My 2021 Year In Games – part 2
DESTINY 2
Now, I love a good shooty-bangs as much as the next person, and while I hate multiplayer games, and avoid MMOs, the gunplay and combat in this one had been repeatedly recommended to me, so I decided to have a go. Absolutely no idea what the story is about, other than youâre someone with a gun shooting aliens, which is good enough for me!
And itâs pretty fun, what Iâve played so far. Just challenging enough without being frustrating, great combat, still figuring out how to use my jetpack properly, and the upgrades and etc. seem easy to understand. Still playing through what appear to be the intro, or tutorial missions, but I have seen other players running around doing similar things, so itâs an MMO in that way. There are probably options later on to join up in teams to do stuff together, but as thatâs my personal idea of hell, I will leave those weird strangers to it.
Apart from getting stuck for over an hour trying to figure out why I couldnât complete the bounty some guy had given me even though I was talking to him (turns out you only complete bounties in the menu screen, which is weird), things went well and I enjoyed the shooting. But I think this is one I will only dip into now and again when I feel the urge.
HORIZON: ZERO DAWN
I admit I was jealous when this one came out and was exclusive to the PlayStation 4, as it looked fantastic and the story seemed interesting. You play Aloy, an outcast brought up in a post-apocalyptic matriarchal society. Given a chance to become part of the tribe, you join others in a ritual challenge, but violent outsiders attack and you are soon heading away from your gated community for revenge. And what a world is it! Even though itâs a ruined future, with collapsing skyscrapers set amongst the wilderness, it looks gorgeous. But itâs also dangerous, with animal-like machines having taken over many years ago.
After you found a strange device when you were a child, you learned you can scan these machines, predict where they will move, find their weakspots, and as you upgrade the device in bizarre high-tech vaults scattered around the land, you can eventually take control over them. Aloy is also adept at using her bow, and with a selection of arrow types to fire and traps to set, you quickly get used to hunting these electronic animals for parts, and running from the âcorruptedâ ones.
Aside from the fab gameplay, Iâm hooked on the story and trying to figure out how the world got into this state, how all the different human factions relate to each other, and what this mysterious corruption is that is making the machines even more aggressive. This is a huge sweeping game that will take many hours to finish, and Iâm enjoying every second!
DISCO ELYSIUM
This is a detective game where you play an end-stage alcoholic who can die of a heart attack in the first minute if he tries to retrieve his tie, which is hanging from the ceiling fan. And you also have several different âpersonality traitsâ inside your head that disagree with each other on what you should do, and part of the game is deciding which one to listen to.
Outside of your characterâs head, a local dock worker has been found hanged from a tree and you have been assigned, along with a by-the-book officer from the next precinct, to find out who he is, who killed him and why. All of which is complicated by the fact that you wake with a hangover so traumatic you have no memory of who you are or where your gun and badge are, the body is still in the tree even though you apparently arrived there yesterday, and now some kids are throwing rocks at it, there is a workersâ strike blocking access to the victims’ workplace, and someone from the shipping company is trying to get you to break up the strike in return for information on the murder.
Utterly unique and dense with dialogue, there is no other game like this. If you play it, donât be afraid to fail. Where in other games it would result in booting you back to the main menu to start again, even getting an interrogation disastrously wrong pushes you forwards in interesting ways. Plus, you get the chance to embarrass yourself by singing karaoke really, really badly in the local bar.
PORTAL 2
Comfort gaming, this one, but I was surprised how much I had forgotten, having not replayed it since its release in 2011. For those who donât know, this is a first-person puzzle game where you have a portal gun that can create two portals on specific surfaces that link to each other, allowing you to travel instantaneously between locations. Sounds simple enough, then they add machine gun turrets, buttons, moving platforms, huge drops (you carry momentum through the portals) that end up flinging you sideways out of a wall, and in this sequel, you get liquids such as one that removes friction on surfaces, sending you travelling unstoppably in the direction you are heading.
All this, while being guided by the malevolent AI GlaDOS that controls the facility you are trapped in. Who you killed at the end of the first game. So she doesnât like you much.
Great fun, although the first game is probably a smidge better if I’m honest.
