January/December 2021 - Whole year update Mk 2
Welcome back to my monthly-but-I-skip-11-months update! Around the end of June 2021 I ended my last post with
so far I’m around the 50% mark for 2021 but a few kills might swing the momentum my way
and I’m happy to report that numbers really went up in the second part of the year.
• Progress (or lack thereof)
Thanks in part to the 13 spooky games beaten in October the total tally for 2021 says 83 backlog kills vs 120 new games added to it. It’s still not quite as balanced as I might have wanted it to be but it’s still another bit of progress compared to the previous years.
• Some games I've played this year
One of the things that I conveniently left out of my previous post in June is that I’d just picked up a used Nintendo Switch, which was both a positive (gaming in bed is so comfy!) and a “negative” (yet another backlog!).
Some of the games that I’ve played on it include Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Pokémon Sword and WarioWare: Get It Together!, but I definitely have lots more that I want to check out.
My main gaming platform’s still been PC of course, some of the honorable mentions among the games I’ve played go to Yakuza 3, 4, 5, 6 and Like A Dragon (thanks Game Pass!), Forza Horizon 5 (I have no idea how I have 150 hours in it in not even 2 months <_<), NieR Replicant™ ver.1.22474487139 (I still listen to the OST regularly) and Rise/Shadow of the Tomb Raider (both really solid overall)
• Game(s) of the year
I was a bit skeptical to see It Takes Two win GOTY at The Game Awards over some of the other contenders but after playing it (and A Way Out) right at the end of the year I’m completely converted to the Church of Josef Fares and I can say it’s my game of the year as well… if we’re talking games released in 2021.
My pick for best game I’ve played this year goes to Outer Wilds. It was absolutely worth sticking with despite the fact that the first few hours didn’t really seem to “click” with me, because once things started making a bit of sense in my head every bit of exploration and every new discovery gave me feelings that I find a bit hard to even express in words.
It probably requires the right mindset to properly enjoy so I’m not sure I can recommend it to just anyone, but if the idea of slowly piecing together the story and the mechanics of a solar system and its past inhabitants by means of exploration and puzzle solving interest you, just buy it and don’t look up anything else.
• Plans for 2022
Saying that I have plans is a bit of an overstatement but I’ll definitely look into further shrinking the amount of unnecessary backlog additions. I won’t be able to avoid adding some heavy-hitters I’m looking forward to like God of War, ELDEN RING, A Plague Tale: Requiem, and a handful of others, but maybe I can cut down a bit further on adding “maybe I will play” games.
Before the storm of good game releases starts to hit I plan to give myself a headstart by clearing some more small to medium sized games I’ve added recently; I don’t know if it will be enough to finally see a win over the backlog next year but I’ll sure try ^_^
Outer Wilds was my game of the year last year. Absolute beauty.
Impressive progress, congrats!! I’m scared to check mine as it kinda crashed after summer. It takes two was really surprisingly great (I especially enjoyed the gameplay, the story was more meh but overall I get the GOTY awards it got).
Yeah the story itself seemed actually pretty questionable but the delivery and execution were top notch. The gameplay had some chapters that weren’t quite up to the level of the rest but overall it was pretty great.
Exactly. Some parts of the gameplay were hit and miss for us too (looking at that dreadful “dj-ing” sequence) but overall it was such an enjoyable experience. We’re gonna play A Way Out in the next days too, thanks to you :p
Congratulations on all of your assassinations!
I seriously thought about getting myself a switch but I couldn’t because I can’t justify that purchase just to play Animal Crossing. I’m interested in the new Pokemon games but I haven’t liked any of the starters so I never bought any after White/Black.
I hadn’t played a Pokémon game in a long time myself, and despite all the mid to negative reviews about Sword/Shield I felt like checking it out for myself. I don’t regret doing so as it was interesting to see where they went with the series, although I can confirm said reviews were mostly correct.
What I did before pulling the trigger on the switch was to check out lists of games available on the platform. It made me realize there was a critical mass of exclusives and games that seemed like they’d be cool to play in portable mode, enough games that they’d justify the price of the hardware
Playing goty games just because they won an award smh my head, but at least you figured out that it takes two to find a way out I guess :think:
:laughingboye:
:gun:
:swea