{"id":14800079,"date":"2015-12-31T04:27:04","date_gmt":"2015-12-31T04:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/?p=14800079"},"modified":"2015-12-31T04:28:42","modified_gmt":"2015-12-31T04:28:42","slug":"good-games-of-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/?p=14800079","title":{"rendered":"Good Games of 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

I played some good games in 2015. \u00a0Here’s a couple of the best.<\/p>\n

Life is Strange<\/strong><\/p>\n

Life is Strange<\/em> is, hands down, my game of the year. \u00a0The premise is easily explained\u00a0(My So-Called Life +\u00a0<\/em>mysteries + time travel), but\u00a0the feeling of playing this game is nearly impossible to put into words. \u00a0I write a lot about meaningful decisions<\/i> on this blog, and\u00a0Life is Strange<\/em> is a game designed to make every single decision weighty. \u00a0The game revolves around the feeling of\u00a0decision ownership<\/em>: though you have a lot of power when it comes to making and revising choices, eventually you must own up to the effects of all of your decisions.<\/p>\n

Life is Strange<\/em> works because it spends nearly all of its time on character development. \u00a0The people in\u00a0Life is Strange<\/em>\u00a0are real, and when they suffer\u00a0because of something you did, it hurts. \u00a0
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\"LifeLife is Strange<\/em> is about replaying a moment to see how else it could of come out. \u00a0That’s the central gameplay mechanic: short-term time rewinding. Yet, when I finished it and got one of the two endings, I couldn’t bring myself to go back and get the other. \u00a0I made my choices. \u00a0Now I have to own them.<\/p>\n

Her Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

As regular readers know, I think that\u00a0Silent Hill: Shattered Memories<\/a><\/em> is one of the best games ever made. \u00a0When I heard that the writer\/designer of that seminal title had released an indie murder mystery called\u00a0Her Story<\/em>, the money in my wallet crawled out and made the purchase autonomously.<\/p>\n

Her Story<\/em>\u00a0only has one screen: a ’90s era computer terminal that hosts an aging video database system. You can search through the stored videos by entering keywords. \u00a0All of the videos are clips of a woman giving a statement about the disappearance of her husband. \u00a0It’s up to you to identify clues and decipher what really happened.<\/p>\n

The best mystery\u00a0novels make you feel like you are the detective, tracking the clues and piecing together what happened before the author reveals the truth. \u00a0Her Story<\/em>\u00a0evokes that feeling with incredible craft. \u00a0Satisfaction comes not from reaching the end and finding out what happened, but ending the game when\u00a0you reach the point that you are confident in your own theory.<\/p>\n

That’s all I’m going to tell you about\u00a0Her Story.<\/em> \u00a0The rest is up to you.<\/p>\n

SOMA<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can’t tell you about SOMA without ruining it. \u00a0You need to play it. \u00a0You need to finish it.<\/p>\n

When you’re done, go back and read Thomas Grip’s blog on horror games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Other really good games I played this year:\u00a0Metal Gear Solid V, Splatoon, TIS-100. \u00a0<\/em>Add to that titles I really want to play but haven’t yet (Until Dawn, Galak-Z, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Fatal Frame 5, The Room Three, Fallout 4, Among the Sleep, etc)<\/em>, and 2015 seems like a pretty good year. \u00a0Here’s to the next one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I played some good games in 2015. \u00a0Here’s a couple of the best. Life is Strange Life is Strange is, hands down, my game of the year. \u00a0The premise is easily explained\u00a0(My So-Called Life +\u00a0mysteries + time travel), but\u00a0the feeling of playing this game is nearly impossible to put into words. \u00a0I write a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14800079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14800079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14800079"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14800079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14800082,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14800079\/revisions\/14800082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14800079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14800079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horror.dreamdawn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14800079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}