Firewatch

Campo Santo - 2016 - PC/PS4

Firewatch is a game made, in part, by some of the awesome folks over at the Idle Thumbs network who host a bunch of gaming podcasts that I frequently listen to. So being somewhat familiar with some of the folks who made this game had be very excited to see this game released. Director Jake Rodkin and writer Sean Vanaman previously worked at Telltale on The Walking Dead game, so that's the kind of high caliber writing I was expecting from Firewatch. And it delivers - kind of. Firewatch is a narrative heavy exploration game where you the player character take a summer job as a park ranger to escape and diconnect from your own life for a while.

For most intents and purposes, Firewatch is another Walking Simulator, except for when choosing dialogue responses when talking to Deliliah, a fellow park ranger who keeps in contact with you via radio. The dialogue interactions between Henry, the player character, and Delilah are very well written, charming and geniuine in a way that sells the evolution of the relationship between two middle aged people who don't know each other and whose relationship grows only through conversations over a radio. Picking up or looking at certain objects in the game will sometimes generate a prompt to question Delilah about what you're looking at which can be informative or humorous or reveal aspects of Henry or Delilah's characters. Firewatch can hit a range of emotions from quiet and metitative to tense and suspenseful. It's a game that has you pondering events of the plot, or mulling over things Deliliah is saying all while exploring the wilderness.

The excellent characters and writing had me hooked and this seemed like it would be a game I would fall in love with up until I got to the ending. The ending to the game comes rather abruptly and leaves a lot of plot threads unaddressed or explained unsatisfactorily. It appears as though Campo Santo ran out of time during development and possibly weren't able to include some of the content that would have neatly wrapped up these story threads. But as it stands, these threads don't end up connecting or leading anywhere and the ending of the game feels abrupt and unsatisfying. Still, the first two thirds of the game are engaging and well written, so if you're up for a walk in the woods that you know won't take you anywhere, check out Firewatch

Five Nights at Freddy's

Scott Cawthon - 2014  - PC/Android/iOS

I don't like jumpscares. At least not the ones in movies, television or games. Strangely, I enjoy events like Universal's Halloween Horror Nights which are entirely predicated jumpscares, but there's at least a high production value and good spooky atmosphere present in the many scare houses and other attractions at the park. And that, to me, is the key. I think jumpscares are at their most effective when a good atmosphere is constructed that makes you a little nervous and on edge. Then just when you least suspect it - BAM! Something pops out and scares you. And that's it, now you've got your audience terrified. It's tempting to keep going back to the well and get more jumpscares over and over, but each subsequent jumpscare loses some effectiveness as they become more frequent and expected - especially in the case of Halloween Horror Nights where something pops out at you every 5 seconds. Which now that I think of it is probably why that event doesn't get to me. But most games/movies/TV shows know how to use jumpscares effectively, which is when I start not to like them. I just don't enjoy being scared that way... Which is why I've been hesitant to play Five Nights at Freddy's for a while. It's a game entirely predicated on jumpscares and it uses them effectively

The premise of this game is that you are a security guard who takes a night shift at a restaurant known as Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria. During your shift, it's revealed that the establishment's mascot animatronics have come to life and of course are trying to murder you. Your job is to last from midnight to 6am which is approximately 8 minutes of real time. In order to complete the game, you have to survive five consecutive nights, hence the name of the game. My question is: after surviving one night and knowing the animatronics are homicidal, why would you ever come back? Anyway, you're instructed that the animatronics only move in the dark when you're not watching them, so you're safe as long as you keep an eye on their locations. Your player is stuck at their guard post so your only defenses are checking security cameras, turning the lights on in the dark hallways adjacent to your guard post and closing the electronic doors, but each of these actions consumes electrical power, of which you have limited supply. If you run out of power, you're totally defenseless and more than likely are going to get jumpscared. This game is particularly effective at using audio, or more specifically the lack thereof, to create atmosphere. It's really unnerving to only hear the quiet humming of the security cameras or the buzzing of the florescent lights while your're waiting for what seems like an inevitable loud and disruptive jumpscare.

Since people love to watch other people get scared, this game got a huge boost in popularity from "let's play" videos on YouTube. This first game in the series was relatively critically and commercially successful and has spawned 3 sequels with an upcoming RPG spinoff as well as a movie adaptation from Warner Brothers pictures coming soon. All of this is a little much for me, especially considering the game came out only a little more than a year ago. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game well enough, but having 3 sequels and a movie deal in less than a year seems a bit excessive, no?

Summary

Five Nights at Freddy's is a game that knows how to use jumpscares effectively. It creates a tense atmosphere and keeps the player busy tracking the locations of multiple homicidal animatronics which pop out to scare the player when least expected. I think it's a good enough game, but this game's relative popularity has always been a little confusing to me... I suppose most other people a good jumpscare a lot more than I do.

Final Fantasy IX

Squaresoft - 2000 - PS1

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

After the more modern/sci-fi settings used in FF 6-8, Final Fantasy IX is a return to the series roots. It takes place in the world of Gaia, a world full of knights, mages, magic, and other traditional high fantasy. The story initially follows Zidane, who is a member of a band of thieves who is charged with kidnapping the princess Garnet of Alexandria kingdom. In a twist, Garnet is actually looking a discreet transport from Alexandria and consents to the kidnapping as it fits her own agenda. They are joined by Vivi, a young child black mage who is also accidentally kidnapped and knight captain Steiner who is Garnet's royal bodyguard and is loyal to his kingdom to a fault. The four are eventually joined by other party members and are swept up in adventure, conflict and conspiracy as tends to happen in Final Fantasy games. Also in continuing with trends in other Final Fantasy games, the plot does sort of take a dive off of the deep end at around disc 3 or so. Without getting too spoiler-y, the traditional fantasy setting does get strangely thrown out the window at some point, but the game is still worth playing if you appreciate good writing.

What sets this game apart from other Final Fantasy titles for me, aside from its setting, is its well written characters. Now those of you who have played other Final Fantasy games may be rolling your eyes at "well written characters", but I think it really applies to FFIX in a way that no other FF game before or since has achieved. The characters in FFIX aren't the flat, one-dimensional stereotypes of characters that are found in most JRPGs. There's also none of (or very little of) the angsty JRPG melodrama found in the rest of the series. The characters in FFIX are more subtle and nuanced which speaks volumes for not only the writers but the translation and localization process this game had to undergo. This game even has humor. Like legitimate, actual, intentional humor. And it works. Usually when humorous dialogue is written in a Final Fantasy game, it's facepalm material. It's funny, but for all the wrong reasons. FFIX gets it right in a way that really endears all of its characters to the player.

The battle system is... well... it's just fine. There's nothing really wrong with it. But there's also nothing really right with it either. There's nothing too broken like FFVIII, but also nothing that really sticks out and grabs your attention to make you want to keep playing just one more battle like FFVII. It's pretty straightforward and standard for a Final Fantasy game. It's pseudo turn based with the ATB introduced in previous games and your characters fit into pre-defined roles of black mage, white mage, summoner, knight, thief etc. Just about the only thing noteworthy is that all abilities you learn throughout the game are learned from using a specific weapon a certain number of times in battle. For instance, if you want to learn the "fire" spell, you have to equip Vivi with the "Fire Staff" or whatever it's called. This creates a sort of interesting dynamic where the weapons and armor you have equipped for your party may not always be the "best" speaking strictly statistically. There's also the new "limit break" system called trance, where your character becomes more powerful and gets access to new abilities, but this triggers pretty much just randomly and always seems to happen when you're in a random, easily winnable battle and never against a boss when you really need it. So yeah, the battle system is... just fine I guess.

What's way better than "just fine" and another notable reason to check out this game is another superb, phenomenal, varied and otherwise spectacular soundtrack composed by Uematsu. I think Uematsu has gone on record saying this was his favorite soundtrack he composed. It's not necessarily my favorite as a whole, but picking a favorite Uematsu soundtrack is like trying to pick a favorite burger off of the menu at Red Robin. I love them all. Standouts are the "Battle Theme", "Stirring in the Forest", "Crossing Those Hills", "Border Village Dali" and "Hunter's Chance" but the whole soundtrack is really a standout as tends to be the case with Nobou Uematsu.

Final Fantasy IX Video Review

Summary
It may not have the best battle system and the plot gets a little weird about halfway through, but FFIX is still worth checking out if you like a well written story with well defined characters. The writing and soundtrack are enough to carry you through when the battle system is being dull and the story is getting weird. This game really is pretty charming once you get invested in it and it's become one of my favorites in the Final Fantasy series and just in general

Final Fantasy VIII

Squaresoft - 1999 - PC/PS1

(On my Top 10 Game Soundtracks list)

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

Part of why I think this game gets so much hate, even from me, is that it came on the heels of Final Fantasy 7, of of the best selling and most well loved RPGs of all time. Final Fantasy 7 had a brilliant and customizable battle system, an engaging story with interesting characters and an awesome soundtrack. Final Fantasy 8 has... an awesome soundtrack, at least. To be fair, the story is pretty interesting all the way through the end of disc 1, but then things get so weird and hard to follow and major plot points are added and removed on a whim, as though the game has ADD and can't decide on what kind of story it wants to tell you. But the battle system is...oh god it's a total trainwreck.

So one of the many flaws of this game's battle system is its "junction" system. In FF8, magic spells are treated as a consumable item. Kind of a weird choice, but I don't have a problem with that necessarily. What I DO have a problem with is that spells are a consumable item AND the game allows you to "junction" them to your character to improve their stats. The better the spell, the more the stat increase. If you follow this chain of logic, you'll realize that if you have a high level spell junctioned to your character and you cast that spell, your character's stats will actually decrease. So then what's the point of casting magic? There is none in a normal playthrough, especially when you consider that your summon monsters, called GFs in this game, can be called upon to essentially cast any magic spells you'd want anyway, provided you don't mind watching a 45 second cutscene of the GF appearing EVERY FREAKIN' TIME. There's lots of odd decisions like this that slow the battles down in FF8 and make them tedious. Even the way you get magic is a chore. You can "draw" spells from an enemy, but depending on a few factors the game doesn't really explain, you'll only typically get around 3-6 spells per draw. Which means you have to sit in a battle and farm draw for quite a long time if you want to get up to the maximum of 100. But really the most broken thing about this game is when you discover you can manipulate limit breaks. Your character's chance of limit breaks are actually random in this game, another odd choice. The less health you have, the higher the chance of the limit break. But if you cycle your turn order, you can keep re-rolling the calculation that determines your limit break, essentially letting you limit break whenever you want. Totally. Broken.

Now that I'm done ranting about the battle system, on to the story (mild spoilers in this paragraph). It really does seem like it's gonna go somewhere for the first, maybe quarter or third of the game. But then we hit a point after disc 1 where the narrative has an identity crisis and starts grasping at different ideas and concepts and inserts them randomly into the story which results in a totally insane mish-mash of disconnected themes and gaping plot holes. I know Final Fantasy is a universe where characters get shot, sliced and burned in every battle, but the first huge narrative red flag is when one of the main characters is freakin' impaled through the heart with a giant icicle during a cutscene... and then is totally okay in the next scene. Like the game barely even acknowledges that it took place. Come on Final Fantasy 8! If you're not gonna take your story seriously then I can't either. 

The artwork and music are the huge redeeming factors of this game. FF8 features some of the most gorgeous hand-drawn backdrops in any RPG I've seen. And this might be controversial, but I think FF8 is Uematsu's best work. At the very least it's my favorite of his work. The relaxing "Breezy", the entrancing "Find Your Way", the mysterious "Under Her Control" and the nostalgic "Fisherman's Horizon" highlight the soundtrack. And of course "Man With the Machine Gun" does its best to keep the mindlessly tedious and broken battles from being too much of a nuisance.

Summary

This is far from the best Final Fantasy, and misses the mark on battle system design and storytelling. At best it's an average-ish RPG with a trippy story, some awesome music and inspiring artwork. Still there is something sort of intangibly alluring about playing this game. I must admit I've replayed this trainwreck at least 3 times now.

Final Fantasy VII

Squaresoft - 1997 - PC/PS1

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

I actually played Final Fantasy 7 for the first time several years after it was released. A friend of mine gave me both the FF7 and FF8 discs at the same time. I initially decided to play FF8 as it was the newer and more graphically realistic of the two games. FF7's blocky and cartoony graphics initially turned me off and I didn't get around to playing through it until after I finished FF8. I liked FF8 well enough at the time, but it wasn't until I went back and played through FF7 that I realized how superior of a game Final Fantasy 7 is. It taught me an important lesson that I still think about when playing games now: graphics are just not as important as good gameplay and an interesting story

Final Fantasy 7 was the first game in the series released on the PS1 and was also the first game in the series to not appear on a Nintendo console. More importantly, it is also the game that is credited with popularizing the Japanese role playing game genre for western audiences. It is also the first game in the Final Fantasy series to fully embrace a futuristic sci-fi setting as opposed to the Tolkien-esque fantasy settings found in the previous games. Earlier games in the series had some futuristic and science fiction elements, but Final Fantasy 7 really embraced this aesthetic and fully built its characters and setting around it

Final Fantasy 7 follows the story of Cloud Strife, an amnesiac mercenary who joins a band of freedom fighters who call themselves Avalanche and are trying to stop the money-loving Shinra corporation from installing environment polluting "mako reactors" across the planet. The first part of the game deals with the Avalanche vs. Shinra conflict, but then the game and story really opens up as you begin to uncover the details of Cloud's past, his lost memories and how a mysterious man known as Sephiroth ties in to the story. You'll also of course explore the backstory to all of your party members, who are all well written and interesting characters. It's a truly gripping and mysterious story that had me hooked from the beginning and kept me interested to the end. It's a difficult game to put down because if whatever's happening in the story doesn't hold your attention, the addicting and well designed battle system probably will.

Just like any other entry in the Final Fantasy series, the battle system in FF7 is completely unique, but I believe this is my favorite battle system found in any of the Final Fantasy games. This battle system allows for a high degree of character customization through the new "materia" system. In the game, materia are basically little magic jewels that characters can equip on their weapons and armor to grant additional stat bonuses or new abilities. For instance, if you want a party member to learn a fire spell, you simply place the "fire" materia into one of the materia slots on that character's weapon or armor. What makes this system interesting is that some materia can be paired together. For example, if you wanted to be able to cast fire on all enemies at once, you can pair a "fire" materia with an "all" materia, assuming you have both. Players have to make some fun strategic decisions when building out their party as some weapons may be statistically better, but have fewer materia slots. Further adding to the strategic complexity of this system is that materia can gain experience and level up, granting you further statistical bonuses or more powerful spells. Another smart piece of game design is that some weapons and armors can increase the growth rate of the materia, but at the cost of fewer total materia slots. It's an excellent battle system that forces the player to think carefully about their party's build.

Adding to the perfect harmony of excellent gameplay and well-told story is the masterfully composed soundtrack. I know I've said it before, but Nobou Uematsu is a genius. The PS1 sound chip makes the tracks sound very MIDI-ish, but pay attention to the composition of the pieces. It's genius. Even more mind blowing is the crazy musical variety found in each track. There's the sleazy "Oppressed People", the dark and beautiful "Anxious Heart", the playful carnival-like "Gold Saucer", the nightmarish "Those Chosen by the Planet" and of course, the rockin' boss battle anthem "Those who Fight Further". But really, the whole soundtrack is totally amazing from top to bottom. Give it a listen if you're into video game music

Final Fantasy VII Video Review:

Summary:
Final Fantasy 7 is a masterpiece of a game. It's a perfect blend of engaging story, smart game design and a top-notch soundtrack. I've tried many times to recreate the experience of playing FF7 for the first time be trying various other Japanese role playing games, but none can quite recapture the brilliance of FF7. It's a must-play for fans of RPGs with great storytelling, don't let the blocky graphics scare you off. Speaking of which, I'd love to see that FF7 HD remake sometime in my lifetime

Final Fantasy X

Squaresoft - 2001 - PS2/PS3/Vita

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

I picked up the HD remastered versions of Final Fantasy X/X-2 on PS3 when they came out last month, and I replayed FFX for the first time in probably at least 10 years. I remember really enjoying when I first played it and I was worried my memory of the game would be greater than what the game actually was. But I enjoyed it quite a bit a second time around and it held up pretty well aside from the horrendous cutscenes. It's crazy to think about how Square just churned out hit after hit of amazing classic RPGs from this franchise in the 90s and early 00s and then to think about what garbage the FF series has given us since this game. 

A quick sidenote for those who never played a game in this series or are otherwise unaware: The stories and battle mechanics of each game in the Final Fantasy series are completely unrelated. Each game in the series has a completely new cast of characters and settings, and there's nearly always a different battle system with different battle mechanics and rules. The series has some common elements and reoccurring motifs; for instance there's usually magic or summon monsters and for some reason there's almost always a character named Cid that appears somewhere in the game. But you don't have to have played FF9 before FF10 or anything like that.

FF10 (or FFX for you Romans) follows the story of a young man named Tidus who is a star blitzball player from the futuristic city of Zanarkand. Blitzball is some kind of crazy combination of football and soccer, but played underwater. It also serves as FFX's primary minigame. It's kind of broken and clunky, but the football fan in me enjoys it despite its faults. Anyway, in the game's prologue, the Zanarkand blitzball arena is suddenly attacked by a massive whale-looking monster known as "Sin". Sin magically transports Tidus 1000 years into the future to another world called "Spira". While searching for a way to get back home to Zanarkand, Tidus learns about the world of Spira and befriends some of its residents. He learns that Spira has always been under constant torment by the same Sin monster he encountered in Zanarkand. Tidus soon befriends a young girl, Yuna, who is training to become a summoner in hopes to obtain a summon monster powerful enough to destroy Sin. FFX's main storyline deals with Tidus, Yuna and her guardian's journey across Spira and their quest to defeat Sin. 

I found the story and pacing for FFX to be both very good. Now the thing that's an absolute trainwreck and nearly ruins the game are the voice acting and cutscenes. Final Fantasy X was the first game in the series to be voice acted, and it definitely shows. Each cutscene is more awkward and cringe-worthy than the last. You may have seen the infamous laughing scene on YouTube before. Yeah, that's pretty much how all of the cutscenes in this game are. Now the actual story that is behind these cutscenes is pretty good. But oh man, those cutscenes. It might actually be better to watch them on mute. You have to try to focus on what the game is trying to show you, not how the game is showing it. If you can't do that, you'll probably find this game's story pretty laughable. No pun intended. 

Final Fantasy X's battle system is pretty tight and well balanced. Information like damage, status effects, and weaknesses are clearly communicated to the player during battle instead of having to guess which enemies are weak vs. which elements or try to figure out whether the status effect spell you just cast was successful based on what color a sprite is. If you equip your party with the proper "sensor weapons", you will even see strategies on how to defeat specific enemies, their HP, and what their weaknesses are. It's the kind of useful information the FF series always used to hide in the background instead of telling you straight up for some reason. There's a good variety of enemies that all have strengths and weaknesses to different members of your party. For instance flying-type monsters need to be taken down by a ranged fighter, while Tidus' sword is effective on smaller more nimble monsters. Still others may be weak to magic spells and require a Mage to defeat. It's a fun, strategic turn-based battle system that will have you rotating your party members in and out in order to try to exploit enemies' weaknesses.

FFX is notable for not having a world map to explore, which is normally a series staple for Final Fantasy. I was afraid this would be too much like FFXIII, a game which I hated for having linear corridor after linear corridor strung together as level design. But you never really get that feeling in FFX. The level design does a good job with divergent paths and interesting things to do and people to talk to in all of the areas to make you forget there's no world map linking everything together. The level design and pacing is pretty good in this game... except for the puzzle solving sections in stupid cloister of trails areas. People who have played this game before know what I'm talking about. Tedious, time wasting puzzles with random arbitrary logic that you have to solve by trial and error. Terrible game design. Whoever put these in the game needs to be smacked upside the head. 

Final Fantasy X also is notable for being the first game in the series that was not exclusively composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu. It was a collaboration between him and some other dudes. It's still a excellent soundtrack, but it sounds different than a lot of the other games in the series, and some of it sounds very un-Final Fantasy to me. Most of the soundtrack has a very electronic and synthesized sound. Still good, just different. Standout tracks include The Main Battle Theme (Nobuo Uematsu),  Rikku's Theme (Nobuo Uematsu), Battle With Seymour (Nobuo Uematsu), Besaid Island (Masashi Hamauzu), and Illusion (Junya Nakano). It's easy to hear each composer's different style and which tracks they contributed to the soundtrack. 

The soundtrack to the HD version was remixed, which I was a little disappointed in. Even though it had been 10 years since I played this game, I have the soundtrack on my phone and listen to it all the time, so some of the remixes were a little jarring to me. The HD remix soundtrack grew on me eventually, some tracks are more subtle and little less "in your face" than the originals and probably more appropriate in certain areas. But at least include the option for me to switch back to the old ones if I want!

Summary:

Overall FFX is a pretty solid game. Solid battle system, excellent soundtrack and good story. Terrible voice acting. I would actually recommend it as a good entry point for newcomers to the series if it weren't for those cutscenes. As it stands though, I'd probably tell Final Fantasy newbies to start with the masterpiece that is FFVII. It's may not be as polished, refined or pretty looking as FFX, but at least it doesn't have this in it.

Final Fantasy V

Squaresoft - 1992 - SNES/PS1/GBA/iOS/Android

See Also My Top 10 Final Fantasy Games List

(Author's note: This review was initially posted on 2/17/2014 and was rewritten on 9/25/2015. You can read the initial review below as a comment)

I have somewhat of a soft spot for old school turn-based JRPGS, and this is one of my favorites. FFV tragically gets overlooked quite a bit because it didn't have an official U.S. release/translation until 1999, seven years after it came out. This is really a shame because I think FFV outshines the other SNES era Final Fantasy games in a lot of ways. I'm sure this is a controversial opinion as debating which games in the Final Fantasy series always tends to get heated, but if you don't believe me and you haven't played this game, you really should.

FFV's story is kind of... ehhh. It's pretty standard template "heroes save the world" writing. Story is not where this game shines, but pretty early in the game, you’ll unlock FFV’s job system. FFV's job system is what sets this game apart from other Final Fantasy titles, for better or for worse. The various jobs are slowly unlocked at key story points as you progress through the game. You initially unlock knight, monk, thief, white mage, black mage and blue mage but will eventually unlock all 21 jobs (25 in the enhanced remake). You can assign any of your 4 party members any job and can reassign them at any time. Changing jobs will affect your character’s stats and what items they're able to equip as well as grant them different abilities to use in battle. Once you master a job’s ability you can carry it over to use with other jobs. This, to me, is where FFV is at its best. Trying to figure out which combinations of jobs and abilities were powerful and which were useless was really fun and rewarding. For instance, combining the Ninja job's "dual wield" ability with the knight class' high innate defense and ability to equip high damage longswords was pretty good if my memory serves. FFV is paced pretty well such that you'll unlock more jobs just as you were mastering previous ones so you always have new combinations and tricks to try out and experiment with. The ending of the game comes right about the time you've mastered enough jobs to be dangerous. Unleashing all of your ridiculous tricks and crazy combinations on the final boss feels like an adequate final exam of your mastery of the job system.

I think FFV is one of Nobuo Uematsu’s first really excellent soundtracks . Not that any that came before were inferior, but FFV really showcases Uematsu's musical range and his ability to create timeless and catchy tunes one right after the other, over and over again. “To the North Mountain”, “Home, Sweet Home" and "Clash on the Big Bridge" are some of my favorite tracks.

Summary:
If you enjoy old school RPGs or are a FF fan who missed out on this game the first time around, you should check this game out. If you don't mind the slower pacing of the turn-based combat, I've found experimenting with FFV's job system while listening to the genius of Uematsu to be a really enjoyable experience

FTL

Subset Games - 2012 - PC

I think FTL is probably my favorite new game I played this year, I absolutely loved this game. FTL is pretty much Star Trek: The videogame, but without the license. You manage the crew and systems of a starship while exploring the galaxy and fighting aliens. The gameplay sessions of FTL are typically short, you play until you die. So depending on your luck, skill, and familiarity with the game, a session can last between 15 minutes to maybe 2 hours.

What kept me playing this game again and again is that everything in a play session is randomized: The layout of the galaxy is different each time, the encounters you’ll experience are different each time, and the weapons and upgrades you’ll get are different each time. Each upgrade you get will likely change your battle strategy and tactics too, so it never feels like you’re doing the same thing over again. Plus completing certain achievements or sidequests in the game can unlock other starships you can use on your next playthrough that have totally different weapons and playstyles, so it kept me coming back for more. It really has some pretty brilliant game design.

FTL is also a fairly difficult game overall. There are currently only two difficulty settings: “easy” and “normal”. I probably would have labeled them “normal” and “hard”, but whatever. My only real knock on this game is that success in FTL can be dependent on which encounters you get, which is somewhat luck based. A few unlucky encounters in a row can be crippling, especially on normal(hard) difficulty. It’s also not that pretty of a game to look at either, but for an indie game made by a team of only two people, that’s to be expected. If you go and watch gameplay footage of FTL on YouTube, you’ll see what I mean.

Summary:
Don’t let its looks scare you off, I found FTL to be an excellent game. I think most gamers can enjoy this game, but I’d highly recommend it to fans of challenging strategy games or fans of Star Trek who’d like to see an actual good Star Trek game. I also hear the creators are releasing a free expansion pack with new weapons, ships and scenarios in the near future, so I’m pumped to play more FTL when that comes out.

FEZ

Polytron Corporation - 2012 - PC/X360

I was so excited to play this game. I preordered it on Steam and played it for hours the day it came out. FEZ is an indie platformer with puzzle solving elements, a retro feel and an emphasis on art style and music. All stuff that I love. But after about the first hour or two, this game’s charm wore off pretty quickly for me. After completing one “world”, FEZ redirects you to kind of a “hub world” where you can explore new pathways that link to other worlds. The problem is after I explored enough pathways, I had to tread back through worlds I’d already been through in order to try to find new pathways. Which is really not that much fun; to repeat sections of a level you've already done two or three times already.

FEZ’s main puzzle solving mechanic is based on the fact that you’re viewing your character in a 2d plane, but you can rotate the camera 90 degrees around your character to reveal that the world actually exists in 3d space. This mechanic had been done before in Super Paper Mario for the Wii, a game I found to be equally disappointing, but I digress. After solving a handful of FEZ’s perspective puzzles, the novelty wore off and all of the puzzles felt same-y. I found it to be just a matter of rotating the camera around and around until I saw a platform or whatever it was that let me get where I was trying to go.

Summary:
I admit that I didn't finish this game, and I hear there’s some cool stuff it does near the end. I’d like to try to go back and finish it, but it seems more like work than fun to me.