By any measure, 2021 was a terrible year. And while some games made it better — hence their inclusion on my Best Video Games Of 2021 list — there were also some that made it so much worse.
Here, in the order I suffered them, are my least favorite games of 2021.
NBA Ball Stars
Developer / Publisher: Square Enix
Systems: iOS, Android
While I don’t like sports, or sports games, I do like puzzle games, even when they’re connected to things I don’t like. Like sports. But they have to be good puzzle games. And this one ain’t. A puzzle-based battle game, this has you tapping gems in groups to improve the performance of a pro basketball player getting ready to take a shot or block one. The problem being that the puzzle parts offer no challenge, and require no thought, which makes this as dull as watching Michael Jordan read the instruction manual for a toaster oven.
SCORE: 1/5 (Click here to read my full review.)
Necromunda: Hired Gun
Developer: Streumon Studio
Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
Systems: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a terrible game. It’s worse: it’s a big disappointment. While this should’ve been an exciting sci-fi first-person shooter, one that combines elements of Titanfall 2 and Doom Eternal, it ended up being neither thanks to some rather basic mistakes: controls that were overly sensitive, even when adjusted; a weird motion blur effect that makes turning quickly feel a bit disorienting; battlefields so large that your enemies are super tiny and hard to see; the equally tiny text, and…well, I could go on, but why bother.
SCORE: 3/5 (Click here to read my full review.)
My Friend Pedro: Ripe For Revenge
Developer / Publisher: Devolver Digital
Systems: iOS, Android
A bad game is a bad game, and a bad version of a good game is even worse. But a bad version of a good game that doesn’t fix the problem with the good game, and instead makes it worse? Ugh. And that, sadly, is what you get from the mobile version of this acrobatic arcade shooter, which has touchscreen controls that are far more awkward than the ones in the Switch version…and the Switch controls weren’t great to begin with. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the free version makes you go all the way back to the beginning when you fail — unlike the $2.99 one, which adds checkpoints — making you pay for the privilege of being annoyed.
SCORE: 1/5 (Click here to read my full review.)
Diablo II: Resurrected
Developer: Blizzard
Publisher: Blizzard
Systems: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Switch
Not so much bad as it is a letdown, this is yet another upgrade of a classic game that wasn’t upgraded enough. Of all the things to keep accurate to the original, did it have to be the stupid “you lose all your stuff when you die” mechanic? And the dated inventory system? And the inability to pause? And the tiny map?
SCORE: 3/5 (Click here to read my full review.)
Toy Soldiers HD
Developer: Signal Studios
Publisher: Accelerate Games
Systems: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC
It seems a little unfair to bash this game, given that I didn’t like the previous Toy Soldiers game. But I don’t feel too bad because the biggest problem with this game is not what you do in it — it’s a simple strategy action game where you fight WWI battles by picking what stationary guns go where — but how the controls are so wonky that just looking around is annoying.
SCORE: 2/5 (Click here to read my full review.)
Metal Slug Commander
Developer / Publisher: SNK
Systems: iOS, Android
You’re supposed to judge a game by what it is, not what you want it to be. So, Metal Slug Commander isn’t here because it’s a strategy game while the previous Metal Slug games were side-scrolling arcade shooters. No, it’s here because it’s a low-rent strategy game, overly simplistic, adding nothing, and so easy that you can just sit back and do nothing and still win. Blah.
SCORE: 2/5 (Click here to read my full review.)
Dishonorable Mentions:
Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy (Square Enix; PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC)
While this third-person sci-fi shooter is deeply, and unnecessarily flawed, it does ultimately become a rather engaging action game (hence it’s inclusion on my Best Games Of The Year list as well).
SCORE: 7.5/10 (Click here to read my full review.)
Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft; PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC)
It’s funny, while some people disliked this game for being more of the same, I ended up abandoning it after a bunch of hours because I didn’t like all the new (read Grand Theft Auto-esque) stuff they added to this game’s normally entertaining formula.
And that’s a wrap on 2021. Here’s hoping 2022 will be better.
