#concept: they are in the desert. there's fire on the background. and a helicopter is looking for tony. that's were all this light is from

[3twindragons]

Winteriron/ if they met during the first iron man movie.

[mthvn]

Truth and simulacrum: whose timeline is it? — Maja Bogojević on Possessed

Factuality itself depends for its continued existence upon the existence of the nontotalitarian world (Hannah Arendt)

Possessed, the latest film made by Metahaven—the collective name of artists and designers Vinca Kruk and Daniel van der Velden—in collaboration with documentary filmmaker Rob Schröder, takes their radical aesthetics and progressive politics a step further from their previous film The Sprawl: Propaganda about Propaganda. Their new hybrid artwork revisits the themes of contradictions and paradoxes of multiple realities, geopolitical landscapes, new technologies, power discourse and ensuing alienation in the age of “post-truth.” Similarly to The Sprawl, this film is not easy to categorise, as it explores the notions of consumer discourse, privacy, secrecy, transparency, surveillance, veiling and unveiling, the impact of social media networks and anarchic utopianism of the internet architecture on our individual and collective lives. Through a documented collage, blending a series of drawings, photographs, animated graphics, documentary footage and fictional reconstruction, it refers to various socio-historical narratives and their processes of subordination, power and inequality, commented upon by a single but multi-fold voice-over in a non-linear narrative, which breaks and fragments in order to not only reflect the fragmentation of multi-layered realities we live in, but also to challenge them.

Possessed begins with the images of burning smart phones, war-devastated cities and landscapes, and a water spring flowing over large dark stones, overlapping with the opening narrated question:

“Would you believe?”

These first spoken words trigger a series of questions relating to the search not of the ultimate truth, but of potential truths amidst fakeness and a fixed set of beliefs regardless of the information overload diversity. The answer is, inevitably, “no”. 

But the answer to the question “Would you believe in angels?” is, in the age of cynicism and hypocrisy, a surprising “yes”. This abruptly shifts the initial dystopian tone, foreshadowing the underlying final humanistic message of the film, although “there is no hope” (“what for?”) and there is no answer to the question “would you love?”, followed by the sound of a human breathing next to a smartphone. In this prologue, before the opening credits unfold, Possessed suggests in medias res that the centre of the human universe is a smartphone. The next image shows more clearly a girl lying on a bare mattressed bed, in a ruined house devoid of any furniture, with the presence of only one object—a smartphone. She greets the viewers with the words—both vocal and written—“welcome to the modern age”, followed by:

“You may think that this is a house. But there is no house. You may think that this is a girl. But there is no girl. Don’t ask me who I am.” 

Examining the complex mutual relationship between the socio-political context and the work of art which documents the historic period it emerged in, the words are intercut with film negatives of houses, a helicopter, the ‘invisible’ humans (“you never noticed me, I wouldn’t be missed”), a footage of Pope Francis, all accompanied with smartphone selfies made with a raised arm in front of the masses of people and monuments.

 “When I was young, I was quiet, I didn’t talk with the others, we never talk, we message… All tenderness is radical in a broken world”… “I want to know, what is a devil today? Do you want to hear the truth? Let the suffering speak. I am a breathing fragment of nothingness. Who lives or dies to care for me.”

This verbal segment is intercut with the images of the cross and a drawing of a hand collaged with the real human arm holding a smartphone, as the new disease to be cured of (by exorcism) seems to be—the reality. The raised arm holding a smartphone becomes the pervasive film symbol—it is present in Vatican, over the heads of a faceless mass, in restaurants, in shopping centres, in our empty homes, in the streets, it is everywhere—questioning the beliefs of people. Religion becomes a kind of superstition, because no matter what people ‘know’ in the information age, they still interpret the world and the reality according to their pre-existing fixed set of beliefs.

As Hannah Arendt puts it (in The origins of totalitarianism): “The true goal of totalitarian propaganda is not persuasion, but organization of the polity. ... What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part of”.

Reconstructing artefacts of the recent and not-so-distant past, the film combines images, videos, TV, satellite/drone footage and an original narration into a seemingly incoherent and fragmented filmic reality, with many (meta)textual/discourse references, including videos of: Pope Francis in Rome, ruined Vukovar, Cologne, Aleppo, US soldiers’ flash mob dance in Afghanistan, Dubai fire and sandstorms, hurricane Katrina, migrant lines in Slovenia, queues of people in urban centres, glacier bridge collapse, statue of Liberty etc. Images of war-torn countries show demolished buildings, torn books, deserted homes with personal belongings left behind, posters hanging on the walls, newspapers, religious symbols etc. 

The multiplication of simultaneously run narratives and realities and fragmentation of both the individual and the collective are reflected in the film along the axis of mainstream media/state/corporate structures vs. people/media users/consumers, conveying the notion that our agency in the information process is taking less and less responsibility. The more fake news we are served, the more the ‘truth’ becomes important: the mainstream media (and political leaders) have never been more obsessed with it, insisting in their marketing slots that they are all “telling the truth”, echoing Hannah Arendt’s visionary words: “Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.”

And:

“The danger is not actual despotic control but fragmentation—that is, a people increasingly less capable of forming a common purpose and carrying it out. Fragmentation arises when people come to see themselves more and more atomistically, otherwise put, as less and less bound to their fellow citizens in common projects and allegiances.” (The origins of totalitarianism)

But because of the new media interface, there is a new level of complex fragmentation along the axes privacy/secrecy/transparency/surveillance and control/enslavement, causing a ‘mental implosion’, in Baudrillard’s terms—“simulacrum has been brought to perfection in the 21st century thanks to media interface.” The collaged images of face recognition software, smart phone pervasiveness, the statue of Liberty, war-devastated buildings, torn books, “god land” with a Vodafone tower in the background suggest that mainstream media and dominant consumer discourses tailor their surveillance methods according to the selling/consuming axis or what they perceive as fit for their consumers’ needs. What the overload of information has brought is the illusory display of capitalist consumers’ choices (various kinds of coffee, carrot cakes, brownies, smoothies), but there are no nuances in interpretation of cultural texts, and this precisely helps to sustain the capitalist order. As corporate profit dictates consumers’ privacy, Baudrillard’s “mental involution” (a phone is melting like a brain could be melting) is bound to materialise, leading to the loss of the autonomy of the agency, the collapse of subjectivity. The imaginary enemy is ‘identified’, the crisis is created, and innocents die as a result. 

“The truth?”, the narrator asks and answers: “Let the suffering speak”.

Metahaven’s concept of black transparency is reminiscent of Baudrillard’s concept of simulacrum “Simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth, but the truth conceals that it’s not there. Simulacrum is true.” One fact can arise from many models simultaneously and this anticipation and confusion between the fact and its model leaves space for all possible interpretations, even the most contradictory ones.  This is how the politically anomalous - what was regarded as political aberration – can become normalcy.

Hypocrisy, carnage of profile, masked identities, faceless multitudes…

“I grew up in a city of great wealth and beauty” – these words, as it is made clear by subsequent images, allude to the baroque town of Vukovar, destroyed in the Yugoslav war - the first majorly destroyed European town in a battle since World War 2.  A sign reads “18. 11. 1991 - Vukovar, sjecate se?” (“do you remember?”), with a series of images of a ghost town, with decaying, deserted streets, demolished buildings and houses, dead bodies, streams of survivors fleeing… reminiscent of today’s devastated Syria. The authenticity of such footage images evokes the importance of the responsibility of the human race in the face of war crimes and atrocities committed by humans.

Possessed, therefore, wants to remind of and challenge human indifference. The shots show rooms empty of furniture but full of books and papers from the period of the existence of Yugoslavia (which was also the leader of the non-aligned movement of the so-called  third-world countries): Marxism, Kumrovecki zapisi, Danas: Jugoslavija, samoupravljanje, svijet, Class struggle and socialist revolution etc. These and images of “red” books bargains, Mao posters, Russian symbols, accompanied by the sound of a Croatian traditional song (“Spavaj spavaj diticu”, to make a clear reference to the war in Croatia), are a testimony to the recent European past, as well as a statement against general amnesia that has marked both post-industrial and post-communist societies.

But, “the war is always somewhere else”. The photo of a passport is aligned next to the photos of war tanks, weapons and military airplanes. Footage shows US soldiers rejoicing and dancing to the sampled “music” of gunshot sounds in Afghanistan.

 The ‘others’ imply that their bodies are more disposable and mortal, and the pain of ‘others; seems to be peripheral to the human masses, in spite of the power of  photography and media. We have face recognition software, but what and how much of human suffering do we recognize in a photo/image? We get an easy automated response to our (consumer tailored) needs (Siri, hello?), but show no reactions to others. We appear to have google maps that locate everything, but there seem to be no ‘maps for human suffering’. “As one can become habituated to horror in real life, one can become habituated to the horror of certain images,” states Susan Sontag in Regarding the pain of others.

Statements such as “we obey a fictional eye” and “our faces were attuned to a watchful eye—to adjust to being seen and shared” question and interpellate the capacity of reason and observation, even ‘common sense’ of the uniform masses, as well as the authority of god.

Indifference ‘to the pain of others’ is underscored by the repeated images of selfies and posing smilingly for selfies with a stick – a prolonged arm for the phone, restaurant images of food and drinks and a supply of a crane for “the ultimate selfie” in order to share the ultimate happiness with the world. Thus, we have cranes for photos to be shared on social media and drones for more arrogant photos and bombs. In parallel realities, innocent people die and disappear in wars, but we insist on more of our presence around the globe, offering our joy to the world.

But is this happiness fake or real? If it is real, how real is it? Do we know we are happy or do we act by orders? “Smile, be happy.” The collapse of the subject in post-modern age of neo-totalitarianism, post-truth and post-Trump?

In The origins of totalitarianism, Arendt stated decades ago: “In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement  was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness”.

As the mutations of the image follow the shifts of historical narratives, so the collapse of the subject as well as networks seems to be imminent. A pamphlet-like verbal segment declares: “Delete your own self, the networks collapse… the screen is crushed, instagram and facebook collapse”, raising a new set of questions: have smartphones become more clever than our brains? Do we base our knowledge on networks? Will our subjectivity collapse with the collapse of networks? Will our arm break together with the stick for selfies?

 “The arrogance of the camera. This helicopter won’t come to the rescue. It will patiently film my killing”.

These words echo Susan Sontag’s statement that “the shock can become familiar: the ultra-familiar, ultra-celebrated image—of an agony, of ruin—is an unavoidable feature of our camera-mediated knowledge of war”. By analogy, they also mirror Glauber Rocha’s famous words that “the camera is a lie” or Jean-Luc Godard’s that “film is a reflection of the reality or the reality of reflection?” 

The irony and powerlessness of the proliferation of narratives and realities can be demonstrated further by another example (not shown in the film): the phenomenon of Ron Haviv’s photo taken during the Bosnian war in March 1992, and used by Jean-Luc Godard in his video masterpiece Je vous salue, Sarajevo (1993), which pictures the Serbian soldier Srdjan Golubovic treading over a Bosnian female victim’s head; Srdjan Golubovic later became a famous DJ Max performing in various night clubs in Serbia, until he was arrested in 2012 not as a war criminal, but for possession of drugs. 

“Good citizen, happy citizen, legal citizen, undocumented person, see-through person… I travelled here from far… I tried to forget what happened to me before I fled. No one believes me.  I have to be the evidence. I’m my own document”

This verbal narrative is intercut with the images of identity papers shown at borders, finger print scan check at airports, and “Ausländer” signs & grafitti, showing that, in spite of techno advances in industrial capitalism that might signal the arrival of a cyborg citizenship, the Western context, actually, reflects the return to hierarchy of white capitalist patriarchy, struggling with transculturality (which is one of the most significant influences of late post-modernity in Europe) and becoming more homogenous, closed and insecure at a time of increasing fascism and racism.

“You were quiet, you never talked”. “I” becomes “you” as an older “I” (the new generation) speaks to “you” in the future “that you never saw coming”. 

“Will it be enough to love yourself?”

Contradictions and paradoxes of technology suggest that human bodies have become a source of maximum exploitation in the visual age: is it the end of the image, the end of knowledge, of imagination? Is the future foreseeable based on facebook, instagram and twitter? New forms of expression and representation are needed to reflect the changing and challenged subjectivity in the process of becoming autonomous agents of knowledge.

As the film title suggests, we are all ‘possessed’ by multiple master narratives: by technological advances, corporate structures, general amnesia, by the collapsed subject, beliefs that border on superstition, by our “shared” need to broadcast our lives to the world, selfies, fake smiles, illusory happiness (“the device did one thing really well – it made us always smile”), fake choices, fake needs created by fake consumerist capitalist discourse, by our own voyeurism and exhibitionism, by insanity and monstrosity of political leaders, powerful consumerist discourse, by our own powerlessness and indifference, failure to take responsibility, by the absence of empathy and love (“love yourself”), possessed by our own negligence to use our ‘cultural mirror’ in the midst of the collapse of the notions of self, knowledge and truth. We have timelines, but no time in the age of multiplication of signifiers and the collapse of the signifieds. 

“If I had all faith, but have no love, I am nothing. Love is patient and kind, it doesn’t envy or boast, it’s not arrogant or rude… it rejoices with the truth.”

The acknowledgement of the ‘fact’ that we forgot how to love adds a new ontological dimension to Metahaven’s visual research, a more hopeful one than most current sci-fi dystopian narratives, as the present reality we live in, not the imaginary future, is already dystopian.  In other words, the imaginary of the social and technological can be equally democratising and constraining, but if approached responsibly, it will rather be the former.

By analogy to Alain Badiou’s Eloge de l’amour (2009), this new neither/nor space, which is not free of imperfections, but is free of estranging social confines and prohibitions, can work as an “angel of love”, a new imaginary space for a human encounter that may never occur, but could create a new unrestrained space of love and empathy.

Such an ending, in spite of the detached, almost robotic youthful voice-over, may offer a much needed disalienating, humanistic message, simultaneously subversive and self-authenticating, as the technological and hyper-rational advancements don’t necessarily imply human progress - to paraphrase Hemingway’s words: the invention of an airplane doesn’t mean that we move faster than a horse. An alternative to this ending is the return to pre-social, pre-linguistic, pre-discursive and – pre-technological, as the final images show warehouses in ruins, desolate lands and several masked women, wearing scarves to hide faces (with emojis, stickers & comic strip captions, designed by Metahaven), whispering inarticulately with their black shadows and holding big stones instead of smartphones.

Finally, in a call to challenge the structure of subjectivity, socio-political relations and the social imaginary that supports it, Possessed transforms the current debate of the binary opposition truth/facts and lies into questions of interpretation and epistemology, contextualising them, further, to not only how something is interpreted but who it is interpreted by (are we ‘preaching’ only to the converted?), who are the agents of knowledge and how newly gained knowledge serves to justify the existing beliefs of the masses. In other words, whose timeline is it? 

This is, of course, only one of possible interpretations of the multilayered filmic reality.•

Maja Bogojević (PhD) is a freelance film theorist/critic, founder and editor-in-chief of the first Montenegrin film magazine, Camera Lucida, founder and President of the Fipresci section of Montenegro, and a member of FEDEORA and UPF. She has been, until recently,_ _film theory professor and Dean of Faculty of Visual Arts at Mediteran University Podgorica, and, previously, the Dean of Faculty of Arts at the University of Donja Gorica.

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Burning Man: Silicon Valley's Hottest Perk?

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As Labor Day 2019 rolls in, the residents of the Eastern shore of Florida are gearing up for what is increasingly looking to be a catastrophic storm in Hurricane Dorian. The nearly universal consensus is that the storm will bring a deluge of water and inevitable floods. It is not an understatement to say no one in Florida is looking forward to the next 72 hours, and our thoughts here at PYMNTS are with them.

About 2,800 miles away on the other side of the country, however, a nearly polar opposite circumstance is unfolding in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, as over 70,000 people living in a temporary makeshift “city” in the absolute middle of nowhere are all anxiously awaiting a fire they are very much looking forward to.

Tonight, as is tradition, a large wooden statue known collectively as “The Man” will be set ablaze in the desert – the capstone event of the annual Burning Man festival. The annual event, created by Larry Harvey and Jerry James in 1986, is now an international draw for visual artists, social media influencers, tech billionaires, independent thinkers and party animals of all stripes.

Burning Man is always a singular experience in and of itself. Officially a commerce-free zone, it constitutes a gift-driven economy in the most literal sense. There is no buying or selling, no stands, no marketing. There may be smoothie shops and exotic grilled cheese stands at Burning Man, but everything is free – all products and services are offered by burners as gifts. The only things that can be sold are coffee and ice.

But that commerce-free experience only starts when attendants get to the playa and start setting up their tents. The ticket itself is a substantial investment of over $400, and then guests must bring everything they could possibly need for the two-week communal camping experiment, from food and water to toilet paper to sunblock. Not only that, but they often bring enough to share with others. For those bringing elaborate costumes, setting up massive art installations or offering free communal services like showers, meals and drinks, the costs can easily spiral into the tens and hundreds of thousands.

Then there are the always controversial “luxury burners” – billionaires, athletes, celebrities and their guests – who come to Black Rock City and create a private, roped-off area equipped with air-conditioned yurts, spas and gourmet meals on demand, right in the middle of the desert. Building all of that is not cheap, nor is the helicopter ride to access it, nor is the cost of removing every trace of it by Monday (cleaning up and leaving no remnants behind is one of the founding tenets of the festival).

All of that has been the background noise of Burning Man in the last decade – a series of interesting contradictions at an event that is part high-minded experiment in communal living and sustainability, and part isolated bacchanal that stands as a massive cultural monument to excess.

Which is not to say that every year doesn’t have its specific quirks – or that 2019 isn’t packing its share of oddities.

While Burning Man has been informally considered a Silicon Valley networking hub since its inception, some firms are deciding to formalize that a bit.

By making it expensable.

Burning Man as a Corporate Retreat

While many people have taken time off work for Burning Man, more than a few have no doubt bent the truth when telling their employer about their vacation plans. But at least one firm in San Francisco is encouraging its employees to go. In fact, it is actually offering to buy the tickets.

Shane Metcalf, co-founder and chief culture officer of 15Five, a San Francisco-based employee feedback and management system, is a true Burning Man believer, and wants his workers to believe as well. Having personally attended the event 10 times, Metcalf believes Burning Man “brings to the forefront higher levels of creativity than you ever knew were possible,” and he wants to encourage his workers to broaden their minds. So Burning Man tickets are on the company this year – anyone who buys a spot can expense it to the boss.

“We aren’t thinking about this as part of the perk war. I’m doing this because going to Burning Man … continues to be one of the most transformative and beneficial experiences of my life. I would not be the person that I am had I not gone to Burning Man,” Metcalf told Inc.

He views sending workers to Burning Man in the same vein as sending them to a professional development conference – in fact, he noted, there are literally hundreds of workshops offered every day at Burning Man, “on every topic you can imagine.” Granted, the event has more foam parties, electronic dance music, orgies, public nudity and psychedelic drugs than the average professional development conference – but Metcalf says that vision of Burning Man is vastly oversold. And besides, his employees are adults and able to chaperone themselves in the desert for a week.

And it should be noted that without Burning Man, Google/Alphabet might not exist in its current form. According to Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, the event is pretty much responsible for him ending up at Google in the first place.

“We all went to Burning Man together,” Schmidt told Stephen Colbert of the time way, way back when Google was more of an interesting concept than anything else, and the firm’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page really wanted to recruit Schmidt. After a week together on the playa, magic happened – though to this day, Schmidt is silent on the details.

And 15Five isn’t the first firm to use Burning Man as an out-of-the-box approach to a corporate retreat. In 2007, the social media startup Faceparty relocated nearly all of their team to Burning Man.

“It was very interesting, being there with a group of people who wouldn’t have been there on their own steam,” former employee Santiago Genochio recalled.

So, is it time to start planning the company retreat to the playa, or allocating the budget to send teams? Is this the best way to get on top of founding the next Google?

Not so fast – there are a few things to consider.

Not Every Group Building Experience Is Right for the Workplace 

Wondering why you have never heard of Faceparty before? Well, about a year after the whole team went to Burning Man, the company went belly up, unable to compete in the rapidly consolidating social media environment. Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, didn’t make his maiden (and thus far only) journey to Burning Man until 2012, when Facebook was the dominant player in social media and he was a guest in a camp on “billionaire’s row.” Whatever value Burning Man had as a bonding experience, there might have been something to be said for staying home and building the social network rather than going out and socializing in the desert.

And not every Silicon Valley CEO shares Metcalf’s enthusiasm for sending workers into the desert for a week or two of fun on the corporate dime, since it sounds a bit like begging for trouble.

“That’s a horrible idea,” Box Inc. CEO Aaron Levie said. “What about HR?”

A Box spokeswoman later walked back that comment a bit, saying Levi has no problem with Burning Man and wishes all burners the “best of luck.”

And, upon closer consideration, one might wonder if 15Five’s offer to its workers is actually quite the “tech firm makes Burning Man attendance mandatory” story that some new outlets have been reporting.

First of all, 15Five is not buying the tickets for their employees, but rather is letting employees expense their tickets after they buy them. That distinction is important, because tickets can be hard to come by. And the firm is only reimbursing the ticket price – the gas, food, costumes and everything else workers bring for the weekend is wholly on their own dime.

“We’re not building a 15Five camp. We’re saying this is an invitation to go have an experience that’s famous for creating profound transformations for people,” Metcalf noted.

An invitation that, incidentally, not all that many people are actually accepting. After all, 15Five has not had to shut down for the last week and a half – because, according to Metcalf, only about four employees bought tickets. Everyone else is at work.

So is 15Five really trying to build a corporate culture of Burning Man enthusiasts because, as Metcalf said, they bring “a higher level of authenticity, self-expression and creativity?”

It is certainly possible – after all, anyone who has been to Burning Man 10 times in 12 years clearly believes in the mission.

But could it be that 15Five announced their Burning Man “perk” during the typically slow late-summer news cycle, in hopes that they might get some free advertising from all the news outlets?

That certainly seems possible.

But then, that is Burning Man: an expansive, extravagant and over-the-top celebration of communalism, anti-corporatism and living in accord with nature. It’s unsurprising that everything it touches has complicated – and perhaps ever-so-slightly conflicting – motivations.

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OOPS It's Almost February but Here's My GOTY Lists!

Game of the Year: 10. Forza Horizon 3 I typically don't play racing games any more. For me, the genre peaked at Burnout 3: Takedown, and unless we are talking about Mario Kart 64, most racing games don't occupy a big piece of my gaming heart. Then, E3 2015 happened, and I was immediately mesmerized by Forza Horizon 3. I had only played Forza Motorsport 6, and neither of the other Horizon games, but the presentation given for FH3 immediately jumped out at me. I was intrigued by the diverse racing areas in Australia, and then I was hooked when I saw the race against the helicopter. What I saw was some of the insanity I loved about Burnout 3, along with the graphical prowess of more modern racers. Thankfully, FH3 is everything I loved about its E3 presentation: incredible graphics and the diverse landscape of Australian beaches, cities, jungles, and desert lands, driving that is the perfect balance of arcadey-fun and sim-realism, a great sense of speed, and an attitude that doesn't take itself too seriously. It is the first racing game in a long time that I would say is one of my favorite games of the year, and I also believe it is one of the ten best games of the year. Also -- the soundtrack is one of the best soundtracks in any game in a long time, which was another fun surprise about this wonderful game. 9. Doom The original Doom was the first video game I have any memory of in my life. I was hanging out with my dad at the local college activities center, and I remember catching someone play it on a demo-computer that was set up in one of the breezeway areas in the building. I was not yet at the age where I could play video games, but the memory of watching this dude with crazy guns kill crazy monsters has stuck with me. Through the years since, I have kept up with Doom as a series, even though Doom 3 is the only Doom game I have put any significant time into before Doom 2016. From what I can understand, Doom 2016 recaptures the feeling of playing OG Doom back in the day -- over-the-top insane action at a pace that never lets up from the get-go. From the very first seconds of Doom 2016, you are charged with killing everything that gets in your way, often as fast as you can. This is clearly not a new gaming concept, but D16 makes it as much fun as it can be. There are a lot of great shooters out this year, but (of those I played), none come close to matching the intensity and balls-to-the-wall feel of D16. This is your favorite shooter's favorite shooter, and is some of the best Video Game™ fun to be had in 2016 and beyond. 8. Inside Inside is quite a thing. The follow up to Playdead's Limbo (2010), it takes a lot of what made Limbo unique and fun and improves on it. Mechanically, Inside takes the time-tested gameplay of Running To The Right and makes it dangerous and exciting in a way few games do well. You are not quite sure what you are running to (or from?) for most of the game, but the world-building - usually in the background - keeps you interested from start to finish. The puzzles are mostly challenging, but I never got stuck, which helped the game keep a steady momentum throughout. It is a very dark game, both graphically and in subject matter, but Inside uses color in bursts to help punctuate certain moments. I am not super sure what really "happened" in Inside, but the story is ambiguous enough to allow for multiple interpretations, which I like, as well as a hidden ending if you are into that kind of thing. The last section of the game is not one I want to spoil, but is without quarter one of the most insane sections of a game I played all year, and is one of the best watercooler gaming moments in 2016. 7. Overcooked Overcooked is a game I watched a lot of in 2016, and then finally got my hands on in the waning days of the year. I've never had so much fun messing up in a game maybe ever as I do in Overcooked, but I feel equally as satisfied when everything goes off without a hitch. The basic premise of Overcooked is hilarious: the apocalypse happens, and The Beast arrives to destroy everything. The only way to stop the apocalypse from happening is to cook well enough to appease The Beast. Naturally, you fail, and you are sent back in time to work on your skills of "cooking and co-operation" in order to be better when The Beast comes back. The premise alone is worthy of any top-10 list, but the gameplay cements it. There are always two to three too many jobs per player - you'll need to grab ingredients, chop ingredients, use a fryer, cook in a pot or an oven, clean dirty dishes, place clean plates, and turn in completed orders in time, all while avoiding obstacles, moving portions of stages, certain death by lava, or by setting the arena on fire due to literal over-cooking. I say "arena" instead of kitchen, because even though you start in kitchens, the stages progress to pirate ships, moving vehicles, icy platforms, haunted houses, and space stations. You rarely do the same thing twice in Overcooked, and the stages are short enough that each play session is guaranteed to be varied, fast, and furious. The only downside I found is that it does not have online play -- Overcooked is the kind of game where it is certainly best with local play, but I wish I still had the option. That being said, Overcooked is a riot, and some of the best multiplayer of the year. 6. Batman: The Telltale Series Batman: The Animated Series is the first superhero-related property I remember in my life. I would watch this show every day, and I have memories of this classic cartoon before I have memories of most other things in my life. I've been a Batman fan ever since - so any new Batman game is going to certainly have my attention. Telltale's interpretations on The Walking Dead and Fables (via The Wolf Among Us) were interesting and compelling enough that I found myself eagerly awaiting each chapter, and Telltale's Batman is no exception. Traditional elements of the Batman narrative are flipped on their head, making this version of Batman a unique and risky vision of the Batman universe. Character origins are modified, and some characters end up being completely different from other, more standard portrayals, but Telltale pulls off each of these tweaks in a way that I found satisfying. I do wish that Telltale would revamp their engine, as I experienced some pretty wonky graphical glitches, and the frame rate never seems to be too interested in staying smooth, but this was a fun ride through a bold new telling of the Batman story - one that I will be excited to continue in future installments. 5. Stardew Valley Stardew Valley is a game that came out of nowhere earlier this year. Developed by one person, it took the PC gamingsphere by storm. Since I don't play on PC, I had to wait until December to finally play it on PS4 - and I'm glad I did. The game is a farming and relationship sim, mixed with light dungeon crawling and resource gathering. At the start of the game, your character receives a letter from your grandfather with the deed to the family farm. After toiling away at a boring desk job at a big corporation, the character decides to finally move into the family farm and start a new life. The game is split into days, months, and seasons, with a myriad of gameplay options each day. Some days you might spend clearing space in your farm, others you might spend tending to your crops, and others you might spend in the local town, getting to know each townperson. The relationship-development in the game is fairly shallow, but each character has a distinct personality, and it is fun getting to know them. You can go fishing, learn recipes for cooking, or try to reach a new level in the mine. The only combat options in the game are within the mine, but it is never super challenging. This is part of the appeal of Stardew Valley for me -- it is never traditionally "challenging," and is instead quite laid back. I didn't know I needed a game that is built for the player to take it at their own pace. I found myself continually drawn to play through "just one more day," while also feeling super relaxed. Aesthetically, Stardew Valley evokes old 16-bit era games, but with the best lighting I've ever seen in a 2D game. Stardew Valley is the positive game I needed in 2016, and I can't wait to continue my new life as a farmer-fisher-Casanova-dungeon master in the days to come. 4. Dark Souls III Back in 2009, I picked up a little game called Demon's Souls, and it changed my gaming life. I had never been challenged in an action-RPG in quite that fashion, and it had some of the best combat I had ever played in any game. Two Dark Souls games (and a Bloodborne) later, Dark Souls III finally dropped, and it is the Souls game of my dreams. The basic idea of the game is the same - traverse through an extremely dangerous world battling the toughest enemies and the meanest bosses, all the while upgrading your gear and skills to become the strongest warrior in the world. Bloodborne (the Lovecraftian cousin of the Souls series) sped up the game in a major way, and DS3 has injected a bit of that speed into its traditionally slower-paced combat. The co-op mechanic has also simplified from previous games (another lift from Bloodborne), and is how I experienced most of the game. Some of the most satisfying moments in gaming this year for me were battling bosses alongside my friend and having some serious skin-of-our-teeth victories. I am not as on top of the Souls lore as I would like to be, but I did recognize a lot of neat throwbacks to previous games in the series. According to Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of Dark Souls & DS3, this will be the last game in the series. If this is indeed true, then the series has gone out on a high note with one of the best action-RPGs ever made. 3. Uncharted 4 Some of my favorite movies growing up were the Indiana Jones movies. I always wanted a good video game version of those movies (emphasis on good), and the Uncharted series has been that for me for the last few years. I loved the first Uncharted, and then was blown away by Uncharted 2. Uncharted 3 was still awesome, but it didn't quite live up to the charms of UC2. While I thought the end of 3 was certainly good, I didn't feel like it was as conclusive of an ending as it could have been. I was not surprised when they announced 4, as I felt like they left a little bit of room for more after 3. After announcing that this would indeed be the final Uncharted game, I didn't know how to feel - while there have been hundreds of action-adventure games, this series in particular really hit the beats that the Indiana Jones movies gave me, and I am sad that this series is going away. I'm sure that Naughty Dog felt the pressure to deliver a game worthy of being the final in this spectacular series, and they absolutely nailed it. The Uncharted series has always been on the bleeding edge of graphics technology and art direction, and UC4 is the crown jewel. This is undoubtedly the best looking video game I've ever played, and it's not really all that close. Sprawling island vistas, colorful and crowded towns, and incredibly realistic animations (even for this series) left me consistently in awe of what I was seeing. How good this game looks even this early in the console cycle adds to the impressive visual fidelity, and it deserves any and all awards for graphics this year. Beyond the graphics, the gunplay is the most finely tuned in the series, and the set pieces are the biggest and boldest since Uncharted 2's train sequence. There is a particular sequence involving a jeep, a grappling hook (another mechanic added to this game to great effect), and a motorcycle chase that is equal parts classic Uncharted and modern excellence in game design. The story does a great job of validating the existence of another Uncharted game, as well as including nods to older games in neat ways. The epilogue in particular will stay with me for some time as a long-time fan of the franchise. Nate, Sully, and Elena are all back, and it remains fun to see them in action (or not, as represented by a chapter early in the game). The inclusion of Sam as Nate's brother is something I was initially concerned about, wondering how the game would make me care about a brand new character this late in the overall story, but they did a great job of making him another worthy character in a series filled with fun characters. There is not much I can say negatively about this game -- any other year, UC4 is a shoe-in for my number 1 game of the year. Sitting at number 3 on this list does not mean that this game isn't good - it is truly great, especially for those who have kept up with the series so far. 2. Hitman When I was a kid, my usual answer to "What do you want to be when you grow up" was always "James Bond." As I've grown older I have come to appreciate more and more that I am not James Bond, but I still love it when movies or games make me feel like a super cool secret agent. This year's installment in the Hitman franchise is exactly that - the world's best secret agent simulator! Well...maybe not exactly that but I've not had more fun playing a stealth-action game in years than I have with Hitman. The episodic nature of this game's release meant that each level required some serious heft, and IO Interactive pulled through in a major way in each of the game's sprawling levels. Whether you are in a mansion in Paris during a fashion show, walking around a gorgeous Mediterranean coastal town that hides a cavernous science lab, or a volatile marketplace in Marrakesh, each level is alive with detail, and expertly designed for creative solutions for each mission. Depending on how you want to play, the game can show you exactly where and how to perform some of the sillier ways to accomplish your mission, or you can go through blind, figuring out exactly how you would want to successfully find and take out the targets. Part of the success of Hitman 2016 is that it doesn't take itself too seriously - the AI is good enough to make things difficult if you are sloppy, but not hawkish enough to avoid being exploited. NPC dialogue can be funny as well, and while you certainly can play the game straight and use traditional weapons to carry out the hits, the game offers so many different bonkers ways to take out your targets, it's hard not to play through each mission without cracking a smile at least once. Hitman is also gorgeous - the Sapienza map in particular is stunning, but each map has a distinct aesthetic, each with superb lighting and colors to suit the setting. The music also takes cues from spy movies, giving the situation a curious vibe as you are sneaking around, and escalating if needed to go along with the action on the screen. I wish the load times were faster (playing on an Xbox One), and there are occasional janky glitches (like throwing a battle axe at a target through a wall), but neither of those take away from the immense amount of fun to be had in the gameplay (also, one could argue throwing a battle axe through a wall is actually hilarious and awesome). Where some stealth-action games take themselves too seriously and become save-scumming nightmares, Hitman hits the spot, nailing a goofy sense of fun to a well-worn concept. Bonus points - this game is also so entertaining to watch - I was sold on this game by watching Giant Bomb's video coverage of the game through the year. 1. Overwatch This list was pretty difficult to make this year, and ordering was even more difficult. That being said - there was always a clear number one, and that game is Overwatch. I have joked that this might be my Game of the Every Year, and depending on when you ask me, I may not actually be joking. I was beyond skeptical of this game when it was coming out - I had fallen away from the competitive multiplayer shooter scene somewhere around Halo 3 and Modern Warfare 2. I scoffed at the game not even trying to offer anything for single-player players like me. I knew that I enjoyed the objective-based gameplay of Team Fortress 2 back in the day, but it was never the type of game I was especially drawn towards. But, every game podcast I listened to, every review I read, and just about everyone in games journalism I follow on Twitter could not stop talking about how much fun this game was. So, on a whim, I got the game at GameStop, thinking that I could just trade it in if I didn't like it. I texted one of my friends to let him know I got it, and it turns out he also got it. We played for a couple of hours that first night and right then I knew - I had stumbled backwards into something special. I immediately fell in love with the bright, positive aesthetic, the heroic-sounding music in the main menu, and the enticing possibilities of how different the game could feel depending on which character you use. I was hooked by the pace of each match - not too short and not too long, leaving you perfectly ready for "just one more match." Each character feels great, and I found out quickly that the game was balanced extraordinarily well already out of the gate. That first session lead into more the next day, and the next day, and every day for a week, two weeks, a month...and so on. What started as just my one friend and I playing turned into a steady group of six or seven of us ready to play most days of the week! Part of this is due to the evangelism of my friend and I, bugging our friends to buy the game at an almost daily pace, but an even bigger reason is that Overwatch is accessible while remaining a deep gameplay experience. Multiple characters are perfect for just starting in, whether you have played other multiplayer-FPS games, or whether you are still figuring out how to move with the left stick and turn the camera with the right - there is a character for everybody. The diversity of the cast of characters is also a highlight, as many different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and personalities are not something that is typical for video games. Overwatch also does a great job at making the player feel positive reinforcement - there is no K/D list constantly in the face of the player, and post-match screens are always a celebration of what players did well in a match rather than highlighting who did the best and who did the worst. As Blizzard is known to do with their other games, they showed that they are fully capable of supporting Overwatch via regular content updates and gameplay balance patches, which paves the way for the game to continue to be great in the years to come. The promise of free DLC forever is another great way they are sticking it to their competitors, and continued proof that Blizzard cares about the people who play their games. Sure - do I wish that duplicate items in loot boxes gave out more in-game currency? Of course - but that is also literally the only negative thing I can think of to say about this game. I have logged in more hours into this game than any other game I've ever played (except for maybe Mario Kart 64, which I started playing almost twenty years ago), and I continue to add hours every week. This game has made me new friends, and kept me close with old friends, and has been a valuable portion of my week nearly every week since its release. There was never any other option for my number one game of the year this year, and it deserves any and all praise and awards possible from now until the end of time. PS - please please please get on the point. Thanks! Barely Missed the List: -Firewatch - this is a gorgeous game with an understated, sad, and ultimately genuine and human narrative that hooked me from beginning to end. I'm not sure I'll ever revisit it, but it was a compelling look into the consequences of failing to communicate effectively, as well as speaking to how we tend to go to great lengths to avoid tough situations at times. -Gears of War 4 - This is a solid re-entry into the Gears universe, one which I was a huge fan of in Gears 1-3. Gears 4 is definitely more Gears, although it didn't quite have the same magic for me as the first 3. That being said, I'll be ready for Gears 5 - and this one would have made the list in a lot of other years that weren't as jam packed as this year. -Final Fantasy XV - This was tough to omit from the list. I was really enjoying my time with this game until they announced that they were going to add in story scenes to the game at some unspecified time down the road. As someone who wants to experience a game the best way possible the first time through, I have yet to continue the game since they made this announcement. Despite all of that, I'm thrilled that Final Fantasy is back, and I think that the overall presentation and battle system make for a fun game to play. I'll be excited to get back into this game...once they finish it. Haven't Played but Wish I Had: -Hyperlight Drifter -The Last Guardian -Superhot Games I Want to Play More: -Darkest Dungeon - I love the aesthetic of this game, and I can always fall deep into a good rogue-like -FFXV - reasons above -The Witness - this game makes me feel so smart, but can also be so frustrating. -SFV/Guilty Gear - I want to be better at fighting games, and I love how both of these games look. SFV definitely has more players, but GG feels like the better game. Most Disappointing Game -Tom Clancy's The Division - I wanted to love this game. I was so ready for it after the initial E3 presentation. The promise of another game like Destiny where I could group up with friends, take down enemies, and find better loot is something that I can always get behind. But then, I played The Division. The empty open world was boring, the netcode was a struggle, and the constant cheaters in the Dark Zone bounced me off of this game in a way I wasn't ready for. The loot and customization failed to impress me, and the bullet spongy enemies got old real fast. I haven't felt this disappointed in a game in a long time. Runners Up: -Rez: Infinite - this is not a bad game, and I enjoyed my time with it in VR, but based off of what I heard about this game, it should have brought me closer to God. Needless to say I don't believe it was as transcendent as the conversation around the game would lead me to believe, and that's the only reason it is on the Disappointing Games list for me this year. -No Man's Sky - Or, Game that Makes Me Sad of 2016. The promise of this game based off of the (potentially maliciously) misleading marketing of this game is such a huge disservice to what this game actually is. Thankfully, I did hear enough impressions from some who played it at preview events so that I realized a little more that NMS would be closer to a survival game than the end-all-be-all Sci-Fi epic that was advertised, but even that couldn't help me from eventually falling off of this game. I still really love the aesthetic of the game, and it has some great music. The addition of the Foundation update gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, NMS will one day resemble its initial, ambitious vision, but until that day comes, NMS will ultimately remain disappointing. VR Lineup: VR is finally here! So far I have only experienced VR through the PSVR, and I feel hopeful for the potential VR can bring to gaming. Here are my top 5 PSVR experiences of the year: Job Simulator Batman: Arkham VR Here They Lie RIGS Until Dawn: Rush of Blood Best Game for On The Go: Batman: The Telltale Series (iPad) World of Final Fantasy (Vita) Super Mario Run (iPhone) Game of the (Not This) Year -The Witcher 3 - I've continued to progress forward in The Witcher 3, and I still haven't beaten the main game or touched either DLC pack. This game is so full of great content, it is almost overwhelming. Every time I play TW3, I am more and more convinced that this is one of the best games of the generation, and absolutely one of the best open-world games of all time. Runners Up: -Persona 4: Dancing All Night - I haven't been this into a rhythm game since Rock Band 3! It has been fun coming back to the Persona 4 universe, and jamming along to some of the best video game music in years. This is also a great way to continue the excitement for Persona 5, coming out later this year. -Life is Strange - This is a charming adventure game that I picked up on sale for $5, and I haven't regretted the decision. I haven't yet beaten the story, but I appreciate the indie-movie nature of the game's story, cinematography, and music. The time-rewinding mechanic has been used in many other different games, but the usage of this mechanic in Life is Strange takes pressure off of making decisions, allowing me to see more of the story as I go along. Best Looking Game Uncharted 4 Overwatch Ratchet and Clank Best Music Overwatch (shoutout to Numbani theme!) Uncharted 4 Stardew Valley Overcooked Hitman Best Story Batman: The Telltale Series Uncharted 4 Firewatch