Nathan's Favorite Games of 2013

Holy crap was 2013 a good year for games! Just thinking back there was an absurd number of releases that completely blew my mind, and I certainly spent a good chunk of time playing who knows how many hours of these games.

However, which of these did I like the best and why? Well, in an attempt at brevity (which, if you've read my reviews, isn't my strong point), I present to you Nathan's Best Games of 2013.

But first...

Nathan's Best Game He Forgot to Mention in 2012

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition (PC)

I hated this game. Hated it. I still kind of do. It's unreadable menus and unexplained icons. It's absurdly hidden secrets and eccentricities that you find either by dumb luck or searching the internet. It's lack of assistance in anything aside from basic tutorials. It's ruthlessness in letting you know, at all times, that it hates you and the fact you are playing it.

But holy cow when I beat the Kappa Demon did I feel on top of the world.

Dark Souls is the rebirth of the NES game. It's a game that you sit down and play, bludgeoning your way through it, feeling lost and confused and like you are earning every inch. And when you beat that boss, you feel amazing.

I haven't felt that way since when I first played The Legend of Zelda on the NES. When I was six. Props, Dark Souls.



Ok, back to 2013. In order of release date, because I'm using a Wiki article to refresh my memory. 

DmC: Devil May Cry

I hated the way this game looked. The demo gave me a tiny bit of hope, but I still though holding triggers to change weapons was clunky and "new Dante" was awful. I bought the game only because of rave reviews and a price fluke that got me the PC copy shortly after release for $20.

Wow. I haven't been this wrong about a game in a while.

DmC isn't the old Devil May Cry games. It's more like a compromise, but in the best way. It's a fusion of the eastern action game ala Bayonetta and the western one, ala God of War, but with it's own personality and flavor. It's easier than other Devil May Cry games, but also infinitely more accessible. You still get that rush of a reward when you beat a particularly hard boss (the harder difficulties are the best way to play it, by the way)i or manage to beat a difficult room. The bad elements of previous DMC games (backtracking, platforming, etc.) are toned down and your mobility increased. The game's levels, which start out colorful but relatively uninspired, go completely off the deep end after the first act (you'll know it when you see it), leading to one of the craziest, dubstep-fueled stages I've ever experienced.

And new Dante? Not all that bad. I actually warmed up to the guy.

DmC is an excellent reboot, and honestly the most fun I've had with an action platformer since Bayonetta. A pity it will probably never get a sequel thanks to the Ninja Theory Curse.

Super Hexagon

I already reviewed this one, but it's just a video game. A pure, unadulterated video game. And it's also absurdly difficult and stupid addicting. It was 30 cents on sale on Steam. You should get it.

The Swapper

Yes, I just bought this game today. Yes, I haven't beaten it (I'm about 2/3 of the way done). Yes, yes, yes.

Don't care.

The Swapper is the best puzzle platformer since Braid. It might even be better. It uses one mechanic - one mechanic - to push some of the most brilliant puzzles I've ever seen.

There's no tutorials, minus basic controls. You can make up to four clones, and swap to any of them if you have sight and a clear path to them. If they die, you can place them again. That's the game.

Add a brilliantly subdued plot that slowly hints at the horrific nature of what exactly you are doing, stunning visuals that are creepy in all the right ways, and excellent sound and graphics and you have an absolute gem of a game.

Believe the hype. The Swapper is one of the best games of the year.

Guacamelee!

Metroid-vanias are very much outdone by indie devs these days, but Guacamelee! adds a punch of chili powder and some luchador nonsense to make it something unbelievable. It still follows similar tropes of the genre: you unlock new abilities to open new areas, requiring a small amount of backtracking to find hidden secrets. There's "heart pieces" and "magic meter upgrades" and even a light/dark world variant. Despite that, Guacamelee! is surprisingly more a platformer than a 2D action game, and it's a damn good one at that. Reminding me of the crazy swapping required in Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Guacamelee! takes button pressing and dexterous reaction times to their limit as you try to save your lady-love from a jerkbag skeleton in an sombrero.

Also the writing (what little there is) is fantastic and the game looks absurdly good. It's on PSN and Steam. Go get it.

Dota 2

I've sunk nearly 800 hours into this game, and who knows how much on cosmetics. Even just writing this I want to go back and play more. Is it a hard game to get into? Absolutely. I've been playing for almost ten years and I'm still "just ok" at it. But is it worth all the effort? Yes. Yes it is. Even if you hate MOBAs, Dota 2 has set a precedent. As both a platform to watch eSports (which Dota 2 finally helped me understand "Sports People") and just a darn good game, Dota 2 will consume your life if you let it.

And the best part? 100% free. Every hero, every match, forever.

Papers, Please

Everyone needs to play this game. Everyone.

I feel like I'm saying that a lot this year, but the indie scene just killed it. Papers, Please is a game about being a border agent in a fictional European country. It's not a good place to live, nor is it easy to get in or out. But what escalates from a simple job into a more complex one then weaves into an actual narrative. Yes, there's a story (many stories, based on the number of endings) buried deep in this "job simulator."

But the absolute best part of this game is the small stores. The woman who wants to see her son but is missing her passport. The woman whose husband you just let in but she has a typographical error on her paperwork. Do you let them in and take a hit, at the risk of your family? Or are you a slave to the man and the system in an attempt to simply survive? Paper's, Please might be the single most important game released this year. It simply must be played.

Saints Row IV

Going from Papers, Please to Saints Row is...weird, but it's true. Saints Row IV is basically "what if we took Saints Row The Third and put you into the Matrix? And then broke the game with all the crazy powers you have?"

Yep, that's Saints Row IV. In a year ripe with industry self-parody (see: Paper's Please, Bioshock Infinite, The Stanley Parable), Saints Row proudly wears it on its sleeve, taking jabs specifically at Mass Effect 2 but all other types of games in the process. It's rude, silly, and absolutely hilarious. It may be a bit too much like the third installment in the series, but that's ok. It's actually funny enough (and witty enough) to pull it off.

Plus, dive-kicking from above skyscrapers to cause a nuclear explosion upon landing? Priceless.

Pokemon X and Y

I hate putting these on the list, because they still are just the same stupid games. But whatever; it's the best Pokemon game. You can read other places on why; who cares. If you like Pokemon, play this one. There ya go.

The Stanley Parable

What is The Stanley Parable? Is it a game? Is it a critique of games? Is it a critique of the game industry? Is it a parody of office life? Is it just a brilliantly written and narrated story?
Is it all of the above?
I can tell you what it is, though. It's one of the best games of the year.
Also the demo is awesome and completely different from the main game. And that's free, so get that if you're cheap.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

I've only played about an hour of this game (my wife is hogging it currently), but I can tell you already it's the best Zelda game I've ever played.
So it has that going for it. Yes, it's better than the original Link to the Past (at least so far). I went there. I don't care. It's amazing. Nintendo, please learn from this game when you go back to making 3D ones. Oh wait, you're basing them off Dynasty Warriors now. Never mind.


Games that I probably would have put on my 2013 list if I actually played them more (or at all)


Metal Gear Rising: Revengenace

Game looks awesome. I have it pre-ordered on PC. So I'll play it in like a week. I'm sure it'll be rad, right?

The Last of Us

I heard the game gets loads better after about the 1/3 mark. I didn't make it that far. But hey, it's opening sequence was perhaps the most emotionally intense thing I've seen in games this year, so it has that going for it.

Grand Theft Auto V

Just kidding, I hate these games.

Super Mario 3D World

Super Mario 3D Land was one of my favorites. This one has cats and wiggle-legs Luigi. It has to be better, by default.

Phoenix Wright Whatever Number They're On

These games be tiiiight. But also require reading. Yawn.

That Fire Emblem Game

Looks great! Don't have it yet.


So...what is Nathan's GAME OF THE YEAR 2013?! ARE YOU FEELING THE EXCITEMENT? CAN  YOU NOT WAIT TO SCROLL DOWN AND SEE?!

BUBSY!

Wait, just kidding, it's The Stanley Parable.

Bioshock

The Short

Pros
- Dark, atmospheric shooter
- World and setting are phenomenal and very interesting
- Shooting that hybridizes guns and magic keeps things fiesty
- Side activities like vending machines, hacking, and other methods can mix up
- Graphics and sound design are phenomenal throughout
- Story's twist is interesting

Cons
- Last third of the game feels like a rehash, in both story and gameplay
- Switching between guns and plasmids is cumbersome, as is taking pictures for experience
- The number of weapons and ammo types seems a bit overwhelming and unnecessary (Shock Shells are all you need)
- Ham-fisted "morality" decisions lead to an equally lame ending either path you choose
- Final boss is a massive letdown
- Game ditches it's survival horror roots early on once you get better equipped
- Still feels a bit bare-bones when compared to it's predecessor, System Shock 2

Sander Cohen's moments are standout.

The Long

How does one review Bioshock on the eve of 2014? Released nearly six and a half years ago (yes, that long), and followed up by two successful sequels (one more successful than the other), it's hard to approach Bioshock now and offer up an opinion. Where do you even start? There's just so many options.

You could compare it to System Shock 2, which was a common approach shortly after the game's release, when all the hype and praise had died down and people actually offered critique. It's a simpler game, with points and levels and what-not stripped away and streamlined, focusing more on the world and the shooter than the number crunch.

You could compare it to Bioshock Infinite or even Bioshock 2, it's successors, which grew off the game's original systems in an attempt to streamline it further, evolving the series beyond simply Rapture and it's underwater paradise-gone-wrong and turning it into one massive, semi-coherent franchise. But, perhaps, making the first game look a little clunky in the process.

You could speak of it's industry influences, how it was perhaps (along with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare) an integral factor in moving the shooter industry towards more showy, showcased adventures rather than simply basic shooters. One might even argue that it is a true spiritual successor to Half-Life, by creating a game that was both linear yet gave the illusion of openness, focusing more on the scenarios and experiences and flashy pomp rather than just running and gunning. A weird hybrid of what was popular in shooters at the time (Halo was very much in its prime) and the old, creating something wholly unique and never properly replicated.

Or maybe I'll just talk about what I think about it, replaying it six and a half years after I first bought the PC version. Bioshock was the third game I played after my two year gaming hiatus (after F.E.A.R. and the Dawn of War franchise), and it was certainly impactful. But what about now? As the generation moves and its first real flagship ages, is Bioshock really that phenomenal, world-shattering experience we all made it (and it's spiritual sequel, Bioshock Infinitie) out to be?

Well, I'll tell ya. 

Should've signed up for the Vita Chambers, dude.

Bioshock has what I consider the best opening of maybe any game, at least the best "on rails" opening (Half Life 2's opening comes to mind as a more "open" introduction). After a plane crash in the Pacific ocean, you seek refuge at a nearby lighthouse and dive down into the ocean below. There you meet Andrew Ryan (who coincidentally his sounds like Ayn Rand. "Coincidentally."), a man who believes a society can be built where one earns their own living and isn't required to give it up to others. Objectivist's, eat your heart out. Until everything all went to hell when they started bio-engineering themselves, leading to people losing their minds and murdering each other all over the place. Because, come on! Who would have thought that letting people toss fireballs and SPAWN HORDES OF ANGRY BEES could have possibly lead to abuse of power?

Anyway, the story's real strength lies in it's setting, which is phenomenal for the first two acts. Andrew Ryan's constant taunts over his dead city (not unlike SHODAN from System Shock 2) are haunting yet never dull, with plenty of weirdly scattered audio logs everywhere (I don't even v-blog; why did everybody in this old city?). For the first portions of the game there's plenty of drama, horror, and startling twists to keep it interesting, with plot bits paced nearly perfectly and the aforementioned audio logs filling up any dead air. The game really wants to be System Shock 2, and it might even outdo it in terms of giving you an overview of the world, even if it does it with considerably less subtlety. 

Exploring the creepy parts of Rapture are some of the best parts of the game.

It's a pity the last third of the game is utter hogwash. While the "big twist" is clever (and might make gamers question the whole "meta" of who is really playing who), they present it too soon and with nothing to follow it up with. The final act is a slog through waves and waves of enemies as you just sort of mow everybody down, fight a lame final boss (who has his own lame twist) and watch either the "You are Jesus" ending or the "You are Hitler Reborn" ending, depending on if you chose to kill none or any of the creepy demon girls you can harvest for more xp to do more lightning damage. Yeah, there's a "morality" system here, though it's so archaic it makes Fable look like Apocalypse Now. The choice whether to "Harvest" or "Save" the creepy little sisters is interesting, but considering if you harvest just a single one you get the bad ending (never mind if you saved all the others; you are SATAN) you'd better commit to your decisions. The argument is that harvesting them gives you more Adam (basically money for powers) and thus makes the game easier, but the game is 1. Super easy already and 2. Ends up giving you more Adam if you stick to your guns and just save the little brats, that the whole thing seems like a wash. Point being: third act spoils the goodwill in the first two acts (though not all of it) and both endings are so over-the-top they can't be taken seriously. 

But while you're in the world, it's certainly one crazy trip, and one absolutely worth taking. But what about the gameplay?

Mario, eat your heart out. 

Bioshock got mad rave reviews when it came out for it's setting and story, and people just sort of lumped the gameplay into that when giving their analysis's. There's  so much crap you can do in Bioshock I can't really spend much time on it, but let me just give you a rundown of how you could approach nearly any engagement:

- Look for stuff on the floor to burn to roast people

- Lure them to water to zippy-zap them

- Hack some turrets/sentry bots/ etc. to turn their own weapons against them

- Plant some mines and bait them.

OR:

- Shoot them.

- Shoot them some more.

- If that doesn't work, electricity plus the wrench will take out 90% of guys

Bioshock does well in presenting lots of options. Almost too well, in fact. One of it's biggest problems (and the one that resurfaces with a vengeance in Bioshock Infinite) is that you don't really need to use all the resources available. With the exception if the hardest difficulty and if you turn of the Vita-chambers (read: infinite free respawns at full  health, while your enemies stay at whatever damage you dealt them), 90% of the game can be beaten with the starting plasmid and the starting wrench. With a few minor augments and a dash of skill, you'll easily zap-whack your way through most Splicers you encounter, leaving the rest of your insane arsenal to burn in one fell swoop against the Big Daddy fights. It's that theory people talk about: if you give a player one really good combo at the start of the game, it doesn't matter how many other combos you give them later, people will just use that one combo over and over. Bioshock teaches you the one-two punch at the very start (shock+wrench), and it never becomes ineffective.

Well, it doesn't work against THESE guys.

That isn't to say you aren't rewarded in other ways for screwing around. Setting off an alarm only to hack five or six bots and have your own squadron of death is pretty funny, but unnecessary. Placing mines and then baiting people into them is a laugh, though shooting them with the mines directly (or just...with bullets) also gets the job done. Since the "dual-wield guns and plasmids" hasn't been invented yet, swapping between the two is a bit of a chore, meaning when I got tired of the one-two punch I just upgraded my shotgun and machine gun until everything got mowed down. Since you are a jack-of-all-trades (unlike System Shock 2, which forces you to specialize), you don't feel like you're building your own unique character. Instead you have a guy who is good at just about everything, so why hack something when you can just shoot it?

Point being: Bioshock has lots of options, but replaying it I found I hardly ever used any of them. I'd ignore tar pits to burn people with fire, usually only zap in water if it happened to be convenient, and just min-maxed my shotgun to Shock Ammo (the best weapon against Big Daddies) and crushed everything else with the one-two punch. Unfortunate? Perhaps. But certainly a flaw of the gameplay. At least the shooting feels solid. 

They really love Ryan here.

When you aren't zap-punching dudes in the face, you're usually rummaging through old trash cans to eat month old chips and pep bars. Yep, the scavenging mechanic from System Shock 2 is back, though it's a bit less useful this time around. Most stuff doesn't go to your inventory (except money, which is sort of important if you like just buying ammo to victory) and is consumed on use, and most gives you minor boots to health and Eve (aka MP), so you'll spend most time mashing X next to any consumables without even reading it and hope you get some health or magic or money. Multiply the dozens of things in any given room with the extra dozen enemies, and your X button will get quite a workout. It was novel at the time I suppose (though, again, System Shock 2's system had more of a point, if it was a bit more cumbersome about it), and the idea of my guy digging through trash cans to eat peanuts is kind of funny in and of itself, but considering the availability of health packs and Eve syringes, you could probably cut all the random garbage to collect and just give people money upon killing enemies and everybody would be fine. One might argue it's immersive, but honestly it's just another chore.

This game still looks great, especially the PC version.

If there's one thing Bioshock does perfectly well (aside from it's incredible setting) it's the detail and work done in the graphics and sound. The world itself is, as mentioned before, absurdly fleshed out, and this is only heightened by the phenomenal graphics and art design. Splicers, while their design does get old, are delightfully creepy, saying some disturbing things as they try to rip your lungs out. The juxtaposition of this dystopian insanity verses the paradise that Ryan keeps spouting at you (and the remnants of which are visible as you dig deeper through Rapture) makes for a disturbing dissonance that really shines. Something beautiful was here, and the art shows it, but now it's covered in blood and body parts.

The sound is also great, evoking the era through rustic background music that haunts the empty (or not-so-empty) halls of rapture. Big Daddies sound especially horrifying, their booming bass tones sending chills down my spine even when I can't spot them yet. The voice actors are great all around, with Ryan absolutely stealing the show every time you turn around, but the supporting cast (through audiologs) also excels. There is no doubting the insane production values in this game, and it makes for a memorable experience.

Atlas is a good counterpoint to Ryan throughout, though in the last third he becomes...boring.

With all my critiquing you might think I hate Bioshock. On the contrary: revisiting Rapture was, for me, a magical experience back into a world I'd forgotten I'd loved. The game is still genuinely creepy, with the first few hours of limited ammo and Eve making it survival horror-esque, and I still can't help but admire the insane attention to detail present in this dying world.

That being said, it is still unfortunate the actual gameplay can be boiled down fairly easily for those simply wanting to win. It is worth noting that the game does scale somewhat in terms of difficulty, though again...that last third you are basically just mowing down people. It's sort of the Resident Evil 4 problem where you have to get better equips or you won't feel like you are progressing, but then the game stops being scary and instead is just sort of busywork as you mow down people (to it's credit, I think Resident Evil 4 did it right all the way up to the helicopter fight). 

Is it the perfect game? No. It's aged and clunky and sort of loses sight of it's goals at the end. Is it still a fantastic experience and one of the best worlds to visit in gaming? Absolutely. In fact, it should be "required viewing" for anybody who takes games seriously, if only for it's unique setting and stunning production values. While it might not be the "Genetically Altered Shooter" it said it was on the box, Bioshock is still worth it for the ride, and what a ride it is. 

Four out of five stars. 

Moral of the story: If you're a cat, don't splice up. 

Torque3D seems to finally get a Linux port!

Following the release of the Torque3D engine under the MIT license (latest release 3.5 here), there was a lot of back and forth regarding a port to Linux (the engine actually used to have a good Linux port, but that one was dropped a few years back). At some point there was even an official Kickstarter crowed-funding attempt, which however failed to reach the estimated funds (but nether the less more than US$10k were pledged). After that things quited down, but several people continued developing a OpenGL renderer and Linux port.

Now it seems like all these efforts seem to be near a somewhat usable Linux port or at least that's what I understand by following this forum thread.

Torque3D running on Xubuntu 12.10

In the short term the most interesting application of this Linux port is probably that the creator of RotC has announced on his currently running indigogo campaign to liberate (and update) the game, that now there will also be a Linux port.

Great news if you ask me, so don't forget to pledge some of that Christmas money you got towards reaching the funding goal (currently $388 out of $1500, with 36 days left). Let's make this happen!

Edit (nearly forgot): these two projects related to Torque3D might be interesting to follow: Project GREED and Zentense.

December RTS updates

Merry Christmas from FreeGamer!

As a nice present from the 0 A.D. team, the new Alpha 15 Osiris was released today:



Lots of great new features and especially multiplayer games should be now much easier to do with hosting improvements and a lobby for browsing available games.

Another open-source RTS engine (using Mono/C# though) has also released a new version: OpenRA. Currently it is still geared toward running an assortment of older Command & Conquer based games, so you need to own these for the data. But this release adds lua scripting for the creation of custom missions, so maybe someone will come up with a libre game to run on this engine.

Last but not least, a new version of Warzone2100 was released about a week ago. This one actually includes some higher resolution textures, which is hopefully the first step to officially integrate all the awesome new art assets from the art revolution project.
Speaking of WZ mods: There is also an interesting new tower-defense mod currently being developed.

Let's Play Permissions for Open Source Games With Free Art

Let's Play (LP) is an uprising form of previewing and experiencing video games.

While a review summarizes the experience, a LP allows to look a player over their shoulder and indirectly experience the game from one perspective in its entirety - if both Let's Player and viewer have the endurance.

LPs have many styles: non-commented, informational, humorous... And their production quality varies too, be it video, audio or presentation.

Example of a Let's Play video in its natural environment

Some creators of LPs ("LPers") earn money using YouTube's monetization features. When they do, YouTube's semi-automatic moderation process starts paying more attention to the videos' compliance with copyright.

Sometimes, LPers will contact game developers to receive permission to create LPs. To many creators of games, LPs are a welcome form of promotion and they will always say yes.

Clint Bellanger of FLARE released a Let's Play policy, which elegantly covers both the situation in which a game's art assets are CC-BY-SA 3.0 licensed and where all copyright belongs to one person.

FLARE is a collaborative effort of many artists who agreed to release their art under CC-BY-SA 3.0 and I think that FLARE's LP policy reflects the intention of the license very well.

A complicated case might be a game which contains art that is under the GPL, which could be interpreted in a way, that requires the resulting video, as well as video project files to be made available under GPL as well.

In theory, any LP could be considered "fair use". However, for-profit use and use of large portions of a work are often considered as not being "fair use" - for example by YouTube.

For game designers, I consider LPs to be a valuable resource, allowing to look up features or part-experience gameplay, where acquiring, installing and playing the game would be impossible, due to time restrictions.

I recommend looking up games that you have fond memories of or which you always wanted to try but the installation effort was too high on lparchive.org or just YouTube's search function with "let's play" in the query.

If YouTube's HTML5 doesn't work for you, youtube-dl will allow you to circumvent flash player issues (monetized YouTube videos appear to require flash).

Reminder: 1 week left to vote

Voting for the Linux Game Awards January 2014 will come to an end in about one week (24th of December).

So if you haven't voted yet, don't waste any time!
You can read more about the award in this older blog entry.

Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME) version 1.1.0 and Steam edition

The great roguelike RPG Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME) is available as a new version (1.1.0) nicknamed "Full Steam Ahead". Here is a slightly older trailer for version 1.0.5.:



Release highlights:

• New necromancer tree: Animus
• All achievements now feature beautiful 128x128 images
• Improved Alchemist interaction with its golem
• Tons of fixes and balance adjustements
• Many improvements for addon creators, including a way to enable debug mode and a tool (inthe debug menu) to register and upload addons to te4.org directly from the game.
• Includes a Fez. Fezzes are cool!

Interestingly it has also been "greenlit" on the popular game distribution channel Steam, so if you want to donate to the developers you can also do it by buying ToME through this channel. The currently discounted version includes a DLC with an updated UI (and the hint for a Steampunk themed extension) which seems to me like a planned way of funding the development of the game in the future.