Elite Beat Agents

iNiS - 2006 - DS

Oh man, this game. Elite Beat Agents is a music/rhythm game for the Nintendo DS. Gameplay in EBA consists of tapping and sliding the DS stylus on the screen when the game prompts you in time with the music. It’s kind of like Guitar Hero but without the guitar. That may sound easy to you, but on faster songs with a lot of beats, the screen can fill up with a lot of beats and it becomes hard to hit them all in the correct order and with the proper timing. I found myself doing better on songs I had heard before so I could sort of use the rhythm as a guide. Nearly all of the songs in the game are pop songs, but I really don’t listen to much popular music.

The gameplay in EBA is fun in the same sort of way Guitar Hero is fun, but the real draw of EBA is the absolute lunacy of the games’ “story”. Now I looked this next part up on Wikipedia, cause the game doesn't really straight up tell you what’s going on, but the “story” of EBA is that there is a government agency that dispatches special elite dance agents to help people when they’re in trouble. The agents don’t actually directly assist people with their issues, but rather they dance to motivate and inspire people to overcome their problems. Each song in EBA is accompanied by a humorous short story about a person or people in peril that apparently need dance inspiration to overcome issues. It’s really goofy and silly in a very bizarre way. The closest thing I can draw a comparison to is the humor in the WarioWare games.

Summary:
If you like rhythm games or games with a really wacky sense of humor, check this out. It’s short and I’m not sure how much replay value it has, but it could be an interesting way to kill some time on the go.

Silent Hill 2

Konami - 2001 - PS2/PS3/Xbox/X360/PC

I was thinking a bit about how I railed against Journey and Brothers for having gameplay that isn't “fun”. The strength of those games lies in their unique storytelling methods. Then I realized one of my favorite games kind of falls into that same boat. Silent Hill 2 is a classic survival horror game and one of my all time favorite games. Don’t worry about playing Silent Hill 1 before 2 or anything like that. 2 has very little to do with 1 other than the setting of the game being the same.

Silent Hill 2 a psychological horror game, not an action horror game like most modern horror games. Think Amnesia as opposed to Left 4 Dead. In Silent Hill 2, you’ll play as James Sunderland who has just received a cryptic letter from his wife telling him to meet her in the town of Silent Hill. The only thing is that James’ wife has been dead for 3 years. So you’ll explore the town looking for clues as to why you received a letter from a dead person.

This game is not fun to play. It’s really not, at least not for me. The game rarely gives you ammo for your weapons, so you’ll spend most of the time running away from monsters and stressing about ammo conservation than shooting them. And being lost in the town, which will probably happen a few times to you, is kind of frustrating. But these two mechanics are included by design and are how the player is supposed to feel. At least I believe that’s what the designers intended for the players to feel.

A lot of this game’s design and story elements may seem random and coincidental at first, but after finishing the game, I looked back and realized quite the opposite. The story is very tight, and even some of the smallest details I first thought to be random turned out to have strong meaning and relevance. It’s one of those games that I kept thinking about days after I had finished it, just mulling over the story and realizing how every little detail fell into place to make a complete narrative. This game does a masterful job of communicating narrative elements through gameplay, through symbolism and through level design. It’s an experience that’s completely unique to the medium of video games, and I've never really played anything that communicated ideas like that before or since.

Summary:
My main knock against this game is that some of the puzzles feel kind of tacked on and out of place and why dear god why is there not a mini-map..? But if you can handle the frustrations of a slower paced game and are a fan of psychological horror, Silent Hill 2 is a memorable game to experience. It also has an excellent soundtrack if you’re into ambient music

The Swapper

Facepalm Games - 2013 - PC

Where was this on everybody’s “2013 game of the year” list?? As of this writing, it’s January 2014, so all of the major game websites have put out their “best games of 2013 list”. I've checked most of the major gaming websites, and this game has appeared on precisely none of the “best game” lists, whereas games like Brothers and Bioshock Infinite - both of which I found to be less than favorable - appear all over the place. I don’t understand. Anyway, The Swapper is an indie puzzle game which has taken quite a bit of influence in its art direction from the Metroid games. Actually, this game threw me quite a bit at first. After seeing all of the visual and stylistic references to Metroid, I was expecting a Metroidvania game. The Swapper is very much just a puzzle game and nothing more, but it’s a very good puzzle game.

The main puzzle solving mechanic in the game is the title device, The Swapper. It allows the user to make clones of themselves that will mimic the user’s actions one to one. It also allows the user to transfer their consciousness not only between their clones, but between any living being, which makes for some interesting storytelling. Armed with The Swapper, you’ll explore a derelict space station that has been seemingly mysteriously abandoned. You’ll solve puzzles and read crew logs to try to piece together what happened to the station.

Summary:
The puzzle design in this game was pretty excellent, on par with games like Portal or Braid, where I would just stare at the screen for minutes at a time and try to think through what I needed to do to complete the puzzle. Light plays an important role in this game’s puzzles. Blue light will block The Swapper’s cloning feature where red light will block the “swapping” feature. Purple light will block both. The game’s mechanics are a bit difficult to illustrate verbally, so you may want to check out some gameplay videos to get the idea and see if this interests you. Don’t be thrown by the Metroid references, this isn't that kind of game. But if you enjoy puzzle games, The Swapper is a must-play.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Starbreeze Studios - 2013 - PC/PS3/X360

I saw this game come up several times on various “best games of 2013” lists across the internet, so I figured I needed to check this one out. Brothers is a short indie game where you guide the title characters on a quest to save their dying father by collecting an antidote from a far away place. It’s kind of got a dark European fairytale thing going on too, if that does anything for you.

Brothers is one of those games that kind of defies genre classification. It’s kind of story driven, it’s kind of a platformer and it’s also got some basic puzzles in it, but I didn’t think it did any of those things particularly well. You’ll control the two brothers simultaneously: the older brother with the left joystick and the younger brother with the right joystick. Oh by the way, this game requires you to play with a controller. I thought this game may do some interesting things with puzzles by requiring the player to move the two characters asynchronously or something like that, but not really. One of the most difficult things in this game is just trying to navigate the brothers down the path when your thumbs wont coordinate with each other.

Summary:
The one thing I did like about Brothers is that it did an excellent job of storytelling and conveying emotion without a single line of dialogue. I love when games do that well. Brothers is not a bad game par se, but it’s certainly wouldn’t be on my “best games of 2013” list. Brothers actually reminded me quite a bit of Journey in that most of the gameplay is simply navigating through the environment and just kind of watching things happen. Also both of those games implement storytelling without dialogue. Also I didn’t care much for either of those games. Their stories, while well delivered, just aren’t that interesting to me. And their gameplay is, well, just not that much fun. But I have a feeling that the same people who loved Journey will be the same people who will enjoy this game. It’s just not my thing, I guess

Spelunky

Derek Yu - 2009 - PC/X360/PS3/Vita

Spelunky is an extremely difficult indie Roguelike platformer. It’s Roguelike in that all of the levels, terrain and enemies in the game are randomly generated, which helps keep the game fresh and interesting. It reminded me quite a bit of Rogue Legacy with its excellent design and brutal difficulty.

The object of each level in Spelunky is to get to the exit, but you’ll have to navigate through lots of traps and other enemies in a randomly generated level. Your character will start with a limited supply of bombs and ropes to help you navigate the level. Bombs can be used to destroy terrain and dig deeper while ropes can be used to help you climb back up. You don’t always want to just race to the exit when you find it either, you’ll want to explore the level and gather as much gold and upgrades as you can find before leaving. But if you spend too long in any given level, a giant ghost that can kill you instantly appears to chase you out of the level. There’s also a maiden hidden in each level. If you bring her to the exit, she will restore one point of your health, so you’ll want to try to find and rescue her in each level. You’ll find shops hidden in each level where you can spend your gold to replenish your bombs/ropes, and buy weapons and upgrades. Spelunky also features local co-op which is pretty fun, but still just as hard.

Summary:
It’s a very difficult game, but if you don’t get frustrated it’s a very addictive game as well. I've actually yet to make it past the third level in this game, but I've gotten close a few times. Check it out if you enjoy difficult platformers