2021 has not been the best year for me from a gaming point of view. I've found that the amount of time I actually spend gaming has gone down a lot, and that I'm struggling to find games that I'm actually enjoying. As such, the list for my top games of the year is only five entries long, because after that the other games I played this year are ones I either played before 2021, or have not enjoyed playing at all. It's also worth noting that whilst some of the games featured on this list came out before this year, I didn't play them until 2021, so I'm counting them.
Alan Wake Remastered
I absolutely loved Alan Wake when it first came out way back in 2010, when life seemed so much simpler. It was a game that I originally rented, but loved so much I went out and bought my own copy; splashing put extra money for the pretty special edition with the extra books and soundtrack. I was sucked into the story, the atmosphere, the unique use of light as a weapon, and the masterful blending of horror and the ridiculous.
When it was announced that a remastered version was coming out I was over the moon, I knew that this was going to be a game that I needed to play again, even though I still had the original sitting on my shelf. I spent a good few weeks on this game, playing through the story on each difficulty, gathering up all of the hidden manuscript pages and coffee thermoses, worked my way through the extra chapters, and set out to try and beat every challenge the game had.
So now I have two copies of Alan Wake, both of which have been 100% completed, with every achievement unlocked, and every scrap of content wrung out of it; and I still love it. It's a game that I can come back to time and time again, and having it looking even prettier, ready for me to play again before the sequel comes out, is an absolute delight.
Resident Evil 8: Village
I've been playing the Resident Evil series since the very first game, that wonderfully clunky, ugly game that wormed its way into my heart and never left. It's a series that has had some huge highs and terrible lows over the course of its life (still giving you a look of disgust Resident Evil 6), but on a whole it remains a series that is extra special thanks to how wonderfully odd it can be at times; never being afraid to try new things.
One of these new things that was a huge departure for the series was the change to first person perspective, and a bigger focus on horror in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Whilst I enjoyed this game a lot, it was an entry in the series that felt very different to the others. It was scary first time playing through, but after that it tended to lose some of the magic, and just became a rather dull slog of a game with very little enemy variation, and some pretty dull visuals.
Resident Evil 8: Village continues on the story from 7 but seems to have taken on board a lot of the criticism and developed a very different, much more enjoyable, game instead. Instead of having a tight, claustrophobic sense of horror the game went for a bigger setting, with huge castles, creepy factories, and the titular village, besieged by a host of classic monsters with a Resident Evil twist, including vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein monsters.
The result is a game that several months later is still one that gets me excited when I think about it (I have to be careful not to get too eager to play it if I'm going through another game), and one where even though I've already beaten it several times I'm happy to go back and do it all again. It might not be my absolute favourite in the franchise, but it's damn close to the top spot.
Terminator Resistance
A game that didn't come out this year but that I thoroughly enjoyed in 2021 is Terminator Resistance, a game that is very easily the best Terminator game I've played. Set within the future was that we only see briefly in the first two films, players are put into the shoes of Jacob Winters, a resistance soldier whose entire platoon is wiped out by the machines. You begin the game in Pasedena, sneaking and hiding from T-800's as you meet up with some other survivors and make an escape from the area. From here you'll end up going on several missions across a handful of maps that sees you trying to meet up with other fighters, dealing with an infiltrator Terminator, and eventually taking part in the assault on Skynet.
This is a game that I'd very much call a mid-tier game, though in the most complimentary way. This isn't a big budget 'triple A' game. This has been made by a smaller studio with a moderate budget, who clearly love the source material, and have done what they can to create an enjoyable first person shooter. And that's what they've got here.
The game feels like Fallout in a lot of ways. The ruined locations you play through are a lot like the Wasteland, you get given quests and side-missions to do for people to develop relationships, and you get to hack into computers and pick locks to get through doors. The familiarity of the game play is actually rather lovely, and means that you don't really have to think too much about the mechanics of things and just get to enjoy a well crafted and engaging story.
I spent a lot of time playing through this game, ticking off every side mission, developing relationships, and fretting over whether I'd made the right choices or not to get the ending I desired. I loved the nods to the films, the moments where I got to play through some scenes that I recognised, and was super pumped during the final assault on the machines as the Terminator theme blared out on the soundtrack. If you like decent, well built shooters that are a lot of fun to play this is a game you want to check out; and if you're a Terminator fan I think its one you're going to genuinely love.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition
The Mass Effect trilogy is probably my favourite game series of all time. I love the characters and the story, and have played through the entire thing more times than I can count. As such, getting a shiny new version of these games was an instant day one buy for me. Whilst all the games looked better than ever it was the first Mass Effect that really showed how much work had been done on it, looking like a completely different game in places. The level of care and attention to bring this trilogy to a new generation of consoles, to try to give the a shine and a gloss that they didn't have before really shows, especially when we've seen other older games get this re-release treatment and turn out to be an absolute shit show (sorry GTA fans).
I spent a lot of time with these games across 2021, fitting in time playing wherever I could; probably spending close to three months on them overall. That wasn't just playing the games, but trying to unlock every codex entry, completing every mission, beating them on the hardest difficulties, and milking them for every second of entertainment I could.
It had been a few years since I'd played the series through, but it felt like I'd never been away from them. I fell in love with these games all over again. I love the story of Shepard and her crew of misfits, renegades, and heroes. I spent time talking to everyone I could, learning all about them and in some cases, romancing them (I love you so much Garrus). Words cannot describe how much I love this trilogy, how much the action makes me feel like a hero, the quiet moments draw me in, how much the characters make me care for them, and how many times the game breaks my heart. Mass Effect continues to make me cheer, and to make me cry floods of tears. It is simply, wonderful.
Control
Control is another game I was late to come to, having heard great things about it but never having actually gotten around to playing it. It was thanks to the Alan Wake Remaster that I finally took the plunge and gave it a go; and I wasn't disappointed.
As someone who loves games for their storytelling abilities I was very much drawn into the world of Control, and found it to be one of the most fascinating games I've played. They slow reveal of information, only allowing the player to understand small pieces of this hugely intricate puzzle was absolutely a hook for me, and made the earlier stages of the game worth playing. However, once I'd began to unlock new powers and upgrades I very quickly started loving the game for the creative game play.
There have been two things that I've described Control as feeling like to my partner as they watched me playing, that the powers feel like you're a Jedi with a gun instead of a light sabre, or it sometimes feels like you're playing a game as Scarlet Witch. The ability to throw things across the room, rip chunks out of the floor to form shields, float across the battlefield, control the minds of your enemies, all of it leaves the player feeling incredibly powerful, and means that there are always dozens of ways to approach any given fight or puzzle.
I'm still playing my way through Control now, and it's a game that I'm sure I'll be playing for a good while more thanks to how much I've been enjoying unlocking all its secrets, as well as feeling like a super hero.
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