Tom Brady and Peyton Manning Are More Even Than You Think

Tom Brady won't be the first quarterback to play in seven Super Bowls. Despite making it to five consecutive AFC Championship games, he's gone 2-3 in that span. Outside looking in. Can't win them all, of course. People shrug off Patriots losses in the post season with, "They'll be in contention next year." It's easy to take their success for granted. It's completely unfair to bash the organization for not making it to their seventh Super Bowl in fifteen years. They've still got a success rate better than any team in NFL history, especially during the salary cap era. These losses are a testament to how difficult it is to make it to the Super Bowl at all, never mind year after year.

In many ways, the game in Denver mirrored that vomit-inducing loss in the 2007 season to the New York Football Giants. If anyone remembers that game (and I know, I know, Pats fans have been trying so hard to forget), it wasn't really Eli Manning that won that game for the Giants. It wasn't that miracle helmet catch. It wasn't even that dropped Asante Samuel pick that would have put the NFC champs on ice. It wasn't New York's running game or receivers or special teams. It was barely even their coaching, really. It was their defensive front's execution.

In that Super Bowl, Brady was sacked five times and got pressured throughout the entire game. Though he completed 60.4% of his passes, he had to get rid of it quickly to avoid the rush. He averaged a paltry 5.5 yards per attempt, with 29 completions for 266 yards. Outside of the two Giants Super Bowls, Brady has typically excelled. Here, he looked mediocre, largely because of the pressure. Make no mistake about it, the true MVP of the game was the entire Giants defensive line. 

The same was especially true in 2011 as well. The pressure doesn't exactly show up on the stat sheet - Brady was sacked twice - but the numbers are fairly similar. Brady completed 65.8% of his passes, but still averaged just 6.7 per attempt (although at this point, that was more normal as they had restructured their offense around the short game). Yet the game was impacted greatly by the consistent pressure. Recall that the game started with an intentional grounding safety on the Patriots' opening possession. (Since a lot of people have been playing the "blame Gostkowski game" for the most recent loss in Denver, let's keep in mind that if in that Super Bowl Brady makes a smarter play or a better throw, the Patriots are down by two points going into that final drive, instead of the four. Imagine Brady only needing to get into field goal range to win the game, instead of needing to drive eighty yards, most of which on a last second Hail Mary. Point being, no one play decides the outcome of a game, even late.)

Since those Super Bowls, teams have been trying desperately to copy that. The success for the Giants was not so much in the game plan itself; it was in the execution. It's no secret that every quarterback will struggle if you can get consistent pressure. This always seems to be the big knock on Brady. "He's great! But if you can get pressure on him, he's not that good, really." 

Well, no duh. Virtually every quarterback sees their performance drop significantly under pressure. It's always been strange that this is something people use to diminish Brady's talent, but that never gets applied to anyone else (and certainly, that argument always held true of Peyton Manning too). At the same time, Brady is slightly worse than most others when pressured. Only two other quarterbacks see a bigger drop in QBR with pressure than Brady (Philip Rivers and Drew Brees - two guys well respected, especially Brees, who nobody knocks for being bad under pressure). Even more, you don't have to look that hard to find video evidence of it. Brady doesn't lose a lot in the post season, but when he does, it's almost always against the Giants, Broncos, or Ravens. 

Speaking of, remember that two year stretch when Rex Ryan was a somewhat decent coach and had a pretty great defense? The Jets succeeded against New England in their divisional game - an MVP season for Brady - largely due to their pass rush. Brady completed 64.4% of his passes, and he threw one of the only picks he had all year. Though he completed 29 passes, he averaged 6.6 yards per attempt and threw under 300 yards. More importantly, he was sacked five times.

When you go back and watch the 2016 AFC Championship, Manning had almost nothing to do with it. He'll get the credit, and Brady-bashers are quick to point out that Manning has a winning record against Brady in AFC title games. But the only way this game could have been less about Manning is if Brock Osweiler had started. The Patriots offensive line had been a problem all season. They couldn't block someone on Twitter. And it culminated in one of the most dominant performances by a defensive line since the 2011 Super Bowl. 

What's ultimately interesting about Brady's post season statistics is that he's played in so many damn games. Consider the fact that he's played in ten AFC championship games. That's almost three quarters of an additional season, just in AFCCGs alone! Never mind all the divisional games, and the few wild card games, or the almost half a season in Super Bowls too. No quarterback has played in more post season games. It's actually kind of ridiculous. He's probably played in more post season games than most NFL quarterbacks play regular season games in their careers! The post season is different than the regular season too. It's against superior competition, and it's so much harder to win in the playoffs. It's funny that people mock Brady for losing those two Super Bowls, and yet, Peyton Manning has also lost two Super Bowls. There's a good chance he's about to lose his third too! What will the talking point be if Manning loses almost as many Super Bowls as Tom Brady has won? (I imagine that it will default to "team if Brady succeeds / team if Manning loses" and "Brady if Brady loses / Manning if Manning wins.") 

Inevitably, Manning v. Brady arguments will, at some point, devolve into who had better weapons. In recent years, Brady has had the greatest tight end to ever play the game (and who can barely last a whole season because of the way he plays mixed with the way the NFL doesn't actually give a crap about player safety.) For one year, he even perhaps the greatest receiver in history in terms of pure talent. But then what else? People drop Wes Welker in there, or Julian Edelman. To be clear, those are great players. The importance of Edelman was excruciatingly obvious in the month of December when he was out. But let's not forget what we're saying here: Tom Brady has had better weapons because he had...slot receivers?  Again, they are absolutely all-time great slot receivers, but how strange is it that we're looking at that position as the key to offensive success? (Also, let's not forget that Manning had a few great slot receivers, in addition to his great wide outs.) 

When all is said and done, however, the talent is pretty even, but I'd argue it's skewed more in Manning's favor. Even now, Manning has some of the best receivers in the league, which he can barely do anything with due to his noodle arm. Either way, it's not a large enough gap overall to definitively grant one player the GOAT on surrounding offensive talent alone. However, it is worth reminding people that so much of Brady's career has been about him "making due." He gets weapons and talent, but it's usually not much. (And if we want to go back to playing the "what if" game, Peyton Manning doesn't win his only Super Bowl if Brady has actual receivers in 2006. I'm not sure how many non-Pats fans remember the likes of Reche Caldwell and Jabar Gaffney...)

Reflecting on it highlights something about this Patriots organization. Stripped of all hatred of the team and its success, from a purely football and institutional standpoint, the Patriots with Brady at the helm have been one of the most fascinating organizations. They've fundamentally revamped their offense every three to four years, often setting the trends. Consider that Brady's most traditional years were early in his career. Where the Indianapolis Colts always built their team specifically around Peyton Manning, overloading with offensive talent often at the cost of defense, the Patriots never seemed to care that much. When they started losing that traditional structure - losing guys like Troy Brown to retirement and David Givens and David Patten to free agency - they attempted to plug those holes with whoever (namely, the aforementioned Gaffney and Caldwell).

Things changed in 2007, when they signed Randy Moss and Wes Welker. Though more traditional in its structure, and one of the only years Brady had a typical wideout, the offense was actually built on more of a high/low game. Slot receivers had been used before (especially in Manning's offense with the Colts); the Patriots revolutionized the position. After that stint, they revamped again to heavy use of tight ends. When Aaron Hernandez wasn't shooting people, he was carving up NFL defenses. Rob Gronkowski emerged as an almost literal monster that defenses are still struggling to figure out.

So none of this is to suggest that Brady hasn't had real talent around him. Gronkowski has redefined the tight end position while Julian Edelman has somehow emerged as an even more prolific and significant slot receiver than his predecessor (Welker). But let's just be clear about this: for the last five or six years, the Patriots offense has been consistently impressive while being built around tight ends and slot receivers! Stop me if this sounds like talent your team will win with: Edelman and Gronkowski (the exceptions), Danny Amendola, Brandon LaFell, Keshawn Martin, Kenbrell Thompkins, Aaron Dobson, Brian Tyms, DeAndre Carter, Scott Chandler, and Michael Hommanawanui. Let's factor in end-of-their-careers Chad Ochocinco and Brandon Lloyd (who, to be fair, was actually a much better target for Brady than most Pats fans seem willing to recognize).

Point being, unlike Manning-led offenses, Tom Brady has never had the benefit of an offense specifically built around him. Quite literally, he has always had to adapt his game to his constantly changing offense. Of course, we can't knock Manning on this: we've never really seen him have to have to do that. This year might very well be the first in which Manning is on a team that specifically focused on building outside the offense, recognizing that the quarterback is hardly the player he once was. His game has changed dramatically due to injuries and age, not because his team has changed. Even still, this highlights that Manning has always had teams catered to him, whereas Brady has had to maintain relevance by fitting into the new offense. It's easily one of the most overlooked and underappreciated elements of Brady's game, and something few Brady-bashers or Manning-maniacs will acknowledge.







That out of the way, Brady is hardly the infallible quarterback he's sometimes made out to be. His postseason numbers are impressive as a whole - although some of it is due to the sheer number of games played. For example, setting the record for most passing yards in the playoffs makes sense given no quarterback has played in more games.

One way that Brady and Manning are similar though is that Brady can be a bit erratic in the post season. His best and most consistent statistical years were actually earlier in his career, when he was part of a more traditional offensive structure (and the kind that Manning enjoyed for most of his career).  Some might make note that his most impressive post season performances have come against somewhat lackluster teams. For example, his six touchdown game came against the Denver Broncos led by Tim Tebow. He's also had a bunch of success against the hapless (and defenseless) Indianapolis Colts as led by Andrew Luck.

Over the course of his thirty-one post season games (nearly the equivalent of two full additional seasons, mind you), Brady has completed 741 out of 1183 passes (62.6%) for 7,957 yards (265 yards per game) and thrown for 56 touchdowns to 28 interceptions (a 2:1 ratio). He's also got a 22-9 record overall (.709 winning percentage). While he's had his struggles too (especially, strangely, in AFC championship games), it's also worth noting that the playoffs are always harder on any team and quarterback. After all, Brady has faced a top ten defense in two-thirds of his post season games.

I've written before about something of a pattern that emerges when examining his yearly playoff performances. Most often, he starts off looking great, follows it up with a bad performance, and then follows that up with an average game (if they make it to a third game.) Seriously. It's super weird, but also totally true.

In all of his thirty-one post season games, he's only played in the wildcard round three times. He's 2-1, completing 58.2% of his passes, 189 yards per game, and throwing a total of 7 touchdowns to 3 interceptions. All three games were against top ten defenses.

He's played twelve divisional round games, and this is typically excels. He's 10-2 there, completing 63.3% of his passes, averaging 284 yards per game, and logging 24 touchdowns against 9 interceptions (so almost a 3:1 ratio). 8 of those 10 games were against top ten defenses.

Of course, he's also played in six Super Bowls. Those two Giants games were a bit of an outlier in terms of his typical play in the big game, but it's worth remembering that those Giants teams had a killer pass rush, which dramatically impacted the game. Overall though, he's completed 67.6% of his passes, averaging 267 yards per game, and he's tossed 13 touchdowns to 4 interceptions (so he's thrown a bit over a 3:1 touchdown to interception ratio). And, obviously, he's 4-2. What's strange is that his best performances were against all the teams except New York, which was the only team without a top ten defense he's faced in the Super Bowl.

So he's pretty great in Super Bowls, and he's almost automatic in the divisional round. And while not super impressive, he's pretty reliable in wild card games - if he ever plays them. And yet, in AFC championship games, he's completed 59.6% of his passes, averaged 237 yards per game, and has thrown 12 touchdowns to 12 interceptions. What's strange is that only half of these matchups were against top ten defenses. Disregarding his wild card games due to the severally limited number, Brady's completion percentage drops about four points from divisional rounds and eight points from Super Bowls. His yards drop by thirty to fifty yards per game. And his pretty usual 3:1 touchdown to interception ratio is altered to a mediocre 1:1.

It's super weird. What is it, exactly, that makes the AFC championship game so much tougher for Brady and company? Part of it, of course, is the inherent nature of the playoffs. People tend to take the Patriots continued success for granted. They're the only team I've ever seen become favorites just by simply being there (looking specifically at the 2011 Super Bowl when there was no reason for them to be favored against a clearly superior and more complete Giants team). Yet winning in the NFL is pretty hard; winning in the post season even more so. The competition gets better, defenses get stiffer, and when you've played in 30+ post season games, it's just literally impossible to win them all. People knock the Patriots whenever they fail, but even the most ardent haters are holding them up to an insane standard, because they're the most successful dynasty in NFL history. (Seriously, for the Patriots to have proved the haters wrong, they'd have had to win 13 Super Bowls in the last 15 years...That's barely even possible in Madden games!)

Part of it too is, of course, while the Patriots regularly get the bye week, they're not always the number one seed. This means that most of their divisional games are played at home, while a fair amount of the AFC title games are on the road, and Super Bowls are on "neutral" territory. Brady hasn't exactly been at his best on the road in playoff matches. While he's 15-3 at home, he's also 3-4 on the road. (Worth noting, three of those losses were in Denver.)

Keeping everything in perspective of the increased difficulty of the post season, and with how the NFL is set up to prevent teams from having this kind of sustained success, Brady's numbers are still very impressive. Still, he's not perfect. He'll struggle if you get a great pass rush, and if it's on the road, but he's still reliable and great much more often than he's not.





Really the only thing that stands out, when all is said and done, he's at his weakest in AFC title games. He's managed to get his teams to overachieve on numerous occasions, most notably 2006, 2011, and 2015. (Seriously, it's hard to win on the road in the playoffs when you've got a weak o-line and virtually no running game due to injuries. And yet, the Patriots were a two-point conversion away from bringing that game to overtime.)

Manning supporters will regularly discredit Brady's post season numbers for being team achievements, yet will give Manning credit for his. At the same time, Brady fans do tend to sell Manning a bit short. It's true, Manning took a while to eventually get good in the post season. He actually had largely turned it around. 2006 was definitely a turning point for him. (Of course, that AFC title game pretty much was the Super Bowl given the winner went onto face the Chicago Bears...led by Rex flippin' Grossman.)

While Manning has played in five fewer post season games, it's still enough to compare. Here are some comparisons.


RECORDS:

Playoffs/Total:

Tom Brady: 22-9  (.709)
Peyton Manning: 13-13  (.500)


Home Playoff Record:

Brady: 15-3  (.833)
Manning: 10-6  (.625)


Road Playoff Record:

Brady: 3-4  (.428)
Manning: 2-5  (.285)


Wildcard Games:

Brady: 2-1
Manning: 3-4


Divisional Games:

Brady: 10-2
Manning: 5-6


AFC Championship Games:

Brady: 6-4
Manning: 4-1


Super Bowls:

Brady: 4-2
Manning: 1-3


Playoff Games Versus Top Ten Defenses:

Brady: 20
Manning: 15


Record Versus Top Ten Defenses:

Brady: 16-4  (.800)
Manning: 8-7  (.533)


INDIVIDUAL STATS:

Totals:

Brady: 741/1183 - 62.6%       7957 yds - 265 ypg     56 TDs  28 INTs  (2:1)   67.7% against top 10 defenses
Manning: 636/1004 - 62.3%   7198 yds - 276 ypg     40 TDs  24 INTs   (1.7:1)    57.7% against top 10 defenses


In Wild Card Games:

Brady: 60/103 - 58.2%    567 yds - 189 ypg       7 TDs  3 INTs  (2.3:1)     100% against top 10 defenses
Manning: 153/228 - 61.7%   1969 yds - 281 ypg   13 TDs  6 INTs  (2.1:1)   42.8% against top 10 defenses


In Divisional Games:

Brady: 298/471 - 63.3%    3413 yds - 284 ypg       24 TDs   9 INTs  (2.7:1)    80% against top 10 defenses
Manning: 268/436 - 61.4%   2830 yds - 257 ypg    15 TDs  9 INTs   (1.7:1)    45.5% against top 10 defenses


In AFC Championship Games:

Brady: 216/362  -  59.6%      2372 yds - 237 ypg       12 TDs   12 INTs  (1:1)   50% against top 10 defenses
Manning: 125/208 - 60%      1539 yds - 307 ypg        9 TDs     5 INTs   (1.8:1)   100% against top 10 defenses


In Super Bowls:

Brady: 167/247 -  67.6%      1605 yds - 267 ypg         13 TDs   4 INTs  (3.25:1)    67% against top 10 defenses
Manning: 90/132 - 68.1%     860 yds - 286 ypg           3 TDs     4 INTs   (1:1.3)     67% against top 10 defenses


Versus Top 10 Defenses:

Brady:  466/742  -  62.8%     5103 yds - 255 ypg     38 TDs    20 INTs   (1.9:1 ratio)
Manning: 368/581 - 63.3%   4208 yds - 280 ypg     23 TDs     13 INTs  (1.7:1 ratio)


Basic point here is that Manning and Brady have been a lot more even than backers of both seem to realize. On the surface, of course, Manning fans (Fannings?) will suggest that the even play, yet heavily skewed record indicates that Brady has simply been part of a better team, hence more success. Stats don't exactly tell the whole story, of course. It would be a little hard to argue that Brady hasn't benefited from a more well run organization that actually knows how to build a team. People mention that Manning was drafted by a dismal Colts franchise, which is true, but ignores that the Patriots weren't exactly top notch when Belichick took over in 2000 either.

But here's the thing: remember Peyton Manning's one Super Bowl success? If the argument is that Brady won due to team effort, that argument goes double for Manning's ring. In his 2006 campaign, Manning threw six interceptions to just three touchdowns. He threw more interceptions than touchdowns in two consecutive games. On the one hand, he did face the top three ranked teams in total defense. On the other, he faced only one of them during his horrible stretch. I've noted before that the Patriots sometimes win in spite of Brady (see 2006 and 2007, when Brady combined for four touchdowns and six interceptions against the Chargers), but Brady has never had a bad stretch in the post season like that. At least, none that the Patriots survived. Brady has only ever accounted for more turnovers than scores in a post season run once - in 2009 when they went one-and done.

Speaking of, Manning has also gone one-and-done eight separate times, compared to Brady's two. Again, natural inclination is to say, "team effort!" Indeed, Manning's success has evened out since joining the Broncos, a team wherein John Elway has wisely built arguably the strongest overall team Manning has ever played for. (Is it wrong that I think of Elway as a better GM than he was a quarterback?) But the stats tell a story of a mediocre Manning in most of those games. They also tell of a poor Brady in the one-and-done campaigns he's been a part of. Point being, to simply shrug everything off as "team effort" ignores the role a quarterback has on a game. For example, you can't ignore Manning's role in a loss wherein he completed 45% of his passes for 137 yards, 2 interceptions, and 0 touchdowns (as he did in his third post season, facing the New York Jets). Nor can you ignore his inefficiency in the red zone in 2005 against the Steelers.

Plus, if the argument is always "Brady succeeds with team effort," then we can't turn around and pin Manning's success in AFC championship games on primarily him. You don't really get to pick and choose when to apply that argument. Either it applies to both or it applies to neither.




At the end of the day, these guys are two of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. The fundamental difference though is that when push comes to shove, in the biggest game of the year, Brady's just better at scoring.

Guacamelee (2013)

Interested in funny little platformers that you can play with a friend and still get a good challenge? There's a good chance that you'll enjoy Guacamelee. Drawing influence from traditional Mexican lore and culture, the game provides a fair amount of cultural insight as well as entertainment.

Right off the bat, you can't help but notice how bright and colorful it is. Animation looks cartoonish, and everything is in bright, warm colors. This world pops and stands out. It's score perfectly matches as well, with the sounds of traditional Mariachi music and instrumentation mixing with modern electronica sounds. The themes throughout the game stand out as much as the backgrounds, character designs, and animations.

The game follows Juan, an agave farmer who is in love with El Presidente's Daughter. One day, an evil charro skeleton arrives, kidnaps her, and kills Juan in the process. Ending up in the land of the dead, Juan is reinvigorated with the power of a sacred mask given to him by a luchador. He is transformed into a powerful hero in order to fight an army of skeletons and magical henchmen, all to save El Presidente's Daughter.

You can already see a bit of the Mexican folklore that is used as the ground for the story. Along the way, Juan must learn new skills from the strange and humorous Uay Chivo, an old man who is always in the form of a goat when you run into him. He shows up after you destroy one of his statues, annoyed, but giving you new powers that aid you through the levels.

At it's core, the game plays a bit like a Mexican Mario. It's story is just a "save the princess" one, where you come so close several times, only to have the villain pull her away at the last moment to a new location. Combat is much more a role in this game, of course. After all, it's called Guacamelee for a reason! To be sure, many of the trials in the game come from navigating a hazardous environment. While it's not quite like Mario's traps and hazards in specifics, the idea of traversing areas where you can fail to cross and die is prevalent. However, you'll be doing a lot more than just jumping on enemies. Instead, you will be engaged in melee combat - sometimes with loads of enemies! As you advance, both enemies and environmental hazards get more difficult.

By the end, you really need to have gotten a good grasp on all the powers and abilities to stand a chance. This is one of those games where you need to be rather familiar with it to win. The learning curve is pretty well designed, as it rarely introduces new things that are overwhelmingly difficult compared to everything else it introduced earlier.

Part of the beauty is that - again, like a Mario game - the levels may be straight forward and linear; the overall world is not. Though some levels are only accessible after you gain certain abilities, the player is largely free to roam. Other than a few set moments, especially early in the introduction and tutorial, there isn't really a set order to do things. The maps give you markers for where to go to advance the story, but you don't have to rush to do that. This goes a long way to letting players feel like they have control and choice in a game that might otherwise feel pretty linear. As a result, it rarely does feel that way.

Of course, some of the challenges are really difficult. I had a few moments where I had to stop playing and return the next day because I was getting too frustrated. If you're going to pick it up, be prepared to die. A lot. On the other hand, though, I always got through those tough parts the next day. when I reviewed Journey, I mentioned how nice it is to get some of those "lean back" games that are relaxing and calming. Guacamelee highlights how satisfying it can be to get the opposite: a "lean forward" game that's challenging and frustrating. Seriously, few things are more satisfying than overcoming a difficult section in a game.

You also have to just love a game where one of the mechanics is you turn into a chicken to access narrow pathways. The game is as funny as it is fun. Though I didn't get to try co-op at all, it does seem like a good game to play with a friend.

Journey (2012)

Every once in a while, it's nice to take a break from all those action games. Sometimes, the beauty of a game is in the simple exploration of a new world. Thatgamecompany has made a few really great, relaxing, laid back games with Flower and Fl0w. Their crowning achievement to date, however, was 2012's beautiful Journey.

The joy of Journey is that they don't really tell you anything. Instead, you just go. Dropped in this expansive desert, you're given no explanation, no real tutorial period, no hand-holding. All they do is give you a destination (the large mountain off in the distance) and the player just goes. There are a few moments where the game provides a brief text tutorial bit, but there is little in the ways of control. One button actives magical carpets that restore your power. Another button jumps. And another button plays a musical chime. Movement of the character is controlled by the left stick, with camera control on the right. That's it!

Thatgamecompany makes incredible games that defy description sometimes. It's hard to describe Journey as a platformer - you will jump around platforms, but that's only a tiny part, and there's no fail state. Yet it's also not quite right to call it a puzzle game either - you will need to figure out how to get through certain sections, but it's mostly about finding the right place to go, not the correct actions to take.

The title of the game perfectly describes it, though. It's just a literal journey. What's perfect is the way they direct your attention to a particular path or destination, but rarely force you to go straight through. Some of the areas, especially in the deserts, are huge. Though you're really only motivated to move linearly through these sections, going from object in the distance to object in the distance, the game never feels like you can only go that route. It feels wide open, as if you could go in any direction you want and wander for however long you wish.

Environments are gorgeous and well realized. Making it better are the distribution of magical carpets, the source of the player's powers. Encountering them restores your energy, allowing you to jump and chime and transform objects. These magic carpets move and feel like individual creatures. There are even occasions featuring a giant hammerhead shark, except made out of carpets. The aesthetic of the game is consistent through and through, and it's interesting and gorgeous.

At times, you will encounter other players online. There isn't really much to do overall. Players cannot communicate via voice or messaging. The only way to get the attention of the other player is to hit your musical chime. Mostly, players will help each other out by showing them the way. For instance, I was having a moment at what seemed to be a dead end. Another player had been around, found a magic rug, and followed it upward to the next area. That player chimes, got my attention, and led me to the next area too.

It's kind of brilliant. Low-key interactivity online in a game means that it's almost impossible to have a negative experience. It also adds to the sense that you are simply on a journey, start to finish. Scattered about, you'll run into other players who are also on their own journey.

Oh yeah: we can't forget about the score! Since there's no dialogue, and sound effects are minimal, most of the audio is the simply wonderful score conducted by Austin Wintory. Wintory's epic and perfectly matched soundtrack was the first, and remains the only video game score to have been nominated for a Grammy.

Overall, it's such a unique experience. Die hard gamers may be reluctant to call anything Thatgamecompany does a "real game." After all, there is virtually no challenge, nor is their a fail state. You cannot lose Journey.  But sometimes, the best part of a game is not the challenge, or feeling empowered to succeed. Sometimes, it's just about getting to the end. Journey is a magical adventure that really makes you lean back and enjoy the view. While this kind of relaxing, yet touching game isn't for everyone, it's definitely for anyone just looking for an experience without any of the frustration that can sometimes accompany more traditional games.

Undertale (2015)

Sometimes it's easy to roll one's eyes at this growing trend of retro-graphic indie games. Of course, it makes sense given that smaller developers have less money to spend on graphics, and the old Super Nintendo graphics were hyper stylized. And, of course, one look at the Hollywood box office hints at how powerful nostalgia is as a marketing tool. It all makes sense.

Yet Undertale is something wholly unique and modern while feeling retro and nostalgic. Yes, the observant gamer can see homages to older RPGs. However, there's almost nothing else like it out there, and more importantly, few games are as well written, with memorable characters and an intriguing premise.

See, most RPGs are built on the basic conceit that you are just going to mindlessly kill enemies as they appear. We're never meant to wonder about whether it's fair we just took out that Rolypoly in Chrono Trigger, nor are we meant to dwell on the fact we've slaughtered god knows how many Adamantoise throughout the Final Fantasy franchise. It's all pretty clear cut in black and white. These enemies are monsters. Don't think about it; just kill them. Even most boss fights can be reduced to that.

Of course, it makes sense and there's nothing wrong with that! It clearly works for those games. What Undertale does, though, is add a little more to those random encounters. These are sentient beings with feelings and insecurities. Most of them don't even really want to fight. As the player, you get to decide how to approach each battle. Will you simply fight them and kill them, like you're accustomed to in those other games? Or are you willing to put yourself at slightly greater risk to figure out how to spare them?

To fight enemies, it's a pretty straight forward mechanic, but it's not your traditional style. Instead of simply selecting "fight" and having your character attack with random damage dealt, you get a bar with sliding markers. Timing is the key, as you hit enter to stop them. The closer they are to the center, the more powerful your attack will be. It's actually a really solid compromise between the more laid back and passive style of older RPGs with the more modern desire for faster and more interactive systems.

If you try to play through without killing things, then you need to figure out the proper string of Actions to put the enemy in a mental place to stop fighting. Each enemy has their own unique action options. The key here is to pay attention to what the enemies say in response to a particular action. It pays to start of by "Checking" them, then adjusting your actions accordingly. Sometimes, it's pretty quick and straightforward. Other times - especially with boss fights - it can take a long, long time to wear them down mentally.

When the enemy attacks, a bullet hell type mini-game opens up, forcing you to dodge a serious of incoming attacks in a limited space. Admittedly, I was not so crazy about that aspect of the gameplay. Kind of found it tedious and not particularly fun. Sometimes the attacks would also speed up and get to the point where I just honestly couldn't keep up. So much of dodging is simply about identifying the attack pattern, but that can be hard to do if you can't even see what the attacks are. This can make the game extremely frustrating at times, but it never really feels impossible.

When you die, you get these messages about how you should not give up. Stay determined! Stay strong! This is sometimes easier said than done, especially with boss fights that seem never-ending. And yet, if you can stay with it, the story never disappoints. For a short game that takes less than ten hours to complete, the lore is surprisingly well established.

You'll wind up meeting a memorable and unusual array of characters, from the skeleton brothers of Sans and Papyrus (and yes, they do speak in their respective fonts - yes, this game makes font jokes) to the absurd game show hosting computer Mettaton, everyone you meet leaves an impression. If you play your cards right, you can even use them to help you defeat the menacing Flowey at the end (the true, evil, final boss).

Odds are, you'll want to replay the game, even if you're like me and were maybe not so crazy about the dodging attacks mechanic. As mentioned, there are a few different ways to play. You can avoid killing things (Pacifist), or you can just go through and slaughter everyone (Genocide). They result in different endings, but also in different experiences. Characters respond differently according to your actions. And oh yeah, accidentally kill that boss while trying to play Pacifist? You can't just reload your game. You'd have to completely reset the game in the opening menu. The game recognizes when you've reloaded your game after performing an action you didn't want to do, so unless you reset the game (restarting the entire game), your mistakes and second guessing actions stay with you the whole time.

The key element of this game that makes it so interesting and compelling is the choice. Rather than creating binary moral decisions - like Mass Effect or BioShock or any and all Telltale games - the decisions you make play out in real time. They don't pause the game and make clear that you are making a choice. Yet every time you encounter an enemy, you have to do so. Do you kill them? Do you risk your own life trying to figure out the proper order of actions to spare them? Do you try to flee? It might seem like it's pretty easy to just go through and kill everything, or just go through and spare everyone, but there will almost always be occasions that make you reconsider your overall strategy.

And that's exactly the thing: whenever you do struggle to show mercy, and killing the enemy seems like it will give you the best chance of winning and advancing, you know that it's your call. It's your choice. The game makes it clear at the getgo that you will always have the ability to spare enemies - including all of the bosses. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but you do. In some ways, it makes it more difficult than your typical RPG. What I mean is, when you play Final Fantasy VII, you're only confronted with two options: kill the enemies or flee. When you run into a boss, you are presented only one option: destroy. Here, we are constantly presented with the option to try and spare them.

Undertale is, quite frankly, one of the most interesting and well-written games I've played in years. It's a nice throw back to late NES/early SNES RPGs, with some nice homages (like the opera scene from FFVI). All the while, it reinvents the genre with unique mechanics. Not everything is perfect, of course, but it's still one of the best games of the year. The characters are weirdly relatable and clearly defined. The writing is consistent and great. And most importantly, despite some of the heavy themes, it always maintains a sense of humor, similar to those older Nintendo RPGs.

Plus, it has one of the best soundtracks of the year too.

Seriously, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's not a long game, and it can get pretty challenging, but it's worth it to stay determined!

Fair Is Just A Feeling: Part 2 of the Critical Look of the NFL's Overtime Rules

I'm not quite sure how or why it happened, but last week's examination of the NFL's overtime rules became one of the most viewed entries. Since then, I've been involved in a strangely high number of conversations - online and off - about the perceived "unfairness" of the current rules. After hearing a lot of arguments, I figured I would do some more digging and update my argument with a few thoughts that came to me later.

In the previous article, I mentioned that in 2010 and 2011 combined, teams that got the ball first in overtime had a game winning score on their opening possession just about 16% of the time. Some have accused me of being deceptive with my limited selection of years. I don't think I was being deceptive about it (in the original article, I did specifically state outright that I was citing a very limited sample size, so it's not like I made it a secret). So, naturally, the first thing I went and did was found data in more years.

For the sake of transparency: this information is not readily available. Turns out, no one else has really been collecting this data in one easily accessible spot. Googling, "how many OT games were won opening possession scores" doesn't yield anything particularly helpful.  However, the information itself is out there. What I've had to do is painstakingly find all the games in a season that went to overtime (by looking at the scores week by week), then read the play-by-play logs to find out which OT games were won on an opening possession. If you've never tried collecting data like that, let me assure you it's extraordinarily tedious and time consuming. I'm even going to mention that you have to take these stats with an error margin of maybe +/- 2 games total. (I think, for example, I originally claimed that teams that got the ball first in 2014 and 2015 went 15-23. They didn't. They went 15-22. I apparently re-counted a game. Staring at a computer screen and reading tons of tiny text can make it kind of easy to mess up here and there.)

Point being, there's a reason my sampling sizes are not that large. First step, then, was double checking the four years I had already tracked, and then counting more. I've gathered the stats for all four years of the new OT era, and I went back seven years - to 2005 - with the old rules. Not because I'm trying to cherry-pick. Indeed, I fully plan to keep digging at another time. It's just that this has been such a time consuming process that I need a break. Still, seven years of data is enough to give us a bit of a clearer picture.

Here is what I've found:

Teams that got the ball first in overtime from 2005 to 2011 had a combined record of 49-52-1. However, out of those 102 overtime games, only 31 were won on an opening possession. That means that in the span of seven years, the game was over after a single possession 29.5% of the time.

Comparatively, from 2012 to 2015, teams that got the ball first in overtime had a combined record of 37-32-3. Out of 72 overtime games during that span, the game was won on the first possession score, or the team that got the ball first scored and the other team failed (functionally the same as sudden death) 23 times. That's about 31.9% of the time.

Basically, a team that gets the ball first and scores on their opening drive is functionally the same. In four years, there has only been one occasion in which a team scored on their opening drive, then wound up losing the game (the Colts lost to the Panthers in 2015 after getting the ball first and scoring a field goal). 21 out of 23 teams that scored on their opening possession in overtime win the game. (One time resulted in a tie - more on that in a moment.)

Well, ok, what about games that were won on an opening possession touchdown? From 2012 to 2015, that's happened 20 times, out of 72 overtime games. that's about 28% of the time. It makes sense that we'd see a jump in this stat given that the new rules fundamentally shift the strategy of coaches, offenses, and special teams now that a field goal doesn't guarantee anything (even though it kind of effectively does). One might expect to see a rather substantial dip when looking back at this stat when looking at the original rules. Yet from 2005 to 2011, overtime games were won an an opening possession touchdown 24 out of 102 times - or 23.5% of the time.

Yes, yes, I understand that results don't equate to fairness. But this further backs my argument that this idea that all you have to do, really, was win the coin toss was complete nonsense. Football is a little more complex than that. Games won on opening possessions has been almost identical in the first four years of new OT rules as they were in the last seven years of old ones. The frequency a game is won on an opening touchdown isn't particularly different either.

So what was the point of these overtime rules?

I suppose in defense of the anti-old rules and "win the coin toss, win the game" fighters, it's worthwhile to examine years independent of each other too. Certainly when you look at the years individually, you find that there is no real pattern. Below is the breakdown of percentage that games with the old rules were won an the opening possession, without the other team's offense seeing the ball:

2005 - (31%)
2006 - (41.6%)
2007 - (40%)
2008 - (50%)
2009 - (40%)
2010 - (11%)
2011 - (27%)

At first glance, one might say that there is something of a commonality in that three of the four years saw it occur 40% of the time. One year even saw half of all overtime games end on the first possession! And yet, there's also 2010 and 2011, and 2005 only saw this happen less than a third of the time. I'd guess that if we went back further, we'd see something similar in that the success rate fluctuates pretty wildly at times.

Regardless, none of those statistics indicates that this was something happening all the time, like everyone suggests. Even 2008, the year most favorable to the team that gets first possession, it only happened half of the time. Hardly enough to indict the rules. And oh yeah, the overwhelming majority of overtime games today are still won on field goals.





However, there's one other stat I'd like to call attention to. Did you notice that in the last seven years of the old rules, there was just one tie? Did you happen to catch that in the first four years of the new overtime rules, there have been three? 2015 is the first year of the new rules that didn't have a game end in a tie, but there were a few close calls. This leads me to a few additional thoughts about overtime rules from a design perspective.

Take a moment to consider what the function of overtime is. The entire point of overtime is to determine a winner. The whole "fair" argument is really strange to me since it throws out the fact that there was an entire sixty minutes of regulation in which both teams had plenty of opportunities and chances to legitimately win the game. When it's still tied, the game slightly alters one rule to help determine a winner when a full game wasn't enough. All it changes is that the first team to score wins. That's it! The game plays out almost exactly the way it would in regulation. The only strategical difference is that coaches will call super conservative plays deep in the opponent's territory, knowing they don't need to try for the touchdown.

Can you recognize what that rule change does, from a game perspective? It practically guarantees a winner. Sure, there have been those few games that still end in a tie, even with sudden death rules, but the rest of the time, there is always a winner as long as someone scores. The sudden death rules decrease the chances of a tie.

Here's what the new rules functionally do: by allowing the other team to have an offensive possession if the first team scores a field goal, the rules actually increase the chances of a tie. Here's the perfect example: a couple of years ago, the Vikings and Packers went to overtime. The Packers got it first and scored a field goal. The Vikings got a possession, by rule, and proceeded to score a field goal of their own. With a normal fifteen minute period, that doesn't leave a lot of room for additional possessions. There was about six minutes left in the period when the Packers got the ball back for their second possession. Plenty of time to kick a game winning field goal, but when teams have to drive 60 to 70 yards down field for a high percentage chance, it might take a little more.

In this case, the new overtime rules directly led to a game ending in a tie, whereas with the old rules, there would have been a winner (and it would have been the Packers, who conveniently are always complaining about OT rules since they keep losing in the post season - seriously, the Packers have lost their last four playoff games that went to overtime).  What's more is this same situation happened with the Bengals and Panthers! That game would have had a winner if not for the new overtime rules. These situations highlight how the new rules can sometimes defy their purpose.

From a game design perspective, you generally don't want a set of rules that can off-set the function of them. If the overtime rules are meant to determine a winner, a system of rules that increases the chances of ties defeats the purpose. (We almost had this same situation happen again this year, by the way, when the Colts scored on their opening possession, and the Panthers scored a tying field goal too. Fortunately, with about five minutes left, the Panthers defense got a takeaway to set up excellent field position for the game winning field goal.)




So ok, the stats don't really back the idea that the old rules really were so terrible, but they just felt wrong. The results don't mean anything about "fairness," it's argued. The whole premise that it's not fair is built on the conceit that the primary element of football is the offense. Even after the rule change in 2012, we still hear people argue that it isn't fair that the other team "didn't get the ball."

Fun fact about football: it's not a turn-based game. Sure, it's not a free-flowing game like soccer or basketball or hockey. And yes, we do like to make analogies to chess. Thing about chess though? It is turn-based. For a while, it was considered an unfair advantage for players who get the first move. After some time, players got really good at developing strategies that there are many who think going second is advantageous. Either way, the point is that chess, like checkers or othello, are purely turn-based games. When one player goes, the other player cannot do anything but watch.

Football does not actually work like that. It's maybe easy to think of offense as "getting a turn" with the ball, but it's not purely turn-based. When the other team has the ball - or has their "turn" - you have your defense on the field. You don't sit idly by while the other team moves the ball into field goal range. When it's not "your turn," you still have the opportunity to act in a way that can earn the win.  Because both teams field players at the same time, there is nothing inherently "unfair" about it. If the concern were that both teams get a possession in overtime, then there should be equal focus given to ensuring both teams have an equal number of possessions during regulation too. How many times does a team win after getting the ball first in the game, then getting the ball and trying to kill the clock? This entire strategy is built around ensuring your team has one more possession than the other team. Is that any more "fair"?




The main reason why I don't like all of these rule changes is sort of a fundamental design thing for me. Given that some teams build around offense - like all of those Colts teams with Peyton Manning - and others build primarily around defense - like the Seahawks - it seems weird that the argument is that we need to ensure offenses get a chance. At the end of the day, we're trying to mold the rules around the teams, rather than having the teams build around the rules.

It's a highly questionable approach to design, and one that I don't think the league should get into. Even the idea of college rules - which I think is very entertaining - takes away special teams and some key coaching aspects. Field position is removed from the equation entirely, as are all of those decisions that make or break teams and coaches.

So yeah, I still don't think the rules ever had to change in the first place. The new rules are worse, even if slightly more entertaining. And I do worry a bit about what any more knee-jerk rule changes will do.

Fair Is A Feeling: A Critical Look at the NFL's Overtime Rules

The NFL is in something of a no-win position when it comes to their overtime rules. For the longest time, they had very simple, straightforward rules to it, but fans complained. The noise got so bad that in 2012, the rules committee voted to change it. On the most part, the suddenly convoluted rules were well received. And yet here we are, again, with a team losing in overtime, in the post season, without ever possessing the ball, and people are complaining about the rules.

Frankly, the NFL is never going to pass overtime rules that please everyone. At the end of the day, sports fans are very emotionally-driven. And let's be real here, the Green Bay Packers wouldn't be saying anything about the perceived "fairness" of the rules, or arguing that they need to change if their defense had, I don't know, not given up an insane 75 yard catch and run by Larry Fitzgerald.

One thing that's really interesting about sports though is that at their core, they're just games. Most of these sports have a lot of crazy rules, but many of them - as complex as they sometimes are - actually do a lot to keep a balance. People don't often look at rules or rule changes in terms of game design.

For example, look at intentional grounding. A quarterback cannot throw the ball away when under pressure if he's in the pocket. If he gets out of the tackle box, however, he can. On the surface, this seems totally arbitrary. Why can't the quarterback throw the ball away when he's in the pocket, but if he moves a few yards to the left, he can? Well, balance. It may be tempting to view that as a rule designed simply to drive up sack stats and increase excitement, but it also creates balance between offense and defense, making it fair. Given the formations of offenses and defenses, all of the pressure comes in through the pocket. If the quarterback were allowed to simply throw it away without penalty while there, the system would lean in favor of one side, giving him an unfair advantage.  By outlawing throw aways within the pocket, it gives the defense a chance to succeed too, rather than giving the QB the unfair ability to just chuck the ball wherever at the last second to avoid losing yards in a sack.

Additionally, when the quarterback gets out of the pocket, he's essentially earned the right to throw it away. The defense has had a chance to get pressure, and didn't capitalize, thus now the quarterback can perform that action in a way that is fair. These seemingly pointless rules actually create a fairness wherein the defense has a chance to sack the quarterback, but the quarterback - once meeting a particular condition - is not forced to take a sack every time there's pressure. These kinds of rules help create a level systematic playing field. Of course, why the quarterback has to get the ball back to the line of scrimmage doesn't strike me as anything but arbitrary, but no one ever said all of these rules were well thought out game design elements.

Often times, people want changes when they feel they got screwed out of a rule, even though those changes can't change the past, and could very well hurt your own team later down the road. Here, I'm going to attempt to break down why, from a game design perspective, the current overtime rules are a hot mess that doesn't actually make the game more fair. Bear with me, this could get long-winded.

For those who are not sports fans, the former overtime rules in question were quite straightforward. If, at the end of regulation, the game is still tied, they functionally restart the game with sudden death rules. Meaning, first one to score wins. This essentially put the impetus on chance. It was often thought that whoever won the ensuing coin toss at the start of overtime would win the game. After all, field goal kickers have gotten so good that you have a great shot at winning if your offense can just drive to about the opponent's thirty yard line.

Fans got so annoyed with the idea that a field goal early in OT wins the game that the league was eventually confronted with the idea of altering it. The more positively received rules aren't the most difficult to grasp, but it takes a bit longer to explain. Follow me here: the game can only end in overtime on one possession if the offense that first receives the ball scores a touchdown on their first drive, or the defense manages to score a safety or returns a fumble or interception for a defensive touchdown. If the first offense scores a field goal, then the other team gets one possession to tie the game with a field goal of their own, or can win if they score a touchdown. If the first offense doesn't score, or they score a field goal and the second offense also scores a field goal on their possession, then the game defaults to sudden death rules and the first team to score any points in any fashion wins. Alternatively, if the first offense doesn't score at all, and on their ensuing possession, the second offense doesn't score either, then the game defaults to sudden death rules as well.






Did you follow that? If it sounds pretty complex, it's because it is. It's rather unnecessary too. Let's break down why these rules don't actually make overtime any more fair.

The problem with the original overtime rules, it's argued, is that it's skewed too much in favor of offenses and special teams. It's often posited that sudden death rules that include field goals puts the defenses at too much of a disadvantage. Ostensibly, it's unbalanced and "unfair" to the team that doesn't win the coin toss.

According to a super interesting breakdown from Football Outsiders, the average starting field position off of kickoff for most of the early aughts was about one's own 28 or 29 yard line. In 2010, NFL kickers connected on 74% of kicks between 40 and 50 yards. Let's use these parameters for a moment. The argument goes that for the offense that gets the ball first in old rules has to drive about 45 yards to have a 75% chance of winning off a long field goal, given the improved overall quality of modern kickers. With the current rules in place, the first offense could drive the same 45 yards and kick a long field goal, but then they'll have to play defense and stop the opposing team from doing the same thing or better.

First off, that isn't really "nothing." The idea that this system is imbalanced in favor of the offense and special teams is kind of absurd. Sure, the offense only has to drive about half the distance that it would need for a touchdown, but that's to specifically set up a long field goal, which would mean that it's not skewed particularly favorably for special teams. Kickers have gotten a lot better over the years, but most teams don't play overtime to set up a 40+ field goal, especially when you recall another rule: if a kicker misses a field goal, the opposing team gets the ball at the spot of the kick, not the line of scrimmage like usual. Meaning, if a team does play for a long 45 yard field goal to win, and misses, then you're giving the ball to your opponent with great field position. The second offense would only have to drive 35 to 40 yards for the same opportunity to win the game.

And, of course, for shorter field goals, the offense still has to drive a good chunk of the field. If a team starts on their own 30 yard line and hopes for a 30 yard field goal, they'll have to drive about 50 yards from to get into range at their opponent's 20 yard line. It shouldn't seem so unfair that a defense has to stop an offense from driving down literally half the field.

Secondly, and more significantly, it is disingenuous to suggest that the other team - the team that lost the coin toss - "didn't get a chance." They did. In such field goal winning situations, the other team had chances to reduce field positions or block the kick with their special teams, and had the opportunity to keep the opposing offense out of field goal range with their defense. Football is not just offense. The original overtime rules were surprisingly balanced to not show any real favor to the offense or the defense or the special teams. It was balanced. The defense has an opportunity to make a stop or get a turnover. The special teams has an opportunity to score/contain the opponent. And the offense has an opportunity to drive to score the game winning points.





Here's what the new rules did, if anything: it actually skewed it so that the defense has an advantage. They are no longer on the line for giving up large chunks of yardage. If a defense played poorly in overtime and allowed an opposing offense to get into field goal range, that was their fault. They'd lose the game for playing poorly. Now though, if a defense gives up a lot of yards and a field goal, their offense has one more opportunity to bust them out of trouble.

See, here's the other thing about the new rule changes: they were completely unnecessary. Apart from the fact that a team can still win without the opposing offense ever seeing the field (as happened in the Green Bay/Arizona game), there was another rule introduced that actually fundamentally made things better for the original rules, that instead, with the new OT rules, makes the new OT rules even more imbalanced than the original rules.

That major change is, of course, the kickoff spot. Sports are a bit different than most games in the sense that these aren't pieces moving around a board. These are human beings. As such, there are going to have to be concessions for the sake of player safety. For example, the new kickoff spot, mixed with banning the wedge formation and more than two players linking are dumb rules from a gameplay perspective, but make total sense when considering player safety.

And here's what the new kickoff spot does for overtime rules: it pits the first offense in worse field position. Instead of starting near their own 30 yard line, teams are regularly starting on their own 20 due to the huge increase in touchbacks. Plus, if for some reason they do get a return, there's a strong probability they'll be starting inside their own 20. What this does it makes the distance the offense needs to go for a potentially game winning field goal farther by about ten yards. A team needs to drive about 55 to 60 yards to get into reasonable field goal range now. In effect what this does is makes it more challenging for the offenses. So the new kick off rule hurts the offense and helps the defense, and the new overtime rules hurt the offense and helps the defense. These two rules, however separate they may be, have ultimately skewed the balance in favor of the team that is on defense. They are presented with a better opportunity.





What's kind of funny though is that what people thought about the original overtime rules and what they assume about the new ones are, frankly, without statistical merit. Now, admittedly I'm using a rather limited sampling size. Given that the main argument is that the original rules were skewed too heavily in the favor of the team that wins the coin toss (read: the offense that gets the ball first), and the new rules are supposed to balance it out, then presumably, looking at the data should show us that the team that gets the ball first should have been winning most of their games in the old rules, and the winning has been subsequently more even with the new rules. To check this, I meticulously looked through the game logs of four years: 2010 and 2011 (the last two years of the old OT rules), and then 2014 and 2015 (the two most recent years of the new OT rules).  The data suggests what I've always felt to be true: the mechanic wasn't broke, and there was never a reason to change them in the first place. Here, check it out:

Between 2010 and 2011 - the final two years of the old rules with the simple sudden death even by field goal stipulation - teams that got the first possession had a losing record of 15-23. That's a winning percentage of .394.  More than that,  of the 38 games that went to overtime, only 6 were won on the first possession. Yes, that's right. Only 15.8% of the time under the old rules did a team that got the ball first win the game on their first possession in a two year span.

Conversely, between 2014 and 2015 - the most recent two years of the new rules that are supposed to be more "fair," - teams that got the first possession had a winning record of 19-13. That's a winning percentage of .594. And again, more than that, of the 32 games that went to overtime, 14 were won by teams that scored a touchdown or scored a field goal on their opening possession, followed by their opponents failing to score (which is functionally the same result as the old overtime rules).  That means that in the new overtime rules, 43.8% of the time, the game is over because of scores on the opening possession.

Essentially, there is no statistical data that actually suggests that winning the coin toss and receiving the kick off for the first possession held any discernible competitive advantage under the old rules. Probably because it's football and teams have defenses and special teams. Contrary to popular opinion, it isn't only offense.






Of course, the most obvious counterargument here is that statistical correlation does not equal causation. Obviously, teams that get the ball first were not losing games because they got the ball first. The same argument, naturally, can be applied to the new overtime rules too. The Packers, for example, did not lose because they didn't get the ball first.

Bottom line: the new rules do virtually nothing to make the game "more fair." From a design perspective, the old rules were nearly perfect. The advantage of winning the coin toss was obviously not a problematically large advantage. The team that kicked off was given a chance to get the ball back (and at times, even win the game - there were at least three games I encountered in the old rules that were won on defensive touchdowns, and none of them were that Packers game when they beat the Seahawks through a pick six of Matt Hasselback way back when!). Functionally, it was fair to both teams. They were neutral rules. It didn't favor the offense. It didn't favor the special teams. And it didn't favor the defense. It provided equal significance to each phase of the game.

The new rules have made no difference, except that now, it gives a defense more leeway. Mixed with the new kickoff rules, it even gives the defense more of an advantage. In essence, the new rules are actually more unfair than they were before (even if I completely agree that it's not particularly "unfair" - however, the rules are slightly imbalanced, leaning more favorably on defenses now).

Yes, yes, I just made a rather confusing argument. While I believe the statistics prove that tales of the coin toss's significance in the original rules are dramatically exaggerated, I don't believe statistics are everything. I'm not a total idiot and know I just made an argument that the new rules should be helping the defense, but the statistics show that more overtime games are won on first possessions than ever, despite it being harder.

They're sort of separate arguments though. As I said, the statistical correlation does not mean causation. The statistics argument was used to highlight that the old rules were not giving a team any particular unfair advantage in terms of results. Examining how the mechanics work in detail, though, highlights why they actually do - as a system of rules - give a slight advantage to the defense. Obviously, one can quite simply look at the pro-offense statistics of 2014 and 2015 to say that the new rules clearly don't give defenses a big advantage, but I hope the fact that I also examined how the mechanics actually work on a game-level, and not just on a results basis, helps clear up that I'm arguing in defense of the old rules and suggesting the new rules are really only slightly more unfair on a mechanical level.



What was the real cause of concern to begin with? Is the problem really that it's "unfair" the other team doesn't get a possession? If that were true, the new overtime rules don't actually do much to change that, since a team can still be robbed of a possession if the first team scores a touchdown. If that were the argument, then by all means, the NFL should adopt college rules, where each team gets a possession from the 20 yard line and is given a chance to score - playing a bit more like penalty kicks, if penalty kicks weren't a load of nonsense that is extremely favorable to the kicker and extremely unfair to the goalkeeper.  (While I don't necessarily think college OT rules are "more fair," I do think that it is a more entertaining system at any rate.)

If the problem people had was that a field goal on an opening possession would win the game (something that didn't happen nearly as often as people seem to think it did), that might be a fair point. Kickers are more accurate than they've ever been. The league is currently altering PAT rules to make the most boring and unnecessary play in all of football even vaguely relevant, since kickers and their extra point attempts were converted at an absurdly high rate. Seriously, it was basically 100% of the time. Even more, accuracy at a distance has also jumped pretty substantially over the last decade and a half.

Admittedly, I'm one of the few football fans who likes kickers and punters. I've always found them an intriguing part of a football game. They're far more a part of a team's game strategy than people ever give them credit for, and while people may find kicks boring, I find the long kick with the game on the line one of the most exciting plays in football. Few football plays have the same kind of anticipation and anxiety-inducing build up as the field goal attempt. Adam Vinatieri lining up in the snow against the Raiders or against the Rams or Panthers with no time left was the football equivalent of a batter stepping up to the plate with a full count, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth down by two.

However, I can concede that kickers are too accurate now. When they're as great as they've been, even long field goals are a bit boring. If this is the problem though, then the solution for overtime isn't to change the overtime rules into this super complicated thing that takes two paragraphs to explain. Instead, the thing that should really have been addressed was increasing the difficulty of field goals. How about instead of the convoluted overtime rules, they make the field goal cross bar higher and the side posts narrower. Make it so kickers need to be even more accurate. If field goals aren't automatic, then no one can really complain about a field goal winning a game in sudden death overtime.

Or, alternatively, the league could examine the possibility of altering point values. Field goals could function a bit like shots in basketball where at a certain range, they're worth two points, at another range, they're worth three, and at 50+ yards, they're worth four. (It's really not that hard or more complicated to keep track of this stuff...) Or, we could abolish the extra point and only do two-point conversions, as starting from the five yard line to make it something that isn't automatic. (11 teams that attempted at least one two-point conversion in 2015 had a conversion rate of under 50%. 15 teams had 50% or higher. 4 teams didn't attempt one at all. Point being, successful conversions are still a bit skewed favorably for the offense. Setting it back to the five would presumably give the defense more of a shot.)

Point being, looking at adjusting point values would help reduce the chances of a game going into overtime entirely. Yes, yes, I know, I know. "But tradition!" "A field goal has always been worth three!" "You can't abolish the dumbest, most pointless, and least exciting play in all of sports! (the PAT)" But the thing is, in game design, you typically don't just accept a points system that allows for a bunch of ties to keep happening. This suggestion, by the bye, isn't entirely necessary (even if I think it's a good solution). All in all, 38 overtime games in 2010 and 2011 is still a rather small percentage. Given there are 267 games in an NFL season, 38 OT games in two seasons (534 games) means that only about 7% of those games went to overtime. Is that a large enough percentage to merit rule changes? Up for debate, really (I'd say yes, but others might disagree).






Look, Packers fans have been on the wrong side of overtime post season games two years in a row. I get it. It is kind of anticlimactic to have one score at the beginning of a new period conclude the game. Frankly, if we want complete fairness, the NFL post season overtime rules should be a full, ten minute period that plays out in its entirety. No sudden death at this point. If it it's still tied at the end, then you play another fifteen minute period that is completely sudden death. No one can complain about "fairness" when you've played basically five periods of football! At some point, you just have to accept that the other team made more plays when you lose.

It's just funny to me that people always want to change rules that cost them that year, without examining what its impact might be. We changed a system that wasn't broken to one that is slightly imbalanced, just because a few times at key moments in the season, a field goal won a game in sudden death. From a design perspective, the original rules were better, cleaner design. From an entertainment perspective, it was virtually the same.

All in all, there's no need to change the current rules unless we are aiming to simplify them. As it happens, I prefer my rules simple and straight forward, so I would support changing it back to simple sudden death, or just a full period followed by sudden death if still tied. But at the end of the day, the current rules - as unnecessary as they are - are every bit as fair as the originals.

And yes, the original rules were totally fair too.



UPDATE:

Done a little more digging. For the sake of transparency, the reason I went with two years on each end for the OT victory stats was that I had to go through all the game logs myself. There wasn't really a central source of the information. It was a tedious and time consuming process.

I've done a little more digging and included three additional years. It does appear, with a larger sampling size, that winning on the opening possession happens more frequently than it did in 2010 and 2011. Hard to say without doing far more intensive digging if those two years were just weird outliers, but even in 2007, 2008, and 2009, it still wasn't a common enough to feel like it was hugely unfair.

In those three years, the winning percentage does skyrocket compared to 2010 and 2011. Teams that got the first possession were 30-15-1 in those years.

But what's funny is, 21 of those 45 games were won on the opening possession. That's 45%, still less than half the time. While that paints a different picture than 2010 and 2011, it hardly gives a portrait of a horribly unfair system. If anything, it still comes off as rather fair.

Looking at individual years also shows that there isn't anything universal. It sometimes swings wildly. For example, if you were to look at 2009, teams that got the first possession were far more successful than than the same teams in 2007, a year that fits the norms found in 2010 and 2011. Point here being, there doesn't appear to much of a consistent picture being painted, and that the success of teams getting the first possession vary wildly by year. None of it really suggests that the rules were the problem.

Le Transperceneige & All You Need Is Kill

As much as we may complain about Hollywood turning every book, comic, older film, or toy lines into what often amounts to little more than an advert, there's one underlying truth behind it all: it works. When the Watchmen film dropped in 2009, DC printed and sold almost a million additional copies of the book. And sure, DC was always going to find a way to reprint and resell it in order to keep the rights, but that doesn't account for nearly a million copies! Bottom line: film adaptations raise awareness to the source material, which translates to increased sales.

It kind of makes sense. The strength of this system is that it can shine a light on minor works from smaller publishers too. For example, how many people even knew of A History of Violence or Road to Perdition before the films hit theaters? Both are considered all-time classics in the graphic novel medium, but it's undeniable that the movies brought more people into "the know." In 2014, we got two more awesome sci-fi films based on foreign comics. Those films: Bong Joon-ho's incredible dystopian Snowpiercer, and the Tom Cruise vehicle Edge of Tomorrow. 

Snowpiercer is loosely based on a French graphic novel by writers Jacques Lob and Benjamin Legrand with artist Jean-Marc Rochette (the art, by the way, is black and white and among the best art I've seen). Told in three books, the basic environment is the same as the film. In the near future, the world has frozen over and everyone has died except for almost a thousand people living on a perpetually moving train called the Snowpiercer. The train provides adequate protection from the cold, but there's still a divide among the front and back of the train. A man named Proloff escapes from the rear of the train and is immediately quarantined by authorities worried that he carries disease and will spread it to the wealthier passengers up front. A woman named Adeline wishes to help him out of humanitarian kindness, but is quickly wrapped up in his schemes.

Unlike the film - in which the main male protagonist Curtis leads a revolution to take the front of the train - the comic follows Adeline and Proloff as they are escorted by guards to the front. The general wishes to speak to them, so we follow them through the cars. Though Adeline is from the "middle cars," even she is in awe with the excess of the front trains. Eventually, Proloff attempts to take control of the engine.

In the second and third books, we are meant to believe it takes place on a completely different train. The leaders are more deceptive, subduing their subjects under the threat of someday colliding with the Snowpiercer. These books contain a lot more in terms of content and themes. There is a big conflict among the "hero" Puig Valles and the military, and religious leaders - the latter who claim they speak on behalf of the Engine. There are more interesting elements added to these books as well. To keep the people content and submissive, they have several lotteries in which people can either win a "virtual trip" or the right to have a child. There's also a humorous cult that believes they are actually stuck on a spaceship and that the leaders are lying to them about being on a train. Suffice to say, these books offer a lot more.

Of course, all three books ultimately pale in comparison to Bong Joon-ho's film. His film takes a few of the basic concepts or plot elements, but really just makes his own film inspired by it. Perhaps this is the best way to make adaptations. Instead of going all Zack Snyder and simply trying to put a comic panel by panel on the screen, make a film inspired by the source material that gives the general feel of it, but is truly designed for the medium of film.

The Tom Cruise summer film Edge of Tomorrow is similarly based loosely on the novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. The book is the story of an unlikely heroic soldier who - while fighting alien invaders - somehow gets caught in a time loop. It's essentially a sci-fi edition of Groundhog Day. The story primarily follows Keiji Kiriya, but also takes some time to follow the character of Rita Vrataski, a woman who had also been stuck in a time loop. Both characters benefited from such loops. Being able to re-live each battle they fought meant they got progressively better as fighters. Rita had become the face of the military, a hero used often as a recruiting tool.

The two strike up an unlikely relationship, although Keiji essentially has to start over from scratch every day. The film isn't too dissimilar from the book in that basic premise. Tom Cruise plays William Cage, a man who has no battle experience, gets caught in that time loop and, with Rita's help, becomes an elite super soldier. The structure is a bit similar too in that where the film uses humorous montages, the book uses extremely brief, paragraph-long chapters to speed up and drive home the process.

(WARNING:  SPOILERS AHEAD!)

On the most part, the film does a better job with the basic story than the book. (Is it strange that I prefer the film adaptations of both these stories to their comic/novel source material?) However, it's impossible to compare these two without discussing the ending. They end in almost completely and fundamentally different fashions. So again, be warned that further reading will result in spoilers to both the film and the book:

In Edge of Tomorrow, Cage and Rita appear to sacrifice themselves to destroy the Omega, an alien device that allows for such time traveling in order to better crush their enemies. Even though both get essentially wrecked by the Alpha, destroying the Omega results in one final reset where - for some reason - Cage and Rita are both alive and hadn't met yet, but the aliens are starting to die off. It's very much an "upbeat" ending, presumably because that's how Hollywood blockbusters are supposed to end. After all, you can't kill a main character - especially a love interest - unless it's an old mentor-type.  On the one hand, they both survive. On the other, Cage doesn't get any recognition for his role in saving the day.

All You Need Is Kill has a fundamentally different and darker ending. The book has a different set of rules than the film does, so the whole looping thing happens for slightly different reasons. It turns out that although Rita lost the ability to reset, she has - as a result - become an "Antenna." After over a hundred pages of seeing Rita and Keiji come together and form an unlikely relationship, it ends in such a way where they must fight to the death. Rita wants to survive and try to destroy the mimics herself. However, being an antenna means that she will continue to be stuck in the loop. Keiji can only get out of his loop and stop the mimics by destroying the antenna - by killing her.

It's a much more tragic ending. Where the film removes Cage's glory in exchange for Rita's life and the sake of a romantic and upbeat ending, the book sacrifices the love interest. It's a twist that is not only unexpected, but it's also an emotionally paralyzing moment. As a reader, you've spent much of the book watching these two come together and form a strong bond. Now, the only way to save the day is for Rita to die. We realize that all this time, Rita wasn't really helping Keiji improve so he can kill mimics; she was preparing him to kill her. Reluctantly, Keiji fights back and wins. As the mimics start to fall, he is showered in praise by the world and turned into a similarly heroic, messianic character as Rita was before him. We understand it's for the best - the world matters a bit more than the relationship of two individuals - but it still feels like an empty victory.

While I feel that the film is overall better, there's no question that the end of the book is far superior, both in general concept and in execution. The film's ending isn't just typical of Hollywood fare; it's also extremely confusing. The book makes it clear what happened, which also helps create the conflicting emotional response of the reader. It's hard to get a particularly compelling response to the film's ending when it doesn't make any narrative or thematic sense.




It isn't often that one can say the film is better than the source material, but both of these are. However, it is important to note that by no means does that mean the graphic novel and the book are bad. They're both good, quick reads. The films also work as examples of taking the basic premise of a book and making something new. Many die-hard nerds become extremely hostile at the slightest of changes, but sometimes what works in a book doesn't really work on film. I'd recommend checking out both film and comic/book.

LIST-O-MANIA: Games For the Non-Gamer

I always find it interesting when someone says something like, "I don't like video games." To me, that's a bit like saying that you don't like movies or books or something (which, I suppose there are people who don't like movies in general, or books in general either). I'm pretty confident that I might very well be able to find something you would like, if you told me you don't like or care about video games. As long as you're opening to trying it, that is.

So, here is my attempt at a list of ten games for the non-gamer. These are games that don't require that much gaming literacy to pick up and enjoy. And, they're just really great games, so even if you are a seasoned gamer, these are worth checking out.



11. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
Available On:  XBox360, XB1, PS3, PS4, PC, iOS, Android

You don't need much gaming experience to enjoy Valiant Hearts: The Great War. It's a simple, linear puzzle game that, for a game about World War I, doesn't include much violence. You never shoot or kill anyone. Indeed, you play as characters in a war trying to avoid violence. It's not particularly difficult, making it easily accessible for non-gamers.  It's informative and emotional all at the same time. It may be a simple game, but it does most of those simple things really well.

And just the emotions...

10. Pretentious Game
Available On: PC, iOS, Android, Kongregate.com (for free, even)

The name of the game probably fits according to some people, but it's a pretty well thought out and genuine game. It mixes simplicity with mechanics as metaphor kind of like a Mike Bithell game. In fact, it kind of looks like Thomas Was Alone. The characters are little blocks, but they represent people.

The game itself is almost entirely built on the premise of mechanics as metaphor. Each chapter is pretty short - only a couple of minutes, really - but there isn't necessarily a consistent style of play, other than that you move each square to a particular destination. It's basically a puzzle game in which you figure out what to do based on the clues given in the narrative. For example, there's a part talking about how this man would get drunk and couldn't control himself, at which point the square you control will often switch, so left arrow moves you right and right moves you left. One moment talks about how lost someone is feeling, causing the square to disappear in a dark background.  It can sometimes be a little tricky to figure out what exactly each thing meas, but it's an interesting idea.

The story is a rather sad tale of lost love, really. Like Thomas Was Alone, Pretentious Game has a surprising amount of emotional power behind it for a game that features primarily cubes.

9. Her Story
Available On: PC, OS X, iOS

Her Story breaks the mold of what people might expect from a video game. It's actually kind of a passive game. Players don't get overly involved in it. In fact, the only thing players will input are keywords into a search bar in order to find new videos. The primary mechanic of the game is, quite simply, watching video clips of a woman as she tells her story about her history and her relationship to a man who has been found dead. Basically, the concept is that you are given access to old police tapes from when they interrogated a suspect in a murder case back in the '90s. The clips themselves look like old VHS tape recordings, but the computer screen is also a mock up of '90s computers as well, complete with a little time-wasting computer game you can play.

The videos are broken up into a ton of little pieces, and it's up to the player to find them all via searching the computer by keywords. Players can also re-organize the clips by "tagging" them with different labels, which is helpful when referring to older clips. The game is basically a giant puzzle, but unlike most puzzle games, the player doesn't get confirmation if they're right or wrong. There aren't really any moments to indicate that you're on the right track, and you never get an actual answer. Instead, you're left with all the notes you may have taken and a pretty good idea - maybe - of what happened and whether she were reasonably suspected of murder.

It's an interesting idea for a puzzle game, and I'd say it's maybe for anyone who became obsessed with the Serial podcast. It does a great job making you feel like a detective, but be prepared for what might be a slightly unsatisfying conclusion, given it's somewhat ambiguous. Sure, not a ton of replay value on this one, but I can't put into words how great I found my initial playthrough. It's quite the experience.

8. This War of Mine
Available On: PC, OS X, iOS, Android, PS4, XB1

I tried to avoid putting some of the bleaker, more serious games on the list because, well, people typically want to play games to have fun. Still, there are two games that I highly recommend because they're quite powerful and highlight what games are capable of doing. If you've ever watched television, you've probably seen commercials for one of the seemingly endless supply of war games. Typically, war games are built on premise of turning you into an elite soldier. It's an easy thing to do, but a lot of games use war as their background because of the action and adventure inherently built into it.

This War of Mine is not that kind of war game. Instead of turning you into one of the soldiers, built up as all heroic and all, it puts you in the role of civilians trying to survive in a war zone. Players control a number of survivors stuck in a house during the day in a region decimated by war. During this phase of the game, you use resources you've collected to survive. You'll tell some of your house mates to eat, or sleep, or take medicine, or whatever else they may need to do. Some, you'll have using resources to build new things like beds, stoves, animal traps, or even just boards to stop looters.

At night, you'll send one of your party to a location from a map. Some areas are off-limits because of recent battles. Others are home to civilians who aren't able to defend themselves, allowing you to steal from them with ease if you should choose. Some places, though, will have you run into other survivors. Occasionally, they'll be peaceful and even want to trade, but others will shoot you on sight. Your goal is to collect as many resources as you can. Food, water, medical supplies, building supplies: there's a lot of variety in what you can gather. Problem is, you have a limited number of things you can carry.

Each character has their own ailments to deal with. You're constantly trying to balance your limited food supply with each person in the party who is almost always hungry. You also get people who are sick, injured, or just sad. It's a really, really difficult and heartbreaking. Surviving is really difficult.

The game itself is simple. It's just point and click. You don't need much skill to play it. You just need to be able to stomach the difficult decisions. It's a really poignant game, demonstrating the brutality that a lot of people in real wars have to deal with.

7. Papers, Please
Available On: PC, OS X, iOS

Yep. Another bleak and depressing, yet extremely poignant game. Papers, Please puts players in the role of an immigration officer. Throughout the course of the game, all you basically do - from a game perspective - is look at an immigrant's paper work, determine if it's valid or invalid, and either approve them for entry or deny them entry. It's tedious, and at times very cold, but that's the point.

When not processing applicants, you're trying to figure out the best way to manage your finances. The game puts players in a fictional world that is probably run by a fascist dictator. At the end of each day, you must allocate your money into a variety of important things like food, heat, or medicine. Your family gets sick frequently enough, especially if you can't spend money on heat all the time. Money is a pretty limited resource, which connects to the immigrant processing gameplay too.

At times, you are presented with bribes. Immigrants will offer to pay you to allow them entry despite invalid paperwork. At the same time, border guards will offer you a cut of their bonuses for imprisoning applicants, forcing you to confront the uncomfortable scenario of apprehending someone with an invalid passport just so you can make money to pay for your child's medicine. There's a lot of gray area in the game, making it one of the best and most excruciating games built on morality. Like This War of Mine, the morality isn't clear cut, and is meant to make players reflect on the situation.

6. One-Finger Death Punch
Available On: XBox360, Android, iOS, PC

Ok! Let's get away from the bleak, but important games for a moment. One-Finger Death Punch is one of the simplest, craziest, and most fun games I've played in a while. The game does a good job getting progressively more challenging, offering splits in the story's path so players can choose how quickly they want the game to get more difficult. At some point, it stops being particularly easy, but it never stops being super simple.

Quite literally, you will only ever hit one of two buttons. One that correlates to "left attack" and one that is "right attack." The rest is just a rhythm based game, almost shades of simpler Dance Dance Revolution. All you do is tap the correct button when it shows up. It's all timing based, which makes later levels really challenging as they introduce new button combos to deal with and faster paces.

Bottom line: it's just sooooo much fun.

5. Monument Valley
Available On: iOS, Android

I'm not much of a mobile gamer, and I'm especially not typically into games on touch screen phones. Yet every once in a while, there is a super addictive game that I really enjoy. Whether it's the stylized side-scrolling Canabalt or the hyper addictive platforming Doodle Jump, it's not like there aren't fun games for your phone. Even as they try to adapt older classics like Chrono Trigger or Wolfenstein 3D so they're playable on your iPhone or Galaxy, it never quite works well enough for me to ever stick with it.

Monument Valley is a short and unique puzzle game that captures a lot of the spirit of the great indie games you can find on Steam. It's got a bit of Fez influence in the sense that perspective can matter. The main difference though is that all of the levels are built like these MC Escher-like puzzles. It might take a few levels to really get the hang of it, given that it's all built around optical illusions, but as a puzzle game, it's simultaneously different and similar enough to many of your more popular puzzle games on mobile.

4. Portal 2
Available On: XBox360, PS3, PC, OS X

Look, Portal 2 or even it's predecessor are among the greatest games ever made, but it made a little more sense to drop it from the top spot because it is a first person perspective, and you have basic FPS controls. The puzzle nature of the game is really fun. Mixed with the incredible humor, it also makes the game very appealing for people who don't play a lot of video games.

Because of it's more advanced controls, it can take a little more time and commitment for non-gamers to get it down. For veteran gamers, the FPS controls are intuitive. It's easy to think, "It's second nature to me, so why is anyone else struggling with it?" But it's important to keep in mind just how much experience a lot of us core gamers have with such schemes. (Just try to remember the very first FPS game you've played. Probably hard to recall at this point, but it probably felt weird at first, and took some time to really get down.)

While the first Portal was excellent, it just felt right to put the sequel ahead, since it's so much funnier. Plus, you can play in a co-op mode, making it a great game for gamers to try with their non-gamer friends.

3. Life Is Strange
Available On: XBox360, XB1, PS3, PS4, PC

Much can be said about the flaws inherent to narrative-drive games with its primary mechanics built around making choices, but Life Is Strange does a lot of things better than most. The time rewind powers add to the adventure/clicking gameplay, and also add to the overall themes and story. While the final episode is a bit disappointing, the game is strong enough - with good enough characters, an intriguing enough story, significant decisions to make, and a killer soundtrack - to make up for it.

The fact that it starts off really grounded, and centers around some fairly realistic characters makes it an easy game to relate to. There are few games that resonated with me on such a deeply personal level. It's an easy game to pick up and figure out, making it a great game showcasing the power of video games as a medium of story-telling.

2. Flower
Available On: PS3, PS4, PS Vita

If you want a really simple game that is beautiful and relaxing, then look no further than Flower. Thatgamecompany has really made a name for itself with beautiful, calming experiences. Fl0w is also a weirdly relaxing and simple game, and Journey is probably it's master opus at this point (which I admittedly have yet to play, which is why it's not on this list...yet!)

What's the premise of Flower? Well, you play as pedals on the wind as a row of house plants in the city dream about life in a field rather than the polluted metropolitan areas they know. Quite literally, you just blow around the fields collecting pedals. The goal is primarily to just beautify the fields. Thatgamecompany doesn't plan on producing any huge games, and that's totally fine. While some gamers might prefer their games to be really difficult and challenging, I think there is something to the idea of "lean back" games that we can play, interact with, and relax to.

It's also super rad for the way it uses musical notes to correspond to different types of pedals, allowing players to essentially create their own unique take of the music tracks.

1. Thomas Was Alone
Available On: PS3, PS4, PS Vita, XB1, PC, OS X, iOS, Android, Wii U

One of the best, and most simple games in a long time, Thomas Was Alone is a game that anyone - gamer or non-gamer - can love. At its core, it's a basic puzzle game. You're navigating a bunch of rectangles through a level to their respective exit points. Each rectangle has its own unique ability that will help get everyone to their spots.

At the same time, it offers a surprisingly compelling and emotionally touching story. Each rectangle has their own personality too. While voice over narration isn't the most complex form of story telling, it's what is needed for this game. (Also, the game is built on simplicity, so it fits tonally.) Often, the character traits match the power traits of each rectangle as well.

Fun gameplay, a compelling story, surprisingly human characters, and a killer soundtrack make this one of the most accessible games that anyone can enjoy.