As I have some poor, crying person arrested for daring to forget their work pass - sent off to god knows where for who knows what. I want to gasp at the attack on my border control checkpoint and shake my head at the unfussy way the game's characters deal with its brutality again. I want to be emotionally manipulated again. I wish I could replay Papers, Please for the first time again, all knowledge of the results of my decision-making erased from my brain. But what makes it my game of 2013 is the story and the brilliance with which it made me complicit in its outcome. This would probably be enough for Papers, Please to be one of my favourite games of the year. It's like when Neo finally sees The Matrix for what it is. NEXT, click, drag, scan, shuffle, DENIED. Eventually, you enter the zone: NEXT, click, drag, scan, shuffle, APPROVED.
You find yourself able to scan multiple documents for inconsistencies in just a few seconds, your mouse cursor a blur as you sniff out fraudsters. It's that feeling of going beyond treading on a video game's toes to leading it in a waltz. Get through a day having processed 10 or so people without making a single mistake and you feel delighted with yourself. Of course, the bulk of the game revolves around mastering the art of processing NPCs as efficiently as possible - and it's incredibly satisfying to do so. Pick one: do this terrible thing or this other terrible thing. Should I play by the book, granting entrance into Arstotzka only when papers are present and correct? Or should I show compassion, letting a mother who is desperate to see her family through border control despite the fact her lack of an entry ticket means I'll be charged 10 credits for the trouble? Should I work with my paranoid superiors as they weed out a shadowy organisation hell bent on overthrowing the government? Or should I work against them, risking my family, my job, and maybe even my life in the process? Papers, Please challenges the player with some truly troubling moral dilemmas that make it much more than a puzzle game. Papers, Please's genius is that it tricks you into role-playing. There's more to poor Jorji than meets the eye. His pathetic attempts to cross the border claiming he has 'business' in Arstotzka provide welcome - albeit brief - comic relief. "There is so much about Papers, Please that is different - even if it is depressing - that the game refreshes even the most jaded of palettes." Jorji Costava has to be a contender for best video game character of 2013. It reveals itself to be best role-playing game of the year.īioWare eat your heart out, for Lucas Pope has without cinematics or fancy conversation wheels created a world filled with more befuddling moral conundrums than all your big budget Babylon 5 video games mustered over the course of an entire console generation. Just as you get to grips with the deliberately cumbersome user interface, just as the world map, its countries, its cities and its rules and regulations start to snuggle into that corner of your mind where 'things that you probably should remember' like to hunker down, Papers, Please reveals itself to be more than a quirky puzzle-solving game. Then, when you settle into Papers, Please's gameplay, something magical happens. If there is a more deliciously cruel risk/reward system in a game released in 2013, I am yet to find it. In Papers, Please, you are nothing more than a cog in the machine, desperately struggling to survive in a world that at best tolerates your existence. In most games you are the world's most powerful being, clicking your fingers to engulf a thousand insignificant curs in flame. It's a mechanic that puts you, the player, in your place. I guess my mother-in-law will bite the dust tonight then. Will that terrible automated typewriter sound spit out a violation message at you? It does! Damn! How did I miss that his weight on his passport didn't match his weight on my scales? Sorry, that's coming out of your meagre wage. After each stamp press you hold your breath. Rush while hunting for discrepancies and you risk making a mistake. As the rules of border control become more complex you need to process people faster so you earn enough money to prevent your family from starving or freezing to death from the bitter, Arstotzkan winter cold in your soulless apartment block. Rather, I struggle through it, my mind frayed, my wits shooting off towards somewhere near the end of the queue of blocky black shadows that shuffles ever closer to my stamp: approved, denied.
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