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Gamasutra员工所选出的2014年最佳游戏

发布时间:2015-02-03 15:20:00 Tags:,,,,

作者:Christian Nutt, Brandon Sheffield, Kris Graft, Alex Wawro, Leigh Alexander, Phill Cameron

着眼刚刚过去的2014年,你会看到许多各种类型的优秀游戏。

随着游戏种类的不断增加以及游戏发行数量的急剧上升,Gamasutra从去年开始让员工们选出一年中自己最喜欢的5款游戏。

而现在我意识到,当存在许多我们的员工没有足够时间去尝试的各种有价值的游戏,更别说一些“最优秀的游戏”时,假装创造出一份“20XX年最佳游戏”列表确实有点虚伪。

但即便如此,我们的员工在2014年的确玩了许多不同的游戏,并且我们对自己喜欢的游戏业带有一些强烈的看法。

Inkle的《80 Days》

80_Days(from gamasutra)

80_Days(from gamasutra)

记得在我们小的时候,一些广告总是呈现出书籍打开,月光面包车和恐龙在纸业间旋转着,然后卡通人物被卷进书中从而进入另外一个世界的画面。当然了,你知道这只是对于人们的想象的一种简单类比。书籍并不会在你手中“活起来”。

但是当你开始玩Meg Jayanth所编写的《80 Days》时,你便会想起自己的梦。这是一次带有微妙游戏机制的生动,且具有沉浸感的旅程。我是在一次漫长的火车之旅时玩了这款游戏,窗外的世界一直飞驰而过,计算机中的奇幻世界也不断加速前进着。

在《80 Days》中,游戏机制与故事是相互影响着的。玩家需要管理自己的财产和Fogg的生命值,同时还要管理旅行箱中的道具以及与旅途中遇见的任何人之间的关系,所有的一切都是无缝地整合在一起,玩家不会觉得自己脱离了其中的某一部分。

Nicalis和8bits Fanatics的《1001 Spikes》

《1001 Spikes》是2014年发行的一款设计严谨的平台游戏。游戏中几乎不存在即兴创造的空间,设计师的干预非常明显:“你将基于这种方式通过关卡,如果你偏离了我的目的,或者你离开了1纳秒,你便会死亡。”甚至在其2个按键的跳跃功能中,设计师也在尝试着告诉玩家:“你拥有2个选择:跳到这个高度或这个高度。”它传达的是谜题设计,在这里解决问题需要一个更加明确的解决方法。

Lives是《1001 Spikes》中学习每个阶段的货币,而学习这款游戏需要花费大量的这一货币。许多人会因此离开游戏,因为任何玩过这款游戏的人都知道这是一款非常复杂的游戏。但它是否具有虐待倾向呢?玩这款游戏的人是否是受虐狂者呢,就像众多评论者所描述的那样?

其实《1001 Spikes》传达的只是纯粹的乐趣。

Stoic Studio的《The Banner Saga》

有趣的是,《The Banner Saga》与《80 Days》彻底相反。比起带有简单的机制和系统以及有限的故事范围,《The Banner Saga》是基于完全不同的方向,创造了一个不断中断战斗和资源的巨大叙述。比起玩耍,它更像是一种苦工,即在缓慢行进的过程中你需要摆脱那些在战争中依赖于你的人们。

而这款游戏的突出之处便在于它使用环境去架构更小的故事的方法。游戏中有多个主角,这也让它能够拥有多个小故事所组成的宏大叙述。基于巨大的Varl,你拥有更大的冲突范围,你将通过努力击退Dredge,而如果是面对Rook和人类,这更像是关于生存与逃亡的故事。

尽管基于回合制的战斗部分在一开始并不具有特定的吸引力,但是它所创造的机制却与你所讲述的故事相呼应。你将感受到自己所作出的选择所具有的影响力,让你的英雄身处困境中能够拯救更多生命,或者做出一个糟糕的决定可能让你的英雄遭受较少的打击。这里存在一些带有更棒的结果的更棒的事,但是它将带有有趣的影响,即迫使你表现得像个领导者一样,去衡量实际的选择与情感上的选择。这都是指那些赢得了战争,或者易变的,再或者是那些带有消极特质的人。

不同的基调以及故事的不同范围都让Stoic能够潜在地控制一系列故事,并且在故事结束后问题都能迎刃而解。最重要的是,游戏中的选择是多样的,模糊的且具有个性的,并且它们之间并不存在明确的差异性。

Nintendo EAD Tokyo的《蘑菇队长:宝藏追踪者》

CTTT_scrn_WheelPlanetStage_11(from gamasutra)

CTTT_scrn_WheelPlanetStage_11(from gamasutra)

说到惊讶—-惊讶到底是从何而来呢?我们都知道任天堂具有很厉害的技术,但这款游戏在其工具箱中公开了所有的工具。所以玩这款游戏就像在探究其幕后秘密一样。

前年起初基于迷你游戏模式的《超级玛丽3D世界》变成了一款真正的游戏,并吸引了广大玩家的注意。如果你喜欢谜题和玩具的话,这款游戏便应该出现在你的欲望清单前列。

游戏中的每个关卡都是带有特性,目的和游戏风格的微小世界—-这是一个带有手工挑战的宇宙。设计师谨慎地创造出了每一个关卡,并且完整地探索了所有简单的理念。

因为游戏只有一个目标,那就是娱乐玩家。这款游戏具有如今我们的产业中所欠缺的魅力。

Spike Chunsoft的《Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc》

这款游戏应该是这一列表中绝对的黑马,也是我最喜欢的一款游戏。在西方市场中,视觉小说类游戏开始受到了关注,NIS America在今年所推出的两款《Danganronpa》游戏便能够说明原因:它们很新鲜,让人惊讶,具有创造性,且具有许多游戏设计师所忽视的较长的线性故事。

之所以会出现这系列游戏是因为Spike Chunsoft的开发者认为可以复苏曾经红极一时的游戏类型了;最终他们将该类型与精细的文本和让人惊讶的游戏玩法理念相结合。

在一个封闭的环境中添加一群角色并观看他们互相残杀并不是创造一个神秘故事的全新方法。《Danganronpa》的突出之处在于特性描述以及作者随性的描述。

其成功的技巧便在于,这么做的同时也始终保持游戏的正常运行。游戏的编剧Kazutaka Kodaka通过在整款游戏中揭露一些让人惊讶的内容而成功做到了这点。

实际上《Danganronpa》是具有风格且不符合常规的游戏,但同时也是可被理解且可靠的游戏。

Justin Smith的《沙漠高尔夫》

你肯定不会想到在沙漠中打高尔夫。这就像是一种没有意义的实践意义,你将难以避免沙坑障碍。然而Justin Smith的《沙漠高尔夫》却是我在2014年最重要的游戏体验之一,这是一种安静且无止境的行动,我的手指一直控制着那颗小小的球从一个小洞到达另一个小洞。

将《沙漠高尔夫》称为是接受过去或向你不能改变的事物投降似乎很绚烂,但如果你发现自己在因为焦虑的失眠症在凌晨1点的时候还醒着,而你的超现实世界其实就是无尽的沙漠高尔夫过程中一个白色的小店,你便能够理解这一切。

而如果你睡不着的原因是自己太爱幻想,工作上的压力,遭到死亡的威胁以及Twitter等等,你便会觉得纯粹,随机生成,无拘无束且非盈利的《沙漠高尔夫》是本年度最完美的电子游戏。这是关于穿越沙漠的行动:玩家在一开始将抱着能够到达沙漠另一端的希望。

Bungie的《Destiny》

《Destiny》并非我或其他任何人真正期待的。比起作为《光晕》与《边境之地》的融合,它更像是通过《魔兽世界》所促成的《光晕》与《暗黑破坏神》的融合,它具有《暗黑破坏神》吸引人们一而再再而三回来的魅力,同时也具有MMO玩家所期待的机制。

《暗黑破坏神》中存在一些徒劳的刷战利品机制,这也是我有一段时间不玩这款游戏的原因。但在《Destiny》中,他们在游戏最后会进一步推动你的装备让你获得奖励。比起作为一种成就,Bungie创造了我在一款FPS游戏中从未感受到的复杂且让人激动的游戏体验。

我认为是人们对于Bungie能够创造出另一款《光晕》的压力导致他们放弃了最初的设想而保留下了单一的玩家体验,所以如果这种体验随着时间的流逝而被淘汰的话我也不会感到吃惊。但是我们不能否认的是,《Destiny》是任何主机MMO在接下来10年里将会模仿的对象。这也使得这款游戏在2014年的作用变得更加重要。

Larian Studios的《神界:原罪》

2014年,Larian成功发行了一款我自从BioWare的《龙腾世纪:起源》以来便不曾看到过的PC RPG游戏,并且在我看来这是非常值得庆祝的成就。《神界:原罪》对我的吸引力就像《Baldur’s Gate》和《冰风溪谷》那样:通过创造一个让玩家能够探索且与有趣的系统绑定在一起的活力世界,然后让玩家能够根据自己的喜好在此进行体验。

但Larian并不只是传达对于这些经典游戏的敬意;他们从形式和功能上对游戏进行了完善。《原罪》突出了一些很棒的设计,包括玩家能够从不同角度看到并解决的叙述以及解决带有回合制战斗的开放游戏中团队合作执行问题的简单解决方法。

《原罪》的创造者也因为众筹并发行了一款Larian的创始人Swen Vincke认为他们需要10年时间才能创造出的成功游戏而值得表扬。当然了,声称你创造了一款发行商因为经济利益而不愿购买的立基游戏算是一种PR方法,但这同时也与我从inXile和Frontier等工作室的开发者那了解到的想法形成了共鸣。

Larian的成功为《原罪》提供了资金这一点说明,使用Kickstarter和Early Access等融资平台的立基性中型工作室有可能继续生存下去并不断发展。这款游戏的成功推动了人们对于那些融资工具的信任,并渲染了它们对于依赖这些工具的开发者的重要性。也许我还是太乐观了,但是我希望像《原罪》这样的成功案例能够让开发者在未来更轻松地获得融资。

Level-5的《幻想生活》

一些游戏似乎是开发者灵机一动的产物。也有些游戏是开发者严格制作的产物。《幻想生活》便属于后者。这款游戏呈现出了一个非常棒的迷你世界,并提供给玩家许多探索与活动的机遇。

在《无尽的任务》发行之后的15年间,我玩过不少MMO,但却从未被征服。而《幻想生活》对于那些想要体验这类型游戏,但却不愿作出强烈承诺的人来说便是一款完美的游戏。

这款游戏的游戏时间与小游戏差不多,并且也具有单人玩家游戏的乐趣。这是一款基于一个充满活力且吸引玩家进行探索的微小世界的灵活游戏。

这款游戏同样也迎合了那些没有太多时间或不想倾注于一条最佳前进道路的玩家。你可以混合搭配自己的任务并找到属于自己的前进方式—-这并不是基于最低或最高值,而是根据你所选择的自然的前进方式,这对于玩家来说会非常有趣。

不过在这款游戏谦逊的外表下其实隐含着一个宏大的野心—-这款游戏专注于让玩家能够创造自己在游戏中的生活,我也是因为这一点被它所吸引。这正是我在过去10年里一直期待看到的游戏。

Boneloaf的《Gang Beasts》

Gang_Beasts_Phil(from gamasutra)

Gang_Beasts_Phil(from gamasutra)

很少会有游戏能够赋予失败乐趣。也很少会有游戏让我们真正不在乎输赢。

但是《Gang Beasts》却做到了。在游戏中我经常忙着大笑以至于没有太多时间去关心自己打击到别人还是别人打击到我。这里用了《Sumotori Dreams》的闪避动作并将其实践于摔跤场地,火山坑,两辆移动的卡车以及一些玻璃清洗器的支架上。这之所以能够发挥作用是因为这就像是一种战斗,或者是战斗中的吸引人同时也让人胆怯的混乱场面。

你需要将朋友/死敌的身体丢出竞技场并致他们于死地,从而为游戏添加一种卖弄元素。你将举起敌人投向你脸上的麻袋,并且当该麻袋还在你的头上时游戏会一直响彻着“FINISH HIM”的声音。

最近我们的一些好友都在玩着各种不同的单机多人游戏,虽然《Starwhal》,《Samurai Gunn》,《Nidhogg》和《Tennes》都很有趣,但却未能像《Gang Beasts》吸引到如此多的关注。这款游戏具有内在的趣剧,并整合了一些jellybaby般的属性,将其变得与爵士朋克一样有趣,且无需任何脚本内容。

Honeyslug的《Hohokum》

我觉得2014年正面挑战着我对于一些游戏体验的偏见。在经过10多年致力于一种特定的游戏形式后,我们开始遇到一些彻底摆脱这种形式的游戏。对于我来说,《Hohokum》便是这一趋势的领头者。

从根本上来看,这是一款拒绝回答我如何完成它的游戏。相反地,它希望我只是游戏,基于自己的方式穿越关卡,并前往每个角落去探究发生了什么事。其速度概念完全颠覆了我之前的认知,只是提供给你你想做的任何事所需要的时间。这里不存在失败,在一些情况下你需要进行机械上的互动,这是值得原谅的设定,并且永远都不会逼迫你回到检查点上。

它基于许多方式呈现出了最佳儿童玩具的属性;这有可能让玩家感到惊讶并困惑,但却绝不是基于一种让人受挫的方式。相反地,你只需要去接受并享受任何发生的事便可。当你将这款游戏与我们所熟悉的任何目标导向型游戏比较时,你会觉得它很奇怪。但是《Hohokum》将所有的这些设定与吸引人的动画和世界整合在了一起,并且只有一个目的,就是想让玩家开怀大笑—-所以这是我非常乐意向朋友推荐的一款游戏。

既新鲜友好,又具有满满的乐趣,所以它才会成为年度最佳游戏之一。

Doug Cowley的《Hoplite》

如果我们说的是2014年问世的手机游戏,那么将这款游戏包括在内可能有点勉强;因为虽然《Doug Cowley》的手机策略游戏版本是在今年出现在Android平台上,但是其最初的iOS版本却是问世于2013年末。

直到今天,它仍是我在闲暇时间的首选游戏,其回合制战术以及无尽的程序生成关卡的结合总是不断吸引着我回到游戏中,希望证明自己比上一次玩得更好。

总的说来,《Hoplite》是一款容易尝试但却难以攻克的roguelikes游戏。你的核心挑战是阴道一个小小的希腊士兵穿过一系列程序生成的六角网格,即呈现出不同的关卡,每个关卡都带有一些恶魔,升级站以及前往下一个关卡的出口。每当你行动时,地图上的所有事物也会行动起来。如果你遭遇了死亡,你将能够重新开始。

你将会在游戏中频繁地死去,你也始终清楚原因—-因为《Hoplite》中支配着敌人,能力和危险的规则非常清楚。你可以精通这些规则,然后到达游戏中一个难以触及的深度。在这方面,《Hoplite》具有与Michael Brough的手机roguelikes游戏《868-HACK》的共同点,但其特殊的移动方法和可开启的能力却与Brough的作品具有很大的差别,所以它才会作为我在2014年最喜欢的游戏之一。不管何时当有人让我推荐手机游戏时,我总是会说到这款游戏。

Necrophone Games的《Jazzpunk》

创造一款真正有趣的游戏是非常困难的。而基于第一人称角度并与一支小团队创造一款有趣的游戏更加困难,但总部位于多伦多的Necrophone Games却凭借《Jazzpunk》成功做到了这点。

这是一款带有超现实主义幽默感的游戏,类似于独立工作室Galactic Cafe在2013年发行的喜剧模拟游戏《The Stanley Parable》。但在我眼里《Jazzpunk》更加优秀,因为它具有更强的互动性,并且更加古怪—-Necrophone想办法将一些不动声色的幽默整合到游戏的恶搞中,并通过非常冒险的应变图像与色调让玩家捧腹大笑。

从设计角度来看,《Jazzpunk》基于有趣的方式呈现出了第一人称游戏的惯例。在这款游戏中,大部分内容都是将木板和环境当成工具盒障碍,即玩家为了追逐木板所使用并克服的事物。在《Jazzpunk》中,游戏世界本身就是你的目标:每个关卡都是玩家需要越过的场地,并且伴随着各种乐趣。据我所知在游戏中我们不会真的死掉,这意味着我们在游戏中永远都不会失去那些玩笑。

我甚至可以用好几页内容去描述这款游戏,但这么做将会破坏那些第一次玩游戏的玩家体验,这真的是我认为所有人,包括开发者都应该尝试的喜剧游戏设计的优秀例子。

Glu Games的《Kim Kardashian: Hollywood》

当你成为一名电子游戏评论者时,你将会使用一些特定的隐含(以及明确)的评论:游戏并不会诱发暴力;它们并不会推动某种“价值观念”。它们只会带给你纯粹的乐趣,如果你想太多的话便有可能“不得要领”。

我便遇到过这种争论。当我还年轻的时候这种事情经常出现,而现在即使我已经是个成年人了,并且会说着像“也许一种体验不能带来任何帮助,但却是表达创造者某些看法的方式”或者“也许我们所消费的内容既能反应也能够影响我的文化”,但是我仍然会与一些认为游戏是垃圾或者带有危险性的常见假设进行争论。

我听过一个彻底的男权主义的游戏产业人士表示这款游戏简直就是垃圾!它代表了世界末日。灌输了一些糟糕的价值。直到今天我们关于铠甲巨龙的幻想都是关于小说,而这款强调女性主义的游戏幻想着实可笑。

现在的你可能会开始着手去思考《Kim Kardashian》是否值得人们游戏并且是否真的值得拥有如此名声。

Hinterland Studio的《The Long Dark》

thelongdark(from gamasutra)

thelongdark(from gamasutra)

有很多开发者告诉我他们想要创造真正复杂的游戏,而我也喜欢复杂的游戏。我认为我们中的大多数人都是这样的。

《The Long Dark》便是一款复杂的游戏,玩家将身处一个残酷且严寒的区域,并想办法寻找一个可使用的家园,不料却意识到失去了自己唯一可栖息之处。玩家将尝试着创造钩子,穿线,凿冰,钓鱼,但最终却只是看着器具消失在小小的冰洞里。玩家将创造一个动物陷阱,并且有可能不小心踩到自己的火堆。

游戏中的每个时刻都是转瞬即逝的。你不可能做得很好。你不可能在这样的地方维持生活。这是一款特别适合两个人一起坐在电脑前踌躇前进的游戏—-所有的程序生成游戏将带给你很棒的故事,带着你在游戏中不断前进。

但还有一个更棒的吸引力便是它改变了你的生活节奏。在游戏的每个部分,玩家将获得更多睡眠以及更少的食物,或者将获得一些更新鲜的水源与武器。

Monolith Productions的《中土世界:暗影摩多》

2014年发行的没有太高预算的游戏向我们证实了,具有才能的开发者可以凭借尖端的技术获得成功。2014年见证了许多第三人称开放世界游戏的发行,Monolith在这类型游戏的首次尝试便吸引了我的注意,并呈现出了游戏设计的潜在未来。

遗憾的是这种潜能在一开始并不明显,《暗影摩多》在一开始并不引人注意,除非你投入更多时间去打开并精通游戏机制。因为游戏太过暴力,太过生硬,并且不愿赋予你全套工具,所以即使你在经历几个小时的游戏后仍然遭遇失败也会得到原谅的。

但如果你能够一直坚持下去,Monolith的王牌(Nemesis系统)便会开始基于前所未有的方式清洗游戏的怪物桥牌。杀死你的敌人将能够变得更加强大,并且会耍各种手段去提升排名,甚至嘲笑你在过去的失败。

潜在系统看似非常直接—-当一只半兽人杀死你时会自动生成名字和描述,然后将其与程序生成的能力与弱势联系在一起并基于之前的遭遇而创造敌人,但Monolith巧妙地将这些系统整合在一起,并让反派角色能够以我们从未看过的方式出现。

这是高预算设计作品的典型例子,即预示着产业在几年前便不断推动着的人工智能的发展。如果我们回首过去10年里游戏设计的发展,我们便很容易看到产业是如何利用像《战争机器》,《Wii Sports》以及《阿卡姆疯人院》等具有开拓性的游戏的著名机制;如果放眼未来,我希望Monolith可以不去介意产业对于《暗影摩多》的借鉴。

Facepunch Studios的《Rust》

有很多人并不会选择《Rust》。当你登录服务器,你便苏醒了(诞生),你可能会出现在一片区域的中心位置,带有一块石头,一些基本的救助道具以及很难坚持整晚的火炬。

《Rust》的世界并不会等你,或者不会让你觉得舒适,它的居住者亦是如此。这就像是努力挤入车水马龙的道路上一样:如果你走向了错误的方向,你便可能会在道路的另一端被撞得粉碎。比起有经验的驾驶者,菜鸟们更容易撞得遍体鳞伤。

《Rust》抛弃了预期的定制结构:任务,技能树,叙述弧,关卡设计等等。游戏中的所有内容都是围绕着一个直接的锻造系统以及你在“Rust Island”上生存和学习的能力。

《Rust》为玩家提供了创造一个社交框架的基础,让他们能够在荒野生存环境中与其他玩家进行互动。Facepunch是一支小型的开发团队,所以对他们来说创造一个框架以及无数系统和无尽的内容是错误的选择。正如《Rust》符合玩家的游戏方式一样,这也符合开发者的开发方式。

作为一个不怎么玩这类型游戏的人来说,《Rust》让我看到了拥有大群体的突发游戏设计的突出之处。它并不具有我们认为能在电子游戏中看到的许多功能,如地图,道德指标,关卡设计等等,但它却表现得非常好。

Teknopants的《侍铳》

2014年我对于单机多人游戏的热情是来源于Teknopants设计,Maxistentialism发行的《侍铳》中四名玩家间的比赛。

尽管许多人好像更喜欢基于特定节奏且突出升级的《TowerFall》,但是当我与其他人一起玩《侍铳》时,其快节奏与极快的反应深深吸引了我的注意。这款游戏并不会提供大量的奖励;有时候赢家甚至不知道刚刚发生了什么。幸运的杀死敌人通常就像是神奇的技能发射;尽管你那神奇的技能发射可能会被称为是纯粹的运气。

每个生命拥有一把剑和三颗子弹,这里的游戏机制非常平淡简单,只是奔跑,射击,跳跃,砍杀。而当面对另外三个玩家,各种关卡以及简单的点数系统时,你便能够感受到为何我会认为这是2014年最棒的单机多人游戏。

Yacht Club Games的《铁铲骑士》

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shov(from gamasutra)

《铁铲骑士》并不只是对于NES的一封情书;这是对于许多机遇经典系统的游戏设计元素的解构与复兴。这就像是基于古老的语言重新编写的一本新书。

这款游戏的特别之处在于Yacht Club Games非常擅于使用这种语言。开发者仔细考虑了早前游戏所呈现的教训;如果最初的观点是“NES游戏仍然很有趣”,那么这款游戏业就没有说服力了。

模仿之前的内容以及创造全新的内容之间是不同的。这就像是在歌颂其顽强的生命力一样。

Asher Vollmer的《Threes!》

对于我来说,《Threes!》是其中一款作为让人分心的内容而开始的游戏—-也许你在游戏的同时你还盯着Netflix上看了好几遍的连续剧,所以你的视线将在智能手机与电视间来回移动。但是在经历几次幸运的砖块放置,一些巧妙的猛击,你的分数将开始上升,最终你的注意力也将完全转向游戏中。

与许多很酷的事物一样,《Threes!》的简单性也是来之不易。设计师Asher Vollmer和美术师Greg Wohlwend花了1年的时间并经历了许多次迭代才创造出了冒险vs奖励的分秒必争感,完美的技能弧线以及玩家想要继续争取更高分数的重玩价值。这看似是一款“休闲”游戏(在某种程度上它的确是),但《Threes!》同样也是你可以通过学习策略并随着游戏发展不断提高技能而精通的游戏。

《Threes!》是有触觉的,现代的且具有重玩性的游戏。这是一款完美的手机游戏。

Respawn Entertainment的《泰坦陨落》

《泰坦陨落》拥有巨大且精心设计的机器人—-说实话,这是这款游戏一开始吸引我的原因。但在玩了几个小时的游戏后(我最初是在PC上完这款游戏,并在促销的时候购买了Xbox One版本),你便会开始喜欢游戏中的其它方面。

首先,游戏中的射击是经过细致调整的,从而让它优于其它FPS,特别是当与其它基于控制的FPS游戏比较时。这是受益于Respawn的FPS基因(来自Infinity Ward)。但这只是带有高技能且经过多次迭代的游戏设计中的一方面,所以玩家才会在未能明确说出原因前便认为“它很完美”。

游戏中的移动并不是特别快,但游戏节奏却快于许多高预算的射击游戏。将其与精调的射击,具有直觉性的跑酷系统以及垂直的关卡设计相结合你便能够获得最棒的整体。面对一些笨重的机器人以及开发团队所擅长的电影感,并通过武器和关卡系统进行分层从而让你想要进一步地玩游戏,所以你会认为这是2014年最棒的游戏之一。

此外,还有一个加分点便是,你可以在等待《泰坦陨落》的时候在Xbox One上玩《Threes!》。

Matt Makes Games的《TowerFall:Ascension》

2014年我所选择的最佳多人游戏并不是《明星大乱斗》。不要误会我,这款游戏很棒。但是《TowerFall:Ascension》却是我拥有4台DualShock 4控制器的原因,当我回首去年春天玩过的游戏时,我意识到这才是我在2014年最喜欢的电子游戏。

在《TowerFall:Ascension》中,包括图像,音乐,主体和游戏玩法都组合在一起;但其真正突出之处还是在于讲究的游戏优化,这也是让它从一款平淡的独立游戏变成我愿意在周末邀请好友到家里一起游戏的经典之作。

这款游戏提醒我在随着技术向前发展的时候,我们不该遗漏掉各种形式的互动;并且它也同时提醒着我们,细节便是一切,并且创造适当的游戏感才是最重要的。

11 Bit Studios的《这是我的战争》

《Rust》,《DayZ》和《饥荒》都是过去几年里非常出色的生存游戏,但是它们对于我的吸引力都未曾超过1周。而《这是我的战争》却有所不同。

在这款游戏发行后一个多月,我仍然会在本该工作或睡觉的时候玩游戏。11 Bit的作品非常出色;该工作室巧妙地结合了实际的资源管理与一些生死攸关的决定,即让你衡量偷取那些不幸之人的财产与承诺让人们有饭吃等道德标准。

《这是我的战争》传达了带有策略的无希望的挑战,但这却不是第一款这么做的游戏—-所以为何它会如此吸引我的注意呢?

我觉得原因就在于眼睛。在大多数生存游戏中,我们根本看不到角色的眼睛—-玩家经常是以第一人称的身份隐藏在角色后面,如果你以第三人称视角出现的话,你的角色模式通常都会变成是对于一个人粗糙的临摹。

而《这是我的战争》中的角色肖像却截然不同—-当你控制着相对应的角色行动时时,他们会静静地盯着你看。有时候这些眼睛还会对你眨眼,特别是你长时间看着他们时。偶尔他们所附加的人物简介还会更新一些新的条目去描述他们如何处理战争中某个区域的生命之源,而这通常是取决于你的选择。

这是我自2012年Telltale的《行尸走肉》以来未曾看到的叙述设计。但与Telltale不同的是,11 Bit并未将你带向一个明确的结局;相反地,你将面对永无至今的复杂选择系列。如果失败的话,你将从第一天再次开始。可以说我到现在都还没看过游戏的结局。所以我可能会一直尝试下去。

补充:Brandon Sheffield的前5款“研究”游戏

你们中有些人可能知道我最近的全职工作是Necrosoft Games的总监。我们正在创造4款游戏,而我的部分工作便是确保所有的这些项目都能符合我们的质量标准,因为它们很容易迷失于每日的变化中并偏离全局(特别是对于我来说)。

为了确保我始终处于正确的轨道上,有时候我会玩一些带有与我们想要创造的游戏相同的系统或元素的游戏。以下便是我在2014年为了研究而尝试过的前5款游戏。

Sumo Digital的《Outrun 2006》

我们正在创造一款名为《Oh,Deer!》的赛车游戏。它是关于在你前往奶奶家的路上用你的旅行车撞击尽可能多的鹿的游戏。这是一款伪3D游戏,带有像现代3D赛车游戏那样的摄像机倾斜设置,我们已经创造了非常棒的漂移模式了。

但是我的工作与所有的这些事物都无关—-我的工作只是创造轨道,并且说实话,到目前为止它们都“只是还好”。创造吸引人的赛车轨道很难,至少对于我来说是这样的!我不断进行尝试,但最终都是徒劳。为了鼓励自己并告诉自己真正吸引人的轨道是怎样的,我玩了《Outrun 2》或者《Outrun Coast 2 Coast》。

这些游戏拥有非常出色的街机风格的漂移机制,并且带有非常华丽且让人激动的轨道。虽然这里也存在一切比较不有趣的部分,但是它们只是用了3种类型的转弯,再加上直线跑道,从而通过一个较大的视觉效果去集中每段路。这些轨道设置有许多值得我们学习的地方,但也提醒着我去创造真正适合游戏的轨道。

Bullet-Proof Software的《Tetris Battle Gaiden》和Compile的《Puyo Puyo 4》

虽然这是两款游戏,但是它们都具有与我们现在所开发的名为《Magicops》的原型同样的机制世界。《Magicops》是一款关于既是将成为未来警察的学员同时也是魔法师的角色的益智游戏。

在这款游戏中我们创造了一些独特且有趣的机制,但有一个并不独特,只能说较罕见的机制,它便是魔法攻击。一旦玩家通过组合获得了足够多的能量,他便能够发动改变游戏的魔法攻击,即将对敌人的区域创造出毁灭性的的破坏,或者有可能带给自己巨大的帮助。在过去几年里有些日本益智游戏便做过同样的事,而最有趣的便是SUper Famicom上的《Tetris Battle Gaiden》和Dreamcast上的《Puyo Puyo 4》。

在研究这些游戏时,我做出了“公正”并非万全之策的选择。这些游戏中的能量分配并不公正。但它们却非常简单有趣。它们能够带给你轻松越快的时光,并且不会让游戏显得太过严肃。当你的敌人突然使用魔法攻击改变你的控制器输入时,你可能就笑不出来了。

Phil Hassey的《Galcon》

最近我们面向iOS和Android创造了一款小型策略游戏的原型。策略游戏是以其复杂的联锁系统而出名,但是我对其以最简单的形式所呈现出的蒸馏作用很感兴趣。《Galcon》便是其中一款我认为做到了这点的全新策略游戏。在《Galcon》中,你将尝试着占领星球—-你只拥有一次互动:从当前所选择的星球发送半只飞船到你选择的下一个星球。同时,你的敌人也将尝试着做同样的事。这真的非常简单,但是每个动作都是一个策略决定。这是我自己希望创造的一款非常机智的游戏。

尽管我们的游戏与《Galcon》具有很大的区别,但是主要原理还是相同的。如占领区域,判断你的单位是否比敌人的单位强大。玩《Galcon》带给我很大的鼓励,特别是在我一直担心想不到适当的游戏理念时。

Vlambeer的《Luftrausers》

关于《Luftrausers》,我所进行的研究较为特别。当我们在去年10月将第一款游戏《Gunhouse》移植到Windows Phone(游戏邦注:基于免费模式,且没有任何广告)时,我们添加了许多内容,即与我们在去年年初所发行的PlayStation Mobile版本相比较的话。而其中一个新内容便是摇动屏幕。

而谁是这一新内容的最大功臣?那绝对是Vlambeer。所以我才会玩《Luftrausers》以明确我们该在哪里以及何时将摇动屏幕功能整合到《Gunhouse》中。我承认,我们并未找到最佳位置。我们的想法是“总比没有的好”。或许我应该进一步研究这款游戏。

Data East的《Windjammers》

在我了解eSport之前,Data East的网球/飞盘游戏是我最喜欢的eSports游戏之一。现在Necrosoft Games的主要项目是《Gunsport》,这是关于带着枪支的网络朋克排球游戏。这款游戏是围绕着团队展开,并且与《Windjammers》不同,因为在后者你需要将球射中目标而不是抢夺并移动它。

但《Windjammers》仍具有很大的影响性,不管是游戏感,精密度,速度还是整体的基调。不管是击打和滑动的时机还是移动的反应性都非常出色,它始终提醒着我们一款街机行动游戏该是怎样的。

此外,我还喜欢角色的局限性对于玩家是否能够及时得到球的影响。如果你跳到球场上方而球的位置却很低,并且你未能料到这点,你可能就难以得到球。这就像是接近成功的失败一样,但是即使你输掉比赛,你仍会有很不错的感觉—-尽管你未能获得成功,但是你至少尝试过了。你将角色的局限性变成是自己的,并且不再因为自己的错误去责备计算机。这便是一种体育精神。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转发,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Best of 2014: Gamasutra’s Top Games of the Year

by Christian Nutt, Brandon Sheffield, Kris Graft, Alex Wawro, Leigh Alexander, Phill Cameron

Look past the conflict in 2014, and you’ll see an incredible amount of great games for all kinds of tastes.

That widening variance, and the sheer volume of games released these days, is why last year, Gamasutra started running individual staff members’ top five favorite games they played during a given year.

I figure that by now, it’s a bit disingenuous to pretend to come up with a “definitive” “Best Games 20XX” list when the fact is, there are so many games out there of all kinds that our small staff could never get around to playing all of the worthy titles out there, let alone agree which handful are “The Best.”

That said, our small staff, naturally, played a whole lot of games this year, and we all have strong opinions about the ones we loved.

- Kris Graft, editor-in-chief

80 Days by Inkle

Remember when you were little, and advertisements would try to get you to read by showing you tomes splitting open, moonbeams and dinosaurs swelling from the pages, cartoon children tumbling into the open book as if it were a portal to another world? Animations showing the words “coming alive” beneath your fingertips? And of course you understood it was a simplistic analogy for the imagination. Books didn’t really “come alive” under your hands.

But when you play 80 Days, written by Meg Jayanth, you remember the dream. Vibrant, touchable and immersive, a readable journey with subtle game mechanics, no trip with Mr. Phileas Fogg the same as the last. I played it on a long train trip, the world speeding by out my window, the world speeding by inside the magic frame I held in my lap. – Leigh Alexander (@leighalexander) Leigh Alexander’s Top 5 Games

Finally, finally, people are starting to do story right… With 80 Days, what little there was in way of mechanics was directly influenced by the story, and directly influenced right back. Managing your finances and Fogg’s health, as well as the items in your trunk and the relationships you had with the people you met along the road and the road itself, all of it blended together so seamlessly that you never felt disconnected from any part. – Phill Cameron (@phillcameron) Phill Cameron’s Top 5 Games

1001 Spikes by Nicalis and 8bits Fanatics

1001 Spikes is the most tightly-designed platformer that came out this year. There is little room for improvisation here, and the hand of the designer is obvious: “You will get through the level this way, and if you deviate from my intention by one pixel, or if your movement is off by a nanosecond, YOU ARE DEAD.” Even with its two-button jumping feature, the designer is telling players, “You have two choices: Jump this high or this high.” It approaches puzzle design, in that solving a problem requires a rather specific solution.

Lives (1001 to start) are the currency for learning each and every stage in 1001 Spikes, and learning this game costs a lot of that currency. Many people will be turned off by that, because, as anyone who’s played this game knows, this game is very difficult. But is it sadistic? Are people who play it masochists, as reviewers like to say about these kinds of games?

Nah, 1001 Spikes is pure joy. Just remember that when you feel like breaking your controller in half. – Kris Graft Kris Graft’s Top 5 Games

The Banner Saga by Stoic Studio

Interestingly, The Banner Saga feels like an odd inverse of 80 Days. Instead of being simple on the mechanics and systems and restrained with the scope of the stories, The Banner Saga went the opposite direction, setting up a huge grand narrative with constant interruptions of both combat and resources to manage. Instead of a romp it was a slog, a slow march where you shed the people who depended on you through war and attrition.

But what made it work was how it used its context to frame smaller stories. It had multiple protagonists, and that in turn allowed it to have its grand narrative cake and eat its tasty smaller story cupcakes. With the giant Varl you had the greater scope of the conflict, following the efforts to repel the mechanical Dredge, whereas with Rook and the humans it was more about survival and escape.

While the turn-based combat sections weren’t quite as immediately engaging, the mechanics of it created a weird counterpoint to the stories that you were telling. The effects of your choices could be felt there, putting your heroes at risk could save more lives, or a poor decision with your supplies could start your heroes with fewer hit points than normal. There are greater events with greater consequences, but it had the interesting effect of forcing you to behave like a leader, weighing the pragmatic choices against the emotional ones. These were the people who would win the war, even if they were occasionally unsavory, or unstable, or any other negative quality they might possess.

The differing tones and the different scopes of those stories allowed Stoic to do a lot with a potentially overwhelming series of events, with the only problem being it ended with the story incomplete. Most importantly, the choices were varied, ambiguous and personal, with no black or white, clear-cut differences between them. – Phill Cameron

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker by Nintendo EAD Tokyo

Talk about surprising — where did this come from? Nintendo has a reputation for craftsmanship, but this game lays bare all the tools in its toolbox (or is that all the toys in its toybox?) Playing it is like a peek behind the curtain.

What started as a mini-game mode in last year’s Super Mario 3D World has grown into a game of its own, and the result is as charming and compelling as it gets. If you like puzzles and toys, this game should be at the top of your want-list.

Each level is a miniature world with its own identity, purpose, and play-style — a universe of handmade challenges. It’s a testament to carefully creating every level, and the approach of fully exploring an array of simple ideas.

All this is presented with no goal other than to entertain the player. Charm is something our industry doesn’t excel at, these days, and charm is something this game exudes — charm with a purpose. [For more on Captain Toad, read my blog on its design.] – Christian Nutt (@ferricide) Christian Nutt’s Top 5 Games

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc by Spike Chunsoft

The absolute dark horse of the list and my undeniable favorite, too. The visual novel genre is starting to get a little respect in the West, and the two Danganronpa games that NIS America put out this year deserve to be a big part of why: They’re fresh, surprising, and inventive even as they cling to the sorts of long, linear stories that so many game designers say the medium would be better off without.

The series got its start when the developers at Spike Chunsoft considered how a once-popular but now moribund genre could be refreshed; turns out you can do it through a mixture of clever writing and unexpected gameplay ideas.

Putting a bunch of characters into a closed environment and watching them kill each other off is not at all an original way to build a mystery story. Danganronpa, then, is made fresh by its approach to characterization and its writer’s willingness to go absolutely anywhere and do anything.

The trick is that the game manages to stay on the rails while doing it. Kazutaka Kodaka, the game’s scenarist, managed it by breadcrumbing revelations through the entire game.

The fact that Danganronpa is so stylized and atypical (look at those characters, that setting) yet so understandable and relatable is an incredibly neat trick. – Christian Nutt

Desert Golfing by Justin Smith

You wouldn’t want to golf in a desert. It’d be like one long exercise in futility, like a sand trap you never get out of. Yet Justin Smith’s Desert Golfing is one of my most important game experiences of 2014, a silent and endless slog, just me and my slingshot finger pitching a tiny ball from one awkward, lonesome hole to the next with a soft and distinctive tok.

It may sound florid to call Desert Golfing an exercise in accepting the past, or in surrendering to the things you can’t change, but if you ever find yourself awake at 1 AM, wracked with anxious insomnia, your entire surreal world coming down to a tiny white pinpoint on an endless desert golf course, you’ll start to understand.

If the reason you can’t sleep is power fantasies and business models and death threats and Twitter, you might feel that Desert Golfing, an utterly pure, random-generated, consciously-unfettered and unmonetized golf march through a sand trap to infinity, is this year’s most perfect video game. It really is about crossing the desert: Beginning with a hope against hope that you’ll reach the other side. That there is another side. – Leigh Alexander

Destiny by Bungie

Destiny was not what I, or, it seems, anyone else really expected. Rather than being Halo-meets-Borderlands, it was more Halo-meets-Diablo-via-WoW, taking the compelling and constant progression of power that makes Diablo something people come back to time and again, and then throwing in the complex and deeply satisfying raid mechanics that were the aspiration, but perhaps not necessarily the experience, of MMO players.

There’s something inherently fruitless about a loot grind, and it’s what has kept me away from genuinely enjoying Diablo for quite a while. But in Destiny they’ve managed to dangle enough of a carrot at the end game that pushing your equipment further does have a reward. Instead of an achievement its an experience, and what Bungie have done with their raids, both Vault of Glass and Crota’s End, is create one of the most complex and exciting experiences I’ve had in an FPS in forever.

None of this is to say that Destiny wasn’t bungled in more ways than one. Partly, I believe that pressure of expectation on Bungie to pump out another Halo compromised Destiny, forcing it to shift back away from what they originally wanted to do to keep around a vestigial single player experience, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that became more and more phased out over time. But what cannot be denied is that, as far as I’m concerned, Destiny is what any console MMO will look like for the next decade. And for that alone, that makes it more important than most of the games that came out this year. – Phill Cameron

Divinity: Original Sin by Larian Studios

This year Larian managed to release a sprawling, robust PC RPG the likes of which I haven’t seen since BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins, and in my eyes that’s a feat worth celebrating. Divinity: Original Sin hooked me the way Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale did back at the turn of the millennium: by building a vibrant world packed with interesting systems and places to explore, then opening it up for players to approach however they like.

But Larian didn’t just pay homage to those classic titles; it improved upon them in terms of both form and function. Original Sin features some excellent bits of design work, including a narrative that can be seen and solved from countless angles of approach and a deceptively simple solution to the problem of implementing real-time cooperative play in an open-world game with turn-based combat.

The makers of Original Sin also deserve a nod for crowdfunding and releasing a commercially successful game that Larian founder Swen Vincke says they’ve been trying to make for over a decade. Sure, claiming you’ve succeeded in making a niche game that no publisher would buy thanks (in part) to the pocketbooks of the people is a good PR line, but it also echoes similar sentiments I’ve heard from developers at studios like inXile and Frontier.

Larian’s success funding Original Sin suggests there’s room for mid-size, niche-minded studios to survive and flourish using alpha funding tools like Kickstarter and Early Access. The game’s triumphant (if slightly delayed) release reinforces popular trust in those funding tools, rendering them stronger for other developers who rely on them. Perhaps I’m being too optimistic, but I hope success stories like Original Sin can make it easier for other developers to crowdfund in the months ahead. – Alex Wawro (@awawro) Alex Wawro’s Top 5 Games

Fantasy Life by Level-5

Some games seem born in a flash of inspiration. Others are a product of exacting craft. Fantasy Life is definitely one of the latter. The game is a perfectly tuned pocket-sized world that offers tremendous opportunities for exploration and interaction.

Over the 15 years since EverQuest launched, I’ve considered playing this or that MMO, but never succumbed. Fantasy Life is the perfect game for someone who wants a taste of that, but without the intense commitment.

The game works as well in long stints as small doses, and is as enjoyable in single-player as it is in online or local co-op. It’s a flexible game set in a vibrant, appealing little world that begs to be explored.

It also caters to players who don’t have the time or the inclination to devote themselves to one optimal progression path. You can mix and match your tasks and find your own way — one that’s based not on min-maxing but instead on the natural progression you choose simply because it seems interesting.

Underneath an unassuming guise lies an ambitious heart — a game developed with resolute attention to letting the player make their in-game life their own, and that’s what won me over. It’s the game I’d been hoping for the last decade that Level-5, whose RPGs so often suffer from a crippling lack of focus, would make — it turns that scattershot approach into a strength. – Christian Nutt

Gang Beasts by Boneloaf

It’s pretty rare that a game can make losing fun. It’s exceptionally rare that a game can make it so that I don’t really care if I win or not. I mean, I play Dota 2. So, yeah.

But Gang Beasts does it. I’m usually too busy laughing to even care whether I’m the one punching or the one getting punched. It takes the janky physics of Sumotori Dreams (GoTY 2010) and throws it into a wrestling ring, then a fire pit, then two moving lorries, then some window-washer scaffolds. What makes it work is that it’s enough of an approximation of a fight, and perhaps more importantly the messiness of a fight that it’s simultaneously hilarious and a touch horrifying.

That you have to hurl the unconscious body of your friend/mortal enemy off the edge of the arena and to their death adds an element of showiness to the game that really elevates it. You heft that potato-sack that was so recently hurling jabs at your face, and the whole time in your head there’s a chant of “FINISH HIM.”

We recently had a bunch of friends around to play a bunch of different local multiplayer games, and while Starwhal, Samurai Gunn, Nidhogg and Tennes were all enjoyed, nothing managed to draw the same crowd as Gang Beasts. There’s something inherently slapstick about it, and coupling the ridiculous nature of a bunch of jellybabies in kigus duking it out with the ferocity of their punches makes it almost as funny as Jazzpunk, without needing anything resembling a script. – Phill Cameron

Hohokum by Honeyslug

More than anything, I feel like 2014 really challenged the preconceptions that I bring to any game experience that I come across. After a strong decade of being conditioned to play one particular way, we’re coming across a slew of games at the moment that aren’t so much bucking the trend as stepping entirely clear of it. Hohokum, for me, was right at the front of that pack of trend-sidesteppers.

Fundamentally, it was a game that refused to ask me to complete it. Instead it wanted me to merely play, to weave and dance my way through its levels, and poke my snake-like head into each and every corner just to see what would happen. Its concept of pace is to entirely remove any notion of it, and just give you as much time as you’d like to do whatever you want. There’s no failure, and in the few examples where you need to interact mechanically, it’s incredibly forgiving, never resetting progress or forcing you to go back to a checkpoint.

In a lot of ways it shares the qualities of the best children’s toys; something that can surprise and confuse the child, but never in a frustrating way. Instead you just allow yourself to become receptive and enjoy whatever happens. It’s a very odd thing, when you compare it to the rigorously goal-oriented games we’re so used to. Couple all this with adorable animations and a world that doesn’t need to make sense, only elicit a smile or a laugh, and Hohokum is a game that I’m happy to thrust in front of a friend who’s never played a game before.

And just for being that fresh and friendly, as well as so unrepentantly joyous and wonderful, made it one of the best games of the year. – Phill Cameron

Hoplite by Doug Cowley

Including this game is a bit dodgy if we were only talking about games that came out in 2014; Doug Cowley’s mobile strategy game Hoplite finally came to Android this year, but the original iOS version actually slipped out at the tail end of 2013. Despite its late December release I didn’t pick it up until some time in February; once I did, I didn’t really put it down all year.

To this day it’s my go-to game whenever I have a spare moment, and Cowley’s adroit blend of turn-based tactical play and endless, procedurally generated levels continues to keep me coming back to prove that this time, I can play a bit smarter. Last a bit longer. Become a bit better.

Put simply, Hoplite is an elegant roguelike that’s easy to pick up and hard to put down. Your core challenge is to guide a little Grecian soldier across a series of procedurally generated hex grids representing levels of Hell, each of which is studded with demons, an upgrade station and the exit to the next level. Every time you act, everything else on the map does too. Die, and you start all over again.

You’ll die often, and you’ll always know why because the rules that govern the enemies, abilities and hazards in Hoplite are clear and absolute. You can master them, then exercise that mastery to reach seemingly impossible depths. In this respect Hoplite shares much in common with mobile roguelikes like Michael Brough’s 868-HACK, but its idiosyncratic approach to movement and unlockable abilities (which incentivize novel tactics and allow you to effectively develop your own character builds) differentiates it enough from Brough’s work to stand alone as one of my favorite games of the year. Whenever someone asks me for a mobile game recommendation, I start with Hoplite. – Alex Wawro

Jazzpunk by Necrophone Games

Creating a genuinely funny game is incredibly difficult. Making one within the bounds of first-person perspective with a tiny team seems nearly impossible, but Toronto-based Necrophone Games managed to pull it off in spectacular fashion this year with Jazzpunk.

The game is laced with a dry, surreal sense of humor much akin to that of another first-person title released by an indie duo: Galactic Cafe’s much-lauded 2013 comedic walking simulator The Stanley Parable. But to my eyes Jazzpunk is better because it’s more interactive and, frankly, weirder — Necrophone manages to weave a steady stream of deadpan humor and sight gags into a noir spoof decked out in eye-straining patterns and hues so audacious you can’t help but laugh.

From a design perspective, Jazzpunk plays with the conventions of first-person games in eminently charming ways. The lion’s share of such titles treat their objects and environments as tools and obstacles, things to be used and overcome in pursuit of your objective. In Jazzpunk, the world itself is your objective: every level is a gaudy playground filled with things to clamber on, play with and laugh at. Plus, as far as I know you really can’t die, which means you’re never in danger of killing a joke by having to play through it multiple times.

I could go on about this game for pages, but doing so would spoil the experience of playing it for the first time, and I dearly hope you’ll do just that. It’s a fantastic example of comedic game design that I think everyone, developer or otherwise, should play. – Alex Wawro

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood by Glu Games

When you become a video game critic you get on board with certain implicit (and often explicit) arguments: Games do not cause violence; they do not promote “values” of one kind or another. They are cathartic, they are fantastical, they are toys. They let you have silly fun, and to think too much about it, or to interrogate one another too much about it, is to “miss the point.”

You know, I’m down with this argument. I made it when I was younger, and even though now I’m an adult and can say things like “maybe an experience can’t help but be an expression of some aspect of the creator” or “maybe the content we consume both reflects and affects our culture,” I still — despite everything — will take issue with the common presumption that games are trash or dangerous or both.

Hooky, unintrusive, digestible, memetic, funny, of-the-minute, fashion and celeb culture spoof Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is really good, and no amount of brand power or lunar gravity could have made it so popular if it wasn’t (and hey, look: racial diversity and player-led sexuality like it ain’t even a thing. Was that so hard?).

Yet then I heard an entire male-dominated game industry wring its hands: It’s trashy! It’s a sign of the end times. It instills bad values. All of our breastplate armor dragon babe power fantasies up til now were fine fiction, but this feminine Hollywood power fantasy deserves derision.

Funny how that works. You may now commence your comment thread on whether or not Kim Kardashian is a worthwhile human being and “deserves” her fame or not. You know you’re gonna do that. – Leigh Alexander

The Long Dark by Hinterland Studio

A lot of developers tell me they want to make really hard games, and I love hard games. I think most of us do. I just like there to be a reason for the difficulty besides its own sake.

The Long Dark is difficult as a facilitator for happy accidents — eking out as long a life as you can in a brutal, freezing disasterscape, you finally manage to scrape up a serviceable homestead, only to realize you lost your only bedroll somewhere in the wilderness. You finally craft the hook, thread the line, carve the ice and try to fish, only to watch your crude little rigging disappear into the fishing hole, never to be seen again. You build an animal snare and accidentally tumble into your own fire.

Every session is fleeting. You are not going to do well. You are not going to build a life here, in a place like this. It’s an especially good game for two people to sit in front of a computer and dither with together — all kinds of procedurally-generated games promise you those good stories to tell, to take away with you, and you get that here.

But an even better takeaway is this private refinement of your own instinct of the rhythm of life. Each session, you get a little more sleep and a little less to eat, or some more fresh water and a weapon though you shiver within an inch of your life all the while. – Leigh Alexander

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor from Monolith Productions

For my money, no big-budget game released this year proved a better example of what smart, talented developers can do with cutting-edge tech than Shadow of Mordor. In a year that saw a remarkable number of third-person open-world games released, Monolith’s first stab at the genre was the only “AAA” game of 2014 that sucked me in and offered a glimpse of a potential future for game design I’d very much like to see realized.

Regrettably, that potential isn’t evident up front. Shadow of Mordor doesn’t really shine until you’ve sunk some time into unlocking and mastering its mechanics. You could be forgiven for bailing after a few hours because it’s too violent, too rote, and too reluctant to empower you with its full suite of tools.

But if you stick with it, Monolith’s trump card — the vaunted Nemesis system — starts shuffling the game’s deck of monsters against you in an unprecedented way. Enemies that kill you grow stronger, jockeying for rank among their peers and taunting you for past failures even as you come to know their names, their strengths and their weaknesses.

The underlying systems seem straightforward enough — auto-generate a name and descriptor (“Narbokk the Butcher”) when an orc kills you, then tie it to a procedurally-generated set of abilities and weaknesses and pull proper barks based on previous encounters — but Monolith ties these systems together so elegantly that the antagonists of Mordor come alive in a way I’ve never seen before.

It’s a brilliant example of big-budget design work, one that foreshadows a level of simulated intelligence in games that the industry has been pushing towards for years. If we look back at how the field of game design has evolved over the past decade, it’s easy to see where the industry appropriates popular mechanics from trailblazing games like Gears of War, Wii Sports, and Arkham Asylum; going forward, I hope Monolith doesn’t mind if the rest of the industry borrows liberally from their Shadow of Mordor playbook. – Alex Wawro

Rust by Facepunch Studios

A lot of people won’t “get” Rust. When you first log in to a server, you awaken — you’re born, really — probably in the middle of a field, with a stone, some basic first aid, and a torch that hardly would last through the night.

The world of Rust doesn’t wait for you or feel obliged to ease you in, and neither does its often ruthless inhabitants. It’s like merging with heavy traffic: If you make a wrong move, you’ll end up smashed up on the side of the road. Student drivers will end up in a mangled heap more often than more experienced drivers.

Rust, an Early Access game from Garry’s Mod studio Facepunch, abandons preconceived, tailor-designed structure: quests, skill trees, narrative arcs, level designs, etc. are all out the window. Everything revolves around a straightforward crafting system and your ability to live and learn on Rust Island.

What Rust does provide is the foundation — the crafting system and the island — for players to build a social framework, to have experiences and interact with one another in a wilderness survival setting. Facepunch is a small team of developers, so creating framework and countless systems and producing endless content wasn’t really an option. Just as Rust conforms to the way players play, it conforms to the way the developers develop.

As someone who doesn’t typically play (or “get”) “these kinds” of games, Rust has opened my eyes to virtues of emergent design in games with large groups of people. It’s “missing” a lot of features we’ve come to expect in video games — maps, morality meters, level design — and it works wonderfully. – Kris Graft

Samurai Gunn by Teknopants

My enthusiasm for local multiplayer games was summed up this year in raucous four-player matches of Samurai Gunn, designed by Teknopants (aka Beau Blyth) and published by Maxistentialism.

While many seem to prefer the more deliberately-paced, power-up heavy TowerFall, it’s the fast-paced, quick-reflex nature of Samurai Gunn that won me over when playing with other people. This game doesn’t reward blinking; sometimes even the winner doesn’t even know what just happened. Lucky kills often look like amazing skill shots, while your amazing skill shot will be alleged to be pure luck.

With one sword and three bullets per life, the game mechanic verbs here are plain and simple: run, shoot, jump, slash. Throw in three other players, a variety of levels, and a simple points system, and you’ve got what I consider the best local multiplayer game of the year. – Kris Graft

Shovel Knight by Yacht Club Games

Shovel Knight isn’t just a love letter to the NES; it’s a complete deconstruction and rebirth of the design elements that made so many of the games on the system enduring classics. It’s a brand new book written in an ancient tongue.

What makes this game is special is that Yacht Club Games is truly fluent in that language. The developers carefully considered the lessons the old games taught; if the initial thesis statement was that “NES games are still fun” then this game is sound proof.

There’s a difference between aping what has come before and creating something new. This is a living tribute that succeeds with its own vitality. – Christian Nutt

Threes! by Asher Vollmer (and friends)

For me, Threes! is one of those games where a session starts out as a distraction — maybe you’ll play it while binging on a Netflix series you’ve already seen a dozen times, glancing back and forth between your smartphone and the TV. But after a few lucky breaks with block placement, a few smart swipes, and as your score starts to build, your attention eventually turns wholly to these talking blocks.

The simplicity of Threes!, like many cool things, was hard-won. It took designer Asher Vollmer and graphic artist Greg Wohlwend over a year and many iterations (and lots of emails) to come to a game that conveys a second-to-second feeling of risk vs. reward (it’s so satisfying when that new block slides in just where you need it; devastating when it doesn’t), a perfect skill curve, and replayability that’s limited only to your desire to keep trying to go for a high score. It seems like a “casual” game — and to some degree it is — but Threes! is also something you can get “good” at by learning what strategies work, and increasing your skill with the game.

Threes! is tactile, stylish, and imminently replayable. And the score by Jimmy Hinson will play in your head forever. It’s mobile game perfection. – Kris Graft

Titanfall by Respawn Entertainment

Titanfall has giant, awesomely-designed robots — I’m not going to lie, that’s what drew me in initially. But after playing it for hours (I initially played it on PC, then picked up the Xbox One version after it went on sale), you start to appreciate other aspects of the game.

First off, shooting in this game is so, so finely tuned, which makes it feel better than any other FPS out there, especially when compared to other controller-based FPS games. This is a benefit of the FPS heritage that resides at Respawn, which came out of Infinity Ward. It’s just one of those things in game development that is highly technical, highly iterative in design, with the result being players saying “it feels perfect,” without quite being able to pinpoint precisely why.

Movement in the game isn’t quite Doom-fast, but the pace is quicker than many big-budget shooters out there. Add that to the finely-tuned shooting, the intuitive parkour system, and vertical level design you’ve already got a winning combination. Throw in some hulking robots and the cinematic touch that the dev team is known for, layer it with weapons and leveling systems that makes you want to play just one more round, and you’ve got one of the best games of the year.

As an added bonus, you can even play Threes! on your Xbox One while waiting for your Titan. Just find a good hiding spot. – Kris Graft

TowerFall: Ascension by Matt Makes Games

My multiplayer game of the year didn’t turn out to be Super Smash Bros. Don’t get me wrong; it’s incredibly good. But TowerFall: Ascension is the reason I now own four DualShock 4 controllers, and as I look back on the matches I played this spring, they’re my favorite video game memories of the year.

Everything came together with TowerFall: Ascension. From the graphics and the music to the theme and the gameplay, it’s all of a piece; but what really makes it stand out is the polish that was fastidiously applied, the careful tuning that turns it from an also-ran indie game to a Bomberman-caliber classic that made inviting friends to my house on weekends a necessity instead of a nice idea.

This game reminded me that there are forms of interaction we musn’t lose as technology moves forward; but it just as clearly reminds us all that details are everything, and getting a game’s feel just right is top priority. – Christian Nutt

This War of Mine by 11 Bit Studios

Rust, DayZ, Don’t Starve — quite a few excellent survival games have come to market in the past few years, and none have held my interest for more than a week. This War Of Mine is different.

More than a month after release I still find myself thinking about it when I’m supposed to be working and playing it when I should be sleeping. 11 Bit’s work here is brilliant; the studio deft deftly blends practical resource management and life-or-death decisions that see you weighing the moral cost of stealing from the less fortunate against the promise of keeping your people fed for another day.

This War Of Mine delivers these bleak challenges with finesse, but it’s hardly the first game to do so — so why does it stick with me, when similar games slip past?

I think it’s the eyes. See, in most survival games you can’t see your character’s eyes — you’re usually riding behind them in first-person, and if you pop out to a third-person perspective your character model is often little more than a rough-hewn facsimile of a person.

The character portraits in This War of Mine are different — they stare out at you peacefully even as you guide their corresponding avatars, laden with fatigue, to build rainwater stills instead of sleeping or shovel through the rubble of blasted-out buildings with their bare hands. Sometimes those eyes blink at you, if you look at them long enough. Every once in a while the character bio they’re attached to will be updated with a new diary entry describing how that person is dealing with the trials of life in a region at war, trials that — more often than not — your choices have forced them to endure.

It’s a surprisingly affecting bit of narrative design that evokes empathy in a way I haven’t seen since Telltale’s inaugural Walking Dead game in 2012. But unlike Telltale, 11 Bit doesn’t march you towards a clear ending; instead, you face a never-ending series of difficult choices in a daily fight to survive. Fail, and you start over again from day one. If there’s an end to the game, I haven’t yet found it. I can’t seem to stop trying. – Alex Wawro

Once we had a former soccer star. We sent him out running at night to scavenge supplies. In the hotel we found, for the first time, not machine parts and harmless rubble, but bad men. They had guns, like, real ones, and hostages. He came back too injured to go out again. The next night we sent the plucky journalist, eager to prove herself. She died there. – Leigh Alexander

Bonus: Brandon Sheffield’s Top 5 “research” games

Some of you may know that my full time job these days is director of Necrosoft Games. We’re making four games simultaneously, and part of my job is to make sure all those projects are living up to our own quality expectations, as it can be really easy to get lost in the day-to-day of what you’re doing, and miss the larger picture (especially for me).

In order to make sure I’m on the right track, sometimes I like to ground myself by playing games that have similar systems or elements to what what we want to achieve. Here, then, are the top 5 games I played for research in 2014.

Outrun 2006 by Sumo Digital

We’re making a driving game called Oh, Deer! It’s about hitting as many or as few deer as possible with your station wagon, as you make your way to grandma’s house. It’s proper pseudo-3D, ala Road Rash, with camera tilt like a modern 3D racer, and we’ve got a pretty excellent drifting model, to boot.

But my job has nothing to do with all those cool things – my job is to create the tracks, and frankly, so far, they’ve been “just okay.” It is very difficult to make compelling race tracks, at least for me! I push them this way, I pull them that way, and they just wind up pedestrian. In order to revitalize myself, and remind myself what a truly compelling track can be, I play Outrun 2, or Outrun Coast 2 Coast.

These games have amazing arcade-style drift mechanics, and simply lovely, lush, and exciting tracks all the way through. There are a couple segments that are less interesting than others, but each of them only uses three types of turn, plus straightaways, and centers each segment around a large visual set-piece. There’s so much to learn from these tracks that I can’t describe them all, but reminding myself what one can achieve if one applies oneself can be massively helpful.

Tetris Battle Gaiden by Bullet-Proof Software and Puyo Puyo 4 by Compile

Okay, this is two games, sorry! But they both live in the same mechanical universe as our current prototype for a game we call Magicops. It’s a versus puzzle game about retro future police cadets who are also mages. Hey, it’s my company, I can do what I want, okay!?

We have some unique and interesting mechanics in this game, but one that is not unique, just rather rare, is the magic attacks. Essentially, once you build up enough power from combos, you’re able to unleash a game-changing magic attack that either does something devastating to your opponent’s field, or something beneficial to yours (or both). A few Japanese puzzle games have done this over the years, but two of the most fun are Tetris Battle Gaiden on the Super Famicom, and Puyo Puyo 4 on the Dreamcast.

In studying these, I made the decision that “fairness” is not necessarily all it’s cracked up to be. The powers in these games are not fair. They are not even. But they are silly, they are fun, they are foolish. They make you have a good time, and not take the game so seriously. When your opponent suddenly reverses the inputs on your controller with a magical strike, it’s hard not to laugh. And I’d like just a bit more laughter in games, thanks very much.

Galcon by Phil Hassey

Lately we’ve been prototyping a small tactics game for iOS and Android. Tactics games are generally known for their more complex and interlocking systems, but I’m quite interested in distilling that down to its purest forms. Galcon is one of the only new-ish tactics games I can think of that does that. In Galcon, you are trying to capture planets — and you only have one interaction: send half the ships from your currently selected planet(s), to the planet you select next. Meanwhile, your opponent or opponents are trying to do the same. It’s amazingly simple, but each motion is a tactical decision. It’s a very smart game that I wish I had made myself, dang it.

While our game is very different from Galcon, the main tenets are the same. Capture territory, and gauge whether your units are stronger than your enemy’s. Playing Galcon simply encouraged me, when I was worried I’d never hit upon the right idea, that if there’s one idea out there for a small tactics game, there can be another.

Luftrausers by Vlambeer

The research I did with Luftrausers is quite specific. You see, when we ported our first game Gunhouse to Windows Phone in October (it’s free, with no ads! You can just have it!), we added a lot of stuff, compared to the PlayStation Mobile game we released earlier in the year. One of those additions was screen shake.

Who are the champions of screen shake? Definitely and decidedly Vlambeer. So I played Luftrausers to get an idea of where and when we might want to put screen shake into Gunhouse. We didn’t quite get to the sweet spot, I will admit. What we have is more of a “better than nothing” sort of solution than the masterful shaking that Vlambeer’s games exhibit. I guess I need to study this one a bit more.

Windjammers by Data East

Boy do I ever love Windjammers. Data East’s versus tennis/frisbee game has been one of my favorite eSports since before I knew what an eSport was. Currently, Necrosoft Games’ main project is Gunsport, which is basically cyberpunk volleyball with guns. It’s team-based, and different from Windjammers in that you must shoot the ball into goals rather than grabbing and sliding around with it.

But Windjammers is still very influential, for its feel, for its precision, for its speed, and its general tone. The timing of strikes and slides, and the responsiveness of movement is excellent, and a good reminder of how an arcade action game should feel.

On top of that, I like how the limitations of your character can have an affect on whether you can get to the ball (or frisbee) in time. If you’re up on top of the court, and the ball goes low, and you’re not expecting it, you might not physically be able to get there. It feels like a near miss, and even if you lose it, it’s still a good feeling — because you made that heroic dive for it, and you knew you couldn’t get there, but still you tried. You make the character’s limitations your own, no longer blaming the computer for your own error. That’s a sport.(source:gamasutra)

 


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