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granderojo

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If you don't love Rocket League you must be intolerably stupid.

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We play Rocket League to make sport for our friends, and laugh at them in our turn. Where serendipity of luck and circumstance collides with thralls of cause and effect. In these two moments you find that they are the same, existing in the same space. Neither unique nor evident. In that moment you realize that you and many others like you are sharing these moments. We humans, defined by our extremes are social animals.This is why Rocket League works and why so many games like Rocket League work. It captures this extrema which we need to survive and presents them in a safe environment. This is why sport works more generally.

In that prison of cause and effect, we can define our creativity and ask the real questions about what is possible. In the serendipity of luck and circumstance we open ourselves up to the more subtler notions not present in our current reasoning. If you’re playing Rocket League at a high level you don’t want to score goals all the time. I could score a goal but often, when all's said and done I prefer to dribble. This is the beauty of that game.

I haven’t had time to update this blog in a while but I thought I might put down in words the little bit of gaming that I have had this year. You should play Rocket League.

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Granderojo's (late) Games of the Year list for 2014.

Looking back on 2014 there’s been much to do about player agency in games. Many players I've talked to have said “The choices I made mean nothing because if I had chose the other binary choice I would have met the same result.” This has happened in the Telltale games, Far Cry 4, Wolfenstein and others. Players expect good outcomes for their decisions and the games in 2014 have run against this grain. The irony is that disappointment and sorrow are always more believable than happiness and love. In film we've known for a while that “realistic”, typically means that movie had an unhappy ending. Games are finally collectively reaching that point of realism in storytelling and it’s being met with resistance. Moving forward if this amorphous medium is to endure and mature, we’re going to have to accept that the convictions of the power fantasy is too limiting.

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10. Fans of rogue-likes often take for granted that the genre they love is becoming bigger than they are. Dungeon of the Endless is an example of a game that incorporates elements of rogue-likes, real time strategy games and tower defense minimally while incorporating depth that is compartmentalized and easily to grasp. More specifically, it does what I think most great strategy games do, focuses more on your logistics. The puzzle of randomly generated levels unfolds and you eventually notice patterns for exploiting.

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9. Far Cry 4 is a more polished, dynamic sequel, that is both better than its immediate predecessor while retaining many of the flaws previously festering in it. Open world games are not known for their stories and both Far Cry 3 & 4 stories are bad in ways that are comical. Despite all of this the actual game is the story. The astringent nature of the main story is made up for every anecdote of the open world. When Ubisoft learns to get out of the way of me creating anecdotes they’ll have a game that is far less flawed, until then we’ll have to settle a game in Far Cry 4 that is merely brisk in its myth making.

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8. Often times you hear racing games garner praise for approaching a “good” middle ground of arcade style racing and simulation racing. In terms of the feel of the speed, momentum, torque, handling and acceleration of racing games there is no middle ground. You either do it very well or you don’t do it at all. The difference in being successful with the arcade, simulation and simcade subgenres are paramount, requiring unique approaches in each circumstance. Wreckfest, in it’s current build, feels American in it’s style of approach. Which is ironic to say since it’s developed by Bugbear from Helsinki in Finland. There's a small town feel that is reminiscent of the time my father and I would go see together to watch amateurs race that Bugbear has tapped into. (This was an excerpt from a previous blog post earlier this year)

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7. Luftrausers is fast and stylish fun, but it takes a bit to get used to the haziness that is it’s aesthetic. When you do, you find a solid state experience that hearkens to a time when games weren't afraid to send your ass back to the title screen. Luftrausers also made me fall in love with a developer. Vlambeer has garnered a lot of critical acclaim and up to Luftrausers I never understood it. From the way the music seamlessly transitions when you tweak your plane, to the two-tone aesthetic to solid state experience the game is unique and wonderful in ways that their previous games don’t approach.

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6. Orc society has the great misfortune of either being too bold that they are unwilling to take any precautionary measures or too terrified of the enemy to be willing to attempt any offensive. Dominating ignorant orcs through fear and hubris in a systematic manner makes for procedural gameplay typical of independent games not a AAA game. When this quality of textures and modeling is applied with such a brutal system it left a lasting impression. Not to say that it's the only impression, but it's a unique and special one. It's almost the Assassins Creed game that I've always wished Ubisoft would make but seems incapable of making. Now they just need to drop all pretense of structured story through acts and allow you to make your own story fully through manipulating the world dynamically.

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5. Wolfenstein is a game that suffers from having too good of a direction. It’s direction is so well implemented that it highlights it’s mistakes in storytelling. It introduces micro and macro storyline, it has scenes without dialog, and it clearly coordinated these elements well with it’s voice actors which gave the came a cohesive delivery. It does all of these things in ways that make the gameplay better while having a story preoccupied with ridiculous gallows humor that doesn't quite land most of the time but makes up for it with pulp sensibilities. The direction of Wolfenstein, is by far the best of the year. So glad this team got to make this game.

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4. When Trey Parker and Matt Stone are on their game you might as well put down whatever you’re doing and listen. And when Obsidian Entertainment release a game that is without serious bugs you should put down whatever you’re doing and play it. South Park: The Stick of Truth is a perfect marriage between these two forms. This game is an interactive season of the television show, with all the bells and whistles that go along with that.

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3. Every unit that is not supported is a defeated unit. This is the primary rule of Factorio. For me strategy games focus too much on the conduct of your actions, and Factorio instead focuses copiously on the means therefore. This appeals to what I love in strategy games. You learn quickly the beauty of automation applied to an efficient operation magnifying efficiency and consequently the dread of automation being applied to an inefficient operation magnifying inefficiency. He conquers who endures.

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2. Much of The Fall can be broken down by the conflict that arises when Asimov's Laws are expected to commingle with recursion. The power to define something which is infinite by a finite statement is in opposition to establishing formal frameworks of control. The Fall’s first episode approaches this subject masterfully and the puzzles have a logic to them that follows this thread. In the upcoming episodes I wonder if the light that was supposed to liberate the ARID on-board a Mark-7 combat suit is an even more efficient means of bondage. We will have to wait and see.

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1. The making of atmospheric perspectives and environments goes on all over game development, and they increase both in their suggestion and vastness as their value is recognized. This is the nature of a craft. Everyone needs beauty as well as substance, but Retro Studios has set itself apart from it’s contemporaries. Tropical Freeze is a game that does these things so well that you shouldn’t simply play it once, you must decant it first. Every level is buzzing with music and life, yet the game takes a cassis turn at points in it’s aesthetic going places that Donkey Kong has never gone. I care for this list to exist only to entice my friends with games that I’ve loved from this past year, and Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze loveliness is the game which most stood out to me all year.

0. Incrementalpunk or incremental games have become my favourite trend of this past year. These games have been often lauded, as with the case of Cookie Clicker or Candy Box for their latent variables. Many are superficial in this way. That is with the exception of Kittens Game by Bloodrizer where being numerate feels as important than being explorate. This trend more broadly has a lot of upside. Low barrier of entry for Inrementalpunk development and hopefully more of a melding of ideas between econometrics and computer science gives hope for an organic union of these two disciplines.

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Vaudevillian Design & Daddy Issues

Didi's childhood glee in the face of neglect contrasts sharply to Dawn's silent observing
Didi's childhood glee in the face of neglect contrasts sharply to Dawn's silent observing

Dressed to the nines, switching from three-dimensional streets to two-dimensional shadows, Contrast pits you in a noir illusionist’s platformer telling you the story of a young lady's troubled upbringings in an early twenties New York. There’s nothing very subtle about it. Wherever it can, it attempts to sprinkle this style into the game with mixed results. But like JD Salinger said in Nine Stories, it’s less about showing-off and more like a young man attempting to shave with your left hand. Distinctly a small team game, reaping both the benefits and disadvantages of the small pairing.

Razor focused on it’s denouement, Contrast suffers from a lack of playtesting and is riddled with the graveyard of footnotes of an otherwise more complete platformer. The irony of the game is that the finished game is reminiscent of the vaudeville productions it attempts to recreate. In the moment, if you don’t linger the story accompanied by the gameplay is special. But if you do linger, you will find a game that fails in many ways. Too often does the two-dimensional space simply stop working as intended, not reading inputs and requiring you to re-enter the space as a reset. Too often the collectibles the game relies on a for progression are unreachable due to flaws in level layout after certain sequences are triggered, specifically in the circus act where the game comes off most rushed.

If Contrast is anything it’s multiple things. In a crowd of indie platformers it stands out. Most tend to be one thing and often they do their one thing better than Contrast’s individual parts. This isn’t to diminish the attempt to juggle but to acknowledge that there’s a bit of the mutton dressing as a lamb going on here. Despite the overdesign and lack of finish, the blend of stereotypes, mechanics and schtick of platformers on display in Contrast are worth experiencing.

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@blocktogether bums me out.

A few years ago, when this whole feminist explosion happened in the gaming enthusiast press I started retweeting Leigh Alexander’s writings. I never directed a hostile word towards her on twitter. For some reason unbeknownst to me she blocked me. I was offended because I was only sharing her work but alas I thought, I can still read her work online and support her that way it’s not the end of the world. Now with the magic of Block Together, the entire enthusiast press can now block me wholesale.

Now I've said mean things on twitter, like contemplating if Chris Hardwick had a cocaine problem when I should have just said I didn't like his show Talking Dead. It was a stab at his personal character in a public way that I deeply regret and take back. I’ve since apologized to Chris and I've now opted to try to stay away from the ad hominems when judging a work on twitter. I feel like this is a process most people don’t come to until they realize that they've done something wrong, or they never realize it and they end up becoming the people currently harassing the Zoe Quinns of the world.

I typically interact with developers and press on twitter like this now. Looking back my tweets have become much more mature than I was when I first started tweeting(in high school) and I've noticed much the same out of many other twitter accounts. In the case of Block Together, I fear that Leigh Alexander has so many connections in the gaming press and with independent developers that I’m going to be missing out on these sorts of interactions going forward. I noticed today from a friend passing along a block list for Chris Grant via pastebin that I’d been added.

There’s no other way to say this than it bums me out. I've seen the vine of Jenn Frank’s feed when she’s being harassed and I can see how twitter harassment can just become unmanageable. This seems like a better solution, but I feel like the relationship between the enthusiasts press and the enthusiasts they then write to will change. It’s these people that have inspired me to pursue a career making games, and it makes me sad that it might be ending soon on twitter. For my own personal selfish reasons I ask enthusiast press/developers to think hard about making that plunge and if Block Together will solve the problem of being harassed by twenty follower twitter eggs with no skin in the game?

Thank you for your time and tell me in the comments if you were also blocked.

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No Middle Ground with Next Car Game

Yes, these tires feel as rad to drive as it looks.
Yes, these tires feel as rad to drive as it looks.
There's something mythical about small town Finland.
There's something mythical about small town Finland.

Often times you hear racing games garner praise for approaching a “good” middle ground of arcade style racing and simulation racing. In terms of the feel of the speed, momentum, torque, handling and acceleration of racing games there is no middle ground. You either do it very well or you don’t do it at all. The difference in being successful with the arcade, simulation and simcade subgenres are paramount, requiring unique approaches in each circumstance. Next Car Game, in it’s current build, feels American in it’s style of approach. Which is ironic to say since it’s developed by Bugbear from Helsinki in Finland. There's a small town feel that is reminiscent of the time my father and I would go see together to watch amateurs race that Bugbear has tapped into.

Even in its early Alpha state the cars have a wonderful pull around turns and inversely, if you approach your line improperly the game has just the right amount of push to punish you. This balance makes the cars in the game feel powerful in a way that past Bugbear games haven’t, or most racing games for that matter. Not since F1 2012 have cars felt so powerful and muscular for me. This is a direction that Gran Turismo decided not to go in after A-Spec, and why I haven’t liked that series since.

They attempted to strike a balance and do it all, instead of sticking to what they did good and refined it. Honestly this game feels so great that I hope it goes free-to-play, even though I paid for an early access copy. PC racing audience is a fickle bunch, with the vast majority of racing fans being on the consoles it might be worth it to approach this game like World of Tanks. It already has the same menu interface, which makes me hopeful that it will go free-to-play. Being freely available might extend the life of the game and grow the base of the audience on PC, doing what Trackmania did before it and avoiding the disaster of a lack of a player-base Trackmania 2 is now stuck with.

At the moment with the alpha, my impressions also lead me to think that the damage modeling might be a bit too intense. Which makes sense, aside from dorks like me who get into the feel of the driving, that's the real back of the box selling point. If it were possible maybe to reduce it on circuits a tad that would be the real sweet spot. But at the moment I would tell Bugbear to keep doing what they're doing, because regardless of this quibble, they're on the right track.

The demo is free by signing up for their newsletter, so you can experience this for yourself.
The demo is free by signing up for their newsletter, so you can experience this for yourself.

Link to the newsletter.

@granderojo

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In Defense of 2048

I really love Threes. But that isn't what I've come here to talk about. In recent days, folks have become increasingly upset with the “cloning” of Threes. Despite my love of Threes and proclivity to play it over 2048, I would like to argue for 2048’s right to exist. Markets define how software developers interact with their audiences, whether they like it or not. We like to think that the ideas and thoughts we create are our own, that free will is governing our actions. So when 2048 was released, Gabriele Cirulli was condemned as an imitator. Technically an imitator of an imitator.

Let’s digest some of the design of Threes for a bit. A set of basic cards (1,2,3) are drawn in sets of 4 onto the board. This is a similar mechanic used in games like Gin Rummy and Mau Mau. This is also a similar mechanic to how “cards” are drawn in Triple Town. Did those who designed these games come about these ideas freely?

At the essence of Cerulli's 2048, is this design. This is what iteration can look like. As complaints piled in that 2048 was stealing the thunder of Threes, new iterations that completely changed the progression of the game were being developed. 2048 has spawned a veritable open source game jam. Many are upset, including Asher Vollmer the creator of Threes, that 2048 stole Threes’ thunder. The fact that 2048 is free and open source makes it more commercially appealing to Threes upfront cost of a few bucks.

So what is free will? When a consumer sees 2048 for free, Threes for a few bucks and chooses 2048 over Threes we tell ourselves that this is free will. Desire to not spend money brings order to our decisions. Desire will also enable us to then spend the few bucks to try Threes. The desires which lead me to prefer the progression of Threes then orders me to continue playing it. This is not free will. It is this same order which governs the design process. Iteration is the combination of different desires acting concurrently to bring new order.

There are those in the games press and developers which fear this desire. Journalists often fear that the market is over-saturated with choice and this inhibits choice because it limits discovery of games which they value over others. This maybe true, but what right do they have as thought leaders? When developers call for walled gardens, they are arguing that they deserve a monopoly over the order that desire brings. Humans are often irrational and our desires inevitably lead us to folly but if we are to allow our desires to be governed by the desires of a few then we are to deny ourselves progress.

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Confusing agenda with punditry.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I hope women/gay/transgender persons obtain a richer and more adequate representation in games and I'm happy for Anita Sarkeesian for winning an award at GDC.

This being said. I think much of the gaming press, community and developers have been mislabeling agenda as a catchall for specifically punditry that is going on in games. Anita Sarkeesian does have an agenda. She's set fourth to accomplish a clear goal of exposing inadequacies she see's in games. What specifically seems to be the issue with Anita Sarkeesian and our very own @patrickklepek is their use of punditry. That is what many seem to mean when they say that have an agenda.

Now pundits deploy a wide array of tactics to successfully build a following. In modern times, they've been known to serve as both a great source of support for political action and inaction on a broad set of issues. They've also been known to serve alternatively as a great source of entertainment, where both sides of an issue can feed off of festering resentment for the other side spurred by the pundits.

A men's rights activist threatening Anita or mocking @patrickklepek for having an agenda is finding the same sort of enjoyment the other side has for mocking him for saying they have an agenda. Bill O'Reilly is arguably the most successful pundit on modern television. He's had an entire show dedicated to mocking him for almost a decade and has only seen his viewership & worldview grow in that time. The technique of presenting opinions as bullet-points while the pundit talks is the primary means of arming their viewership with talking points. This is Anita's primary means of disseminating repeatable opinions but as media evolves Patrick can use twitter to blast his repeatable opinion to his followers. This is their right and I see no problem with them using their right. What I fear is the building of an opposition from those who are engaged in games that are on the fence.

Being rude about your political views is fun, but could we not just accomplish the same goals without holding hatred for the other side or mocking them, even if they continue to mock or hold hatred for us?

I hope I have not misused any word usage. I tried using the GLAAD Media Reference Guide when writing out this post and presenting my own opinion respectfully way. I hope in the future, those within the gaming press, community and developers may use their platforms in ways that create less conflict and more listening leading to conversation. Thank you for taking the time to reading to this point in the post and I hope you have a great day.

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The Uncooperative Thumb-DotEmu's restoration of R-TYPE II on Smartphones

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On my vacation to Seattle, I played a lot of mobile games in my downtime on my phone. This included a lot of time with the recently released(iOS/Android) R-TYPE II. Never having played much of the first R-TYPE, the sequel ate a lot of my quarters at the local skating rink alongside Street Fighter II. Being a horizontal schump, I was looking forward to diving into this game. Mainly because, like most action games on the smartphones I like to play them horizontally. Having extra large hands, those being 28 centimeters by US glove sizing charts from around the palm, it is difficult to play games vertically that require repeated vigorous inputs.

The port of R-TYPE II to phones is feature rich, offering you a near fully customizable control scheme that offers both onscreen dpad or touch controls. Despite my long history with playing R-TYPE II at the arcades, this did not translate to success in this new version of the game. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t beat the first level. Frustrated that I couldn't beat one of my favourite arcade games I attempted new strategies to compensate for the new medium. After a bit I flipped the phone vertically, something the game doesn't have many support options for, which required me to hold the phone upside down. I noticed that the pivot on my thumb was much wider holding the phone vertically than horizontally.

At any given time, holding the phone vertically to play R-TYPE II with touch controls, I’m obscuring less of the screen and my thumb is more dexterous. Being that the game only truly requires one thumb for movement, with an irregular need for a second thumb for powershots, the game overcomes the difficulties of holding it vertically with two hands with one hand being able to hold the phone in a different spot. Now DotEmu just needs to update the game to fully support vertical play and the game would have my full recommendation.

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Granderojo's Games of the Year

To make this years GOTY list easier I decided to accumulate all the games I loved into a google spreadsheet. As the year rolled on, the list was constantly shifting. In finalizing the text, I came to a conclusion that their were my top 4 games then the rest. Due to their budgets and overall scope I disregarded how both stimulating and fun they were during the year. That said, there are more AAA games in my list than last year and I think that's also an achievement for the big budget games this year. As this console generation is coming to a close we have a incredibly optimistic road laid out for us, both from the independents and the big studios out there.

10. The Swapper

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2013 was the year of many things, specifically it was the year of chromatic aberration in everything. The Swapper was probably the second best use of it all year, aside from Europa Report. Much like the beloved Brothers from many other folks top ten lists, The Swapper ties it’s gameplay mechanics seamlessly into it’s story. Aside from this wonderful fact, it also had the second highest climax of a game this year for me. Approaching the brilliance of science fiction storytelling that is Stanisław Lem, my favourite science fiction author. For that alone it makes it on my list.

9. The Last of Us

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How do you make a game about fungus zombies, which click about like alarm clocks, into a life-affirming statement of hope? In The Last of Us you do it with a faith in human nature , and with a performance by Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson that says things that cannot be said. Without a doubt The Last of Us is a game that goes on too long, and has elements from Naughty Dog’s previous game that I would like to see go away, Uncharted, namely quicktime events and climbing mechanics. This game for me had the highest climax of the year, and I thank it for subverting my expectations in the way it did.

8. DmC Devil May Cry

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DmC Devil May Cry is a tightly designed, visually stunning, altogether successful character action game, allowing you to complete sublime combinations of attacks with a low barrier of entry but high skill ceiling. This game reminded me of Dante’s Inferno in the way that it played. While universally panned by critics, that game to me had many underappreciated elements that Ninja Theory seems to have put into their own game. Whether or not this is true, the game was an absolute delight to play the entirety of my time with it.

7. Civilization V: Brave New World

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The whole purpose of civilization is to take the surprises out of life, so one can be bored to death. Brave New World the second expansion for Civilization V fixes my a two major problem from the original game and another from it’s previous expansion. It turns the cultural victory from a monotonous defensive victory to one which is intensely offensive. It also improves the AI of the city-states and fixes the faith system to be balanced with the rest of the systems in the game. It may seem anticlimactic to say that a game can make it on my list by fixing problems, but the original game is already so wonderfully cultivated that it bears mentioning.

6. Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag

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There’s a profligate and sublime world to explore trapped inside the SyFy originals quality story of Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag. Immersion through exploration are aspects unique to games that I seek out. Often times I would be traveling to a destination in the caribbean, my crew would start singing a shanty, and I’d stop heading to my destination just riding the squall. Next thing I know I’m liming around hours later at my prior destination, despite having explored to completion, just soaking in the world.

5. Fire Emblem Awakening

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Most strategy games contain too much strategy. Artificial intelligence is only so intelligent, the more systems you require of the computer to know and the less optimal the resulting competition from the computer. Fire Emblem Awakening is a spectacular strategy game that happens to avoid the shortcomings of it’s genre. This accompanied by the fact that it ties it’s game design to it’s storytelling with hilariously marvelous yet dumb writing made it, for myself, the best possible introduction to the Fire Emblem series.

4. Teleglitch

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Teleglitch is a lean, intense and weirdly theatrical experience. So often people who play games get defensive when film is brought up, because often games become the butt of bad contrast between the two mediums. Despite it being quite rudimentary top-down game, it was the most evocative experience of specific feelings from film that I've had that no other game has been able to recreate. Aside from how evocative this game was of certain moments from film, it made me rethink difficulty in games, and why it’s important. If you like Hotline Miami and Aliens, give this game a try. It’s seriously great.

3. Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves

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Sang-Froid is apart of a quietly blossoming genre sparked by the popularity of the Orcs Must Die series but it may have started before that. You might call it third person strategy game. Whatever you want to call it, this trend of games coming out like this was my favourite trend of 2013, and Sang-Froid was the reason why. The game requires you to make tactical decisions and manage your resources acutely. If you complete this it’s an uncommonly cerebral and tactical experience that are never paired action games nor real time strategy. This was by far the best of these experiences so far, and I hope that developers continue iterating on this concept.

2. BIT.TRIP Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien

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Bit Trip Runner 2, a celebration of nostalgia for arcade classic and rhythm games, is the best and most unlikely of music games. The levels are intricate and smooth; some staccato, some legato, all of them absolutely visually delectable. It was the one game that I played all year that made my day better whenever I played it, always difficult but never frustrating.

1. Rogue Legacy

Rogue Legacy is a game of pain and lineage, of pointless revenge, of a family destitute and of a realm reborn. It’s a game that encapsulates perfectly the euphoria you get from trouncing impossible odds in a rogue-like, without actually being a rogue-like. Pairing these randomly generated levels with a progression system with gravity that if you die you only get to spend the gold that you have left on you was simply the best experience I had all year. I hope to see more great things from Cellar Door Games.

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My Five Favourite Books of 2013

Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation

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As those who visit Giant Bomb I am sure you are all familiar with Aisha Tyler. Comedian, voice of Lana on Archer and the video game industries mercenary frontwoman extraordinaire for E3 is fucking hilarious. Sort of written as a longform introspective take on her podcast Girl on Guy, this book really deserves to be listened to as an audiobook. Before Aisha Tyler when I was much younger I used to subscribe to Christopher Hitchens notion that women just aren't’t funny. When you’re a young man, and you act this way, it’s really quite invigorating to find out just how wrong you were. The way Aisha handles herself and just how prepared she is at all facets of her comedy did a lot to dispel this notion of mine. She is grody but also quite feminine but first and foremost she has such quick wit much in the same way as our late Ryan Davis. I've listened to this audiobook twice this year, and both times she had me cackling.

The Blood of Heaven

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After participating in the Idle Thumbs Book Club for Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall I decided to see what other historical fiction there was that people were recommending. Almost in the same breathe as Wolf Hall, The Blood of Heaven was mentioned. Being that the novel takes place in West Florida I was immediately interested. The Blood of Heaven really just punches you in the face with how violent it can get from the first line on. It did a wonderful job of depicting West Florida then and by effect now. The hypocrisy, which is at the core of what this book is about, that he exhibits in his characters is a generational type of hypocrisy that lives on to this day. While I didn't relate too well to Wolf Hall because at the end of the day I’m not British, I did take to The Blood of Heaven because, well, I too heard pervasive wonderful stories of violence as a child of the past exploits of my family in a loving way. If I needed to do any more convincing as to why you should read this novel, it comes down to the fact that it encapsulates itself in the Kemper Rebellion. Arguably this rebellion was one of the most important events in American history, but few Americans have ever read about it, and this is a visceral way of doing so.

Vampires in the Lemon Grove

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This is an extraordinary accumulation of short stories which all string from singularly unexpected sources. What’s great about all the stories in the collection is that they Karen Russell pits all her characters up against literal manifestations of their fears, desires and dreams. While all the stories on their face are bizarre(the send off story is a tale where all ex-presidents are a reincarnated as horses), they’re really all just a way to take intramural feelings and blow doors open so to speak. There isn’t really much else that I could say that wasn't spoiling the stories. They’re just a solid eight stories that you should read.

Love Minus Eighty

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While reading this book my mind was in a constant state of the soundtrack from Magnolia. If I were to make a comparison of this book, it’s Magnolia meets Code 46. What it shares with Code 46, like a lot of science fiction of this ilk is a fantastical premise. Love Minus Eighty’s is award winning. Will McIntosh constructs a near future differing from a lot of scifi where ancillary details of society are unexplained, departed from many of the clinical miss givings that a lot of science fiction finds itself in. Instead like Magnolia it focuses on the interconnected lives of strangers in a near future where rich men buy beautiful women who died and have been cryogenically frozen. You know there’s melancholy, then there’s a brew of nostalgia and sorrow distilled down then shot with a syringe straight into your temple. The latter is Love Minus Eighty.

Tenth of December

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When I’m asked, “What is America to you?” Part of my answer to that question would have to be George Saunders. That’s due to his debut collection of short stories Civilwarland in Bad Decline. A humanist, Saunders has a way of capturing the language of Americans with subtlety and intelligence really nobody else I've read has. Tenth of December is a collection of short stories published from the mid to late aughts by Saunders mostly published originally in The New Yorker. His writing in it, as usual, is slightly science fiction but not quite, something apropos of Edgar Allan Poe or Kurt Vonnegut’s science fiction. On it’s face all these short stories in this collection have matching tones and the characters are one dimensional. This isn't at a fault for Tenth of December because Saunders doesn't allow himself to be mired down in such bullshit. Instead he buckles down on getting the language of his characters right.

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