Alex's Top 10 Games of 2018

Here we are again. Another year has passed and, unsurprisingly, I have at least ten games to talk about. Let the (discussion of said) games begin!

Alex's Top 10 Games of 2017

The year 2017 has come and gone, and as has become tradition, I will ramble here for a little while on my personal top 10 video games that I played in the calendar year.

Elite Dangerous: Long and Winding Road

It's been over two years since my last blog post about Elite: Dangerous. Hundreds of hours and thousands of faster-than-light jumps later, I have done some things, and had some thoughts. If you wish to know some of those things and thoughts, continue reading!

Ys II - "What's All Ys, Then?"

Japanese role-playing games - or JRPGs to their friends - are perhaps one of the most inaccessible genres to the uninitiated. The most common crime they commit is enforced grinding, as players have to circle a patch of tall grass or forest or "world map", fighting the same creatures over and over until characters in their party are sufficiently levelled up to take on a boss. Then there's the minute-to-minute tedium of the gameplay, which even in the more complex JRPGs often boils down to selecting "attack" from a menu every time. And of course there's the time investment, which can stretch to 50, 100, even 200 hours or more - this becomes a more crucial metric the more your age and the size of your Steam library goes up.

Behind these off-putting elements - some of which it could be argued are central to the experience of playing a JRPG - there can be a lot of value, depending on the quality of the game in question. Persona 4 Golden is my personal Best Game Ever, and I could ramble on for quite some time about a fair few Final Fantasy's. It makes me feel a bit sad that the above issues could (very reasonably) put someone off ever delving into the genre.

If there was ever an entry-point, a catalyst for more interest in games that many find so impenetrable, I believe it is Ys Chronicles. This Steam bundle contains the first two games of a long-running series that has seen endless rereleases, remakes and enhanced reimaginings. I finished them in a total of 18 hours. There are no random encounters. The combat is real-time and could not be played while sleeping. Grinding is almost entirely unnecessary. What's more, Ys and Ys II are exceptional games and they do far more than just stand the test of time. They're easily some of the best 2D games I've ever played, and I want to let you know why you should check them out.

Alex's Top 10 Games of 2015

This website, as you may have noticed, is quite partial to rating individual games out of 10. This year, I have decided to flip this concept on its head, and rate ten games, against each other. I call this radical idea, this list-based article, a "Top 10".

A Story About My Uncle - "Wrong, Said Fred"

A Story About My Uncle is a first person platformer held together with grapple physics. Putting you in the boots of an unnamed protagonist retracing the steps of the titular Uncle Fred, this game tries hard but unfortunately ends up proving that the indie badge does not guarantee value for money.

Elite Dangerous - Never Not Scanning

Some months ago I wrote a blog post summarising the appeal Elite: Dangerous held for me, and relating my early experiences in the game. After roughly 30 hours, I had a Cobra Mark III, and an excited feeling that 'the real Elite: Dangerous begins here'. I was about to dive into the explorer class headfirst.

Approximately 150 hours later, I haven't come up for air yet.

Elite: Dangerous - Space Truckin'

I'm obsessed with space. If you're one of the twelve-ish people who read my short-lived series of blogs covering my time with Kerbal Space Program, you already know this. I am so riddled with space madness that I once shook hands with Arjun (perhaps you know him as arjybarjy) in agreement that we would both sign up to Eve Online. Thankfully, I have so far reneged on that promise - I don't need more spreadsheets in my life, my day job more than satisfies that quota. Meanwhile, the concept of Kerbal fascinated me, but its realistic physics and rulesets ultimately limited my ability to interact with it. My ideal space game, should it ever arrive, needed to deliver the mindblowing vastness of the cosmos with the comparatively mundane tools of, say, a Euro Truck Simulator-style open world.

Enter, stage Space, Elite: Dangerous.

Mind: Path to Thalamus Really Makes You Think

There's a good chance you haven't heard of Mind: Path to Thalamus. The name is perhaps not the most memorable, and I'm guessing the marketing budget of a small indie studio from Spain is fairly modest. I came across it by chance, and while at first I felt it aped Dear Esther a little too much, the story premise, first person puzzles and stunning surreal visuals make this game well worth a look.

What's in a Name? Reflections on my Irrational Mistrust of the Online Persona

Xbox Live, harsh but fair.

Usernames, gamertags, SteamIDs, whatever you want to call them, the online pseudonym has been around since Alexander Graham Berners-Lee first tied two soup cans together and invented the internet (I think that's how it went, anyway). I'm hardly a stranger to them, mainly because you just can't do much on the net without having one, especially with the ubiquitous connectivity of today's gaming platforms. For some reason, I've always felt uneasy about the idea of being referred to or known by an internet nickname, and I can't fail to notice that others online take a very different tack on this. I thought I'd write a semi-comprehensible post here to explain my username Luddism, self-critique a little bit and give my co-bloggers the opportunity to tell me what it's like on the other side of this fence I'm pretty sure I just made up.

Handheld Funtimes: Introducing My Friend Playstation Vita

Handheld gaming devices have played a curiously limited part in my gaming history. Like practically everyone in the 90s, I had a GameBoy - first a Pocket, sadly lost to supermarket thieves, and then a Color, still mostly operational to this day. The likes of the GameBoy Advance, DS, PSP and Sega Game Gear passed me by and I never particularly felt like I was missing out. This decade-long hiatus finally ended last month when I purchased a PlayStation Vita, and seeing as I seem to be the only person alive who owns one, I thought I'd share my first impressions of it and maybe, just maybe, convince some fellow gamers to pick one up.

Shakespeare Enters the World of Video Games, Stage Left

Renowned works of literature - especially those many centuries old - are not often to be found in video game form. Off the top of my head, only Dante's Inferno comes to mind, a game that came in for a good deal of criticism for its stale gameplay (ripped straight from God of War) and some mystifying departures from the source material. It seems strange, to me at least, that some of the most thrilling and thought-provoking stories ever written down so rarely find a place to stay in Video-Game-Land. Imagine my pleasant surprise, then, when I saw a set of games on Humble Bundle's latest sale that included two entitled The Chronicles of Shakespeare, adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Works from arguably the greatest literary artist of all time, expressed through a medium advancing and evolving in unprecedented ways. What could go wrong?

Podcast #6 - Tanjenshull Lerning

We discuss what we have learned and the wonderful potential of what can be learned through playing video games. Then we talk about bowel movements. Classy.

PES 14 BFVG Style; The Dream League of Dreams

Who will triumph in the Dream League of Dreams?

Do you love the Beautiful game? Do you enjoy playing said beautiful game on a gaming device? Have you ever wanted to endlessly sim a league with friends and see what happens?
If like me the answer to those questions was yes, yes, no then a few weeks ago I would have agreed with you. That was before myself and a few other members of BFVG found ourselves watching fellow BFVGer, Arjybarjy playing PES 14 while streaming it on Twitch. During our late night ramblings we stumble upon this great idea and from this the BFVGDLOD (Best Friends Video Games Dream League of Dreams) was born.



Its a simple idea, we each create a team including team names and kits (which I will come to later) then draft players to fill our respective rosters. Each week we would sim these games live on Twitch for our, and hopefully everyone else's enjoyment. Unfortunately there are not enough of us to have the league saved on PES (smallest league requires 14 teams) however I will be keeping all the results and updating the table. Then after each team has played each other twice a champion will be crowned. The winner* will be given the greatest trophy of all, the right to rub it in everyone else's face that he/she are the greatest and all others suck.

The Final Frontier: Fake Space, Part 3: A Lunar Date

Cue orchestral music.

The alarms blared incessantly, terminal lights flashed over and over, and behind Bill Kerman's head he swore he heard a panel of the command pod's outer hull make a deep, sonorous creak. Either the ship was pulling apart at the seams or he was hearing things.  The latter would be excusable, seeing as the pod was spinning like a top - although tops normally just spin in place around one central point, whereas Bill's ship was twirling in three dimensions, like a ballerina break-dancing for dear life.  As the surface of the Mün approached faster and faster, Bill Kerman  remembered his astro-lessons, not so very long ago...

Podcast #3 - It's All About the Money (Money, Money)

In our third inaugural podcast we whinge about the frankly DISGUSTING business practices involving DLC, microtransactions, auction houses and other ghastly payment models. It ain't what like what it used to be oh no... back then we used t...

'Don't Starve' Cheat Sheet

For those who don't know, Don't Starve is a basically a top-down Minecraft-esque survival game, set in a Tim Burton-inspired world.  Its charming appearance hides a surprisingly deep gameplay experience, with all sorts of items to craft, monsters to fight and a huge (randomly-generated) world to explore.  If you've heard about this game and are still on the fence, I strongly recommend you pick it up.  For those who are already on board, I decided to write a basic guide and provide some tips and suggestions for any new players.  Some of the stuff mentioned here could be considered spoilers, especially if you're the type of person who really values emergent gameplay.  However, I found myself increasingly indulging in this excellent wiki, and thought it would useful to have some of the more crucial information kept in one place.  I should emphasise that my strategies are not the only way of playing Don't Starve, and I don't doubt others have found equally useful alternatives.  I'd certainly recommend experimenting freely to find the best way of surviving, but these pointers should give you a hand.

The Final Frontier: Fake Space, Part 2: Orbital Boogaloo

[If you haven't read the first part of "The Final Frontier: Fake Space", this probably won't make much sense.]

Jebediah Kerman just couldn't stay awake.  He tried to keep his head up, but his eyelids felt like they were made of lead.  He couldn't help it; he allowed himself a yawn, hoping it would go unnoticed.

"Mr Kerman!" Jebediah's focus snapped to the angry Professor as he thwacked his cane against the desk.  "Finding my lecture about space a tad boring, are we?  You could do with paying attention more than most.  Your last three Ballistic High Jumps have been pathetic, barely touching 20 kilometres.  Shape up soon or you're off the Program!"  He paused, exasperated.  "That's enough for today.  Class dismissed."

Meet the Best Friends from Best Friends Video Games!

Arjybarjy (Arjun) plays games. Well... he collects games and plays them when the urge strikes (sometimes). He grew up playing a ludicrous amount of Tiger Woods PGA Tour '05. He enjoys silly games and has a spreadsheet of games that he needs to complete and challenges himself to complete more games than the year previous (ten more games!).
 

Hairwire (Jess), also plays videogames (you will notice this is an emerging theme), generally centred around fantasy RPGs and God simulators (because who doesn't love elves and dwarfs and megalomania?), but she also plays/sings/teaches music and is a closet feminist, masquerading as a gender egalitarian.  In honesty she's kind of confused about how she pigeonholes herself  - WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

Gnatasha (Tash) tends to play games to unwind. Due to her deep-seated hatred of conflict, she mainly plays RPGs, strategy and puzzle games, as well as anything with a co-op element (because friendship). She is frequently consumed by pug-lust.

Fingers333 (Dean) is an average to below average gamer. He has little to no computing skills, is easily confused and lacks any understanding of subtlety. His opinions mean nothing and yet he continues to express them. He is however passionate about gaming, particularly when it comes to games that he feels he has missed out on. 

Theris108 (James) is a recovering achievement addict.  His lowest moment was when he bought Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for some easy Gamerscore.  However he has turned his life around and only collects 'cheevs recreationally.  He usually favours RPGs (in which he gets far too emotionally invested), and has fond memories of growing up with point-and-click adventures.

Kingofallcosmos (Gurdeep) was born with a Master System pad in one hand, a Sega Menacer in the other, while riding atop an Amiga 500. Dismissing both the disgusting imagery of an Amiga 500-aided birth, and the fact that the Sega Menacer was released several years after he was born, he has fond memories of Amiga classics such as Paradroid 90. Those memories fade to darkness when he remembers the game Nightbreed; a game so terrifying and disturbing he would leave the room as soon as the title screen loaded. He continues to enjoy games on all formats, counting the Bioshocks, the Mass Effects, the Half-Lifes, the Sonics, the Deus Exs and the Mirror's Edge among his favourites. He still hasn't got past the loading screen on Nightbreed.

SeaKing61 (Laurie) is our least gamey gamer. A fan of simulators and making open world games as boring and monotonous as possible, he suffers from a severe phobia of any game involving magic, fantasy or trading cards. SeaKing can be identified during podcasts and multiplayer games by his long, slow, boring drawl and will be blogging about various simulators and his undying love for Orangina.

Heliosrain (Richard) is proud to admit that he loves the incongruous combination of moba games like League of Legends, simulators (Eurotruck 2), fpSsssss (BF3), RPGs (Assassin's Creed, Skyrim etc.) with a particular penchant for 2D platformer style games, of which Terraria is a favourite. His general level of noobiness when playing most games is sometimes punctuatued by a blinding ray of mediocrity which occasionally leads people to think (wrongly) that he's good at them.

This_is_jazz (Felix) really, really likes Romans.

Yoglaiiiii (Yogs) is a paranoid & confused gamer who regularly has contradictory opinions but is not afraid to say them, especially in front of Arjybarjy. His main experience and upbringing in the world of gaming have been FPS’s & racing sims, but has now in the last few years branched out into other gaming genres such as RPG’s, MOBA's and Indy games. He plans to continue his adventure into the gaming world and hopes to experience the best it has to offer. His favourite games include Carmageddon, Quake 1 & 2, The Half-Life Series, BioShock and Guitar Hero 2.    

Alex Cole (brave enough to use his real name) loves playing video games, period.  He'll give pretty much any genre a chance but certainly has a predilection for challenging platformers (think Super Meat Boy or Rayman Origins), super deep RPG's (Elder Scrolls or old-school Final Fantasy) and driving games (whether full sim like Gran Turismo or more arcade-y like Motorstorm: Pacific Rift or Trackmania). A console gamer since childhood, he wants to broaden his gaming horizons and gaming knowledge further and further, doesn't matter if the game's old or new, universally loved or controversially divisive.  And it always helps if they have a cool world to explore. He can't get enough of that shit.