I'm taking some stabs in the dark....

50. Hogan's Alley?
49. Terminator 2?
48. River City Girls?
47. Crash Bandicoot: Warped?
46. Solstice?

#49: Fallout 4?

20% chance of hitting stuff in the dark it seems. 47 is correct!

The others aren't.

Let's kick it off with some honorable mentions.

As a reminder, here are my honorable mentions of the past years:

• 2017: Wii Sports Resort (Wii, 2009), Dune (DOS, 1992), Hearthstone (Android, 2014), Chaos Overlords (DOS, 1996), Dillon's Rolling Western (3DS, 2012), Micro Machines (DOS, 1991), Bravely Default (3DS, 2012) and Duke Nukem 3D (DOS, 1996)
• 2018: Undertale (Switch, 2015), Oxenfree (Switch, 2016), Darksiders II (WiiU, 2012), Unreal Tournament (Windows, 1999), Doom reboot (Switch, 2016)
• 2019: Into the Breach (Switch, 2018), Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (WiiU/Switch, 2014), Wacky Wheels (DOS, 1994), Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch, 2018), FreedroidRPG (Linux, 2011), The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Switch, 2015), Sid Meier's Colonization (DOS, 1994), Blockout (DOS, 1989)
• 2020: Beyond Good & Evil (PS2, 2003), Doom 64 (Switch/Stadia, 1997), Human Resource Machine (WiiU/Switch, 2015), Worms (DOS, 1995), Hitman (Stadia, 2016), Battle Chess (DOS, 1988)
• 2021: Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise/Rhythm Heaven Fever (2011, Wii), Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (2019, Switch/Stadia), Battalion Wars 2 (2007, Wii), Project Zomboid (2013, Linux), Eledees/Elebits (2006, Wii), Wunderland (1994, Telnet)

Ok, now to this years mentions.

Balrum (2016, Linux)

Balrum is a classic isometric turn-based RPG with a lot of depth and details to it. If you looked at my lists in the past years you know, that this is right up my alley. Now Balrum isn't a big game from a big dev, but from a small indie dev. Still it is a pretty big games with a lot of stuff to do, from crafting, fighting monsters, doing quests, an expansive world to explore. A lot of meat for an indie game. It feels pretty old school - which is all right by me.

trailer

No Man's Sky (2016, Xbox Series)

No Man's Sky probably will be etched into history as the game that overpromised and wasn't able to deliver on launch. Lucky for me, I didn't touch the game until years later. Whatever shape it was in on launch, by now it is a fun experience. And probably a different one for everyone. For me it was all about finding a good location and building a great base, ever changing it with new crafting and building blueprints I learned. Going to find new planets to harvest the resources needed for my ever expanding building project. Hello games turned this game around by constantly updating it, constantly keep improving it, until it works. It probably will never be a tightly knit story experience, but I don't think any other game will offer a universe this big in scale with room for finding your own place, your own way of playing in it.

The above picture is not my base by the way, something I found on the internet. For my base I love vast network of tunnels connecting different above surface structures.

wikipedia, trailer

Diablo (1997, Windows)

Yeah, this is the granddaddy of a whole genre of games. If that would happen today we would probably call games like Titan's Quest or Victor Vran all 'Diablo likes'. But the funny thing is... Diablo itself is in many ways a rogue like. It clearly took inspiration from the original rogue and games like it. This is quite visible in the randomly generated ever deeping stretching levels of the dungeon. Actually the dev once explained, he wanted it also to make turn-based like rogue-likes, but as Blizzard came into the picture they asked for the pitched game to be in real time. So there is one feature that made Diablo different. The other is the that loot also became randomly generated (rogue also generated random loot, but with much smaller variation in parameters). This all was something pretty new. I recently touched again the original game as the remake of the second one dropped, and was instantly drawn in again by the atmosphere, the dark story. It is still a great game (although walk speed is painfully slow).

wikipedia

Cities: Skylines (2015, Xbox One)

I had to try out Cities: Skylines at some point, and in the last year I did. I am into simulation games, but usually more into ones that have some sort of goal. Anyways, still trying to build a working city is fun. What I noticed instantly as an old school gamer: this is SimCity. The original SimCity. Yes, sure it is in HD with much more detailed graphics and some new systems were added like water plumbing. Also instead of nuclear power plants this game has wind power. But yeah, the core gameplay is basically as it was 30 years ago.

And I am totally fine with it. The gameplay of SimCity worked, it was a big success. Refining it, giving it modern graphics, add more menus and views to control your city - that all is great. And yes, even after all these years my nemesis is an enourmous traffic jam and according air pollution. Still my biggest obstacle. A fun concept 30 years ago, a fun concept today.

wikipedia, trailer

Falling Skies (2014, WiiU)

I don't know if you remember, there was a scifi-show named Falling Skies. As a side project this also spawned the game, which resembles the characters of the TV shows and the alien threat they are facing. The game itself though is a pretty competent turn-based tactical game in the likes of XCOM. So yeah, I like that. The classes presented here and the options to develop actually work pretty well together, the story is presented well. So yeah, more tactical fun. Especially one game to play on my ill-fated WiiU back then.

trailer

Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia (2020, Switch)

And a japanese turn-based tactics game, Brigandine sports a fantasy setting, anime character portraits and hex-grids to control your spawned troops to decide the fate of the continent. Your main characters can summon and command armies fantasy creatures and level up as they fight through the battles. Maintaining and winning territory is important so you need to find and hire new rune knights that can command more troops or hold positions. There is no fixed path, you decide where to attack and with which army. Also you choose your faction to play, which decides your initial territory and original rune knights.

trailer

I'm assuming the World Cup is what starts on 9 days... but I'm stumped with the rest of the clue.

Yes... And yeah I mean "archaic" in the context of video games, so just an old game, not like some sport the Ancient Egyptians played or something lol.

Super cool way of doing clues, I like it! I'm gonna avoid spoilers each time and see if I can work it out myself - in this case I couldn't.

@ Diablo - In my top 50, mostly because it's the father of the series and has an incredible atmosphere. The walk speed is something I always complain about when I go back to Diablo 1 as well - not just the speed either, but the way it makes it so tedious chasing down ranged enemies with the Warrior. Although, in its defence, the slow movement speed does help make the game even more atmospheric. 

@ Cities: Skylines - This would probably be on my honourable mentions list too. I agree with you, it's very much like old school SimCity, but pretty and with a lot more options (should you wish to explore them), which is probably why I enjoyed it so much.

@ Falling Skies - I remember Falling Skies the TV show! I was so disappointed in it - it spent forever focussing on petty human drama in budget-constrained locations and very little exploring the alien side of things, which was much more intriguing. Think I gave up after a season or two because it felt like it wasn't going to change.

Nope and nope. Never played Blast Corps, only heard it's name.

Nope, never played any Fallout game.

Gonna give more hints tomorrow.

And now with the honorable mentions out of the way, let's dive into my list with the first hints:

#50: You are PTMC's best Material Defender!

#49: Wake up with a hell of a hangover.

#48: What will happen to Stibbons this time?

#47: Eat at Spiffo's!

#46: Legend of Wesmere

I'll get started with the games that fell off my list this year. There are five new games on my list this year, so that means five others had to be dropped. Won't spend too much time on these.

• Batman: Arkham City (PS3, 2011)
  
  • The best game in the Arkham series, and one of my favourite open world games ever. Part of the reason for Arkham City falling off might be simply because it has been such a long time since I've played it and I've just forgotten too much of the experience. Still, as of today, it's off the top 50.
• Portal 2 (PC, 2011)
  • Probably the best puzzle game I've played, and one with excellently written characters and surprisingly engaging story when the details start opening up. 
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch, 2018)
  • I've noticed that in recent years I've fallen off fighting games quite drastically. In years past series like Smash Bros, Tekken, and Soul Calibur were among my favourites, but with SSBU now falling off there are no fighting games left in my top 50 anymore. Maybe I'll get the urge to get back into them one day, but for now they're all gone.
• Super Metroid (SNES, 1994)
  • One of the SNES' best, just not quite good enough to remain in my top 50. Mainly just a victim of shuffling around my list, and obviously the five new games that made it in this year. 
• Command & Conquer (PC, 1995, 2020)
  
  • A game I have so many fond memories off from back in the day. It was effectively my introduction to the RTS genre, and I can still go back and play it today, especially with the remastered version having been released a few years back. It hasn't necessarily aged the most gracefully in some areas (AI), but the power of nostalgia can forgive a lot, and there's still a lot that is genuinely excellent about it. 

Alright, might as well get the first hints out of the way here too.

#50: Geohound

#49: A knife is a key to open a path to a city hiding a big rock

#48: So many rodents

#47: Angry dad tries to be not quite so angry

#46: 108 part 2