This is not really much of a blog post, but I had to post something to get things started. I only played two new games in 2021, and one of them isn’t even fully released yet. 2021 was a garbage year meant for garbage thoughts and garbage feelings. It got somewhat optimistic at the tailend of it, but then had to cap it off with things going back to the “new normal.” Of course, it had to be during the Holidays when Omicron would strike. This goes on and on in this mandatory yet late year-end blog post.
Of course, I had to get Guilty Gear Strive this year to have something to write in this blog post. Of course, Valheim is the only other game I played in 2021. Both are addicting in their own ways and have done well in staving off the doom and gloom atmosphere of that year, even if for only just a while.
There were many other games in the woodwork, but I didn’t get to play them because 2021 had been a fairly challenging year for me, both financially and psychologically. It wasn’t catastrophically bad, but it was enough that video games escapism became a crutch.
I also played a good bit of Cyberpunk 2077 at the start of the year, even if it were a complete mess. That was the only other significant gaming experience I had for 2021, but that game released in December 2020 against their better judgment. I’ve written about what I thought of that game before. Anyway, let’s get this over with.
Yes, Only Two Games in 2021 Because My Life is a Boring Circle
Then again, who can really blame me? Last year was quite the slog, and it looks like this year will be even more so. But at the very least, I’ll play more games than I did last year due to having more time now in 2022.
Honorary Mention: Valheim
I was indeed horribly addicted to Valheim for a whole damn month, and I’m glad I was. But after that month, I haven’t touched it since. I still haven’t tried the new stuff that came with the Hearth & Home update. Perhaps the one thing that I don’t like about Valheim is the mining, which is such a time sink that I don’t feel bad at all about doing interdimensional mining (loading a different world to mine metals). I’ll likely get back in once the game is fully released.
1. Guilty Gear Strive
And I only watched it for most of 2021. I then pirated it to get a feel of the singleplayer. Finally, when I somehow got some cash just before Christmas, I finally bought it. I then realized that whatever changes there were in Xrd have become more or less permanent and this is no longer the Guilty Gear I played in high school.
It’s not an entirely broken mess like I remember and cherish with Guilty Gear XX, a lot of which got “fixed” in Guilty Gear Xrd. For instance, I can’t play Axl in this game like I did in GGXX since his moveset is now quite different. I have a bit of idea on what changed in GGXrd, but I didn’t play that game as much as I did GGXX in high school.
But the one thing that makes this game a lot better is the rollback netcode. What kept me from continuing to play GGXrd was the online multiplayer experience. If the latency keeps you from being able to close in on the umpteenth Ramlethal player from Japan on the first day of picking the game up, you know you’re not going to want to keep playing.
Conclusion
I apologize for this complete waste of online space. But since I tend to make an annual blog post on the top games I played that year, I didn’t want to skip this one just because I dropped the ball for a while. Anyway, go play Guilty Gear Strive. It’s a great fighting game and is setting the standard for online multiplayer experience for the genre.
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