The Echidna Awards! (GOTYs 2013)

After much careless deliberation with myself, I have chosen the top 8 games of 2013. These are clearly indisputable. Check out my list at Beta Fish mag and be enlightened.

Recommendation: Katawa Shoujo

      You know what happens when you want to write about a game, but what you wrote is too long for the student publication you usually write for, and you don’t want to admit to the student body as a whole that you actually liked a game about romancing young disabled anime people? You start actually writing for your blog again!

      So, anyway, I’ve always stayed far away from ren’ai games, a genre of visual novel in which the player romances anime girls, for many good reasons, the primary of which is that “gamifying” human relationships and applying challenge and reward mechanics to them seems like a difficult thing to do without objectifying people.  So, even though I’ve heard astoundingly positive things about the visual novel Katawa Shoujo, I was hesitant to play it because it was made in the ren’ai tradition. What I expected was a game that was, at best, cheesy*, and, at worst, voyeuristic or misogynistic. Much to my surprise, KS was none of those things – instead it was probably one of the most inspiring gaming experiences I’ve ever had.

The Echidna Awards! (a delayed List of GOTYs 2012)

I'm currently bored out of my poor mind at Columbus International Airport and just realized that I never got around to making a list of the best games of 2012 like any respectable video game blog would do. Having little else to occupy my time, I figured I would take a few moments to remedy this travesty.

Six games make the cut this year. I decided to cheat and include two games from previous years that were only ported to PC this year or remastered this year because I love them so much and wanted an excuse to ramble about them some more, so forgive me. Also, only one non-indie game makes the list. The only mainstream commercial games from 2012 I played this year were Mass Effect 3 and Borderlands 2, the former of which made the list. Borderlands 2  had a few laughs and was sort of fun at the time, but overall it was a forgettable experience that didn't leave a lasting impression - at it's core, just another shooter. It also doesn't make the list because I'm a little salty that I wasted $50 on it.


In no particular order (although I save the best for last), my six Echidna Awards: