BOTANICULA

Czech animation schools would always come up with the most mysterious ,wonderful ,intriguing and heavy animated  features of all the European studios. Europe's animation world is simply blessed by having amazing animators from this country. So to have such an extraordinary visual experience in a form of a game  coming from this country comes as no surprise. The visual aspect of the game is so otherworldly, refined, honest and delicate that you see life in all its glory unravel in front of you. A world worth living for and dying for, a world that  awakens your inner-child and makes you grateful for having somebody else out there realizing how precious life is.

The visual component and the exquisite audio accompaniment do overshadow everything else in this game, even though the playability is high. I heard a number of  people speaking about its low replay value, but I do think they're not being fair. After all, what other click-and-point adventure has ever had high replay value? It's about immersing yourself into this wonderful world, leading 5 botanical creatures trying to keep the last uninfected seed of their tree from parasites taking over their home, solving puzzles that  might border on  hard or illogical (just like life itself), collecting items and chosing what step to take at every point. Being directly involved in a changing world we are usually either unaware or oblivious of  makes us wonder what kind of  contribution we're making living inside those as oblivious giants. It's the same horrible feeling that  made me cringe at seeing other kids trying to destroy an ant colony or stretching rainworms.

We need titles like this , titles that spark  the immagination and deliver truths.

BEHOLDER

Surveillance State is old news in most of today's world , but the Russians were the first to openly deride it in their art, movies and culture, and so it's only befitting that they be the ones leading the pack when it came to games dealing with this subject.
I loved Papers,Please when it came out , but it was way too broad for my taste. I find  the ominously titled BEHOLDER game approaching the entire thing from a more interested angle. Being a landlord appointed by the State to record activities of all the tenants looking for traces of illegal behaviour you're given a choice- you can either blindfully obey your superiors and  tell on every single person or you can choose to turn a blind eye to what the tenants are doing.You can be friends with some and tell on others.Your finances  depend on your performance, so protecting the tenants might considerably affect your incurred expenses and lead to unsatisfied family needs and to ending your gaming session very early on,  You evesdrop on conversations with guests,peek through keyholes, search the apartments when tenants are away in search for illegal material, rob them of an item or two, or even plant illegal materials in their rooms only to tell on them later on. Anything you do seriously affects everything else. The navigation is simple and effective, and so is the music.
The player is faced with a myriad of moral dilemmas present in this day and age and that's what's most endearing about this title. Great art imitates life.

BEJEWELED 2

This is one of those legendary gems that come back to haunt you like ghosts in your gaming recollections. A guilty pleasure, yes. If you turn on a defunct pc machine lying around an old administrative or school office you are more than likely to find this title on it, Unlike Tetris,Sentris, Pang and other such shapes-bashing, tile-matching games,  Bejeweled 2 never gets anything but relaxing. Perfect casual cool for gamers and non-gamers alike. And player's view on whether this title is truly a game or not has absolutely nothing to do with it. The music is average but never gets unnerving, the graphics are beautiful and the backgrounds never get in the way; the puzzles are intricate while never getting too demanding; the playability is amazing; there are several different modes to keep you interested.
When you come home from work and want to blow off steam you will find yourself successfully doing so with this non-shooter game. Tried it today after a lousy day at work and it worked like a charm. College midterms all over again.  

you can play it online here:  
http://zone.msn.com/gameplayer/gameplayer.aspx?game=bejeweled2
or here:
http://www.popcap.com/sites/www.popcap.com/prettypkg/games/bejeweled2/flash/1033/bejeweled2.html

BAD MOJO

BAD MOJO is a Kafkian tale of an insect expert embezzling grant money to find himself  turned into a cockroach  by his mother's magic locket the minute he's about to flee his rented apartment and his current life.The locket-mother becomes an oracle guiding the roach through an astonishing world of  tubes, holes, fuses, appliances, furniture, carcasses of other roaches and small animals,oozes and leaks of various kinds and other wonderful features of a nasty old landlord's building and the bar beneath it.
The roach-you solves puzzle after puzzle  and is addressed by the oracle after unlocking each part of your quest until finally presented with a choice -to save the landlord or yourself or both (in which  a family reunion is in order).

Interactive movie games became one of my favourite genres the minute I found out about them in the 90s and I enjoyed playing each and every one of them (The Klingon Academy, The Ripper, Burn: Cycle etc). The reason I value this title more than others is that it took the bizarre elements and used them consciously moving away from the prevalent cyberpunk and  movie franchise tendencies of the day, thus creating a singular outing in the world of interactive movies. Highly recommended!

DOPE WARS / DRUGLORD ETC

Having retrieved my precious Pentium I from a local shop  in 1996 I found a version of this game installed by the shop owner. Around that time I played the likes of The Day of the Tentacle, Tomb Raider, Pandemonium etc and was blown away by the beauty of PC and Playstation graphics , so it comes as no surprise that I didn't like the game.Who would have endured a game that looked like an early version of Total Commander for Windows? It took me two years to sit down  and give it time in order to truly appreciate its magnitude .

Originally written in 1984, the game lived to see many versions and the fact that it is still being played around the world and is being constantly updated is a feat in itself, in addition to spawning a whole host of clones. Despite its sketchy and text-based form, it treats selling drugs as any other job , so it's practically a business strategy you're playing. You start with $2000 and $5500 in debt, you choose a city and play a turn. One turn includes a day's worth of  acquiring a quantity of drugs on offer and delivering them in your trenchcoat to a location you'll be selling them at. Different drugs are available for purchase at different locations in towns at different parts of a given day. Any action taken by the police, druglords, cartels, addicts, loan sharks or yourself changes the situation and affects your "business". As you move about you realise you're on edge all the time despite the fact that all the action and transactions are presented with simple pop-up text forms and a limited number of stagy voice samples. I've loved this game ever since.

You can find the list of all major versions of this game here:
http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/PROGRAMS/DOORS/DOPEWARS/

PLACESPOTTING

What makes a  piece of music/art/ a video game genuine? We all have our own views and feel strongly in favour or against ideas that challenge the very notion of what a specific art form is. Is today's jazz "jazz"? Is crust punk better than California punk rock of the 90s? Should vaporwave stay in the realm of plunderphonics? Are superhero movies art?  Are retro games  the real thing and today's titles just a pale reflection of yesteryear's digital fun? Can educational games be art? And most importantly- can a non-game be a game?

PlaceSpotting makes use of Google Maps and the prominent user behaviour of screenshooting a location .and sending  it to friends so that they pinpoint the location by exploring Google Maps. What an interesting way to spend an incredible amount of one's time. Make an online game/application around this concept and voila! Judging by figures, people enjoy finding locations far more than creating "quizzes" (3mil:20k). I guess people love searching for needles in haystacks. You test your inner geography and culture buff and aggravate your friends in the process. Lovely.

Can such applications count as video games? I think so.

placespotting.com

A SLOWER SPEED OF LIGHT

I 've  only recently found this game and I was completely blown away by it! My ESL skills are virtually non-existent when it comes to physics and explaining scientific concepts and how they translate to video game parts . Therefore I strongly recommend  viewing the video below to get the grasp of what the game is all about.

The first time I tried it I figured it would just be a single afternoon's worth of  fun , but it transposed  a series of highly sophisticated concepts and physical phenomena to  your average 3d game mechanics and surroundings  making you somehow experience these so vividly that you almost feel smarter as you progress. Sure, it got mixed reviews , but mixed reviews have been en vogue for the last couple of years, haven't they?