Tau's Top 5 Games of 2013!

Since it's new years eve, it's time for a top 5 countdown!

So, the requirement for being added to this list is that the game came out in 2013 AND I played it to completion.  For that reason, I'm warning you right now, The Last of Us, GTA5 and Bioshock Infinite are not on this list.  I played TLoU and Bioshock except I didn't beat TLoU and Bioshock was a piece of crap....and I didn't beat that either.  GTA5 came out just as I was leaving Sweden for Japan, so I've not had a chance to play it yet, I'm sure it's very good, Rockstar know what they are doing.

ANYWAY! HERE WE GO!

Game #5: Super Monster Ate My Condo

Whoa now? for serious? A mobile game in a top 5?! If you don't like that then I suggest you actually go and give the game a go before slagging it off, it's actually really good.

Super Monster Ate My Condo is a match 3 puzzle game where you have to match condos to make more condos in order to make even more condos to make more and more points.  It's simple yet there is some depth to be found in the form of boosts and managing the bonuses that can be triggered via the monsters on the edge of the screen.  It also has a coin system that is in place for Adult Swim to make money off this free to play title, but you get so many coins per normal game that I never once had to use it and the boosts cost so little you'll never have to "grind" coins to get high scores.

Also the world leader board gives me a reason to keep going back and try and crawl my way up bit by bit.  It's a really fun game and it costs absolutely nothing, so you have no excuse not to at least TRY this little mobile gem.  I've not really been this addicted to a puzzler since Tetris.

Game #4: Rouge Legacy

I like rougelikes and while this is what a lot of the rougelike hardcore would call an "entry level" rougelike, it doesn't stop it from being fun as all hell.  Pick a knight, collect gold, kill enemies, die, start over with a new knight, rinse and repeat until you beat all the bosses.  Then once you've done that, do it again....but HARDER, and then again....BUT HARDER STILL.

The game has an expansive tree of upgrades for your knights and an equipment/rune system that will change the way you play, but the coolest aspect of this game can be found on the character select screen.  Each knight is given a trait (Read: Disability) which can range from something silly like the whole game playing black and white to something super obnoxious like the whole game being turned upside down.  Also the fact that you are never allowed to choose the class of your heir and are just given 3 at random every time means that you kind of have to adjust your play style every round, which keeps things fun and interesting.

It's also great to look at with really nice visuals and it's sound design is pretty good too.  Available on Steam for a pretty affordable price, it's worth every penny you end up dropping for this great little game.

Game #3: Don't Starve

I've heard some people compare Don't Starve to Minecraft, but it's nothing like Minecraft so those people need a bit of a slap.

Don't starve is KIND of a rougelike but not really.  It's a rougelike in the sense that the world is random every time and it has perma death, but it's more of a survival game than a "get to the end of the dungeon in one go" game.

You fire up the game, pick a character and then are dropped into a big horrible world full of god knows what trying to kill you.  On top of having to survive that, you have to make sure that you collect resources and food to keep yourself alive and allow you to explore further and further through your randomly generated island of madness.  There's lots to do, lots to see and plenty of mystery when you're new and it can really draw you in and keep you playing for hours and hours.

I've not played any of Don't Starve for a good while now due to trying to work my way feverishly through my backlog, but last time I played it was being updated quite frequently, so with a stream of new content coming from the developer and an active modding community Don't Starve has the potential to give you months and months, if not years of entertainment.

Game #2: Code of Joker

Sorry folks, but my second favourite game of this year is a Japan only arcade game, so if you want to play this one you might want to book a plane ticket.

Code of Joker is a little bit hard to describe but the way I put it forward to my friends is "imagine if you took Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering and the Pokemon trading card game and smashed them all together" and that about sums the whole thing up.

While it's a little expensive at 300 Yen per play, matches do tend to last a while and you are given more and more cards every time.  Also you don't need to carry a deck around with you since it is kept on a nice little stat card that you register when you put in your first credit.

There's a large number of cards so there is plenty of room to tailor a strategy that suits you and on top of that you get to pick one character out of a pool of about....7...I think...each with their own unique power that may change the tide of a duel if it's not going so well for you.

Couple that with every single Code of Joker machine being hooked up to an internet connection so that you can play anyone in Japan from any game centre in the country and it makes for a fun time.  It's a shame this kind of coin-op innovation isn't more readily available in western countries.

GAME NUMBER 1! Metal Gear Rising AND Killer Is Dead

The memory of playing these 2 games are the ones that have stuck with me and these are the two games I remember having the most fun with this year (except Deadly Premonition but that wasn't 2013) however I can't decide which one I liked more, so they both win.  If you don't like 2 games winning a joint first then shut up and make your own damn list.

Let's start with MGR, a fast paced character action game with an absolutely batshit crazy plot and solid hacky slashy game play with a few gimmicks that made it feel kind of fresh.  Sure, it was kind of short but if it was any longer than those gimmicks I just mentioned would start to feel very tired; it was JUST the right length but the general shortness of the game didn't stop me from getting hours and hours of playtime out of it.  There are higher difficulty settings, a challenge room and if you're like me you'll replay the shit out of it for mission rankings so being able to blast through the game in a pretty short period of time is actually pretty good for a game like this, it has the content to back it up.

Then there is Killer is Dead, a game in the same genre developed by the industries resident nutjob Suda51.  The game follows a suave as all hell main character as he goes around assassinating people and uncovering his dark past.  While the game play didn't FEEL quite as deep as MGR, it was just as satisfying.  Overblown visual effects, satisfying sound design as crazy as fuck levels and bosses made for a truly memorable game.  It kind of felt like a strange hybrid between Killer7 and No More Heroes in a way and how can you go wrong with a mix like that?

HONOURABLE MENTION: Papers, Please

I wanted to put this game somewhere on the actual list but since the game play really doesn't amount to much more than spot the difference then I couldn't really bring myself to do it.  That said, Papers, Please is easily one of the best indie games I've ever played and it's a title I would thoroughly recommend to absolutely anyone.

On the surface, Papers, Please sounds like one of the most boring games that could possibly have ever been made.  You play as a border control inspector for the country of Arstotzka and it is up to you to check the documents of the various immigrants trying to enter your country.  For each in game day you are given a set of rules and you must follow these rules to the letter or lose whatever little money that you have left to support your family.

While you are checking documents you find yourself caught up in a number of different little story lines, some big and some small and all of them are quite interesting.  From your little booth you not only manage to get caught up in some political espionage (if you choose to do so) but you also play a key role in a lot of peoples lives since it is ultimately up to you if their stories can continue or not.  At some points in the game the decision between entry or denial is the same thing as life or death but the games overall setup makes it very hard to want to do the right thing.  For such a simple idea with such boring sounding game play, it manages to be rather powerful.

Also I really enjoyed checking documents and coming down on arsebags trying to cheat their way into my country.  GLORY TO ARSTOTZKA!

Anyway that's the end of the list, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe discovered a new game or two that's worth playing.  If you're that upset about the big 3 AAA games of the year not being on there well don't worry, I'll be posting up my thoughts on them when I get round to beating/playing them.

Happy new year everybody! Let's hope 2014 brings us even more great games.

The Importance of Game Feel

A few days ago I had a bit of a gush about Killer is Dead and there is one thing I forgot to talk about in that post that I'll take about right now instead.

Killer is Dead has quite simplistic combat.  It only really uses two buttons and their aren't complex combos to learn or complicated weapon switching mix up stuff or even jumping, but the games combat still succeeds because it FEELS really good.  Everything Mondo does in that game has this weight to it that makes beating up on bad guys really fun.  Not only that, but there are lots of visual cues that tell you when your being a badass.  For example, dodging an enemy attack at just the right time will make everything go black and red for a second and you can do this crazy over the top slice thing that just involves mashing the square button on your controller.

This kind of extreme visual feedback makes you feel like your being some kind of amazing bad ass despite the simplistic combat and it really helps to carry the game.  One of the reasons that Devil May Cry (not DmC) is so popular is that you have that amazing game feel AND really deep combat so it's satisfying on multiple levels once you get really good at it.

On the flip side, a lack of this game feel can really ruin the experience on some games.  The best example I can think of right now for this is Aliens: Colonial Marines.  Ignoring the fact that pretty much everything about the game is a pile of shit, the general feel of this game just makes it awful to play.  The gun play isn't fun and visual and audio effects on hitting and killing enemies is just the absolute worst and as a result the game just feels like an absolute chore.  Pile that on with all the other problems the game has and well......just go and look at the results for yourself.

If a game feels good there is a lot people can look past and it'll motivate them to keep playing.  This is really the case with me and Dead Space, a game I can't stand for it's pseudo horror monster closet filled bullshit but killing enemies and stomping them with your giant boots feels so good I can't help but enjoy myself when I play it.

So yeah, game feel, it's important, get it right.

Killer Is Dead

Killer is Dead is a game I have not finished yet, but due to it being fucking amazing I just had to talk about it right now.

The game follows one very smartly dressed assassin known as Mondo Zappa and his adventures doing work for an orginisation that involves killing an array of downright weird targets with the help of his happy go lucky school girl friend.  He has a big robot arm and a tormented past and he gets caught up having to deal with some guy called David doing all sorts of evil stuff from his base of operations on the moon.  Keep in mind though that this plot was written by non other than Suda51 of Killer7 fame and isn't scared to go right off the handle at basically any point during the game.

The gameplay revolves around hacking and slashing your way through levels of strange robot zombie things called Wires before eventually fighting one of the games strange and incredibly intresting boss characters.  On the way you'll find pickups to improve your weaponry, health and blood gauges that will help make the killing of extremely dangerous criminals a lot easier.

On top of all that there are a ton of side missions that involve all sorts of varied and interesting goals such as securing a bonsai tree or making laps of a Kyoto village while running over Wires.  If you need a break from the killing there are the games Gigolo Missions which involve hitting on attractive women and giving them presents so that their mutual feelings result in them giving you an upgrade of some description.  I could rant for an entire post about the press's reaction to Gigolo mode but instead of that I'll just say that the content off these missions has been grossly exagerated.

The graphics are also really slick with cool looking character models and interesting levels that are varied enough to stop you from being bored visually speaking.  The music is also pretty good and the game comes with both Japanese and English voice audio if you're the kind of person that wanted to hear the script delivered by the Japanese cast.  The English voice actors did a good job of delivering the lines though so it would be worth switching between the two for the full experience.

That said the game isn't perfect and the biggest thing they fucked up with this one was the difficulty.  Hard Mode was obviously designed to be played on a new game+ (assuming there is one) and playing it on your first time round can seem a little unmanageable at certain points, especially the side missions.  The problem with this is that normal mode is way too easy and I have no idea what the challenge is like on easy mode but judging from my current experience you could probably beat the game with one hand there.

The game also has a few bugs of which I shall share two stories with.  On one level, after performing a special kill on an enemy I just fell through the floor and had to restart the mission from a check point which was rather annoying because sometimes the checkpoints can put you quite a ways back.  On a side mission involving a gun turret one of my targets glitched behind a wall that I could not shoot through which resulted in me having to start the whole thing over from the beggining which pissed me off to no end.

Still, difficulty problems aren't game breaking as you can still enjoy the experience on any setting and game bugs are infrequent if a little annoying so Killer is Dead is still worth picking up and blasting through just for it's truly unique brand of Suda51 strangeness.

All Aboard the Hype Train!

I don't usually get hyped up for games anymore, I find that everything that I expect to be good, is usually disappointing, but this has got my hype levels to go through the roof!

Killer Is Dead is a new game from Suda51, which is enough to get me at least interested, but the reason I am so hyped about it is because it seems to have that strange Killer7 vibe and in case you didn't see the post, I REALLY fucking like Killer7.

I'll post the trailer below but it seems to be the same kind of plot as pretty much every Suda51 one game, which involves assassins of some description, and absolute craziness.  Luckily for us too, the whole trailer isn't just cutscenes and we get to see some of the actual game, which looks like Killer7 and No More Heroes had a baby.  Slamming those two games together with a good narrative could mean something truly special.

But don't just take my word for it, watch the damn trailer!

Can't wait!