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# Ballots: Ryan Kuo
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/ballots-ryan-kuo/
- Published: 2012-01-06T09:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-17T14:34:28.000Z
- Description: High Scores 2011 ballot.
- Author: Anonymous
- Tags: Article, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

### Games

1\. Yakuza 4 (20)  
2\. Dark Souls (10)  
3\. El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (10)  
4\. Bastion (10)  
5\. The Binding of Isaac (10)   
6\. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (10)  
7\. The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile (10)  
8\. Tiny Wings (10)  
9\. Karoshi (5)  
10\. Forza Motorsport 4 (5)

### Comments

I agonized over where to place games like *Portal 2,* *Gears of War 3*, and *Skyrim* and realized I was having trouble because I didn’t ultimately care about them. I play those games and I can never stop thinking about in what ways they are, and aren’t, what their creators want them to be. I never get to lose myself in a portal. My games of 2011 made an impression on me just like my favorite books and movies and records: as really tight, sequential experiences. The albums I play the most are always DJ mixes. One of my favorite writers, Thomas Bernhard, wrote books with pages of unbroken, run-on sentences. That very physical sensibility—which leads me along like a slipstream—is on display in *El Shaddai*‘s schizophrenic (yet totally Zen) sequence of styles, *The Binding of Isaac*‘s sequence of symbols, *Ghost Trick*‘s sequence of miracles and revelations, *Vampire Smile*‘s sequence of blows, and the iOS version of *Karoshi*‘s chiling sequence of surprises and lies.

It’s especially there in *Yakuza 4\.* Early on, I exited my character’s office after watching a context-setting cut scene; rounded the corner and promptly ran into a businessman from a side-quest two chapters back; watched helplessly as we headed back up to the office and started talking about *work*, only to be interrupted by visitors who told me their entirely different story about a bad domestic situation; got pulled into an arcade-style fistfight with their abuser in the alley outside after they left, which lasted all of two minutes; and ended back up in the office with neither of these threads resolved, and my original mission forgotten. That feels a lot like life, and it’s not a simulation—it’s just a (baroque, reasonless, and life-affirming) sequence of events. It’s been said that *Skyrim* has a similar effect, but I never feel truly lost in that studio’s games; I make little plans and projects for myself, which is also what I do at the office, which is not play.

It’s even there in *Forza Motorsport 4*, whose decadent parade of new cars, colors, and carburetors is the authentic, fully varnished capitalist experience. These games each have a keen insight into how one thing can lead perfectly and pointlessly to another, and that’s as pure and timeless an art as I can imagine.

*Back to [High Scores 2011](http://killscreendaily.com/articles/high-scores-end-2011?ref=killscreen.com)*