Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Monaco won the IGF in 2010 with a compelling prototype and a handsome smile. In 2013 it’s being released as a sprawling, brilliantly-composed heist game that is poised, like a ludological cat-burglar, to steal our imaginations. The years of polish show in layers of features and detail, while the core idea that won the IGF – of single or multiplayer replayable heists – continues to produce gold on every playthrough.

This is one of the most important independent games this year, and might well end up being one of the best-loved games of the decade.

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Richard Perrin’s atmospheric puzzle explorer Kairo reaches Steam tomorrow, so now seemed a good moment to give it a proper Wot I Think. So, er, here’s wot I think:

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I didn’t know a great deal about Starseed Pilgrim until its Steam release a couple of days ago. I thought it was a puzzle game. I knew it had bemused John. I was vaguely aware that clever people were urging others to play it and to talk about it. For the last seventy two hours it has dominated my waking thoughts and infiltrated my dreams. It’s a challenging, perplexing game set in a strange space that is illuminated by frequent sparks of genius.

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As a games blogger, the question I am most often asked is: “When are you going to go back to school so that you can get a real job, like an accountant or a doctor?” To which I reply: “Look, Mum, Dad, writing about videogames is a real job now. I’ve paid my rent unaided for at least several years.” Then I show them games like Surgeon Simulator 2013 and ask why I would want to be a real anything, when I can be a simulated everything?

Yeah, that’s my philosophy degree talking. Paying for itself, right there.

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Papo & Yo is, at first glance, a puzzle platformer about a young boy and his best pal, a multi-ton, bulbous bellied pink gum wad rhino dog. Same old, same old, right? But beneath its sunny, wildly imaginative exterior is the bleak tale of creator Vander Caballero, whose alcoholic father physically abused him and his family when he was a child. And so, when Monster eats a frog (read: METAPHOR), he stops helping you solve puzzles and starts lobbing fiery punches at your tiny cranium. That relationship, then, lies at the heart of Papo & Yo, weaving an extremely personal thread through both story and gameplay mechanics. But does it bind them together or leave them straining at the seams? Here’s wot I think.

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Trials Evolution finally came to PC shores a couple of weeks back. Rebranding itself the Gold Edition, and adding in a bunch of features unique to the PC, RedLynx has once more returned to the platform that gave them life, that they so cruelly spurned. Has it been worth the wait? Does it survive Uplay integration? Here’s wot I think:

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Anodyne’s blend of surreal images and retro graphics appealed to me when I saw the first trailer but I only managed to find time to play through the game this weekend. I’m glad I did. It’s an amusing, confusing, disturbing, perturbing action adventure that owes as much to Earthbound as to the Legend of Zelda, and almost as much to Silent Hill and Luis Buñuel. Here’s wot I think.

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Artifice Studio’s newly-released Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves is, for lack of a better term, an action-strategy-roleplaying game about trying to defend a small community in the 19th century Canadian wilderness from invading wolf-creatures. It’s both fascinating and infuriating: here’s why.
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It probably won’t come as any shock to learn that none of the current RPS team have gone the distance in StarCraft II’s incomparable multiplayer, but I can at least tell you what I made of the expansive singleplayer campaign in its first expansion, Heart of the Swarm. No throwaway side-dish, this is a vast, bubbling, consciously epic, setpiece-filled cauldron of scifi RTS-RPG. This time around, the stars are hiveminded alien nasties the Zerg and their sometime ruler Sarah Kerrigan, seeking a comeback and revenge after the events of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Scuttle this way and I’ll tell you more.
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One of the most intriguing games to appear at this year’s GDC was unquestionably Perspective. While certainly robbed at the IGF Awards, it received much positive attention, and deservedly so. A fresh approach to perspective-arranging platforming, blurring 3D and 2D gaming in a way that you’ll not believe your brain will put up with, it’s entirely free to get hold of. Here’s wot I think:

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BioShock: Infinite is a new first-person shooter from Irrational, creators of BioShock, System Shock 2 and SWAT 4. It’s set on a flying city in 1912, where racism and religious fundamentalism dictate society. You’re up there, wielding guns and magic, to bring someone the girl and wipe away the debt. Here’s what I thought, spoiler-free.
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