Somehow we’re here yet again. This little rock of ours has orbited our local fusion reactor again and Christmas is a distant memory. I’ve had a pretty varied year in gaming terms, picking up a load of older games to finally finish them, as well as a couple of new releases. It’s been a lot of fun dipping back into some games that I’d kinda forgotten about. So come with me now on a journey through time and space…

Well, it’s that time of year again. The earth has travelled another 584 million miles or so, people are making all kinds of resolutions about how they’ll be different now that a number has changed, and we’re all looking back at the year just ended. Somehow COVID is still kicking around, although at least here in the UK things are a bit more open than they were, people still can’t get hold of the Playstation 5 or high-end graphics cards, and it seems like the world has gone daft for NFTs (including some game developers looking to get in on the action - please don’t).

Here’s my annual rundown of the games I’ve enjoyed playing in 2021 and the ones I’m looking forward to trying soon.

I did it last year, so it’s time to do it again. Actually, it was time to do it again about six months ago but life got in the way. Here are my top games from 2017. Caveat: This list is only from games I’ve played myself in my limited available time. There are plenty of other great games that I just haven’t got round to yet.

Video games are based on rules. To quote my man Morpheus, “what you must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken.” The more that a game attempts to give you, the more variables are introduced, and the greater the scope for bugs and other general weirdness.