Indie Survival Game. A term that is being used more commonly every day to describe a trend fuelled by Minecraft, Terraria and such. The non-mainstream releases these days are converging into a sort of side-mainstream themselves and use their "Indie"-status to trick people into thinking "Oh boy, this'll be something really, really special and unique."
Not so Don't Starve. I was not sure whether I should even give it a try or not, but eventually decided to do just that. The current (reduced!) price really is not something to complain about and for that, Don't Starve delivers.
You play one of multiple different unlockable characters and are set loose into a freakish, horrifying world (randomly generated with some settings you can tweak). An ominous figure appears next to you and simply advises you to "find some food before nightfall". That'll be your first and most important task, after all the game is called "Don't Starve". You will go through the usual routine of finding some basic ressources like flint, twigs and grass, pick some berries to fill your stomach, we've seen it all before. What sets it apart is its unique setting, with hand-drawn characters and variations of animals that'd make Lovecraft raise an eyebrow or two. The game itself is a mixture of 2D and 3D elements, with the world being freely explorable while all the sprites are 2D.
Come the night, the fun starts. You will quickly find out that this world you have been thrown into is all but peaceful, and all sorts of horrors are just waiting for an opportunity to sap away your sanity. It is crucial to find a healthy balance between surviving and keeping a cool head. Light some fires at night, eat only good food, do research, anything that'll distract your character from what lurks in the darkness.
The game is rich with content, with more stuff added every now and then (there is even a countdown ingame, telling you when the next patch will be out). There is a lot to do and a lot to see, a good session can last for quite a while. Other than many comparable titles, though, Don't Starve is unforgivable and at times very cruel. You should never grow too attached to your current character or what you have built up, it might all be gone in a moment's notice. This grim prospect is what gives Don't Starve its charme, though, and you will be coming back for more, just to see if you have missed something.
A multiplayer would have been fantastic, though none was included. Then again, being alone makes everything a lot more threatening.
A definite recommendation to all of you looking for an artistic, uniquely unsettling little game to play.

From the watery depths of Rapture to the airy heights of Columbia, a city in the sky. Bioshock Infinite takes you on the journey of Booker DeWitt, a down-on-his-luck gambler looking to get rid of his debts by kidnapping a girl from Columbia and delivering her to his dubious employer. Who this employer is and why DeWitt is so obsessed with erasing his past is explained throughout the story.
The story clearly is Infinite's focus in this installment, and it seems to be carefully crafted. It really is fun to find out more about the protagonist, and the game does its best to offer a rich background, based on the pre-WW1 USA, tackling subjects such as racism and segregation and letting them flow into the typical Bioshock-elements. The floating city, automatrons, mechanical horses and all sorts of steampunky gadgetry.
The gameplay it smooth, to say the least. Almost all the weapons you can find have their uses and you will rarely ever feel outmatched, even though the difficulty ramps up quite a bit for the end-game. To help you overcome this, Infinite throws in Vigors, which are like the Plasmids from the older Bioshocks. Weapons and Vigors can be upgraded for money you find scattered all around the city. Apart from your arsenal of boomsticks and magic, the environment also offers a variety of different uses. You may use hazards like oil-spills for some neat combinations, or you can utilise the Skyline, Columbia's freight-transport rails spanning all around the city in the clouds. You can zoom along these rails, flank enemies or just leap onto them with a melee-attack. Using all of these tools simultaneously is only necessary on higher difficulties, but doing so enrichens the gameplay a lot and sets Infinite apart from all the other generic FPS-games out there.
The enemies are smart (enough) and come in some varieties. Fighting a lot at the same time can be quite challenging, but you do not have to face them alone. Elizabeth, the face of the game, accompanies you for most of your journey. She is a brilliant character, not just from the way she acts (very natural) but also how she supports you in combat. She doesn't fight, but also doesn't need protection (thank God), instead, she will occasionally throw you some ammo or health, or you can use her to open "Tears", gateways to another dimension, to summon some supplies, an ally or an environmental twist like cover or a hook you can latch on to. Outside of combat, she will help you out with her lockpicking or codecracking skills. All this serves the purpose of exploration, which is your main source of more money, ammunition or gear, granting you various upgrades.
Exploration is fairly limited, as the game is linear in its structure. Infinite's focus, as mentioned, is storytelling through gameplay (much like Half Life), and for that it needs to direct you. What matters is that is works, which it does. Quite well.
The only downside to this experience is that the game is kind of short. Even with excessive amounts of exploration, my first playthrough only took me 9 hours.
Infinite is beautiful. I love the artstyle, the setting, the characters, the gameplay. It really does make up for what Bioshock 2 was.
Definite recommendation on my part.

So... Planetside 2. I never played the old Planetside, but people told me it was heaps of fun, unique and definitely worthy of a sequel. When Planetside 2 was announced, everyone went completely bonkers about it. I, too, gave the beta a chance and played a bit after its official release.
Being unique, or trying to, still is its main selling point. The game promises a massive, persistent battlefield with a constantly ongoing war between not two but three playable factions. This war is played out Battlefield-style in first person, class based, with access to a wide array of vehicles, both on ground and airborne.
Staying on that topic, the variety definitely is one of Planetside 2's strengths. Not only are there many vehicles and weapons, you can also customise those further, apply paintjobs, decals, different mounted weapons, you name it. The ground-combat is fun as well, the classes work fine, are decently balanced and each faction has access to some unique twists.
The persistent map is tied to the server you choose, and is broken down into a great many different capture-zones which will provides bonuses to the faction controlling it. These include access to some minor buffs as well as a faster ressource-gain. Ressources are added to your character as you play and allow you to spawn assets such as vehicles.
It's persistency is also its biggest weakness, though. Rounds will virtually never end. There is no point to the struggle, as each faction's main base is always safe. This makes PS2 practically useless for competetive play. Also, thanks to being Free2Play, there is a microtransactions-system which will allow those who spend real money to purchase infinite boosts, some of which gameplay-altering.
The graphics look okay, keeping in mind the massive maps, and the sound has all the futuristic pewpew you could wish for. It felt like Battlefield 2142 on steroids alltogether, though without the immensely fun 'Titan' gamemode.
All these points aside, it IS completely free to play, so there is no reason not to at least check it out if you are looking for a casual bit of FPS-action.