Man. I never realized how much of a an amazing year that was.

Is it possible that it was eclipsed by Arizona Dream somehow? Of course, the similarities are somewhat superficial, but still: two movies by European directors set before the backdrop of rural America, pairing Depp with a group of oddball characters, coming out in the very same year… that most be a hard sell. And…

They have a chain of bakeries called "Paris Baguette".
I have visited a lot of them. Not one of them sold baguette. Not even one.

Not exactly what you're thinking of, but there are at least two games called Second Person Shooter that are what it says on the label. One of them s still on Kongegrate. The other one is older, and was made in the context of an art project, but I can't actually remember much about it.

You could maybe argue that Spy Party does this. Granted, from one player's perspective it's more about convincingly melding into an AI controlled crowd, but for the other player, it's basically "I have only one shot, literally, at this, and I have to think very, very carefully where I aim my gun".

That I can get behind wholeheartedly. Thanks for your reply! (And the link. I'll check it out later today.)

I don't know if I would follow you in the assumption that "first person perspective = more immersive". It strikes me as a bit too close to the equally problematic idea that "more realism = more immersion".

Oh, I basically have all the Valve games out there (except for Ricochet), thanks to bundles of the kind you mentioned. I was more thinking of how Valve reeeeeeeaaaally take their time when it comes to release new games.

Wasn't everybody a bit in love with the writing of The Talos Principle, too? Also, somebody has already mentioned 80 Days — a very interesting case, because I could never imagine a text-based game getting nominated for an award like this, which is both understandable and frankly strange. (But it seems like the game…

The amount of care they put into the writing of the Left 4 Dead games is also admirable. Those games would have been perfectly fine with the most generic of grunts and zombie lore. But they wrote characters, some of which have proper arcs. It makes the games just that bit greater. (Also, it makes me sad for not having…

Derrick, you skipped over one aspect that I thought was at the heart of the game: the integration of social mechanics. If I understood correctly, it's not only about writing, but also about reading what other people have come up with. It's easy to see how this could go wrong (the verbal equivalent of a giant penis in M…

To The Moon is actually quite short, about 4 hours should be enough. As somebody who increasingly sorts his backlog by how short the games are, I would definitely recommend starting there.

To be fair, what we have seen so far of at least one of the mockingly linked projects in the article has turned out pretty damn well (talking about the Silent Hills teaser). That man still has it. Even though it's really hard to tell what it might actually turn out to be.

I'm slightly, but only slightly disappointed to see that there is an actual Ticket to Ride: Switzerland boardgame. I actually thought you were referring to a game of a similar spirit that a friend of mine and I have been playing whenever we have to wait around in a train station.

And even that's an understatement. He and his pal Goethe are basically the German-language combo-pendant to Shakespeare.

Thirty Flights of Loving or its free predecessor Gravity Bone could be interesting. They are short enough that they can be seen through in the 2h that the students are supposed to be playing (which in such a scenario can only be an advantage, anyway — you will have to focus your discussion, which is always easier when…

Part of what made Portal puzzles so illuminating was that they
allowed for a degree of improvisation.

I'm always spending Christmas at my parent's home, which means mostly frolicking in the snow or hanging around family and drinking too much. Gaming is not really for daytime, and it's not a social thing to do around here, so I only have the evenings… since I usually don't take a gaming device with me, I'm limited to…

I don't know how much the "indie treshold" is an obstacle for you guys, but one of the more pleasing developments of recent time has actually been the resurgence of local multiplayer games. You know, games like Sportfriends, Broforce, Mount Your Friends, Nidhogg, Towerfall or Samurai Gunn — all of them are basically…

I was thinking the same, but then again I hate the thought of gaming this particular system. (I already felt awful for maxing out both Yukari's and Mitsuru's social link — seems like Japanese teenagers are way more at ease with polygamy than I am. I really hope that Persona 5 will keep 4's option to be close to a girl…