The bad news for video game fans – and the parents or grandparents of same – as Christmas approaches is that our old friend ‘supply chain issues’ means that the latest consoles – the PS5 and the XBox Series X – are going to be tricky to get your hands on. Best hope that Santa drops a bumper sack of the elusive components they need down the industrial chimneys of the Sony and Microsoft manufacturing plants. The good news, though, is that 2021 has bought a goodly crop of new games to play in the consoles you already have; or to download onto your PC via Steam.
First off, whoohoo! There’s a new Halo. Dust off your railgun and prop it by the chimney in the hopes of dropping Santa a hint: Halo Infinite, the latest iteration of one of the slickest and longest-lived shooter franchises in videogames has dropped just in time for Christmas. And judging by the almost incomprehensible kvetching online about the progression system, the fanbase is just as, er, engaged as it always was. It’s been described by PC Gamer as a ‘sharply balanced and wonderfully satisfying arena shooter’, which is good enough for me. You can keep your so-called Fortnite, kids.
There’s been the predictable slew of big-hitting cross-platform sequels – and in AAA games, unlike movies, a sequel is no bad thing. These are where the biggest studios spend their time, their money and (if you’re lucky) their creativity. So there’s the genre-crossing baldy-headed sneak-em-up puzzle shooter Hitman 3; a glorious-looking open-road car-racing game in Forza Horizon 5; another slice of sinister survival horror in Resident Evil: Village (complete with a troublingly attractive zombie monster lady in a hat); and another instalment of a classic open-world adventure, Far Cry 6.
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