Since download services became mainstream, every year has lead to the rise of a new poster child for indie development; and so, after the likes of “Braid” and “flower” came July’s “LIMBO”. Arnt Jensen’s platformer hangs at that unstable line halfway between art and game – an aesthetically rich experience that still wears a polished game design. The tragic tale of a little boy trapped at the edge of hell, endlessly roaming in search of an elusive spark of hope that is always out of reach, condemned to die innumerable deaths in a menacing environment with no escape. The metaphysical considerations of its fictional background mirror game logic, with trial and error cycles symbolizing  trapped souls’ endless torment. Meaning is imbued in gameplay but also in the minimalist details and narrative sketches, heralding the legacy of Chahi’s superlative “Another World”. Its aesthetic corpus is stunning: computer generated visuals reference profusely German expressionist and noir’s chiaroscuro, embodying its mysterious aura and mellowing it with fantastical elements, in a stark dance of light and shade which finds natural solace in the haunting score, as elusive and eerie as the otherworldly scenery. “LIMBO” stands on the verge of greatness, and misses it by little – its drive towards the indie cliché of physics and environmental puzzles ends up transmigrating the experience from artful consideration on the afterlife to elegant game with an enticing background narrative –  too little, given how much potential there is to find here. Nonetheless, pay no heed, for how often can one mention a game worthy of an “Another World” citation?

October’s “Deadly Premonition” is no masterpiece. Had it appeared five years prior and it would be a most welcome title, but hardly worth of such notice (just as “Spy Fiction” was). Let’s be frank: it isn’t even that great a videogame. But its relevance for this generation cannot be overstated, for it bears a standard of creative quality that is becoming ever rarer. Middle sized ventures are those that end up driving medium’s forward – free from the commercial pressures of big budget titles and with financial  leeway for some technical progressivism, they can harbor creativity without cramping it with marketing stances or lack of money. “Deadly Premonition” is one such work, a mirror of an author that needed not compromise, a hark back to the days of oddball Japanese titles that still came West. Whether one deems it moronic or genial is, in all fairness, irrelevant, for it touches us with its absurdity and surrealist bizarrerie in more ways than any mainstream game could ever hope to achieve. That SWERY cares so much for his little Greenvale town – its inhabitants, back-story and procedural rules – to the point of blowing such life and personality into it, is proof that he is an author proper. And that, these days, is really hard to come by.

And, to end the year, what better than another art title? “Dinner Date” is what Tale of Tales would (for the lack of a better word) call a not-game. And truthfully, one cannot argue with such an attribution, for Jeroen Stout’s intimist revel on life has as much in common with games as a film, a play or a poem. And poems are indeed “Dinner Date’s” next of kin – browsing the subconscious thoughts of one Julian Luxembourg (Jeroen’s alter-ego), one finds a literary poise that enchants us with its melody and rhythm, and strikes us with its intensity of declamation. Beneath the lyrical prose are the musings of a bitter young man of significant intellectual character, a lover of Byron faced with life’s excruciating demands: a boring job, an idiot boss, a pushy friend and a seductive femme who he sexually craves for, but is nothing other than a thin shadow of a concocted poetic fantasy.  We learn of these as he eats and drinks and eats and drinks and drinks yet again, layers and layers of event rationalization peeling away with his intoxication, his primal personality and instincts slowly becoming ever clearer, as he finds himself pondering on his fate with growing ire and contempt for its stupidity… and his own. This romantic sensibility is clearly meant as homage to the poet he so loves, and which now finds such perfect embodiment in an interactive experience. The single scenery where action takes place – a small kitchen – is crafted with a striking atmosphere and sprouts superb attention to detail, so much so that we comfortably indulge in its worldly sights and sounds, lulling away whilst simply listening to Julian’s cooking and eating and ranting, delightfully conjuring mental images of the smells and tastes of this sensory play. To find such delicate strokes of technical finesse with such depth of discourse in this one-man interactive poem is a joy, one which warrants continual exploration of this grand little piece in the future, shining brightly as this year’s greatest revelation.

A year of videogames has gone by. A wasted year in many a way. Not that there weren’t enough groundbreaking videogames released for the past 12 months, no, there surely were. But, following old habits, the problem with this year lies in the narrative that has been shaped by media, the semantic skeleton that has become inexorably imprinted in people’s minds. Most will look back at 2010 as the year of “Mass Effect 2” and “Red Dead Redemption” (review forthcoming) and “Super Mario Galaxy 2” and “God of War III” – the triumphant year of this brave new age of videogames, so perfectly produced, so unanimously revered… so much so that they could only be as elegant as their harmlessness and voidness of purpose and content. The reason there is so little debate when choosing the very best of this year is remarkably simple – the criteria for the valorization of these pieces have become unanimous and ubiquitous, embodied in a cold, vapid rhetoric ellaborated by the very industry that invests millions in these productions. To talk of interactive arts and even entertainment in these consensualist terms is not only degrading, as downright absurd. Whilst the games that dominate the airwaves (and which we have been occasionally guilty of giving more attention than they probably deserve) are worthy of merit in their own way – as heralds of an increasingly stable and effective industry, capable of alluring millions and delighting them in ways unimaginable outside videogames – they are also symptomatic of the lack of creativity, craftmanship and sheer artistry that should govern an expressive medium such as this. They don’t touch people as much as arouse them. They don’t convey a message. They don’t address any facet of human life. As such, these will not be the games we’ve chosen to give merit to in regards to the past year.  As we will try to show, the following titles are the very few we believe propelled the medium further, deepening its expressive pendant and actually communicate with those who were lucky enough to experience them. Most of them do not fit the art bill, by any means, showing only small symbolic strides in the great journey that lies ahead of our potentially powerful medium, but since they are the sole worthy of merit, they must be mentioned. So here go, the best games of 2010, in chronological order, according to yours truly.

“Bayonetta” inaugurated the year with a full-frontal blast of unfettered aesthetic virtuosity, driven by the videogame-loving insanity of Hideki Kamiya. Considering the small scale of his entrepreneurship side by side with the giants of Santa Monica, the end-result is astoundingly high profile: the graphical prowess, the refined elegance and complete maximalist outstretch of the combat system, not forgetting the various gameplay schemas which so devilishly evoked classic gaming memories. And, unlike its peers, it actually has the clinical and cynical distance to both elevate and parody this flawed medium, adding subtlety and depth of discourse to an otherwise apparently hollow artifact. Not to mention its historical deconstruction (debauchery?) of christian culture and history, in one of the most venomous and insidious discourses videogames have seen in the past decade. “Bayonetta” deserves to be remembered for its wit and craftmanship, for its seductiveness and charm, for its hidden sub-texts and dashingly sexy body.

February saw two seemingly distant artifacts released: “Vanitas” and “Heavy Rain“. The first represents one of the few art ventures to receive the attention it deserves. A “Tale of Tales” piece created with the iPhone in mind, it underpins the vain egotistical logic that governs consumerist society, one which finds its greatest of symbols in the very platform Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn chose to express themselves. With the beauty and aesthetic care that they have been known for, they present a calm, introspective experience, which entices players not only to deconstruct the artifact, but their very psyche and behavior. The metaphysical ponderings that must emerge from its interactions – on the elusiveness of beauty and the unstoppable decay of life – have been the most meaningful and delightful this year. Seldom have we smiled with such pleasure and irony at an interactive artifact.

“Heavy Rain“, of course, is an altogether different beast, a mammoth interactive neo-noir narrative about a man’s quest to save his son. Too much has been said of its plot-holes and inconsistencies (as if other games fared any better on that end, alas!), and too little has been mentioned of its emotional core, its vanguardist, perhaps even somewhat foolish attempt to connect with digital characters, through actual human feelings and veritable ‘pathos’. We admit it, we loved its cast of archetypal characters, we felt empathy, sadness, despair, anger, fear and moral doubt alongside them. For when questioning “Heavy Rain“, we must also question which mainstream game has done more to address the human condition! Which other title touched on such issues as the real-life considerations of a father, from his love for his children, to his parenting and morals when faced with a tragedy? Which game invested so much in creating interactive templates for all the little actions in life, like taking a shower, inhaling asthma medicine or taking care of a wound? This, as opposed to shooting guns and waging war with swords and chains! Which game tried so hard to deliver convincing character modelling and animation? To design such intricate virtual sets and props that made you feel as if inside a real-life set? No, it wasn’t the supposedly deep narrative of “Mass Effect 2” with its cartoonish, overly brawnish and sexualized characters, nor the brutish ugly renders of the supposedly tragic epic of “Red Dead Redemption”, so daft and unemotional on account of its creators not even being able to capture a man’s sternness without making him look like an ape or a women’s beauty and delicateness without making her look like a monster. Yes, yes, David Cage might be guilty of the sin of extremely poor references, of generic Hollywood class writing, and might even be so utterly daft not to understand he is fighting an unwinnable battle in a dead genre, but unlike everyone else he is going in the right direction with the right tools. Towards human drama, through emotion. And no matter what everyone keeps saying, he is alone.

[To be continued…]

No… I mean… seriously? The line which serves as title was actually taken from Eurogamer’s hands on article, which to tell the truth I can’t even bring my self to fully read, such is the state of shock I’m in. Am I the only one to notice the absurdity of all this? I know I’ve been beating the ol’ “Gears of War gets copied around too much” horse for quite some time now, but this is just plain ridiculous.

More so, is Eurogamer’s take on the idea: “At first you laugh. But then you slowly realise it makes sense. ” OH IT MAKES SENSE, NOW, DOES IT? Let me see… fantasy film… magic and mystery… little wizard kids… family entertainment…  YEAH, LET’S TURN THAT INTO A BLOODY SHOOTER!!! Makes perfect sense! Add some blood, chainsaws, brawny characters, washed out colors and you got yourselves a hit… think otherwise? Well, the long line of successsful “Gears of War” copycats proves it. Corporate logic works that way – find a formula for profit, while it works, keep repeating it till… it don’t work no more. The blame, as usual, falls on both the media and audiences for continuing to back such ventures with praise and hard-earned money.

“Gears of War” and its sequel, “Dark Sector”, “Resident Evil 5”, “Metal Gear Solid 4”, “GTA IV” and its liberty city episodes, “Mass Effect” and “Mass Effect 2”, both “Uncharted”, “Splinter Cell Conviction”, “Dark Void”, the two “Army of Two”, “Bourne Conspiracy”, that “50 cent” hogwash and all those I don’t remember… when is it going to stop? When are you going to stop buying these games? When will you reviewers say enough is enough? When is anyone gonna wake up to the fact that these are bad games riddled with design decisions whose only intent is cashing in huge sums of money for big studio corporations? They crave on players’ infinite capacity to remain iddle, their heads numbing ever so slowly, entering a spiral of mindless dissolution of hedonic pleasure, with no substance to speak of. And forget about just “Gears of War”, think about “Call of Duty”, “Oblivion” and all other game archetypes being regurgitated year after year. You want new games? Stop buying old ones! They’re all crud anyways… all of them add nothing to your experience. Alas, I can already hear your replies even before you speaketh – “BUT THEY BE FUN!!!!!” Indeed they be. And so I take my leave with a hearty goodbye:

“Welcome ye to videogames, the medium in which all crud is justified by a three letter word”.