Gems of 2011

2011 was a fantastic game for gamers, several AAA releases (mostly sequels) and incredible Indie games. I'll just highlight 2 of my favourite here today.
Bastion and Orcs Must Die at their core are wildly different games, but despite that fact, they are still both great games.

Some facts here for those who have not tried these games yet.

Bastion is a 3rd person hack and slash from an isometric perspective. It sounds pretty typical, but features some of the most beautiful and unique art style for a long time, an incredible sound track and unforgettable voice acting and storytelling.
Orcs Must Die on the other hand, is just plain fun. Calling it a tower defense game would be doing it a disservice, but it takes a 3rd person action hack and slash, combines it effectively with "traps" and creates a deceivingly simple gameplay experience. With a ridiculous sense of humour, just the right amount of traps and a high scoring system. Orcs Must Die takes tower defense games to a next level.
Personally, as a designer, I would have loved to have made Bastion, but would be that kind of person to make Orcs Must Die. Creating a singular narrative thread and artistic vision for Bastion takes a lot of guts and is highly risky, given that it has fairly typical gameplay. But the emotions brought forth by the excellent story, audio and visuals creates a gaming experience that needed all the years of history that games have been around.

The narrative in Bastion is not unlike the ones used most recently in Bioshock, where the creator constantly questions the action of the player as an entity. Why is the player doing the things they do? Are they the character or are they projecting onto the character? Bastion turns Bioshock's idea that the player is being controlled by quests and just simply puts the player into the shoes of the character, giving them very persuasive reasons to stay in the role. The Narrator then describes what is on the screen and adds background and flavour to it.
Gameplay wise, Bastion executes a solid addition to top down hack and slash genre. With several weapons, powers and collectibles, the "Game" part of the Bastion does well enough. Without too much innovation though, the emphasis of the game seems to lie heavily on the art and music that transforms it from a decent game to a great one.

The art resembles a water colour painting and makes Bastion stand out immediately, it seems that every colour in the spectrum was used, unlike the 'gritty' games of the day. 3D textured levels lie above scrolling vistas, each proceeding level looks uniquely different and the amount of detail makes it like every single item individually crafted instead of copy pasted.

The audio design for Bastion really stands out in terms of voice acting and music, for a indie game, it does a lot with the little resources they have, original songs create a old western ambience mixed with oriental sensibilities. A simple voice, guitar, synthesizers can evoke the same emotions as triple-A studios and their full fledged orchestras. The Narrator is undoubtedly the star of the show, with you all of the way, a fully fledge character that reveals more about himself and the world as the story progresses. You often feel like you are lulled into listening to the story inside that world instead of being the main character.

Orcs Must Die, gameplay wise feels fantastically mechanically complete to me. The premise is simple, have a tower defence mechanic, introduce traps at varying intervals, give the player the choices of how to play the game
Off the top of my head, here’s a list of things you can do in OMD.
1) Use weapons
2) Use spells
3) Use Traps
4) Use Guardians
5) Upgrade your Weapon/Spells
6) Upgrade your Traps/Guardians
7) Upgrade a little of everything
8) Aim to survive the level
9) Aim to get a perfect run
10) Aim to get the highest score.
11) Complete the level as quickly as possible
12) See Orcs die many different ways.

While many of the traps/spells and weapons seem similar, they actually belay a depth to the game that won’t survive shallow scrutiny. Let me give you an example. Through the course of the game, the player gets 3 spells, Fire, Ice and Lightning. The simplest use would be to use each against the enemy weak against it. The second use would be for their effects, Fire creates burning which lasts for a few seconds, good for combos. Ice freezes the enemies in place, good for surviving a round. And lightning is effective against spread out groups. On top of that, each spell has a alternate mode, Fire creates a burning line on the floor, Ice stops all enemies in that location, an Lightning creates a thunderstorm, randomly hitting enemies. Each of these can favour players who simply like the effects, find it easy to use, but for more experienced players, can be used in very specific situations.

Aside from that, OMD does not focus much on storytelling, the story is simple, juvenile but easy to understand. There does not need to be much of a reason to see Orcs dismembered, frozen or burnt. Yet, the game is fun. There doesn’t seem to be much room for a sequel though, but for a debut release, Robot Entertainment seems to have a firm grasp of what it takes to make a solid game.

So that's a wrap for the indie game highlight, get both games now.