Game of the Year Shortlist: FEZ

David Scammell, Deputy News Editor

I adore Fez. How could anybody not? An open-world game bursting with the best of the genre's modern-day hallmarks - exploration, discovery, collection, and character - dressed up in an endearing 8-bit exterior, Fez is another indie game worthy of being remembered in the same breath as Super Meat Boy, Limbo and Braid.

In fact, I think it's worthy of even higher praise than that. Fez, what with its delightful personality, obscure hidden depths, mind-bending cryptics and mesmerising world, is one of my all-time favourite puzzle-platformers, and a game worth every minute of the five year wait.

Matt Nellis, Video Producer

When I think of FEZ it often reminds me of my first time playing Portal. Portal not only twisted player perception through the use of game mechanics, but also through its narrative and surprising amount of hidden depth. FEZ is in this same vein. What starts out as a charming 2D platformer with a unique 3D world rotating mechanic, slowly become so much more. This is the gaming equivalent of The Da Vinci Code, whereby discovering one small truth will lead you down a dark spiral of uncovering everything this world has concealed.

This dark spiral led to me purchasing graph paper, and swotting up on cypher methodology. I have still not completed the game fully to its maximum 209.4% because I feared I would literally drive my self to insanity and end up like Max Cohen in Pi.

A lot of games will reward the player for exploration and discovery with lore and fiction to enhance the game world. FEZ rewards the player with information that makes you question the fabric of reality itself.