I love Edge’s list capsules
Every time UK gaming mag Edge does a top games list, I’m always amazed by their writers’ ability to capture the essence of a game, and do it so well, in just a few sentences. As a writer, I get a kick out of reading them. From huge narrative epics to the smallest purely ludic titles, they have an ability to nail it.
A couple of favorites from the recent 100 Best Games to Play Today list from the mag’s 200th issue:
No. 83: Peggle
Detractors who say it’s just random miss the point. You’d think the Ode To Joy might give them a hint as where to find it. Always rewarding you, always cheering you on, Peggle may just sway favour by charm alone – but beneath the purposeful goofiness of unicorns and rainbows lies an undeniable compulsion. Yes, chance plays a large part, but it is precisely the struggle to impose your will over the random that forms its deadly addiction. It plays to the gambler in us, and be it by luck or judgement, triumph rarely feels as good.
No. 79: Pac-Man Championship Edition
There’s nothing wrong with plain old Pac-Man, but it took Championship Edition to show us just how right he still is. The basics stay – Pac-Man, ghosts, dots, power pills, fruit and a maze – but it’s all about how CE toys with them. Mazes morph, paths of dots grow, ghosts accelerate, power pill patterns change – all governed by collecting fruit. Every game begins with a mind to the hi-score by chaining ghosts and ends with the panic of sheer survival. The best thing about Pac-Man: CE isn’t the sense you’re playing with a classic, it’s that designer Toru Iwatani was doing the same.
No. 43: Portal
We’d never suggest that originality is the be-all and end-all, but it’s difficult to resist the thrill of the new. And what a rush of novelty Portal delivers: not in its technology, not in its perspective, not in its puzzles – not in any one element – but in their combination into a deliriously thrilling, mind-breaking firstperson puzzle-platformer. And that’s before Valve wraps it up in a story that’s weird, deadly witty and oddly touching. Few developers could smash genres together so wantonly and produce a game of this staggering level of class. For Valve, it seems like a piece of cake.
Dig that last little in-joke there.
If you haven’t checked out this latest list, you should. Yeah, sure, Ocarina of Time in the No. 1 slot is predictable and almost cliche at this point, but overall the list is well-reasoned and, as mentioned, well-written.
