Set in an icy, fantasy Norse-influenced world, with an art style based on the 1950s work of Disney artist Eyvind Earle, The Banner Saga is immediately, aesthetically, vastly different from most videogame fare. But it's not just in visuals that it strikes out.
The Banner Saga's key innovation is in making the player feel far less heroic. This isn't about saving the universe, it's about surviving the next battle.
It is amazing what canny developers can now do, in terms of visuals, on mobile devices. Archangel's makers proudly trumpet its near-console level of graphical pizzazz and they're right to. Sadly, in copying console games' visual acuity, Archangel's makers seem also to have copied console games' general lack of imagination.
Like some kind of slow-witted zombie, mainstream games (on console, mainly) have been decapitated, disemboweled and run flat over, but don't quite know it yet.
Art? Emotion? Intelligence? If you want proof that videogames can provide all three and far more, the burgeoning "indie" scene provided plenty of evidence this year. While mainstream games-makers continue to choose to drive towards photorealistic graphics at the expense of all other elements, independent games makers built on the success and critical acclaim of titles in the last few years, such as Minecraft, Fez and Braid, to innovate in narrative form, emotional response and interactive play.
This Christmas, it is probably worth remembering that you should never re-heat turkey. You could run the risk of food poisoning and a grim Boxing Day. This advice should also apply to other birds and.. well, you can probably see where I am going with this.
As ever with videogames, one great success can lead to many failures. The success in this case was the breakout "sandbox" genius of Minecraft. On its surface, Minecraft is essentially a faithfully blocky attempt to bring Lego bricks into games. But unlocking both the power of collaborative working and the sheer size and scale of Minecraft's possibilities has allowed people to build all sorts of insanely grandiose designs within their virtual worlds. Of course, where Minecraft led, others followed – more's the pity...
This might be the best smartphone first-person shooter (FPS) yet. It's a tricky genre to get right on a touchscreen. Above all the usual FPS considerations of 3D frame rate, varied levels and enemy AI, you need a well thought out control scheme that responds to the touch. Neon Shadow nails the latter and doesn't do too badly on the others.
Plot-wise, Neon Shadow is a dud. Something about a rogue AI on a space station. Or something. You are a Dude who must go and shoot it in the face. Standard.
One week on from the launch of the Microsoft Xbox One, now it's Sony's turn to launch its "next-generation" console. The PS4's graphical power is undeniable, as is its streamlined simplicity, but like Microsoft before it, Sony are making a simple error confusing better graphics with better games.
Today sees the first of the truly "next generation" consoles launch – the Microsoft Xbox One. It promises to revolutionise gaming. But in fact, it could well be the last gasp of a dying form of interactive idiocy.
The Ratchet & Clank series has, largely, been a brilliant reminder of how much fun videogames can be. It neither had lofty ambitions of narrative and thematic depth, nor the headache-inducing sturm und drang of the current crop of action games. Sadly, this last entry in the series goes out with both too much bang and too much backstory.