Four human players team up to take on a monster – also played by another player. That's the simple version of Evolve, a mainly multiplayer online game developed by the team that created the superlative squad horror series Left 4 Dead. It's a great idea – but is let down in execution, so far.
SANDSTORM
There's nothing worse than waking up in the desert in the middle of a raging sandstorm with all your belongings scattered and your camel gone walkabout. Thank you then Daniel Linssen for creating a game where you can simulate this experience again and again. From such an unappealing prospect however comes a contemplative little gem from this game designer whose previous track record is in cerebral puzzlers and platformers, not slow and atmospheric adventure games.
High school – lockers, cliques, jocks. Do these things really even exist? Like Downton Abbey for American viewers, "high school" for non-Americans is a set of abstracted tropes, with most of us unable to tell how close or far from reality they are. Here they're played out to full effect in this tale of an emo girl who suddenly finds herself with time-rewinding powers.
The recent glut of reboots, remasters and HD updates for classic videogames is not a sign of a fatigued industry, out of imagination. One of the biggest issues with videogames and the rapid evolution of the the gadgets and consoles they play on, is that all too often gamers are left unable to play a game five years old, let alone over fifteen years old.
As a genre, the "Match 3" puzzle game seems like a sort of evolutionary dead end. You can gussy it up with dramatic sound effects and sparkling animations all you want but ultimately it is still Candy Crush under there. Bear Winter takes a slightly different tack. Rather than letting you match more tiles for combos or adding powerups and special effects, developers Nevercenter have pared the gameplay down to a 3x3 grid on the one hand and added a light tactical and resource management element on the other.
Ever wondered what would happen if a bunch of architects, prop-makers, fine artists, musicians and animators got together and decided to make a computer game? Well, if you’ve played any of the games created by State of Play, particularly Lume, then you’ll know the answer to that. You’ll also be as chuffed as I am that they have released a sequel to the aforementioned, and it’s every bit as exquisite as the first.
It's an exciting time to be a videogamer – the mix of big budget and independent titles, the opportunities increasingly offered by a wider variety of devices and streaming content, the sheer processing power developers have to work with. But what does emerge from this list is a lack of innovation in terms of enemy intelligence, emotional depth or narrative complexity. Perhaps we'll have to wait for 2016 for those…
Game of Thrones
The videogames industry is rapidly changing. Many of the best and biggest games of the last few years have come from tiny, independent studios – we're back to the days of bedroom coders and quirky ideas. But that doesn't mean there haven't been worthy big budget "AAA" traditional titles.
Alien Isolation
The best games of 2014 were often to be found not from the "AAA" videogame equivalents to Hollywood, but, of course, bedroom coders and small, independent teams. These are the best of the wild and weird "indie" games of the year…
Minecraft Pocket Edition
Telltale Games has pioneered the 'box set' model of gaming with their hit episodic adventures based in the Walking Dead universe as well as The Wolf Among Us, set in the modern fairytale world of the Fables comics. Telltale's long-awaited Game of Thrones licence has now launched on multiple platforms. Does their signature blend of multiple choices and moral dilemmas lend itself to George RR Martin's brutal fantasy world?