Banished

 There's something about games nowadays that almost want to you to feel bad for what you've done to people. For example,
'Oh please sir we're oh so hungry, please give us money' said the whining homeless person in Assassins Creed. Unfortunately she would have continued if you hadn't just stabbed her in her stupid complaining face. While it is true that you have no feeling towards this person specifically designed to annoy you, the game punishes you by killing you if you kill too many civilians. I feel this may be a bit much as it's not like Altair never killed a homeless person while no one was looking.

 But to get to my original point, games make you feel bad and have very bad consequences for your mistakes. In XCOM you are forced to watch as your favourite character is cut into bite-size chunks by some alien prick face because you didn't have enough health packs. But one game that ramps up the peril is the new game, Banished, that was released  on the 18th of February and is something that I have only just picked up. The next four hours of my life however was spent crying, as everyone in my town died of starvation because I forgot to plant the crops in Spring and oh god why.

 But this is my favourite part of the game as I feel fully responsible for the 8 civilians left after the winter-food-crisis-incident. Most games now struggle to make you care about one protagonist, but suddenly you're freaking out over the fact that you have run out of stone so you can't build a new house, and you are forced to watch as a family of five freeze to death on the streets. And there is nothing you can do about it. It's these sort of games that make you want to curl up in a ball and uncontrollably cry for an hour or two.

 Now since this is a review of a game that some are wanting to play very badly but don't want to fork out £15 for it, I guess that I am obliged to talk about the plot and the mechanics of the game itself. *sigh*. You play as an exiled group of plebs that decide that living with heat, food and shelter is just too mainstream for them and decide to set up their own town with Blackjack and hookers.

 But I digress, Banished is an astonishing game that took me slightly by surprise as I expected that, since it is still in Alpha, would be buggy and run like an obese person on a treadmill that can't support their weight. But I was wrong, pleasantly surprised in fact by it's depth, complexity and attention to detail. Also this is the only time, where if you say 'Winter is coming', it's another way of saying, prepare for everyone to die because you have no firewood or clothing you retard.