Faster than Light

Faster Than Light is a strategy game in which you command a space ship across the galaxy while battling pirates, imperialists, and natural forces.  The game provides you with a top down view of the ship and crew and combat consists mainly of selecting which weapons and resources you want to use against the enemy.  The action happens in real time, but since you can pause the game whenever you want it plays more like a turn based game.  Other than combat, the decisions you will make throughout the game are which parts of the ship to upgrade and which weapons to buy.

What I like about this game is that while there are many factors to consider, for the most part you are only making one decision at a time.  The keeps the game from becoming overwhelming and makes it feel more like chess than a micro-management game.  But unlike chess, there is an element of randomization and you have to be ready for any situation. For example when you come across a store in the game, do you purchase the drone control to provide your ship with extra defense or do you buy an extra crew member to help fight off teleporting aliens who can easily rampage your ship from the inside out? Let's say you buy the drone control, which helps protect your ship from incoming missiles, but then the enemy teleports aliens onto your ship.  You may have been able to lock the aliens in a room and drain the oxygen to damage them, but you didn't upgrade your blast doors so they are free to move from room to room.  You then have to send the majority of your men to fight the aliens, but that means you lose your shield controller, which causes a fire to break out in the oxygen room from incoming lasers. You then have to then send the pilot to put out the fire, but he takes too much damage and needs to visit the medical bay before fighting the fire, but the med bay is not being powered since you put your generator resources into the drone control which you spent all your money on and everyone dies from a lack of oxygen. Not to mention the solar flares hitting you from that nearby star which you can't avoid because you didn't upgrade your engine-ready-time.  But hey, atleast you got that cool drone that shoots down missiles.  Oftentimes the bad situations you get into revolve around spending your money incorrectly or not thinking about your ship on an enterpirse level.  For example, if you invest a lot into your dodge ability, you want to be sure to purchase auto-pilot so that the ship can keep dodging even when the pilot is busy putting out fires. Or typically I will not purcahse a drone control unless I comandeer a free drone, because buying the drone and the control at the same time would be very expensive, but purchasing the conrtol to use on a free drone is well worth the money.  Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and play the cards you got.

Faste Than Light has great styling and a very clean interface.  The generator system is very intuitive. Whenever I find myself asking for another feature, I usually ending up finding it was right in front of me the whole time. For example, at one point I was saying to myself, I wish there was a way to see the health of my systems, but if you look at the system power control at the bottom of the screen you can see how many bars of health the systems have and how fast the engineer is fixing them.  I also found myself asking if crew members could specialize in one field and it turns out they can. If they work a system for multiple battles they become specialized and boost those systems.  This gives you an advantage in combat.

One of the only features of the game I don't like is infantry battles.  When your ship gets boarded you have to use your crew to fight the invaders, but I find the Warcraft style controls to be very clunky.  If you select a group of  four crew members to go to a room and that room can only hold two crew members then none of them will go.  It is small intricases like these that can screw you over in battle. The fighting itself consists of infantry standing in the same room and just wailing on eachother until one of them dies and this is usually supplemented with you having to send the almost dead crew to the med bay over and over.  The game would be a smoother experience overall if they just simulated the fighting for you instead of forcing you to micromanage the crew.  Although I have to admit the infantry battles add an element of panic to the game that you do not get from gunship battles.

Overall Faster Than Light has become one of my favorite games.  It is the perfect mix of rogue-like action and open-ended strategy and the gameplay itself is simple enough that casual gamers can relax and enjoy that clean-slate feeling of starting over many many times.

Age of Indies

I have gotten really into indie games recently. I think for most people you either love them or hate them.  Some people don't get it.  The concept of an indie game has evolved though to the point where it refers not just to low budget games, but also to games that have a retro feel.  These are some of my favorites:  

Spelunky
Spelunky is a 2D Rogue-like game about traversing through caverns while avoiding booby traps and while I have never come close to beating the game, nor am I even sure if the game has an ending, I can honestly say it is one of the most addictive Rogue-Like game I've ever played.  Many Rogue-Like games randomize the enemies you fight to make it feel fresh every time you play, but in Spelunky the environment is the enemy, so every time you play  you actually have to stop and think about how to survive. This game takes a combination of intuition and observation, which makes it feel different from most video games, not to mention that the music is wonderfully hummable.

Enter the Gungeon
Enter the Gungeon is a bullet-hell rogue-like game with cute pixel graphics and more guns than you can manage.  Gungeon is one of those polished games that feels so good and the animations pack such a satisfying punch that it is hard to put down, but the things that have you reeling are those long term decisions like which gun to buy, which chest to open, or even which enemy to take out first.  It's difficult for me to imagine how they could make this game any better, but one suggestion might be for the game makers to add some difficulty options as some of the boss fights can leave you in a stupor.

Downwell 
Downwell is a bare-bones rouge-like action game consisting of falling down a well while shooting bullets from your feet at enemies below you.  This game has fast paced action and tight controls. If you are looking for a pure action game than this is the game for you.  Interestingly, this is one of the few games that I prefer to play on a keyboard as opposed to a game-pad because the controls are so tight that having your fingers on a keyboard is an advantage as opposed to having to search for buttons on the D-pad.  Most people recommend this game because of the cheap price, but honestly it has some of the best arcade style action games you could ask for.

Strider
Strider is a side-scrolling action platformer based on the 1980's arcade game of the same name.  The first thing I noticed about Strider is the fluidness. This game is so phsysical yet so seamless. You can run, jump, climb, hang, and even cartwheel all with just one button.  It gives you that same feeling you get when you see a gymnast do a double summersault and stick a perfect graceful landing.  The first half of the game is great, but it's kind of a shame that such beautiful combat gets bogged down with Metrodian style puzzles and about a dozen different kinds of throwing daggers. This game could be just about perfect if the creators would simplify the moves a bit letting you focus on the beautiful choreography instead of trying to figure out which dagger to use.

Hyper Light Drifter
Hyper Light Drifter sounds like a racing game about drifting, but its not.  It's a top down action-adventure hack n slash with a really cool art style and ambient music.  It is essentially the ultimate indie pixel game.  The main draw of this game is the purist action...

Driveclub

The more I think about Drive Club, the more I appreciate the decisions the developer made.  The game lacks an open world, car tuning, and a career mode, but that's ok, because what they did focus on is the driving itself and the things that affect racing such as dynamic weather, gorgeous graphics, great controls, and excellent sound design.  If all you want in a game is to get on the road with a super-car and take corners at ridiculously high speeds then this is the game for you.

The first thing you will notice when playing Drive Club is the graphics.  The developer really outdid themselves on this one. I could try to describe in technical terms what makes the graphics so awesome, but I don't have that knowledge, so just trust me on this, the graphics are amazing.  And its not just the cars, but its the environment itself.  The game will have you drive through Canadian forests, Indian villages, and Norwegian mountains, all of which are a beautiful and welcome change to the urban environments we see in so many games.

For those of you arcade-style racing fans, fear not! For Driveclub is a legit arcade racer complete with quick races, consequent-less crashing, and simple controls. For the most part you don't have to worry about fishtailing or spinning out of control and the curves on the roads are even marked with flags telling you when are a turn is coming.  But having said all that, the game is challenging and requires precision if you want to do well.  The best track times are accomplished by staying on the road, hitting the apex, and using your brakes appropriately.  To me this is what makes this game great, its the perfect combination of fun and challenging. Essentially, easy to play, hard to master.