I'm currently a Game Pass subscriber, and so that leads me to try a lot of games I might not have otherwise. One such game, Unpacked, is frequently touted as a fun, relaxing experience - but it just sort of makes me anxious.
In Unpacked, you work through a series of scenarios that tell a story about the stages of a person's life as they find themselves living in a number of different locations. These are mostly apartment-ish settings, which have three or four rooms. At the start of each level, each room is empty, save for a bunch of boxes. You play the game by unpacking them and placing their contents around the rooms.
It's a simple premise. And I guess I get how it could be relaxing to some people. But to me, the deeper I get into each box, all I can do is worry!
Am I going to run out of space on the bookshelf?
What is this item, and does it actually belong in the kitchen?
Wait, there's a whole other room to unpack?!
By the time you're done, the rooms in Unpacked feel cluttered with tchotchkes. As I dig them out of the boxes, all I want to do is throw them into the trash. It makes me want to go through all my things IRL and purge.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and finish the game for the achievements, I suppose. But only in small bites because I just can't take it otherwise.
I played through Tunic, which came to Xbox Game Pass recently, and it's a pretty neat game - marred a bit, unfortunately, by its difficulty.
The game is gorgeous, and I had a great time exploring the game's world, discovering secrets, and leveling up my hero. I beat a few bosses, and collected a good deal of the key items. There always seems to be a hidden prize around the next corner or a secret passage nearby. I really like the way you uncover pages of the game's "manual" - which looks something like an old NES game's instruction book mixed a strategy guide - and the cryptic way it helps you get to know the game's world.
But after a few boss fights that started tough, and got tougher as I went on, I got to one that I just couldn't beat. My reflexes aren't great, and I'm not very good at anticipating boss movements in games, but even with a ton of extra items on hand, I just couldn't power through it. I must have tried 30 times.
Tunic has a "no fail" mode that keeps your health from depleting (and still lets you earn achievements), and I reluctantly turned it on to continue. But it felt bad to do this after spending so much time without it, and I just wish the game wasn't so difficult. I turned this feature off again after that fight, but had to use it again later for another boss fight that was just outrageously, impossibly difficult.
Maybe games like this aren't for me, and I appreciate "no fail" mode, but I feel like this game in particular would be so much better if the difficulty were just scaled down a bit. It didn't need to be this brutally difficult.
It's a shame because otherwise I really love this game. It's excellent in so many ways, but it will always be somewhat inaccessible to many players because of its difficulty (and many peoples' reluctance to use helper modes to bypass tough fights).
2021 was a weird year for video games. Lots of games saw their schedules or their quality slip because of complications from coronavirus or working-from-home complications. Some mainstays were still great though, and there were some surprise hits as well.
This is a list, in no particular order, of my favorite games that I played in 2021.
Psychonauts 2
I almost always enjoy Double Fine's games, and I had (mostly) fond memories of the original Psychonauts, so I was pretty hyped for the sequel when it finally arrived.
It turned out incredible, with just about everything that made the original a good experience made even better this time - and with all the niceties I've come to expect from modern games thrown on top.
The game has the comedic tone that you'd expect from a Double Fine/Tim Schafer game, but there's also a gentleness and kindness to it that I really appreciated this last year.
Forza Horizon 5
The Forza Horizon series is consistently amazing, and the fifth game continues that tradition. I'm still having a lot of fun with this game, and being able to visit a virtual microcosm of Mexico during a time when, for various reasons, travel like that is all but impossible for me, was a treat.
Halo Infinite
I got into Xbox with the Gears of War franchise, so Halo has never really been my thing. I've mostly kept up with them and played them just out of duty of being an Xbox owner, but only a few of them have really grabbed me for long bits of time.
Halo Infinite has been a blast though. I haven't written about it much here yet, but I played through the campaign and really liked grappling everywhere and exploring the open world. Multiplayer, especially with friends, feels solid and is a lot of fun - even if we're just chilling out chatting while playing in the background.
I'm looking forward to playing the campaign again with co-op, and digging into multiplayer more in 2022.
Life Is Strange: True Colors
I've been a fan of the Life Is Strange games since the original released back in 2015. And though I'm still slowly working my way through the second game, I was taken by the trailer for True Colors and had to play it as soon as it launched.
It's a fantastic game with an interesting story, good writing/characters, and a bump in the underlying tech that helped make the experience even more immersive. It might be my favorite game in the series now - but the remastered original will be out in 2022, so we'll see how that lasts.
Myst
I think I've probably bought at least four or five copies/versions of Myst over the years. It was one of the first games I ever experienced on PC from a CD-ROM, and I have fond memories of spending many hours clicking around trying to solve the various puzzles the game offers. Seeing the game be remastered in Unreal was enough to sell me on buying yet another copy, and this one hit Xbox on Game Pass, so I didn't even have to do that.
I still remember the solutions to a lot of the puzzles, so it was neat that this game included a mode where many of the puzzles are randomized, so you have to tease out the solution regardless of familiarity.
I had a really good time wandering around Myst Island and its library of ages once more. Now I just hope Cyan Worlds can do the same treatment for Riven someday!
The Forgotten City
The Forgotten City surprised me. I knew a little bit about its history - that it started life as a Skyrim mod - and while that told me a lot about what to expect in terms of gameplay, it also made me expect it to be janky in the way only Skyrim could be.
I probably wouldn't even have tried the game out, were it not on Game Pass - but I'm glad that I did! Firing it up for the first time, I was quite impressed with things. This is a time loop game, and after running through a few rounds, I was hooked. The story is interesting and the setting is just big enough to contain things without meandering.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
As I get older I have less and less time for giant games, and it takes a lot of mental effort to really get into them. But like visiting an old favorite place, I slid right into Mass Effect with little friction, and managed to play through all three games in the original trilogy in succession.
It was a great time to run through them again, and I learned that my initial thoughts on the second and third games were pretty wrong. I had such a good time playing these games that I ended up (finally) playing through Mass Effect: Andromeda later as well!
Orcs Must Die! 3
A friend of mine, who I had played the original Orcs Must Die! with, clued me into this one, and I picked it up to play with him.
OMD3 is one of those games that you don't expect to be great, but it kinda is. Everything feels very polished (aside from maybe the menus). The music slaps. I just wish there were more!
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
There are a couple games in my list that are technically not from 2021, but they launched on Xbox in 2021, so that's when I played them. Disco Elysium is one of them, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I had picked it up on PC when it launched, but didn't have time to play it then - and I'm glad that I didn't. The Xbox version came with the "Final Cut" improvements that rolled out some time after the initial release, and it includes one massive change to the original: spoken dialogue for the entire game. Disco Elysium is very text-heavy, and so this made it almost into an interactive audiobook of sorts.
That sells the game a little short on its production, since the visuals and music are incredible as well. It was one of my favorite game experiences of 2021, and I can't wait to see what ZA/UM, the studio behind the game, does next.
Octopath Traveler
This is the second technically-not-from-2021 game on my list, but it also launched on Xbox in 2021, so here it stays.
Octopath Traveler is also another game that I knew would take many, many hours to finish, and so I was very reluctant to even buy it. I had it on my wishlist at the Nintendo Switch eShop since it was announced, but never pulled the trigger on it.
Then it suddenly appeared on Xbox, and on Game Pass, and I had to try it. It turned out to be a good game to take small bites out of, and I ended up completing a leg or two of each of the eight travelers' journeys every time I played.
I believe I stopped playing it at over 100 hours, but I still have a lot of grinding to do before I can even think about completing the really tough after-end-game stuff. I'll probably end up buying it if it leaves Game Pass in the meantime, just so I can keep it in my back pocket for a rainy day.
Mafia: Definitive Edition
Alright, now we're really out of bounds for 2021, I know. But this is a list of games I enjoyed in 2021, and I can't not mention a few.
I loved the original Mafia, even though it was a deeply flawed game. It came out twenty years ago, and I can still hum the music from it. One of my college roommates has nightmares about it.
It was a cool game, though, and I bought the remastered trilogy in 2020, but never got started on it until the following year. I'm glad I did though, because the Definitive Edition of Mafia is incredible.
It's honestly more of a re-imagining than a definitive edition. It loosely follows the story of the original game, and crosses many of the same paths, but all of the art, music, and voicework was entirely re-done. I did miss the old actors a bit, and the new music wasn't nearly as memorable. But better controls, a better save system, and all the other modern touches make the tradeoff worth it.
Monster Train
I really enjoyed Slay The Spire a few years ago, but I only managed to get to the Heart at the end a few times, and I always felt like the game was a bit too difficult for me. A friend of mine recommended Monster Train, and I ended up really liking it. It's a very similar game to Slay The Spire, but each run takes way less time and the game just generally moves quicker. Plus, I feel like I actually recognize a lot of the synergy between cards in this game, and so it's one of my go-to casual games whenever I need a little palette cleanser.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
I wrote a lot about this game during the year, but I had to mention it here again because I am so impressed by it.
Mass Effect: Andromeda was a game that I started right when it launched, got bored with it and distracted by some of the flaws, and ended up abandoning. The thought of trying it again someday lingered, but I knew I had to after finishing the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition trilogy.
I gave it another earnest try, and I'm glad I did - even though it feels much different from the other games, it's actually a really interesting experience and - especially now that many of the rough edges have been patched over the years - it's definitely worth playing for anyone looking for a good science fiction action RPG.
It's funny how each iteration of Forza Horizon is only an incremental change over the last, but it's always so fun to just drive around and explore the new map and complete challenges as you go.
These games are great. And coupled with Flight Simulator, which released last year for PC and this year for Xbox, provides some amazing escapism and pseudo-travel for those of us who don't yet feel comfortable resuming our old ways of being.
I love the Forza Horizon series, and I've been looking forward to the fifth game in the series ever since it was revealed at E3 earlier this year. Taking a virtual trip to Mexico is going to be a blast!
Since it's out on Game Pass, I'll be starting the pre-load soon, and ready to play at launch on November 9th!
I finished Mass Effect: Andromeda last night, so now I'm putting in some time with Disco Elysium, a game I've been meaning to play for a while, and which I was excited to see make its way to Xbox recently. I feel like I don't know what I'm doing in this game, but it's fun nonetheless. And the full narration/dialog is excellent.
I still need to finish up The Artful Escape, which I started a few weeks ago, when it came out.
My game backlog is ridiculous, and Game Pass isn't helping.
Since I can't seem to just play a single game at a time anymore, I've begun working through The Artful Escape in between sessions of Mass Effect Andromeda.
And why not? It's on Game Pass, and it's new, interesting, and fun. It was right there, waiting for me to try!
Anyway, it's something a little outside my normal type of game - although so far, it's very minimally like a traditional music/rhythm game. I'm hoping that the "Simon Says" portions don't get too difficult, because I'd like to see it through.
The visuals are trippy. The story is silly and light. The music is loud. I'm into it!
