Batch 35 … and goodbye to 2021

Hey all, welcome to 2022. I hope this year treats you better than 2021 treated us.

I don’t have extensive reviews for this batch largely because I’ve been too tired to write any. This was a long haul as well with the first two games having been started all the way back in August. The whole lot have been drawn out considerably except once we got near the holidays.

On the video game front, I’m actually looking at moving off of video games over the course of the next year or two. I’ve been at it since 2016 doing batches on a fairly regular basis, but a lot of games fail to impress me now. Suffice to say I’ve seen most of what games have to offer, and the ones I have left are titles that mostly appeal to me for some reason or another that it merits continued work on my backlog.

So the highlights of my 2022 batches will be:

Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West (pre-pruchased)
Red Dead Redemption 2
Half-Life: Alyx
Cyberpunk 2077

with the remnants of my “must play” backlog filling in around those titles.

Beyond that? Video games will be an occasional treat if I get the itch to try something. Otherwise will be focusing my attention elsewhere.

A couple of notes about this batch.

Batman was an interesting experience, but lacked compelling gameplay. Needless to say you weren’t going to be playing an Arkham game in first person, so it felt a little gimmicky.

Control was a blast. Finished the entire thing. It deserved all the praise it got. This game gets top honors in the batch, and if you like action games this is my recommendation.

Death Stranding had the weirdest plot I think I’ve ever encountered in a video game, and yet it was oddly compelling despite the gameplay loop becoming quite repetitive. There are some cool game concepts explored there with networked players. But it really focuses on third-person wilderness trekking to get your packages from point A to B and looks gorgeous doing it. This is my other recommendation for non-action game.

Disco Elysium merited another play-though after the Final Cut edition introduced a fully voice-acted script. I’m almost done but not in a hurry to rush. The game is quite a piece of art, but definitely not everyone’s thing.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider came really close to landing in my abandoned pile. It’s the worst of the trilogy. Lara is busing saving the world again, this time from a Mayan apocalypse she helps trigger. In order to accomplish this she murders her way through an incredibly contrived and cringe-inducing plot. The worst is when she is disguised as a priestess of the native tribe she’s assisting despite the fact that she’s an English-speaking white girl in a dress and mask that doesn’t do a thing to conceal her identity. But everyone is like, “Oh! Priestess!” I finally said screw the idiocy and picked it back up again after New Year’s to finish it off.

Thronebreaker on the other hand had a great plot and lots of Gwent. If both sound appealing, pick it up. The story takes place in the period between the books and the first Witcher game. But if you are hoping for a lot more Geralt, he’s only got a brief scene to play in this one. It’s still worth the time because Queen Maeve and the supporting cast are very well done and the story is quite good with a lot of choices that affect the outcome.