Gwz

Short and sweet must-play. Well, maybe not so much play, more an experience in suspense, superb writing and an atmosphere you could cut with a fire-axe. Also the best donkey-ultrasound-simulator to date.

I remember last time I played Civ II. It was late night/early morning. I opened the CD-tray, took out the Civ II CD-ROM and snapped it in half. Only way to stop playing. Ahhh, good times.

Let's be honest. The only reason I don't give this a 10 is because all the horrendous and potentially game breaking bugs but it’s still one of my favourite games in ages. Now this is a game very much up MY alley. The slow pacing, the Moebius aesthetics, the in my opinion absolutely stellar atmosphere. What I love most about Sable is how benevolent the world is. You are a young kid on a coming-of age quest to find your purpose in life. This quest, called “Gliding” more or less makes you invulnerable. You are SUPPOSED to be young and reckless, take risks and expose yourself to the world. Fling yourself from mountaintops? No problem. Miss an impossible jump? Just try again. That is another big thing I like with this game. You get that there is a rich and harsh history in the game but you as the protagonist are never really threatened. You are young but never sexualised. Adults are encouraging, reminiscing somewhat envious their own “Gliding” period. My only gripe is the mess of bugs and glitches and there are many. Find your save file on your system and make a back-up if you can, thank me later. I had to restart my whole game after 8h because of a corrupt save. And STILL I think this might be my Game of the year. When they fix this it will be an all-time high. Imagine.

The David Lynch analogy has been played to death, but I think it's apt in this case. Playing "Kentucky Route Zero" reminds me a lot of seeing "Twin Peaks" for the first time. I haven't seen something like this before, I'm not sure if it's "good" but I really, really like it. It tells a story in a way I haven't seen in any media. You KNOW that Kentucky Route Zero will change something for the game medium, but it will not spawn a lot of clones because it's to unique. Perhaps a different tone, a "feel" or just open up for new ways to tell a story, or even a new wave of art. You may very well tell your future kids about how you played Kentucky Route Zero back in the days.

Celeste is near perfect. The retro 2d graphics does its work and is not overly gimmicky. The controls are SUPER TIGHT, one of the best I've touched on a modern game. The story is relevant and easy to follow. Sure, there's a lot between the lines and the symbols are a bit on the nose, BUT they are not pretentious and feels genuine and drawn from experience. It's about depression but not in a way that validates trigger warnings though it doesn't pull any punches, which takes us to the difficulty level! Celsete is HARD, like oldschool-learn-by-doing-and-failing hard. It fits with the theme of getting over your real or imagined limits. After a frustrating but rewarding first level the game just keeps ramping up. You level up by learning to play. The design is a marvel of pedagogic teaching in game mechanics. Coming back to the first level you will be struck by how easy it suddenly is. Bottom line about the difficulty: I've never, ever played a game that was still fun to play even after dying so many times. I cursed like a sailor in mud but I felt that it was fair and if it was to frustrating it was a sign for me to quit and try again later. I give Celeste a solid 9 but that is only because I leave the 10 for my 3 top games of all time.