It’s almost the end of 2022 so I know what you’re all thinking: what did Mac play in 2021? Well, here you are, here’s the list.
...In the midst of a pandemic, in a locked down country where we weren’t allowed to see other people, I played Death Stranding. It is a game about reconnecting people who have been scattered across America, unable to go outside, trapped without communication. The invisible threat in the game is rather different to our own virus but the parallels between what the characters experience and our experiences of a pandemic are clear: Kojima imagined a world in which we hide indoors and rely on couriers. Those who go outside wear protective clothing and are made hard by the world.
...In 2020 I played Watch_Dogs, Ubisoft’s 2014 open world game that functions very much like every other Ubisoft open world game. It is generic, and very triple-A, and it’s absolutely fine. The story is bold and basic and predictable. It’s a 6 out of 10. It’s fine. It’s fine. It also isn’t fine in a bunch of ways I’d love to talk about but I don’t know enough about politics or sociology to be educated about it, but that’s not the point. Well, it sort of is the point.
...In a way I had a year off from gaming last year - I took a lot of time out to figure out what I was actually enjoying and whether or not I wanted to play at all. At the start of the year I’d pretty much planned to get rid of my gaming PC, but by the end of it I’d upgraded it and I’m excited for next year. Its good to take time to evaluate what you do.
...These days, I’m pretty skeptical about Valve. I’ve waited so long for so much, and I’ve seen so much abandoned and left behind that I try to avoid the hype surrounding them. I love Valve games, they’re free to operate however they like, and I certainly don’t believe they owe me anything, but I always take the approach of believing it when I see it when it comes to their releases. All that said, it was pretty hard not to be excited about a new Half Life game. Hype is a difficult thing: once you get swept up in it, the thing you’re waiting for needs to be everything you expect in order to pass muster.
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