Questions surrounding the portrayal of women in games, and the treatment of women in the games industry, have been with us throughout the year. Encouragingly, the resulting discussion, and events like #1reasonwhy, managed to rise above the vomitous whirlpool of anonymous abuse that characterises lowest dregs of internet discourse (which exist far away from here, of course). The issue is here to stay.

With that in mind we decided to take a look back across the year and celebrate the games that have done a good job of intelligently portraying a broad range of characters in terms of gender, race and sexuality. I'm happy to deliver an official PC Gamer fist-bump to Telltale games for their work on The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead derives its dramatic momentum from the frictions that spark among its diverse cast members. It succeeds not because it brings together such an interesting group of human beings, but because it simultaneously elevates them above the race and gender cliches that, under the pens of a less thoughtful writing team, could easily come to define them.

In The Walking Dead we meet men and women, young and old, black and white, cowardly and proud, angry and mistrustful. Every trait is a feature of each character's personality, not a direct symptom of their race, gender education or background. In Lee Everett we have a rare example of an african american main character. He's a professor. He's a killer. Kenny is from the deep south but he's not a hick. Young Clementine is vulnerable, but intelligent and independent. In a medium where lazy characterisation based on race and gender is the norm, The Walking Dead represents a breath of cool air. Every character resists cliche. The result is one of the most engrossing and surprising stories of the year.

Props go out, too, to Mass Effect 3. A close runner up. Bioware have gathered a fine team of interesting and capable women, men, androids and space toads for the glorious finale and for the first time in the series they introduced fully written same-sex relationships. The writers blogged about it too.

"I’m fortunate to have gay and lesbian friends at BioWare who were willing to take a look at Traynor for me and help me edit a few bad lines that played into negative stereotypes. As for the fans, the reaction has been very positive so far – I think the nicest thing I’ve heard was, “I think I’ve actually had that conversation in real life," said writer Patrick Weekes.

BONUS AWARD: Most adroit three point turn out of the mindset and values of the 21st century - Hitman Absolution

The fact there have been so many gender-related gaming scandals this year may be a good thing: in previous years these sorts of things have gone largely without comment or complaint. This year’s cavalcade of calumny is proof, at least, that there is an increasing will to change things.

Change things like, say, a game trailer in which the male protagonist brutally murders a host of sexy BDSM nuns in graphic slow-motion. Or the atmosphere of an industry in which women are routinely patronised or abused as evidenced by the #1ReasonWhy Twitter movement. Or games in which female characters appear only to be objectified or killed. Take Black Ops 2’s cast of speaking roles for women, for instance: one (“probably some whore”) gets burnt alive and then blown up with a grenade. Another gets her throat cut (though, in fairness, this can be avoided through the game’s branching paths). The third is a pilot - promising! - although she gets shot out of the sky and our character jumps in and is able to fly the plane with no prior experience.

The longest, loudest facepalm of the year was triggered by the sight of Hitman: Absolution's rubberised nunssassins, and the Facebook campaign that invited friends to order Facebook "hits" on girls for having “awful make-up," "strange odour" and "small tits," and on guys for having a "hairy back," a "big gut" or a "small penis," which at least gave men and women equal opportunites to offend one another. The Facebook campaign was quickly pulled. Hopefully we'll see less of its like next year, and all the years beyond.

Review by Rick Lane

Sword of the Stars II was released last year in such a shockingly unfinished state that the developers issued a public apology. Thirteen months later, and this ambitious 4X space game has been allowed to boldly go for a second time. Sadly, while the bugs are (mostly) fixed, the game remains deeply frustrating.

You start off by choosing from a variety of finite 3D galaxy maps to conquer, and one of seven races to play as. Each race is unique in the way it moves around the map, and its particular strategic strengths. The avian Morrigi specialise in trade, and have ships that move faster through space when grouped in large fleets. By comparison, Enhanced Edition newcomers the Loa are a race of sentient AIs that build sequences of relays between stars to speed up their movement, and use nanotechnology to pool their ships, rebuilding and adapting them as required.

Play alternates between the turn-based galaxy map and real-time battles, and there is a range of victory conditions, including last-man-standing and conquering a certain percentage of the map. However you play, the basic game is the same.



Fleet movement is separated into missions that can be assigned to individual fleets. Survey missions reveal any habitable planets in a solar system, and how expensive terraforming one with a colonisation fleet will be. Once a colony is built its population and income will increase, and you can also send construction fleets to build space stations around them, from naval outposts that defend planets and expand the range of fleets to civilian orbitals that enable trade and diplomacy.

When opposing factions are encountered, you can send fleets to battle in single-turn ‘Strike’ or longer ‘Invasion’ missions. During battles, a more conventional RTS control system is adopted – left-click to select ships and right-click to move and attack. Ships can also spin and roll to either avoid enemy fire or take hits in less damaged areas.

On top of all this is an extensive, semi-randomised tech tree to be researched, and the capability to design your own ships, all of which sounds very enticing. And it would be, except these systems appear designed to make the game as slow and unintuitive as possible.



It sorely lacks a comprehensive, playable tutorial, and the UI is more difficult to navigate than an asteroid field: menus upon menus with tiny, illogically placed buttons. It took me half an hour to figure out how to place a space station near a planet.

When do you crack through the game’s outer shell, the resultant experience is inflexible and grating. The mission system is completely arbitrary, severely hindering the game’s strategic potential. You can’t combine a survey/colonisation mission, or change a fleet’s course to respond to an enemy invasion. You can’t react on the fly: everything must be done separately with no room to change your mind, and it slows the game to a crawl.

Battles meanwhile are limited to a maximum of 12 minutes, which initially sounds like a smart idea, but means many conflicts end in a draw. It’s also selective in the information it provides you with: damage, for example, is indicated on your ship but not on the enemy’s. Oh, and the button for rotating the camera during battles also controls ship movement. Imagine if humans moved their legs by blinking: it’s that counterintuitive, and that annoying.

Kerberos have had a year to get this shipshape, but aside from a few patches over holes, Sword of the Stars II is the same ponderous vessel.



Expect to pay: $25 / £15
Release: Out now
Developer: Kerberos Productions
Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Multiplayer: Yes
Link: www.swordofthestars.com

Nothing cool lasts forever. When Shogo ($2.99 on GOG) first landed in 1998, it was in a world where anime was finally making a splash in the West. The likes of Ghost in the Shelland Neon Genesis Evangelion were becoming geek household names, making it not just acceptable but (almost) cool to watch cartoons full of blood and nudity, with episode names like “GIVE UP! But Just Before We Do, The Sure Kill Sword Appears!”

In retrospect, Shogo is a slightly toe-curling snapshot of that early excitement. Like so much of the anime world, it seemed exotic and authentic at the time, when not many of us had seen much of it. Seeing it through more experienced eyes now, Shogo’s take on Japanese mecha feels heavy-handed, clichéd, and obvious; like a tourist visiting Germany and immediately investing in a pair of lederhosen and a beer stein to fit in with the locals. Japanese names? Check. Japanese intro song? Check, and one that’s ironically very inappropriately appropriate, in the spirit of the time. Authentic Japanese feel? Not even close, from the bad English-dubbed dialog to the way main character Sanjuro’s base houses a ridiculous collection of shout-outs thrown in to prove the designers’ love of the genre. There’s a sexy girl poster on his wall with a “CURV” logo ripped straight from Evangelion. His (unseen) fellow officers include Patlabor’s Noa Izumi and Macross’ Isamu Dyson. Like so much else, this was cool at the time. Now? Kinda cheap.

KAWAII! SUGOI! YURUSENAI!
 


Cheap also describes the general feel of the game. Shogo was the first outing of Monolith’s Lithtech engine, which would go on to power the amazing No One Lives Forever, as well as Blood 2. Most of the design problems are unsurprising for 1998, including big, largely featureless levels, low-polygon models that make everyone look like they’ve been stamped in the face with a shovel, and no real way for the characters to express themselves beyond facing each other and waving their arms while audio files play. On release, Shogo's focus on storytelling and character dialog was still pretty refreshing though, spoiled only by Half-Life and (to a lesser extent) SiN rewriting the rule book.

GANBATTE! IRRASHAIMASE!
 


Its central gimmick remains cool though, and ripe for ripping off. Throughout, you regularly swap between traditional FPS action on foot, and running around in a giant mecha to really cut loose and blow stuff up. Say what you will about the big, hulking battle-tanks of games like MechWarriorand Starsiege, there’s something great about the Japanese “physical extension of the pilot” variety, which offer the perfect mix of speed, power and sleek design. Shogois no exception, giving you insane firepower and all the explosions its early particle system can handle. Rockets? Boom. Giant robots? Boom. Parked cars? Boom.

Oddly, though, even in the mecha stages where you’re high above the streets shooting at enemies who exist solely to be crushed underfoot, the experience feels more like running around a model town than actually being a giant. This is partially because there isn't a lot of stuff in the environment to provide a sense of scale, but the problem is mostly the speed of the action. Whether on foot or in your robot, you blitz around at roughly half the speed of light, and the feel of the combat is oddly unchanged. Both you and most of the mechs you face are spectacularly fragile, to the point that being on-foot is far from the killer disadvantage you’d expect, and you rarely get to savor the feeling of actually being a giant death machine. Most of this is more apparent in retrospect than it was at the time, and none of it stopped Shogo from developing a cult following that would still love to see a sequel. No argument there.



Despite a comeback from MechWarrior and the introduction of newcomer Hawken, It’s amazing how few mech games we’ve seen in the last few years now that technology is finally powerful enough to render awesomely destructible cities instead of a few boxes and empty planes. The industry decided that nobody cared any more, even when one look at a Wanzer, an Aestivalis, or any other cool giant robot should be enough to explain why a whole generation would kill to go stomp around Tokyo.

For its part, Monolith was going to continue the Shogo story with expansions, but delays and mediocre sales resulted in it bouncing around several genres in search of a hit before finally striking it big with F.E.A.R.and Condemned. Even so, references in later games still show a fondness for Shogo, so there must be someone in the company who’d love to have a second crack at it. As long as it doesn't get in the way of No One Lives Forever 3, who could complain about more stompy robots?

I knew the moment the tide had turned. It was 15 hours into my first XCOM: Enemy Unknown campaign, and I’d just outfitted my squad’s psychic soldier with psi armour. I’d only discovered Major Tom’s latent mindbending abilities a few missions before, but he’d already proved himself a devastating anti-alien defence in the field. Kitted out in this gear, he was near unstoppable.

Earlier in the game, I’d hung back. I’d waited it out, luring aliens into laser crossfire, overlapping vision cones and overwatch orders, patiently, eventually clearing out XCOM’s alien infestations. Now, I could sprint psychic Tom out into the open, call out those unknown enemies in droves, and melt their puny brains. I revelled in it. I started talking at the screen. “You think you can run, you horrible bug? I’ll make you eat your friends. I’ll make you stand in the open, rip your disgusting body open with hot plasma. I’ll make you die. I’ll make all of you die.” Then I’d start cackling.

I’d invented a fiction. My soldiers were my action figures, I’d made them run and hide and shoot and watch their friends die, and I imbued them with the heroism and pathos of those events. Graham Smith had been impetuous and aggressive. He died when he strayed too close to a burning – later exploding – car. Owen Hill, once carefree and cheerful, was calcified by his death. He became a dead-eye sniper, silent and stoic, and able to lance a Muton through the eyes with a snapshot from half a map away.

Marsh Davies was relentlessly helpful. My team medic never missed a mission, and reinvigorated everyone else when their resolve slipped or their blood drained out. He never once panicked. Richard Cobbett was insane: a close-range monster, he’d hurtle into combat, heavy alloy cannon acting as far-future shotgun and drawing enemies out for easy shooting. He somehow survived the entire campaign.

Until the turning point, I imagined my women and men daunted by the task of saving humanity. After, with the psychic in their midst, I imagined them standing in XCOM’s home base, grinning. They had it in the bag. They were too powerful, too well-equipped, knew too much about their enemy. Enemy known, now.

I’d led them all the way, but I didn’t feel like it was my victory. It was theirs as much as mine. These action figures were alive. XCOM: Enemy Unknown seduces players with attachment, making you know and care for your soldiers. When they die, a tiny part of me dies. Sometimes they live. I love it when they live.
Without that attachment, XCOM is merely a mechanically superb turn-based strategy game that I’d suggest everyone plays. With it, XCOM elevates itself even further, forging player memories that’ll live as long as you play and care about games.

Read More: XCOM review.

Runners Up: FTL, Sins of a Solar Empire.

Remember the past? When everyone swanned around wearing ruffs and eating Werther's Originals? And there was children's telly. Proper children's telly, and videogames. Like arcades, but smaller, in your living room going "bleep" and "bloop." Brilliant, right? Like Gauntlet! I know if you think about it for a minute it seems like a punishing game built around exploitative mechanics designed to suck pocket money out of arcade kids' pockets, but "warrior needs food badly" remember? Brilliant. Elite! Dizzy! Populous! BRILLIANT.

Give me fifty dollars, and I can bring it all back for you.

Throw in an extra ten and I'll give you a T-shirt with a logo on or something. Just some tat, like there was tat back then. Because nobody's learned anything about game design in the last twenty years. With your help we can turn this Delorean around. Who needs progress? We're making something old school.

Yes, to all outside appearances Kickstarter might look like a fertile place for new innovative ideas to gain recognition and much needed financial support, but it turns out nostalgia is much easier to monetise. And I know a million dollars might seem like a lot, especially considering the fact we don't have a tech demo, or any art, or a proper name, or proposed mechanics. But just imagine a game in your head. An old one that has demons and goblins or spaceships or something. Yes! That's it. What you're seeing. That's what we're making, plus a second game maybe.

All I need are your bank details. And any cash you have on you. And your shoes. And that's a nice watch. Keep it coming...

Runners up: "Judy Garland Told Me to in a Dream", "I Trust Anybody with a Firm Handshake"

With Codemasters increasingly using the Dirt series as a platform to explore their gymkhana obsession, the field has been left open for a proper rally game to come in and nab its populist crown. WRC3 may be wearing the official FIA licence, but it’s not that game.

While there isn’t a pirouetting Peugeot to be seen, it’s still too hopelessly enamoured with Dirt to break out in its own direction. Consider the evidence: a limited rewind that lets you course-correct crashes and mistakes? Check. Frequent special events containing foam barriers that must be smashed? Oh yes. There’s even hilariously out- of-place dubstep backing the menus.

At least WRC3 is primarily about rallying. The WRC mode is no-frills racing that lets you queue-up stages from the competition as either single races or a full season championship. And while the Road to Glory career mode does make occasional forays into minigame distractions, you won’t get near them without acquiring a firm grasp on how to handbrake through gravel first. But in positioning itself so near to such a refined and polished series, WRC3’s issues come into sharp focus.



The career progression is one such misstep. In Road to Glory, you’re awarded stars based on your performance in each race, unlocking new vehicles, courses and upgrades. The majority of the total is decided by your position, but each stage reserves three potential stars for ‘Ability’. This confused rating highlights WRC3’s hesitance to commit to either serious simming or casual fun. Points are awarded for clean runs and other displays of skill, but also for smashing barriers and driving on two wheels.

There are other problems. Your co-driver, who has the clipped, monotonous voice of a WWII era radio announcer (despite whatever nationality or gender you pick for him), and fires out instructions in a way that’s nearly impossible to follow. Or there’s the upgrade system, which is devoid of any choice or tactical thinking. Kit 4 is numerically better than Kit 3, so you’d be foolish not to install it. All minor issues, but they start to add up.



What isn’t minor is the lack of feedback from the car handling. There’s no sense that you’re wrestling these machines across improbable terrain. It’s worse on some surfaces than others – driving on tarmac in particular feels like taking a holiday from physics. You do get use to these shortcomings, but the lack of weight sensation or variation in an engine’s sound creates a flatly sterile experience.

It’s such a waste because, thanks to the official licence, the game is filled with wonderfully difficult courses. Each is full of hairpins, chicanes and really technical, challenging sectors. They’d be an absolute thrill to race on if they weren’t trapped in such an otherwise unexceptional game.

Expect to pay: $30 / £20
Release: Out now
Developer: Milestone
Publisher: In-house
Multiplayer: Up to 16 players
Link: www.wrcthegame.com

Having retired from world-saving heroics, Christopher Livingston is living the simple life in video games by playing a series of down-to-earth simulations. This week he’s managing a new coffee stand business while trying to maintain a healthy relationship with his simulated daughter.

In Cart Life, a "retail simulation" game, I've been busy all week trying to get my new coffee stand up and running. It's been a real chore: the woman who is going to build my coffee stand told me on Monday that I needed to get a business permit first. I wasted Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning just waiting in the permit office for the chance to buy the permit. Tuesday afternoon I revisited the coffee stand builder, who then told me I needed to buy an espresso maker before she could build the stand, since the espresso maker needed to be part of the stand construction.

Now it's Wednesday morning, and I'm shopping for the espresso maker, as well as beverage supplies: coffee, tea, milk, chocolate, flavoring, sugar, and cups. In the midst of my shopping trip, my cell phone bleeps a reminder: I have to attend a custody hearing. I drop what I'm doing and rush over to the courthouse in a cab to meet with a judge and my ex-husband. We're going to discuss the custody of my young daughter, Laura, who is currently living with me in my sister's house, since I lost my job and my home when I divorced my husband.

Maybe it's now clear why I put "retail simulation" in quotes earlier. Cart Life does present you with a retail simulation, but it has plenty, plenty more.

Quick note: there are some story spoilers to follow. I do want to at least remain vague about the outcome of certain situations, but I also want to discuss the situations themselves. Proceed with caution, and if in doubt, just download and play the game first.

So! In addition to trying to get my coffee stand business running to prove to the judge that I'm capable of financially supporting my daughter, I also need to emotionally support my daughter: I walk her to school in the morning and back home in the afternoon, which gives us time to talk. Unfortunately, spending time with Laura in the morning and afternoon means I can't spend as much time as I'd like to get my business running: the very reason I had to leave the permit office early on Monday was to get to Laura's school in time to walk her home. In other words, the main obstacle in my mission to provide for Laura is Laura herself, which is sort of an odd and uncomfortable thing to consider.



And now, I have to cut my shopping trip short to go meet with the judge and my ex-husband. Once again, my retail business takes a hit while I attend to my personal life. I arrive a little late and apologize to the judge, who seems understanding. I explain my business is not yet off the ground, and again, the judge is understanding. The judge suggests we meet again on Monday, giving me a little more time to get my business running. Again, very understanding! Suspiciously understanding. The kind of understanding that feels almost condescending. I immediately don't like this judge.

The judge then wonders if maybe Laura should spend the rest of the week with my ex-husband. My ex thinks that's a splendid idea as well. Wouldn't that be helpful? Wouldn't that give me more time to work on my business? Wasn't that sort of what I myself was just thinking, that having to attend to Laura in the mornings and afternoons was seriously biting into my time, and making it much harder to get my business up and running?

And yet, I can't feel anything but anger and resentment at the judge and my ex. Did they work out this little arrangement in advance while I was running late? Did these two men put their stupid balding heads together and decide what was best for me and my daughter before I arrived? It's hard not to notice that the game has even positioned me between the two of them, making me feel surrounded, blocked in, ambushed and trapped.



I'm angry at myself for spending the morning thinking that it would really help if Laura was off my hands for a few days, and yet I'm angry at these two for suggesting that it would really help if Laura was off my hands for a few days. I resent the suggestion that I need help, I resent the fact that I actually do need help, and I'm even a little resentful toward Laura, who is the reason I need help. It's a very complex and confusing series of emotions, especially considering that I'm playing a game that, remember, simply describes itself as a "retail simulation."

In fact, let's leave the personal chaos for a moment (I don't want to spoil the outcome of this meeting) and actually talk about the retail portion of the game. It might seem that with all the suspicion, confusion, anger, guilt, and other complicated feelings Cart Life can bring out of you, the retail experience itself might be a little lacking. Nope! It's actually quite complex and engaging. It's Friday morning when I finally get my coffee stand opened, and customers immediately begin to arrive.



Some beverages, like plain coffee or milk, require you to type a phrase quickly and accurately. The more complicated beverages, like lattes and cappuccinos, require a bit more work, tapping the arrow keys in various combinations to grind beans, work the coffee maker, add the proper ingredients, pour the beverage, attach the lid, and serve the customer. And, once you've served your customer, you have to give them the proper change, which can be tricky if you've mistakenly priced a beverage at $2.36 and they give you a ten-dollar bill.



The customers are all different, and you can do a little work to get to know them by engaging in smalltalk. Sometimes you'll get tips, sometimes you won't. Some customers are chatty, some are way, way too chatty, and some just want to buy a drink and get on with their lives. As the day wears on, you might have to find time to adjust your prices, or buy more supplies, or get yourself a meal. It's frantic, it's challenging, it's repetitive, and there's always a timer ticking down, making it a race against the clock.

The clock isn't just ticking in the retail mini-games, either. The whole game is a race against the clock. I've got to make enough money by my next custody hearing to show the judge I'm responsible. I've got to find time to visit a pawn shop to sell a few things to cover the cost of the supplies I've bought. I should take time to visit the offices of a lawyer I just met, in case I need legal help. I've got to weigh the time a cab ride would save me against the dollars it would cost me. Of course, I've got to find time to spend with Laura. And sometimes, I just need to find the time to get some sleep.



Conclusion: Cart Life, in a nutshell, is a game that doesn't fit neatly into a nutshell.There's a lot going on, a lot, and I feel like even if this column were five times as long, I still couldn't even scratch the surface. The art and animation are great, the soundtrack is enjoyable, the mini-games are fun and frantic, the game is bursting with little details and interesting characters and locations, and most of all, the writing is amazingly well done.

I think everyone should download it and give it a try. In the freeware version, there's a second playable character who runs a newspaper stand (and has his own set of personal challenges), and there's a third character who runs a bagel cart if you want to kick in a measly five bucks.

San Francisco, 2043. A long-dead killer signs off on the murder of a college girl with an iconic black arrow. Chinese-style puzzle boxes crafted from mysterious metal begin arriving on the doorsteps of seemingly unconnected people. Deep in the jungles of Peru, a secret has already damaged the world to the point that most countries have swapped day for night to help people avoid dangerous solar radiation—and now it might potentially destroy the earth forever. And in his lonely, run-down office, the only PI who can possibly save the day... is stuck eating dog-food in order to pay his rent.

The Tex Murphy games mix three of my favorite things into one delicious cocktail—traditional noir fiction in the Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett style, near-future science fiction, and adventure games with both ambition and balls. Imagine the excitement of creeping around a building in search of clues, or being able to walk round and see an incriminating memo behind the back of a desk. That’s the Tex Murphy experience (get it for $4.99), and I find it heartbreaking that the number of other games that tried to offer it can be counted on one hand. Well, one hand and maybe one more finger. Maybe.

Smart-aleck kill
 


There are actually five Tex games: two deeply terrible traditional adventures, and three FMV/3D hybrids that are fondly remembered by more or less everyone who played them. The Pandora Directive especially is an artifact of an interesting time, when developers and players alike had realized that the words “interactive movie” were a warning rather than a description, but before the industry was big enough to throw around big budgets or buy in actual star power. The Pandora Directive, for instance, proudly trumpeted its inclusion of B-movie names like John Agar and Tanya Roberts over the man who played Tex, series writer/designer/producer/attempted director and Access’ money guy, Chris Jones. Many other roles were also handled by employees, who offered performances that ranged from decent to charming to the world’s most expensive school play.

The schlocky FMV is all part of the fun though, and the craziness is oddly appropriate considering you’re playing a guy who desperately wants to be a 1940s-era PI despite owning a flying car and being in love with a mutant newspaper girl who occasionally rents a holographic Cary Grant. The Pandora Directive knows exactly how silly it is, and happily embraces it with awful puns, weird characters like a vegetarian street preacher, and one very surreal ending where Tex trades in his PI dreams to become a sad clown in a traveling circus.



When it wants to tell a serious story though, it can. As silly as everything around him often gets, Tex is a wonderfully grounded character—a decent guy who at least sometimes doesn’t deserve the crap he practically begs the world to dump on his head. The Pandora Directive has three paths through it (though they only change a few scenes, and you have to bend over backwards to get to all of them), and the “evil” path is called The Boulevard of Broken Dreams for a reason. It’s deeply uncomfortable to have Tex actually turn cynical, mean, and grabby instead of simply putting on the act, but only because he’s usually such a nice guy you always want to see come out on top.

Trouble is my business
 


The use of first-person 3D and tense background music also does wonders for making dangerous locations actually feel sinister, regardless of how empty they feel. By far the most nerve-wracking moment is when you find yourself wandering around the long-deserted, corpse-strewn corridors of Roswell, New Mexico—a location that wasn’t quite so played out in popular culture back when the game was originally released—with a deadly alien gas slowly worming its way through the rooms and air vents. Like many of Tex’s puzzles, avoiding becoming the gas’ last meal is a ridiculously over-complicated task, but still a tense one even when you have a Plan.

When you don’t have a plan, the series really shows its age. In the GOG re-release, you’re at least spared the constant disc-swapping as you move from location to location, but have pity for anyone who had to play it when the game was split over six different CDs. Pixel hunting in the third dimension is great when you see something and feel like a proper detective. It’s less fun when you’ve missed a couple of pixels that could be in, on, or behind anything, and have to force yourself to resist the siren call of in-game help or sneaky internet walkthroughs. Tex Murphy may be hard boiled, but no one could call his adventures over-easy.

Once you finally find that stubborn thingy and move on though, you won’t remember the frustration. You’ll be far too busy grinning as Tex mouths off to exactly the wrong guy, or manages to pull defeat from the jaws of victory once again. A fictional PI’s life may suck, but it’s the one he chose. Tagging along for the most dangerous week of Tex’s life, you can totally see why he wouldn’t have it any other way. Give or take a few beatings, perhaps.

If XCOM reminded us of the value of loss in 2012, DayZ was a valuable lesson in hardship. The Arma 2 mod was one of the least-forgiving and most intimidating games of the year. It was a shooter that you entered without a gun. Arma’s control scheme made actions such as inventory management a hassle; its 225km2 landscape asked you to run mini-marathons to get around, often without a map. Permadeath and persistency lent consequence to every action. And in its alpha state, DayZ was buggy and vulnerable to hackers.

1.3 million people played it.

DayZ is heartening; it reinforces what players are willing to put up with in exchange for novel, self-authored experiences. It’s a rare shooter that gives banal tasks such as searching for water or riding a bicycle as much meaning as firing a gun.

Among bandit pursuits, lucky loot runs, mourning the death of friends, and castle raids, one of my unforgettable moments is when my friends and I accidentally orchestrated our own sniping mission. We’d arrived outside Chernarus’ Northwest Airfield: treacherously naked terrain with the potential for military loot.

With empty backpacks, two teammates moved in. If they fired a shot, they’d ring a dinner bell for the undead. But 500 meters away, atop a hill, my sniper rifle was out of earshot. This was an escort mission: their lives were my responsibility, and Arma 2’s ballistics meant I had to lead targets on two axes, manually dial-in my scope, and read my map to estimate ranges. It was a pure and exhilarating shooting experience, but more importantly, an expression of our teamwork. Moments like this in DayZ arise simply as a result of the mechanics, vulnerability, and players’ natural storytelling ability. By being so hands-off with us, DayZ gives us ownership over every moment.

Read More: DayZ Photo Diary.

Runners Up: Black Mesa Source, Sith Lords Remastered.

In most years, the idea that space wizards had manipulated the outcome of the American war of independence would probably count as the most fanciful reappraisal of historical fact. But not in a year in which a Black Ops game gets released!

Did you know that the CIA’s support of Nicaraguan death squads (estimated death toll: 30,000) was an “accident”? It’s really quite the Oops! moment, what with it continuing for the better part of a decade, and, latterly, against the direct instruction of Congress.

“We don’t target civilians,” says one character in the CIA’s defence. Credit to the voice cast for adding a nuanced undertone of belligerent denial to the claim, but opposing views (such as, say, that voiced by the International Court of Justice in 1986) make scant appearance here.

You might think the devs would be more familiar with the affair, given that the game’s marketing push involved wheeling out National Security Council bagman Oliver North, a fellow who was convicted on three counts of felony thanks to his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.

It’s difficult to see why Black Ops 2 would be coy about the casual slaughter of innocents; after all, characters are more than willing to openly torture and summarily execute people they take a disliking to. But even if the game’s not trying to make a case for the righteousness of its protagonists, it still makes a mess of history.