Best Gameplay Trailer That Wasn’t Actual Gameplay:Â Aliens Colonial Marines
Peter: Holy shit you guys, did you see that ten minute Aliens: Colonial Marines gameplay footage from E3? I think they might finally have made an Aliens game with some of the mood and atmosphere of the original couple of movies. Randy Pitchford was right, Gearbox really has been studying the source material and taken care with the license. Wow, this might be a decent game after a … oh, it was all just lies. The game is actually this.
Greatest Communist Disappearing Act: Deadfall Adventures
Peter: Picture a man and woman in a small, locked room. Both doors are barricaded with immovable boxes, and the only entrance appears to be a skylight on the roof. A second man enters through this skylight and speaks with the woman. The first man has vanished. Where did he go? It’s a magic trick worthy of floppy-haired Alan Davies character Jonathan Creek, but one that sadly lacks any kind of pay-off. When Deadfall Adventures protagonist James Quatermain elaborately frees detective Jennifer Goodwin from the clutches of a dastardly Red Army Commandant, the elusive Russian simply disappears. He comes back later, but doesn’t bother to explain what kind of mystical powers he employed to escape the room. Incredible illusion, or hilarious cut-scene error in a budget title? Either way, it’s the best Communist disappearing act since Stalin’s retreat to his dacha in 1941.
Tim: I’m pretty sure that the disappearance of KGB and FSB files around the time the Berlin Wall came down and the USSR started to crumble is probably a greater Communist disappearing act. Or maybe the Killing Fields. Or what happened to political dissidents under Stalin’s regime. Or… oh. Those weren’t 2013, I suppose. Okay, fine: Deadfall Adventures wins this one.
Best Porno Game of the Year: Seduce Me
Tim: Yes, okay, I gave Seduce Me a whopping 3/10. On the plus side, it looked utterly stunning, and (personal kinks being what they are) I’m sure someone found it to be erotically charged. I can also say, with complete and total honesty, that I haven’t had as much fun censoring screenshots all year.
Worst Porno Game of the Year: Seduce Me
Tim: Of course, “best porno game of the year” is a category roughly akin to “Best STD”, insofar as – while there’s a chance one will come along that will heighten sexual pleasure – most of them just make you feel itchy, sick, and ashamed. I gave it 3/10 for a reason, and a big part of that reason was that the actual “game” element of it was a series of luck-based card games with little to no scope for strategy. It wasn’t very good.
Only Porno Game We Reviewed This Year: Seduce Me
Tim: Mind you, we didn’t actually play any other erotic games this year, so it kinda wins both of the above categories by default.
Peter: Not quite true, we reviewed SimCity. I’m pretty sure everybody who bought that got fucked.
Tim: Wait. Does this mean Seduce Me has won more awards than any other game?
Award for Winning the Most Alternative Awards: Seduce Me
Tim: Shit.
Peter: STOP GIVING AWARDS TO SEDUCE ME.
Best In-Game Science Essay of All Time: Gone Home
Peter: There’s a bit in Gone Home where you find one of your (that is to say, protagonist Kaitlin’s) old biology assignments. It’s the usual stuff about putting the stages of fertilisation into the correct sequence, and it’s clear that you’ve gone about it in the most utilitarian way possible earning yourself a respectable grade in the process. You can also find you sister Sam’s version of the very same assignment (in typical teaching style, this stuff is being recycled for new classes.) It is by no means utilitarian. It is a masterpiece of science essay subversion, in which the process of fertilisation is interwoven with the melodramatic and piss-taking tale of two ill-fated lovers torn apart by war. “See me,” it says in it in bright red marker pen. The mark of a teacher unimpressed by the anarchic charm on display. Right there, you learn about exactly what types of character you and your sister are.
Best Game We Refuse to Play After 5pm: Outlast
Tim: For the record, this award is not much of an exaggeration. I played quite a lot of Outlast earlier this year (and recorded the first hour or so of it, for the benefit of sadists) and very quickly learned that playing this after it got dark – or when it’s about to get dark – is a suicidally stupid idea. I’ve said before that I’m a gigantic coward so it’s perhaps no surprise that Outlast scared the living shit out of me, and playing it at night in pitch-black surroundings was a mistake I only made once. If you’ve just spent a tortured 30 minutes running and hiding from a psychopathic doctor with a pair of shears and a desire to cut you up, you do not want to be roaming through the dark hallways of your house to get a drink. You will hear an inexplicable creaking sound, and you will spend the next half hour curled up under the dining room table, whimpering like a child. At least, I did.
Best Game That Where the Fuck is Episode 2: The Wolf Among Us
Tim: Look, Telltale, I’m happy for your success. I’m glad everyone loves you, and I’m thrilled that you’ve snared the Game of Thrones and Borderlands licenses. And hey, The Walking Dead Season 2! Pretty much everyone seems overjoyed about that! Now could you please give us Episode 2 of The Wolf Among Us? I mean, historically you’ve released new episodes of your titles every month or two. The Wolf Among Us was released in October, and now it’s 2014 and we still don’t have Episode 2. Maybe you can finish this one before Game of Thrones and Borderlands and so on? Maybe you shouldn’t take on this many projects at once if this makes it harder for you to release things promptly? Maybe you shouldn’t release the first episode for free on Xbox LIVE when it’s the only episode out, which sorta makes those of us who actually paid for the entire season in advance feel very stupid and under appreciated? So yeah, Episode 2 would be great. Thanks, guys.
Peter: I got that free episode, and then I bought the full ‘season’ when it was discounted later in the week. What I’m saying is, Telltale operate like drug-pushers and I’d like The Wolf Among Us Episode 2, please. I keep sweating and shivering uncontrollably and it’s weird.
Published: Jan 1, 2014 01:29 pm