2021 video games

Hey look, 2021 is almost over.

About effing time.

While the year was pretty damn stressful (hahaha dissertation still not done), I did get a chance to play a lot of video games to try and reduce a lot of that stress.  So, as is tradition, here’s a brief Year in Review, where I go over games I played in roughly the order of how much I liked them.  New games (or games I played way more this year than in previous years) at the top, the stuff from previous years at the bottom.

Project Wingman: I have written a ton about this game and it's still not enough. This is my clear Game of the year and it's not incredibly close. And I played some phenomenal games this year. But going into Cold War in VR with an anime style opening playing as I unload with the PW-Mk1's rockets is an experience of pure joy. I beat the game 3 times already and love it more each time. An absolute must for VR enthusiasts and a wonderful plane sim for anyone vaguely into that.

Disco Elysium: the pinnacle of CRPGs. The amount of choice you have, the ability to develop your character, the voices, the worldbuilding, that ending. It's an incredible experience and it's insane that there's two other 10/10 games it has to compete with. Highly recommend, truly demonstrates what a video game can be.

Before Your Eyes: I can't say much about this game, because it's an experience best done on your own, but I can say some stuff. It has the most unique controls of any game, where you use your webcam to see if you blink which moves you through scenes. It has nice art style. It made me cry like a baby. It only takes 90 minutes and only costs $6. Play it.

Hades: everything I said last year holds up and then some. Story in wonderful, combat feels great, characters are fantastic. It's the roguelike for people who don't like roguelikes.

Path of Exile: this was a stressful year. When you have those, it's nice to have a good experience to come back to just to keep sane. PoE (and a later entry) did that for me this year. I'm not the best player, but following a good build I can now consistently beat endgame bosses and enjoy myself doing so. The game is silly fun, best taken not seriously at all, but appeals to the "deal big numbers" part of my brain. While there were some rough patches, the current league has been great fun and I'm eagerly awaiting the next one.

Ace Combat Zero: Somehow I had never played this.  Well, it’s no Project Wingman, but it’s also no Ace Combat 7. A fun plane experience with some excellent characters and story and some pretty skill-testing moments.  Also, emulation is baller.

Inscryption: I played 2.5 hours of this before writing this up, and I can already tell this is probably gonna be on my list next year.  Excellent card game mechanics, fantastic atmosphere, and an interesting story going on.

Titanfall 2: This game has my favorite level and gun in a video game ever.  The rest is fine.  But that mission alone is worth the price of entry.

Fallout: New Vegas: I can see why this game is so highly rated among a lot of gamers. It’s very good.  However, combat is kinda dated at this point and visuals don’t match up to contemporaries.  But if you’re looking for a great RPG, this is among the absolute best.

Helltaker: A man made a game about collecting demon waifus so people would make fanart of them and that’s an admirable goal.  It took me 69 minutes to beat which, imo, is perfect.

Beatsaber: Hitting stuff with lightsabers while One Winged Angel plays is a great time.  The game is energetic and fun, and with mods becomes a very entertaining experience.  Would recommend.

Pistol Whip: The other VR game I played.  Not customizable, but just as frenetic as Beatsaber and possibly more fun at times.  Also, has two stories (I’ve only played the first one), with a sweet final boss.

Destiny 2: Speaking of combat, this game has really nice gunplay.  There’s pretty much nothing else going for it, though.  The story is nonsensical.  Loot exists but is confusing.  I had no clue what I was doing for the most part.  But none of that really mattered when I just loaded ammo into a dude’s head, torso, or… glowy bits.  Free to play, but even that might be too much.  Still entertaining enough, though.

DMC V: You hit demons with guns and swords and do flip tricks in the air.  It’s not my favorite hack and slash, but it gets the job done and is a fun experience regardless.

Last Epoch: When Path of Exile had its bad patches, I tried out this one.  It’s cool enough, but much slower than PoE, and costs money.  Still, I am interested in what they’re doing and still have to finish the story.

Control: I had fun with this game for like 8 hours, and then it just stopped being fun, so that’s… awkward.  The underlying combat and story were cool enough, but there were annoying difficulty spikes, terrible RPG mechanics, and bullet spongey enemies.  I really wanted to like this one, but couldn’t get to the end.

Chess: Wait, what?  Yeah, I played a LOT of chess online this year.  Chess is fun, would recommend.  Would not recommend doing what I did and grinding out Elo to try and get better.  But I am now 1100 from starting the year at like 700 so cool stuff.

Ace Combat 7: God, what a letdown. The visuals and sound design are great, but the gameplay gets messy with “difficulty” being driven by the game removing control of your plane and popping up huge mountains for you to crash into.  Also the story is so bad, like insultingly so.  Characters actively berate you for trying to do the cool Ace Combat stuff.  Stick with Project Wingman- it was made by just 3 dudes, the story is way better, and it’s just in general way more fun.  Like, astronomically so.


Old stuff:

Hollow Knight: started a new playthrough of this.  Still one of the greatest games ever made.  Where’s Silksong????

Warframe: New War quest FINALLY came out, but the game continues to be fine even without that.  Good gameplay loop, no real thought required, and the New War was a good quest, even if it wasn’t what I expected.

League of Legends: Sucks ass.  Screw you, Dalsson, for making me play this so much.

And that wraps us up.  Let me know what you played this year and if I missed something necessary.