Well it’s nearly the end of the year, and no gaming blog
would be complete without a set of awards to give out. So without further ado,
the Best Indie Game award!
This year I’ve found myself playing more indie titles than
ever before. Part in thanks to Kickstarter giving a new funding source to
budding developers, and part to the greater recognition indie titles are
receiving in the mainstream gaming media. It wasn’t an easy decision as I’ve
enjoyed all three games in this list, sinking may hours into them all. The
runners up are:
Endless Space! Amplitude studious set themselves the lofty
goal of making the best strategy games and Endless Space was an impressive
first release. They took the strategy 4x sub-genre and axed the complexity
leaving a highly streamlined game. A brave move when these games are defined by
having an instruction book longer than a short novel.
The end result was a stylistic sci-fi world which you could
dip into briefly and get a lot of enjoyment. Ship design and combat is too simplistic
which is the game’s only negative point. But some nuance is added by the
tactics system. Correctly predict your opponent’s strategy and pick the counter
move gives you a powerful advantage. Enough to overturn a tech advantage, which
allows players to explore different avenues within the tech tree, without
having to keep a constant focus on war. Since its launch, Endless Space has had
some free bonus content added, including the option to create your own space
fairing race. Tailoring a faction to your preferences is good fun, but there
are some combinations which are a bit unbalanced.
The second runner up is Legend of Grimrock! This game
revived a genre that had been dormant for many years. And I’m glad it did as it
introduced me Dungeon Crawlers, a category of games I would have completely
missed out on otherwise.
Adventuring through the depths of Grimrock with your rag-tag
bunch of four criminals is both tense and satisfying. Puzzles are everywhere
and they’ll test you. There are many that you have to solve to progress and
even more that are hidden, guarding the game’s greatest treasures. The game is
well thought out as out of the hundred or so puzzles, I found only a few that
completely confused me. The vast majority follow good logic, so with a bit of
patience, you should not find your progress impeded at any point.
Combat was surprisingly tense throughout the game.
Screenshots don’t really do the game any justice, as they can’t explain the
feel of the grid based system. Moving around is simple with a few direction
keys, leaving the mouse free to active your fighting abilities on your
character portraits. You often hear enemies before they reach you, building the
suspense as some horror stumbles out of the darkness. When the enemy is in
sight, you engage in a ballroom dance of death. Gliding around the tiles,
trying to land attacks on your foe before neatly side-stepping away.
The story is the driving force of the game, leading you deeper
into the depths of the mountain with the promise of freedom for staying alive.
How long the game takes to complete depends on how many of the secrets you try
to find. It should give most people a good ten to fifteen hours for their first
play-through. Unfortunately there is only one dungeon created by the developers
to explore. There is now a dungeon editor, so the game content possibilities
are endless, but the quality may well not be the same as the main game.
So who is the winner of the first BIG award!?
It’s Faster Than Light! This stylish rogue-like has really
captured my attention this year, and kicked my arse whilst doing so. You play
the part of a Federation scout ship on a mission to deliver critical information
on the Rebel fleet. Your journey takes you through varied and random systems as
you try and escape the pursuing Rebels.
Each time you jump to the next system you encounter new
hazards: derelict ships, asteroid fields, nebulae and pirates. If you survive
the perils of space, you salvage parts to improve your own chances. Upgrades
for your ship include new crew members and more powerful weapons. The further
you progress, the higher the stakes become. You’ll need to develop clever
strategies in order to take down ships that are much larger than yourself.
FTL’s presentation is a fantastic combination of excellent
two-dimensional sprites and animations. You quickly forget that your ship is
static in the centre of the screen. When combat starts, missiles and laser fire
starts flying. You have to manage your weapon systems to do the maximum damage
to the enemy whilst putting out fires and patching up holes in the hull. The
whole game is accompanied by an excellent sound track that captures both the
emptiness of space and the franticness of combat.
With plenty of achievements and ships to unlock, FTL has an
excellent amount of replay-ability. Combined with its price point, FTL is
excellent value for money, and this makes it the winner of the first BIG award!
