A Decidedly Ungamey Year

As I may have mentioned before, I am in the unfortunate position of only having one real life friend who's into videogames, and sadly he doesn't live particularly close to me these days either. Much of our communication, therefore, is by phone or internet. Around last Christmas, he sent a text asking me what the best five games I'd played for the first time in the previous calendar year were. This was, I believe, with a view to exchanging recommendations to be played in the coming year, but after giving it some thought, I realised I had barely even played five games for the first time that year, never mind enough to be able to select the best ones!

This realisation was slightly alarming, worrying even, but at the same time not too surprising. Nonetheless, I immediately decided this year would be different - I would make sure to play many games this time around. These need not be modern games, you understand - anything qualifies as long as I haven't played it at all previously. As part of this regimen, I would make sure to play the five games my good friend Luke had recommended. Here's a look at his choices, none of which I have played, but by the year's end... I will have - I swear it by the old gods and the new.

SteamWorld Dig (2013)

Rather embarrassingly, this is one I have already had in my Good Old Games collection for lord knows how long. I did play and review the game from which it seems to take its inspiration - Spelunker - many moons ago with an OCD-related intention to move onto this fancy reimagining in due course but, well, you know, I kind of forgot about I guess! I don't know why though, it looks like just the sort of game I would enjoy immensely. I can spend hours collecting and exploring in an atmospheric platformy environment and I haven't found a game of that type that has really hooked me in a good while now. Hopefully, thanks to Luke's timely reminder, I will now belatedly have another one to get stuck into.

Dead Island (2011)

I've never really been into survival horror games - I think Blue Stinger is the only one I've played all the way through. There are several reasons for this but a big one (tee hee!) is that most of them feature zombies which I've always thought were a bit crap. Dead Island apparently places you on an island which is jam-packed with millions of the stumbling oafs, and for this reason it's never been one I've looked at too closely. Now, however, I am forced to reevaluate this stance. From what I've seen so far, it takes place in a first-person-viewed open world environment, which appeals to me, but the gameplay places emphasis on melee, which does not appeal to me. I can't say I'm looking forward to this one a great deal overall, but I am now honour-bound to at least give it a try, which I intend to do via its PS4 remaster. So, let's see how it goes!

XCom: Enemy Unknown (2012)

I've been hearing about the XCom games for donkey's years so I know they are generally very well regarded, but tactical turn-based RPG's are not games I really find all that appealing, or the idea of them at least. I've always been more of an arcadey-style gamer and I have doubts that my primitive, simple mind would very cope well in the complicated-looking world of XCom games. It isn't enormously expensive on Steam though, so I'll chuck it on my wishlist and grab it in their next sale. That is of course no guarantee that I'll play it so I may need some encouragement to brave the apparently dark and gloomy world contained therein. I do like isometrically-viewed games at least!

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015)

Despite their vast numbers and (as far as I'm aware) consistently high quality, I haven't played a Tomb Raider game since Lara's sizeable boobs were triangular. I guess that means I've missed out on a lot of adventuring (and ass-shots of our heroine)! Her adventures have of course moved with the times and this instalment, which it seems is set in chilly Siberia, includes many elements that the games I am more familiar with do not, such as crafting in which I've 'dabbled' when playing a couple of indie games such as Yonder on my PS4. I'm confident this will be a vast and involving adventure with an exciting story, puzzles, and lots of fighting/shooting though, and I'm actually rather looking forward to giving it a go. I believe even my wife will tolerate me playing this one too!

Subnautica (2018)

This game has been on my Steam wishlist for months now but I'm not totally sure why - when I looked into it for this post, nothing about it was familiar. Oh well, I'm glad it's there anyway, as now that I have looked into it, my attention has been suitably captured! As seemed likely from its aquatic name, it's an underwater adventure. This adds an instant appeal all by itself, but it's also a sci-fi underwater adventure, since it is set on an alien planet due to the player getting marooned there when his spacecraft is mysteriously destroyed. This means peculiar creatures, mysterious cities, and probably loads of other mega-skill stuff. I have since found out it got a physical PS4 release too, so I'll make that my preferred version to grab, even if it is quite a bit pricier than the Steam version.

So, these are the five games I am charged with playing. And buying too, in all but one case! Look out for the follow-up post to this one which will, most likely, not make an appearance until near the end of the year. That's assuming the world hasn't been destroyed by then, obviously. Wish me luck!