Isometrics Game of the Year: The Top Eight Games this Year

2014 was a rather interesting year of near misses and near brilliance, ruined by inexperience with new hardware or incompetence with porting. However despite this there were some truly brilliant games, and so I had to trim my shortlist a lot to get to my top eight best games this year.

Again, as with the worst games list, the games had to be released between 1^st December 2013 and 31^st December 2014, cannot be freemium games, and remakes are allowed if they change enough stuff to almost be considered a game distinct from the original. The first release of a game in English also applies here. No beta or early access games here, which basically wiped off a good chunk of my shortlist.

In the end though, this is my shortlist, and I'll do my best to explain where the rankings come from.

Here goes!

8: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (Konami: PC/PS3/PS4/X360/XONE)

This was a game I really hoped they wouldn't screw up, but in a few ways it did so let me get the bad parts of the game out of the way first. The game is ridiculously short for its original price tag (£30!), clocking up at about an hour and a half for the main mission, though of course it contained a few side missions. There is only one map, and of course the story can't really get going, although we do get a lot of disgusting imagery which I won't get into which is a bit unsettling since none of the previous six or seven MGS games got anywhere near as visceral. It very nearly ended up on the end of the worst games list because of its length, and I'm not even kidding.

All that out of the way, the game was utterly magnificient. The control system, vastly improved from MGS4 onwards was absolutely joyeous to use. Graphically the game was spellbinding, using light and shade in a way I'd never seen in a next gen game, with some great details and amazing character designs. The AI is vastly improved and a legitimate part of the challenge, since they will call for help and go into alert if something logically untowards is discovered, reminding me a lot of the Hitman games in that regard. The story, such as there was, is evocative, expertly directed and brilliantly performed, particularly with regards to mental trauma and harm, obviously this will become a far greater part of The Phantom Pain. There are a lot of ways to handle each mission and a ton of weapons to collect to, so it is a case that if you enjoy the game there are plenty of reasons to replay.

Added to this is the phenomenal PC port, one of the best from a Japanese developer (and one of the most optimised Next-Gen games released on PC this year) and you have a brilliant game that only slightly disappointed.

7: Toybox Turbos (Codemasters: PC)

I agonised whether I was going to put this or BlazeRush on my list, and eventually it boiled down to a straight choice. While Blazerush was an amazingly fun game which really surprised me from a developer who hadn't made a game that good before, Toybox Turbos is simply a better game. It is a modern day Micro Machines, which is probably the greatest compliment you can give a party racing game.

The graphics are superb, there are plenty of cars and tracks to play and an excellent online mode. However the main star is the gameplay, which is as perfect as you can make a party racing game. Overall it is a little short in single player (3 hours, but the game was £11 new and of course there is the multiplayer) but get a few friends playing and you have a great party game.

6: Cloudbuilt (Coilworks: PC)

On the one hand, it's incredibly tough. On the other it's an absolutely gorgeous, fantastically designed joy to play. Coilworks' debut is amazing to play, basically getting to the core of what 3D platforming should be. Armed with a hover, a dash and the ability to run up walls, Demi can go basically anywhere, but the limits to all three of those abilities mean the game ends up becoming one of careful strategy and risk, particularly since there are so many routes you can take through levels, some unforgiving tough but very quick. Add to that an interesting story about journeying through trauma and a lot of interesting levels and you have one of the sleeper hits of the year.

5: Murdered: Soul Suspect (Square-Enix: PC/XONE/PS4/X360/PS3)

A game which scores a lot of its points with an interesting premise and an excellent adventuring mechanic. The best way to describe the game is Ghost Trick meets LA Noire, where you play a cop who has to solve his own murder in order to get into heaven. At times the game is complete nonsense but the game really does a good job of painting the ghost world as different from the real world. Add to that the interesting clue gathering and piecing together mechanics from LA Noire and you have a very good adventure game. The stealth sections, combat and the sheer amount of combat there is later in the game probably could have done with some balencing though.

4: South Park the Stick of Truth (Ubisoft: PC/X360/PS3)

Don't say I never give Ubisoft credit when it's due. For all the AAA problems they've had this year, they also released the touching Valient Hearts, the stylish Child of Light and The Stick of Truth, the single best licensed game released this year, and up on the list for being the best licensed game of all time.

Where it works is in the details. It looks like the show, and few games ever manage that. The writing is by the show's writers, the voice acting is by Matt Stone and Trey Parker and it is as hilarious, demented and absolutely brilliant as the show has become. The gameplay is akin to Paper Mario, right down to having patches, badges and extra abilities and may well be the most refined game Obsedian have made as well.

3: One Way Heroics (AGM Playism: PC)

There were a lot of RPGs in my shortlist, and again I was torn between the sublime Legends of Heroes, Trails in the Sky and this, and really both deserve to be on this list. One Way Heroics succeeds in having an excellent array of mechanics, a great pace to the game, lots of choices and customisation and really managing to do something new with the roguelike. The balance between getting experience and looking for items, as well as the potential for strategy is done excellently, along with one of the best soundtracks this year (in fact the only two soundtracks better than it are at #2 and #1 on this list). A sleeper hit in every regard.

2: The Binding of Isaac Rebirth (Nicalis and Edmund McMillan: PC/PS4)

I love the Binding of Isaac, but there were a lot of slight technical problems with the original game which meant I never really got the fullest out of it. If it didn't do quite as many improvements, modifications, engine changes and the like to the game it might have been disqualified for being a rerelease, but because all those changes improve and change the gameplay experience so thoroughly, it has to be here. Since I bought it a month and a bit ago I have sunk 75 hours into it, and it has become the go-to game I play when I'm doing other things. The amount of content in the game is staggering, almost as much as how much that affects the game, with good and bad loadouts really meaning the difference between a tricky game and an incredibly hard one. Despite this you never feel the game has made it impossible for you, and it manages that great rogue-lite sense of risk and reward perfectly. Add to that a great mix between adorable and abject imagery and an incredible soundtrack and you have one of the best games this year.

1: Transistor (Supergiant Games: PC/PS4)

The game world this year has been characterised by games that promise a lot and simply do not deliver. Many games I thought would be spectacular at the start of this year have by its end either been forgotten or are not quite as great. Transistor however is not one of them.

I went into 2014 thinking this would be my game of the year, perhaps having to battle MGSV and Watchdogs for the top sport. But it simply did not disappoint. If anything, the game was better than I had anticipated, with all its functions and form coming together wonderfully with an amazing aesthetic. I love cyberpunk, and this mix of cyberpunk and art deco made for an arresting hauntingly beautiful atmosphere, particularly as the work of the Process serves to swallow it up.

The soundtrack is one of the best of all time, a mix of genres along with some sensational vocals creates that tragic out of time sense for the game, which just works perfectly for every scenario. The game is short but with a New Game Plus option and a heartbreaking story.

There were many good games this year. A few great ones, but it turns out only one of them managed to do everything right this year and that was indeed Transistor.

The Top 10 Most Baffling UK Number One Singles in History Part 1/2

The UK pop charts tend to, especially in recent years follow a particular formula. And with a little bit of thought, it's easy to see why: The single buying public, more so than the Album Charts has a very specific demographic that skews younger and younger with each generation; with younger demographics come very specific ways to sell music and types of music to sell. Hence you tend to see most things follow the trend (which at the moment comprises of boy bands, teenybopper pop singers and endless club songs, interspersed with some retro-soul) and most things outside of it not even getting a look in outside of their niché.

However, with well over 1200 number one singles since the charts unified in the late 1960s, there's been more than a few songs that make you scratch your head and wonder “how the hell did they become a hit?” and thus is the topic of today's list. Ten of the most baffling songs ever. There are a few caveats since this list is about being unexpected rather than just being bad, or obscure, though both of those things come into play. No, this is about songs that seemingly come out of nowhere and make you wonder how the hell people could buy them in the hundreds of thousands, so Charity singles are out and bad but conventional songs also are unless there's something especially unique about their rise. So with that, count down with me won't you?

10: Mambo No. 5 – Bob The Builder (2001)

What?

Oh, where to start, this one is very very easy. The second of two number one hits for the cartoon star (and his voice actor, Neil 'Man Behaving Badly' Morissey) sees the builder covering Lou Bega's number one hit, an anthem for polygamy where Lou Bega sings joyously about sleeping with pretty much every woman in the northern hemisphere. Of course the lyrics are somewhat altered to be less about boinking everyone and more about fixing every problem about the house. Although, put like that it kind of poisons the childhood of pretty much anyone just younger than me...

Most Ridiculous Part

The fact that someone from CBBC (the children's wing of the British Broadcasting Corporation who own Bob the Builder) looked at Mambo No. 5 and went “That's a perfect song to do a tie-in with Bob the Builder! You know how kids are all about pimping!”

Why did it happen?

The worst bit is that it worked! The BBC had already scored a number one already with the Bob the Builder theme song early in 2001. It helps that Morissey, while hardly the best singer ever, has an interesting voice and can hold a note, which made Mambo No. 5 and especially Can We Fix It actually tolerable compared to the CBBC's other number ones, the Teletubbies theme and especially Mr Blobby, both songs that aren't listenable even if you're young enough to watch the shows. It's a cash in and quite an embarrassing one, but one that makes a small bit of sense.

Mull of Kintyre – Paul McCartney (1977)

What?

I don't know either, the list will contain some terrible inexplicably popular songs, things from nichés that never broke free from that restraint or some long forgotten tie-in, but this one makes no sense. Paul McCartney has a spot of land called the Mull Of Kintyre, so he sang about it in an utterly dismal acoustic ballad so banal and insufferable it made one long for the days of the fucking Frog Chorus. And it scored the Christmas Number One spot, an accolade that is hotly competed for year on year and leads to some of the most creative (and occasionally worst) songs of any given year.

And yet the Christmas number one was this utterly irrelevant, pointless, dull as dishwater acoustic ballad about how Paul McCartney owns a big bit of beautiful land on a Scottish island, which is the 70s equivalent of those endless slog of rap songs and rap verses proclaiming the amazing wealth you have. That's the issue with it; strip the romanticist imagery and you have not only an incredibly dull acoustic ballad, but an implicitly egotistical one.

Most Ridiculous Part?

That the biggest hit of the band who did Live and Let Die was this, although this is far from the last time this is the case in the pop charts, and not even the last on this list.

Why?

I can only assume purely based on McCartney's sheer hit-making power. Paul McCartney had a ton of hits after the Beatles, first with Wings and later as a solo artist, and most of them were if not outright terrible at least a little unimaginative, lacking the zest and energy that former bandmate John Lennon provided, or indeed the musicianship and vulnerability of George Harrison. And it is indeed each members' hits post-Beatles that shows the balance between the members, that sheer synergy that made them one of the greatest bands of all time...as well as the clear weaknesses in each member's solo work. Ah well, at least the Frog Chorus never got to number one.

8: Axel F – The Crazy Frog

What?

Oh god, this one. This horrible, putrid, unlistenable piece of pop music smegma that polluted the airwaves and conversations of civilised society for a large chunk of 2005. Trying to explain this one to the blissfully ignorant is like explaining the odd popularity of slavery. Right, it started as a Swedish student trying to copy the sound of a two-stroke engine out of the comically awful Russian car, the Trabant. Six years later, another Swedish student created a 3d animation of the creature known as The Annoying Thing, using the sound to show off his ability to lip sync and animate in time with a sound file. It was popular on his site and spread out to Napster and other file sharing sites of the time and thus it was at this time that the burgeoning mobile phone ringtone company Jamstar! (at the time known as Jamba!, RingToneKing and a zillion other terrible names) bought the rights and started to blanket advertise the damn thing more than anything alive. More people saw this than saw the Coronation, the Jubilee or any sporting final, if only because it was absolutely impossible to escape. This original clip eventually permutated into a big merchandise grab to cash in on the surprise flash in the pan hit which eventually led to an hugely successful album in 2005, Crazy Hits.

The lead off single of Crazy Hits, a cover of the main theme from Beverly Hills Cop was a monumental smash hit, even with Frog's annoying gimmick polluting the incredibly infectious beat getting to number one practically everywhere in the world and staying there in the UK for a month, only finally being ousted by the tag team of Tupac and Elton John.

Most Ridiculous Part:

As much as I want to say the very fact the Crazy Frog exists as a pop culture artefact is one, but I suppose the fact that the mobile phone-bait music video was turned into not one, but two video games makes me want to flee this planet as fast as physics will allow me.

Why?

It's really hard to consider how the Crazy Frog phenomenon suddenly flashed into existence and just as quickly went away. As much as I want to put it down to horrible people being horrible and liking terrible things then finally seeing sense, there must be more to it than that. Crazy Frog was the symbol of a change that would very quickly sweep the pop world: The use of ringtones, the internet and new media as a firm marketing tool, as well as cross marketing in a very efficient way (well other than the blanket marketing of the initial ringtone) that kept the grey bastard constantly in the public's conscious, which snowballed and meant once it was there it would not go away.

As much as we wanted it to.

7: Ain't No Doubt – Jimmy Nail (1993)

What?

If the Crazy Frog is entirely plausible from a sheer cynical marketing perspective, the huge and sustained success of Jimmy Nail is the complete opposite. Typically the number one position goes to either something very talented, very catchy or it fits a contemporary trend. Jimmy Nail was never any of those things, and in fact there's a good chance you won't have heard of him, since his last big role was in 2002, reprising a role he hadn't done at that point for 14 years. Basically, he was the Geordie lout from Auf Wiedersehn Pet, and yet from that he had a pretty respectable television career in the 90s, his biggest hit being the heartwarming comedy Crocodile Shoes.

And it is with Crocodile Shoes that his television and music careers both converge and peak simultaneously, the simple premise of a factory worker who wants to live the dream of being a country music singer included a tie-in album which went to number two at the tail end of 1994 and the title track becoming another of Nail's many many chart hits. However, while Crocodile Shoes makes perfect sense as a tie-in product, his previous album, Growing Up in Public was the big hit, and its first single, Ain't No Doubt inexplicably went to number one, the reason I call it inexplicable becomes readily appatrent once you hear it.

From a production standpoint the song is pretty much dead centre in terms of its sound. It has a brass band, an admittedly awesome bass riff that powers the song and muted synth chords creating a somewhat slow atmospheric verse which comes to life in the chorus. Nail is also accompanied by Sylvia Mason-James, who does very well with the three repeating lines she gets. Those are the two good parts of the song, and really it goes downhill the second Nail starts evoking the rhythmic styling of William Shatner. The lyrics are about a breakup and the mistrust that comes from that, done in a simplistic way and really simply demanding honestly; the act of lying to save feelings after a breakup being a contradiction in terms, leading to the eventual resignnation of Nail's narrator as a liar himself, lying himself to both protect himself and to try and hurt his former lover. The problem is Nail's performance, acting like he's narrating the monologue in a bad Geordie Film Noir, which could have worked in framing the lady as a femme fatale and extending the metaphor. The problem is that it becomes abundantly clear that Nail is not singing the verses due to the limitations in his voice or the unwillingness of the hacks who wrote the song to create a vocal melody, and so it stands to expose his weaknesses in both lyricism and singing, weaknesses that got him an Ivor Novello award nomination for excellent songwriting.

It should be noted that “Bad Geordie Film Noir” seems to be the theme of the music video, although the influences seem to be less “The Blue Dahlia” and more “Bugsy Malone”, as the verse and chorus move between the grim London streets in an intimidating cold grey, the overexposed, almost deified light in the Pre-Chorus and the glitzy full on musical colours of the chorus, relating a tale of the muted emotions of the protagonist being tested by the forced platitudes of his former love, eventually tipping over and forcing the protagonist to rhetorically ask "Why does she pretend?!" and burst out into the emotive, colourful chorus.

Yeah, that's about as much Jimmy fucking Nail analysis as you can wring out of me.

Most Ridiculous Part?

The Pre-Chorus by a mile, where Mason-James is interrupted by Nail's sardonic asides of “she's lying!” which is nothing short of genius. If I'm ever in a nasty horrible break up (um, again), I know who's sage advice I'm going to follow to deal with it!

Why?

Nail was a fairly respected actor, with most of his better roles, such as in Spender and Crocodile Shoes being characters he created, and received five BAFTA nominations and a Golden Globe Nomination that he created. Perhaps his exposure and reputation with the BBC, a company known for being better than most when it came to cross-promotion, as well as his reputation for writing (though not really music) kept him in the public picture, and thus people bought his music as a show of support for his television persona, like they did later with Crocodile Shoes.

Or maybe people are just suckers for bad break up songs, who knows?

6: Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter – Iron Maiden (1990)

What?

Oh hell yes, one of the gods of metal, Iron Maiden were so awesome they managed a number one hit in the early nineties, where metal had been shooed away into nothingness in the wake of the first wave of popular hip hop (or hip-pop as certain particularly humourless oafs will claim). Most metal that was still stocked was the increasingly out of control yet ever duller Hair Metal variety, and it would be a couple of years before its reaction would get big enough to confront it's decadent stablemate. Amid this chaotic landscape, and the utterly pathetic religious claptrap Saviour's Day making it to the Christmas top spot , Iron Maiden managed to score the number one single on the eve of 1991.

To a fan of heavy metal this is standard, and actually for Iron Maiden unfortunately redundant stuff, off their weakest album, No Prayer For the Dying, although a different cut was used as the theme song for the slasher flop Nightmare On Elm Street Part V: The Dream Child. Arguably a tiny bit more accessible in terms of sound than something like To Tame a Land admittedly, but really it's standard Maiden, and really it's difficult to hate an Iron Maiden song if you're a fan of that kind of music. And if you're not, then these words are going to slap you in 3...2...

Most Ridiculous Moment

The BBC banned the song and its music video, if you can believe it, in late 1990 when it started climbing up the charts on Christmas eve. I assume it's because of the rather sexualised lyrics, or maybe that they thought in the wake of the devil worshipping child abuse scare of the early 1990s (believe it or not, that was a real genuine moral panic), that people would literally bring their daughter to the slaughter. Either way, it was a bit sensationalist and I suspect the BBC were pushed into it.

Why?

While I want to say simply “Because it's awesome your plebian cretins!” I genuinely am baffled by this one more than most of the ones on this list. Rock and heavy metal really stopped being more than a fluke hit about a decade before this, but even with the hits in the genre that came before and after this, there was usually a reason for their success. They were in the soundtrack a hit film, some kind of major media event involved them, they got a rub from a popular star of the time or more morbidly one of the members dies. Nightmare Part 5 was an utter flop, so I doubt that Freddy had anything to do with its success. It's not much simpler than most Maiden fare so it wasn't a dramatic change in style like how Metallica and Megadeth got big hits. The song got banned from the BBC, but how much that drove sales I have no idea; while it got the Sex Pistols their only number one hit, but that song was trying to get banned because being taboo was the entire point of the Sex Pistols (not punk mind, before I get complaints from punk bands, just The Sex Pistols themselves). Personally, this isn't entirely out of nowhere, given their massive success outside of the pop fold, perhaps a crossover hit was inevitable. Also, Iron Maiden are awesome, that is all.