Ten years ago I entered the popular Ludum Dare game jam (creating a game in just 48 or 72 hours). I made a tiny Indiana Jones-esque temple escape game called Daring Do, which unfortunately isn’t playable today as I used ActionScript and Flash as my technologies of choice and we all know how that ended up. Nonetheless, I ranked #16 out of 90 entries which I don’t think was too bad as my first ‘proper’ effect.

Recently I’ve wanted to get back into doing some game dev as a hobby. I’m only really interested in 2D right now as it’s just where I have more interest. I’ve dabbled with Unity a couple of times in the past but I’ve never built anything of much substance, so I’ve decided to spend a couple of weeks getting to know what’s possible with some of the most popular game engines out there today:

• Unity
• Godot
• GameMaker Studio 2
• Possibly a Haxe-based framework such as HaxeFlixel or Heaps

I’m planning to take up to a week getting to know the basics of each engine, then build a very small 2D platformer – which can literally just be one or two screens. At the least I’d like to get an understanding of:

• How good their 2D support is (and in particular pixel art support)
• Creating a basic character controller
• Importing assets, creating tilemaps, and animating sprites
• Scripting and communicating between different components
• Support for effects like 2D lighting, shaders, and particle effects

This first week I’ve been looking at Godot, and I’ve really been loving it so far. More soon!

There are several screen mods available for the original Game Boy¹. Just like with the Game Boy Advance there are IPS screens available, which give you the best image quality. You can also keep the original screen but add a backlight to it, which is what I opted to do. This is much cheaper, and also gives a result closer to the look of the original display.

Supplies

The first thing I needed was a Game Boy! My brother and I had a yellow ‘Play It Loud’ edition when we were younger, which came bundled with a yellow Donkey Kong Land game cartridge. Unfortunately while I have our original games, I’ve been unable to find the Game Boy itself – so I bought another on eBay:

Except for needing a bit of a clean and having a few small scratches on the screen, it was in very good condition.

Next, I picked up a ‘lemon yellow’ backlight kit from Deadpan Robot, as well as a bivert chip. Just adding a backlight makes the screen brighter, but it also washes out the picture. A bivert chip inverts the pixels and in turn increases the contrast. It’s recommended to install one if you’re adding a backlight.

The Mod

The first step was to disassemble the unit. I also washed the casing, buttons, and silicon pads with mild soapy water.

And here’s the screen itself:

To install the backlight unit, you first need to remove the existing reflective backing and polarizer from the screen. This proved to be quite tricky. At first I was just scraping the foil off, nervous of damaging the screen, but then I got more confident and managed to get a craft knife underneath the polarizer layer. This made it easier to peel the whole thing off in one go.

The thing that makes it particularly difficult is that the screen remains attached by a very delicate ribbon cable, so access is tricky. After peeling the polarizer off, I cleaned off the remaining glue with some isopropyl alcohol.

The new backlight panel (a piece of plastic with some LEDs attached to the bottom) slides in behind the LCD, and the polarizer goes in between. You have to make sure the polarizer is rotated the right way so that the pixels will be visible. The guide I was following also recommended lightly dusting the polarizer with baby powder or diatomaceous earth to avoid it sticking to the screen.

Finally, the two wires coming from the backlight panel needed soldering to the main board along with a resistor.

Next, I installed the bivert chip. To do this, you need to desolder and disconnect two pins on the screen cable connector, insert the board underneath, and resolder it. At first I miscounted and lifted the wrong pin, so I tried resoldering it as best I could, crossed my fingers, and finished the installation.

I powered it up and there was light! But no picture 😬

Troubleshooting

I knew the Game Boy as a whole was still working correctly, as I could hear the audio for the game. I guessed that the culprit was either my shoddy soldering on the bivert chip (turns out soldering is harder than I remember!), or I didn’t repair the damage correctly when I lifted the wrong pin.

It turned out to be a combination of both. After some testing with a multimeter (and a lot of help from @SofaRacing and @elsmorian), I discovered that one of the solder connections on the bivert board wasn’t making contact properly (so I re-did it), and also that there was no connection between the pin I lifted and its intended destination.

To work around this I added a new wire that ran from the pin, over the top of the board, to the other side. I couldn’t help but think about the similarities with writing software as I was debugging the issue and fitting my workaround.

I turned the unit back on, and there was a picture! Tetris looked great with the backlight:

Wrapping up

I finished things up with a new glass screen lens, and new start and select buttons to match the cyan border around the screen.

It wasn’t the neatest installation, but I was pretty happy for my first attempt. The finished device looks great.

It also has a kind of ‘screen door effect’ between the pixels, so it looks pretty grainy.

I still love playing retro games from time to time, so I recently kitted out my Advance with an upgrade.

There have been a number of screen mods available for the GBA over the years. For a long time, the best improvement was to switch the screen out for the backlit screen that’s used in the Game Boy Advance SP. More recently, a better alternative has emerged: a large, even brighter IPS LCD panel.

The larger LCD requires some areas of the inner case to be cut out to make space for it. I didn’t fancy trying to do that, so I ordered a special pre-trimmed shell from RetroSix, along with the screen kit. RetroSix manufacture their own GBA shells ready for the new LCD (they said most aftermarket shells aren’t very high quality), along with optional modifications to fit a USB-C battery pack. If you’re in the US, I’ve heard that Retro Modding are a good parts supplier.

Installation

Installation involved opening up the Game Boy, disconnecting the screen and discarding the old shell, connecting the new screen, mounting it with adhesive and a 3D printed bracket (to get the correct positioning), screwing it all back together, and installing a new glass lens over the top.

RetroSix’s own instructions were fairly barebones, but I found a couple of different tutorials online that helped to guide me through it. The most problematic parts were:

• Correctly aligning the screen when installing it. Now that it’s complete, I can’t help noticing that it’s a fraction of a millimetre down on one side.
• Installing both the screen and the glass lens without getting any dust in between them. I did a decent job, but I can see one tiny speck under there. I think compressed air could help here.
• The 3D printed bracket wasn’t super precise. I had to file down some parts of it, and I ended up removing one piece altogether as it was pressing into the back of the screen and causing a light area to appear.

Overall though, I’m very happy with the outcome!

Screen++

The screen is just in a different class to the original. It’s really bright, very clear, and has nice vibrant colours. The RetroSix shell is also very good, although I wouldn’t say quite the same quality of the original – it doesn’t feel as solid, perhaps. I love the gold holographic detail on the screen lens.

Here’s some very short videos showing each screen in action:

It’s also possible to solder in a couple of extra wires to allow for setting the brightness level of the screen by holding a couple of buttons down. I don’t currently own a soldering iron, so I’m saving this for another day!

A Short Hike

A Short Hike is a small and delightful game in which you hike to the top of Hawk Peak provincial park. Follow the trails or go off the beaten track, meet other hikers, find some collectables, and just unwind for a couple of hours.

It has really charming 3DS-style low resolution graphics and a fantastic chilled out soundtrack. A lovely little experience!

Lonely Mountains: Downhill

Lonely Mountains: Downhill bears some similarities to A Short Hike: it’s a quiet experience where you make your way down a variety of picturesque mountain trails. Only this time, you’re on a bike. There’s no music – the only sounds that accompany you are the sounds of nature and your bike carving across the terrain.

The difficulty curve is really well done. Your first time on each trail, you just have to get to the bottom of the mountain. Then, you might have to do the same trail but with a time limit, or a limited number of crashes (and you will crash a lot). Then an even tighter time limit or even fewer crashes. For each challenge you complete you’ll unlock extra bike parts, trails, and mountains. As you get to know each mountain you’ll find extra routes to take to shave seconds off your time and you’ll get more confident with the fantastic controls.

Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds (not to be confused with The Outer Worlds, which came out around the same time) took a little while to grab me, but once I got into it I was captivated. It’s now easily one of my favourite games that I’ve ever played.

You play as the latest astronaut to join Outer Wilds Ventures, a budding space agency on the small planet of Timber Hearth. You climb into your rickety wooden spaceship and jet off into space. There’s no mission given to you and it’s up you to explore the solar system however you like. You could visit Brittle Hollow; a crumbling planet with a black hole at its center, Giant’s Deep; an ocean planet covered in perpetual storms, or perhaps the Hourglass Twins; a pair of planets that orbit one another as sand pours from the desert of one onto the rocky landscape of the other. As you travel, you’ll uncover the history of the Nomai – an ancient raced who lived here before you, hundreds of thousands of years ago.

And then, 22 minutes after you set out, the sun explodes. You wake up back at the start of the game, ready to set out on your maiden voyage. 22 minutes later, the sun will explode again. You’re stuck in a time loop, and you’re the only one who knows it’s happening. Your leisurely wandering suddenly takes on more meaning: can you uncover the secrets of the solar system, and find out why the sun is exploding and your day keeps repeating itself?

I don’t really want to share much more, as the whole joy of the game is in the discoveries you make along the way. However I will say that the ending of Outer Wilds is an experience will stay with me forever.

If you want to get a taste for what Outer Wilds is like, this 10 minute walkthrough from the game’s Creative Director gives you a good idea without giving away too much.

Control

Finally, Control is an action game set inside The Oldest House, a building that warps time and space which is home to the Federal Bureau of Control – a branch of government tasked with investigating the paranormal and the unexplained.

As you enter the building, you discover that it’s been invaded by a hostile force. It’s up to you to learn the build’s secrets, find out exactly what the Bureau has been up to, and to take back control. Along the way you pick up a very satisfying array of paranormal activities such as levitation and telekenesis. By the end of the game, you feel like a complete badass. There’s one particular late-game sequence that really lets you show off your skills and it’s one of the best set pieces I’ve ever played in a game.

Rather than writing a list of ‘top games’ of the year, and inspired by a couple of my colleagues (#1, #2), I thought I’d instead simply post a summary of the various games I played in 2018 and what I thought of them. I’ve highlighted my favourites with a ⭐️.

Beaten

Shadow of the Colossus (PS4 Remaster) ⭐️

Shadow of the Colossus is easily one of my my favourite games of all time. It’s so simple, yet does such an incredible job of conveying the atmosphere of its empty world. The remaster takes an old game that had really clunky performance, and makes it look and play like a dream.

Celeste (Switch) ⭐️

Celeste is an outstanding indie game, and a deserved contender on a lot of top games of 2018 lists. I got so into it that I stayed up into the early hours of the morning playing the last couple of chapters all in one sitting. I just couldn’t put it down.

Oxenfree (Switch)

A creepy mystery adventure, but pretty slow going.

Splatoon 2 Singleplayer (Switch)

I’ve been playing Splatoon 2 multiplayer since it was released in 2017, but I finally finished up the single player ‘campaign’ at the start of the year. It was fine, I guess? The boss fights were the best part, but I think the main multiplayer modes of Splatoon are good enough that it’s not really necessary.

Subsurface Circular (Switch)

A short game that’s most like an interactive novel, with a few puzzles thrown in.

Darkside Detective (Switch)

A very simple (each scene is mostly static, and you don’t even see the characters walking about) but quite entertaining point and click adventure.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch) ⭐️

I absolutely loved my time with Tropical Freeze. It’s hands-down one of the best 2D (with 3D graphics) platformers ever made. Really inventive, nicely challenging, great to play, and the levels are full of life.

Hollow Knight (Switch) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow. Hollow Knight is my favourite game that I played this year, and is instantly one of my favourite games of all time. It just has so much atmosphere, and it’s great at drip-feeding you abilities and giving you a rush when you realise you can now access some previously inaccessible area. I still shudder when I think about Deepnest…

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Switch)

A cutesy, fun little puzzle game. However, I found that I got bored about halfway through, and there wasn’t enough variety in the levels or mechanics to keep me interested.

Spider-Man (PS4) ⭐️

Probably my second favourite game of the year, after Hollow Knight. It’s an open world game, but the developer didn’t feel the need to make the world too big, or cram it full of too much stuff. It’s managable, in a way that a game like Assassin’s Creed isn’t. I’ve almost 100%ed the main game, which is something I never normally bother to do.

Steamworld Dig 2 (Switch)

A Metroidvania with a digging mechanic. It has quite a tight little gameplay loop, with you revisiting the surface regularly as you dig deeper and deeper, but it didn’t really ever completely suck me in.

Night in the Woods (Switch)

I didn’t enjoy this as much as I’d hoped I would. It looks lovely, and it has a nice atmosphere, but it’s very slow and the ending comes out of nowhere.

Unbeaten

Zelda: Breath of the Wild Champions’ Ballad DLC (Switch)

I really enjoyed Breath of the Wild, but I haven’t been back since I beat Ganon. I started the DLC earlier this year and had a good time with it, but I haven’t played in quite some time. I think it might be tricky to pick it back up. It has a lot of overworld exploration and tasks, which is great for me as I didn’t really enjoy the game’s shrines (and I only ever bothered completing a fraction of them).

Skyrim (Switch)

I’ve played Skyrim on the PC, XBox 360, PS4, PSVR, and now the Switch. One day, I’ll finally finish the main quest.

God of War (PS4)

I’ve really enjoyed God of War so far. In particular, the opening hour or so is like something straight out of a Marvel movie. But for some reason I keep falling off it and I still haven’t got round to finishing it.

Dark Souls (Switch)

After playing quite a lot of Dark Souls, I now see what all the fuss is about. The world, the atmosphere, the combat, the thrill and relief when you finally find a bonfire after attempting an area time and time again. But I put it down to play other games and I haven’t come back yet. The oppressive atmosphere and high difficulty isn’t generally what I’m looking for when I just want to relax with a game in the evening.

Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu (Switch)

I’ve never finished a Pokemon game. I started with Pokemon Red on the Gameboy, and I’ve picked up a few others along the way – Black, Y, Soul Silver… but I’ve always lost interest quite early on. I’ve got a reasonable way through Let’s Go, and it’s a wonderful update of the original Pokemon Yellow… but I’m very close to dropping out yet again. I think at some point I might just have to accept that I don’t find Pokémon battling very interesting.

Astro Bot Rescue Mission (PSVR) ⭐️

One of the best things I’ve played this year, and one of the best things I’ve played in VR. Astro Bot Rescue Mission has Nintendo-levels of whimsy, character, and innovation. A must-have if you have PSVR.

Hyrule Warriors (Switch)

I’ve been unsure whether to pick this one up for some time. I’m a big Zelda fan, but I didn’t know whether I’d like the Musou gameplay. Turns out I do! It kind of operates on two levels – the battlefield management sometimes gets quite stressful, but the moment-to-moment fighting is actually quite mindless and relaxing. Plus it’s just amazing Zelda fan service.

Wandersong (Switch) ⭐️

Wandersong is a wonderful (or should that be WANDERful?), original indie title where you play a bard and interact with the world entirely through singing. I put it down for a bit while waiting for a bugfix to be released, but I can’t wait to get back into it and wrap up the story.

The Rest

I picked up a handful of games on the Switch that I’m not actively playing, but I’ll probably continue to dip into now and again: Stardew Valley, Dead Cells, Flinthook, Immortal Redneck, and Hand of Fate 2. I’ve also started but completely abandoned a couple of games, including the Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds (I absolutely loved Horizon Zero Dawn, but I left it way too long to get back into it and I just feel like I’m done with that world), and Bayonetta 2 (completely not a game for me. I really really don’t like the gameplay or the aesthetics).

So: 12 games beaten, 8 still on the go, and a handful abandoned. 2018 was a great year for games, and for me once again it was dominated by the Switch.

And that’s fine.

I originally preordered the Switch as soon as preorders were available, but ended up cancelling it shortly before the Switch’s launch. I was bitten 5 years ago by the 3DS – there were almost no games worth playing at launch, and then the system received a price cut of about 1/3rd just 4 months after it was released. Fool me once…

But then the Zelda reviews rolled in. Everyone who’d got a Switch already seemed to love the console, and Zelda was getting almost universal praise. Despite the Switch being sold out everywhere I managed to catch them in stock for a very short period at Nintendo UK, put in my order, and it arrived the next day. So how is it?

The Switch

In my opinion, the Switch is the best hardware Nintendo has produced in 10 years, since the original Wii and the DS Lite. For the most part, it’s really well built and the design is minimal and unfussy. It’s nice and compact, but the screen and controllers are just about big enough. The tablet is also reasonably light and reasonably thin (here’s a comparison to the iPad and iPhone, if you’re interested).

The 720p screen is high quality, and in a first for Nintendo it uses capacitative touch instead of resistive touch. It feels much more modern than the 3DS and the Wii U, both of which had terribly low resolution screens with large gaps between the display and the ‘glass’. It’s the first time I’ve been really impressed with a Nintendo display in a long time (or perhaps ever?).

The system software also feels much more modern than anything Nintendo have put out before. It’s got a very nice clean UI, without any of the ‘chintz’ that I typically expect from them – pinstripes, bubbley 3D buttons and the like. It’s also nice and fast, and feels like it’s actually capable of handling several tasks at once. The 3DS and Wii’s software always felt very modal to me; you had to stop one thing to do another. It certainly feels like a version 1.0 though, and I’m excited what Nintendo add to it in the future.

I think my favourite part of the whole system is its flexibility, which is of course the main selling point of the whole system. You can dock it and play on your big TV, or pick it up, slide in the controllers and play it handheld. Or you can prop it up, slide out the controllers and play it in ’tabletop’ mode. Or stick the controllers into a grip and use them in a more traditional configuration. I’ve found myself switching between all the different modes and it feels great in each. It’s also really easy to switch between them.

The Joy-Con controllers feel nice in the hand, but can be a little fiddly. The shoulder buttons in particular are quite small and close together, and if you’re not using the controllers in a grip it can be hard to switch your fingers between them – there’s not quite enough to hold on to. That said, I do really like them (the neon coloured versions are amazingly bright – photos don’t do them justice), and the Switch’s flexibility means you can use them however is most comfortable to you: in a grip, held individually, attached to the Switch itself… There is also a ‘Pro’ controller available, which I haven’t tested myself but I’ve heard good things about.

I also think it’s utter genius that each console effectively comes with two controllers. When Mario Kart launches, you’ll be able to play two player local multiplayer right out of the box.

We only have one TV in our house, so I often find myself playing my PS4 via the PS4 Remote Play app on my laptop if my wife is watching TV. It works well enough, but of course a lot of visual fidelity is lost due to video compression when streaming. The Switch, then, is the perfect fit for me as it’s designed around this exact use case. The visuals are excellent when playing handheld. In fact, Zelda actually seems to perform better in handheld mode, with fewer frame rate drops but no noticeable difference in quality.

The only piece of Switch hardware that feels lesser quality to me is the TV dock, which is a bit of a disappointment. It’s a lightweight, slightly flimsy-feeling block of plastic, although I do like the glossy Switch logo on the side of it. The Joy-Con controllers are so satisfying to slide onto the Switch itself – they snap into place with a pronounced click, which is mirrored by a visual effect on the screen and a sound played by the system software.

The dock has no such satisfaction. There’s nothing to really guide the Switch into the right place and it just spongily makes contact with the bottom of the dock with a bit of a bounce. It never really feels like it’s in there properly. I wonder if Nintendo will improve this with future revisions.

Whilst reading my first draft of this post, I realized I forgot to mention the battery life of the Switch. That’s because so far it’s never been an issue for me. It’s far better than I was expecting, and I’ve never found myself running out of battery when I want to keep playing.

Pros

• Finally, modern hardware and software from Nintendo that feels competitive with smartphones / tablets and other consoles.
• Great feeling hardware (tablet and controllers) with excellent build quality.
• Flexibility of play styles, which is easy to do and very well executed.
• Battery is better than I was expecting.

Cons

• Dock feels flimsy and is awkward to use.
• Very few games so far. But Mario Kart, Splatoon, and Mario Odyssey are coming. Also, Zelda.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Zelda is the Switch’s flagship game, and by all accounts is a real system seller. And with good reason. It’s excellent.

It feels like a Zelda game, but it’s also completely different from any other Zelda game. Pretty much from the get-go, you can go anywhere, tackle anything in any order you want, and there’s no hand-holding. The world is big. You won’t believe just how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. There’s always somewhere new to explore, or some side quest to get lost in. The world also has a really interesting physics engine behind it all, which opens up all sorts of possibilities for combining different items. Shoot an arrow through a campfire into a tree and the whole thing will go up in flames. The joy is in the emergent gameplay that crops up through these interactions.

The game’s openness works really well with the Switch’s flexibility and portability. The system sleeps and wakes instantly, so you can carry this vast world around with you and drop in and out whenever you like. And if you feel like it, you can play it on the big screen too. I can see myself dipping into this world for many months (or years) to come.

I will say that whilst I am absolutely loving the game, I don’t think I agree with all of the 10/10 scores it’s been receiving. It’s definitely a 9/10 and probably even a 9.5/10, but I think it’s slightly let down by a couple of issues. It’s technically impressive what Nintendo manage to pump out of this small portable device but after just finishing Horizon: Zero Dawn on the PS4, with its lush, richly detailed landscapes Zelda feels a little lacking in places. For example I’ve come across mountain peaks with very low model and texture details: smooth domes with quite low resolution textures smeared across them and no extra set dressing. It’s perhaps a little unfair to compare the two games, but it doesn’t stand up to Zero Dawn’s incredible world.

Objects also pop in and out of existence at a little closer distance than I’d like. You’re able to get a telescope-style zoomed view to look at the landscape around you, but it’s hard to scope things out when any enemies that may be in the distance don’t get rendered. You’ll also occasionally see super low-polygon versions of structures that are a long way off. The world is certainly beautiful, and moments regularly crop up that make me just stop in my tracks to admire the scenery. It’s just that these technical issues occasionally do crop up and break the spell:

I’m not going to say too much more, because I think the fun in Breath of the Wild is all in discovering things for yourself. If you like Zelda games you definitely need to play it. If you haven’t played them before, you should definitely give it a go.

Pros

• The perfect game for the Switch. Dive in and out whenever and wherever you like.
• An incredible, vast world filled with things to see and do and play with.
• An exciting new direction for the Zelda series.
• Combat is fun and satisfying. There are also many, many ways to tackle different encounters with enemies thanks to the physics system.

Cons

• Fiddly controls.
• Technical issues do let the game down in places. It’s not too often, but sometimes breaks the immersion.
• Voice acting is very hit and miss, and the dialogue is pretty poor.

Final thoughts

I’m really pleased with the Switch. The hardware is pretty perfect for a first revision. It’s very well built and well designed. Nintendo have finally produced hardware and software that stands up there with modern mobile devices, and it’s exciting to see where they’re going to take it. Having one device that works seamlessly from your living room to anywhere-else-you-want-to-use-it feels exciting and new, and it works exactly as it’s supposed to.

Zelda, too, feels like something new and is the perfect accompaniment to the Switch.

I really hope the Switch is as successful as Nintendo need it to be, and that they (and third parties) continue to support it with great games.

The headset

The headset itself is really comfortable. The design, build quality, and materials that Sony have used are excellent. The inner padding of the headset is a really nice textured rubber, and it feels great and looks very premium.

The headset is also very easy to put on. No awkward velcro straps like the Vive or Rift. There’s just a sturdy band that fits around your head, and a small dial to turn to tighten it once it’s on. Once it’s in the right place you can slide the actual visor (containing the screen) forward and backward, so you can move it closer to your face and find the ‘sweet spot’ where it’s in focus. Whereas the Vive and Rift screens are pulled tight against your face like a pair of ski goggles, the PSVR comfortably hangs in front of your eyes.

And it works really well with glasses! Sony paid particular consideration to users with glasses, and for me at least it’s very comfortable. Whenever I’ve used a Vive or a Rift in the past, I’d have to put it on in an awkward way to fit around my glasses, and they’d get stuck inside it when I took it off.

There’s a small amount of ’light leak’ at the bottom of the headset, where you can see the real world if you look down. Apparently this was an intentional design on Sony’s part, to allow people to ‘ground’ themselves if necessary. I have to say that once I’m playing a game, I don’t notice it at all.

Setup was very easy, despite there being quite few cables involved. The cable from the headset to the processor unit¹ felt to me to be much thinner and less intrusive than either the Vive or the Rift’s cables. It also contains a useful little inline remote into which you can connect a pair of wired headphones (which receive full 3D audio). The remote allows you to change the volume, turn the headset on and off, and mute or unmute the headset’s microphone.

The screen

I’m impressed by the quality of the PSVR’s display. The colours are great, it’s bright, and there’s little to no screen door effect². It’s not the highest resolution (it’s marginally lower than the Vive and the Rift), but I can live with that as it’s just a reality of where VR tech currently is.

It also seems like it’s the games that are mainly letting things down on the resolution front – in a game that’s rendering at a resolution higher than that of the panel (‘supersampling’), such as Job Simulator which runs at 1.4x resolution, things look quite sharp. Other games are clearly running at a lower resolution in order to get the required performance, and it shows. EVE: Valkyrie in particular gets very blurred at a distance, and whilst I haven’t played it I’ve heard that Drive Club has big resolution issues. I think the PS Pro should help in this regard, as it’ll allow games to render at higher resolutions.

The only other issue I have with the screen would be that it has a fairly prominent ‘mura effect’ in dark scenes. This is where you can see a random pattern of slightly lighter coloured pixels across the screen. It essentially means that dark / black scenes aren’t truly black, and instead are like looking at a dark grey textured pattern which moves with your head. It’s not awful, and it’s easy to look past, but it’s there.

The experience

If you’ve never experienced VR for yourself, it’s difficult to convey what it’s like. Not only does the game surround you everywhere you look, but the sense of depth and scale is incredible. It’s like nothing else. The head tracking on the PSVR generally works really well; the framerate is excellent, and the gameplay very smoothly follows your head movement.

Head tracking in general works well, and rotational tracking (tilting your head to look in different directions) is certainly spot-on. I’ve had a few small issues with positional tracking (your 3D positioning in the world, as you move forward / backward / left right) in some games and when sat further away from the camera. In particular, in the demo of Job Simulator, the environment around me continually moves forward and back slightly whilst I’m stood still, which can result in you feeling a little weird / drunk.

Both headset and controller tracking³ rely on the PlayStation Camera (required for PSVR, but not included with the headset) tracking the visible light from their bright LED strips. Occasionally the controllers also suffer from some ‘jitter’, and if their LEDs aren’t visible to the camera they can disappear in games entirely. For the most part it works well enough, although one can certainly question Sony’s decision to base fairly critical parts of PSVR on slightly flaky 6 year old technology (although presumably cost was a big factor). Having used both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, I can say that both of their tracking systems are rock solid in comparison.

The tracking is my only real complaint about the whole experience, and it’s not enough to put me off PSVR or rely detract from gameplay at all. Most of the time it’s fine, and I think as a more technical user I’ve actively been analysing how well things perform and looking for problems. Most people probably won’t even notice.

Final thoughts

Ever since I first tried VR, I knew I had to own a headset. I finally do, and I’m really pleased with it.

Sony have done a good job of delivering convincing, immersive VR at a much lower price than either the Vive or the Rift. And that’s just the cost of the headset – I also don’t need to buy or maintain an expensive PC, which is a huge plus for me. Whilst the visuals may take a bit of a downgrade, and the tracking isn’t as good, it’s plenty good enough to fool your brain⁴ and there are some fantastic games and ’experiences’ available.

In fact, I think one of PSVR’s stand out features (besides cost and easy of use) is that it has a great lineup of launch titles. In the next post, I’ll give a brief opinion on each of the games I’ve tried so far.

Ascension is a deckbuilding game designed by a former Magic Pro Tour champion. I’ve played a small amount of Magic in the past but was put off by the amount of pre-game preparation that is necessary and the sheer number of cards that are available (although I realise that it’s exactly these elements that draw many people to the game)². I think Ascension struck a chord with me because it’s reminiscent of Magic but (in my opinion) improves upon it in a number of ways.

Gameplay

In Ascension, each player starts off with their own deck, containing the exact same 10 cards. Each round of the game sees you drawing a hand of 5 cards from your deck and using them to buy or ’defeat’ other cards from an ever changing selection in the middle of the play area. Defeating a monster gives you honour, buying a card means you get to add it to your deck, to use on a later turn. Each card in your hand gives you ’currency’ in one form or another, or allows you to perform an action such as drawing extra cards. As the game progresses you build up your deck from the same pool of cards as the other players, so nobody is at a disadvantage. Your only obstacles are luck and other players trying to prevent you getting the cards you need.

The game features three main forms of ‘currency’:

• Honour: the overall goal of the game is to obtain more honour than your fellow players. You can get honour from buying cards and defeating monsters.
• Runes: the currency used to acquire other cards. You can spend runes in order buy cards from the center of the table.
• Power: used to defeat monsters. All monsters have a power value; if you play cards from your hand worth an equal amount of power, you can defeat that monster and earn honour.

Those are the basics of the game: draw a hand from your deck, perform actions and spend runes or power to get more cards, earn honour and perhaps hinder other players. Keep going until all of the available honour has been expended, and then count up to see who got the most. There’s lots of room for strategy: do you go power-heavy and work on attacking monsters to gain power? Do you just try and buy as many high value cards as you can? Do you go for actions that let you draw more cards and work through your deck faster? The game feels deep but is easy to pick up and play.

The iOS Version

Ascension on iOS is universal, so it runs on both iPad and iPhone. I feel that it’s a much more enjoyable experience on the iPad, as the larger screen really gives you more room to play with (quite literally).

The app is really well made. It’s extremely responsive, with smooth animations, fun sound effects, and all the card artwork from the original game. There’s a great tutorial to get you up to speed and a complete rulebook if you want to check up on the rules.

Singleplayer works really well, with a couple of AI difficulty levels to choose from, but multiplayer is where Ascension really shines. You can play against up to 3 opponents, either randomly selected or chosen from your Game Center friends. The game very cleverly and seamlessly switches between asynchronous turn-based play (where you’re notified when it’s your go and you can take as long as you like), to real time updates if two players are both online. There’s a small status indicator next to each player’s name which tells you if they’re offline, idle, or actively participating in your game. If they’re online at the same time as you, you can see each card move around the screen as soon as they play it. If they’re offline, the game will notify them when you’re finished taking your turn. It’s very well done. In fact, it’s one of the best multiplayer experiences I’ve seen on iOS.

All in all, Ascension is a really enjoyable card game. For £2.99, you get a universal app which contains all the cards from the main Ascension game. For an extra £1.99 in-app purchase you can also get the first expansion pack; Return of the Fallen. The iOS version is well worth the asking price, and if you have any interest in board games (or would just like a fun multiplayer game you can sink your teeth into) I’d highly recommend you check it out.

• Ascension website
• Ascension on iTunes

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is an experience. It’s an audiovisual treat and, in my opinion, a wonderful example of games as art. I don’t think it would be too bold to describe S:S&S EP as iOS’s Shadow of the Colossus¹.

S&S EP references elements of geek culture and video games of the past to create a unique experience that still manages to feel comfortably familiar at the same time. You play a lone warrior, out to destroy the Megatome (a book of unimaginable power) along with the ancient evil that haunts the legendary mountain of Mingi Taw. The Legend of Zelda series and Shadow of the Colossus stand out as two of the biggest influences, or at least two games against which it is easy to draw parallels. Like Zelda, S&S: EP’s mute lead character’s ultimate goal involves collecting three sacred triangles that together form the ‘Trigon Trifecta’. Like Colossus, there are references to mysterious in-game mythology, fights with ancient creatures (leaving the player feeling morally conflicted), and a main character who gets weaker as they continue their quest. The game features beautiful pixel art graphics, and an outstanding original score. It’s clear that a lot of love was poured into this game.

Speaking of the score: the soundtrack is fantastic, and an integral part of the game. It’s available to download from Bandcamp or iTunes and has even been released on vinyl. It’s one of the best game soundtracks I’ve ever heard; kind of a mix between folk and chiptunes and lots more besides. You can listen to most of it for free on Bandcamp, so give it a spin. However, I think it sounds all the better once you’ve experienced it in-game. Some of the pieces are perfectly written and timed to coincide with sections of the game, and so I think you get something extra out of them once you’ve experienced their corresponding visual accompaniments. The game’s main antagonist, the Deathless Spectre, evokes an actual feeling of panic whenever it materializes onscreen which I think is in no small part due to the music that coincides its appearance. Sword & Sworcery EP really deserves to be played wearing headphones.

In fact, the whole game deserves your full attention when you play, as you’ll get far more out of it. The story unfolds in multiple chapters, like the acts of a play, even down to a triumphant musical cue and the literal closing of curtains when you finish an act. The story’s narrator appears at the end of an act to sum up what you’ve achieved and what is yet to come. The first act is rather short - something of an introduction to the rest of the game - and the narrator actually tells you to take a break once it’s over. It’s a nice way to spread the game out over multiple sittings and it frames the story really well. The presentation values are top notch, and whilst it may sound hyperbolic I do think S&S EP really is more of an experience than a traditional game.

As a touchscreen-controlled game designed for iOS devices, S:S&S EP succeeds brilliantly. It doesn’t attempt to crowbar ’traditional’ controls into somewhere they don’t fit (no onscreen d-pads) instead you simply either touch and hold or double-tap wherever you want your character to move. You can also pinch to zoom and pan around the screen. It works wonderfully and feels effortless. The majority of the game takes place in landscape orientation, but for sword fights you must rotate the device into portrait to take out your sword and shield. This reveals two thumb buttons at the bottom of the screen: one for your sword, and one for your shield. It couldn’t get much simpler. It’s nice to see a developer who understands the strengths and weaknesses of a touch-based control system.

Sword & Sworcery is without a doubt one of the best games on iOS. But more than that, it is one of my favourite games of all time. Unlike a lot of iOS titles, it’s not a throwaway arcade experience but an adventure that will stick with you long after you finish playing. It draws you in to its little world through beautiful pixel graphics, a stunning soundtrack, a believable world and characters, and slick presentation throughout. I highly recommend it. It’s available now on the iOS App Store as either a universal version for iPad & iPhone, or as a slightly cheaper iPhone-only version.

Hardware

The 3DS keeps the same form-factor as the original DS which shipped back in 2005, although it’s closer in shape and size to the DS Lite which followed in mid-2006. The DS Lite has been my favourite portable console since the day I got one, and I think it’s too early at this point to tell whether the 3DS will take its crown.

The console itself has a pretty solid feel and I like the finish on it. I picked up the ‘Cosmos Black’ model, which is ever-so-slightly metallic and has a gradual black-to-grey gradient. The weight and size of it are just fine to me; I don’t notice a difference between it and my DS Lite. However, I can’t help but feel that in general the 3DS feels a little rough around the edges (not literally; that paint job is silky-smooth) and to me looks a bit like prototype hardware. It has three different coloured body sections, several different textures, numerous joins and seams, six small holes dotted across the device (four of which might be for microphones, but they look messy), a large black block for the IR port (infra-red? Really? In 2011?), three hardware sliders (although one is a switch that just looks like a slider), and four indicator lights (one of which just illuminates the word ‘3D’ constantly, for no apparent reason, even when 3D is turned off). In short, it feels unrefined. I also think the dual cameras on the lid look ugly, but I have no suggestions for how they could’ve better hidden them.

Add to this the seemingly arbitrary repositioning (from their previous locations on the DS Lite) of key controls: the power on / off button, volume slider, and stylus are all in entirely different places which is jarring when you first switch over from using a DS Lite. I’m sure there are design constraints due to the layout of the internals which meant things had to be placed like this, but in particular the new stylus position is just plain bad. It sits at the back of the device next to the game cartridge, so it’s very hard to locate and remove without looking. On the DS Lite, the stylus just slotted into the side and was really easy to get to.

The battery life is also not good. Most quotes seem to be between 2.5 and 5 hours, with a ~3 hour charge time. Nintendo provide a nice charging cradle, however, which makes it super easy to charge the 3DS. You just drop it in and off it goes. No doubt this is partially due to the 3D screen technology, the fact there are two screens to illuminate, and the wifi radio, but the battery life is rather disappointing when we have tiny devices like the iPhone 4 whose batteries last forever (even when playing games). It’s already affected me a few times, where I’ve taken out the DS to play on (having left it ‘asleep’ and with charge left) only to find it totally drained. I hope Nintendo can improve on this in the future.

I feel at this point like I’m being overly harsh. The 3DS does have some nice hardware additions and improvements over the previous version, which it would be remiss of me not to mention.

• There’s an SD card slot built in for storing images, music, and game data, and the console actually comes supplied with a 2GB card (not bad at all, when most consumer electronics devices that use SD cards come with totally useless ones).
• The stylus is metal and extendable. It feels much nicer than the old plastic one.
• The 3DS is the first of Nintendo’s portable consoles to come with with an analogue control stick, and it’s fantastic. It’s actually more of a pad than a stick, and it slides around as you push it, rather than tilting. It’s compact and feels great to use.
• The screens have had a resolution boost, but in my opinion not enough. I think my main criticism of the old DS was simply how terribly low resolution the screens were - text and graphics just didn’t look at all crisp and the whole thing felt very dated¹. Perhaps I’m just spoilt by the incredible screen of the iPhone 4, but the 3DS still feels blocky and behind the curve. It’s likely that the somewhat low resolution is a tradeoff on account of the 3D display (which is in actual fact 800 pixels wide, but only 400 are visible to each eye). I think it’s probably acceptable that Nintendo sacrificed resolution for their new-fangled no-glasses 3D tech (if that’s indeed the tradeoff they had to make).
• Last but not least, the actual graphics hardware inside has gotten a significant boost. This manifests itself mainly through software, so I’ll discuss it more in that section of the review. Needless to say, though, 3D graphics (as in computer-generated 3D, not stereoscopic 3D) are streets ahead of the old DS.

The 3DS feels more like an entirely new device that just happens to share a form-factor with its predecessor than a simple hardware revision. Despite its shortcomings, I think the 3DS hardware feels much less like a toy than previous versions. However, the DS Lite felt much more refined. Perhaps this is simply a symptom of this being the first generation of 3DS. Knowing Nintendo, there’ll be numerous revisions of the hardware in the future.

That 3D thing

So, the 3D, then. I mean, that’s what this whole thing’s about right? It is called the 3DS after all.

I’d like to preface this section by laying out my opinion on some similar technologies, so you know where I’m coming from as I discuss the 3D aspect of the 3DS.

• I don’t like 3D films. In a minority of places I think it adds something - Pixar do it pretty well as it’s used subtley to give the film extra depth, and Avatar actually felt a bit more immersive in 3D. However, I really dislike having to wear what are essentially sunglasses over the top of my normal glasses, I really dislike 3D being used as a thinly veiled ploy to get cinema-goers to fork over even more money (don’t even get me started on cinema food!), and I can’t stand it when 3D is needlessly shoehorned into films where it has no place whatsoever. So, I’m not a big fan and I find it largely a gimmick intended to get people to go to the cinema more, pay more and pirate less. I also have absolutely no intention to buy a 3D TV.
• I’m not big on the whole motion-gaming thing. The Wii was fun and a novelty when it first came out. Wii Sports is still pretty fun, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess actually used it quite effectively for controlling ranged weapons. Other than those, I can’t really think of a single Wii game I own where the motion controls really add something. Many are downright terrible (Red Steel and Goldeneye being just two examples), and my favourite Wii games tend to be those that use little to no motion control at all. What’s wrong with buttons?

Because I really dislike cinema-3D, you’d perhaps expect me to dislike the 3DS’s 3D, and write off as a gimmick too. Only, I don’t. I like it.

First up, it’s just plain impressive. The adverts are right when they say you’ve got to see it to believe it, and you’ve never seen anything like it. Everyone I’ve shown the 3DS to (and people I’ve spoken to who have otherwise seen one themselves) have that ‘wow’ moment. It’s a bizarre feeling when you look at this little screen with your naked eye and see a scene that appears to stretch away into the distance. It’s just… cool. In some ways the screen looks like a little diorama that you’re peering into, and displays an impressive amount of depth.

I don’t like 3D films because it’s is often used where it doesn’t belong. Pixar films use it well and appropriately, and perhaps in some ways it feels like a better fit because the films are already sort-of-3D anyway. I think this may be one reason I like it on the 3DS though: the majority of games are already 3D. They’re already computer generated and artificial and 3D is just an extra visual filter to try and add an extra level of realism.

The tech is obviously still very early on, but I think it shows a lot of promise. The effect is achieved by the screen having a doubled horizontal resolution in conjunction with a ‘parallax barrier’, which blocks out particular pixels. In short, you can see a slightly different image from each eye which, when combined, form a 3D image. There’s no need for special glasses and you don’t need to go cross-eyed. It just works. This diagram roughly shows how the 3D screen works if you can’t quite visualise it.

The main downside seems to be that there’s a pretty limited viewing angle. If you’re just a few degrees outside of the optimum area where your eyes see the right images, you start to get a double image or a dimmed screen. In reality though, it doesn’t seem too difficult to keep yourself in that sweet spot - although I definitely see some occasional ghosting.

The other downside, of course, is that some people can’t see it (for example if they only have vision in one eye, or have a bad astigmatism). Fortunately, the 3DS features a ‘3D slider’ which lets you increase or lessen the 3D depth, or turn it off altogether. This is a big help if you want to play socially (for instance, Hannah and I have played through the Professor Layton games together in the past, and that just wouldn’t be possible with 3D on). I’ve read a number of reports of people leaving it turned off all the time, but for me it’s a big draw of the console and I enjoy how it looks.

The 3D is really going to prove itself as more games come out. At present, there’s a very limited range of launch titles, and I only own one of them: Ridge Racer 3D. I think it was a good first choice, however, as the tracks and cars feel solid, the 3D really draws you in to the first-person viewpoint, and there’s a good mix of distances to show off the effect. I can only imagine how awesome some of the upcoming titles are going to be. In particular, I really hope Super Mario 3DS introduces some new and interesting gameplay elements based on depth (although there are rumours that it won’t, so that people who can’t see the effect aren’t left out). Even if it doesn’t, it should make jumping between platforms a lot easier.

In summary, I really like the 3D effect. I think it’s clever, it’s something new, it’s innovative, and to me it doesn’t feel like it’s a gimmick (although I’ll be the first to own up if I’m proved wrong at a later date). You can certainly get by without it, and certainly the 3DS has enough of a hardware / graphical boost (and great titles coming in the future) it to warrant the upgrade without it, but I don’t see why you’d want to.

System software

The 3DS’s menu system feels much improved over the DS Lite. In some ways it’s similar to the Wii’s channel system, but overall is bit more modern and refined. There are, however, a few places where it does still feel somewhat outdated. For example:

• You can only store settings for 3 network connections, when other modern mobile devices let you store as many as you want.
• You can now ‘suspend’ a game and access the main system menu. The only problem with this is that if you want to access anything via the menu, such as system settings, you lose the suspended state of the game. What, then, is the point of ‘suspending’ it in the first place?
• The system software is still very modal. You can do one thing at a time, and one thing only. Want to check for a software update? You have to sit there watching a progress bar, and you can’t do anything else until it completes.

I don’t really want to spend too much longer on the software, as this review is already gargantuan and I’m not sure how much of value I can add. The system software does its job, but I wouldn’t say it’s anything special. There are a number of features missing (a web browser and downloadable software / games are the main ones), but these are due to launch in the next few months. It’s yet another example of the system feeling rushed to market, though.

Games

There’s not yet much to discuss regarding games. The 3DS’s launch titles were largely not worth bothering with and were one of the big reasons I wasn’t sure whether to buy the system on launch. Since owning it, I’ve played Ridge Racer 3D (which I got with the console) and Rayman 3D (which I rented). Ridge Racer is pretty good fun and shows off the 3D well, but is just a fairly generic racer. Rayman 3D is a lazy port of a 12 year old game which was fun when first released but feels tired today.

I really bought the 3DS based on the promise of what’s to come. There are a number of exciting titles due out this year: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Star Fox 3D, a new Mario title, a new Mariokart title and a new Metal Gear Solid title among others. I really hope they can live up to my expectations. Ocarina of Time and Star Fox are both remakes (hey, this is Nintendo after all), but the originals were great, so I can’t wait. Mariokart DS still remains the best in the series, so there’s a lot of potential in a new DS title. And any new 3D Mario game instantly has my attention.

Future promise

The 3D brings something new to the table. I feel it’s currently let down by rushed first generation hardware, rushed and incomplete system software, and a poor lineup of games. However, I bought into it because of the promise of how it may evolve over the coming months. In June we’ll have Ocarina of Time which may well justify the purchase all by itself. The original DS was host to some great games, and some truly original concepts and as a Nintendo fan, I hope that upcoming titles deliver on their promise. The 3DS has a lot of potential, but if I’m completely honest I currently feel some amount of buyer’s remorse as the 3DS sits on a shelf gathering dust.

Your move, Nintendo.

If you think I’ve missed anything, please let me know!

• Scott Pilgrim vs the World Megadrive-esque chiptunes with guitars. Amazon iTunes
• Super Meatboy Kind of chiptuney but with real instruments. Fat bass. Bandcamp
• Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP Lovely folky chiptunes.. I’m currently working on a full review of SB:S&S EP, but needless to say it’s an utterly fantastic game. I love love love this album. It’s just perfect. Bandcamp iTunes
• Super Mario Galaxy Can’t beat a good Mario tune.
• Braid Classical soundscapes. Magnatune
• Rez Dancey trancey dance dance.
• Jet Set Radio Quite a fun mix: J-pop, hip-hop, funk, dance, electronic, rock, acid jazz, trip hop…

Movies

The ‘Frosty’s Movie of the Year’ award goes to… Scott Pilgrim

This year, I fell in love with the Scott Pilgrim books, and the film version brings it to life with style. A fantastic ensemble cast, stunning special effects, and stays pretty faithful to the source material. The ending differs somewhat, but I think the whole thing works pretty well as a more concise version of the books. Good plain fun.

The ‘Runner Up Movie of the Year’ award goes to… Inception

WHUUUUUUUUUUUM
Inception is about a dream within a dream within a dream. But is it really a dream? The film piles rules upon rules upon rules on you about the way the dream world works and just as you’re starting to get a handle on things, you’re told that actually, it doesn’t work in the way you’ve just been told unless it’s a Tuesday and the wind is blowing in a North-Westerly direction. Brilliant ideas and a brilliant film, but your brain will be frazzled by the end of it. Some nice ambiguities in the film mean that there’s loads to discuss afterwards.

Honourable Mentions

• Sherlock Holmes
  Came out in 2009, but I didn’t see it until early January, so it counts for me!
• The Brothers Bloom
  Nice little quirky heist movie. The ending confused me a bit, but I think it was supposed to.
• Whip It
  Hooray for Ellen Page! Fun movie about roller derby.

Games

The ‘Most Engrossing Game of the Year’ award goes to… Mass Effect 2 (XBox 360)

Wow, wow, WOW. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so connected to a game as I do / did to Mass Effect 2. The first game was great, but the second one built on it in spades. Tightened combat that borrowed a lot from Gears of War, gorgeous graphics, a deep and completely believable universe filled with diverse planets, locations, and alien races, a crew whose respect you have to earn and who you come to really care for, and of course an immersive story where everything is at stake and you know that if you make the wrong choices then you and your crew might not make it to the end. Utterly fantastic, and I can’t wait for part 3.

The ‘Game That Keeps Me Coming Back For More Because It’s Awesomely Fun’ award goes to… Just Cause 2 (XBox 360)

Just Cause 2 is just plain fun. A huge game world is your playground to do what the hell you want with. Fancy storming an enemy base, stealing a plane, attaching a jeep full of enemy soldiers to it with an elasticated grappling hook, flying for miles across a beautiful island, standing on the roof of the plane and admiring the view before leaping off and freefalling towards the ocean, opening your parachute and gliding to safety as your abandoned plane crashes into an oil rig and explodes in a ball of flames? Sure, you can do that.

The ‘Best XBLA Game I Played This Year’ goes to… Shadow Complex

Shadow Complex is an Arcade game only in name: the quality of the game is on-par with fully-fledged boxed retail games. It has great graphics, gameplay, and story, and sees you infiltrating a mysterious underground bunker filled with enemies. The length of the game is in a sweet spot where it’s not too long and not too short, and there’s also a lot to go back and explore once you’ve finished the main game. Highly recommended, and it’s still one of the best XBLA games available.

The ‘Best Gamey-Game’ award goes to… Super Mario Galaxy 2

Mario is gaming at its purest. It doesn’t try to emulate the real world, or offer you an immersive ’experience’. It’s just good, clean, awesomely designed, ludicrous fun. And Mario Galaxy 2 improves on the original Galaxy (who’d have thought it was even possible) with a great range of new galaxies, improved game structure, and everyone’s favourite fictional rideable dinosaur, Yoshi. If you’re any kind of fan of video games, you must play Galaxy 2. It’s gaming at its absolute finest.

The ‘Mobile Game of the Year’ award goes to… World of Goo (iPad)

I only got this in the final week of the year, so it very nearly didn’t make it into the list. Believe it or not, I hadn’t until now played the full World of Goo before, only the demo. I loved the controls on the iPad - multitouch lets you drag about multiple goo balls whilst panning around the level all at the same time. The basic mechanics are great, and much like Popcap and Mario games new variations and types of goo ball are regularly introduced to mix things up a bit. To cap it all, the game has a brilliantly quirky setting and a nice little story that leads you through the game. I was engrossed from start to finish.

The ‘Sweet Zombie Jesus I Can’t Believe Those Graphics Are On A Phone!’ award goes to… Infinity Blade

On an iPhone 4’s Retina Display, Infinity Blade looks god-damned unbelievable. Stunning. Wow. It runs on the Unreal engine, and was made by Chair, the guys responsible for Shadow Complex. I can’t say the actual gameplay wows me in the same way, but it sure is pretty.

Honourable Mentions

• Limbo
  Dark, moody, and mysterious, Limbo starts quietly and offers you no explanation as to how to proceed. One ‘boss’ fight in particular was delightfully creepy. I felt the game was a little let down by its rather sudden ending, and that the mystery of the first half of the game (for example, glimpses of other people in the forest you’re in) didn’t follow through to the second half. But nonetheless, I’d recommend it.
• Red Dead Redemption
  I still haven’t finished Red Dead Redemption, so I don’t think I can really give it an award. The setting is great, and there have been some truly stand-out moments and exciting missions, however for some reason I haven’t found it particularly immersive. I’m not sure what it is about it, but some of the missions felt a bit ‘grind-y’, and I felt always reminded that I was playing a game.
• Helsing’s Fire
  Nice puzzler with a unique gameplay mechanic and high production values. I loved this game.
• Cut the Rope
  Great, charming, physics-based puzzler, with a Lite version.
• Words With Friends
  The best online Scrabble clone for iOS, and one of the games I still keep playing. There’s a free ad-supported version.
• Trainyard
  Fun, mindbending puzzle game. The free version, Trainyard Express, has a tonne of levels and… is free.
• Carcassonne
  An extremely well done board game to iOS conversion, which just received an update with an iPad-native interface.

Books

The ‘Awesomely Awesome’ award goes to… the Scott Pilgrim series by Bryan Lee O’Malley

I hadn’t heard of Scott Pilgrim until earlier this year, when the hype around the movie started to ramp up. I bought all 6 books in the series and loved every one of them. Really, if you’re reading this you probably already know all you need to know about Scott Pilgrim: he falls in love with a girl named Ramona, and must defeat her 7 evil exes. Infused with great characters, dialog, and some brilliant nods to geek and videogame culture, I can’t get enough of everything Pilgrim.

The ‘Ongoing Series of Books That I’m Reading and Really Enjoying’ award goes to… the Sherlock Holmes Books

I’ve currently read 23 of the 54 short stories, and 3 of the 4 novels in the Sherlock Holmes canon, and I’m really really enjoying them. My favourite collection so far is probably The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and my favourite novel is either The Sign of the Four or Hound of the Baskervilles. The first novel in the series, A Study in Scarlet, was the weakest in my opinion - so don’t be put off if you choose to read that first. Highly recommended. I’ll finish off the series in 2011.

The ‘Most Enjoyable Novel of the Year’ award goes jointly to… The Magicians by Lev Grossman, and Mystery Man by Colin Bateman

The Magicians
I’ve actually just started re-reading The Magicians, such is the extent that it stuck in my head. It’s an amalgam of a lot of existing real world / fantasy fiction: many ideas are taken from the Chronicles of Narnia, and the main character attends a school for ‘real’ magicians which is hidden from non-magicians (which sounds a little Harry Potter when you put it like that). However, it brilliantly combines these elements and twists them into something new. The school, and indeed the magic performed feels much more based in reality than something like Potter, and it’s all a bit more grown-up, too. I don’t want to go into too much detail and give too much away, but something about the book just struck a chord with me. I got chills when you first meet the book’s main villain, and I love the idea of other worlds hidden away within our own. And of course, who doesn’t like to think that real magic could exist in the world. Really enjoyed this one.

Mystery Man
I got this for Christmas, and just finished it before the year was up. It’s a darkly comic detective novel set in Ireland, and literally had me laughing out loud. The main character runs a mystery / crime bookshop situated next to a detective agency. When the detective agency closes down, its customers start coming into the bookshop looking for help, and… well, you can guess how it goes. Things are made more amusing by the fact that the main character suffers from pretty much every mental illness and physical ailment you can think of: he’s paranoid, asthmatic, allergic, has brittle bones, seems to suffer from OCD, you name it. My unexpected hit of the year, bookwise.

The ‘It Took Me Ages, But I’m Very Glad I Finished It Because It Was Awesome’ award goes to… Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Epic is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It’s a massive book. It details the revival of true English Magic to England in the 19th century, and is so richly detailed. I ended up listening to the audiobook (which was really well done), and thoroughly enjoyed it. Whilst it’s extremely long, I didn’t want it to end - so interesting was the alternate history it sets out. A must-read.

The ‘What A Pile of Shite, Why Did I Bloody Bother?’ award goes to… Wuthering Heights

Everybody’s miserable, the plot’s rubbish and I didn’t like any of the characters in the slightest. Sorry, Miss Bronte, but it was just terrible.

Honourable Mentions

• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stephenson
  A true classic that I hadn’t read until this year. A good, fun, piratey romp with real danger, wooden legs, parrots, and buried treasure.
• The Inverted World by Christopher Priest
  A rather different sci-fi book, recommended to me by @gimboland. Written by the same author who wrote The Prestige (on which the Christopher Nolan movie was based), The Inverted World tells the tale of a city which moves. Its citizens move it every single day along giant railway tracks which must be taken up from behind it and placed down in front of it. The book pulls you into this bizarre world, and keeps you guessing the whole way along as to what drives the city’s inhabitants ever onward.
• Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry
  I’ve never really read a biography before, but I very much enjoyed Stephen Fry’s. Well written and engrossing, it was an interesting look into his childhood. Rather rude in places, so reader beware.

So there you have it! My top movies, games, and books of 2010. Did I miss anything out? Likely it was because I didn’t see / play / read it, but let me know in the comments. What were your picks of the year?

As a brief introduction, the single player game of Minecraft is all about adventuring and carving out an existence for yourself in a randomly generated, nearly-infinitely large world. It might be mountainous, islandy, foresty, snowy; you must harvest resources and built yourself tools and shelter; there’ll likely be huge underground cave systems for you to explore, containing precious minerals for you to mine, and monsters lurking in the darkness. It’s all about survival and exploring, in a world that you can literally shape as you please - pretty much every single block in the world can be destroyed, moved, or placed by you.

Mine the Gap

First up, there’s a brilliant series of five articles over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun¹ called Mine the Gap. The author had never played Minecraft before, and charts his progress through the game for the first few days. He very quickly falls in love with it, and does a good job of conveying what it’s like to play Minecraft. I could quote pretty much all of the articles, but I’ve tried to pick out some of my favourite bits:

At this point I need to state just how unspeakably fun all this is. Shredding and re-assembling the game world is quick, tactile and satisfying. The entireity of MineCraft taps directly into that part of your mind that made it so fun to build forts out of sofa cushions as a kid. Even digging a hole in MineCraft brings on an inexplicable thrill of freedom and panic. It’s embarrassing.

Spelunking, it turns out, is kind of breathtaking. Everything- the risk of encountering monsters, the natural cave formations, the chance of discovering something unusual- comes together to form a thrilling whole.

MineCraft’s randomised caves are some of the most spellbinding locales I’ve ever encountered in a videogame, and a large part of that, I think, is because you’re always at risk of getting lost. It’s an omnipresent enemy you’re forever dueling with, and sometimes that means he gets the better of you. And that’s fun too.

Why aren’t there more games about exploring? I’m not talking learning the corners and shortcuts of some dull “open” world here. I’m talking about games which let you pick your way through a world that’s every bit as secretive, hostile and surprising as our own. I’m talking about letting the player get lost. I’m talking about making a world so tactile, so absorbing and so believable that an exciting discovery can be as simple as a big-ass tree.

We need more of this. Because this? This is brilliance. MineCraft is brilliance in such a simple, raw form that developers the world over should be smashing their heads on desks with a force usually reserved for heading footballs, simply because they didn’t do this first.

It took going on today’s expedition for me to realise it, but after a dozen hours I’ve already gotten more out of MineCraft than I get from most commercial games, so I’m just going to tell you straight up: You want to buy this game. It’s already fantastic, it’s still a long way from finished, it’s only €10 and once you’ve bought it, all future versions of MineCraft will be yours for free.

I encourage you to go over and read through these, starting with number one, of course:

Here’s all the articles: Mine the Gap on Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Or here they are individually:
Mine the Gap, Day 1 | Mine the Gap, Day 2 | Mine the Gap, Day 3 | Mine the Gap, Day 4 | Mine the Gap, Day 5

Expedition Minecraft!

Next, a brilliantly made set of videos on YouTube called Expedition Minecraft!, from Sebastiaan de With, a designer from the Netherlands. He’s made 7 videos so far which show him adventuring in Minecraft, starting out from scratch in a new world. I watched these before I bought Minecraft myself, and at least the first video or two almost act as a nice little tutorial of how you play the game - before watching these, I didn’t really ‘get’ what it was all about. It’s also odd how strangely compelling and addictive it can be just watching someone else play. Each video’s about 15 minutes long.

And finally…

Finally, here’s an utterly hilarious video of someone attempting to do a nice little tutorial, but not quite getting the results they were after…

Seriously - if you love games, I can’t see how you can’t enjoy Minecraft. I’ve already got far more out of the game than the €9.95 I paid for it. You can play it in your browser or download the client, and it works on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. It currently costs €9.95 while it’s in alpha, and will be double that whenever it’s finally released.

Minecraft.net

P.S. If you do get it, I think you’ll likely find the Minecraft Wiki very useful. In particular, it has ‘recipes’ for all the tools and items you can build.

Broken Sword

A classic point-and-click adventure, updated for the iPhone and touch controls. The original came out in 1996, and it’s still awesome. If you’ve never played Broken Sword, I highly recommend it. Fantastic historical-thrillery-mystery storyline, great visuals, good humour, and memorable characters.
[iTunes]

Canabalt

Canabalt’s probably the simplest game on this list. It has one control: tap the screen to jump. Your character runs and jumps along rooftops in some dystopian future that’s going all to hell. Nice pixel art, and an awesome soundtrack (headphones recommended). Seems like it’ll be a one minute wonder, but it’s very much “hmm, just one more go…”. There’s a flash version on the Canabalt website, so you can try it out there.
[iTunes] [App website]

Carcassonne

Carcassonne’s my newest acquisition and it’s so so SO well made. Carcassonne is an iOS version a of a board game, and it really feels like an authentic board game. You place tiles to build up countryside (consisting of towns, roads, and fields), and place your ‘meeple’ on the structures you create to capture them and score points. The Carcassonne website has a nice introductory video explaining how the game works. Lovely graphics, music, and sound effects, and a great tutorial with voiceover introduces you to the game. Also, lots of nice casual multiplayer¹ and replayability. I’m jwfrosty, so if you grab the game, come play against me online!

Carcasonne is £2.99, but I can’t recommend it highly enough. The price will be going up when the app gains iPad support, too (to $9.99 in US money), so if you’re interested buy now!
[iTunes] [App website]

Flight Control

The quintessential iPhone game. One of the first, and still one of the best examples of touch screen gaming. I think there’s some sort of law that states that every iPhone owner must have a copy of Flight Control. Chances are you’ve probably seen or played this already but if you haven’t, you should.
[iTunes] [App website]

Fruit Ninja

A recent acquisition, but pretty addictive. Fruit get thrown in the air, you swipe them with your finger to cut them in half. Avoid the the bombs. Bombs are bad. That’s all you need to know. Nice graphics, although not updated to high res versions for the retina display yet. Another “just one more go…” game.
[iTunes] [App website]

geoDefense

I’m not the biggest fan of tower defence games, but geoDefense is well done, and adds some nice restrictions to the format which make it much easier to pick up and play. The enemies move ‘on rails’, so it’s not such a free-for-all as other games; you know where they’re going to be headed and can plan your defenses appropriately.
[iTunes] [App website]

Orbital

An iPhone remake/clone of a flash game, Gimme Friction Baby, but better. Gorgeous visuals, easy to learn, good game mechanics, good for pick up and playability.
[iTunes] [App website]

Plants vs Zombies

Popcap, the kings of the casual game market. Plants vs Zombies is their take on tower defense games, and it’s pretty addictive. Plant plants in a garden, all of which have different zombie-resistant abilities - some shoot seeds, some stop baddies dead in their tracks (dead! Zombies! See what I did there?), and others just explode. Good fun, and the difficultly level ramps up perfectly - each level introduces you to some new item, ability, or bad guy, so you’re always making progress. There’s a free online flash demo if you want to try it out there.
[iTunes] [App website]

Strategery

Apparently Strategery is quite like Risk, although I’ve never played Risk so I can’t really vouch for that. You take over enemy territories on a map. Some element of luck involved. The game scales pretty well from really easy on tiny maps all the way up to ‘give me full control over everything’ with brutally hard CPU opponents on epically-sized maps. I prefer the smaller easier ones, because I can win at those. There’s a free, lite version of this (which is slightly dated now - hasn’t been updated for a while - but it’s still good), so give it a whirl.
[Lite version - iTunes] [Paid version - iTunes] [App website]

Words with Friends

Words with Friends is a Scrabble-like game which allows you to play with friends over the internet. It’s very well done, and the multiplayer works seamlessly. More people need to come and play this with me! I’m jwfrosty. There’s a free ad-supported version, so there’s no reason for you not have a go!
[Free version - iTunes] [Paid version - iTunes]

If there’s anything I’ve missed out that you’d like to recommend, please let me know about it in the comments! And please come and play against me at Words with Friends and Carcassonne!