Angry Birds (Playstation Network) (2011)

Eons ago, or as them young people say, a fortnight ago, while I was frequenting the nearby happening discothèque, an inebriated fellow was prattling on about his iPhone as all iPhone owners do and he told me the only reason he bought it was to play Angry Birds. Now, he may have been joking or exaggerating, but if true, then Angry Birds must be serious business if someone is willing to pay over £200 for a phone that Apple will eventually make obsolete within a week just to play one game. I know many people buy a console just to play one game and eventually play more, but still consoles have a long life before being replace by a successor whereas Apple make their products obsolete the minute they release them. Therefore, I got the game, but not on the iPhone. Because I am a free spirited rebel who doesn’t do what the Man tells me, so I downloaded it onto my PS3, which is so deliciously counterintuitive to the idea of portable casual games; like putting ketchup on your Lobster Thermidor.

Limbo (Playstation Network) (2011)

The video game industry is becoming increasingly identical to the film industry, in more ways than one; when something successful comes out, studios will demand something similar in order to cash into the public's admiration for the aforementioned success; however, to find artistic and innovative films/games that take risks, play with the genre and give credence to either industry, there’s the independent, or “indie”, market, that has little to no promotion. And playing Limbo from Playdead help remind me of the necessity and artistic value of the independent market in particular and the video game industry in general.

Flight Control HD (Playstation Network) (2010)

Being a flight controller must feel, in some sense, like being a god; choosing the destiny of hundreds of thousands of lives, whether they live and enjoy paradise or die in a hellish inferno and control where men may fly. If all flight controllers viewed their job as thus, rather than the challenging, demanding, nerve-wrecking occupation where the slightest hiccup can cause massive, irreversible damage that it is, then maybe the suicide rate will drop dramatically. Thankfully, Flight Control HD takes out the months of training, stress and guilt of all the holiday-makers you sent to a slow and melt-y death and trying to use a Arab looking passenger as a scapegoat.

L.A. Noire (Playstation 3) (2011)

Remember when those absolute idiots who probably think the height of comedy is a fart, called Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Horse? Because a game company can only makes one type of game if that game is the only popular one, even though I remember Rockstar releasing a racing game and a puzzle game. It is a stupid assumption, like saying Valve only make First-Person Shooters. But people won’t really be able to “cleverly” nickname L.A. Noire, Grand Theft Noir, because it is a different kettle of fish, while their may be driving in a large, open world, L.A. Noire is more reminiscent of classic Adventure games, with a mixture of Open-World games and a dash of Third-Person Shooters.

DEFCON (PC) (2006)

Ever since Osama bin Laden showed he was serious business in 2001, nuclear war has become less a threat to human existence and more a quaint concept from the old days of Commies and big city dividing walls. Although America will continually make us fear every North Korean nuclear weapons test or Iran’s evil scheme of becoming a developed nation through a nuclear power plant program, possibly in the hopes to distract us from the fact that America is the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons against a civilian populace. But Introversion Software, the self proclaimed “last of the bedroom developers”, wanted to return to the fun side of nuclear holocaust with DEFCON, a game where you don’t really win but lose the least and keep score on your perfect genocide.

Evil Genius (PC) (2004)

Why is it when we have fantasies of taking over the world, we imagine doing it in the style of a James Bond villain? Sitting in an evil comfy chair in front of an evil world map in an evil secret underground lair surrounded by evil henchmen and honest working minions. The plans concocted are usually too complex and overtly complicated and easily defeatable because it has been explained to a super spy while being strapped to an easily escapable and needless torture device. And the plan is usually hold the world to ransom with an impossible weapon. The only game that allowed you to take over the world, but in a non-Bond villain way, was Sid Meier’s Civilization series. But in 2004, Elixir Studios released Evil Genius, a game similar to the Dungeon Keeper series, in order to gratify your inner Blofeld, but does it succeed? Let’s see:

Zombie Apocalypse (Playstation Network) (2009)

Gamers have a love for zombies that is so strong, I’m sure there is a secret lab of gamers trying to create a zombie apocalypse to justify their purchase of zombie games to their parents and imaginary girlfriends, and I myself love zombies. I don’t know why, they’re just awesome; if you make a World War II game but replace the Nazis with Nazi zombies, then that’s just awesome; If you take the American wild west and fill it with zombies, then that’s just awesome; even data processing might be awesome if you are fighting zombies at the same time. Consequentially, Nihilistic Software and Konami released Zombie Apocalypse, a top-down shoot ’em up for the PSN and the XBLA.