At the end of 2020 I did an overview of the entire year. I spoke about games that came out and events that happened. Now of course we had a weird year and 2021 is looking to be better.
This time I go through the first 4 months of 2021 and review games and other media.
Before I start, I’m also going to mention games that I have played in the last 4 months, not just games that came out in that time, I’m also going to review some shows and some other stuff.
January
Hmmm. Let’s see.
Crying Suns is a rogue-lite game and it’s something I never really played before.
It’s set in a weird future world that is being controlled by “robots”, humanity compare these to gods.
Crying Suns does a lot right, and also a lot wrong. The graphics, atmosphere and sound design are all fantastic.
The gameplay is…. fine? There’s basically 3 sides, ship fights, expeditions and random encounters.
Every chapter has 3 sectors with a boss at the end. If you die you get sent back all the way to the first sector of that chapter. First time I died I set my difficulty on easy, I didn’t want that to happen again.
I got this game for free on Epic Games, so I really can’t complain. But Crying Suns is a fine game that you can only play once.
What else in January? Oh yeah I got VR.
This opened a world for me, there is so much you can do with VR.
It’s way better than what I expected, and I haven’t got tired of it at all.
So uh in short.
Beat Saber is exactly what you expect from a VR game. It works wonderful and it’s really great with friends
Phasmophobia becomes even better and WAY more scarier, it works way better than on screen.
The Lab is a pretty fun tech demo, that’s basically it.
Rec Room is a fun social game. It’s sort of like VRChat, but you take out all the anime and replace it with children.
The Red Stare is a pretty small game that makes you a spy, it’s a really early VR game so it has some janks here and there. But it’s pretty cool.
February
February is where I mainly focused on BONEWORKS, and because I have already said everything I could about it. This section becomes pretty empty.
But!
I did watch Wandavision (no spoilers), and while it started in January I only began watching in February.
The MCU is huge, and you start to wonder if they’re going to be running out of ideas soon.
But yeah they really don’t. Wandavision is one of the best things Marvel Studios delivered, I can’t even explain it! It’s something completely new and gets me EXTREMELY excited for phase 4.
I finished Black Mesa in February, and by that I mean 100% the game. More on Black Mesa later.
There was a Nintendo Direct!??? After 1.5 years? Huh?
Pyra and Mythra in Smash, a new Mario golf, Miitopia.
A 60 dollar Wii port. And Splatoon 3… All pretty solid titles, Splatoon 3 is confusing and exciting!
Oh and some Square Enix RPG or some shit fucking garbage.
That’s basically it, February was just more VR for me.
March
Gorilla Tag is weird.
Like really weird, but it’s incredibly fun. In Gorilla Tag you don’t move with your controller, but with your hands. Jesus this makes you exhausted, I’m not built for this lol.
Still, this game is wonderful.
Also in March I said fuck it and played Half-Life: Alyx.
I’m a dumbass, in my 2020 retrospective I said that Alyx would be the first VR game I would play. Yeah uh no
Then in my BONEWORKS review I said that I couldn’t play Alyx.
And well I was right, my PC is simply not capable of running Alyx at full resolution and constant 90 fps.
I still fucking played it of course, it’s still fun.
The way Alyx compensates for lag is by slowing the game down.
Physics, AI, movement and all that is slowed down to keep FPS stable. It causes me to slow down drastically in big spaces, thankfully this game is pretty closed off. Never got motion sick, never got sick of it.
Townscaper is a fun tool that allows you to make harbor towns with funny beeps and boops :)
MCU was also back in March with The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, this one builds more upon what happens outside the movies and consequences of it. Great series!
Superliminal is short but sweet.
April
So I started playing Factorio again with friends, we actually beat the game this time. We simply played smarter and better, kept constant progress and made sure we always had something to do. That’s the best way to play Factorio.
Finished Half-Life: Alyx too, going for all achievements soon.
Played a bit of Destiny 2, movement is great. Not sure if I’ll keep playing.
Super Mario 3D World! (damn finally a Nintendo title on the list huh?)
I like many others were a bit skeptical about this game, it’s not really a standard 3D Mario game.
That being said, very fucking good game. Every single level is different, it’s honestly surprising how good the level design is compared to the 2D games.
Bowser’s Fury, also very good yes yes.
Future games and events
E3 is coming back this year! And Nintendo is there! Hopefully Valve too?
I’m guessing Nintendo will focus on Breath of The Wild 2 and Splatoon 3, probably the other 2 fighters remaing in pass 2 too. I have no idea about the rest.
Am I waiting for future games? Well I’m excited for Project Citadel, presumably Valve’s next title. Stress Level Zero’s Project 4 is a sequel to BONEWORKS, so of course I’m excited about that too.
And well that’s it, again mostly VR because why wouldn’t I spend an unhealthy amount of time in a virtual world? All the shit is still going on so it’s not like I have choice.
Uh anyways, some site stuff now.
In my 2020 retrospective I said that I would review Black Mesa, I still am.
Truth is, I really want to go in-depth on everything. I’m not only going to talk about major gameplay, I’m going to talk about every single chapter extensively.
It’s a big review, and I can definitely handle it. Buuuuttt
The Black Mesa team released a museum a couple of days ago. This workshop map shows old, unfinished and unseen Xen maps. Not only does this show beta maps of how Xen looked, it also contains concept art, developer comments, some pretty hilarious bugs and the progress of Xen throughout development. It’s fascinating, and I now realize that I want to use this museum to talk about Xen.
As such, I’m splitting the Black Mesa review in 2 parts. Pre-Xen and Xen itself.
This review will be massive, and I’m going to have to restart (again) so there will be delays.
There’s going to be a smaller review soon, won’t be a VR game or Half-Life related.
Thinking about making some other stuff, some Portal and Half-Life related thing, Half-Life: Alyx might also get a review, some retrospectives or something.
I’m not going to do these 4 months retrospectives everytime, I just wanted some more content on the site so there’s atleast something.
This was slightly rushed oops
uhh, bye.
Swift Reviews 