PixlBit

I'm glad 2013 is over, and still glad to be tuning into you guys. We all held onto our butts and made it through.

Over the break I bought a variety of games and novels so that I have a small stockpile of things to consume over the next few months, but over the break Spelunky was the only game I was really into. Spelunky gets 2013 GOTY, maybe GOTY for any year ever. I've been thinking out a blog discussing my 5 favorite games from the last generation and I'm pretty sure Spelunky would squeak into that list.

My real GOTY was Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Smarter people than me have elaborated wonderfully the reasons why that game was so profound for many of us, namely Drew Dixon at GameChurch in their GOTY write-up. Brothers is the first game I've played in a long time, maybe ever, that made me feel like the mechanics were essential to the story they were telling. Despite being an action adventure platormer Brothers never felt gamey in the way people often use the term when discussing story driven games. Like, "The Last of Us has such an incredible story, but these gamey parts remind you that you're playing a video game, slap it on easy and plow through to enjoy the better parts..." or "Bioshock Infinite's story is amazing, but you know these gamey parts aren't always hot, you just gotta shoot all the cops and get through to the important stuff..."

The game design and story are so interlinked and dependent on one another that Brothers will remind you that you're playing a video game, but in the best ways possible. Brothers is the perfect example of what games can do that other mediums can't, and it's an incredible show of mechanics being an essential part of a story driven game. I thought the controls were going to be a gimmick and what I found instead was quite enlightening. And all of that says nothing of the great visuals, solid pacing, complete lack of fluff & fat, and the total dedication to a personal story in a strikingly expressive world.

I must be missing something. I bought Brothers for 5 bucks on XBLA after hearing Brad Shoemaker praise it to high heaven. I played it for an hour and felt that the gameplay was completely gimmicky and shallow. In that one hour I had already started seeing repeats in the puzzles which weren't all that interesting to begin with.

I plan on completing it, but it really didn't do much for me. Might be one of those instances of a game being too hyped up.

Talking about AC, I am dying to get out of Havana because so far this game seems identical to my fuzzy memory of the first game.  I gave up on that game midway through because it was far too repetitious.

Yeah, I got out of Havana ASAP. At first I tried to get everything there before moving on, but the game really opens up once you get your ship and have a few battles under your belt.

It's awesome hearing you guys talk about snow. I live in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, which is one of the coldest, and snowiest cities you can live in in the world. It's so brutal, I complain every winter, and wonder why I'm still here haha.

To give you an idea of how cold it gets, sometimes -40 celsius before windchill.. Not sure exact conversion for farenheit, but I do know that -40C is also -40F. deathly cold, literally.

And there's always feet of snow. last year we had snow from november until mid May... normally it's december until early april, but yeah, brutal haha.

It's also noteworthy that with all of this, I've never had a "snow day" or a "cold day", one time buses were even getting stuck everywhere, and I had to shovel my way out of my door, still had to go to work. I wish we had snow days... that's my rant today.