progress in the fight against cancer, with some of the discoveries made as of late, with this crisis to thank for it.

Unfortunately, idiots reared their heads and made everything worse for everyone else. The less I say about those, and all the flavors they come in, the better. The people who are pushing back against anything that could help in this crisis, due to wrong beliefs, unbridled selfishness, or a complete disregard in science. But I really should move away from that topic.

Well, I once again didn’t catch Covid-19 all year, and I worked most of the year at my current job (I had 6 weeks off during winter due to a post-Holidays confinement decreed by Quebec’s government – I hope this won’t happen again in 2022). And while we’re not entirely back to normalcy (which is impossible, this is the new normal; the best we can do is a better new normal), things are looking up and I’m carefully optimistic. Heck, I went to see something like 4 or 5 films in theaters this year.

Blog-wise, I think I’ve never reviewed this many games in a single year before. Two sets of Quick Reviews, which both covered nearly 30 games each, made that possible. In fact, I reviewed a grand total of 65 games this year – more than one a week! One thing I like is that I’ve moved on to a new form of format where longer reviews are split in sections, and I try to make a good point about the thing being reviewed in each of these sections. I’ve found that it makes reading them easier, more pleasant, and also more interesting. I hope you agree.

And since it’s the first article of the year, I’m due for a retrospective on everything reviewed since January 2021.

My favorite reviews of 2021

I didn’t have a lot of reviews that stood out from the others, so I’m going by some of the ones I liked writing the most and why.

10. Disneyland Adventures. This one, and the next two, are reviews that were written in January where I desperately needed to pass the time, and as a result I put a lot of care into fully playing these games and covering them through and through. Visiting this virtual Disneyland wasn’t perfect, but it definitely helped while I was stuck at home in confinement.
9. American Truck Simulator. I had already played that one a lot before covering it, and I had fun writing about it. In fact, I returned to it now and then during the year. I’m happy to say that I now have two garages, more employees, and a steadier stream of in-game revenue, meaning that the business is improving nicely!
8. Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan. While this is a shorter review, I loved discussing this game, the history of its developer, and promoting it – anything to talk about indie studios from Quebec!
7. Portal. The downside to Quick Reviews is that it usually doesn’t lead to reviews that stand out in style. As a result, very few of those make it to my “fave reviews of the year” list. However, it does allow me to play games I had been looking forward to for a while, and Portal is one of them.
6. WarGames. The only movie review of the year, and one that I felt was extremely interesting. Not only is it the second fiction movie ever made about video games, it’s also a very interesting foray into hacking as it was presented in the 1980s. I feel it was a great study.
5. Paper Mario. I swear that game had been like eyeing me forever in the memory of my Wii’s SD card. It was grand time I reviewed it, as it was the last Mario RPG that I needed to cover on the blog. What will be this year’s anniversary review? Even I don’t know yet…
4. Untitled Goose Game. Not much to say aside that, as the final review of the year, I wanted to end on a funny note, which this game perfectly matched. I came up with the surprise ending (of the goose showing up to steal part of the review) on the fly.
3. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator. While I’m glad to be done with everything FNAF, I am glad I ended on that note: A review of the sixth game that covered all the bases and actually dropped a lot of references to the series’ lore and overarching plot. Seriously, go back to read it, and try to spot everything that’s a reference to an element of the series or an acknowledgement of some secrets in that very game.
2. Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. While not as awesome as the game that preceded it, American Nightmare was an interesting chapter in the Alan Wake series. I really love what I did in that review, constantly masking the name of the villain, as the game itself did. I couldn’t skip a chance to do the same with every utterance of Mister Sχρατχh – dammit, it’s doing it again!
1. Alan Wake. Another one of those games I had touched long before I actually reviewed it, and it was actually getting more and more tempting every year. Well, I finally gave it a go this year. I’m surprised at how good of a hunch that was – not only was a new edition of this game announced while I was posting the review, but an actual sequel was also announced for release (hopefully) in 2023. I was inspired to name some sections in that large review (5 parts!) with song titles due to the game’s own use of an eclectic soundtrack comprising a lot of famous songs.


The 10 worst games reviewed on the blog in 2021

10. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. Okay, full disclosure, this one isn’t actually all that bad, but I could barely find any interest in the game proper – a textbook example of how everything around a game is more interesting to me than the game itself. However, the games I reviewed afterwards – Sister Location and Pizzeria Simulator – redeemed that.
9. Size Matters. I maintain that there is an excellent idea behind this one; you shrink, and must hurriedly create an antidote before it’s too late. However, the controls and camera made it very poor in execution, something that I still wish gets corrected down the line.
8. Rock ‘N’ Roll Defense. In a year where so many amazing games were reviewed, it’s unfortunate that a fair title that happened to be someone’s first game would make it to this list. It’s not bad, but it pales in comparison to everything else… well, other than the next entries here.
7. Idling to Rule the Gods. If there is one thing I would change about this year, it would be to make myself never touch this damn game on which I’ve wasted entirely too much time. Sure, that’s the nature of clickers… they’re addictive. I made it a goal for 2022 to stop playing it. I’ve removed it from my Steam library and account already.
6. The Hat Man: Shadow Ward. If you want to talk about games that feel dry, this one is a contender. It had very little of interest, any scares repeated themselves, the story was pretty bland, and for a horror game it failed to even produce a single chilling of the spine.
5. F.E.X. (Forced Evolution Experiment). I should have covered that one during October, I still think so. The basic idea isn’t half bad, but it’s presented rather blandly, and much of the game is one annoyance after the next. I can still remember the sounds made by the monsters, that’s how often I heard them while I tested F.E.X..
4. Face it – a game to fight inner demons. So little of this game stands out in my mind… doesn’t help that I reviewed it in February. Still, I remember again how poor the design was, and how much of the psychological commentary felt tacked on. Carl Jung's works can inspire some pretty fun pieces of media (they inspired a few TOOL songs, as an example); this isn’t one of those.
3. Blockstorm. One peculiar aspect of this year is that I covered a lot of games where the focus was on multiplayer. Most of those games also had single-player options, so they weren’t dead in the water. This one, however, was long past its prime, and I never got to experience much of it, although I did try. Some ideas here sound pretty fun; imagine a shooter in a blocky world where everything can be customized or destroyed. Good luck finding any players nowadays, though!
2. Wasted Pizza. Did I ever manage to actually play this one? Let me check… Ah, right, I couldn’t! In this case, it’s literally because nobody else was playing it, there was no single-player, there was no way to do anything while waiting in a lobby… oh, and the game broke in all kinds of weird ways if you tried to leave a lobby you were waiting in. That says a lot about the actual quality of the product… but at least, I got further than…
1. Offensive Combat: Redux! Yeah, that was the biggest pile of crap this year. I could not even reach the main menu – the game simply couldn’t connect. I had a hunch that what I was gonna get wouldn’t be glorious, but I had no idea that I would literally get… well, nothing! I’ll repeat myself: If the game literally does not fucking work, pull it from the store!


The 10 best games reviewed on the blog in 2021

For the record, I reviewed so many great games this year that I seriously considered making a Top 15 instead. This was a very tough list to make, and it almost broke my heart not to include some of the titles I chose to leave out. Putting these ten games in order was tough, as well.

10. Grow Home. A charming game by a Ubisoft sub-studio, which captured my attention for a lot longer than I thought it would. Excellent replay value.
9. Untitled Goose Game. So damn hilarious, but also super well-made and offers a lot of challenge to those who wish to complete its various tasks.
8. To the Moon. I’ve seen firsthand now why people say it’s one of the best RPG Maker games ever made, and I wholeheartedly agree!
7. Skullgirls 2nd Encore. Between the very awesome look of that game and the gameplay that’s just as awesome… well, I was certainly tempted to play it over and over!
6. GRIS. A lot of games this year were fantastic visual experiences, and this title deserves all the accolades it received after its release. It’s drop-dead gorgeous, and a lot of fun to play on top of that.
5. Portal. I had been repeatedly told of how great this game was, so I was hoping to try it eventually – well, that time came this year, and while it did not reach the high expectations, it came close enough to deserve a place here!
4. Alan Wake. I dedicated five friggin’ parts to this game because I had so much to say, and it speaks volume that in spite of the flaws I found I felt it more than deserved its place among the best of the year. It is genuinely an excellent experience that I recommend, especially for those discovering the series after hearing the announcement for the upcoming sequel.
3. Journey. A gorgeous, meditative, contemplative experience in which the friends you make are but temporary, befitting the theme that the journey matters more than the destination. That is another game from this list that received numerous accolades on release, and after playing it, I could see it deserved every one of them.
2. Layers of Fear. This one might surprise, as it’s an unusual choice for a high spot on the list. Well, it’s not just one of the best games I played this year, it’s one of the best horror games I’ve ever played, period. Every single section worked perfectly. A must-try if you’ve never heard of it before.
1. Paper Mario. Am I biased towards Mario? Hopefully not. But as far as great gaming experiences go, Paper Mario has long been considered one of the best Mario games, and deserve s that reputation. I was happy I could finally cover it this year.


The 10 goals I had for the blog this year, and whether they were accomplished

10. An anniversary review – I did it! It was Paper Mario, with its 5 parts published throughout July.
9. Two sets of Quick Reviews – I did it! However, while it means that I reviewed a TON of games this year, I didn’t publish a lot of full-length reviews, and both sets were long to get through, almost exhausting after a while. I’ve realized that two sets like this is too much in a year. I’ll dial it back for 2022… but Quick Reviews aren’t going away, rest assured.
8. A redesign of the site – Not achieved. Alas.
7. Update the other bonus pages of the blog – Only semi-achieved. I’ve kept the Archive updated, though sometimes with some lateness. I don’t remember if I actually made any changes to the other pages. However, I had the great idea to create an Index page in July, and I did. It’s getting updated alongside the Archive, and makes it a lot easier for someone to search whether I reviewed a game.
6. A Halloween Special – sort of achieved? I didn’t do one big review for Halloween or two reviews to fill out October, however I spent the month doing horror-themed Quick Reviews and that was a pretty decent trade-off.
5. Produce at least one full video for YouTube – I haven't done one. That said, I did publish something over there – a video where I, finally, get rid of two DVDs I should have thrown in the trash years ago. You can see it here. However, I don’t think it counts as a full video.
4. More reviews of Ubisoft games – only partly achieved. I finally covered something I owned on UPlay, but it was a single game – Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, to be precise. (Grow Home is a Ubisoft game, sort of, but I don’t know if it would count for this point. Even if it did, it would be just two games this year…)
3. An M-Rated Month – Nope, didn't do that. I still have a lot of M-Rated games in my collection and I should probably look into playing and covering some of them.
2. A review of a mainline Pokémon game – Not achieved. However, I’m fairly confident I could do it in 2022.
1. More streaming - ?????. I honestly don’t know whether I actually did stream more this year. In points, it feels like I did, but I’m not entirely sure. It would be interesting if I were to set a schedule for myself. Other than that, well… I can always try to do this again this year, seeing as I’ve been building an audience.


And now, 10 goals for 2022

10. Do a set of Quick Reviews. It’s pretty much guaranteed by this point; all I know is that I won’t be doing two.
9. Redesign the blog. Promised multiple times, failed multiple times. I have no idea if it will ever happen – but I’ll be happy if it does happen. I might even be able to get some help for it.
8. Update the other pages of the blog – I’ve got a few things to correct in my Archive and Index pages (namely: Edit every single link so it opens in a new tab), but the other… er, other pages need some love as well.
7. A review of a South Park game. Between games for my reviews in December, I picked up The Stick of Truth again, so I might cover that one sometime in the year.
6. Review the two LEGO Harry Potter games. In part due to stuff revolving around the Harry Potter franchise that’s been going on as of late (…since 2020, even), I feel like these games are becoming more and more of a “Better do them and be done with them” sort of deal.
5. A list of all the video game movies reviewed on the blog so far, ranked worst to best. It would include all the VGFlicks reviews, but also the reviews of films seen in theaters and not covered in greater detail yet. This one is all but guaranteed to happen, as I’ve already started working on it.
4. More reviews of Ubisoft games. Yes, once again. I definitely could, too. Actually, I think I might do a Rayman Month; that might do it.
3. A full month of Pokémon reviews. I’ve been meaning to cover Pokémon X for a while now, but I might also throw in a VGFlicks of a Pokémon movie, since I reviewed the first one several years ago and should cover the second one.
2. To grow the community around Planned All Along. I’ve already taken some steps towards this goal, now here’s hoping that I can do it better this year.
1. Make a video for YouTube. Yet another thing I keep promising, yet I never really get around to it. Maybe 2022 will allow it.

Another month with nothing but VGFlicks reviews may also be in the cards, but look at the number of theme months I’m trying to include this time – it might not be doable.


Another yearly thing I do with these retrospectives is to select a very small number of games to remove from my collection, with knowledge that I likely won’t ever play them again, even if I originally gave them a positive review; and after those are taken out, I go through all the games I reviewed on Steam and make a new list of favorites, which are games I would gladly play over and over – like a mini-collection of games I would never remove.


The five games I’ve removing from the collection this year

Castle Story
EM: Shader Attack
Out There Somewhere
ReThink
Tower of Guns

The new list of favorites, with roughly 1/5th of the Steam games reviewed so far


That’s it for this year’s retrospective. See you around for the next articles.

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