Football Manager 2011

Playing this game brings into question the metaphysical reality of living as a human being. We supposedly exist as rational beings, driven by two main things; firstly, the base, primal urges such as the need for food, sleep, sex, and so on. Secondly, the higher, society-based conformaties, like social company, interaction with other humans, rule of law, having a job, being productive and so forth.

This game provides an enjoyment which has no apparent connection to either of these two factors, and it remains a profund condundrum. Why do so many hundreds of thousands of people gain pleasure from playing what is essentially a spreadsheet?

Looking at other games, I can understand why my human mind enjoys and craves them. Fast-twitch action games provide a primal satisafction, sometimes of violence, sometimes of danger or fear, and sometimes just satisfying beep or boop sounds accompanied by flashing lights - rewarding me with squirts of dopamine for my button pushing efforts like some hairless Pavlovian dog.

Tactics - YOU pass the ball to HIM, and then YOU score a GOAL

Strategy and roleplay games provide escape, imagination and depth. MMOs provide interaction and goal-sharing - and the insulting of random people while drunk, safe in the knowledge they cannot punch you through trade chat.

So – here we have a game which is essentially a vast amount of minimalist pages containing numbers, graphs and occasionally, photos of gurning deliquents. There are also the matches themselves, where you have no real control over what happens. Any changes you make are lost to the infinite mysteries of the match engine, with human interaction reduced to making such simple commands as "substitute the tired man" or "try and score a goal by attacking".

The sadly unrealistic match engine missing a.) diving b.) spitting and c.) childish histrionics when easy chances are missed

Yet this game draws you in, almost like no other. Perhaps it is the fact you DO see the game as an unfolding story, that you transform the stats and the virtual players into a soap opera in your mind. Perhaps it is also the divergant aspect of history that occurs, whereby Fulham lead the premier league, Rooney goes to play for Swansea and Beckham scores a hat-trick in the world cup final.

Trying to explain the appeal of this game to someone who has never experienced it is nigh impossible. You would be branded mad by any court of law, a danger to society. You would be locked up, confined to a solitary cell, scrawling tactics and training plans on the walls with a piece of chalk you had obtained in exchange for giving a guard a hand-job.

YOU'RE ALL IDIOTS! Only 1 up against fucking LINCOLN?! The shiek is going to have my fucking head for this!

Essentially, one plays this game as a sort of librarian, or dusty archvist, shifting through endless tomes of information, scouring the spreadsheets for the right numbers. It is truly bizarre, yet compellingly addictive, beyond what a sane man should experience. Does that mean all who enjoy the game are mad - or does it just mean that everyone else is? Sadly, it's a question that cannot be answered - as I am still hunting for a decent left-back.

Football Manager 2011 scores – Rabid Hyena

Gemini Rue

There was a time, aeons past, now only viewable through rose-tinted lenses, when cartoons were violent and hairstyles were large, when clothes were bad and Michael Bay had not yet sodomized our transforming childhood heroes. It was that most tumultuous of times– the late 80s and early 90s. It was a time when lone men worked up a sweat in their bedrooms, creating things of beauty and delight. These hardy souls wielded their minds and their fingers upon that modern day anvil, the computer, and they forged things of wonder and beauty - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY2gK1MPgh8. And also many, many things of crapness.

It was the era of the bedroom coder, when gaming was in its infancy and brave pioneers surged ahead with their creations single-handed, conjuring up graphics and code and plot and sound. It was a time when you could walk into WH Smiths, pick up a Dizzy cassette and still have enough change for copy of Commodore Format. However, like any species, the bedroom coder reached its zenith, then began to wither and die. Indeed, for a long time, he was considered an extinct breed, driven away by powerhouse publishers and the increasing graphical complexity of games. It was proclaimed that no longer could a single man create anything worth playing.

Despite these howlings of doom, indie gaming has been the resurrection of the home coder, and now offers a new path to tread for the bedroom wonderkids. And this brings us neatly to Gemini Rue, a point-and-click adventure – traditional yes, but polished until it positively gleams.

The graphics immediately harken you back to this golden era, one you now only see through sepia-toned memories, when 16mb was a lot of RAM and Doom was causing waves of panic throughout the readership of the Daily Mail. The pixellated excellence recalls the golden age of adventure gaming, stirring memories of everything from Legend of Kyrandia to Beneath a Steel Sky, but carrying it's own modern visual depth and flavour. The opening scene gives us an iconic theme of the dark, perpetually rainy metropolis clearly inspired from Blade Runner and film noir, but no less impressive for that.

Buses remain unreliable in the future

The plot involves the familiar staples of memory loss, detective work, oppresive governments, secret facilities and brooding intensity, but presented with perfection. The top notch sounds and music draw you in, and the gritty voice acting, especially of the main protagonist, a man who sounds like he chews sandpaper, harks back to the grizzled gum shoes of the 1950s.

The atmosphere of the game achieves that great goal of all, immersion. Lights flicker, rain spatters onto the sidewalk, you feel the heavy, rotten burden upon your characters shoulder's. The quest for answers and the dual problem of untrustworthy memory span across two main characters, who's link drives the plot forward.

Alleyway - check. Rain - check. Replicants? Not sure.

What is truly remarkable is the effort and skill that has gone into fashioning this game. The production values are crystal perfect and to be told that the entire thing was constructed (save the music) by a single man is wonderful – the impressively-named Joshua Nuernberger http://twitter.com/#!/thejburger

Sim Dentist 2011

There are various attempts by the author to freshen up the genre – control of dual characters, some shooting and combat sequences and some detective work – all of which provide pleasant little morsels of gaming satisfaction, but the real meat and gristle still lies within the pointing and the clicking. It is not a terribly difficult game, and neither is it a particularly long one, but when one goes to a fine restaurant, one does not stuff one's face with all-you-can-eat food – you savour the taste and subtle flavour of the exquisitely crafted dishes placed in front of you. So it is also with Gemini Rue.

Gemini Rue scores – Sophisticated Fox