Hails and pixels gaming metalheads! 2021 certainly has been a year, right? Rather than recap what terrible calamity has befallen us or continues to befall us, I’ll just get into which games that I have played and beat during this year. I know that I haven’t been very active on the blog and will I change that? I don’t know, maybe. But a lot has happened and a lot of games have been played. I can thank the Game Pass for allowing that to happen!
The vast majority of the games that I played and beat did not come out in 2021 but that’s okay. There are a lot of games from yesteryear that are still enjoyable! These are not all of the games that I played; just the ones that I beat. I played a lot more than these with some only putting in less than an hour of game time (e.g. Ikenfell, Shadows of the Tomb Raider, etc) and others putting in several hours (e.g. Death Stranding, Prey, Octopath Traveler, etc) of game time. I just didn’t want to list them all!
A quick note: there will be some discussion of spoilers so if that sort of thing bothers you, then don’t read them!
Polar Express - Gamecube - 2004
Here is a game that I didn’t think that I would ever play, let alone beat. However this comes with the territory of being a father. Since the movie of the same name is a favorite of my son, it seemed fitting to get him the game. Sure, it’s a licensed title and yeah they historically are not that good and this one isn’t really an exception. But he’s a beginner gamer and he had a blast as we played through it together and for that, I’m glad I played through and beat it with him.
The game follows the events of the movie fairly closely but puts an emphasis on the Scrooge puppet being the antagonist. The interesting thing to me about this game is that it was developed by Blue Tongue Entertainment and I had tested some of their games before so this one felt familiar to me. Polar Express definitely feels like a game that was rushed to meet the deadline as there is some decent gameplay here that with some polish could have made it a solid game in general.
The gameplay is varied between platforming, minor stealth elements, minor puzzle elements, and some downhill racing elements. But none of it shines and that doesn’t matter since my son enjoyed it immensely.
Rime - Xbox One - 2017
The boy was on a boat with his father during a storm when a storm surge knocked the father overboard and the boy became stranded on an island. After regaining consciousness, you, as the boy, must explore the island and you’re guided by a spirit of a fox. There is no dialogue, only environmental clues along with audio and visual clues as to where to go next. The puzzles are not super complicated and can be quite clever in design. However, the twist of the story definitely gives you a punch to the gut, especially if you are a parent.
There are five different areas which represent the different stages of grief. Denial is the first stage and it is represented by the tranquil area where you are free to explore around and seemingly have not a care in the world. This is followed by anger which is represented by a giant bird which will attack you when you are out in the open and so on with the remaining stages of grief.
It turns out that the person who went overboard wasn’t the boy’s father but the boy himself and it is the father dealing with the loss of his son. That’s something that really hit me right in the gut when I finally figured it out. It didn’t help that my son wanted to play the game as well, completely oblivious as to the content of the game. I mostly restricted him playing to the first area and he had fun with what he played at least.
Carto - Xbox One - 2020
The graphics have a pastel, hand drawn quality to them and the music is tranquil. The puzzles range from simple to being fairly obtuse. I did have to console some guides several times mostly because I did not want to spend a whole lot of time banging my head against the wall.
Overall very enjoyable and worth playing.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan - Xbox One - 2019
Man of Medan starts off just after World War II with a small naval crew shipping some dangerous cargo which causes everyone to hallucinate and is killed off. The story then jumps forward several decades to the present where several friends are on a boat adventure to find some lost treasure and they come across the ghost ship SS Ourang Medan.
Gameplay is similar to that of modern adventure games like Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls but with fewer quick-time events (QTEs). Each character is controlled for a certain point and they meet an untimely end as a couple of the characters faced when I played through it.
The story is fairly tense and you can develop relationships between the characters with some developing into romantic feelings for each other or basically keeping them at an arm's length apart. One thing that I enjoyed about the story is that it starts off with a paranormal event that is slowly revealed to have a practical explanation for the events on the ship.
A cool gameplay element that I unfortunately didn’t get to experience fully is the cooperative mode. I had my significant other play along with me after I had done a playthrough because I thought it would be neat for us to play together. Considering the fact that it is a horror game and she can be a bit skittish when it comes to horror, we didn’t play too much. But what we played was a lot of fun. What I thought was hilarious is that she picked virtually the same choices that I had made during my solo playthrough. It was just a very minor gripe in that I didn’t get to see the other options but still great to see that great minds think alike!
A couple other games have been released in this anthology and I’d love to pick them up when everything has been released in a compilation pack. At least I hope that Bandai Namco bundles them all together when they are finally all released.
Haven - Xbox One/PC - 2020
This was a game that I was surprised that I enjoyed as much as I did. I had played a demo of it and enjoyed it enough that I downloaded it via GamePass when it was available. Haven stars two lovers – Yu and Kay – who escaped their dystopian home world where people are forced into arranged marriages to an uninhabited world called Source. There are light survival elements coupled with light RPG elements, lots of exploration, and heavy dialogue and story elements. Just about every action such as camping, making food, discovering something new, brings about new dialogue between the two characters often with some dialogue choices that can affect how close the couple are to each other.
Source is a beautiful planet teeming with flora and fauna. However, the home world – the Apiary – learns of their escape and starts to send drones after them which culminates into a military force to capture them.
Nothing in the game is super deep mechanics-wise but they all work well enough together to be enjoyable on the whole. The music – composed by Danger – is definitely one of my favorite parts of the game with it being among my favorite modern videogame soundtracks. The voice acting is fantastic and you really start to feel for the characters as they develop deeper bonds for each other and sometimes their relationship becomes strained.
Overall, a really good game that should not be missed. Also, this is one of the few games where I unlocked all of the Achievements which is a very rare feat for me.
The Gardens Between - Xbox One - 2018
The world is made up of real world objects such as televisions, garden equipment, playgrounds, and other things you’d find in a city. There is no dialogue and most of the story is delivered via the environment and cutscenes after completing a stage. I did find some of the puzzles to be a little obtuse but nothing serious. This wasn’t a long game to complete and it was definitely enjoyable.
Superliminal - Xbox One - 2019
The story of Superliminal is that you are a test subject for a company that specializes in sleep. The core gameplay loop involves solving the puzzles of a stage and then reawakening at the end of the stage. Of course each reawakening becomes more and more bizarre as you realize that you are stuck and that you’re trying to get out of it.
I felt like that there could have been a bit more to the story and it also felt that the superliminal type gameplay couldn’t really sustain a full game. Not a bad game by any means and definitely worth the play through.
Night in the Woods - Xbox One - 2017
The standard gameplay loop is walking around and talking to various residents and solving some light puzzles. Sprinkled in are some rhythm game elements when you get together for band practice or looking for new constellations in the sky or playing a rogue-lite on your in-game laptop or smashing fluorescent light bulbs with a bat.
This game sucked me in with its well written characters and its great moments of humor as well as anxiety, melancholy, sadness, anger, and hope. The art style is simple, stylistic and charming. The music is also pretty good, especially some of the band's songs during the rhythm mini-games.
I definitely recommend this game however I am now aware that there is some controversy involving the original creators in regards to harassment and other issues. I didn’t know that at the time but knowing that now hasn’t diminished my personal enjoyment of the game. So forewarned to you if that is something that will affect your decision to play the game.
Psychonauts 2 - Xbox One/PC - 2021
To be honest, I wasn’t that hyped about the game but when I played it, it was like putting on a nice pair of well worn jeans. The sequel is still a platformer at its core where you have to jump into people’s minds in order to progress through the story and to deal with their personal demons. The stages – a person’s individual mind – are unique and varied and less frustrating than some of the other stages from the first game.
This was another game that sucked me in and I ended up unlocking all of the Achievements as well. I had to consult several fan-made guides in order to collect all of the figments as there are a lot of them and they can be easily missed. There has been a quality of life update to keep better track of what figments are missing but that is something I haven't used since I completed the game before that update.
Either way, a fantastic game that I recommend playing even if you didn’t play the first game. If you didn’t like the first game then you probably won’t like this one since it’s basically more of the same.
Donut County - Xbox One - 2018
My son absolutely loves this game and it’s a joy for him to play since you basically just have to put down a hole and move it around to consume objects to make the hole bigger. There are some light puzzle elements that I sometimes have to assist him with but he can solve some of them on his own. Also, the song that plays after completing a stage is absolutely delightful!
This is the third game (well actually first but third one listed here) that I unlocked all of the Achievements on. Definitely worth playing!
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