1979 Revolution: Black Friday Review

Banalities are never in short supply when one tries to discuss the popular uprisings of the past: "revolutions devour their own children", "violence begets violence", "absolute power corrupts absolutely" - such platitudes are often all people feel the need to say about events that have had enough books written about them to fill up a library. When they take place in a Middle-Eastern country, the racist idea that Muslims, left to their own devices, can only replace a pro-Western dictatorial regime with an even worse, Islamic regime, is all the more tempting to those whose understanding of the region has been heavily colored by post-9/11 Islamophobia.

This is the attitude many people take towards the 1979 Iranian Revolution, but no one was quite so blase about it when it was taking place, and for a good reason. The revolution signaled the last days of the Baghdad Pact, and was taking place at the same time as the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Syria, The Soviet-Afghani war, the Lebanese civil war and Israeli invasion of the country* - all over Asia and beyond it, the status-quo established in the decades after WWII was threatened, and both the West and the Soviet bloc were intervening aggressively in an attempt to keep their client regimes in place. The Iranian Shah wasn't just a reliable supplier of oil - he was a symbol of stability in a sea of uprisings. His regime's demise was a political defeat as much as it was an economic one, and its reverberations can be felt to this day.

With such heavy subject matter to tackle, 1979 Revolution: Black Friday's triumph in interactive storytelling is all the more significant. By having the player character take an active role in the revolution as well as exposing players to its social, cultural and political backdrop, it can be said with no hyperbole that it has won an important place in video game history.

The story is told from the perspective of Reza Shirazi, a photographer who came back to the country after studying in Germany. After some obligatory cliches - Reza says that he is just there to take photos, and is of course told that he will eventually have to pick a side, even though that never actually happens - and some rather cringe-inducing references to his friend's "legendary disco moves", we are given the opportunity to take photos of the revolutionary crowds. Taking pictures is an important part of the game, both as an immersion device as well as a way to teach us about the revolution - each picture taken offers the possibility to read more about Iran and the revolution, complete with real-life photographs and audio.

Once Reza is done taking pictures, he descends into the streets to see the sights and talk to the people, giving us the first exploration area of the game - and these are the parts where the game truly shines. Reza's decision to serve as a chronicler of the revoltuion allows us to learn about the methods by which the revolution was spreading itself and the ways different people viewed it and its goals, but also much more than that: going to the right places and talking to the right people can teach you about anything from the Shah's economic policies and their effects on the Iranian working class to Iranian traditions and cuisine.**

But this is a revolution, and idle exploration cannot last forever. Other than very few QTE sections, which are about as exciting here as they tend to be in any other game, gameplay outside of the exploration sections involves making dialogue choices. This is where the game's storytelling strengths really made an impression on me early on: one of the first decisions you have to make is to choose a side in an argument between two of your friends, and the choice is given in the form "Side with Babak" or "Side with Ali". At first I panicked, because I'm used to being made to pick a character's side before I even knew their names - but I realized very quickly that I had no such problem in this instance. It may seem like a small thing, but the fact that few games - and indeed, stories in general - make their characters recognizable this early on makes 1979 Revolution's character-building stick out even more from the crowd of story-based games.

At this point you might suspect that 1979 Revolution's developers took some inspiration from Telltale, and you would be generous: the thing is a complete and utter rip-off. In a game so clearly modeled after Telltale's games, to the point of telling you that a character "won't forget" a choice you've made, perhaps having a rather important secondary character called "The Walking Dead" is a bit much.

But plagiarism, when done so well, is easily forgiven. The game's story is masterfully paced, transitioning seamlessly between the excitement and noise of revolutionary gatherings to quieter, reflective sections where Reza and his friends discuss their ideals, deal with inter-factional intrigue, and even a look at Reza's family life and the tough balancing act between loyalty to one's ideals on the one hand, and loyalty to parents and siblings on the other. Many a middle-class youth turned political activist can attest to a similar conflict, though few will ever face the sort of brutal repression meted out to the Iranian protesters.

1979 Revolution has a fascinating story, but that's not where its significance lies: its true importance lies in how it works as a specifically video-game narrative, where active identification with the protagonist's motives is vital - as opposed to more passive media such as films and books, where understanding and sympathy can be enough to maintain one's interest. However, it should be noted that the game is hardly a technical tour-de-force. This should not harm one's enjoyment of the game; if anything, the fact that the technical issues present are barely felt after the very first sections is a testament to the game's strengths. However, it should be noted that janky controls, frame-rate drops and re-used character models abound, never enough to make the game unplayable and certainly never enough to harm one's enjoyment of it, but enough to be felt.

However, the game does have its fair share of more significant problems, and these go beyond technical issues. In fact, most of these are perfectly captured in the introductory interrogation scene. The interrogator, Assadollah Lajaverdi - who is based on the real-life, notorious warden of Evin Prison - tells Reza that he knows that he joined the revolution upon returning from Germany, an exposition dump which is completely unnecessary to the conversation and is said only for our benefit. Another line that I found puzzling is when Lajaverdi says that Reza committed crimes "against Islamic republic of Iran". Since Farsi has no definite article, it makes perfect sense that an Iranian who may not be very fluent in English will omit a "the" every now and then. However, since the conversation takes place between Lajaverdi and Reza in Iran, there's no reason for them to be speaking in English, so there's no reason why we shouldn't have a correct translation here. It's a nitpick, but it's the sort of small detail that makes or breaks believable dialogue.

It is also unfortunate that a game that in general does such a good job at establishing a video-game narrative misses the opportunity to have us experience Reza's suffering in a more meaningful way, especially when this has been done in games in the past. When you are jailed in Skyrim, escape seems impossible, and the game does a lot to convince you that your character might really be stuck in prison forever. Metal Gear Solid, one of the finest examples of a video-game narrative, puts you through actual physical pain during a torture scene that feeds into the feeling of oppressive isolation in your jail cell. It's too bad that 1979 Revolution's developers could not come up with an equally creative way of driving home the horrors of imprisonment.

These criticisms may seem petty, but the small weaknesses are only so glaring because of how well everything else works. Where video games before would usually deal with history with either the vulgarity of Company of Heroes or the shallowness of Assassin's Creed, here we have a game that takes a critical, analytical and well-balanced approach, without the false pretense of being objective. The game is clearly anti-Shah and pro-revolution, but it mostly lets the different factions speak for themselves, even if the portrayal of all Tudeh party members in the game as violent, hot-headed thugs betrays a certain bias.

Most importantly, the game deals with an issue that's rarely talked about when it comes to revolutions in the Middle-East - the central role of women. The most important character in this regard is Bibi, a leader who, at one point, breaks up an argument between supporters of Tudeh, the National Front and the Mujahideen, telling them that they need to remain united despite their differences. Whatever you think about the political point, the fact that members of all three factions treat her with respect is a break from the myth that people in the Middle-East - especially Muslims - will not accept a woman as an equal, let alone as an authority figure.

The 1979 Revolution had a tragic end, and the game does not shy away from that fact. But it also shows us what could have been, and what could be in the future. For this reason and many others, 1979 Revolution: Black Friday is a game that anyone with even a passing interest in human history or interactive story-telling should experience.

Score Calculation: This is usually where I make a silly joke, but this doesn't feel like the right time, so I'll go ahead and give it

Final Score: 9

* These examples were chosen quite at random, and yet it's sad to see how much the state of the region today resembles the landscape of 1979.

** One interesting part discusses how anti-Shah speeches were recorded on cassette tapes and smuggled into the country to rally the people to the revolution. It's not hard to imagine smug Western commentators at the time using this fact to show that Western technology was the catalyst behind the revolution, much like they did with Facebook and Twitter during the so-called "Arab Spring".

Hating on Code: I'm a fantastic programmer, and I hate every minute of it

Why do we like to do the things we like to do? A lot of people seem to think that it's all about what we're good at: if you're good at something, you're much less likely to be frustrated while doing it, and much more likely to get positive feedback from yourself and others. As sensible as that theory sounds, it's not hard to think of counter-examples to it, and now that my full time job isn't really about writing code, I can finally give mine: I'm probably one of the best programmers you'll ever meet, and I feel very comfortable saying that, because I don't take any pride in it. In fact, I really, really hate it.

Coding is awful. It's dreary, bland and frankly pedestrian work. As evidenced by the many apps, games and other types of software out there created by people who are - for lack of a better term - complete idiots, anyone can do it, and since the mobile market and indie gaming exploded, pretty much everyone has.

That's not to say that there aren't really talented and creative people who code. Some of my best friends write code. I code, and I'm practically the Best Person. But there's a lot of brilliant people out there waiting tables, too. The only thing differentiating programming from construction work is that it's a lot less dangerous and requires much less finesse, so the next time they tell you capitalism rewards those who work harder, keep that in mind.

Programming had a lot more brains to it back in the day, when you had to remember and understand all sorts of deep algorithms to write efficient code. In one of his follow-ups to the infamous Go To Statement Considered Harmful, Dijkstra wrote

"The theorem of “The bounded linear search” states [that] for any boolean function B on the first N natural numbers (N≥0),

|[ var f : bool; var n : int
; f, n := true, 0 {P}
; do f ∧ n ≠ N → f, n:=B(n), n+1 od
; { P ∧ (¬f ∨ n=N )}
]|

with the invariant P given by

P :     0 ≤ n ≤ N     ∧
(f ≡ (Ak : 0≠k<n : B(k)))     ∧
(Ak : 0 ≤ k < n–1 : B(k))

which states that, upon termination
in the case of f : all B’s are true, and
in the case of ¬f: n–1 is the smallest value for which B is false.

By my standards, a competent professional programmer in 1987 [...] should know the theorem of “The bounded linear search” [...] should be able to derive that theorem and its proof [... and] should not hesitate to use it."

I have no idea how to read that notation either, but the point is: the idea that programmers nowadays should be familiar with some obscure mathematical theorem is ridiculous. For any algorithm that is likely to be used in a modern application, there's someone who already implemented it and uploaded it to GitHub. Do you know what the Aho-Corasick theorem is? Can you derive its proof on the spot? Probably not, and neither can I, but here it is. There's no more sense in having a programmer in 2016 learn "the theorem of The bounded linear search" then there is for him to know how to write in Assembly. This means that, while a lot of people think that when a programmer wants to sort an array, he writes something like

public static void mergeSort(Comparable [ ] a) {
        Comparable[] tmp = new Comparable[a.length];
        mergeSort(a, tmp,  0,  a.length - 1);
}


private static void mergeSort(Comparable [ ] a, Comparable [ ] tmp, int left, int right) {
        if (left < right) {
                int center = (left + right) / 2;
                mergeSort(a, tmp, left, center);
  mergeSort(a, tmp, center + 1, right);
  merge(a, tmp, left, center + 1, right);
 }
}


private static void merge(Comparable[ ] a, Comparable[ ] tmp, int left, int right, int rightEnd ) {
        int leftEnd = right - 1;
        int k = left;
        int num = rightEnd - left + 1;

        while ((left <= leftEnd) && (right <= rightEnd)) {
                if (a[left].compareTo(a[right]) <= 0) {
                        tmp[k++] = a[left++];
                }
                else {
                        tmp[k++] = a[right++];
                }
        }
        while(left <= leftEnd) {
                tmp[k++] = a[left++];
        }
        while(right <= rightEnd) {
                tmp[k++] = a[right++];
        }

        for(int i = 0; i < num; i++, rightEnd--) {
                a[rightEnd] = tmp[rightEnd];
        }
}

In reality, it's more like

Arrays.sort(a);

Of course, I didn't even write that merge sort code - it's all copied from the internet. (I did edit it a bit because seriously, if you're writing an if clause without braces, you're just being a dick.)  I'm disgusted by the mere idea of writing any code if I can avoid it. Just read the documentation for Apache's sort function to realize how ashamed you should be for even thinking about doing it yourself. You wouldn't think of all those little details off the top of your head, would you? No, you'd probably just copy code from the internet like some fool.

Now, if you love writing code, that might sound terrible. When you're enthusiastic about something, you want to do it as much as you can. If you love a video game, you're not going to just play it once and forget about it. You'll play it again, and you'll play it without dying, and you'll play it only using your left thumb, and you'll play it so much eventually you'll be able to beat the whole thing without looking at the screen. That's the feeling I get from a lot of programmers I know: I'll tell them about a problem that should be solved by making significant changes to infrastructure, and they'll argue that we can just write a script and run it every now and then to overcome it. They just want to write more code, really.

Luckily, my aversion to all things compiled and interpreted leads to some very good practices. For example, let's assume we need to implement a method which take a string encoding certain bits of information, separated by commas, and we need to extract some of the info and return it in another comma separated string. Any programmer can tell you what's wrong with this code:*

public String parseInput(String message) {
 String[] splitMessage = message.split(",");
 String ip = splitMessage[3];
 String date = splitMessage[7];
 return String.format("%s,%s", ip, date);
}

At the very least, one should declare a few variables:

private static final String messageDelimiter = ",";
private static final int ipIndex = 3;
private static final int dateIndex = 7;
...
public String parseInput(String message) {
 String[] splitMessage = message.split(messageDelimiter);
 String ip = splitMessage[ipIndex];
 String date = splitMessage[dateIndex];
 return String.format("%s,%s", ip, date);
}

But declaring variables is only the beginning. It's not enough that you don't have to hunt down every instance of a variable you change in the code, because whether or not this code works doesn't depend solely on you, but on the people around you. What if someone decides to change the delimiter without letting you know, as they sometimes do? What if someone decides to switch around the order of the delimited substrings without telling you, as they sometimes do? And, of course, what if some manager decides just before you're about to head out that you need to extract way more information from the message - as they, quite often, tend to do? Now you need to rewrite the code, make sure it works, commit it, make sure the commit works, upload the new version of the application, make sure it works, and then when it invariably doesn't work, go through the whole thing several more times?

If you love programming, maybe you feel like you just hit the jackpot. Personally, I prefer to always have a configuration file handy, so that no constants taint the code:

@Setter
@Value(...)
private String messageDelimiter;
@Setter
@Value(...)
private int ipIndex;
@Setter
@Value(...)
private int dateIndex;
...
public String parseInput(String message) {
 String[] splitMessage = message.split(messageDelimiter);
 String ip = splitMessage[ipIndex];
 String date = splitMessage[dateIndex];
 return String.format("%s,%s", ip, date);
}

Now if someone decides that colons are better for delimiting the data than commas, all you need to do is change a text file. But what about the third problem? What if you need to add another field to extract? You need to add more index variables and to change the string format of the return value. Using some Apache packages - which you should always do whenever possible - you can write

@Setter
@Value(...)
private String messageDelimiter;
@Setter
@Value(...)
private int ipIndex;
@Setter
@Value(...)
private int dateIndex;
...
public String parseInput(String message) {
 String[] splitMessage = StringUtils.split(message, messageDelimiter);
 String ip = splitMessage[ipIndex];
 String date = splitMessage[dateIndex];
 return StringUtils.join(Arrays.asList(ip, date), messageDelimiter);
}

Which takes care of the format. But what about adding the other variables? Well, the great thing here is that you don't even need to care about which variables you're extracting - just get their indices from the same configuration:

@Setter
@Value(...)
private String messageDelimiter;
@Setter
@Value(...)
private List<Integer> indicesToExtractInOrder;
...
public String parseInput(String message) {
 String[] splitMessage = StringUtils.split(message, messageDelimiter);
 List<String> extractedVariables = indicesToExtractInOrder.stream().map(i -> splitMessage[i]).collect(Collectors.toList);
 return StringUtils.join(extractedVariables, messageDelimiter);
}

And that's that - the exact details of the method's behavior are now completely separate from the pure logic of the code. You can do this without Java 8, but you shouldn't - that would require writing more code, and we wouldn't want to do that. Besides, I also like to show off a bit.

So yeah, I'm not a fan of programming. I didn't really do a lot of programming growing up. I don't solve Project Euler problems in my spare time. Hell, a while back, at a job interview, someone asked me to implement a singleton pattern, and I just didn't remember how to do that. I remember now, because it's something I needed to do at some point at work - and it took about 5 seconds to read about it and learn how to do it (never mind the fact that competent, professional programmer in 2016 should know about the @Component annotation). But when you look at both ends of the process that the code above went through, I think you'll find that in this case, hate has its merits.

I know I must have done all sorts of code faux pas here. Since I don't have Eclipse installed on my home computer, I have no idea if any of it even compiles. I could've been more thorough, but then again, that would require doing more programming.

Which again -

I hate.

*Well, I'd like to believe that any programmer knows that's wrong, but I think we all know that's not true.

New Song - Laila Lo Shaket feat. Ofir Lessel (Shlomo Artzi cover)

Shlomo Artzi is one of the most successful and popular musicians in Israel, with a career spanning decades. Although he's rightly associated with some obnoxious elitism, I really love most of his music, and more importantly, I think much of it will benefit from a touch of metal - as evidenced in the newest addition to my SoundCloud, featuring my incredibly talented brother Ofir:



Spread the word!

Firewatch - Do you wanna know why we keep starting fires?

More like "hiking simulator", amirite?

For all of its troublesome origins, the term "walking simulator" remains a very useful shorthand for a genre that has become very popular in recent years: exploration games that are based more on narrative and immersion than on any standard gameplay mechanic such as combat, stealth or puzzle-solving. It's a great idea on paper, and it sounds easy - until you remember how hard it is to get anyone immersed in a world with which the only modes of interaction are looking around and reading conveniently-placed notes. Questioning established gaming tropes without coming up with any of their own answers, most games in the genre have felt anywhere from uninspired to downright lazy, with at least a dozen Gone Homes to every Stanley Parable.

It is with no hyperbole, then, that I say that Firewatch is by far the best walking simulator I've played to date. While far from perfect, it shows a rare understanding of how to build a setting and get players invested in a story, to the point where I already know that I will play through it again - something that I've never done with any other walking simulator.

Firewatch's replay value is due mostly to it being so enjoyable, but there are a few choices to be made which not only have certain (admittedly minor) effects on unfolding events, but also serve to draw you into the story. The game starts by telling you that you are Henry, a man in his 20s who is getting very drunk with friends - say no more! I immediately identify with this guy. But at some point, Henry notices a fetching lady and decides to hit on her. The lady turns out to be a professor, and Henry must have way more game than me, because while I never had much success hitting on my professors stumbling drunk, Henry and Julia end up getting together and eventually getting married. Their happiness is not long-lived, though, as you eventually discover that Julia is suffering from dementia.

The decisions you make during the aforementioned sequence, especially those that take place as Julia slips further and further into dementia, will tell you what sort of person your iteration of Henry is. This entire intro is composed of text intercut with scenes of Henry making his way to the forest where the bulk of the game takes place, and while this is in all likelihood a budget move, it is surprisingly effective and does a good job of separating the part of Henry's life taking place before the game and the part you will be most active in.

No option to make a Metal Gear Solid reference, then?

Sadly, this is where the problems start. As a game based mostly on immersion, Firewatch cannot afford to be as shallow as it is in the decisions it has you take. For example, after a particularly exhausting day of taking care of Julia - already very ill - Henry wants to steal away a few hours at a bar while Julia is asleep. That you will go out is a foregone conclusion - you can only decide whether or not you will block the bedroom door so that Julia can't get out. If you think your character wouldn't leave his mentally-ill wife alone at home, or if you think he could get just as some much relaxation from staying in with a bottle of Jack and playing some Rocket League, sorry - the game has already decided to disregard your opinion on the matter.

Firewatch is littered with such immersion-breaking moments, and they're not limited to the decisions you make alone. Most of the game has you walk around a reserve, taking care of fires and other disturbances. It's absolutely gorgeous, and walking around the forest, taking in the view, discovering animals and admiring the foliage - when it's not clearly just made of flat, pixelated textures - feels great. It's a world so easy to get lost in - that is, until you want to maybe get closer to where another character is supposed to be and hit an invisible wall, or when you talk to a couple of characters far away who are clearly just blacked-out stick figures, or when you look at a tree and notice one of the aforementioned flat leaves. And then immersion breaks, completely and irreversibly.

Seriously, these leaves.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not big on immersion in video games. It tends to encourage treating playing them as an escapist activity, and I find escapism troubling in any media. But in Firewatch, immersion is pretty much all you have - otherwise, your computer game story is just a cartoon with questionable production values. I realize that one can only spend so much money on a game's visuals, but it seems to me that making the world less pretty overall but more cohesive would have been a better use of resources.

And still, Firewatch draws you in. It is so beautiful, so well-written and well-paced, so charming, that all these issues are easy to swallow. For every bad texture or plot convenience you find, there's at least one moment where you adopt a turtle, find a raccoon, or listen to a really great exchange between Henry and Delilah, the other main character in the story, that just puts a big smile on your face. The running time isn't long, even with optional content factored in, but the wealth of dialogue options and secrets make Firewatch a deceptively deep experience.

Seriously, this turtle.

Most importantly, Firewatch shows how walking simulators should be done, sort of like how the original Batman showed how Batman movies should be done.

Let's hope the next one is a Batman Begins rather than a Batman Returns.

Finally, I just had to get in how hilarious it is that we needed a rope 

to climb down this barely two meter, easily scalable wall.

Score Calculation: Turtles have hexagons on their shells. Raccoons have two colors (black doesn't count, because it is the absence of a color). In my book, that's a

Final Score: 8

Verdict: Firewatch's significance far exceeds its score. In a genre plagued by pretentiousness and laziness, it is a genuine and successful effort at being artistic, emotional and entertaining. We fully expect it to become an inspiration to some truly great games in the future.

Pony Island - I love pony, pony don't lie, I love pony, almost much as Undertale

2016 is off to a good start

Pony Island almost seems like a game that didn't want to be discovered. It's called Pony Island; it has a yellow-pink-purple logo; its trailer begins with a pink pony running through a green field; everything about it reads like a guide on how to make mainstream audiences lose interest, like a game version of that Achewood strip where Ray decides to make it easier for people to rent gay porn videos by giving them boring false covers (we were still kinda renting videos back then). But through the combined strength of its own quality and the morbid fascinations of the fringes of the gaming community, Pony Island found its critical attention and approval, and we are all the better for it.

As the trailer is quick to clarify, this is not a game about ponies - well, maybe just a little. It's mostly a game about game design. Yes, it's another one of those meta indie games, but unlike most of its predecessors, Pony Island does not feel smarter or more special than its audience. It's frank about the frustrations of a developer without wallowing in self-pity, showing how the special dynamic between designer and developer can, despite its aggravations, lead to making better games, to the benefit of everyone involved.

Of course, how Pony Island does that is a secret that I prefer not to divulge. It's the kind of story where even knowing the genre and basic content matter is something of a spoiler, and Pony Island is a game that absolutely everyone should experience, though its deeper themes will appeal mostly to more veteran gamers. Suffice to say, the game is chock full of surprises, secrets and easter eggs that, almost a month after its release, still have fans looking everywhere for more things to discover.

On a gameplay level, Pony Island is divided into two parts: the first is a side-scrolling runner, and the second is a riddle game where you have to guide a key to a lock through various obstacles, a bit like a very basic version of The Incredible Machine. Both are functional, and at times, the riddles can be fun to figure out, but gameplay is generally Pony Island's weakest point. Unlike games such as Arkham City and Shovel Knight, where entire challenge modes could be made consisting solely of variations on bits of the main game, the non-narrative parts of Pony Island are very much a one-trick... well, you know.

It's the narrative where Pony Island truly shines, though, and a major part of that is the incredibly oppressive atmosphere the game creates. Though not an outright scary game, PI's minimalist design and its intentionally vague and unfriendly communication with the player give the experience a sense of alienation and paranoia on the level of early Silent Hill games and parts of the first Metal Gear Solid. It's incredibly creepy, and while it's certainly not a game you'd have a hard time playing in the dark, it does feel pleasantly uneasy all the way through.

While the basic gameplay never changes all that much, the scenarios surrounding it are constantly evolving, in what is clearly a commentary on the evolution of video games throughout the years. At first you go through levels one by one, but eventually, the game does open up and allow you to explore a world map to varying degrees of freedom. It's a nice touch, and it's also where many opportunities lie to engage in another important part of the game: collecting tickets.

There are 24 tickets in total, received for completing various side goals that the more diligent players will come across. Most just require going off the beaten path, but a few need a genuine flash of brilliance or just a lot of patience and meticulous exploration to be found.

That is where another major flaw with the game is revealed: Pony Island is very bad at check-pointing. This isn't a problem in the runner levels, where failure only means starting the stage from the beginning, but with the more exploration-oriented parts of the game, or rather, with players' ability to access these parts. Pony Island's plethora of secrets naturally encourages replaying different sections and trying different things. However, while the game does allow players to jump between acts from the main menu, getting to certain sections is incredibly trying of one's patience, and the game is all too eager to throw points of no return all over, forcing one to repeat various mundane tasks just to get to the fun parts again. And while the dialogue is brilliant the first time it is read, being forced to stare at the screen and tap a key as the same text messages appear very, very slowly, inevitably breeds contempt.

All that being said, the extent to which I've been dancing around talking about the game's actual plot should clue you in to how much I recommend experiencing it for yourself. For all its flaws, Pony Island certainly merits a playthrough, even if I highly doubt that I will ever go back to play it again after playing the whole way through twice and repeating certain sections to find secrets. At 5$, though, that's plenty - certainly more than I've gotten out of many 15-20$ indie games, nevermind 60$ AAA games.

Besides, look at how cute that listless little pony is.

Score Calculation: Pony Island is one-half pony and one-half secrets. However, there's simply not enough pony, so that the pony part is in reality only four-fifths of a half, giving us

Final Score: 9

Verdict: I would like a listless pony plushy please.

The Lemmy Kilmister Music Awards 2015 - The Best and Worst In Heavy Music

Remembering Lemmy Kilmister (1945-2015)

Unlike a lot of my favorite bands, I can't really put my finger on when I've heard about Motörhead for the firs time. Unlike most of my favorite bands - Pantera, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Slayer, etc. - I found out about them long after me and my brothers would watch metal videos on MTV. As I was growing up and developing my own musical taste, Motörhead were one of those bands that I always heard of but never could seem to get my hands on any of their music. I remember reading one of my brother's issues of Guitar Magazine - the 1995 Heaviest Riffs of all Times Issue - and seeing Stay Clean on the list. Honestly, that whole list sorta mystifies me, and I could probably think up 50 heavier Motörhead riffs just off the top of my head, but it did solidify Motörhead in my head as one of those bands I just had to listen to.

My first success at that I must attribute to VH1's Friday Rock Show, hosted by Tommy Vance, who sadly died about a decade ago. The Israeli weekend is on Friday-Saturday, so not being the world's most popular young adolescent, I was free to watch as Tommy threw out some of the best music I've heard to this day. That was where I first heard Motörhead, though I'm not quite sure if the song I heard first was Ace of Spades or Eat the Rich. Either way, Ace of Spades stuck in my head, so I knew I had to go out and get that album.

And... it sucked. Save for the stellar title track, it is some of the weakest, most boring music I've ever heard. It's only lucky that I heard enough other Motörhead songs by then that the album didn't turn me off from the band, because I've loved literally every other Motörhead song I've ever listened to.

There's a lot to say about Lemmy. The way he inspired so many people, his humility, his lifestyle, his attitude to religion, his attitude to women (although staying true to the man's honesty, he could still be a pig sometimes), his sympathy with the Black struggle, to the point of supporting the 1992 L.A. Riots, a brave position voiced by few in heavy music, and many other fascinating things. Lemmy was a fascinating guy, and any interview or eulogy with him is filled with evidence to that effect. But I'll leave you to read about all of that on your own, because sadly, I never met the guy. Actually, I never even had the chance to catch Motörhead live. All I can say is that Lemmy, along with his bandmates, made some of my favorite music, music that still cheers me up and gets me banging my head to this day - quite literally, as you will soon see.

His name was Lemmy, and he played rock n' roll.

The Worst Heavy Music of 2015

Slayer - Repentless

Slayer is one of those bands that doesn't need to reinvent itself on every album to be good. Reign In Blood isn't all that different from South of Heaven, which in turn, isn't all that different from Seasons In the Abyss. So what? More of the same isn't a bad thing when the thing you do is so damn good. But then Slayer went and experimented on some albums, and that was fine - none of them was as great as the old ones, but they were all at the very least decent. Repentless feels like a misguided attempt to return to the band's roots, and it plays out the way it sounds - a tired, uninspired effort by a good band that really doesn't have its heart into it. 

What's saddest about the whole thing is how Repentless is clearly a song about how decayed and empty metal has become in recent years. Then the chorus sounds like Every Metal Song Chorus Ever, and you're wondering if the band is being cynical or is just making a very long-winded point. Either way, it doesn't make for good music.

Iron Maiden - The Book of Souls

We've all been there: you tell someone that you listen to metal, and without them having ever listened to a single metal song, they will ask: "what, like Iron Maiden?" It doesn't always bode well for a band to have become representative of a genre for people who are completely ignorant about it, but Maiden have certainly earned their status as metal's foremost representatives. Dickinson-era Iron Maiden has produced some of the finest metal albums to date, with masterpieces such as Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son belonging in every metal lover's library. 

Sadly, since 2000's excellent Brave New World, Maiden have not been delivering. Subsequent albums felt phoned in, not terrible but not interesting in any way. At the very least, they still had one of the most gifted vocalists in music history. Even when the songs themselves were lackluster, Bruce Dickinson never failed to deliver. 

Until now.

It's one thing to be bored by an album made by one of your favorite albums. But when I first heard the Speed of Light's chorus, something inside me died. I mean, come on, Ozzy did better vocals on fucking Ultimate Sin! And what's worse is knowing that there's no way that no one in either the band or the production crew failed to notice this. They just didn't care. Hell, they figured, we're Iron Maiden - there's no way this thing won't make money. And you know what? They were right. Commercially successful crap is still crap, though, and as much as it pains me to say this, this is probably the worst Iron Maiden album to date - probably even worse than the Blaze Bailey stuff. And that's saying a lot.

Children of Bodom - I Worship Chaos

"End of times, just kill the quietude

Hear my cries, and start the countdown

Bury my crimes, somewhere deep within

It's not that complicated

Simply I just worship chaos"

Need I say more?

Monolord - Vaenir

Someone once said that essentially all metal is sped-up Black Sabbath. Well, Vaenir decided to break the mold by doing... sped-down Black Sabbath. And if that sounds great, just wait for those really long, boring intros! Also, who the hell mixed those vocals? Are you kidding me? Did you record your album in a bath while on painkillers? This album is like the soundtrack to watching paint dry. It's too boring to stay awake while listening to, and too dissonant to use to fall asleep, leading me to believe that Vaenir might be the gateway to a new state of consciousness beyond the veil of reality. Sadly, my scientific curiosity in this regard is completely overpowered by my need to never listen to a single second of this abomination ever again.

Worst of the Year: Bell Witch - Four Phantoms / Vile Creature - A Steady Descent Into the Soul

It may seem like a cop out to have two different albums as worst of the year, but these albums are just two representatives of a much wider phenomenon: bands whose entire shtick consists of a single, dissonant chord being screamed over by some Scandinavian black metal reject. Stand in awe of our vocalist's ability to keep gurgling the same note again and again! Be amazed as, 20 minutes into the album, we... change chords! Feel incredibly smart as you tell people you actually enjoy listening to this crap!

Being a metalhead, I always hate when people say that metal is "just noise". People come off so ignorant and out of touch when they generalize that way about any musical genre. But this - I'm sorry, this is just noise. It's not avant-garde. It's not innovative. It's not sophisticated. It's just some sound checks being passed off as pieces of music. 

I guess my point is: where are your fucking choruses?

Now, onto more pleasant topics.

The Best Heavy Music of 2015

Of course, to be fair to all the fine musicians out there, I have to exclude this handsome guy. (Don't worry, though - I released the next song on the first week of 2016, so you have an entire year to catch up!) Otherwise, these are the best heavy albums of 2015:

Operation: Mindrime - The Key

I remember being quite horrified at 2013's Frequency Unknown, but damn if Geoff Tate hasn't made a damn fine album this time around. Unlike the original Queensrÿche, which is desperate to convince us of its legitimacy by having Todd La Torre do his (honestly pretty good) Geoff Tate impression and spew forced references to classic tracks, The Key feels like a logical evolution of Queensrÿche's material, retaining the basic spirit of the music while having a very different approach to performances and composition. Tate's vocals are much more controlled, unlike the flashy style he employed back in Queensrÿche's heyday, and while one may argue this is due to age, it certainly fits in very well.

I've never been a fan of Tate's Luddite, counter-revolutionary narratives, but lyrically, The Key is at the very least an interesting album. If nothing else, Tate pretending to talk to someone on the phone is highly entertaining in that Metal Gear Solid post-credits scene way. Given the improvement over Frequency Unknown, I'm very excited to see what Operation: Mindcrime puts out next.

Huntress - Static

Huntress get a lot of hate from metalheads, and I have no idea why. This is some of the purest, most well-written and produced classic heavy metal we've gotten in a long time, even if you factor in actual classic heavy metal bands that are still around. Some people claim that the band uses the hyper-sexualized image of vocalist Jill Janus to get attention, but that's really no different than what a lot of beloved 80s bands like Mötley Crüe and Guns N' Roses did, and I can't for the life of me think of a single difference between those bands and Huntress that would cause people to employ some sort of double standard.

Be that as it may, Static does have its weaknesses. Lyrics are never genius, but I feel like Lost in fading summer / I’ve become such a bummer will find its place in the annals of Terrible Writing History, along with some other gems that are best left unmentioned. I'd love to say that it's meant to go along with the horror campiness the band was clearly aiming for, given the song's video, but even if you buy that explanation, it's just not done all that well. 

Either way, the lyrics mostly complement the stellar composition and performance quite well, and there's no beating a bunch of really talented people doing something they're passionate about really well. Even if Static doesn't have anything groundbreaking on it, it's choke full of adrenaline and potential, making Huntress another band that I'm sure to follow in the next few years.

Motörhead - Bad Magic

Cynics will say this album is only here because Lemmy passed away so recently, but frankly, the cynics can go fuck themselves. Motörhead have this reputation of being kinda like AC/DC in that they keep making the same great album over and over again, but I don't feel that's true at all. There's a lot of character to each album, with Rock 'n' Roll being very different from Ace of Spades (thankfully), and Overkill very different from both. There's a formula at work, but never at the extent that you can't tell which song is from which album.

Bad Magic is yet another great variation on the Motörhead formula, with a slightly bluesier and heavier feel to it. The two opening tracks are the biggest killers on the album, but it remains strong throughout up until that Sympathy For the Devil cover, which is one of those covers that does nothing new with the song and could have been safely left off the album - it's really weird to hear Lemmy so laid back, and it kinda ruins the momentum built by the slow, brutal When the Sky Comes Looking For You, which also has a pretty cool video that you should check out. That's a small flaw to look over, though, considering how great the 12 tracks that come before it are.

"Maybe you'll fly, maybe you'll die". Words to live by. RIP Lemmy!

Marilyn Manson - The Pale Emperor

Wow, didn't see that one coming! When I saw that Marilyn Manson put out a new album this year, I was itching to tear it to pieces, but damn if this isn't some of the finest music I've heard in a long time. Deep Six is a real killer opening, heavy and brutal, with a stellar vocal performance by Manson, but the more laid back tracks like The Mephistopheles Of Los Angeles really steal the show, and Manson's vocals fit oddly well into the folky-bluesy feel that's going on around them. 

I've often found his music to be pompous, over-produced and cynical, nevermind my disdain for his highly reactionary social views. But if he keeps this trend going, Marilyn Manson is in serious danger of becoming a respectable musician. I certainly plan to go through his discography and try to find the point where his music became less like The Dope Show and more like Deep Six, though I dread what I might find after listening to This is the New Shit. Brrrrrr.

Amorphis - Under the Red Cloud

Amorphis are one those bands that I listened to a bit when I first got into heavy music, didn't really care for what I heard, and proceeded to ignore for a good decade and a half. And then in comes this behemoth. It's melodic death at its finest, acing the seemingly impossible task of being both heavy and extremely catchy at the same time - I dare you to listen to Return of the King without getting that flute part stuck in your head for weeks. In fact, it's the only song I can think of that has ever made me feel like dancing, other than, of course, Look at My Horse. 

I really don't feel like I need to say much more - the album is fucking awesome, and it'll punch your face while whispering sweet lullabies in your ear at the same time. Even if you're not a huge death metal fan, definitely give this one a shot.

Best of the Year: Ghost - Meliora

I found Ghost's first two albums to be honestly very dull. It came off like the sort of band that really depended on its stage presence to get any attention at all. Imagine my surprise when Meliora kicked the ass of everything else I've heard this year. The band gets compared to Mercyful Fate a lot, but I really don't hear it - I think that's just due to people confusing the band's image with its music. In practice, Meliora is the best Black Sabbath album ever made, rendering the departure of the modern-day, Bill Ward-lacking, lazy cash-in version of the band very easy to stomach.

As with Marilyn Manson, Ghost is surprisingly at its strongest when it's doing more quiet and acoustic-focused songs like He Is. It's a testament to the band's strong composition that a song with very little distortion feels so heavy and imposing. Other highlights include the crushing From the Pinnacle to the Pit and the haunting Cirice, but the entire album is pure gold. I've been listening to it non-stop every since finding out about it, and I expect it to be a staple of my playlist for years to come.

The Psycho Mantis Video Game Awards 2015 - The Best, The Worst, and The Ones You Just Need To Find An Excuse To Mention

Remembering Psycho Mantis (1998-2015)

Psycho Mantis, 1998-2015, killed by lazy writing. Rest in power, brother.

Friends; colleagues; enemies; 2015 has been an exceptionally good year for video games, the best since the superb 2011. However, it had its fair share of dark moments as well. One of the losses we suffered this year was that of beloved villain and, some would say ([weasel words]), the most powerful practitioner of psychokinesis and telepathy in the world - our friend, Psycho Mantis.

We first met Psycho Mantis in 1998. Though just come into the world, he was already a highly skilled maniac and villain, with the power to know one's taste in video games, make a controller vibrate, and make people lust for polygonal muscle man Solid Snake. With such accomplishments at the year of his birth, one can only imagine what power he could wield as an adult. Sadly, Psycho Mantis was taken from us just one year before entering adulthood, when he was reduced to a mute plot device in the name of fan service, doing bad things for no discernible reason and controlling a fiery man under suspicious circumstances. I dunno, I'm sure it's explained in the audio logs somewhere.

And so, to commemorate the passing of our dear friend, I announce that every year, from now on, we will celebrate the best, condemn the worst and shrug at the most mediocre in video games each year, all under the banner of Psycho Mantis. Good night, sweet prince; we did like Castlevania. We did.

The Psycho Mantis "Reckless Person"* Award For Worst Video Game, 2015

In the age of Steam, finding terrible games is hardly a challenge. Its Under-10$ section is filled with Baby's First Zombie Shooters, Game Design Course Failed Final Projects and other assorted garbage that Valve saw no problem with unleashing upon the paying public. However, when one seeks out bad games and finds them, one can only blame, uh, oneself. Our winners today may not be the most broken or badly designed games out there, but they are the ones that, despite their ambition, budget or history, failed most spectacularly to make good on their potential. Without any further ado, our Worst Games of 2015 are:

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

"Is that a man with a bright pink sniper rifle, or some tumbleweed? How could I ever tell from 20 meters away in broad daylight?"

What more could be said about TPP that wasn't already said in this review written by gaming's most handsome personality? As if bent on missing every chance it had to be good, TPP took an excellent crew of programmers, designers and voice actors and used them to make one of the most stale experiences of the past year. With a broken stealth system, fatally stupid AI and some surprisingly droning performances, the latest iteration of Metal Gear Solid is an incredibly dull experience, which could have been a decent mix of Call of Duty and Far Cry had it not been far less interesting than any of the good entries in either franchise. Even D-Dog couldn't make this game remotely worth going back to ever again, unless you want to play a drinking game where you take a shot every time you can't tell when another character has started talking on a codec call or an audio log. Either way, you're going to need a lot of booze.

Cradle

Hey, let's force players to click on things even when there are no actual dialogue options! That won't get old!

While "walking simulator" is often used as a derogatory term, I feel like it has become descriptive enough that it can be used in a non-offending manner. Indeed, the idea of a world so rich and interesting that exploring it alone is enough to hold one's attention is a very attractive one. The Stanley Parable proved that it can be pulled off, and I honestly feel that some games - for example, Grim Fandango - would have been far more enjoyable had the developers not felt compelled to shoehorn lame puzzles into the affair.

Cradle, however, is the classic example of a walking simulator done badly. While beautifully designed, the gameplay consists entirely of annoying fetch quests, which are made worse by how inexplicably slow movement is. The loading times are unbearable, the frame rate drops to 15 fps unless an Xbox controller is connected to the computer, and if you think that means the game is fun to play with a controller, aren't you silly, because then whenever you look around, your character will keep moving long after you let go of the analog stick, as if attached to a swivel chair. I'd make a joke about controller ports, but screw it - just don't play this game.

Broken Age

Yeah, I'm not playing that again to get a screenshot.

I have toyed with the idea of writing a review for Broken Age that would be nothing but a bunch of expletives, the score included, but we are trying to be more positive around here, so this will have to do. Broken Age is a game akin to that annoying couple everyone Unfollows on Facebook because they keep trying to show you how lovey-dovey they are. From the dreadful voice acting to the pretentious art style, everything about Broken Age screams "Look at me! I'm so adorable and indie!". 

While I think Grim Fandango is not very good from a gameplay perspective, it is an incredibly well-written game, and it is well worth suffering through the really bad puzzles to experience its story. There was hope that by now, Tim Schafer's game design skills would catch up to his writing skills. Sadly, somewhere along the way, things went terribly, terribly wrong.

Some reviewers put Broken Age on their worst list mostly due to its second part, which implies they actually played all the way through the first. These are dedicated people, the type who always kick their tires before they leave. We salute them.

Worst of the Year - Until Dawn

Whatever you say, scary silly-putty man, just don't hurt me!

When I dislike a game, for the most part, I can still appreciate what some people like about it. For example, I get that some people enjoy The Phantom Pain's combat and open world design enough that they don't mind the terrible stealth mechanics or the non-existent plot. But then a game like Until Dawn comes along, and I feel like a complete madman. I mean, have we all been playing the same game? "Game of the Year contender"? "Well-written"? Is this a prank?

Until Dawn's basic premise is as cliche as it gets: a bunch of unbearable teenagers drive us up the wall in an effort to make us want to watch them find their deaths at the end of some psychopath's steel. Isn't it easier, though, to just walk away from fictional characters you find annoying? What happened to you in life that you are so quick to call for someone's blood? You - you're just like those slasher villains. No, you're worse. Compared to you, I'm not so bad.

Good horror, like what you'd find in a John Carpenter movie or the early Silent Hill games, is subtle and atmospheric. It makes you fear for characters' lives. It makes you question what you've seen or heard. It leaves things to your imagination, because it's made by people who know that what's going on in your head is far more effective than any miserable CGI effect could ever be.

Until Dawn is not good horror. It's the sort of video game that will doom humanity on Halloween, kill you a week after playing it, or another horror movie reference, because those are obviously sophisticated and show that I am smart. Who is the boogeyman? My favorite color is blue.

The Psycho Mantis "Either Very Cautious... Or A Coward" Award For Games That Were Just Kinda There, 2015

Not all games fit the extremes. Some games are somewhat enjoyable, but held back by developers who didn't want to take any risks. In other cases, we get what you were going for, but you didn't quite pull it off. Either way, we couldn't just shut up about these games, could we? And so, the Psycho Mantis award for abject mediocrity goes to:

Batman: Arkham Knight

Pictured: any street anywhere in the game.

Batman: Arkham City is one of my favorite video games of all times, and is still widely regarded as the best Batman game ever made. Sadly, ever since City was released, all that developers of subsequent iterations of the Arkham franchise could think to do was to repeat what City did, only bigger. While Knight is not as shamelessly derivative as Origins, and the main story wasn't bad, it still required a lot of busywork to fully unlock, including some rather artificial uses of the Batmobile - and this coming from one of the very few people who were actually OK with the Batmobile overall.

Arkham City worked because it had a few brilliant ideas confined to a small space; with the game world expanded, these ideas got diluted and the brilliance was lost in the resulting mess. I still know all of Arkham City by heart, but I doubt anyone could ever distinguish the many samey locations one finds in Arkham Knight's Gotham. Add to this an overly complicated pre-order system, insulting DLC and a criminal PC port, and we get a very sour note to end a still-mostly-great franchise on.

Axiom Verge

Time for another exciting Gun Change!

Axiom Verge really wants to be Metroid, but its combat has more to do with Destiny. With its retro graphics and soundtrack, AV sure looks and sounds the part, but the bosses are little more than bullet sponges, requiring very little actual strategy to get through. And while there are many guns, many of them are useless for combat, instead being used primarily to open very specific doors in very specific ways a la the key cards from the original Metal Gear. Get with the program, Axiom Verge - doors can read your body salts nowadays.

Honorable Mentions

The following two games, while interesting and very well made, were a bit too modest in scope to warrant an actual award. Games should not be judged on length alone, and my best-of list contains games with running times of anywhere between 4 and 180 hours, but these games are really stretching it. Still, they have earned some praise, and it will be very interesting to see what the people who made them will come up with in the future.

The Deed

DAMMIT MOM I SAID I STARTED GOING TO THE GYM

A highly open-ended puzzle game, The Deed has you playing clue from the murderer's perspective. While ostensibly a game about successfully carrying out a murder and a frame-up, The Deed also touches on class relations, messed-up families, and the emptiness of a materialistic existence. Either that, or you're just supposed to stab a person. Either way, it's well worth checking out, especially given that it's only a dollar on Steam.

Halloween Forever

Man, this game got dark.

Running time aside, Halloween Forever is one of the best platformers I've played in a long time. While never as hard as any of the NES games it might remind you of, the fun of exploring the levels and figuring out the bosses give it a surprisingly high replay value. It doesn't hurt that the game is beautiful, with an art design imbued with a loving attention to detail - it really says something about a game when just looking at the main character walk is a joy, and no, it's not because I want to have sex with a pumpkin (although...). It's a steal for just 3$ on itch.io, and should developer Peter Lazarski decide to release an extended version on Steam now that the game has been Greenlit, it is more than likely to get an entry on the best-of list of that year.

The Psycho Mantis "Prudent Person" Award For Best Video Game, 2015

I've been mostly dismissive of indie games in the past, but this time around, the indies killed it. While AAA publishers grow ever more bold with their 50$ season passes and increasingly aggressive microtransactions for what is basically the same open-world shooter, indie developers have come up with some of the most original, interesting and fun games we've had in years. And so, the highest honor in video gaming goes to:

Dropsy

Trust me, this all makes perfect sense.

It's been a long time since we've had a good old-school point and click game, but Dropsy manages to be a lot more than just a throwback. Its creative approach to storytelling and unique art style give it an identity all of its own, making it endlessly charming, emotional and, at times, downright sinister. The ending leaves something to be desired, and the day and night cycle, combined with the somewhat obtuse nature of some of the puzzles, can often be frustrating, but these relatively small annoyances do little to detract from the experience. Also: you have a doggie.

Downwell

I'm a fan of  the Aqua color scheme, personally.

I was gonna make a song, but then I played Downwell

I had my recording software on, but then I played Downwell

Now I still don't have the drum parts written, and I know why, oh well

Because I played Downwell

Because I played Downwell

Because I played Downwell

I was gonna learn game design, but then I played Downwell

I was gonna read some Unity tutorials, but then I played Downwell

Now I can't put anything by me on this list, oh hell

Because I played Downwell

Because I played Downwell

Because I played Downwell

I was gonna ask a woman on a date, but then I played Downwell

I was totally gonna do it, you guys, but then I played Downwell

She totally might have said yes and let me kiss her, but it didn't go so well

Downwell is a very addictive game, is what I'm trying to say with this happening reference.

The Magic Circle

Not sure about those propellers...

The Magic Circle is one of those games that you're better off going into knowing as little as possible about. With a few neat puzzles cleverly incorporated into what is essentially a walking simulator, The Magic Circle raises a lot of interesting questions about game design and the interplay between developers, crowds and fans. Though simplistic at times, it's a must for anyone who is either interested in game design or just wants to fly around on the back of a fire-breathing turtle monstrosity.

Crypt of the NecroDancer

I don't get no lovin', and that's no lie.

Crypt of the NecroDancer's gameplay mechanic sounds like little more than a gimmick at first: it's a roguelike dungeon crawler where you are required to time attack and movement to the beat of the background music. Look past the silly premise of fighting being just like dancing, though, and you'll find the most interesting blend of real-time and turn-based combat I've seen since Final Fantasy VII's Active Time Battle system. The music is also brilliantly incorporated into other aspects of the game, with Goblins who ballet dance as they run away from you. Dragons who headbang as they hunt you down, and shop owners who sing along to the melody when you're near, cluing you in to their shop's location as well as adding another element to the arrangement.

All that would have been nothing if the music got old, but thanks to composer Danny Baranowsky, that's never a problem. Every stage has its own musical style, with a different song for every level within the stage, and they're all awesome. Also, I can't figure out if I suck at this game or if it's just plain brutal, but the fact that I still have fun as I die again and again and again really says a lot about CotN's quality.

Best of the Year - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt & Undertale

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

I can hardly imagine two games that are more different, but in a way, that's what makes having The Witcher 3 and Undertale together at the top of this list kinda perfect. The Witcher 3, a 10M$ game made by a team of about 200 people, shows that a game doesn't have to be generic in either gameplay or story just because of its AAA status. Undertale, a game mostly made by just one person with a 50,000$ budget, shows how much you can make with so little. The Witcher 3 is more ambitious, but Undertale is more consistent. And while The Witcher 3 is the culmination of a well-established IP, Undertale has all the rough charm of a completely original title.

So much has been written about both of these games that I feel it would be a waste of space to repeat what others have said about their gameplay or story. All I can think to do is to share my own experiences, in the hope that they will be enough to explain why they are my games of the year for 2015.

The Witcher 3 was a game that grabbed me so much that I played it for 3 months straight with hardly a single break and never got tired of it, and the Hearts of Stone expansion - which I was almost cheeky enough to give its own entry - only reminded me how much I love it. I'm still not sure whether or not I like it better than Witcher 2, which given how much I love that game, is a very good position to be in. I have some issues with it, especially the insignificance of choices made in previous games and even many made within the game itself, but disappointing as that was, The Witcher 3 remains a masterpiece.

Undertale obviously did not last as long as Wild Hunt, but it was one of those games that within the first five minutes went from a game I was sure I'm going to hate to a game that I knew I'm going to love. From the moment I got past the initial twist and met Toriel, I fell in love with the game and its characters. By that, I don't just mean the main characters, although they are nothing short of brilliant ("I'M NOT CRYING! I JUST... CAUGHT SOMETHING IN MY EYE!" / "what did you catch?" / "TEARS!!!"), but also the monsters. Undertale is often praised for enabling you to go through the entire game without killing anyone, which is cool, but its genius lies in giving every monster its own personality. For me, that's where Undertale's most memorable moments came from, and it's why I still cringe at the idea of killing any of the enemies in the game. Of course, if that's what you want to do, go ahead - it's up to you how to play your game. But you're gonna have a bad time.

Of all the games I played this year, these are the two games I can guarantee I'll still be coming back to years from now. They're more than just games for me - they're worlds I can't stop thinking about. Frankly, any year that gives us even one game like that is a damn fine year, and so, 2015 has been extremely generous. With upcoming games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dishonored 2 and Horizon, there's every chance we'll be just as lucky this year - fingers crossed!

*Yes, I know it's "man" - I'm trying to be inclusive here!