Alex, Tom F and Chris present Our Caveats About The Games of the Year. Among the games at least partially endorsed are: The Ascent, Chicory, Valheim, Hitman III, Deathloop, Metroid Dread, Halo Infinite, Life is Strange: True Colors and Chivalry 2. Happy holidays, and see you in 2022!

  • This is a pod about the games that came out in 2021 – so let’s start with the games that didn’t come out in 2021 that we played anyway!
  • Tom’s been anaesthetising himself with Slay the Spire, and socialising Graham with Supreme Commander
  • Alex’s has continued to fiddle with his MiSTer. He’s insatiable. You’d think getting a dog would have helped.
  • Chris played Cyberpunk 2077 and is thankful for the absence of Huge Beams.
  • Now moving logically on to the games of the year of someone not even on the podcast. The Ascent – a play-above-you game where you are a little-man-run-and-jump. Tom S likes it, but not that much. GOTY!
  • Tom F, the Present Tom, liked Chicory (from the makers of Wandersong) – a wholesome game about a dog who paints the world, and which touches on darker subjects of self-worth and depression.
  • Greg Lobanov is Chicory’s designer and Alexis is the artist and animator. Talented folks.
  • Open-world survival building game, Valheim came out this year, somehow, and was briefly and intensely enjoyed by Chris and Alex.
  • Hitman III, the boringly good, hugely generous assassination sandbox beloved of Masters of Stealth: Tom F and Chris.
  • Chris enjoyed the action spectacle of Deathloop as much as the acrobatic stabby delights of any Arcane game. Tom F not so much, but was still obsessed with it for a time!
  • Normal game coming out the normal way: Alex says Metroid Dread feels great in motion but a little incoherent in its geography and brutalising boss-battles.
  • Plomking past the ick, Halo Infinite inherits the robust combat mechanics of past Halo games and adds a grappling hook, bananas for marines and ice-cream for dinner. Everyone likes it.
  • Beautiful mood-piece, Life is Strange: True Colors is a game about sensing people’s pain and healing them. Tom F makes it sound dead good.
  • The simple pleasures of medieval ultraviolence are captured well in the exuberantly silly Chivalry 2. Chris like to be yelling-man-fall-in-hole.
  • Honourable mentions: Demon’s Souls, Guardians of the Galaxy, Psychonauts 2, Rift Wizard, Olija, Ynglet, Slipways, Far Cry 6, Subnautica: Below Zero, The Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye DLC, Griftlands, Inscryption, Resident Evil: Village, Splitgate, Forza Horizon 5, Super Auto Pets.
  • And that.
  • And that?

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Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.