The year 2021 was a rather disappointing year in gaming for me. I did not play as many games (either old or new) nor did I not put as much effort into my YouTube channel (only really doing my Daily LongPlay streams). I also went for at least 2 full months without putting out content of any kind. There were a number of games I was looking forward to that were delayed into 2022 or later. I am hoping for a much better year in 2022, but while it is still in my mind let me take another look back at My 2021 Year in Gaming and touch on the new and old games I did play through as well as the new pieces of hardware I bought.
New Games
I managed to play through (for the most part) 5 new games in 2021. I am including Scarlet Nexus in this list as a bonus game as I did not finish it last year nor have I finished it as of this posting.
After a year long delay from being an Xbox Series X launch title I finally got to play Halo Infinite's campaign and it is a good one at that. This Halo is placed in a kind of Open-World setting similar in feel to the second mission from the first Halo back on the original Xbox. It environment is nowhere near as large as what you will find in the likes of Zelda: Breath of the Wild but it is quite large and offers many of the usual open world tropes and collectables. Halo Infinite may be my favorite in the series since that OG Xbox launch title. It does not feature Ground breaking graphics or that interesting of a story but it does look good and has interesting characters and plenty of amusing dialogue (especially the grunts). It did take me a lot longer to get through the story mode of this Halo than the previous games but it is well worth it. If you have Game Pass this game is the reason you have this service. If you do not have Game pass then get it or just buy this game, you will not regret it.
2. The Ascent
I have been able to give plenty of games a try that I would otherwise not have even considered before because of my Game Pass subscription. One such game is The Ascent, a top down twin joystick style action RPG set in a Dystopian Cyberpunk future. The Ascent is very much a looter shooter as there are always new guns, armor and augments to pick up as you go everywhere guns blazing. The Ascent is also one really good looking game with a great setting and atmosphere. The story is nothing worth writing home about but it does feature a few memorable characters with some good dialogue, much of it fully voiced. The game is a bit tough in the beginning but it is a good looking fun to play game that I highly recommended.
One of the games I was considering buying a Nintendo Switch for Octopath Traveler was released last year for the Xbox and was added to Game Pass, thus allowing me to play it without the need for additional hardware. Octopath Traveler is a Retro 16 bit style JRPG that has you picking from a cast of 8 characters and going through 4 chapters with each of them. You can beat the game and see end credits by just completing the 4 for your main character but it is much easier if you do the others as well, otherwise you will spend too much time grinding. It did take me a long time to play though the game this way though. After a while the chapters do get a bit formulaic and predictable. There are optional side quest as well that I did not do for the most part because they were too high level and I felt like I got plenty of game from the 8 main quests. Octopath Traveler is one good looking game, it looks like they took a 16 bit style RPG and layered a lot of modern effects over them to great effect. If you have played a lot of games like this in recent years, Octopath Traveler probably won't impress much but as someone who has not I found it quite enjoyable and I would recommend giving it a try.
After a long play through (130 hours roughly) of Persona 5 Royal back in late 2020 one might think I was "Persona-ed" out. I was as it turns out, ready for more as I picked up and played through Persona 5 Strikers when that game came out early last year. A couple of quick notes, P5S is a sequel to Persona 5, not P5R and as such non of the characters or story introduced in that game are featured in it. The game also does not take any of your choices or relationships into account from Persona 5. P5S is a Action RPG set directly after the events of P5 and features a real time combat system that is inspired by those of the Dynasty Warriors series. Overall I would say is about 80% a Persona game as the story, character interactions, over world design and most of the gameplay systems are straight form a standard Persona game. That is rather to the game's detriment in the case of the combat system as the elemental aspects have not been toned down to a more manageable level for an action game (there is still 8 different elements, just like in P5). It becomes too much if all you really want is more Persona story and thankfully that story is good and well told. Persona 5 Strikers is a good game overall but I would recommend dropping the difficulty to its lowest level for maximum enjoyment.
My favorite game from 2019 received an updated release in 2021 in the form of Control Ultimate edition that was enhanced for the Xbox Series X. This edition came with the DLC and supported either a 60 FPS mode or added Ray-Tracing (which is what I used) at 30 FPS. The next gen version of Control was not quite the visual upgrade from what I played in 2019 on the Xbox One X. The resolution was still 1440p and the frame rate was still 30 FPS in Ray Tracing mode. RTX support and more consistent frame rate seemed to be the only improvements from being played on the Series X that I noticed. The DLC was good for the most part, (I liked the Alan Wake stuff) but it was not as good as the base game content. It did feature a really annoying boss fight at the end of one of them. The big take away I had was my second play through of the main content was not as enjoyable as the first time. I guess that means that Control is not a good game for repeated play throughs. If you have not played Control before I would suggest getting this version if you have one of the new systems (but don't have a better PC) Control is still an awesome game on its own merit.
Bonus Scarlet Nexus (In Progress)
A game I tried in Demo form earlier in the year and was not that interested in back then Came to Game Pass and I gave it another go, for which I am glad I did. That game is Scarlet Nexus and it is basically a cross between a Devil May Cry action game with Persona style Story Telling. To put it another way, this game feels like a better approach to what Persona 5 Strikers tried to do. While the story and characters are not as good as in P5S, the Combat is much better as it is more streamlined and rewarding. Scarlet Nexus has a striking aesthetic that is like a mix between dystopian Cyberpunk, the Limbo sections of D.M.C. 2013, and Phantasy Star Online. The enemies are quite bizarre looking and varied as are many of the environments. Scarlet Nexus features two separate stories with different protagonist that run concurrently that you must play through both of to get the full story. As of this posting I am still playing this game but so far I would recommend it, especially if you have Game Pass.
Old Games
I rang in the year 2021 by playing through and awesome 2D Zelda meets a twin joystick shooter game called Cross code and I was able to play the DLC "A New Home" this past summer as well. I had to purchase the game in order to do so as it had left Game Pass at that point. I was okay with this as I felt like I was supporting the game studio that made this Awesome game. While there are quite annoying difficulty spikes in the combat and some really hard puzzles in the Temples, I strongly recommend Cross Code and its DLC for anyone who like the 2D Legend of Zelda games or Retro games in general. If I had finished Cross Code in 2020 it would have been 2nd on my games of the year list.
Hardware
New Desktop PC
My plans to upgrade my Desktop that I built in 2016 with on of the shiny new RTX 3000 series GPUs never became a realistic option in 2021 and with the now aged Core I7-6700k I was rocking I decided I would be better off getting a whole new PC. I ordered a prebuilt system with a new Core I7-1200K with and RTX 3060ti, 32 GB of RAM, a 1TB M2 SSD and a 6 TB HDD. Sadly there were no options to include an internal optical disc drive despite how massive the case is. I know the 3060ti is not really meant for 4K but it would have been an extra $300 to upgrade to a 3070 so I decided I would upgrade the GPU on this machine in the future when hopefully they are more available (and maybe the RTX 4000 series will be out by then). I had difficulty with Windows 11 not liking my capture card so I swapped the M2 drive that the PC came with with the better 2TB drive I added to my old computer , bringing along the more stable Windows 10 and all of my programs and settings as well. This new Rig will hopefully make it possible for me to stream some 4K Emulation with Cemu and others as well as maybe some VR stuff as the old GTX 1060 could not handle that one time I tried to stream Moss on Easter Sunday.
I am not really sure why I wanted the C64 Maxi, the full sized replica of the famous Commodore 64 that is basically and emulation machine. When the C64 mini was announced and released I remember thinking that I wish it were bigger with a working keyboard and maybe when that was announced I felt obligated to get one because I said I wanted it. I have no experience with the 8-bit computer that this is emulating and only really know of it thanks to my binging videos from 8-Bit Guy, LGR and Techmoan. Regardless I bough one when they finally became available. The C64 Maxi is a neat system. I feel like I could try to learn BASIC with this and figure out how to write those type in programs that I missed out on because I was not born yet when the original system came out. I also feel like this could have been a waste of money as I only really used it that one stream I did of it last year and had trouble just using the keyboard just to type. I'm not sure I can use this much for my You Tube channel but I do still like it.
Analogue Pocket (Ordered)
After missing out on the initial pre-order phase for the Analogue Pocket FPGA based Handheld system I ordered one when the pre-ordering came back on December 14. I was johnny on the spot with placing my order but I still won't receive my unit until Q4 2022. I ordered the black system with the Dock, the Game Gear adapter and the plastic carrying case. I am going to use this as a way of streaming Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance and Game Gear games in the future instead of trying to get a Game Cube with the GBA adapter. This Analogue Pocket is supposed to have a really nice LCD screen that is 10x the resolution of the original Game Boy. I plan on doing some kind of initial stream of this system when I get it (whenever that is) but in the meantime all I can do is wait.
Closing
Like I stated at the beginning of this post, 2021 was a pretty disappointing year for me in Gaming. I did not play or stream as many game as I did in previous years nor did I get to man of the games as I wanted to (partially due to so many games being delayed). I scaled back on my streaming and I went for two months without and streaming at all. I am hoping for a better year in gaming for me (and everyone else) in 2022 but I am going to have to put in more work on my part to make it happen.
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