Gil's Best of 2013

As promised, here is my list.

The Best Games I Played in 2013

10. I Am Alive

Due to all the middling reviews this game got, I almost never gave it a chance. However, Scott Nichols vehemently defended it on Twitter, and it eventually went on sale, so I got it. I can honestly say that playing it was extremely rewarding, and I fell in love with the combat that played out more like a puzzle than a shooter. I understand that it did not live up to original hype and trailers, but it's a game worth juxtaposing against other survival games that often go astray.

9. Thomas Was Alone

I played this game last month when I had some downtime and ended up finishing it and getting all the achievements in one night. Not only are the mechanics extremely simple and accessible, but the lovely narrator creates compassion for these quadrilaterals that we never thought possible. Coupled with a wonderful soundtrack and beautifully simple graphics, Thomas Was Alone easily placed itself on my top ten list.

8. The Last of Us

Winter. I already gushed quite heavily about this game, but it's worth repeating that the story is touching and affecting in a way few games have managed to accomplish for me. I know this is topping many other lists, but the rote gameplay that only manages to distinguish itself during one wonderful chapter knocked it down some pegs. Still, this is a must buy for Playstation 3 owners.

7. Asura's Wrath

I was curious about this game from the get-go, but even after checking out reviews and trailers, I did not know what to make of it. Coincidentally, I found it for pretty cheap on some website, and I played it and its (English) DLC over the summer. While it lacks a lot of gameplay to speak of, the bombastic story and events are brilliant to watch, providing entertainment for more than just the player but also anybody watching. Although a game primarily made of QTEs has a limited audience, I can honestly say they went a long way towards making me feel like I am actually accomplishing the ridiculous feats Asura performed.

6. Tomb Raider

My only experience with Tomb Raider was playing the original for the Sega Saturn for about a week. I did not know what to really make of 2013's entry and so ignored it mostly until it was on sale. How wrong I was! Although many aspects of the misfortunes Lara experiences made me uncomfortable in a bad way, she managed to maintain a strong persona amidst a sea of poor female representations. And this action story laced with mysticism actually made a ton of sense. This game felt good to play and good to watch, much like Uncharted 2, but more affecting and personal. I just hope the next entry is not riddled with such poor happenstance for our heroine.

5. Demon's Souls

I started this in 2011 but put it right down when the going got too tough. But all the hub-bub about Dark Souls gnawed away at my distaste until I picked it up again. Although not my favorite game, I had an amazing experience conquering this beast, which I wrote about elsewhere. It also provided me with the rare instance of enjoying consulting Wikis for information, which the game provides little of. Finishing it left me with a sense of accomplishment that is just hard to describe. You feel somewhat sexy for having this under your belt.

4. Gone Home

Gone Home caught a lot of flack from privileged cisgender white male gamers who balked at it for having a feminist or even gay agenda (and for being short, of all things!). I'd rather not directly engage with such an ignorant group, but I don't understand why a very well-written story about a teenage girl falling in love with another girl is considered part of an agenda. Sifting through the Greenbriar family home was just an awesome experience, more akin to Myst than Blue Is the Warmest Color. There is a true feeling of loneliness and suspense coursing through the few hours is takes to complete Gone Home. Simply put: it's an incredible return for the adventure genre that I recommend to all fans.

3. Persona 4 Golden

To say there is no game like Persona 4 would be a lie because other Persona games are like Persona 4. Though distinctly a JRPG, Atlus created a genre unto itself in many ways. The story is long and fascinating with supernatural occurrences just becoming par for the course. I loved collecting and fusing my personae and building my relationships daily. There's always something fun to discover as you work your way towards the end game. The next game is on the horizon, and I can't wait, because this is seriously one of the best RPGs you'll play in your life.

2. Antichamber

I love Antichamber. Somehow, Alexander Bruce managed to sneak in a puzzle game whose tutorial teaches the player more about life and love than about playing it. The visuals are striking, and the music and sound effects are poignant; nothing is overdone. I also really enjoyed the challenge, which required me to both learn and unlearn in order to progress. Sometimes, solving a puzzle means just sitting and staring at the screen for a few minutes until you finally consider the one action you haven't tried. I can easily recommend this to absolutely everyone because of its simple controls and hours full of "A ha!" moments. Although beating it feels triumphant, it also feels personally fulfilling as if you're a better human being because of it.

Also, this is the default Game of the Year for 2013 as this is my highest ranked game actually released in 2013. It was going to be #1, but recent events changed all that…

1. Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

OK. I didn't beat this game in 2013. No, I beat it on January 3rd, 2014, at about 3 in the morning. But it just seemed extremely stupid to lump it into next year for no reason. Here's the deal. As mentioned in my last post, my husband bought me this game, which necessitated my purchase of 999 before it. And 999 was a great game. Now, if you take 999's story and make it about 20 times more complex, you'll get Virtue's Last Reward.

Like its predecessor and Asura's Wrath, it is arguably not much of a game. There are definitely puzzles to solve — plenty of them — but you spend more time reading/listening than doing those. But what you witness is, in my opinion, just amazing. I found myself becoming truly obsessed with this game, which not only provided crazy amounts of twists and turns but found a way to work multiple playthroughs into its narrative in a way I hadn't witnessed since Eternal Darkness for the Nintendo Gamecube.

I do plan on writing a review for it, but just know that it's hard to describe exactly why this is one of the best games I've ever played. Yes, that's right. Ever! I just adore it, and it really revitalized my game-loving spark at just the right time. I'm so thankful for my husband for buying it for me.

Screenshots were either taken by me through Steam or the Playstation Vita, from Game Informer's website, or from the amazing Demon's Souls Wiki.

I Am Alive Review

Have machete. Will travel.

Somebody never learned his lesson in kindergarten.

After finishing Deadlight, I thought I would continue the motif of playing as a father who is trying to save his wife and daughter in a post-apocalyptic world. Of course, the previous game had zombies. I Am Alive has The Event. The development of I Am Alive is one of the darker stories out there, rife with delays, altered expectations, and entire gameplay changes. What's left is a game severely pared down from early trailer footage but otherwise shows little evidence of the development woes it suffered.

The story features an unnamed though still vocal protagonist who has spent a year trying to make it back to his home town of Haventon prior to the beginning of the game. As mentioned, The Event happened, and though it is never made explicitly clear what it was or what caused it, its impact is clear – earthquakes and dust storms have been ravaging the land since it happened, and almost everything is in shambles. In the opening tutorial level, Protagoniste, as I shall refer to him henceforth, makes his way through the exterior ruins of Haventon to his home in the hopes of finding his wife and daughter, who are sadly not there. Shortly afterwards, he finds a lost little girl, and this leads to the bulk of the narrative thereon.

What I want you to think about is how well that chandelier was installed.

Getting around Haventon involves mechanics similar to the Uncharted series with a lot of platforming coupled with automatic handhold grabbing. The difference is in the stamina meter Protagoniste must monitor in order to traverse safely. While climbing large structures and jumping from grip to grip, the stamina meter continuously depletes, which also results in tense music getting louder and louder as it does so. Once stamina hits bottom, Protagoniste's stamina capacity begins to deplete rapidly, and when that's gone, he will fall to his doom. Although stamina recharges automatically and quickly as soon as you're on solid ground, stamina capacity can only be regained through the use of items you find in the environment. Although a little trite, the game highlights usable items in white so that they are easier to discern from afar, especially in the dust cloud-filled streets of the inner city. It may lack a real-world explanation, but I was thankful for it. The developers do hide a lot of these items behind corners and objects in an effort to make finding them a little bit more challenging and rewarding, however.

Along with stamina is a health meter, which mostly depletes from being attacked by the neighborhood transients. As is common in post-apocalyptic stories, the dissolution of any kind of government has led to some folks being just plain mean to others, and it's your job to decide how best to deal with them. There are the innocents out there, who found safe spots and often ask you to provide some form of aid, usually in the form of those precious items you find along your journey. Others threaten you with guns from a distance but will not attack you as long as you keep walking along. To complete the triad of personas, there are the aggressors, who will kill you if you let them.

What is that guy looking at?

Dealing with the aggressors is actually a fun puzzle. Instead of turning into a predictable cover-based third-person shooter every time one appears (though just like the Mass Effect series, you can still kind of tell when they're going to appear), it is up to you to be resourceful and handle them carefully. Protagoniste is equipped with a machete and a gun, but bullets are the scarcest resource of all in this world. You rarely have even one bullet, especially in the earlier sections of I Am Alive, so you can't just go in shooting. The trick is in knowing when to brandish your empty weapon to enemies who don't know any better. If you face two enemies who clearly only have melee weapons, you can lure one in close, slash his throat by surprise, and then point the empty gun at the other, providing an opportunity to knock him out with the the grip of your weapon. You need to be wary of enemies who are carrying guns, though, because they won't be afraid to pop a bullet in you just for being so bold. These scenarios boil down into quick reflex thinking where you decide who to surprise, who to threaten, who to shoot (with the hopes of picking up another bullet from the body), who to push off a cliff, and who to go toe-to-toe with in a button mashing QTE to assert machete dominance over.

I loved dealing with these scenarios for a number of reasons. First, they require more brains over brawn, so to speak. Rather than reward aiming prowess, most aiming is automatic, so combat is easier to tackle than in a shooter but still challenging to a player who is not used to putting thought into it. Next, it invites real resource management, better than I've witnessed in games that touted the feature, such as Dead Space. I wasn't kidding when I said you spent a good amount of the game with no more than one bullet, and you'll go stretches with no bullets either because you haven't found any or because as soon as you got one, you had to use it. It wasn't until close to the end of the game that I had up to four bullets in my gun, but a few encounters after that dwindled the number back down. Last, these encounters feel raw. By facing only a handful of guys (always men) at a time and needing to mind your weapons, the weight of killing other human beings isn't as diminished as games where you have to shoot thirty guys to proceed. Don't get me wrong. You don't really care for these people, but at the same time, you realize you're not in a world or a game that is teeming with them to the point of instigating apathy in the player. You're never in a situation where a door won't unlock or you'll never get off an elevator if you don't kill every last one. The consequence could be death or severe loss of health but not always progression.

Is the building sideways, or am I?

In terms of execution, the mechanics of the game work well together, creating a mostly believable atmosphere. There is some variety to the environments and buildings you need to explore, so you don't get too tired of going down the same hallways over and over again. The street level in the center of Haventon is under a dust cloud, so stamina continuously depletes just by walking through it, the effect eventually tempered but never eliminated by finding a gas mask. Although this made basic sense, it became a little tedious running from ladder to ladder to get above the dust and regain stamina. This was I Am Alive's version of hiding behind cover until you regain health, more or less, and you get a little tired of it by the end of the game.

Despite my joy in figuring out enemy puzzles, I did wish the developers created scenarios whereby I don't have to kill every last guy. There are some moments where holding out your gun will get your enemy to crouch with his hands behind his head and surrender, but if you try to walk away at that point, he'll come at you again as if he forgets that you still have a gun (and automatic aiming). I'd like to believe that in reality, some folks would just give up despite the setting. There is also an armored machete-toting enemy type that appears later in the game that requires manual aiming, which is an easy button toggle. Although more challenging, it's hard to believe the guy wearing the armor would never carry a gun so as to be a better threat. Yes, it works better for the player, but it ruins immersion. They could have been excluded.

His talents never cease.

By the end of the game, mostly because of exerting extra effort, Protagoniste was basically a walking pharmacy replete with snacks and water. I would argue that this breaks the atmosphere and the need to be resourceful, but in all honesty, it's nice to be rewarded for looking around every corner like a true forager should do. The white highlights helped. What also helped was performing admirably in combat and while climbing structures. Quick thinking in the former and taking time to plan your route in the latter result in less item waste, which helps you provide to the needy around you. Doing so gives the player extra retries, which allow Protagniste to begin from a recent checkpoint instead of restarting a chapter. I was not a big fan of managing checkpoints like a resource, but it wasn't the burden I was predicting. For those who are not as good at the combat puzzles and traversal, it might be a bane, especially if they hadn't managed to help those asking for it. But for someone like me who is better at puzzles than shooting, it was a friendly survival setup. I would encourage people to consider restarting a chapter instead of using a retry depending on how much ground or time was covered. The game keeps track of inventory, so if you started a chapter strong, the penalty is low.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that after the opening to the game, Protagoniste spends time trying to assist the lost little girl. However, the amount of time the game spends on helping her was unexpected. Though it's easy to complain that the game doesn't focus much on Protagoniste's efforts to find his own family, what transpires is ultimately believable. It is harder to fathom that a father desperate to locate his wife and daughter would allow a little girl to remain abandoned or in danger afterwards. It ultimately demonstrates an admirable amount of compassion, but much of what you're tasked with makes you seem like an errand boy, a common problem present in many games. Still, the story has a lot of heart and ultimately resonated with me. It's nice not to dislike any of the characters, including the child.

I do take mild umbrage with the ending, though. I'll start that argument by telling you the ending makes absolute sense. That isn't the problem. After completing the final mission, there are some obvious events that happened between then and the end that really should have been included in the game. It is tough to swallow the idea that the writers did this on purpose, and it appears this is one of the major victims of the troubled development cycle. That said, everything that gets you to the end is well-written, and investing time in the stories of the other survivors, however small, complements the experience. I also really like the declarative nature of the title. Rather than being cool or witty, it captures the nature of survival in three simple but bold words.

The Ritz-Carlton, this is not.

Presentation in I Am Alive offers mixed results. On one hand, the environments, especially the exteriors, can be striking. Dictated by the story, you'll travel around Haventon during various times of day, and one sequence near sunset also contains the most opportunities to view the ruined city against the horizon. Interiors are restrictive, as they should be, and the minimal lighting provided by infrequent light bulbs and bonfires works well to set mood and tone. Character and object models need more refinement, though. Up close, characters look a little off, and Protagoniste's hair is notably awkward and grungy. Also, some character models are used way too often. The items you find don't blend with their environments very well, white highlight notwithstanding. They just look too clean next to the areas surrounding them. In the sound department, sound effects and music are subtle and understated – not much to talk about there, but the voice acting is good.

I was reluctant to play I Am Alive because of what I read about the development and the mixed reviews. That said, I'm really glad I did. Despite lacking a resemblance to the disc-based blockbuster it was supposed to be, this is a great survival game that really requires wits and resourcefulness, sometimes being scarier than what passes for a survival horror game nowadays. If you want a great downloadable game with an amicably slower place compared to most AAA games, you can't really go wrong with I Am Alive. Despite the trauma of its troubled history, it has barely a scratch on it and no PTSD.

All images taken through Steam.