Stuff I liked in 2015

As always, this list is purely personal, not just in terms of reflecting my tastes, but also because it's about what I found in 2015, regardless of when it was made.

Films

Mad Max: Fury Road
A masterclass in minimalist world-building. Fury Road paints a weird, vibrant, thrilling world that it trusts you to pick up as you go along, never slowing the action to spell out what you can infer or imagine.

Captain Philips
Naturalistic filmmaking that puts the audience on board as the captain of a container ship negotiates with the pirates that are trying to hijack it. An edge-of-your-seat story with a large dollop of veracity.

John Wick 
I feel like I’m losing my taste for slick, stylised violence, especially the kind that glorifies dudes taking out their grievances on strangers. Nevertheless, John Wick is a film that violences real good.

Books

Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey
The first in a series of science fiction page-turners that manages to keep the space adventuring grounded and believable, even as a crew of misfits and a hard-drinking detective uncover a conspiracy that reaches far beyond the politically divided solar system.

Annihilation - Jeff Vandemeer
“Eerie and unsettling”, the blurb on the back of the book says. And then some. An utterly riveting journey into a bizarre wilderness.

A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E. Schwab
Alternate Londons, dangerous magic and sadistic tyrants make for a charming fantasy.

Comics

Ms. Marvel - G. Willow Wilson, et al.
If you read one superhero comic, read this.

Rocket Raccoon - Skottie Young, et al.
Colourful adventures in space with everyone’s new favourite interstellar rodent.

Fuse - Antony Johnston, Justin Greenwood, et al.
A police odd couple solve crimes on a space station. Given the restrained tone, I found it a bit disappointingly soft in the sci-fi stakes, but the characters are great and the whodunnits genuinely engrossing.

TV

Person of Interest
We’re only up to season 3 of this show in the UK, but it’s still some of the best science fiction TV out there (masquerading as, ick, a crime procedural). Three-dimensional characters deal intelligently with thought provoking and important themes - without forgetting to get mixed up in plenty of gripping drama while they’re at it.

The Flash
So at this point the Arrowverse is shaping up to be TV’s Marvel Cinematic Universe (only with lesser-known DC characters), and this is it at its fun, imaginative, colourful best.

Parks and Recreation
Imagine The West Wing, but with really low stakes. Then fill it with great characters that the show clearly has lots of affection for. Pierce lid. Microwave for five minutes. Excellent television.

Video Games

Soma
I loved everything about this game. It certainly has its flaws, but I didn't mind any of them. An unflinchingly honest exploration of some of the more uncomfortable ideas in science fiction, in a gruesomely beautiful underwater setting, with cool non-human characters, scary monsters, and tonnes of widgets to fiddle with. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Alien Isolation
A remarkable love letter to Ridley Scott’s original 1979 horror film. The game may never be quite sure what to do with itself, but exploring a note-perfect extension of the world of Alien, while being stalked by cinema’s most memorable monster, was always going to be something that would win me over.

Invisible Inc.
I do like me some stealth games. I play them methodically, slowly, carefully - exploring everything. Invisible Inc. is a turn-based stealth game that aims to change everything calcified and clichéd in the genre, turning my play style on its head and encouraging nail-biting, carefully planned risk taking. I imagine people will be talking about the design of this game for many, many years to come.

2014: Stuff I Thought was Cool

Better late than never: the definitive list of stuff I found and liked in 2014. A lot of superhero stuff this time.

Films

Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: Winter Soldier
These two films, both critical and commercial successes, are radically different approaches to making a Marvel movie. One builds heavily on the shared universe, the other strikes out into strange new territory. Both barely seem like superhero stories.

Man of Tai Chi
So Keanu Reeves' directorial debut is a great kung fu film and also a solid bit of filmmaking. How 'bout that.

Honourable Mention: Sanjuro

Books

Railsea - China Mieville
It's Moby Dick on a train, only deeper and stranger than that.

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
Engrossing, imaginative and magical.

Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
A nuanced and carefully constructed space opera with a fantastic main character.

Honourable Mention: Embassytown - China Mieville

Comics

Ms Marvel - G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, et al.
A nice balance of fun superheroics and down-to-earth character drama. A lot of bollocks has been written about Kamala Khan, but the simple fact is that she's a great everyman protagonist.

Hawkeye - Matt Fraction, David Aja et al.
A low key, character-led comic in which your least-favourite Avenger turns out to be a loveable loser trying to do best by those around him.

Saga - Brian Vaughn, Fiona Staples et al.
The new 20th Century Boys in terms of these end-of-year lists of mine.

Honourable Mention: Black Widow - Nathan Edmondson, Phil Noto et al.

TV

Person of Interest
I avoided this show reflexively at first, assuming it was yet another post-9/11 show about questioning rights and freedoms as though they were ambiguous or even undesirable. But no, it's actually a stealth science fiction show with a much better treatment of privacy and exceptional power than you might expect.

Arrow
That dark, gritty, camp, out-of-this-world action show about Robin Hood.

Smallville
The New Adventures of Superguy and Robin Hood, guest starring Martian Detective.

Honourable Mention: Sleepy Hollow

Video Games

Valkyria Chronicles
The World War 2 era fantasy land is beautifully realised, the melodrama can be surprisingly affecting and the real-time-meets-turn-based gameplay is addictive.

Shadowrun Returns
A solid and fun cyberpunk roleplaying game.

The Stanley Parable
Big, funny and clever.

Honourable Mention: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

2013: Stuff I Found and Liked

Film

A Cat in Paris
A short and delightful film about a cat's friendships with a grieving little girl and a professional thief.

No
Charting the party political broadcasts that aired against Pinochet during the referendum that ended his dictatorship, this film alternates between moments of levity and vulnerability, all filmed in a gloriously ugly-beautiful video cassette style.

Thor: The Dark World
It made me laugh, it used its London locations well and by now the Marvel Cinematic Universe has me hook, line and sinker.

Books

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
Relentless retro nostalgia can't hide the fact that this book cares for its characters, even as it puts them through virtual reality hell.

King of Air Fighters - Ira Jones
This hagiography of Edward "Mick" Mannock is as interesting for its undisguised bias as its charting of the life of one of the most important airmen of the First World War.

Blue Remembered Earth - Alastair Reynolds
A solid work of science fiction by one of my favourite authors in the genre.

Comics

Gunnerkrigg Court - Thomas Siddell
I caught up on the hard-copy editions of this webcomic a few months ago, and it's as imaginative and winsome as ever.

21st Century Boys - Naoki Urasawa
This two volume conclusion to Urasawa's 20th Century Boys wraps up what is probably one of my all-time favourite stories - a genre-spanning epic which always has more surprises up its sleeve.

Knights of Sidonia - Tsutomu Nihei
To some this is the comic where Nihei sold out, but in applying his strange blend of M.C. Escher and H.R. Giger to the space opera genre he's created something I find appealingly strange.

Television

Community
Is this a sitcom, or one long, carefully choreographed battle against genre, tropes and expectations? Inventive, imaginative and - beneath its cynical and sarcastic exterior - heartfelt and compassionate.

Fringe
The fifth and final season was by far the weakest, but it's hard to hold a grudge against such a genuine effort to bid fond farewell to this likeable cast of oddballs.

Adventure Time
Genuine characters experience mind-blowingly unreal situations across a bizarre fantasy land. What's not to like?

Video Games

Minecraft
I may be a bit late to the party, but this really is the game that has everything. Build a home, explore strange and dangerous countryside, fight monsters. Imagination is both encouraged and rewarded.

Kerbal Space Program
No shit, if you've visited here over the past year. Fun, challenging and open-ended.

A Dark Room
This game starts out simply enough that I dismissed it out of hand when I first encountered it. The next time, I lingered a little longer and quickly found a game that consistently ramps up the scale each time you think you've got a handle on it. Also a superlative example of minimalist world-building.

2012: Cool Stuff from the Year the World Ended

Belatedly, it's that completely personal and arbitrary annual list of stuff I found last year and really liked. This time for A.D. 2012: the year the media told us people believed the world would end, but almost nobody actually did, and it didn't.

---Movies

The Raid
A combination of incredible, relentless fight choreography and note-perfect direction make this the best action film in years - if not decades.

The Avengers (a.k.a. Marvel Avengers Assemble)
Not just the pay-off for all the fun Marvel superhero films that led up to it, but a special effects blockbuster where the dialogue is just as fun, if not more so, than the explosions.

The Artist
This beautifully filmed drama is a delightful homage to silent cinema.

---Books

The Scar - China Mieville
A typically uncompromising and imaginative fantasy from Mieville, this time taking a decidedly nautical bent and thoroughly conjuring the true immensity and depths of the sea - plus the strange terror of its uncommon denizens.

Knight of Germany - Professor Johannes Werner
The authorised biography of Oswald Boelcke, the father of air fighting tactics. Much of the book consists of Boelcke's letters home, offering a great insight into one of the world's most interesting historical figures. Werner's commentary, meanwhile, almost seems to embody the insecurity of thirties Germany all too neatly.

Rise of the Videogame Zinesters - Anna Anthropy
Like A Room of One's Own, but with more Mario.

---Comics and Manga

20th Century Boys - Naoki Urasawa
The third year running that this genre-defying epic has appeared on my end-of-year list. If I haven't conveyed my love for it by now, I guess I never will.

Batgirl - Bryan Q. Miller et al.
The first truly satisfying big-name superhero comic I've ever read, that provides a satisfying conclusion for a comic-book character with one of the most devoted fan-bases around.

Saga - Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples
Inspired in no small part by Star Wars, this science fantasy comic mixes space ships and magic, robots and ghosts - while also not shying away from fully fleshing out the ugly side of its unreal galaxy.

---TV Shows

Fringe
Some shows grow on you. Some shows you know you'll love from the first episode. For me, Fringe was the latter.

You could pitch this show as "The X-Files with real story arcs and a consistent mythology", but it's so much more than that. Starting out as a show about a mad scientist helping the FBI deal with mad science crimes, it sprawls into an epic saga with a broad cast of likeable characters, an endless parade of imaginative gimmicks and a ready supply of heart-wrenching drama.

Chuck
Superficially a nerd wish-fulfilment fantasy, this tale of a white-collar loser turned super-spy won me over with its self-awareness, lovably weird characters, cheerful tone and consistent knack for making me laugh.

The Yogscast
Video game content that values the experience of playing games rather than regurgitating advertising copy. Exactly the kind of stuff television channels seem to have no interest in showing me.

---Games

Dishonoured
World-building is the part of fiction at which games excel, and the world of Dishonoured is intriguing, imaginative, atmospheric and exactly my cup of tea. Also one of the year's many examples of something achieving success outside the narrow military shooter genre that seemed to be dominating the medium.

Xenoblade Chronicles
The Japanese role-playing game we've all been waiting for, set in a mindbogglingly massive and beautifully realised fantasy world.

Metal Gear Solid 3: HD Edition
The perfect storm of complex stealth gameplay, over-the-top characters and barmy storytelling.

2011: Adventures in Fiction

2011! A year in which I consumed media of various forms! Here's my triple-picks of each category of stuff...

--Of the movies I saw:

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Thriving on believable tensions among a cast of likeable characters, this film is by turns funny, bittersweet and heart-warming.

Monsters
Character-driven, atmospheric science fiction; an otherworldly road movie; eerily memorable.

District 13
A toss-up between this and Ip Man as the two great action films I saw for the first time this year. I found the damsel in distress in this movie less off-putting than the relentless nationalism of Ip Man (not helped by that of every other Chinese film these past few years, it seems), but your mileage may vary. A perfect collision of bold cinematography and incredible physical prowess.

--Of the books I read:

The City and the City - China Miéville
The greatest achievement of this astonishing book is not just the imaginatively Kafkaesque culture it fleshes out – but also that it manages to be a gripping thriller throughout.

Above the Snowline - Steph Swainston
Although this lacks many of the more imaginative elements of Swainston's other books in the same series, it doesn't suffer from it, and still shows an unflinching veracity that's quite rare in the fantasy genre.

The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi
Despite embodying a fair few national stereotypes, this vision of a world in drastic decline kept me hooked both by teasing out the details of its bizarre future Thailand and with dramatic developments in its interweaving story threads.

--Comics and manga:

20th Century Boys - Naoki Urasawa
I imagine this will be here next year as well – an epic series that spans genres, decades and generations. Definitely a contender for my overall favourite thing on this list.

Pluto - Naoki Urasawa
The great detective Gesicht must find out who's systematically murdering the seven greatest robots in the world – not least because he's one of them. I read this series on the strength of how much I liked Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, and was not disappointed. Note-perfect storytelling frequently leads to deeply moving scenes.

Biomega - Tsutomu Nihei
Imaginative cyberpunk horror that envisions an almost unrecognisable future – and charts its utter transformation into something even stranger.

--Of the TV shows I watched:

Downton Abbey
Okay, the second series wasn't as solid as the first, but neither was it as appalling as many made out, and the Christmas special was a definite return to form. A beautifully realised period drama that embraces progress rather than fetishising the Good Old Days.

Avatar: The Last Airbender
The first season was pretty good, but the second and third tell an epic story full of likeable characters. For me, this lived up to the hype.

The Shadow Line
A show that was fantastically good only whenever it forgot that it knew it was fantastically good. Abundant with in-your-face symbolism and unnatural dialogue, and yet splendid all the same. Also possessed a perfect storm of acting talent in the form of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Christopher Eccleston and Rafe Spall.

--Of the games I played:

Red Dead Redemption
An open-world cowboy-stereotype simulator married to a character-driven shoot-em-up, this has gorgeous landscapes galore and the most unexpectedly likeable lead character.

Portal 2
Laugh-out-loud funny dialogue, head-scratching puzzles, understated poignancy. The last time I enjoyed the writing of a game this much was Grim Fandango.

Ghost Trick
A fiendish puzzle game that I found to be addictive and enjoyably challenging, but not so difficult that I needed to resort to a walkthrough. I probably wouldn't have been so sucked in, of course, if the gameplay wasn't so intricately entwined with exactly the kind of colourful characters and meticulously crafted, twisting-and-turning plot that you'd expect from Ace Attorney creator Shu Takumi.

--That's all folks...

2010: Year of the List

Or list of the year, I forget which. Here we go again - another completely subjective list of the things I found and liked this year.

--Of the movies I saw:

Inception
Christopher Nolan made me very happy with this decidedly literal take on the psychological thriller.

The Sky Crawlers
Evocative, imaginative and unsettling animation from Mamoru Oshii.

I'm Here
Spike Jonze's thirty minute short is weird, bittersweet and extremely memorable. You can watch it online here.

--Of the books I read:

Winged Victory - V.M. Yeates
An unflinchingly honest portrayal of young men ruined physically and psychologically by wartime flying in the newly founded R.A.F.

Boneshaker - Cherie Priest
A wonderfully atmospheric story of poison gas, zombies and steampunk.

---Comics and manga:

20th Century Boys - Naoki Urasawa
If you haven't already seen me raving about this fantastic series, you can't have been paying attention. A sprawling, genre-defying epic told at a personal scale.

Biomega - Tsutomu Nihei
All your transhuman zombie bio/cyberpunk needs in one gothic, M.C. Escher-esque setting. With added talking grizzly bear.

The Umbrella Academy: Dallas - Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá et al.
The continuation of the most imaginative superhero comic you'll ever read, which still never loses its human touch.

---Of the TV shows I watched:

Baccano!
Essentially the animated, prohibition-era, supernatural, ultraviolent The Wire.

Downton Abbey
You mean a period drama can be about progress instead of pining nostalgically for eras when everyone knew their place? And the whole thing is gorgeous and brilliantly written? More please.

Avatar: The Legend of Aang
I finally saw the first season of the acclaimed cartoon this year. It's not perfect, but the setting and characters are wonderfully realised.

---Of the games I played:

Mass Effect 2
Delivering on the promise of modern, mainstream, big-budget games, Mass Effect 2 places you in a sci-fi epic overflowing with cinematic action and life-or-death decisions. Also: Tali.

Digital: A Love Story
Simple. Minimalist. Heartbreaking.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
You may not experience the same visceral emotional response that this game gave me, but even without it, this demonstrates an important other way in interactive storytelling - rather than letting the player decide what happens, this game tries to get in your head and tell you the story it thinks suits you best.

--Of the New Years I had:

I wish you a very happy one. May 2011 be a year where good things happen for you.

2009: A Year of Stuff

As I do every year, here's a list of what I found and liked in the past year. This list is entirely subjective - not just in the sense of reflecting my own tastes, but also in terms of reflecting which things I first encountered in 2009.

---Of the movies I saw:


Waltz with Bashir
An evocative and moving animated documentary, exploring the lingering mental scars of warfare.


Coraline
Henry Selick brought us this beautifully realised and sinister fantasy film, proving that American animation can be more than just talking animals when it wants to be.


The Good, The Bad, The Weird
A good old-fashioned action-adventure, with explosions, chases and gun fights galore. Proof that director Kim Ji-woon can turn his hand to anything and succeed.

---Of the books I read:

The Modern World - Steph Swainston
My favourite fantasy author continues to explore the giddy heights of imagination and the gritty depths of her unromanticised, not-quite-medieval world.

The Host - Stephenie Meyer
By turns devastating and uplifting, this story of unexpected love between humans and body-snatchers is a great piece of science fiction drama.

The Stone Gods - Jeannette Winterston
Bad science fiction, certainly, but a fantastic piece of surreal literature. Affecting and difficult.

---Comics and manga:


Solanin - Inio Asano
A well realised slice-of-life comic with nicely drawn characters (in more ways than one).


The Umbrella Academy - Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba
A cut above the usual superhero comic, this blends a wildly imaginative menagerie of ideas into a cohesive and memorable whole.

---Of the TV shows I watched:

The Wire
More like a novel in terms of scope, but presented in a way only possible on television, this is a huge, believable cross-section of Baltimore life made by people who should know what they're talking about.

Ugly Betty
Once again, one of the few shows I watched live. Fantastic characters and a nice mixture of comedy and melodrama make for a very enjoyable hour of entertainment.

The Shield
The final season saw this show - with some of the best plotting and direction you'll see on the small screen - let loose to deliver a stonking great conclusion for all its simmering tensions.

---Of the games I played:


Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
A combination of intricate plotting, compelling characterisation and delightful artwork make this probably the most memorable and engrossing game I played this year.


Resident Evil Archives
There were three Resi games that I played for the first time this year, and I liked all of them, but this is the one I've picked for my top three games. The remake of the first instalment in the series is quite unlike any of its sequels - with less bullets, more strategy and some quite subtle plot branching.


Batman: Arkham Asylum
In contrast to the usual license cash-in, this game has been made by people passionate for the Batman comics, with demanding fans in mind. Atmospheric environments, fluid gameplay and Paul Dini's writing combine to make this an unexpected classic.

2008: A Bunch of Lists

So it's been a year since I last asked myself what cool stuff I found during the past year, and I guess I should set about doing it again. As before, this list is entirely personal - not just in being about what I personally liked this year, but also with regards to what qualifies as belonging to the relevant period. If I saw it, read it, or played it this year, it's eligible - regardless what year you might actually be inclined to attribute it to. Hey, they make a lot of cool stuff in a year, and it takes me a lot longer than that to find it all.

Okay, let's go.

---Of the movies I saw:

La Antena
A perfect evocation of everything great about the era of silent film, and a vibrant fantasy in its own right. I reviewed it here.

Paprika
Another animated masterpiece from Satoshi Kon, by turns fantastically whimsical and deeply disturbing.

The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan returns to Gotham City for this sprawling comicbook epic, full of compelling, larger than life characters.

---Of the books I read:

Gods Behaving Badly - Marie Phillips
An understated and touching love story - at least until those pesky Greek Gods start meddling with mortal affairs. Since the rise of Christianity, the denizens of Mount Olympus have relocated to a run-down house in London, but they're no less keen on grand acts of selfish omnipotence.

Ubik - Philip K. Dick
A typical mind-fuck from the king of psychedelia. After narrowly escaping death, a group of superhuman psychics find that the world seems to be decaying at a terrifying rate - and one by one, each of them is turning into a dessicated husk.

Aces Falling - Peter Hart
An engrossing book about air warfare throughout 1918. Hart gives readers what they want, in the form of stories about the famous aces, but also sets them into the context of a new combined theatre of war where lone wolf hunters were being subsumed into a larger, more tactically-minded war machine.

---Of the comics and manga I read:

Death Note - Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata
Last year I lamented only having read the first volume. This year I read volumes 2-12, concluding the story. The combination of Obata's flawless artwork and Ohba's intense plotting results in something that should be read by anyone with an interest in fantasy or mystery comics - as a teenager who's resolved to rid the world of undesirables by writing their names in a death god's notebook is pursued by a legendary (and anonymous) detective.

Chiggers - Hope Larson
Although Larson's keenly observed tale of summer camp friendship and preternatural intrigue is aimed at teenage girls, it deserves to be (and probably has been) read by all and sundry. Undoubtedly one of the best western comic artist-writers you'll find.

Batman: Harley and Ivy - Paul Dini, Bruce Timm et al.
Cute beyond words, something about the bright artwork, colourful characters and psychotic cheerfulness of this book reminded me of watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid and coming to the realisation that I wanted to tell stories as well as experience them.

---Of the TV shows I watched:

Batman: The Animated Series
Well, while we're on the subject, I've been rewatching a lot of this nineties cartoon show. Some of the episodes don't hold up too well now that I'm all grown up, but frequently the snappy dialogue and noir-ish art deco stylings produce quite striking pieces of television.

Ugly Betty
The only show I actually watched live and gave a damn about this year, Ugly Betty has the perfect mixture of melodrama and comedy, and an entire cast of memorable and lovable characters.

Mission: Impossible
Something else I revisited this year. Despite being about an all-American team of luminaries toppling dictatorships and preventing alliances with dirty communists, Mission: Impossible was for the most part a genial puzzle-box of a show, with a first-rate cast steadily unravelling devilish plans of deception each episode.

---Of the games I played:

Fallout 3
A huge, sprawling, engrossing game. The narrative and character interaction are over-simplistic, but I found the allure of exploring this impossibly detailed post-nuclear landscape and making a name for myself as a hero or monster to be quite irresistible.

Resident Evil 4 - Wii Edition
So it took me a few years to get around to it, but this atmospheric, grimly realised action horror game, with its memorably over-the-top characters, has easily become one of my all time favourite games (although I think I still prefer RE2, if only because Ada is more sensibly dressed). I've played it from start to finish three times this year, and got a good way into it for a fourth go on 'professional' difficulty (so far it is very hard).

Iji
Often indie games tread new ground, brave new forms of gameplay, tackle storylines that no mainstream studio would ever touch. Iji, a freeware game you can download from here, isn't like that. If you could give it a multi-million budget and the latest state-of-the-art graphics engine, you'd end up with a game that was a lot like the games already out there - only much, much better. Iji is a perfect demonstration of why gaming needs auteurs who want to tell stories and explore characters - rather than shareholders who want to play it safe and get a percentage. Melancholy, evocative, and uncompromising.

---Of the Happy New Years I wished you:

I've got to pick the one just coming up, now haven't I? I hope this new orbit brings you happiness and fulfilment, and your resolutions are both feasible and level-headed. In short: Happy New Year!