DrBloodmoney's Super Scientific Ranking of Games!

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

 

☢️SCIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENCE!☢️

 

Welcome, my Scientific Chums, to the Super Scientific Game Awards for 2022!

 

Please check your lab coats at the front desk, don your Tuxedos/Kilts/Ball-gowns, grab a drink at the bar, and take your seats!

You all did this last year, we all know the score!

All seated?
Drinks in hand?
Fans and cooling water at the ready incase of hot-takes / burns?
Outraged-response-typing-fingers at the ready?

Then let us begin!

 

 

 

 

With the Super-Scientific Games Calendar for 2022 running from December 21st of 2021, to December 20th 2022, (and no more entries likely before that deadline,) that means:

 

There were 78 trophy lists I earned at least a single trophy from during the 2022 period, of which, 74 were S-Ranked!

 

Note - I'm changing this slightly since the previous year, with regards to the eligibility of remakes / remasters. Previously if a game was a remake or replay of a game played in previous years, I didn't let it count. However, upon reflection, I think that was an error... since the Super Scientific Awards were not in existence during those first plays! 

Now, I'm sticking with the idea that if a game is a replay / remaster of a game already eligible in a previous year then it is still out of the running. 
However, if it is a replay of a game originally played prior to the existence of these awards, I think it is only fair to allow it a chance to scientifically shine!

In that spirit, I am also allowing games who's DLC I played this year to qualify, even if the original base game was done ages ago (as per last year,) with the only exception being the "Best Moment" award. Those Re-gained S-Ranks count - but only if the moment itself was played this year!

 

So, of these 78, I have weeded out the ineligible few, to form an eligible pool of 69 (Dudes!) games in contention for these illustrious 2022 Awards!

 

 

 

As such, I invite you to gaze in wonderment and splendour upon...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 9 games that were played, but are considered ineligible, were for the following reasons:

 

4 games - Alan Wake Remastered, Solar Ash, Tetris Effect, Far Cry 6 - remain incomplete, and will be eligible in a year if/when they are S-Ranked.

1 game - The Gardens Between - was a PS5 re-pop of a game already eligible this year.

4 games - Life is Strange: True Colours, Superliminal, Returnal and Deathloop - were games where either a replay of a new version, or DLC was played, but those games were included in the Awards last year, and so have already had their chance to shine!

 

 

 

As such, I direct your attention in the direction of:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyways, that's quite enough foreplay, we came here for Awards, dammit!
Without further ado, let's begin with a bang:
 

 

 

 

 

An easy, statistical one to start with (But the biggest in grandeur, of course!) - this award is based on placement on the current rankings - essentially the top 4 games on the list, in order, if only this years played games are considered.

There is, after all, a reason these games ranked so highly - and here, we celebrate it!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Elden Ring
(Reviewed in BATCH 39)
 

 

There's an extent to which this category is a fait accompli - last year, the best game I played was also the No.1 Ranked game on the entire list, in Hitman 3...
...and this year, Hitman retains that position, but the best game I played is the game right below it, in the current No.2 spot -  Elden Ring.

The boring choice? Of course - I suspect Elden Ring will be gracing the top of the majority of award ceremonies this year - but with good cause! Miyazaki's magnum opus, and the culmination of a decade-long journey that saw virtually every game leading to it grace top-tens of the years they released (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro,) but in Elden Ring, everything that made those games great was finessed and transposed to a gigantic open world, yet managed to lose none of the things that made them special.

Pissing in the chips of virtually every open world game to come before it, (and likely, to come after for a good long while,) Elden Ring is vast, detailed, varied, incredible... and the best game I earned a trophy in this year!

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Outer Wilds
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)
 

 

Having played the base game in its entirety several years ago, returning to Outer Wilds for the excellent Echoes of the Eye DLC was something I knew I would enjoy...
...but the level to which returning warned my heart still caught me off guard. 

The music in the intro was like a warm blanket, flying off from Timber Hearth felt like putting the explorer boots on for one more victory lap around a beautiful and conquered world...
...and then poking into the new mystery - which turned out to be as vast, mysterious and incredible as anything in the original game was like opening a cupboard door, and glimpsing Narnia behind the coats. 

One of the most incredible, mysterious, mystifying, comforting-yet-terrifying, beguiling-yet-awe-inspiring, confusing-yet-alluring experiences on the console suddenly got a whole new area, a whole new mystery, and a whole new avenue of philosophical musing, perfectly adding to and recontextualising the original game, without ever retconning or trampling on the amazing work already there. 

A DLC so good, it made me spend another 20 hours just exploring the base-game after completing it is something really special - and Outer Wilds is something very very special. 

No.3 on the over all ranking, and the No.2 best game I earned a trophy in this year!

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Dead Cells
(Reviewed in BATCH 9)
 

A game I returned to this year, when developer Motion Twin finally hit the "Go" button, and added trophies to the metric fuck-tonne of DLC they had quietly been adding to the game since its original inception...
...and it took about 2 minutes of zipping, slashing and rolling my way around the first area to start asking myself "why have I not been playing this game this whole time?!"

Dead Cells represents both a best in class example of a rogue-like, and a best in class example of modern pixel-art precision gameplay... but now, it can add anther string to its bow - a best in class example of a developer continuing to finesse, curate and build upon a game post launch!

The enormous wealth of DLC in the game has more than doubled the size of it - and only for the better. Every new area and enemy and weapon added is so perfectly suited, it feels like a jigsaw piece slotting in - and is of such uniform high quality, that it genuinely blurs the lines between what was there before, and what is new. I found myself continually misremembering what elements of the game were brand new, and what I simply hadn't seen before - and in a game as high quality as Dead Cells, that is a rare compliment!

The overall game is variable, challenging, infinitely repeatable... blindingly fast and ridiculously fun! Now, with such a massive amount of potential content, a player could easily sink a few hundred hours into the game, and still be hungry for more.

A triumph to begin with, and more than that - an ongoing triumph!

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Inscryption
(Reviewed in BATCH 50)
 

Inscryption is a game I knew was more than it seemed on the surface when I went in - but that still did not stop the game being a wild, unpredictable and incredibly engaging ride from start to finish!

Hopping genres like a frog on lily-pads, setting up and knocking down mysteries as fast as it can perfect them, and trimmed completely of fat, to the extent that not most things, but everything in the game is of value, and of interest.

Inscryption manages to be both compoundingly mystifying, unflinchingly genre-defiant, yet completely coherent across its entire, multi-act, multi-game narrative.
It's a game where the meta-game is the most important element, yet each of the "games-within-the-games" is fun enough to really engage, and so the experience of playing it feels, in some sense, like discovering a lost series of games you never knew about... while also solving a supernatural mystery!

A game that never stops surprising the player, and where the developer has taken the time to not only flesh out the main beats, but has been willing to craft entire functional sections of new game, just to embellish short, one or two minute sections - knowing as they do, what stuff cannot be faked or fudged if the impact is needed. 

Imaginative, lovingly crafted, singularly unique and breathtakingly engaging, Inscryption meets and surpasses the high watermark for this very specific strain of "not what it seems" games previously set by the likes of Frog Fractions, The Stanley Parable and Doki Doki Literature Club. 

I'd wager that if those were the breakout albums that created the genre...
... Inscryption is the magnum opus album that will define it when history looks back.

 

 

 

 

Another statistical one - this award based on placement on the current rankings - essentially the bottom 4 games on the list, in order, if only this years played games are considered.

Not all these games are without merit, redemption or some good aspects, of course... I try not to play games that are true stinkers!
These are the lowest ranked, but - it should be noted - not necessarily all garbage fires. Some didn't quite measure up to their potential, some made some mistakes, and all just didn't measure up to the rest of the games I played this year!

SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC NOTE: There are a few games I haven't yet ranked, and so they are saved from this award. Perhaps a little unfair, however, they also missed out on the "Best" Category, so it does balance out to some extent!
Also - Spoiler Alert - those two games (The Entropy Centre, and Heavenly Bodies) will - I guarantee - not rank low enough to even come close to this award anyways!

 

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Fear Effect Sedna
(Reviewed in BATCH 52)

A fascinating exercise in failure, on virtually every front, Fear Effect Sedna really begs the question... "If you're going to revive a franchise long dormant, and this is the best you can muster... why bother?"

A game that looked appealing enough (and actually, looks pretty damned nice, all told,) but is fundamentally flawed in design, deeply flawed in execution, and all held together by a story utterly bogged down by dialogue that feels written by an algorithm, and delivered by the high-school understudies.

Fear Effect Sedna was going to be a potential springboard to trying out the old PSOne Fear Effect games...
...and it still might be, but for very different reasons than I hoped.

I had wanted it to entice me into checking out the original games - now, I might need to see them.... just to try and figure out how it all went so wrong here!

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Access Denied
(Reviewed in BATCH 33)

A concept that can work a charm - just ask the excellent, extremely capable and very smart and fun VR equivalent, Statik: Institute of Control... but here, the "tinker with a puzzle-box" style gameplay is woefully let down by dull puzzle design, lack of challenge, tedious and uninteresting visuals and audio, and an almost breathtaking lack of engagement.

There are many great puzzle-box games - Statik, as mentioned, The Room series - in fact iOS is home to many good ones.

This is...
...not one of those.

 

It just looks like one... and only if you squint pretty hard.

 

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Moons of Madness
(Reviewed in BATCH 36)

An unfortunate lack of good narrative beats, abundance of tired, hackneyed horror tropes, and some of the most balls-to-the-wall bizarre character dialogue and reactions really undercut what is - in concept - a pretty solid HP-Lovecraft-in-Space Cosmic Horror game.

The "hard-science" technical elements wear thin quickly and are only skin-deep, the scares are limp, the audio flat, (and wildly ridiculous, with lines often overlapping, (even lines in different tones, from the same character!) and the whole thing just limps along from a promising start, to a dismal finish.

A depressing flop.

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Morbid: The Seven Acolytes
(Reviewed in BATCH 34)

Morbid is a good idea on paper - a Souls-like in 16-bit era pixel-art style, and it does have some plus points: It looks nice, and the basic spine of the story is cool. It even has a couple of very inventive and fun bosses.

The locations are cool, and some of the combat feels okay...
...but enemy and encounter deign is poor, the game's challenge is limp, and the souls-credentials only skin deep, and often antithetical to its gameplay elements. 
Balancing of combat encounters is a real problem, and character movement and positioning is irksome on a level rarely seen outside of early 90's side-scrolling brawlers. 

A pity, as this one showed real promise, but in the end, we as gamers are not hurting for indie souls-adjacent games. These days - you can't swing a rotting corpse on a pike without hitting one! - 
Morbid is, therefore, offering a sub-standard product to a crowded market, and offers very little reason to draw a second look from a player.

 

 

 

 

 

This Award is fairly self explanatory - the best game I played that is a new entry in a franchise I had played before. 

 

SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC NOTE: I consider that if an entry in a franchise is eligible for this award, it cannot also be eligible for the "Best New IP / Franchise" award. A franchise may have multiple entries, all of which I played for the first time this year, but for eligibility purposes, that makes it a New IP to me!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Resident Evil VII: Biohazard
(Reviewed in BATCH 45)

 

This one is a relative fait accompli - there are some great sequels I played this year, but none among them that had an albatross hanging round their neck like the turgid Resident Evil 6!

It's pretty rare for any game series to manage to so wholly reinvent itself the way Resident Evil did with Resident Evil VII, and even rarer for that reinvention to be so incredibly successful that after playing it, it almost feels odd going back to the older games!

RE7 achieves exactly the near-impossible task the franchise required - a wholesale reinvention of itself, while retaining all the good, and none of the bad elements, and does it with such style, such flair, such scares and such confidence, that it should be taught in game theory 101.
Capcom not only crafted the best entry in the entire franchise upon the mangled corpse of its woe-begotten predecessor, but even managed to add a wealth and breath of DLC that would stun a team of oxen in its tracks... and still maintain the high bar of quality in that too!

A stunning return to form, making a once glorious and relevant franchise glorious and relevant anew!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Elden Ring
(Reviewed in BATCH 39)

I debated a long time whether to include Elden Ring in the Best New Franchise / IP category, or the Best Sequel Category... it feels like both, and neither is really a perfect fit - but it's definitely the best of something!

The fact is, Elden Ring IS a new IP, however, it has such a direct lineage to the Soulsborne games, and is so beholden to them, that it does feel less like a debut, and more like a culmination. 
There have been thousands of reviews of Elden Ring written - probably hundreds of musings on this very site, even - and I struggle to imagine a single one of those reviews making it to the end, without using the term "Dark Souls" or "Soulsborne" somewhere in there!

The game absolutely belongs to the Souls lineage, and moreover, represents and evolution in that lineage that is absolute. The jump to open world is so masterfully and smartly implemented, avoiding the usual degradation in specificity, originality and individuality that generally accompany such a change in a franchise, and expanding the formula into something both more approachable, more encompassing, more engrossing and more variable than any of the examples that came before.

Serving both as a proof that "open world" does not have to mean Bethesda-style reductions in quality and increase in jank, and as evidence that the gameplay of Souls games is not some niche genre for the masochistic and the hardcore, Elden Ring is a game that is virtually guaranteed to remain a go-to example of massive, single player experiences that cater to the "serious gamer" whilst maintaining populist sales figures. 

Indeed, the argument necessary to counter the industry myth that the single player game is dying, or needs copious micro-transactions or significant modularisation to appeal is now two words long: "Elden Ring."

For that reason alone, Elden Ring is an important and vital step in the evolution of popular games...
...and that's without even mentioning how exciting, massive, epic, mystifying, awe-inspiring and goddamn fun it is to play!

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Psychonauts 2
(Reviewed in BATCH 32)
 

Almost competing with Resident Evil VII I'n terms of mountains to climb in producing a sequel - but in the case of Psychonauts, it wasn't a bad game, but a lack of game it was contending with. 

Yes, there was Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin for VR that came along and at least proved that the great art-style of the original Psychonauts would work in a more modern context, but really, that was just a taste, and but one of the hurdles Psychonauts would have to clear in order to have a sequel live up to expectations. 
There was also the issue of the very high quality and beloved first game...
...and the fact that while excellent, some of the more "problematic" elements of that original game would not necessarily play in the current landscape.

Well, Psychonauts 2 managed to take everything in its stride - retaining all the charm and whimsy of the original game, its great writing, imagination and art-style, but eschew some of the more flippant elements, and actually lean into a much more nuanced and smart take on mental health. 
It never feels preachy or melodramatic, and retains all the best elements of the first game, yet shifts the tone far from problematic - to genuinely empathetic and helpful... and does it all while being an excellent modern example of that largely disappearing genre - the 3D Action Platformer.

A joy from start to finish, a hell of a great looking and playing game, and proof positive (if ever it was needed) that Tim Schaffer can never be counted out!

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Life is Strange: Before the Storm
(Reviewed in BATCH 37)

Technically a remaster of a game I played years ago, but I played it this year, and if anyone thinks I'm going to allow an award celebrating great sequels to skip over the BEST Life is Strange game, they do not know me but at all!

The second Life is Strange game (and Deck Nine's) first is a smaller, more intimate game and story, and one that really shouldn't work. 
It removes one of the core conceits of Life is Strange (there is no "superpower" or "time mechanics,) the main character from that game is entirely absent, and the main one from this game is voiced by a different actress. There is less in the way of real gameplay, and most of all - we know how it has to end, given that it is a prequel set only a year or so prior to the first game...

...yet what Deck Nine too with that hand they are dealt is simply spell-binding. 

Before the Storm is the most intimate the Life is Strange games ever get - the most "you and me against the world" - and its 3 act play about the sparking, and kindling of a friendship and first love, is sweet, well crafted, poignant... and horribly, painfully sad, given the dramatic irony elements the prequel status creates.

It not only makes for a great game, but actively enhances the original game in the series, has the best soundtrack in a series known for its excellent soundtracks, and even manages to humanise and flesh out characters form both the past, and future games. 

Before the Storm isn't just the best game in the franchise, it is the game that made it a franchise, and is the lynchpin, holding together Life is Strange as a franchise.

A brilliant lesson in less-is-more, and the baton-pass from DotNod to Deck Nine as the true stewards of  Life is Strange.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one isn't really about a game being a "new franchise" in a global sense, as much as it is about it being "new" to me. It doesn't necessarily require a game to have multiple entries in its respective franchise either - but POTENTIAL equalisation does play a part. Games like Inscryption, Outer Wild or Tunic, for example, ARE great new IPs, however, they aren't necessarily games I would be clamouring for a sequel to. They feel one-and-done in a way some other games might not.

Really, what this award is, is "How fast would I hit the purchase button if I heard there was a sequel!".

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Kena: Bridge of Spirits
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

Kena is not just a hell of a good game from a young studio - one that looks great, has oodles of personality, smart gameplay design, deceptively exacting combat encounters, and lots of fun environmental puzzle solving and exploration - it is also a game that sets up a whole new world, that could easily, (and all likelihood, will,) support more entries in the franchise.

In many ways, Kena feels like a natural modernisation of games from the PS2 / PS3 era - where character-action games were king, and exploration / combat in a loose-but-not-open world was the primary avenue for AAA and B-Games - and Kena has all the personality of a good solid PS2 B-Game, with visuals to match a modern AAA one.

With the added tough - almost Souls-like - combat model, and some great imaginative character and enemy design, this first entry feels like a solid foundation for a whole series to come... and I'll be there for the next one, with bells on!

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Griftlands
(Reviewed in BATCH 50)

Griftlands is not a game I expect to see a sequel for - Klei being, as they are, schizophrenic in genre, and masterfully able to slip from one world to the next - but a man can dream, and frankly, of all the Klei games I have played, Griftlands does feel the most potentially open to a sequel, if such a game were ever floated.

Deck Builders are niche, but great visuals, post-apocalyptic worlds and rogue-likes are not, and Griftlands manages to meld all of those together, while simultaneously creating a wholly different feeling Deck Builder via its unusual duo-deck, combat / negotiation mechanics. 

A brilliant game from start to finish, and one that - like many Klei games - has stayed on my system after the S-Rank. If a follow up were announced, I'd be the first to jump for joy, the first to pre-order, and the first to buy!

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Stray
(Reviewed in BATCH 47)

Another game not necessarily built with sequels in mind - indeed, the melancholic ending of Stray in some ways might be diminished by sequelisation...
...but then, I said the same of the brilliant ending to The Last of Us, and that game had a sequel that outdid its predecessor in every conceivable way!

For many of the same reasons as Kena, Stray is a game that feels open to a sequel - the mechanics are ever-green, the world it builds feels fleshed out and whole, in a way that could easily support more discovery and exploration - and since only the briefest hints were ever seen of "outside"... there is a tantalising avenue for discovering just what the whole deal with that city was!

I suspect the massive sales of Stray will be far too tempting to see the dev abandon the world they created after a single game - and as good as Stray was at the length it was, a future, longer entry in this series could absolutely work...

...so here's hoping!

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: The Forgotten City
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

The Forgotten City is a game where the specific narrative doesn't lend itself to sequels at all - but the concepts and mechanics - the time-looping combination of conversation, stealth, detective exploration, mystery-solving, politics and time-management in a small-cast, contained environment worked far too well for the developer not to at least consider sequel possibilities. 

That the game was born out of a mod for Skyrim is quite astounding, given that in all the areas it crosses over with that game it outdoes it. 
In fact, between Outer Worlds and The Forgotten City, I feel like the bubble is truly burst on the Bethesda ideal of "Bigger is Better" model.

Like Life is Strange did for Telltale's old game design, The Forgotten City shows the player what a jump in quality they can have if size and scope is sacrificed in favour of nuance and fine-detail... and I suspect it will be harder to appreciate the old Bethesda model, having experienced the same style of game with a much more dedicated and crafted attention to detail version under their belt!

I'd like more of that please!

 

 

 

 

 

This is the award for good writing and narrative - games with outstanding stories, great dialogue, or - ideally - both!

 

SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC NOTE: The main "Best Game" category tends to favour the whole package, with 'gameplay' being the biggest factor, but some games which don't rank in the top spots there, still have great writing for your brain to chew on, and so this is where we celebrate those!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: The Forgotten City
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

The Brain Candy Award has a very strong line up this year. There are games with tremendous world-building and lore, games with great dialogue, games very well written in terms of pacing, games with well handled player-choice-based writing, and games with fascinating mysteries...
...but the winner is one that nails all those elements in one!

The Forgotten City is a game that has massive hurdles to contend with - it is a mystery that needs to work in spite of player control of pacing, it has a small enough cast, that every character needs to be memorable and distinct, yet large enough to require complex relationships between them and the player - plus it has to deal with the narrative issues inherent to time-loop stories. All the while, it has to be building up and explaining a complicated and smart sci-fi premise! 

The Forgotten City not only manages to thread all those needles successfully, but it does it in a way that really imbues each character with life and personality - makes the player like or dislike individual NPCs, and even allows for some real fun and humour using the time-looping elements. 

The fact that the developers have managed to craft the game out of the original Skyrim Mod only cements the strength of the writing - the writing and concept were the reason the Mod was revered, and having a "second bite at the apple" has resulted in a game that feels far more writerly and confident in its plotting and pacing than one might expect from a studio debut.

A great game all round, and a fantastic piece of Brain Candy!

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Inscryption
(Reviewed in BATCH 52)

Inscryption is a game with both obvious, and subtle aspects of quality to its writing. 
Of course, stringing a game together that incorporates so much mystery, genre-defiance, clever fourth-wall-breaking and smart subversion of game tropes is a task in and of itself (and would likely have been enough to secure Inscryption's place in the running for this award anyway,) but what really seals the deal is the little flourishes on top of that.

Dialogue in the game is very well done - the developer manages to imbue a sense of real fascination with its eerie mystery right from the outset, using very little actual writing.
When characters like the Stoat Card talk, they manage to give him a clear, undeniable and recognisable personality. Even though all the player has to personify him is a playing card... they can recognise him later, when showing up in an entirely different form and under wildly different circumstances. 

The FMV sections are subtly and cleverly written too - feeling perfectly analogous to the real-life YouTube videos they are aping, yet keeping the mystery and eerie tone up, and adding to the players fascination masterfully.

The ways in which old genres are aped, with a knowing strain of modernism and out-of-place awareness is brilliant, and when it comes to the end of the game, and the nature of it all is revealed, the game devolves into a truly interesting and genuinely poignant statement on the nature of existence, life, death and games. 

Inscryption is a must play - and the writing is the primary driver for that!

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Life is Strange: Before the Storm
(Reviewed in BATCH 37)

I've talked my bollocks off about Before the Storm before (in these very awards too!) so I'll keep this one succinct. 

Before the Storm is the best entry in a great franchise, and the one that manages to somehow be a prequel and side story, yet form the lynchpin of the whole series. That the shortest entry in the franchise is also the one most important to the overall lore - and that it does so without the crutch of a supernatural element, or the guidance of DotNod (who were, at least at the time, the custodians of the IP,) is impressive...
...and that has to be recognised as a triumph primarily of writing!

After all - the gameplay is rudimentary - what sets Life is Strange up as a franchise is the ability for the players to form an emotional connection to the characters, and that is all in the writing.

From the awkward teenage dialogue, to the well established characters, to the feel of the town and the tone of the game, it's all fundamentally stemming from one aspect - Deck Nine wrote the game well!

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Weird West
(Reviewed in BATCH 40)

Wolfeye studios' first game - Weird West - was a little bit rough around the edges in a few different ways. Its combat was a bit finicky and imprecise, its isometric viewpoint made some of its exploration and character elements tough, and the less said about its ability to convey elevation in its level design the better...

...but the one area where it really shines, is in its writing!

A game taking place over 5 acts, where each affects the next, and decisions made in one directly change the other is a tough thing to pull off, but Weird West does it well, letting the player do pretty much whatever they want, and having the narratives hold together through thick and thin!

The world-building of the strange, arcane, occult version of the Wild West is interesting and alluring, the use of narrators and fourth wall breaking is smart, (and justified in-world,) and the ability for the game to give characters who are rather nondescript in terms of visuals a real personality is impressive.

Weird West is game that can be a little rough to play sometimes when it comes to action...
...but it's a small price to pay to experience such a well written, variable narrative in such a cool, distinct world!

 

 

 

 

This is the award for a game looking great!

 

This is a category that can be a little tricky to judge, as there are two distinct elements to visuals - "art and design," and "technical graphics." While I've certainly considered doing two awards, one for "Best Graphics: Technical" and "Best Graphics: Artistic", I've shied away from that - for two reasons.

Firstly, because that inevitably leads to a "two-tier" system, where the former is exclusively populated by big, "AAA" games, whose budgets allow for the kind of technical prowess Indie and lower-budget games can't, which tends to give over-emphasis to "AAA" games that are technically powerful, but actually pretty dull artistically...

...but secondly, because I actually don't think it matters. 

Good looking is good looking - and whether that is achieved through technical prowess or art-style, is immaterial when it comes to going "damn, that looks Niiiiiiiice!" 

 

SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC NOTE: The main "Best Game" category tends to favour the whole package, with 'gameplay' being the biggest factor, but some games that don't rank in the top spots there, are still a feast for the eyes, and so this is where we celebrate those!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Manifold Garden
(Reviewed in BATCH 42)

Manifold Garden has no on-screen characters, it has no dialogue, it has no tres-effects or motion-capture or lip-synching.
All it really has is geometric blocks...
...but holy shit, if they aren't the best looking geometric blocks you ever saw!

Operating like a kaleidoscope of geometric, mathematic precision, Manifold Garden uses its simplistic aesthetic to craft a world like one you have never seen - with blocks and polygons dancing around like a million synchronised swimmers as it builds its visual crescendos. 
The basic traversal of the game requires a colour palate that can switch in hue to 6 distinct tones, each of which looks great, and the infinitely repeating world has the feel of MC Escher as viewed through the lens of Portal, but when the game adds effects to this, as it does time and again, the results are hypnotic, mesmerising, and quite unlike anything else. 

The Eye Candy Award can reward technical or artistic visuals, and I'm certain Manifold Garden is firmly in the latter camp - but frankly, unlike virtually every other game, I cannot conceive of a single aspect of Manifold Garden's visuals that could be improved by further enhancement of the technical side. 

The artistic palate is beyond reproach, and as such, it takes the top spot!

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Rollerdrome
(Reviewed in BATCH 51)

Cell shaded art styles are not traditionally a big favourite of mine - or, should I say, they weren't back in the days when they were becoming a selling point, or a note-of-interest on the back-of-the-box selling points in videogames. To be honest, I tended to find the "we've given it a black outline, so we'll call these polygons "Cell Shaded"..." felt more of a crutch than a virtue back in those days...

However, technology has caught up to the point where cell-shaded graphics can accurately replicate - and in some cases, even surpass - genuine cell-shaded comic book styles, and never has that style looked better than in Rollerdrome!

Every single second of the game, if paused and screen-shotted, looks not just like a comic-book pane, but like a top-end, Frank Quietly-style comic book pane.
The thin-lined, solid colour art-style always conveys exactly the info it needs to, and looks stylish-as-all-fuck doing it!

 

Everything, from gunshots, to explosions, to fire look fantastic both still and in motion, and the ability for a fully 3D game to look like a perfect 2D still from any angle is both difficult to do, and done perfectly here. The result is staggering to see.

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: The Artful Escape
(Reviewed in BATCH 36)

A game that is light on gameplay, light on length, but leaves an indelible and long lasting impression on the player is rare - but The Artful Escape is one such game.

The music is stellar, the writing is great and the tone and characterisations are all excellent, but arguably the strongest - and most unique - element of The Artful Escape is its visuals.

The whole game is predicated on the euphoric power of music, and that music is great, but even more then that, the visual representation of the music, and of that uplifting power via psychedelic visuals, insane, borderline-crazy transitional visual interstitials, wild and strange creatures and character models, and imaginative and gorgeous environments is a sight to behold.

The game is an absurdist romp from the pedestrian, idillic Calypso, Colorado, wherein a lovely Wes Anderson-inspired visual flavour makes the player feel right at home, to the far reaches of a trippy galaxy of noise that looks as great as it does bizarre... yet never seems to lose the games fundamental visual style.

A gorgeous, silly, wild, strange, beautiful mess of a game in the best way possible, The Artful Escape is a game where the visuals (and the game itself) cannot be predicted from one moment to another, but every change of venue and every new character seems to outdo the last... as it sails breathlessly to its inspirational and visually stunning climax. 

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Hoa
(Reviewed in BATCH 33)

A bit of an underwhelming game in terms of length and gameplay, Hoa does have some real problems (as outlined in the review)...
...but the one area it needs no excuses made for, is its visuals.

Arguably the best example there has ever been of Studio Ghibli-style hand-animation in videogames (a field that includes not one, but two games actually associated with Studio Ghibli!) Hoa is an absolutely stunning example of hand-drawn 2D platforming.

Every area and screen of the game is a work of art worthy of framing and hanging on a wall. 
In fact, the visual flair of the game is so strong, (surpassing by a long way, even well regarded and sterling examples within the genre, like Rayman Origins, Ori and the Blind Forest and Dust: An Elysian Tale,) that they are the primary reason the short length of the game is so disappointing. 

I wanted to see more of it, more than I even wanted to play more of it!
 

Were there more of it, with the same high standard of visuals, Hoa would likely be in contention to take the top spot of this award... however, the short length does hamper it a little, as it limits how much art there actually is...
...but one need only look at some of the games I played this year that didn't make the cut, to realise how impressive the visuals of this too-short, basic platformer really are!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the award for a game sounding great. That might be due to great music, or great voice work, or excellent foley work, or some combination, but these games just sound the business!

SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC NOTE: The main "Best Game" category tends to favour the whole package, with 'gameplay' being the biggest factor, but some games which don't rank in the top spots there, are still a majestic symphony for the ears, and so this is where we celebrate those!

 

 

 

WINNER: Sayonara Wild Hearts
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

Sayonara Wild Hearts is a strange game -part rhythm game, part driving game, part speed-platformer, part auto-runner - and the level to which it leans into each of these genres tends to ebb and flow throughout its duration.
The one thing that never changes, however, is the awesome music the entire game is built around!

Coming from Sigmogo - developer of probably the most awesome mobile game ever made in Device 6 -  I had high expectations for Sayonara Wild Hearts, but none of their previous output had prepared me for what my primary take-away from this game would be - namely, that the soundtrack, by Daniel Olsén and Jonathan Eng, with vocals by Linnea Olsson, would be indelibly etched in my brain, (and my Spotify playlist) afterwards!

The whole game is scored like a synth-pop extravaganza, with each level based around a different original track. Virtually every one is a banger, and moreover, the game flows like an album - the pacing speeds and slows, tones shift seamlessly across the whole piece, and it is structured in a way that the best albums are - where listening on "shuffle" would feel wrong. There is a curated artfulness to the order of songs as a singular flowing piece of art, even while each individual track can stand alone.

Add on the excellent use of audio stings and sound effects (which are a virtual requirement, given the breathless pace of some of the faster action sections of the game,) and the great, enthusiastic, winning narrator voice provided by Queen Latifah...

... and Sayonara Wild Hearts cements its place as the best sounding game I played this year!

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: The Longest Road on Earth
(Reviewed in BATCH 40)

The Longest Road on Earth is arguably not a game - it is more correctly classified as an interactive music video for an album. Working essentially as a series of thematically linked vignettes of different recurring characters, and presented in beautiful black and white pixel-art, there isn't much in the way of real interaction for the player. Really, all they do is move characters through the haunting scenes of loneliness and isolation...
...but they do it, while listening to the music - and that turns it into something so much more.

The soundtrack, by Beícoli, is an album - the game is clearly built around the album, rather than the other way around - and that album is haunting, beautiful and can easily stand tall among against some of the best albums in the genre.
It works completely as a pure music album, yet is enhanced by the playing of the game.

Of course, that means that enjoyment of the game is utterly contingent on liking that music - more than any other game, The Longest Road on Earth is tied intrinsically to musical tastes - but as a big fan of such musical acts as Daughter, Lanterns on the Lake, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, French for Rabbits, Lovers and Big Thief, I am perfectly positioned to enjoy Beícoli's work!

An interesting game, and an interesting concept - and one that is completely beholden to its music. That it works as well as it does is a strong testament to that music, and so it has to win a spot in this award!

 

 

 

 

 +

2ND RUNNER UP: (Tie) Life is Strange + Life is Strange: Before the Storm
(Reviewed in BATCH 25 + BATCH 37)

A bit of a cheat, given that Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Before the Storm are not only two separate games, but two separate games from two different studios - but they are of a piece, and now, with the remastered versions being sold together, I'm comfortable enough considering them to be a singular entity for this award!

The indie-rock / Indie-folk soundtracks of all 4 Life is Strange games have evolved into a major selling point of the games - I look forward as much to finding some great new music when a new LiS game is on the horizon, as I do playing the games - and that reputation is well founded, and cemented by the first two entries.

From the use of Syd Matter's "To All of You" in the high school opening, to Sparklehorse, to Mogwai, to Message to Bears - to the absolutely masterful and emotionally wrenching use of "Spanish Sahara" by Foals over the closing montage, Life is Strange established its tone as much thorough music as anything.

Before the Storm kept up that high bar, and raised it, having Daughter produce an entire album's worth of songs specifically written for the game, yet knowing where to pepper in perfect uses of other licensed tracks, such as Lanterns on the Lake's "Through the Cellar Door" (one of my personal favourite songs even before the game!)... and manages to have its own "Spanish Sahara" moment, using "Bros" by Wolf Alice, in combination with dramatic irony to stick the knife through the heart of the player at the end.

All of that is probably enough to secure a listing in this award... and that's before even the good, emotive and endearing vocal performances by the cast are accounted for! Add them in, and the Life is Strange combo is a shoo-in.

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: God of War: Ragnarok
(Reviewed in BATCH 53)

God of War: Ragnarok is possibly the most "Glenn Close", Always-the-Bridesmaid-and-Never-the-Bride example in these awards - it skirts around many of the awards, but just doesn't quite make it in so many cases. 

Despite mostly uniform high quality, it doesn't quite make the cut on the Best Game Category, it misses out on Best Sequel due to not quite living up to its predecessor, it looks great, but doesn't have quite the "punch" required to make the Eye Candy Award above the ones that won, and while the writing is very good for the most part, it just doesn't quite make it in the Brain Candy award.

It's a work-horse of a game, very good, but not quite excellent enough to make the top 4 in almost any specific category. (Oddly, despite its near absence on these awards, I suspect that if my awards had a "5th place" spot, it very well might be the most represented game overall!)

Having said all that though, there is one area where I think the sum of the many good parts of Ragnarok do add up to a placement - and that is in how it sounds.

Ragnarok, like it's predecessor, has excellent foley work - fights sound visceral and real, weapon clashes are brutal, Kratos' roars are thundering, and the "SCHHHINNNK" that accompanies recalling his magic axe to his hand sounds awesome, even the one-billionth time you hear it!

More than that though, the voice work in the game is top notch. There is a metric-fuck-tonne of dialogue in the game, all exceptionally well delivered, and the vocal performances, (with one notable exception - that of Tir - who feels wildly miscast as an ageing Surf-bro hippie,) are incredibly good. Kratos sounds like the ageing, weary warrior  he is, Freya sounds broken and destroyed... and special props have to go to the phenomenal performance by Richard Schiff as Odin.

Playing him as a put-upon, Tony-Soprano-meets-Toby-Ziegler crime-family boss is a masterstroke of conceptual writing, however, that left-field decision could have gone awry very easily, were it not for the seems-strange-but-actually-perfect casting of Schiff. Providing both the character model, and the performance, Schiff's Odin is - and I don't say this lightly - potentially the best, most interesting, and most nuanced character portrayal in any modern, big-budget videogame. 

All AAA games take note - you don't need to go big to stand out - sometimes, and understated performance is the most indelible!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some games are great, some are bad, and some, (like myself,) are just... fucking weird!

 

This is the category where we celebrate oddness in any form - if a game has a weird mechanic, or design, or tone, or just something that makes you go "Well... that's peculiar..." then this is the category to celebrate it!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Chicory
(Reviewed in BATCH 46)

One of the games that makes me really glad I have this Award - Chicory is a game that missed out on a few other awards by short margins...
... but there's one are in which it stands tallest: it is definitely odd!

A really winning combination of metroidvania, 16-Bit era Zelda, and Mario Paint-style artistic creativity, Chicory manages to be endearing and appealing on a surface level, yet contain deceptive complexity in both its gameplay mechanics - and its themes and writing - than one might initially expect.

Managing to tackle some pretty heavy subject matter in terms of mental health and mental wellbeing is rare enough in games, but doing it without feeling preachy or condescending is quite another. Chicory goes even further than that though - not only does it deftly and sympathetically tackle and discuss elements of mental well-being that most games wouldn't touch with a twelve foot pole, it does it in a way that is appropriate and acceptable for both adults and children alike, without pandering to, or shutting out, either camp.

Conceptually unusual, tonally distinct, and artistically creative and unique, Chicory is one of those games that really sounds like it should be a hot mess on paper, but weaves all its distinct elements together wonderfully well, and results in a final game that is great fun for all the family, yet navigating choppy emotional waters, easy to play, but even easier to lose oneself in...
...and sticks in the mind long after the controller is set down!

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Unpacking
(Reviewed in BATCH 43)
 

Unpacking boxes after moving home is hardly a task obviously translatable to a fun videogame, but Unpacking does a hell of a job proving otherwise!

Managing not only to turn a rather mundane and pedestrian task such as moving house into a game that is fun to engage with is no small feat in and of itself...
...but finding a way to do so that also manages to tell a genuine, coherent story is quite another!

The way Unpacking - a game with no dialogue, no visible characters and no connection to a world beyond the addition and removal of objects in a house - would seem on the surface to be one wholly unable to tell a story, and yet Unpacking manages, over the course of its 3 or 4 hour length, to document the belongings of a girl in her journey through life, from occupying her bedroom in her parents home, to sharing a "forever" home with her wife, with such astute specificity and careful attention to detail, that by the time the player finishes, they have as much, if not more, emotional connection to that girl as they do to any main protagonist in any traditional "Triple A" game!

The mere fact that a short, isometric pixel-art game with no visible characters and no dialogue was a genuine consideration for the Brain Candy Award for best writing this year is something quite incredible. (Yes, it did not end up placing, but the mere fact it made a showing like it did in my "whittling spreadsheet" is laudable enough!) 

A really amazing look at how tone and detail can paint a picture of a life, without even seeing one second of that life - and in some ways, quite an emotional statement on how much the stories of our own lives are told through the things we hold on to... or let go of, as the years pass.

A marvellous - and odd - little game!

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: The Solitaire Conspiracy
(Reviewed in BATCH 49)

The idea that Solitaire - the game every kid with Windows spent about a thousand hours playing when they were supposed to be studying - would be released on a modern console seems odd and quaint already...
...but what makes The Solitaire Conspiracy so odd, is not no much that it exists at all, but what game designer Mike Bithell does with it!

Taking the basic game of Solitaire, adding an outlandish, silly, yet quite engaging espionage thriller around it, using FMV sequences, a tight, electro score, and imbuing the basic game with a plethora of artistic and mechanical flourishes, it feels like the basics of Solitaire should, by rights, end up fading into the background. It should become "Solitaire-in-Name-Only"...
...yet oddly, despite all the additions, the fundamental experience still feels cosy and comforting to the old-hands.

It's an unusual game in two ways - both in the fact that it chooses to modernise such a basic and ubiquitous game, and that it does it with such panache, while still feeling like a natural evolution.

Not one that will ask for days and days of time from its player, but The Solitaire Conspiracy is certainly a game worth seeing for those with even a passing fondness for the old solo card game - it has just enough of the game to retain its indelible elements, and adds just enough to feel like a brand new experience.

Odd - and happily so!

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Backbone
(Reviewed in BATCH 47)

Starting as a curious little pixel-art neo-noire detective story, Backbone is distinct even in that early game, primarily due to its unusually dour and overbearingly down-beat tone. The game is set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, yet this is a far cry from cute or child-friendly. The city Backbone takes place in is a hollow, dismal, crime and drug infested place, in which the player character - Howard, a raccoon,and low-level PI - is asked to investigate a murder.

The game is unusual in just how much dialogue and player choice within that dialogue there is, but it isn't in this category just for that. It is in the mid point of the game that the "Oddball Express"  truly comes around the horn - the game slips seamlessly from a detective neo-noire, to a sci-fi imbued dystopian horror story, recontextualising the entire previously played sections, and completely turning the the narrative (and to some extent, the gameplay) on its confused, bewildered head! 

A curious game for sure, and not one without faults, but in this category, it absolutely deserves its due - the developer went balls to the wall, and, like that or not, it has to be respected!

It is, if nothing else - peculiar!

 

 

 

 

 

This award is not about the "Best Trophy List" necessarily, but about the effect the trophy list had on the game experience. 

 

If the trophy list really added to the game, either with clever, additional meta-challenges, or by complimenting the experience without detracting from it, and if I could easily see the game experience being lesser if the trophy list wasn't as good, then it's a good candidate for placement in this Award!

 

 

 

WINNER: Tunic
(Reviewed in BATCH 52)

Tunic is a brilliant game (not to get into the weeds of behind the scenes, but any look at the Scientific Ranking will confirm how close it came to making the Best Game category) - but one of the most stand out and uniquely impressive elements of it is the wealth of puzzles and puzzle variants in its tightly-weaved tapestry.

Those puzzles range from the somewhat obvious, to the stultifyingly obtuse, and because they almost all stem from the matching of clues in the in-game manual, they can often result in feeling truly lost. Puzzles can be extremely satisfying to work though, but naturally, the player might need that first steer in the right direction, in order to begin a particular vein of puzzles.

This is where the trophies come in - and specifically, on PS5 at least - the Trophy Tips. I have not really explored the Trophy Tips functionality in the PS5 UI, but to be honest, that has largely been because no developer I am aware of had made good use of it... until Tunic!

Tunic actually uses its trophy list as a genuine and smart element of the puzzles themselves, offering the player tailored, well balanced clues in a sliding scale of specificity. Each trophy contains 3 hints - the first merely a vague notion, the second a more specific nudge... and the third, a forceful "GO DO THIS"!

In a game where solving one puzzle can be the catalyst to an entire evening of play, and can provide the jumping off point for 10 new puzzles, that kind of hint system is a great addition, and the sliding scale allows the game to meet the player at their own level, without spoiling the central gameplay mechanics any more than necessary to get them up and running from a dead stop. 

It's both a good list in itself (requiring all puzzles to be done, giving small clues, but never spoiling the game reveals,) but add on the excellent use of an under-utilised system in the Trophy tips, and the bespoke, tailored clues for each single trophy, and Tunic absolutely runs away with the "Way to Improve It!" Award!

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
(Reviewed in BATCH 42)
 

Another game dabbling in the Tunic-style "trophies as hints," The Stanley Parable also adds Trophy unlocking as a key point, not only in its game mechanics, but in its narrative.

Much like developer Crows Crows Crows did with their other game - Accounting+ - The Stanley Parable's fourth-wall-breaking concepts are applied to the trophies themselves, with the narrator actually commenting on the seemingly pointless activities the player is making Stanley do, in order to unlock their digital achievements. 

The Stanley Parable is a much looser game experience than Tunic, of course, and so the actual trophy descriptions and instructions also serve as something of a clue-system, though in The Stanley Parable, they are as much a jumping off point for comedy as success.

The addition of the "Super Go Outside" trophy for playing the game 10 years after starting it is a clever touch - this trophy almost invites the player to "cheat" by toying with their system clock... thus doing exactly what the central conceit of the game is... breaking the rules, and thinking outside the box!

It's rare that a game does anything more with trophies than simply attach them to achievement, so when a game thinks of clever ways to use them to enhance narrative, that is always a welcome change of pace...
...and given that The Stanley Parable is all about commenting on, defying and breaking conventional game design, it is more than fitting that Crows Crows Crows find a way to do it for trophies too!

 

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Sayonara Wild Hearts
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

Sayonara Wild Hearts does something quite distinct with its trophy list - it turns each trophy unlock requirement into a riddle!

Actually completing the game results in virtually no trophies - but each requirement for its list simply states "unlock X riddle". These riddles range in difficulty, but for example, when one says "A Magician Made Three of my Wishes come true where One Became Two", the player can unlock that trophy by... using level section skips three times in a specific level - one where the final boss splits into two sub-bosses.

It's a smart use of an existing system to add an extra layer of game onto an already fun experience, and a neat little way of introducing a puzzle element into the game.
In a landscape of boring or pedestrian trophy lists, Sayonara Wild Hearts stands out, and rightfully earns a spot on this Award!

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Ghost Giant
(Reviewed in BATCH 45)

Ghost Giant is not the most accomplished game in the world - or even in the VR space - but this is a case where the short length of the game, and rather simplistic gameplay is helped enormously by the presence of its trophy list. 

Each level is essentially a short diorama puzzle vignette, that can be solved through use of a small set of tools, however, each vignette has significant scope for sandbox play with all sorts of object not required simply to progress.

The trophy list does a good job of extending the life, duration and scope of the game, adding good reason to poke and prod at the world beyond the simple main path, and in a VR game, where simply interacting with the world is half the fun, that is a good demonstration of using the carrot of trophies to throttle the place, and force the player to appreciate and play with the artistically creative vignettes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This award is not about the "Worst Trophy List" necessarily, but about the effect it had on the overall game experience. 

 

If a game had an awful list, but was also an awful game anyways, it isn't as likely to make it in this category - or at least, the list has to be significantly worse to warrant it.

If, however, the trophy list dragged down the game, and I could easily see the game experience being better if the trophy list was different, then it's a good candidate for placement in this Award!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Best Month Ever!
(Reviewed in BATCH 49)

Best Month Ever! is a game I was quite excited about when I discovered it - a narrative, choice-based narrative game about prejudice set in 60's America seems right up my alley, but the game had a lot real issues.

Some of those will be mentioned in more detail later (courtesy of - spoiler - the Most Disappointing Award category) however, high among that list of issues - and compounding many of them - is the trophy list for the game.

An absurdly top-heavy list, nearly every trophy in Best Month Ever! can (and most likely will,) be unlocked in the first playthrough... however, the final one - for seeing every ending - requires a whopping 9 endings to be seen, most of which require a full new playthrough to unlock, and many of which have such similar statistical requirements for the three measures of "play style" (righteousness, relations and confidence) that actually achieving one, and not the other is a matter of pure guesswork... and has virtually no distinction in terms of game content or reveal.

Factor in the fact that there are finite opportunities to increase or decrease each measure, and the unintended reductions some have when increasing others, and the game goes very quickly form a natural, flowing narrative, to a tiresome, repetitive, mechanical plod through a series of never-variable-enough scenes, trying to stitch together the correct mathematical formula to result in one of the 9 different minor changes in the ending monologue.

All the best narrative games know - don't make the trophies force the players hand in narrative decisions! 
Life is Strange knows it, Telltale know it - they understand that forcing the player to replay an emotion-based narrative harms the impact. 
Just ask David Cage, who routinely injures his own games in this fashion - but at least his games change significantly with each change of decision.

Best Month Ever! is not half the narrative game any of those examples are already...
...and via the trophies, the developer kills what life it does muster stone dead.

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Guardian's of the Galaxy
(Reviewed in BATCH 47)

Guardians of the Galaxy is a pretty good licensed tie-in game all told. It has a well paced and fun story, likeable characters, good dialogue, fun, if slightly bland action, and some fantastic art design and visuals. It's the kind of game that is a real breath of fresh air to play... 
...once.

Unfortunately, the developer decided to implement its collectibles in such a bizarrely obtuse and convoluted manner - requiring the player who does not follow a guide stringently from the very outset, to go through numerous ham-fisted and byzantine save-over-writes, and repeat lengthly sections just to navigate the finicky tracking, that the end of the Platinum journey ends up doing exactly the opposite of the what the game wants.

Guardians of the Galaxy is about fun, excitement, flying by the seat of your pants, and having a wild ride. The collectible clean-up of the game feels like filling in a tax return under a buzzing fluorescent light - and ends what was a fun rollercoaster, with an alarming and disappointingly wet fart.

Why the game fails to use the same collectible tracking systems that... say, for example,... every other game in existence uses is confounding... 

....and it practically guarantees that any trophy minded player who doesn't want to risk knowing they have a long, boring, clunky and user-unfriendly clean up awaiting them at the back end, is encouraged to do that most irksome and fun-killing thing: 
follow a guide in their first playthrough.

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Curse of the Dead Gods
(Reviewed in BATCH 37)

This award is not about bad games - it's about trophy lists affecting games negatively. Sometimes, those games will also be bad, (see the winner,) but sometimes those games will actually be  fucking excellent... but just get dragged down a little by a silly trophy decision.
This is the case with Curse of the Dead Gods.

Curse of the Dead Gods is a fantastic rogue-like. Its a game that sits currently in the top 50 on the Scientific Ranking, and given the calibre of games in that echelon, it it probably clear how much affection I have for the game...

...however, its one major flaw cannot be ignored. 
Namely, the "Memoirs" trophy. 
Memoirs requires the entire Bestiary to be filled out. Many of the challenges in the Bestiary are really smart, fun additions to the game, requiring the player to see everything, do some difficult tasks, and mostly, just have fun, and master the game. 

One particular area, however, feels woefully mis-balanced - Elite enemies. The Bestiary requires 50 of each Elite enemy (around 20 variants) to be fought and killed without the player taking damage. 
The issue is, a player is lucky to even see 6-8 elite enemies in any one run - and they always fall in the final regions. In normal play, even a very good player can only expect to gain 3-4 perfect elite kills per run naturally... and so it is virtually guaranteed that any player looking for the S-Rank will have completed everything else in the game, including much harder challenges than facing elites - dozens, if not hundreds of hours before they manage to fill out these entries.

The result, is that a game that is genuinely - indeed, almost alarmingly - fun and engaging, manages to have a trophy so grind-heavy and RNG dependent, that even it manages to wear out its welcome at times.

I am rather reminded in Curse of the Dead Gods, of the (extraordinarily similar) issue in another rogue-like... RAD. (A game spared receiving this award last year, by virtue only of other, more egregious issues in other games!) 
In some ways, the issue is more pronounced in Curse of the Dead Gods, by simply virtue of Curse of the Dead Gods being the better game overall - it is more fun to keep playing, and so the grind feels less - but on the other hand, this issue is practically the only issue Curse of the Dead Gods has, and so it sticks out like a sore thumb!

A silly oversight, and the only really unbalanced element in an otherwise pretty damn fine videogame!

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Yoku's Island Express
(Reviewed in BATCH 51)

Yoku's Island Express is a very fun, clever, gorgeous looking little game, and one I can easily recommend to people... but the one area where it lets itself down a little, is in its collectible trophies. 

The issue is the Scarabs. These are simply little collectibles activated via certain small tasks while playing in the more "pinball-table-like" cave areas. They are curiously difficult to spot - blending into the environment as they do - and there is very little indication to the player that they should even be looking for them at all, until deep into the game. As such, they will likely have missed scores of them during the main playthrough, and have as considerable clean-up job after the fact. 

I don't mind a collectible clean-up generally. the problem here is, there are so many of them, that the developer avoids "map-barf" by having these not show up on the map - unlike virtually all other items and objects of interest - until there are less than 10 remaining. 

This is an understandable decision in a way - and the inclusion of tracking when there are very few left is a welcome aid, (and responsible for Yoku being 4th on this list, and not higher,) - but the result is still a fairly mind-numbing and irksome rehash through the entire (not-small) map over and over, scouring the background of each cave until the player's eyes water, trying to find these Scarab outlines in the rock faces.

A pity, as it will likely be the last thing any regular S-Rank seeking player does, and so tends to leave the game on a slightly sour note... 
...and that is a shame, given that the entirety of the rest of the game is a well made, fun, upbeat romp!

 

 

 

 

 

This Award isn't necessarily about the best games, but about the games that I simply don't understand how I never got to playing earlier!

 

Whether that's because it is so good that I should have tried it before, or that it's so much my kind of jam that I should have heard about it earlier, or simply that I owned it for so long, but never got around to actually playing, here I celebrate finally ending procrastination... 
...and being rewarded for it with gaming goodness!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Resident Evil VII: Biohazard
(Reviewed in BATCH 45)

Truth be told, the actual question posed by a plain text reading of this Award is pretty obvious when applied to Resident Evil VII... why didn't I play it before? Well... three words: Resident Evil 6.

Resident Evil 6 was a mess of a game from start to finish, and threatened to be, (in fact, at the time very much seemed like,) the sad, whimpering end to a once great franchise, limping mindlessly into the darkness of some combination of the gaming wilderness, and its own arse.

In that context, it makes it less surprising that it took me damn near 5 years to get around to sampling the follow-up... however, one also has to consider that I was not living under a rock that whole time. I had heard many, many people tell me that VII was the reinvention of awesome that the franchise sorely needed. 
I just didn't listen!

Cut to 2022, and I finally decided to sample the game... and ho-boy, is it the refresher I needed to end up fully back in on Resident Evil! The supreme quality of the game almost makes the stultifying ineptitude of RE6 feel acceptable - if this is the flower that grew out of that fecund manure, I'll accept it!

A scary, smart, tight, brilliantly paced and frighteningly well polished slasher-inspired scare-factory, Resident Evil VII not only returned the franchise to greatness - it surpassed even the high points of its prior glory.

An amazing game, supplemented with excellent DLC, and a textbook example of "modernising, eschewing the bad, and retaining the good" that every long running franchise should learn from!

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Doki Doki Literature Club+
(Reviewed in BATCH 43)

I knew plenty about how revelatory and clever Doki Doki Literature Club was - in the videogame podcast sphere and in general chatter, the game had some significant cache long before it ever came to Playstation...
...but it was only once every hurdle - no matter how minor - was removed from the process - (and @Billie__227 practically smacked me about my gaming head!) -  that I actually finally decided to give it a go, and see what all the fuss was about.

Luckily, my lack of specificity in the info I had heard, meant all the big reveals still retained genuine surprise, despite me knowing something more was going to be there than initially met the eye - and the impact of those moments was not really dulled by vague anticipation. 
If anything, I suspect I actually appreciated the game more, knowing something was coming, but not necessarily knowing what!

Part of the reason I slept on the game so long is, of course, that the game it pretends to be is not in a genre I would normally gravitate towards... however, that's no excuse really!
Had I played the game on PC, I suspect I would have been as engrossed, if not more so - and would have experienced the game in arguably it's best form - free from the requirements console-ification requires (fake UI interfaces, etc.)

Either way though, Doki Doki Literature Club+ is a hell of a ride - and one that no one should avoid, simply because the design aesthetic or the purported "Genre" does not gel with thier own sensibilities... 
...because the game is not what it seems, in the best way possible!

 

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Slay the Spire
(Reviewed in BATCH 42)

Slay the Spire is one of those games that came to PS+, and seemed initially to be one I would hit download on "just because" and likely never play. After all, what do I know about card games or deck-builders?

Hell, if I recall correctly, it was actually one of the rare cases where I even hesitated and equivocated as to whether to even bother hitting the download button - that sure, was I, that it wouldn't end up being something I'd play.

Still though, the power of suggestion, and the seduction of general chatter finally pushed me to give it the old college try when I was at a loss for what to play one night... 
...and the result was not only having 200-odd hours of genuine fun, but a wholesale re-evaluation of whether I like Deck Builders after all!

Since playing Slay the Spire, I've dipped my toes further in the genre, with Griftlands, Inscryption, Monster Slayers - and have Frost, Nowhere Prophet, Roguebook and Children of the Zodiarcs all lined up.
It is not unfair to say that Slay the Spire not only was a great surprise, but literally opened up an entire genre to me - that I could have been playing and enjoying this whole time!

If that doesn't warrant a "Why Didn't I Play this Before?!" Award, I don't know what would!

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Untitled Goose Game
(Reviewed in BATCH 48)

Untitled Goose Game came out in 2019, and seems on the surface exactly the kind of small-scope, interesting indie that is right up my alley - yet for some reason, I slept on it for 3 years before actually giving it a go.

What I found when I did finally play it, is not only the a gorgeous, silly, clever little game - it is one that plays like a goofy, silly parody of some of my favourite games ever - Hitman!

Instead of killing a target in some deadly and ridiculous manner, here, the "assassin" is a naughty goose, intent on causing chaos in a quaint country village... but the actual mechanics are broadly, oddly similar. Plate spinning balance of distraction techniques and trap-setting, learning NPC patterns and reactions to stimuli, a delicate clockwork-patchwork of interactions and timing-based stealth... Untitled Goose Game's various challenges are tantamount to Hitman in a variety of ways!

Couple that with a great art-style, good music, confident and well crafted mechanics, fun, variable gameplay - and add a little optional co-op into the mix too - and Untitled Goose Game is a hell of a great little game - and one I should have been in on right from the start!

 

 

 

 

 

This Award is a little nebulous. It isn't purely "Games with the least owners", nor it is purely about the quality of the game overall, but about a rather indefinable X-factor that lies somewhere in between!

It's really about the DISPARITY between owners and quality. If a game seems to have wildly fewer players than it SHOULD, given its quality, then it's a good fit here!

SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC NOTE: For very new games, I do consider the player-count to mean a little less - Tunic, for example, or Inscryption, are eligible and low player-counts, however, they have been out for such a short time that the low player-count may be less as a result of it being overlooked, and more to do with people just not having gotten around to it yet. 
As such, very new games are pretty much excluded from this category.

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Griftlands
(Reviewed in BATCH 51)

The winner of this category by a country mile, Griftlands is not only the most undeservedly underplayed games I played this year, but also one of the most undeservedly underplayed games I think I have ever come across on this site!

Every other Klei game released has a massively greater player count - Don't Starve is close to 200,000, Invisible Inc and Shank are all above the 50,000 mark (courtesy, in part, of PS+,) and even Mark of the Ninja - a game that released on Xbox and Windows years before making it's late arrival on Playstation is above 2000 for each incarnation.

Griftlands, on the other hand, has been out for several years, is incredibly good, well made, and a metric-fuck-tonne of fun... and sits at a paltry 600-odd players!

Clearly a combination factor of an unusual trophy list resulting in curiously rare average completion, niche genre tendencies, and lack of awareness - but Griftlands should be an obvious self-purchase-stocking-filler for any self-respecting gamer out there!

GET. THIS. PLAYED. Y'ALL!

You shall not regret it - that's the DrBloodmoney guarantee right there...
...and trust me - if I can complete it - anyone can!

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Psychonauts 2
(Reviewed in BATCH 32)
 

Psychonauts 2 does have a slightly higher player count than the other games featuring in this award this year - between the two stacks, it has mustered around 5000 players...
...however, when you consider that it is the closest to a "big" "Triple A" style game among them, is a long-anticipated entry in a beloved franchise from a storied and beloved developer, and is tip-top quality in every conceivable metric, a player count that low borders on the ridiculous!

The re-released port of the original Psychonauts (a 20 year old game) sits at around the 27,000 player-count mark. 
Even Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin - a game requiring an expensive and not-particularly well adopted peripheral in the VR headset - sits around the 5000 player count number.

That this series managed to carry the nostalgia factor to draw in those numbers for a throwback-port and a VR-only game... but somehow the lavish, fantastic, approachable, fun fully fledged, lovingly crafted, long-awaited and superbly well made sequel fell through the cracks is BANANAS!

I get that 3D platforming is not a genre in vogue these days - hell, it's not a genre I loved even when it was - but THIS IS PSYCHONAUTS, Y'ALL!

Get this on your Christmas wish lists, for the love of all that is holy...
...and remember why you loved gaming in the first place!

 

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Backbone
(Reviewed in BATCH 47)
 

Backbone is a curious and interesting little game - not without its flaws, but with interesting hooks, moxie, and more personality than you can shake an anthropomorphic raccoon at - and so the fact that between 3 different stacks, it barely manages to cross the 200 player-count mark is a terrible injustice!

If you will forgive a minor rant - Games like Backbone are, in my opinion, the truest victims of the shovel-ware epidemic of the past few years.

Backbone is exactly the type of game that in a smaller, less poisoned market, would likely find a much more significant audience among those willing to take a punt on an unknown game, purely on the strength of an interesting game image, and some cool looking screenshots...
... but a combination of a low-but-not-quite-low-enough price range muddying the water between "shovel-ware" and "games", a vicious, cyclical correlation of low-player-count and trophy rarity, and players being "once fooled, twice-hardened" against following curiosity by being burned by shovel-ware dross, has left games like Backbone starved for the oxygen they need!

A really sad statement - as Backbone is a game that needs to be experienced in full for a player to realise why it's good - a curious, interesting narrative, a bleak and stifling noire tone, some KILLER pixel-art visuals, and a well-fleshed-out world combine to paper over a few gameplay cracks and trophy issues, and make for a game that is easy to recommend...

...so consider it recommended - and get that player-count up!

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Stories Untold
(Reviewed in BATCH 34)

The first game from interesting indie developer No Code - Observation - was a brilliant game, and while somewhat underplayed, did at least manage to muster around 8,500 players on this site...
...but their equally interesting follow up - Stories Untold - has been out for several years now, and between two stacks, has barely crossed the 1,200 mark!

That is a crying shame - because while Stories Untold may be slightly below Observation on the Scientific Ranking, it remains a great little game - an interesting "anthology" of multiple genre and tone short stories, all of which come together and culminate in an interesting bridging twist at the end.

It looks great, sounds great, is incredibly engaging and interesting, and grips the player from start to finish - with more unique and curious puzzle and narrative ideas in each of it's short vignettes than most full length games manage across dozens of hours!

The one sliver of silver lining here, is the fact that No Code are now apparently working on easily the most interesting looking of the 6,757 Silent Hill games announced a few months back - Silent Hill: Townfall.

That will, I sincerely hope, kickstart a renewed interest in No Code as a developer...
...as I see them as one of the most curious and interesting indie devs out there right now, up there with Tarsier, Long Hat House, Playdead and Lucas Pope.

All they need is a chance to shine, and for people to take notice...
... so take notice, people!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Award is not about the quality in a vacuum, but about quality vs. expectation - which game was I really amazed by how much better it was that I initially expected, or was a very different (positive) experience than what I though it would be going into it?

I'n one interpretation of this award, it could easily simply mirror the "Why Didn't I Play this Before?!" Award - since, let's face it - a game being surprisingly good goes hand in hand with suddenly realising a game is better than you expected!

However, I do try and keep them from being too similar - in that Most Surprising isn't simply about quality, but about everything. Genre, Tone, Length, Pacing, Style, difficulty... if a game really shocked me by how different it was than I expected, that is all fair game here! 

The only minor caveat being... it still had to be good!

 

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Curse of the Dead Gods
(Reviewed in BATCH 36)

Curse of the Dead Gods almost got lost in this award, simply because it was started in 2021, and only qualified for the awards this year. Enough time had passed that I had almost forgotten just what a surprise the game was!

There's a habit I have with games, where if I am excited for another game, that for whatever reason is not available - either it hasn't released on Playstation yet, or I'm not able to purchase it, or even that I'm saving it for some reason - I often gravitate towards playing another, seemingly similar game to tide me over.

Sometimes that has negative effects on my experience with the "tide-over" game - it inevitably has to bear the weight of expectations -  not only of itself, but also of the game that led me to it. 
Death's Door, for example, certainly suffered for that issue. When I played it as a "filler" while awaiting Tunic's Playstation release... 
...but occasionally the "tide-over" game does manage to bear the weight of that doubled expectation, and stand on its own.

Only very, very rarely though, does the "tide-over" game actually end up surpassing the game it was a stop-gap for. 

Curse of the Dead Gods - as my "filler-in" while awaiting Hades - is one of those welcome surprises!

CotDG doesn't reach the visual or narrative heights of Hades, of course, but what it does have, is a very surprising, almost Hades-embarrassing level of mechanical finesse, tight controls, and an outrageous level of "just-one-more-run" addictive gameplay loop!

A game with more systems than one can shake a sword/gun/big-ass-hammer at, yet manages the delicate balancing act of having every one intricately interconnected, resulting in wild variation, hundreds of interweaving decision-making requirements in each run, and genuine feeling of satisfaction in discovering or mastering a new play-style, Curse of the Dead Gods is one of the most surprising games I've ever taken a punt on in terms of pure, unadulterated good times!

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Kena: Bridge of Spirits
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a really good game - and a surprising one on a number of fronts!

For starters, a game coming out form an unproven studio with the level of graphical, gameplay and character-design flair that Kena: Bridge of Spirits displays is surprising in and of itself... but even the actual gameplay style is surprising here!

Visually, Kena gives off all the indications that it will be a family-friendly, mildly challenging 3rd person romp, the likes of which would best be placed in lists including Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper or, (God forbid,) Knack.
In some ways, that is the primary genre - but what is not obviously apparent, is just how challenging the game can get, how tight and fun the combat can be - and how much Souls-style inspiration it has taken in its combat model!

Serving as both the genuine potential revival of the Character Action game that Knack wanted to be, but couldn't find with a map and a compass - and one of the most clear examples that Souls-style combat is here to stay, and has permeated well outside the specific "soulsian" genres, Kena is a challenging, fun, smart, gorgeous little game - and a heck of a surprise!

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Statik: Institute of Retention
(Reviewed in BATCH 33)

Statik, or Statik: Institute of Retention, to use its Sunday name - was a huge surprise for me. 

Firstly, simply its existence - When I ended up the accidental owner of a VR headset, I went looking for some VR experiences that were bite-sized enough to allow for my tendency to motion-sickness to tolerate, and it was only deep into this little hunt, that I discovered that Tarsier - creators of my beloved Little Nightmares games - had made a VR game on the side, that I had literally never heard of!

That surprise compounded when I played it - and found it to be easily the best VR game I had played up to that point... 
...a title it still retains to this day!

Granted, I do not get to play too many VR games due to my real-life constraints making "switching off" completely from real-life stimuli a little dicey, however, Statik is such a clear winner among the few games I've sampled, that it isn't even up for debate.

A puzzle game, using the BR masterfully, clearly keeping the PSVR limitations in mind, and cleverly working within them, Statik is surprisingly competent, surprisingly engaging, surprisingly sinister in tone... and features one of the most surprising record-scratch endings I've seen in games!

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: The Entropy Centre
(NOT YET REVIEWED)

 

The Entropy Centre snuck into this awards at the last minute - (I've not even had a chance to rank and review it yet!) - but my experience with the game was easily enough to secure it a place on at least this list!

When I began playing the game, I was immediately struck by how close its parallels were to its most obvious point of inspiration - Portal. Or specifically, Portal 2.

The 3D puzzles are absolutely of the Portal style - block and gate puzzle design, using a single technical mechanic and an ever increasing level of complexity for the player to logic their way through using that basic premise (time-rewinding of object paths, in this case,) - but more than that, so many of the narrative and and tertiary elements seems Portal-like too. 

The "single person trapped in a decaying, abandoned facility", the stark, concrete and utilitarian design, the seemingly infinitely wealthy, and somewhat sinister "corporation experiment gone awry" element, the sentient AI guidance, the almost religious zeal the machines have for puzzling - everything seems like a Portal-wannabe... 
... and that had me worried.

Portal 2 is a tough act to follow. 
If you're going to take a direct swing at the king, you better not miss - and that's a fucking hard shot to hit!

What was surprising though, was playing the game - and the ways that initial Portal-like nature is used effectively - as something of a bait-and-switch. To be clear - The Entropy Centre IS a Portal-like in terms of gameplay, but in many design and narrative ways, it actually becomes one of the most effective and best Portal-likes, by NOT being Portal-like. By only seeming slavishly devoted to its inspiration at the outset, then deviating from it, and using that player-expectation as a springboard to counter-programme its own narrative in smart ways.

The corporation here, is not actually evil or wicked - in fact, it is a genuinely benevolent thing, and the calamity that struck it is not a result of hubris or science run amok. It is simply a sad conclusion to genuine, benevolent scientific progress. 
It feels malevolent at the outset, because the players mind is immediately (and deliberately) reminded of Portal - they are placed in "Portal-mode", and so expect it.

In fact, the narrative elements are not treated like the potential Portal-retreading "not all is as it seems" mystery that the game, at first, appears to be aiming at... but in fact, as a genuinely clever exploration of a fun sci-fi premise, in a way that feels oddly fresh in videogames, simply because it isn't as cynical as we are pre-programmed to think it will be!
By not having an attempt at a real, all-encompassing mystery, and simply having the curious fate of the Entropy Centre be a strange, sad tale, it actually leaves space for something else entirely: a curiously poignant, uplifting yet sad, hopeful yet wistful little tale of the unlikely friendship between a human and an AI, fighting valiantly, yet hopelessly, against an inevitable fate.

Combine that narrative surprise, with the tonal surprise, and the surprising amount of damn good puzzles and mechanics... and The Entropy Centre adds up to a genuine top-end 3D Puzzler... and a heck of a nice surprise overall!

 

 

 

 

 

The flip-side of the "Most Surprising" Award, this Award is, again, not about the quality of a game in a vacuum, but about the quality vs. expectation - which game was I really disappointed by how much worse it was that I initially expected, or was a very different (negative) experience than what I though it would be going in?

 

 

 

WINNER: Last Stop
(Reviewed in BATCH 42)

I was a big fan of unusual, semi-interactive, narrative game Virginia, from Variable State. Its strange blend of metaphor, silent movie, X-Files and Twin Peaks inspiration and curiously elegant and subtle storytelling was a breath of fresh air when I played it back in 2017.

I was pretty hyped to find out that Variable State had another game in the works, and was almost caught off guard when I realised - this year - that it had released, and the fact that so little fanfare had accompanied it seemed odd...
...until I played it.

Ho boy.

Remember when Richard Kelly released Southland Tales - his follow up to the critically adored and awesome sci-fi mind-bender Donnie Darko - and it was so misguided, mis-handled and stultifyingly stupid, that it genuinely begged the question: "Was Donnie Darko actually good, or were we all just beguiled by peculiarity, and mistaking confusion for genius?"

Well, Last Stop is Variable State's Southland Tales. The game lands so bizarrely wide of good, that it almost forces a re-evaluation of Virginia. I still fall on the side that Virginia was actually good (and, for that matter, that Donnie Darko still is too,) but the mere fact that the question popped in my head, after I so liked Virginia, is testament to just how poorly Last Stop failed to recapture that magic.

Multiple stories, all with different (uneven) tones, pretty poor writing, some below-par voice acting, and a plethora of dangling, unresolved plot point, culminate in an ending that is as unsatisfying as it is bat-shit crazy... and not in a way that can save the day.

A sad, unfortunate, wild mis-step by a studio who's critical assessment now hangs by a thread - I sincerely hope Variable State manage to get the train back on the tracks, because the next game they make is now going to be make or break in a way I never could have imagined when I played Virginia.

A big, BIG disappointment.

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Best Month Ever!
(Reviewed in BATCH 49)

Best Month Ever! has a hell of a premise, and seemingly has the balls to tackle issues that very few games are willing to touch...
...but unfortunately, the developer has none of the tools required to capitalise on that moxie.

Interesting plot concepts, and potentially interesting characters are lost in a sea of clunky gameplay, mediocre writing, extreme vocal performance issues stemming from the language barriers... and to top it all off, a trophy list and subsequent gameplay loop that makes it virtually impossible to recommend the game, even with the technical and qualitative caveats.

A genuine shame and a disappointment, not only because the game doesn't live up to its potential, but also in a macro sense - in that its failure to do anything meaningful with that third-rail racial and socio-political history may mean its anaemic sales result in a salting of the earth for potential future indie games to till the same ground.

One that could have been great, and ends up pretty poor.
Disappointing! 

 

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: JETT: The Far Shore
(Reviewed in BATCH 43)
 

JETT: The Far Shore comes from a seriously talented developer - the Superbrothers, of Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery fame, and has a premise that really sounds like it could be magic in their hands.

To be clear, JETT: The Far Shore is not an out-and-out terrible game - as I said in the review, the game is mediocre, but not in the same way most games are mediocre.

Most mediocre games are mediocre in all elements. JETT: The Far Shore has no individual elements that are mediocre - it has elements that are great (see the next Award, for a taste of just how great they can be!)... but it also has elements that are outright bad. It's almost a 50-50 split. It is a mediocre game in the average, not in the individual parts.

JETT: The Far Shore's narrative, characters, art design and music are all top notch... but it is let down time and time again - consistently, and repeatedly - by its pacing, its controls, its mechanical design and its gameplay.

A game that has an early part in the coveted "Best Moment" category, but also makes this list... that means something.
In the first few hours, I really was making mental notes for a "Best Game" category... but then slowly but surely, downgraded those thoughts to "oh dear, there's some problems", and eventually ended the game thinking "I better warn people about this one"?

 

That is genuinely disappointing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: Resident Evil VIII: Village
(Reviewed in BATCH 46)

By far the highest ranked game to grace this category, Resident Evil VIII: Village is not a terrible game. Actually, it's not even a bad game - it's generally pretty good. Certainly, it is not even close to the worst Resident Evil game (though beating Resident Evil 6 is a pretty low bar.)

Resident Evil VIII's issues are twofold really.

Firstly, it has the JETT: The Far Shore problem. It is absurdly front-loaded in terms of quality. It's first 3-4 hours are absolutely excellent - with Lady Dimitrescu, Castle Dimitrescu and House Beneviento... but unfortunately, each hour after that is a slow, steady decline through less and less interesting areas, with less and less interesting bosses, culminating in a finale that involves one of the most dull and uninteresting boss characters ever to grace this (or any) franchise, in the poorly written, poorly acted, poorly portrayed and laughably un-threatening Heisenberg.

 

Secondly, it comes after Resident Evil VII - the best game in the series. REVII got rid of all the barnacles of the franchise, shaking off the tired old formula, and the tired old narrative, and started fresh. It was brilliant, and original, and scary and clever and fun.

REVIII is still fun, but it forgot about clever, original or scary... and it felt like franchise cold-feet - not only running back to the chill embrace of the franchises bloated mythology, but actively retconning REVII's narrative to do the same. In many ways, it feels like the back peddle that REVII stubbornly refused to make (outside some occasional and unwelcome DLC narrative half-stepping.)

REVII felt like it left the franchise in a brand new, exciting and interesting place. 
REVIII feels like it got scared of its surroundings, and ran back to where it felt safe... forgetting why it had to run in the first place.

Still a fun game, but a pale spectre of its predecessor, and undoes a lot of the good work that predated it... 
...and that cannot be described any other way than: 

Disappointing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new Award for this year - This one recognises some of those points in games where I set the controller down, and either burst out laughing, pumped my fist in the air, wept a tear of joy... or just went "Oh DAAAAAAAAAAMN!"

 

Basically, recognising that some game have some specific cadences of emotion, or surprise, or catharsis, or just wild WTF, that needs to be celebrated!

 

SCIENTIFIC NOTE: Since this is the only award where specific parts of narrative games are awarded, this is also the only one where the specific part of a game I played this year matters. Outer Wilds, for example, contained what I have previously talked about as one of the best moments in all of gaming - in its ending - and would be virtually guaranteed to win any year it was eligible... however, that particular moment was in its base game, not the DLC.
The DLC has some great moments too, and those are considered here, but the base game ones are not.

!!DOUBLE IMPORTANT SCIENCE NOTE!!

 

These Awards have spoilers!!

I'm not using Spoiler Tags, since they tend to break under strain on this site, and this post will be too long to let me fix them if they do.

Spoilers will be relatively minimal, but if you are worried, then cast a quick glance at the game image, and proceed with caution on anything that really feels dangerous!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Inscryption
MOMENT: "Beating Leshy" & "Your Friends are your foes!"
(Reviewed in BATCH 50)

Inscryption is a hell of a game - chock full of memorable moments, and "Holy shit!" parts. Frankly, if I was allowing individual moments from the same game to appear as separate entries in this award, there would be a very real possibility of Inscryption sweeping the board, and taking every spot!

However, the two that really stand tallest among them, I think, are both OMG moments, of very different types.

The first is the most obvious one - beating Leshy. The game starts out feeling like one thing, and one genre only. Yes, there are little hints here and there that not all is what it seems - the game starts with a disembodied voice saying "let's see what's on this", and there are several moments the player will stumble on during their playing of the initial rogue-like structure where they realise things are odd (the Stoat card talking, the ability to get up and explore the log cabin, the bizarre death animations, etc.)... but nothing really prepares the player for the staggeringly bizarre and whiplash re-contextualisation that happens upon finally beating Leshy...
...and seeing the game suddenly snap into full FMV.

This is likely 10-odd hours into the game... and it is only at this point that the beginnings of the player even understanding what the game is, let alone solving the riddle of why it is!

The second moment that deserves recognition is of a rather different variety - the forth-wall breaking moment when, late in the game, the player is forced to play against P03, the sentient robot Scribe of Technology, who has infiltrated their own PS4 / PS5. That concept is simply a narrative hook up until this battle... but becomes a creepy, hilarious and clever tool for gameplay, when P03 starts playing card... that are your friends.
Your actual friends. From your PSN Friends list.

Inscryption is one of those games - like Doki Doki Literature Club - where the translation to console has dulled a few of its most clever an fourth-wall breaking gimmicks - I know that, for example, certain points where P03 forces the player to "delete" files from their hard drive is less impactful when those files are generic ones conjured by the game, and not the player's actual CPU - however, Inscryption does the smart option of turning that negative of a closed system into a benefit here - using the PSN friends list in place of (presumably) a Steam friends list, and working well with the tools it has. 

That kind of 4th wall break is rarer on console, and so it works a charm, with a player base not expecting it...
...and is a great WTF!? moment!

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Doki Doki Literature Club+
MOMENT: "Oh Sayori..."
(Reviewed in BATCH 43)
 

Doki Doki Literature Club+ uses drop-the-mic narrative an gameplay moments to great effect a number of times - more and more as it reaches it's finale - but arguably the most impactful of these is the first one: with the fate of sweet, friendly-but-troubled childhood friend of the player character, Sayori.

That moment, where they see her after her fate is sealed is the first time the game really drops cutesy, happy, cheebie veneer, and suddenly hard-swings towards sinister and fucked up - and it knows it, and plays into it perfectly.

Suddenly using all the happy, sunshine-and-rainbows aesthetic touches, and incessant, chirpy, upbeat music in a way that skews into warped visuals and dissonant minor tones, the game hits the player with a gut punch... then over a few minutes, keeps slugging them even as they are dazed - hitting them with the 4th-wall-breaking "error messages" technical "faults", game "glitches" and messed up UI that will become the entire premise of the game going forward - but at this point, is virtually indistinguishable from genuine technical problems.

Riding a 4 minute long rollercoaster of fucked-up, and culminating in a drop to a seemingly normal game menu splash-screen (then letting them naturally realise what is different, and spend time staring, wondering if they really remember it right, or if that just happened) is played to perfection...

...and easily takes a spot on the Best Moments of the year Award!

 

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: Elden Ring
MOMENT: "There's another world beneath the world!"
(Reviewed in BATCH 39)

Elden Ring is MASSIVE.
The game feels enormous even at the outset, and absolutely jam packed with places to go, secrets to uncover, and different things to see (and get smashed by!)... and that's before the player even bothers to open up the map, scroll around, ask the inevitable question: "Wait... the map isn't THAT big, right?"
(Spoiler - yes, it is!)

That realisation that the game is so, so much bigger that you could possibly guess at the outset is already a big moment, but even once it sinks in that there is so much to explore, and so much to see and do, there is a compounding double punch moment that happens to outdo it.
At some point, the player will inevitably stumble into one of the few circular temple looking structures, poke around a little, and suddenly find themselves descending down the longest lift in videogames (or at least, the longest one since original Mass Effect used to hide it's crazy load times!)

After first marvelling at the length of this strangely long descent, suddenly the player will find themselves not in some underground cave... but in a WHOLE DIFFERENT WORLD - with a starry sky above them, temples in the background, new enemy types... AND A WHOLE SECOND MAP!

Realising the scale of the game on the top-side was one thing, but when I realised there was an underground map - that was the point I put the controller down, and just breathed a quiet "Daaaaaaamn!"

If that moment doesn't belong here, then nothing does!

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: JETT: The Far Shore
MOMENT: "Oh my God, Space is Fucking Majestic!"
(Reviewed in BATCH 43)

I've already talked about it in the "Most Disappointing" category, and so putting JETT: The Far Shore in for an award in this category might seem odd - but to be honest, they go hand in hand. 

Why?

Because one of the primary reasons why JETT: The Far Shore even placed on the "Most Disappointing" category, was the disappointment engendered by the game never managing to live up to the absolutely incredible 10-15 minute sequence that forms its opening salvo. 

From seeing the incredible art design as main character Mei leaves her interesting, curious tribal village, moves to the capital city, walks infant of crowds to the spacecraft, which this unusual alien race has built to find a new home, the art is telling a tale masterfully. Of a race that have intermingled science and religion, and have their own unique but totally discernible artistic and creative lineage and legacy, and who's culture is foreign to us, yet discernible through their behaviour and their architecture.

The space-flight to the new planet, then the majestic swell of the music as the few explorers eject, then parachute down to the new planet surface is artistically magnificent, and really quite stirring and emotional - evoking the very best of Space-Awe cinema (Gravity / Interstellar / Arrival / Ad Astra etc.)

It's an incredible opening sequence, absolutely worthy of a place in this award.
If only the game managed to live up to the promise of it.

It doesn't - but anyone reading this - do yourself a favour, and watch a video of the first 15 minutes of the game. You won't be disappointed!

 

 

 

 

 

This final award is not for games, but for people!

 

This one is a little unscientific, in the sense that I am relying partly on memory - I don't always keep perfect track of who really cements a game as being something I need to check out, and often it is as much about the person who recommends it initially, as it is the pile-on of agreement after the fact!

I do try to always keep track so I can thank (or curse!) the person who encouraged me to try a game, but with the amount of great games and great takes flying around, I'm 100% certain there are some games I just forgot about, or forgot who was the initial instigator!

 

SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC NOTE: I know that some folks might be thinking - "Hey! I totally recommended this other one to you Doc!" 
That might well be the case, but I've tried to be ruthless here, and only award games that I'm pretty sure would not have ended up on my list (or would have remained in the infinite void of my backlog) if not for the specific recommendations of these fine winners. 
If a game was one I was already very likely to play, and someone just cemented that decision, that's great and I love it, (keep 'em coming!) but this Award has to be just games people fired at me, and stuck entirely because of it!

 

 

 

 

 

WINNER: @YaManSmevz - 4 Games

My Memory of Us / UnMetal / Islanders / Resident Evil (remake)

 

 

Swooping in to cement a victory, YaManSmevz has a checklist that bangs, opinions not to be trifles with, and a games-recommendation-catalogue that rarely disappoints. 

Adding 4 games to my ever-growing backlog (including one already knocked out this year!) he takes the Gremlin Platinum honour!

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: @visighost - 4 Games

 

 

Signs of Sojourner / Nowhere Prophet / Frost / Rise of the Slime

visighost has more knowledge of underplayed games in his pinkie finger than I have in my whole profile - he's the Encyclopaedia Obscura! - so when I needed some Deck Building guidance, he rose to the occasion... and then some!

 

Only missed the top spot, due to me not having got to any of them quite yet, but his advice has weighed down my backlog considerably!

 

Nice job!

 

 

 

 

 

 

2ND RUNNER UP: @Billie__227 - 3 Games

 

Doki Doki Literature Club+ / World End Syndrome / Stardew Valley

 

Coming in with a stellar set of recommendations - and rampant confusion, because she changed her site handle halfway through, and almost fell through the cracks because of it! - Billie__227 added a very respectable 3 games to my backlog this year - including Doki Doki Literature Club+, which as is evident from the previous awards, was a damned good one!

 

Nice work!

 

 

 

 

 

3RD RUNNER UP: @Cruscah - 2 Games

 

 

 

Sayonara Wild Hearts / The Longest Road on Earth

There were a few folks with 2 Game recommendations that weighed down my backlog this year - @Copanele , @zizimonster, @realm722, @Fleks_Mhteam, @starcrunch061-  and I thank all of them! - but only one who not only recommended two games both of which I got around to this year, but both of which also were good enough to be represented in different places in these awards!

 

 

Excellent work Cruscah - keep 'em coming!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that concludes our little Award Festivities for this year!

 

We've laughed, we've cried, we've called DrBloodmoney all the terrible names we can muster!

All that remains is to fill our wish-lists with the good stuff, CAP-LOCK the keyboard to yell about the injustices...
... and look forward to an awesome gaming 2023!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[starcrunch061 10,889]

Great award list!

 

I've never bothered to plat RE:Village, mostly because of what you mention. The Heisenberg boss is terrible (not that his character was great to begin with). He feels like a reject Metal Gear boss to me; he has all the idiocy of the worst of Kojima's creations (terrible voice actor, stupid lines, dumb-looking final form), but none of their inspiration or fun mechanics.

Edited December 19, 2022 by starcrunch061

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

8 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

Great award list!

 

I've never bothered to plat RE:Village, mostly because of what you mention. The Heisenberg boss is terrible (not that his character was great to begin with). He feels like a reject Metal Gear boss to me; he has all the idiocy of the worst of Kojima's creations (terrible voice actor, stupid lines, dumb-looking final form), but none of their inspiration or fun mechanics.

 

absolutely, 100% correct on Heisenberg - feels like a reject from some PS3 era Metal-Gear B-Game "also-ran".

 

Strange they went that route, because they do so well with bosses usually (and even elsewhere in this same game!), but yeah... a pity!

[visighost 1,619]

I'll read through this in more details when I'm not working, but I can already say that there doesn't appear to be anything in there I disagree with!

 

Re: Chicory and its theme(s), I found the inclusion of imposter syndrome (which I certainly have) to be very well tackled. I don't know of very many games that have tried it. Perhaps the magnificent Wandersong or the quite-good-as-well Underhero...

Edited December 19, 2022 by visighost

[serrated-banner9 1,038]

that was very good doc, i didn't read it all as i'm not a big review guy but i can tell it was epic

[YaManSmevz 3,710]

Hot shit on a ham sandwich, what a great awards post👊😎

 

Truth be told, I almost succumbed to the "I'll post later" urge, but so many games nominated reminded me that I been slackin on my scientific participation lately. No, we do this now!

 

Quote

1ST RUNNER UP: Outer Wilds
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

 

I get more and more excited to play this one. It's in that category of backlogged game where it isn't so much that you're putting it off or forgetting about it, but rather saving it for when you think it'll hit just right. Does that make sense? I'm so wack🤣

 

Quote

3RD RUNNER UP: Inscryption
(Reviewed in BATCH 50)

 

FIRMLY in the mental backlog and one of those I'll be scanning for in every sale. A particularly good sale, though... I really gotta cut down on game expenditure next year!

 

Quote

WINNER: Fear Effect Sedna
(Reviewed in BATCH 52)

 

Always tempting because of its obscenely meager price tag in seemingly every sale, but easy to avoid. As for the older ones....eh, don't bother. I played the original on PS1 way back when, and even with its cool look and premise, as well as the whole "Hey there straight male teenage gamer, wanna watch two girls take a shower??" (I did), it was still unable to hold my interest for long. A potentially dope franchise eternally doomed by poor execution, it seems!

 

Also, "A fascinating exercise in failure..." now that's an opener🤣👊

 

Quote

3RD RUNNER UP: The Forgotten City
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

 

This one is gonna be in more than a few year end posts, ain't it... fuck, what a good game!

 

Quote

2ND RUNNER UP: Life is Strange: Before the Storm
(Reviewed in BATCH 37)

 

Between being unable to read your write-up and seeing it so prevalent here... yeah, I need to play these games.

 

Quote

WINNER: Manifold Garden
(Reviewed in BATCH 42)

 

This was on sale pretty much right after I read about it in Batch 42. I came this close to buying it and I did not. Regret.

 

Quote

2ND RUNNER UP: The Artful Escape
(Reviewed in BATCH 36)

 

🥰🥰🥰

 

Quote

WINNER: Sayonara Wild Hearts
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

 

Did I comment on this one?? Why do I not remember it? Hopefully my senility isn't ahead of schedule...

 

Synth pop bangers by Swede lookin names? All I need to hear. I'd better buy it before I forget, and look down at my hand and see a half eaten piece of toast I didn't even realize I'd been eating.

 

Quote

1ST RUNNER UP: The Longest Road on Earth
(Reviewed in BATCH 40)

 

Okay, this one I DO remember (phew)! Placement solidified!

 

Quote

1ST RUNNER UP: Unpacking
(Reviewed in BATCH 43)

 

Another one I've recently purchased and am excited to get into! Might be first when I'm done with the PS3, I expect to be in some serious need of a nice chill game.

 

Quote

WINNER: Best Month Ever!
(Reviewed in BATCH 49)

 

I REMEMBER WHAT A BUMMER THIS WAS TO READ ABOUT. I can only imagine how it felt to actually play! Unfortunately, it does seem deserving of Trent Reznor's crown of shit😔

 

Quote

WINNER: Resident Evil VII: Biohazard
(Reviewed in BATCH 45)

 

I suspect I'll feel the same way whenever I eventually get around to playing this one!

 

....but not 6, I am never playing 6, I don't care if I own it. It's caused pain to too many of my friends - and not the fun kind!

 

 

Quote

 

 

Dude literally every game in this category had me like "ooh, yup... I like that, that sounds sweet. I should play that, shouldn't I?" so I couldn't zero in on just one. These all look so tantalizing.

 

But... then it reminds me of how many games I've already got to play, and how many of which you're directly responsible for!

 

You know what, Doc?? You suck!! And anybody else who has the audacity to recommend good games that keep our backlogs growing sucks too!! They're menaces to PSN and terrible people in general!!

 

Quote

WINNER: @YaManSmevz - 4 Games

 

Oh! Um... what was I saying?

 

Quote

My Memory of Us / UnMetal / Islanders / Resident Evil (remake)

 

Thanks dawg🥰 I am super appreciative of the nod and the kind words, but most of all am super excited to hear your thoughts on these games!! I was borderline little girl squeal level of happy when I saw that you enjoyed Islanders, so for the rest, particularly Resident Evil, I'll have my fingers crossed and eyes out for the write-ups!

 

Quote

 

 

Indeed!

 

Fantastic work homie, I'm already looking forward to next year's😂👊

[Copanele 18,347]

Can I just say that overall 2022 was a great year for videogames? I don't mean released games (although I can't complain in that department either), but for games that we played?

I mean, even the turdiest of turds weren't as stinky as before  

Congrats for another bountiful year! Honestly, reason why December is one of the best months is because of all the retrospectives  

 

Now, for the quoting

Quote

An easy, statistical one to start with (But the biggest in grandeur, of course!) - this award is based on placement on the current rankings - essentially the top 4 games on the list, in order, if only this years played games are considered.

There is, after all, a reason these games ranked so highly - and here, we celebrate it!

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Elden Ring

Was there any doubt even? This game absolutely blew everything away this year, the quality has been astounding. And no, it wasn't a perfect game (no Fromsoft game is) but the things this game managed to accomplish--actually you know what? You're right, this is GOTY, I will keep my words for my own awards, cause whoopdedoo guess who is gonna win the GOTY on my pastures?

 

All I am saying, finding secrets and sharing them via status update is what made this game's first playthrough amazing  Goddamn Blaidd took forever to find

 

Quote

 

 

WINNER: Curse of the Dead Gods
(Reviewed in BATCH 36)

If I am going to add a category called "top 10 reasons of wallet abuse", imma put you in top 3 Doc. You recommended a crapton of games  and out of all the ones I purchased, this one was still the best. Absolutely loved it + finding the damn strategies for each area  

Minus the Elite Bestiary completion, as you mentioned it already. That was too much work.

 

Quote

Really, what this award is, is "How fast would I hit the purchase button if I heard there was a sequel!".

 

 

 

 

WINNER: Kena: Bridge of Spirits
(Reviewed in BATCH 35)

Due to super time constraints, I haven't gotten to playing this but I swear I am onto it! I really want to play Kena ESPECIALLY since people complained about difficulty, calling it "Souls-like even" 

Yeah anyway I am looking forward to playing it

 

Quote

Why haven't I played this before? Runner up

 

 

 

 

 

1ST RUNNER UP: Doki Doki Literature Club+
(Reviewed in BATCH 43)

I played this game when it first showed up for free on Steam...This took me by surprise in a million ways  

Especially the "final puzzle solution" if i can call it like this...High school life is amazing like that  

My god what a game 😂 can't say more, because anything can be considered spoiler at this point.

 

Sadly, I can't say I played the other games from the list, but I 100% enjoyed the read 😇 I agree with all your takes in advance 😂 so far I don't think we disagreed on games (one exception being Horse Simulator 2000)

 

Now I should get back to writing my own list! Here's to an even more glorious 2023 !

[breakingthegreen 1,338]

7 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

WINNER: Best Month Ever!
(Reviewed in BATCH 49)

An absurdly top-heavy list, nearly every trophy in Best Month Ever! can (and most likely will,) be unlocked in the first playthrough... however, the final one - for seeing every ending - requires a whopping 9 endings to be seen, most of which require a full new playthrough to unlock, and many of which have such similar statistical requirements for the three measures of "play style" (righteousness, relations and confidence) that actually achieving one, and not the other is a matter of pure guesswork... and has virtually no distinction in terms of game content or reveal.

Factor in the fact that there are finite opportunities to increase or decrease each measure, and the unintended reductions some have when increasing others, and the game goes very quickly form a natural, flowing narrative, to a tiresome, repetitive, mechanical plod through a series of never-variable-enough scenes, trying to stitch together the correct mathematical formula to result in one of the 9 different minor changes in the ending monologue.

 

 

I very recently 100%ed this game, and I'm about to play Devil's Advocate for the that one endings trophy. 

 

Now I wouldn't blame anyone who played the game for missing this detail, online I was only able to find one guide mentioning it: but Mitch's Karma saves even after the game is completed and can be change by replaying chapters in what is effectively "Karma Farming." The one guide I had found had picked out extremely poor farming locations for confidence to compound my problems finding info. Despite all that, for myself the trophy only would take about 5 extra hours (mostly the 9 runs of the last chapter) rather than the 9 play-throughs.

 

My frustration with the lack of good information is what lead me to come out of my guide writing retirement(?), to actually have an easy to find source of information on this trophy. (My guide) 

 

Un-Devil's Advocate now, I don't actually like the game, I found it super disappointing too, and the "Farming" felt more like an oversight than a feature. But regardless, the list is at least a quarter as bad as you think it is with this time saver... probably still very bad though tbf.

 

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

18 minutes ago, breakingthegreen said:

 

I very recently 100%ed this game, and I'm about to play Devil's Advocate for the that one endings trophy. 

 

Now I wouldn't blame anyone who played the game for missing this detail, online I was only able to find one guide mentioning it: but Mitch's Karma saves even after the game is completed and can be change by replaying chapters in what is effectively "Karma Farming." The one guide I had found had picked out extremely poor farming locations for confidence to compound my problems finding info. Despite all that, for myself the trophy only would take about 5 extra hours (mostly the 9 runs of the last chapter) rather than the 9 play-throughs.

 

My frustration with the lack of good information is what lead me to come out of my guide writing retirement(?), to actually have an easy to find source of information on this trophy. (My guide) 

 

Un-Devil's Advocate now, I don't actually like the game, I found it super disappointing too, and the "Farming" felt more like an oversight than a feature. But regardless, the list is at least a quarter as bad as you think it is with this time saver... probably still very bad though tbf.

 

 

Interesting... yeah, I must admit - I did wonder how much that ending grind could be cut down with a good guide - at the time though, I didn't have any kind of guide I could find - TBH, the best I found was a text list of what each "outcome" career path / life story could be... and had to basically trial and error my way through the full game each time, figuring out which combo would lead to which...

...it was pretty disheartening to get the same one 3 times in a row!

 

 

Admittedly, I don't tend to guide for the first few times anyways, but I do wonder, with a good guide, it might not have WON this category... but I suspect it would still have made a showing!

 

Congrats of the guide though - I know those are a power of work, and it's great seeing one done for smaller games like this one - I so WANTED to like this game.... it just wouldn't let me! 😂

Edited December 19, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[breakingthegreen 1,338]

16 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Congrats of the guide though - I know those are a power of work, and it's great seeing one done for smaller games like this one - I so WANTED to like this game.... it just wouldn't let me! 

Thanks, but for that game it was pretty easy to write the guide since most of the trophies were "play the game" or "play the game well." I legitimately spent more time writing up the content warning than guides for most of the trophies.

I had paper notes I had written to get that last trophy and I was about to put the paper in the recycling and thought, "I'm not letting this work go to waste." Long story short, I wrote the guide solely for that one goddamn trophy since I got quite grumpy about the lack of information.

 

 

16 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Admittedly, I don't tend to guide for the first few times anyways,

 

Same, I got the low courage, low morals ending first time, (it also didn't help that I couldn't see the icons in the corner at any point when I played.)

Edited December 19, 2022 by breakingthegreen

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

20 hours ago, YaManSmevz said:

 

I get more and more excited to play this one. It's in that category of backlogged game where it isn't so much that you're putting it off or forgetting about it, but rather saving it for when you think it'll hit just right. Does that make sense? I'm so wack🤣

 

That makes absolute sense to me - and especially with a game like Outer Wilds - it's more what I'd call "an experience" than a game really - and one that needs the player to be in the right mood, for sure!

In Outer Wilds case - it's closer to the feeling of wanting to settle in for a great book, than a traditional game, because the actual controlling is never the issue... but losing yourself in a mystery is a serious issue, that needs some time set aside!

 

 

20 hours ago, YaManSmevz said:

FIRMLY in the mental backlog and one of those I'll be scanning for in every sale. A particularly good sale, though... I really gotta cut down on game expenditure next year!

 

Haha - don't worry - if I see Inscryption going on a sale at some point, you'd better believe I'll be shouting about it to everyone I know! 😂

 

 

20 hours ago, YaManSmevz said:

Synth pop bangers by Swede lookin names? All I need to hear. I'd better buy it before I forget, and look down at my hand and see a half eaten piece of toast I didn't even realize I'd been eating.

 

 

Dude! Totally go for it - what a weird, awesome game! 

Sayonara Wild Hearts is just a game designed to put a smile on your face. Plain and simple... and that soundtrack is dope!

 

 

20 hours ago, YaManSmevz said:

I suspect I'll feel the same way whenever I eventually get around to playing this one!

 

....but not 6, I am never playing 6, I don't care if I own it. It's caused pain to too many of my friends - and not the fun kind!

 

This, I full endorse. RE6 isn't even the "well, I gotta at least see" kind of bad.... it's just... alarmingly, crushingly disappointing. 

 

REVII though - holy smokes!

 

 

20 hours ago, YaManSmevz said:

 

Thanks dawg🥰 I am super appreciative of the nod and the kind words, but most of all am super excited to hear your thoughts on these games!! I was borderline little girl squeal level of happy when I saw that you enjoyed Islanders, so for the rest, particularly Resident Evil, I'll have my fingers crossed and eyes out for the write-ups!

 

 

No, thank you - I already have 3 out of 4 purchased, one in the wishlist, one bought... and I've made the promise to myself that I WILL be doing that RE1 remake this year!

 

 

 

 

20 hours ago, Copanele said:

Can I just say that overall 2022 was a great year for videogames? I don't mean released games (although I can't complain in that department either), but for games that we played?

I mean, even the turdiest of turds weren't as stinky as before  

Congrats for another bountiful year! Honestly, reason why December is one of the best months is because of all the retrospectives  

 

Hell yeah you can!

 

This was a heck of a year for me - having to drop the "Nope!" award is the happiest I've ever been to be forced to do extra work in these awards - even the worst stuff in this years crop was still worthwhile in some sense (for the most part.... *casts judgemental side-eye at Fear Effect*) 

 

 

20 hours ago, Copanele said:

Now, for the quoting

Was there any doubt even? This game absolutely blew everything away this year, the quality has been astounding. And no, it wasn't a perfect game (no Fromsoft game is) but the things this game managed to accomplish--actually you know what? You're right, this is GOTY, I will keep my words for my own awards, cause whoopdedoo guess who is gonna win the GOTY on my pastures?

 

All I am saying, finding secrets and sharing them via status update is what made this game's first playthrough amazing  Goddamn Blaidd took forever to find

 

It's funny that I really thought of 2022 as "the year I didn't play much big AAA"... yet it was also the year of Elden Ring - which is one of the biggest, most "everyone is talking about it" releases ever... it just managed to be both massive and "AAA", yet not feel "AAA" in any of the negative ways!

 

A hell of a game!

 

 

20 hours ago, Copanele said:

If I am going to add a category called "top 10 reasons of wallet abuse", imma put you in top 3 Doc. You recommended a crapton of games  and out of all the ones I purchased, this one was still the best. Absolutely loved it + finding the damn strategies for each area  

Minus the Elite Bestiary completion, as you mentioned it already. That was too much work.

 

I credit you with CotDG getting on this list - before you picked it up, it was one of those "I must be crazy, no one else has even tried this, but it seems awesome...?" kind of games... but between you and Finch playing it, and then PS+ inclusion, I got to actually see that it wasn't just that I was nuts.... It actually is that good!

 

 

20 hours ago, Copanele said:

Due to super time constraints, I haven't gotten to playing this but I swear I am onto it! I really want to play Kena ESPECIALLY since people complained about difficulty, calling it "Souls-like even" 

Yeah anyway I am looking forward to playing it

 

Haha - well, dude, I certainly think Kena proves some Souls-stuff making it further afield than it ever has - and it's a great game - but I won't lie: You'll smash through that game with ease.

It's not quite souls-level tough - even on that Master Difficulty. It's no joke for sure, and waaaaay more brutal than you'd expect for the type of game... but it's not quite as tough as all that.

 

I suspect you'll finish, and be like "yeah, so?" 😝

 

 

20 hours ago, Copanele said:

 

Sadly, I can't say I played the other games from the list, but I 100% enjoyed the read  I agree with all your takes in advance  so far I don't think we disagreed on games (one exception being Horse Simulator 2000)

 

Argo FTW!

who needs good controls, when you have such majestic camera work?

No one! That's who! 😝

 

20 hours ago, Copanele said:

Now I should get back to writing my own list! Here's to an even more glorious 2023 !

 

 

Get 'er done man - I got a Backlog Gremlin 2023 list to start filling out! 😂

[slicknick3822 232]

I feel like I both agree and disagree with you on Village. I agree the first few hours are definitely the best but I actually liked the character of Heisenberg and felt like he deserved more screen time. However, I do agree that he was poorly written and through most of the game he's generally forgotten about and he's supposed to be the right hand man and last step to Miranda (who I also dont think was a great final boss).

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

3 minutes ago, slicknick3822 said:

I feel like I both agree and disagree with you on Village. I agree the first few hours are definitely the best but I actually liked the character of Heisenberg and felt like he deserved more screen time. However, I do agree that he was poorly written and through most of the game he's generally forgotten about and he's supposed to be the right hand man and last step to Miranda (who I also dont think was a great final boss).

 

For sure I wasn't a fan of Heisenberg, but I do admit - the reason I think he seemed so ineffectual, was just that none of the bosses in that game come close to Lady D in terms of threat or personality... so having her be the first one is a bit peculiar!

 

I do think if the game went from Heisenberg, to Moreau, to House Beneviento, to a finale in Castle Dimitrescu... with Lady D as Miranda's "right hand man" it would have flowed much better - and would have felt much more of a true "ramp" in terms of quality - and would have set the player up to finish on a bang, rather than a bit of a whimper!

[Billie__227 255]

Incredible writing as usual, Doc! I had to skim through certain parts bc you've got a couple of games on there that I either haven't finished or gotten around to yet but thanks so much for the mention, I think its so cool how much effort you put into everything. Even down to the images you make for things! You really go above and beyond for us all 🥺 

 

I know I said it before but I'm so happy you enjoyed Doki Doki! I can't wait to see you get around to the other recs one day. Stardew Valley especially is a good one to just relax in between other more stressful games

 

Also, sorry about confusing you with the name change lmao I had been wanting to change it for a while but I don't plan on doing it again!

 

Honestly you've become one of my favorite people on this site. Here's to another year of (hopefully) great games!

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

4 minutes ago, Billie__227 said:

Incredible writing as usual, Doc! I had to skim through certain parts bc you've got a couple of games on there that I either haven't finished or gotten around to yet but thanks so much for the mention, I think its so cool how much effort you put into everything. Even down to the images you make for things! You really go above and beyond for us all 🥺 

 

I know I said it before but I'm so happy you enjoyed Doki Doki! I can't wait to see you get around to the other recs one day. Stardew Valley especially is a good one to just relax in between other more stressful games

 

Also, sorry about confusing you with the name change lmao I had been wanting to change it for a while but I don't plan on doing it again!

 

Honestly you've become one of my favorite people on this site. Here's to another year of (hopefully) great games!

 

Thanks Billie!

 

I appreciate that... and I appreciate the recommends! Doki Doki was a great one - and I've got World's End Syndrome and Stardew bought already, for future play!

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

SUPER SCIENTIFIC UPDATE

 

Over the festive period, Science shall once again enter....

 

 

Over the next few weeks, I'll be playing games a fair amount no doubt, and will like be on this site plenty... (there's only so many different ways to distract from compulsory family visit times, and using a phone is the primary one! )... but will likely not have the free alone time to do much in the way of reviews.

 

As such, my plan is to just play away, build up a fair few new reviews, then in the new year, I'll do a batch or two to catch up on those, before getting back into the swing of the older reviews and the few outstanding requests!

[Platinum_Vice 1,922]

On 19/12/2022 at 8:35 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

This is the award for a game sounding great. That might be due to great music, or great voice work, or excellent foley work, or some combination, but these games just sound the business!

 

3RD RUNNER UP: God of War: Ragnarok

It's a work-horse of a game, very good, but not quite excellent enough to make the top 4 in almost any specific category. (Oddly, despite its near absence on these awards, I suspect that if my awards had a "5th place" spot, it very well might be the most represented game overall!)

 

Quote

More than that though, the voice work in the game is top notch. There is a metric-fuck-tonne of dialogue in the game, all exceptionally well delivered, and the vocal performances, (with one notable exception - that of Tir - who feels wildly miscast as an ageing Surf-bro hippie,) are incredibly good. Kratos sounds like the ageing, weary warrior  he is, Freya sounds broken and destroyed... and special props have to go to the phenomenal performance by Richard Schiff as Odin.

Playing him as a put-upon, Tony-Soprano-meets-Toby-Ziegler crime-family boss is a masterstroke of conceptual writing, however, that left-field decision could have gone awry very easily, were it not for the seems-strange-but-actually-perfect casting of Schiff. Providing both the character model, and the performance, Schiff's Odin is - and I don't say this lightly - potentially the best, most interesting, and most nuanced character portrayal in any modern, big-budget videogame. 

All AAA games take note - you don't need to go big to stand out - sometimes, and understated performance is the most indelible!

 

Okay. I admit it: once in a blue moon... I... *ahem* skip a Bloodmoney review.

 

Yes. It's true. 😞

 

Because spoilers are the devilish handiwork of Jim Ryan. And I haven't played Ragnarok yet. So to read that it just missed out on so many runner-up spots and that the performances are this strong bodes so well for my pending experience. Exciting.

 

On 19/12/2022 at 8:35 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

 

Probably my favourite part of the awards!

 

On 19/12/2022 at 8:35 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

All the best narrative games know - don't make the trophies force the players hand in narrative decisions! 
Life is Strange knows it, Telltale know it - they understand that forcing the player to replay an emotion-based narrative harms the impact. 
Just ask David Cage, who routinely injures his own games in this fashion - but at least his games change significantly with each change of decision.

 

PREACH IT.

 

On 19/12/2022 at 8:35 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

Guardians of the Galaxy is about fun, excitement, flying by the seat of your pants, and having a wild ride. The collectible clean-up of the game feels like filling in a tax return under a buzzing fluorescent light - and ends what was a fun rollercoaster, with an alarming and disappointingly wet fart.

 

😂

 

On 19/12/2022 at 8:35 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

Instead of killing a target in some deadly and ridiculous manner, here, the "assassin" is a naughty goose, intent on causing chaos in a quaint country village... but the actual mechanics are broadly, oddly similar. Plate spinning balance of distraction techniques and trap-setting, learning NPC patterns and reactions to stimuli, a delicate clockwork-patchwork of interactions and timing-based stealth... Untitled Goose Game's various challenges are tantamount to Hitman in a variety of ways!

 

Spicy take!

 

On 19/12/2022 at 8:35 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

A really sad statement - as Backbone is a game that needs to be experienced in full for a player to realise why it's good - a curious, interesting narrative, a bleak and stifling noire tone, some KILLER pixel-art visuals, and a well-fleshed-out world combine to paper over a few gameplay cracks and trophy issues, and make for a game that is easy to recommend...

...so consider it recommended - and get that player-count up!

 

I'm trying to get to it dude! I've been hyped about Backbone since I first saw the trailer... I guess the relative decreasing quality rating of other less-appealing games is pushing Backbone towards the backburner. Does that make sense?

I mean... expect Backbone to still shine in two to three years whereas the likes of Biomutant (for example) would be too greatly overshadowed to be appreciated as much. That means that my brain wants to play Biomutant (for example) first.

 

On 20/12/2022 at 3:27 AM, YaManSmevz said:

I get more and more excited to play this one. It's in that category of backlogged game where it isn't so much that you're putting it off or forgetting about it, but rather saving it for when you think it'll hit just right. Does that make sense? I'm so wack🤣

 

This is a thing!

 

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

 

Welcome back, Science Chums! Hope y'all had a good holiday!

So, let's get back in the swing of things, shall we?

 

 

But wait! 

 

Hold your horses.
This isn't a normal batch - this is something else.

So... there are currently 8 outstanding S-Ranks to be ranked from the Festive Hiatus, and at least 3 outstanding Priority Assignments...
...but since I have never let things like common sense or reason get in the way of me doing things, I've decided to deal with an issue that has been bugging me with the Scientific Ranking for some time now... and doing it right at the start of the year seems apropos!

 

While I like to do a proper review of each game getting ranked, more and more as the list of outstanding games gets whittled down, I have been noticing certain games on the list, that I am silently dreading anyone asking for as Priority Rankings, or keep sighing when I see on the list, knowing reviews will have to be done.

Why, you ask?

Well, simply because there are a few games that for whatever reason, I really don't see myself being able, (or willing,) to do a full, in-depth analysis for.

In some cases, this is because they are games I really don't have the background in the respective genre to have much to say, or in other cases, it's because they were games I simply didn't have any really strong feelings about any aspect of... or in a few cases, it's because I simply don't think the effort that went into the game is substantial enough to warrant my own effort in reviewing them at length!

I don't want to include too many games in that category (I did, after all, manage to do a full review of Aabs Animals, and .detuned, and - God help me - LA Cops,) but those are games that I do think had enough meat on their bones (or enough butt-poop stuck to them,) to justify a full review. 

 

These games aren't in that category. 

They are not games that I hated (not all, anyways) - but they are simply games that I saw with my eyes, interacted with using my thumbs, and hear credits music play with my ears... but either never felt moved - either for good or ill - by anything during that time that would necessitate a long discussion... or don't feel qualified to render any long-form thought on.

I have whittled down to those games, removed anything that could potentially merit some real talking points, and been pretty ruthless - narrowing it down to 13 games that I really would like to just get out of the way with a quick paragraph each, a fast ranking... then not have to worry about in the future!

As such, I give you:

 

 

The Brevity Batch

 

 

 

 

A Winter's Daydream

 

Summary: 

A rather boring and oddly saccharine visual novel developed by Ebi-Hime, in which a young boy returns to his childhood village, to find his elderly grandmother has transformed into a young girl.

 

Nice art, though there's not a lot of it, and while the plot is pretty minimal, that certainly doesn't stop the writers keeping the pace glacially slow, to the point that the player is eternally stuck about seven steps ahead of the game, and painfully clicking through uneven and dull writing, seemingly written by folks who would be writing for Hallmark greetings cards, if only they had the brevity.

 

A pretty terrible example of straight visual-novels - the game does nothing to make use of the format, and seemingly only exits as a visual novel, because in pure text from, it wouldn't even warrant making it to the end. I don't like to skip through text in games, but here - even though text is all there is - I found myself speeding up faster and faster with each chapter, waiting for it to end.

 

 

The Ranking:

There's more to the story in terms of word count than any Artifex Mundi game, however, there's arguably less actual interest here, and man, do they drag it out to the point that it wears on even the most patient reader. It also has nothing of value beyond that story, and so it has to rank lower than most AM games. 

 

It's not offensively terrible, just dull, uninteresting and terribly thinly spread, and that is almost worse than being abjectly bad.

 

In the end, looking at the list, I think something curious but deeply flawed like Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space still lifts itself above A Winter's Daydream... but I can't in good conscience place A Winter's Daydream lower than actively offensive and borderline-exploitative Lost at Sea.

 

As such, it finds its spot.

 

 

 

 

BigFest

 

Summary: 

A Lacklustre and pretty bland attempt at merging Theme Park style management sim with pop music by On The Metal - BigFest is somewhat notable in that it is taking a genre that isn't well catered to on Vita... but it is also the biggest argument as to why. 

 

Technically ropey, with serious frame-rate, slowdown and crashing issues make it a really hard sell - and the fact that the game is pretty bland even when it's working right makes it even tougher. The music in the game is fairly varied, but not super memorable, the gameplay is Theme Park-esque, sticking pretty closely to Bullfrog's old model, but a little too gated and a little too invariable to feel like the the user has real agency in their festival, and the use of iOS-style "3-Star" rating systems makes the game feel morel like a checkbox exercise than a free-flow simulation.

 

There is a good adherence to Bullfrog's old style of humour, but it lacks the charm required to really lean into it, looks okay, but the Vita limitations really hamper the visual panache, and overall, the game feels a bit mechanical. Since the game is rife with technical issues, it tends to just descend into a long list of uninteresting tasks to perform, hoping that they can be ticked before the game falls over and requires a restart.

 

Not an abject misery, but also not really worth a second look - and given that the Bullfrog itch is now being satisfied by the likes of Two Point Hospital and Two Point Campus, there is even less reason to give BigFest any real oxygen.

 

 

The Ranking:

There are a couple of other Vita "checkbox" games that work much better, have better humour, and actually have a bit more in terms of player agency - the Doodle games: Doodle God and Doodle Devil.

 

They have to rank above BigFest, however, while the fun in BigFest is slim pickings, there is more here to enjoy than there is in pretty dull and uninteresting puzzle game Gem Smashers.

 

As such, BigFest finds its spot.

 

 

 

 

Dead Space Ignition

 

Summary: 

A fairly near idea as a tie-in to Dead Space 2 - a motion-comic choose your own adventure, mixed with puzzle game blend, serving both as a teaser, and potential tie-in / unlock for the (at the time, unreleased) bigger game - Dead Space Ignition was a novel concept... however, that novelty was about the only thing really noteworthy about it.

 

The motion-comic art is fairly uninspired - and actually, quite amateurish in places - and the three mini-games not particularly fun. A reverse-tower-defence game is the arguable highlight, but is rendered overly simplistic due to lack of real balancing, and can be generally beaten through sheer attrition, and the more "puzzle" mini-game - a laser reflection game is pretty basic. That one, while having some scope for fun - and a few good puzzles that do tickle the puzzle-itch. There is also a sort of Tron-style line-racing game, that is simply boring to play.

 

The actual motion comic story is perfectly serviceable, but to be honest, in a universe like Dead Space's, (which has shown, with Dead Space Extraction, that it can easily support a really good spin-off,) "serviceable" is damning by faint praise.

 

A cool concept, but makes for a very forgettable game - and while some knee-jerk excuse might be made, given the simplistic nature of the product, it is worth remembering that Metropolis: Lux Obscura took the very same concept - a motion comic choose your own adventure game, coupled it with just a single mini-game (in it's case, a good match-3 puzzler,) and made for a much better, nicer looking, more replayable, less frustrating, and much, much more interesting and enjoyable end product.

 

 

The Ranking:

Odd, not-quite-all-there eldritch space horror walking sim Moons of Madness is a pretty dull affair, but it certainly has more going for it than this version of eldritch-adjacent horror...

...but I do think that while Dead Space Ignition is pretty dull overall, it still has more here to keep the player interested than lacklustre puzzle-box game Access Denied.

 

Thus, it finds its spot.

 

 

 

 

Final Horizon

 

Summary: 

A never-bad-but-never-quite-good-either, alien-themed Tower Defence game from Eiconic Games, Final Horizon does all the usual things present in tower defence games, and does them pretty competently, but never once goes beyond that. 

 

The game is broken into short levels, arguably perfect for the Vita experience, but suffers from some of the issues inherent to Vita ports of larger games (slowdown, reduced fidelity etc,) and this can be particularly dismaying, given the rather pedestrian, and at times, genuinely ugly, art design of the game. 

 

Tower Defence fans are thinly catered to on Vita, and Final Horizon is a workmanlike, competent serving, but not one with much flavour to it - either in narrative, tone, gameplay variability or unique or interesting ideas - what it does, it does perfectly acceptably, but the narrow scope of ambition is a real downer. Rarely have I encountered a game so completely devoid of any specific or unique hook, that the only question asked by it is: "Okay... but why bother?"

 

Not bad, not good, not interesting.

 

 

The Ranking:

Zombie Driver HD is also a pretty dull, uninspired, yet competent game, but while it is also quite boring, it at least has some sort of limited personality, and some attempt at marginal originality, and so ranks above Final Horizon.

 

Fear Effect Sedna, on the other hand, doesn't really try too much original gameplay, and while it is much nicer to look at, and a little more engaging in the narrative, it's myriad genuine, serious issues with gameplay design, dialogue and input control drag it down further than Final Horizon.

 

As such, Final Horizon finds its spot.

 

 

 

 

Legends of War: Patton

 

Summary: 

A solidly unremarkable Cannon-Fodder-meets-X-Com, History Channel endorsed, WWII themed Turn Based Strategy game from Spanish developer Enigma Software Productions.

 

The game uses X-Com style troop levelling and XP, a decent, if not expansive variety of terrain, objectives and scenarios, and a visual style that is relatively unremarkable (though, admittedly, more hampered on Vita than in some of its big-boy-console versions,) to roughly follow, with some limited historical accuracy, the American campaign of the Third US Army in WWII.

 

The game is fine, but never more than that - and unfortunately, - given the History Channel endorsement - while often overly text-heavy, falls somewhat in a gulf between historical education, and gameplay fun. There is quite a lot of historical content presented in text form between missions, however, it never feels quite enough to justify the fairly pedestrian gameplay. Conversely though, there is enough deviation from historical accuracy to allow for gameplay and "Hollywood" moments, that the credentials as a historical educational tool are a little questionable. 

It tends to feel like the game should have leaned into either one or the other more fully - either fully into the historical nature, perhaps including actual footage, or documentary-style clips of the History Channel's (palpable wealth of) information...

...or simply eschew the historical accuracy, and ramp up the fun-factor of the gameplay, history-be-damned.

 

Not a bad product, but never a great one - and never quite scratches either the Cannon Fodder, X-Com... or historical education itches.

 

 

The Ranking:

It's a game that certainly feels more fleshed out and interesting than the somewhat charming, but incomplete and too-short Jacob Jones and the Bigfoot Mystery...

...but even with its faults, something like The Bradwell Conspiracy still feels more of an engaging proposition as a videogame.

 

As such, Legends of War: Patton finds its spot.

 

 

 

 

MLB13 The Show: Home Run Derby Edition

 

Summary: 

A slightly odd take on the "Compact" game edition, MLB 13 The Show: Home Run Derby Edition essentially served as a free sample (a very, very slight sample,) of the main game, MLB13 The Show.

 

Essentially allowing the player to see what the game looked and felt like to play prior to purchase, (the Home Run Derby Edition was free to all,) it simple allowed the player to try one of the mini-modes of the main game, in which the player tries to hit home runs when at bat... but included a very small, simply trophy list, as a curious incentive to try it out.

 

Certainly novel as an interactive game trailer, and arguably successful (though in my case, it likely had the opposite effect, as I felt I had got enough of the game from that little snippet!) but for a free product, it looked pretty nice (as mice as the main game, anyways,) and was a better indication of the main games feel than a player could get from a quick-look or screenshots.

 

 

The Ranking:

Perfectly adequate for what it is, but what MLB13 The Show: Home Run Derby Edition is, is incredibly slight.

 

As such, without any real gain from the game beyond "will I buy the main game?" it can only be ranked based on the same question that originated with equally slight Not-Real-Cat-Watching-Simulator Aabs Animals: "which games are so bad, that not playing a game is better?"

 

There are only six games on the ranking that I think are worse than simply sitting in silence, (the current bottom 6,) and I do think there is more in MLB13 The Show: Home Run Derby Edition to engage than Aabs Animals, so it ranks above that one too, but there is definitely more meat on the bone when it comes to the PS Vita Welcome Pack, and so it ranks below that one.

 

 

 

 

 

XBlaze Code: Embryo

 

Summary: 

What happens when you need to play a game starting with "X" for a community event, but there are slim pickings, and the only one you can see that might work, is a Visual Novel entry in a franchise you have no understanding of?

 

This. 

This is what happens.

 

I can't really review XBlaze Code: Embryo, as I knew nothing about the BlazBlue franchise to which it belongs prior to playing it... 

...and somehow feel like I know even less about it now, having done so. 

 

This review and ranking is based entirely on what the game is like to play for someone unfamiliar with the overall story:

 

There is a very bland, rather un-characterised protagonist, (a man,) trying to solve the mystery of what a disaster a decade ago has to do with super-humans now causing havoc. As he meanders through the story, he encounters a bunch of other characters - pretty much exclusively hentai-level girls of indeterminately youthful demeanour, indescribably ample proportions and unfathomably skimpy attire - does a lot of amine wide-eye gesticulation... and solves the mystery in some way. 

Or something.

Or whatever.

 

To be frank, the writing is pretty baffling to the uninitiated, but even setting that aside, it's all pretty rote and uninteresting - flatly delivered, fairly underwritten, and clearly just a vehicle for some anime boobage and buttage.

 

A sort of Virtue's Last Reward for simpletons variation on the multiple endings gameplay happens, everyone looks either sexy, dramatic of confused, and credits happen a few times.

 

Maybe this all makes perfect sense to the BlazBlue fan... but for an outsider, I've never had a game put me off a franchise harder than this one. Even Fear Effect Sedna made me curious to see the earlier games. This one made me never want to bother.

 

 

The Ranking:

I'm placing XBlaze Code: Embryo just below A Winter's Daydream, as while it has some more art, it's not necessarily better art, and it is primarily used to pretty distasteful effect.

 

A Winter's Daydream was invariably dull, but XBlaze Code: Embryo is both dull, and far longer.

 

It is, however, less personally offensive than Lost at Sea, so still ranks higher, despite my complete inability to fathom what any of it was about - and I tried pretty hard!

 

 

 

 

 

Peasant Knight

 

Summary: 

Peasant Knight isn't a bad game, however, it's one I don't feel comfortable doing a long review of, as while I got the S-Rank, it's one of the Ratalaika published games that only requires a portion of the game to be completed for the platinum, and I never managed to finish it!

 

An interesting take on the "tough platformer" it's essentially a slightly unusual version of the auto-runner. The player controls a knight, who has no weapons, runs (at pretty breakneck speed) automatically, and can only be influenced by two inputs - jump, or stop. 

Levels are quick-fire, fast paced platforming runs, with various hazards, obstacles, motion-flipping elements etc. and the goal in each it to reach a portal before the timer runs out.

 

It's visually very basic, with a sort of 8-bit visual style, crossed with an iOS style colour palate, and while the inputs are simple, the developer wrings a decent variety of gameplay out of them. The controls take some getting used to - the "press "stop" to pause mid-air, to shorten a jump and land on a platform", for example, is a simple mechanic, but one that flies in the face of most game-veteran's instincts, and can take some time to master the timing of... and the game actually gets pretty tricky, pretty quickly!

 

It's a simply design for a game, well suited to Vita due to its fast-paced, quick-fire levels, and with a more serious trophy list, would likely be a much better regarded game around these parts, as it certainly pulls from the same basic concepts that govern games like Super Meat Boy, (and particularly Super Meat Boy Forever,) or more aptly, something like Save the Ninja Clan...

...but as it stands, gets a little unfairly lumped in the EZPZ category.

 

Certainly the trophy list is EZPZ... but in later stages, the game sure isn't!

 

 

The Ranking:

I don't think Peasant Knight quite rises to the level of 36 Fragments of Midnight - it's a good game, but 36 Fragments of Midnight has a nicer look, better music, and is simply a more complete, nicer package (as well as being more a game catering to my own sensibilities,) but I do think the original concepts, clever level design and smooth, fast gameplay beats out the stilted, clunky gameplay of Dokuro.

 

As such, it finds its spot!

 

 

 

 

Nubla

 

Summary: 

A simple puzzle platformer, in which one of two students "enters" various (real) famous paintings in an art gallery, completes various very, very simply puzzles or platforming sections, with a view to fleshing out the gallery.

 

Nubla is something of a disappointment, because conceptually, it is very cool. The idea of using real-life paintings of different styles to create an interesting puzzle platformer is a good hook, and certainly the paintings used in Nubla are the main draw here. Unfortunately though, the incredible shortness and lack of substance in the game make it feel rather frivolous, and something of a wasted opportunity. 

 

Seeing each new painting world is fun, but there is a strange ugliness to the non-painting art-style - and I think I know why. In order to have a visual style that works, yet still stands out in each varying painted level, each of which has its own artists style, the developer has settled on a very odd art-style indeed. It feels somewhat akin to Flipping Death, mixed with Broken Age... but never manages to carry any of the charm of either of those games. In fact, placing the character into each of these masterworks, only serves to feel incongruous - not in a narrative way, but in a visually dissonant one.

 

There is something almost blasphemous about taking artists masterpieces, and adding this strange character to them - and this feeling is compounded later in the game, when the artists paintings begin being "cut-up" and miss-mashed to create the basic levels. 

 

The game never has much in the way of narrative engagement - which isn't a requirement - but it also tends to lack any real emotional engagement either... nor does it have adequate gameplay hooks to engage the player. Without offering much beyond the existing painting themselves, that makes for a pretty flimsy overall product - and one that's very hard to recommend.

 

A cool idea, stymied by lack of scope, ambition or artistic palatability.

 

 

The Ranking:

I think a full playthrough of Nubla, (clocking in at around an hour,) is still more fun and engaging than any single hour of the turgid Sniper Ghost Warrior...

...however, as short and throwaway as it is, I think there is more of interest in the competent-yet-dull Terminator Salvation, than the cool-idea-that-doesn't-get-capitalised-on contained in Nubla.

 

As such, it finds its spot.

 

 

 

 

SCIENTIFIC NOTE

 

There are 4 Vita racing Sim games to follow.

 

I don't play much in the way of racing games generally, however, I do enjoy the slow progression and pick-up-and-play nature of these smaller-scope racing games on Vita - and for a time, when I was routinely working offshore, and my Vita was in heavy use, these served as not particularly difficult, but not unengaging diversions to pass time in the evening / downtime!

 

I don't pretend to know anything about the real-life counterparts, (I don't follow MotoGP racing, or Rally racing,) so cannot really comment on the accuracy and breadth of the real-life sport elements... all I played these for was the simple fun of the racing, and so that's all I can rank them on!

 

 

 

 

MotoGP 13

 

 

Summary: 

A perfectly serviceable, if never remarkable bike racing game on Vita. 

 

There is a relatively variable, if not particularly robust depth of customisation available, and a decent suite of racing events and stand-alone races to play.

 

Visually, the game is decent of a Vita entry of the time, though never stand-out, however, frame-rate (often an issue on Vita) is actually surprisingly good. The motion of the bikes feels fairly good, and there is some fairly well implemented accessibility options (racing lines etc,) to cater to the racing novice... so me!

 

AI feels okay, though can tend - as in some lesser PS2-era racing games - to feel like it is simply oblivious to the presence of the player, acting as if they were simply not there, which can be irksome, however, actually controlling the bikes does feel fun, and with headphones, sounds pretty good too.

 

Not likely to engage for terribly long, unless the player is an avid MotoGP enthusiast, and in that case, likely feels a little bare-bones, particularly in comparison to the big-boy-console versions, but is pitched pretty well to the casual racing fan on the go.

 

 

The Ranking:

Ranks a little higher than the previously ranked MotoGP 13 Compact, due to the inclusion of career mode, fleshing out the experience, but the actual gameplay is not much different.

 

The extra length and more scope is enough to shunt this version a few spots higher, above some of the middle-tier Artifex Mundi puzzlers, but I still don't think for overall enjoyment, this one quite eclipses Adventure of Mana.

 

 

 

 

MotoGP 14 Compact

 

 

Summary: 

In the same way MotoGP 13 had a "compact" version to act as either a small-scope mini-game, or a taster/ teaser for the bigger, more fleshed out game, MotoGP 14 had one.

 

More fleshed out and more of a "game" than MLB The Show: Home Run Derby Edition for sure, the compact version of MotoGP 14 allows the player to play most of the modes of the main game, with the exception of the long-form "career mode".

 

As a standalone product, it's actually pretty robust, when one considers that - on Vita in particular - a longer career mode is not necessarily the draw for a lot of players, (the pick-up-and-play mentality being most comfortable on a hand-held device,) and so having a reduced scope, reduced cost version on the market does make sense... however, that comes with a potential downside, (for the developer and publisher, at least,) - it means the casual fan may not bother to stump for the bigger version, as they will likely get their fill from this edition. (this was the case for me!)

 

As far as the racing goes, it is, like MotoGP 13, pretty fun - truth be told, to the novice racer, the actual differences between the annual releases feel negligible. There is a minor increase in the fidelity of the visuals, but the actual gameplay feels broadly the same - serviceable, occasionally quite exciting, but generally just workmanlike and decent.

 

 

The Ranking:

This one really does feel pretty much the same as MotoGP 13 Compact - sure, there are some very minor discernible differences to the lay-person (visuals mostly,) but for the most part, I don't see any real difference in the ranking argument beyond that, so while Moto GP 14 Compact does beat out it's compact predecessor, it can't be moved higher than the spot right above it.

 

 

 

 

WRC 3

 

Summary: 

A pretty bare-bones rally game on the Vita, which while being broadly fun in the actual racing, is let down pretty considerably by the visuals, the reduced scope (as opposed to the more robust big-boy-console,) and the technical compromises required to get it to run on Vita.

 

Three main modes allow for either a quick-play style singe race, a single rally, or a championship mode, which runs across all 6 available full rallies. Oddly though, unlike the MotoGP games, the full "career" mode of the bigger console versions is stripped out even of the main Vita release (there is no "compact" versions of this series) meaning that without the carrot of a lower price-point, the Vita release does feel hampered.

 

Driving is, as said, pretty fun - the rally courses that are present are relatively varied, and there are multiple licensed cars that do handle somewhat differently. There is also a (again, slightly compromised,) damage model present, where cars handle based on their current state of damage, however, the benefit of all of this can only be in terms of gameplay, as the actual visuals are pretty chunky and not particularly nice, even by the relative standards of the Vita, and of the era - and the sound is a particular low-light. The engine noises sound closer to buzzing insects, and the vocal track of your navigator calling the turns sound like it was recorded on a 19th century gramophone, and listened to with ears full of butter.

 

The frame-rate is set at 30fps, and often dips below this, even despite the visual quality downgrades. (I rarely mention frame-rate in games, but in driving games, it is a key factor, and dips are crippling to the experience, and cannot be ignored!)

 

The game does what it needs to - provides a relatively engaging, if not terribly varied or robust rally experience, but much more than the MotoGP games, WRC 3 feels hampered by the Vita compromises, and the lack of care in the visuals and the sound.

 

 

The Ranking:

Falls well below the MotoGP games - even the limited Compact versions - and looking at the list, ended up slipping further and further down, due to the unappealing visual fidelity, and crippling frame-rate drops hampering what could be a good experience.

 

In the end, lands below unusual but generally kinda-dull Shütshimi, but overall, still does beat out Terminator Salvation for a bit of good fun, problems notwithstanding.

 

 

 

 

WRC 4

 

Summary: 

WRC 4 on Vita is a sizeable upgrade from its predecessor in terms of scope and scale, and in pretty much all other factors.

 

The career mode is included this time, along with a much larger suite of rallies. The good, arcade-feeling driving model is back, but this time, frame-rate issues, while still present, are far less egregious, and the visuals get a relatively substantial upgrade. Of course, the compromises made to cater to the Vita's limitations are still present, but in WRC 4, they feel far less hampering. 

 

The bigger variety of locations is welcome, the (slightly) improved sound, and (significantly) improved visuals help a lot, and make the elements that were already decent in WRC 3 - the driving model, the arcade feel and the simple, no-nonsense aesthetic - feel much better. 

 

It's still not a game that is likely to hold any player but the most forgiving, ardent rally fan's attention for terribly long, however, in WRC 4, the idea that a serviceable rally game can exist on the limited Vita technology is proven - and the idea that such severe compromises and shortcomings as WRC 3 had were par-for-the-course when translating a big-console game to vita are put to bed.

 

For any serious Rally fan, of course, the bigger console versions are always going to be preferable, but unlike it's Vita predecessor, WRC 4 does feel like a compromise worth making for the hand-held version.

 

 

The Ranking:

The significant improvements in WRC 4 actually propel it higher than the MotoGP games, and into the realm of fun, if flawed games. 

 

The Vita auto-runner Colour Guardians is not exactly the highest bar to aim for, but WRC 4 does surpass it...

...however, I cannot deny that I would replay the very good (if small) Artifex Mundi joint Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek before replaying WRC 4, so it finds its spot.

 

 

 

 

 

...and we're done!

 

Whew - that was fast, I feel like a whole new man, with those ones off my plate for 2023!

 

Next couple of Batches will be the catch-up ones, to cover new S-Ranks gained over the Festive Hiatus, then we'll be back in the proper swing of things afterwards.

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

 

!!SCIENCE UPDATE!!

 

 

The next 5 (not at all!) randomly selected games to be submitted for scientific analysis shall be:

 

 

Heavenly Bodies
The Entropy Centre
System of Souls
Treasures of the Aegean
Faraday Protocol

 

 

Playing catch-up from the Festive Break, so still no Priority Rankings here, but I reckon there will be one more purely catch-up Batch after this next one, and then I should be back in the swing of things!

 

 

Can 'Current Most Awesome' game, Hitman 3, fend off all new adversaries?

 

Is gaming butt-plug LA Cops going to pop out and be replaced as 'Least Awesome Game'?

 

 

Let's find out, Science Chums!

[Annoyingtiger888 557]

1 hour ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

!!SCIENCE UPDATE!!

 

 

The next 5 (not at all!) randomly selected games to be submitted for scientific analysis shall be:

 

 

Heavenly Bodies
The Entropy Centre
System of Souls
Treasures of the Aegean
Faraday Protocol

 

 

Playing catch-up from the Festive Break, so still no Priority Rankings here, but I reckon there will be one more purely catch-up Batch after this next one, and then I should be back in the swing of things!

 

 

Can 'Current Most Awesome' game, Hitman 3, fend off all new adversaries?

 

Is gaming butt-plug LA Cops going to pop out and be replaced as 'Least Awesome Game'?

 

 

Let's find out, Science Chums!

 

I'm excited to see what you say about Heavenly Bodies. I have it but I haven't played it yet 👀 Might start it after your analysis no pressure tho

[visighost 1,619]

Haha, I’m sure clearing those off the review backlog felt good! Indeed not much that’s memorable in any of those (that I’ve played anyway). But hey, there’s something to be said for simple, mindless games in terms of pure relaxation! Especially in short bouts on the Vita.

 

Looking forward to the new batch! I enjoyed my time with Treasures of the Aegean though I never got really far - I was afraid a number of trophies would become unobtainable if I got too far in the loop, and there’s precious little information out there…

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

6 minutes ago, visighost said:

Haha, I’m sure clearing those off the review backlog felt good! Indeed not much that’s memorable in any of those (that I’ve played anyway). But hey, there’s something to be said for simple, mindless games in terms of pure relaxation! Especially in short bouts on the Vita.

 

I'm a whole new man 😂

 

Quote

Looking forward to the new batch! I enjoyed my time with Treasures of the Aegean though I never got really far - I was afraid a number of trophies would become unobtainable if I got too far in the loop, and there’s precious little information out there…

 

It's very good!

 

As far as I know, nothing ever becomes unobtainable (I'm fairly confident in saying that, since I arsed about, not knowing what I was doing for a LOT of loops before I figured out what I was meant to be doing! 😂) In fact, there are a few little things that will have permanent effects - but they are pretty much only small busy-work parts of the bigger puzzles (opening a door with a specific key, for example) which means you don't have to do it every time.

 

Other than that, the loop is pretty much stable - in fact, I haven't tested this but, I suspect that if you knew what you were doing, and had done the whole game, and figured out all the puzzles, you might actually be able to complete the game in the very first or second loop?

The only thing that would be impeding you, would be the time you have - since each collectible adds some extra time to your future loops, so you'd have to go like the clappers - but I bet there's someone out there with the parkour skills to do it!

 

Edited January 11 by DrBloodmoney

[visighost 1,619]

Thanks, that’s good news! I’ll get back to it… one day… when I’m not as busy with masterpieces like Candy Match Kiddies…

[grayhammmer 59]

The Brevity Batch reminded me a lot of your earlier reviews, being about one to two paragraphs in length and focusing on describing each element of the game quickly and concisely. It also reminded me of a question I wanted to ask: have you ever thought about redoing some of your older reviews? Something like Transistor for example feels like it would've inspired a much longer review from you if it was done in batch 40 as opposed to batch 1.

Edited January 11 by grayhammmer

[DrBloodmoney 25,180]

1 hour ago, grayhammmer said:

The Brevity Batch reminded me a lot of your earlier reviews, being about one to two paragraphs in length and focusing on describing each element of the game quickly and concisely. It also reminded me of a question I wanted to ask: have you ever thought about redoing some of your older reviews? Something like Transistor for example feels like it would've inspired a much longer review from you if it was done in batch 40 as opposed to batch 1.

Possibly a few of them, yeah - and Transistor would certainly be a candidate- thought I don’t think I’d do that until the full list was caught up - so maybe in 2025 or something 😂