GOTY 2013
Games I played this year that made an impression on me.
List items
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I watched 1/3 of Hollywood's blotted adaption of "The Hobbit" last December, but I will likely avoid its sequels. Games still have a lot of growing to do, but I believe they are superior to movies in the action genre today. Brothers is an action-adventure heavily inspired by Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Through a brief window into a richly realized fantasy setting, it tells the story of two brothers in search of a cure to their father's illness. It is bleak, engaging, imaginative and impossible to put down.
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Bioshock Infinite is a solid game with strong identity in a busy genre. It tries to preach to the faithful and wayward alike, and this divided focus lead to a lot of interesting debate and table flipping. Nevertheless, the production value on display here is amazing, most notably its incredible, and at times experimental, sound design. The combat and mechanics are a little tired, having partied hard since 1999, but its not offensive and worth chopping through to see its wonderfully realized environments and experience its powerfully told story.
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Myst was the first game I played which matched a virtual world with 3D graphics and sound, and the result was a strong sense of inhabiting a place and time. This is an experience that is unique to interactive media. Twenty years later, I still look for that Myst experience. Rewarding game mechanics are not nearly as interesting to me as that sense of place and discovery. Gone Home may as well have been designed for me. It is knowing, playful, and tells an incredibly well-crafted story with a paper-trail of situational evidence and audio recordings featuring genuine performances.
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The eternal night of Kentucky Route Zero is reminiscent of the absurdest world building of Douglas Adams. Its stylized visuals are a unique mixture of vector graphics and low-fi polygonal models. Unique is the word; KRZ betrays no single mentor in the medium. It acts as if by impulse. It is never tuned to the same frequency for long, but yet it is consistently brilliant in its execution.
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Multiplayer is a lot more fun in 3D World than it was in the 'New' series of Super Mario Brothers 2D platformers, since the extra depth provides room to explore without getting in each other's way. Its also a real treat to discover the new power-ups with friends.
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As soon as I discovered that I could remove my shoes and socks in ACNL, I elected to go barefoot, because why not? Animal Crossing simulates a small town with no real danger; all of the wonders of life striped of their thorns and shucked of their inedible bits. Soon, one of the villagers, a blue deer named Bam, decided to start calling me 'cleats.' While the AI had dumbly pulled from a set of sports-related nicknames, it was a beautifully ironic name for someone he had never seen wear shoes. This anecdote is great example of what makes Animal Crossing tick; the game provides a series of simplistic systems which are conveyed with breathless charm and adorable visuals. It doesn't expect you engage it in long sittings, but encourages you to play it forever. It keeps you coming back, time and time again, in part because you are rewarded directly, but also because it is such a joy to return.
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Incredible use of the iPad as a medium for telling a story.
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The Swapper is combat-less puzzle-platformer informed by Portal, Braid, Metroid and LittleBigPlanet. It is clever and rewarding, murky and mysterious. It hard to put down, even when the player is blocked by increasingly difficult puzzle rooms. I personally found its muddy visuals verily off-putting, but this may be completely intentional; The player does not want to be on this station, with its bleak surroundings and overpowering alien consciousness.
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A player-paced, puzzle game with a wonderful hacking mechanic and an engaging story told through a series of amusing text conversations and heists. Short but effortlessly enjoyable.
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