Pocket Gamer 20th anniversary: Premium to freemium shifts and mobile beauty

If you've been following along with our Pocket Gamer 20th anniversary celebrations, you'll know that we've hit 2015 on our jaunt down memory lane. And I've hit the age where that doesn't seem all that long ago until I glance at the calendar and realise it's been ten years. No matter. The older I get, the more I match my personality. Once I reach 46, I'll have some concerns about the whole ageing process, I'm sure.

Anyway? What was going on in 2015? My personal life was in the trash, so we'll skip that entirely and focus on the positive. For instance, some excellent films, like The Martian, Inside Out, and The Revenant, hit cinemas. My personal favourite, though, was Creed; Any excuse to see Sly play Rocky. The formulaic nature of those movies doesn't bother me one bit.

In music, Twenty One Pilots appeased their fiercely loyal fanbase with the release of Blurryface, which I think is fantastic. I even saw them live one year, coming away thoroughly impressed with the show they put on. That said, I've not listened to anything they've released since. Elsewhere, Chris Stapleton made a great case for country being a worthwhile genre with Traveller, and Adele shifted more CDs (and I assume digitally distributed MP3s) than anyone else with 25.

In PC and console gaming, we had a few big hitters. The Witcher 3 ended up acting as many people's introduction to Geralt's adventures despite being the third entry in the series. Sadly, I've always bounced off it despite trying a few times. Likewise, I didn't get along with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain either. As a good friend of mine knows, however, stealth is far from my forté. Regardless, 2015 did provide me with one of my all-time favourites: Bloodborne. In truth, I didn't play it until a few years later, but when I eventually did, I'd sunk 500 hours into it before I knew it across six or seven playthroughs. It's absolute perfection as far as I'm concerned. Merely writing about it makes me want to go again. 

And in mobile, the freemium – eurgh, I’ll never like that term – world dominated the revenue charts. Clash of Clans, Puzzles & Dragons, Candy Crush, and a few others had cemented themselves as mainstays by this point, making it easy to forget that other great games released in 2015. So, let's check them out, shall we?

Fallout Shelter

Gamers can be a funny breed. When Fallout Shelter was announced at E3 in 2015, many were aghast that Bethesda would dare bring the beloved IP to mobile. Yet, despite this apparent opposition, it was downloaded a whopping 10 million times. Of course, that doesn't mean everyone enjoyed it, but they can't deny they were curious. And while it didn't blow our reviewer, Harry Slater, away, it at least showed that Bethesda respected the platform, trying to make a genuine management sim that stayed true to the franchise. 

Angry Birds 2

With the numbered sequel to Rovio's avian-slinger, the developer was operating in a different world. The premium route didn't make sense for some companies at this stage. As such, they went free-to-play, bringing in various systems that would occasionally tug at your wallet, encouraging you to purchase IAPs. Not that it took anything away from the gameplay itself, and you could largely ignore it if you wanted. Otherwise, Angry Birds 2 oozed Rovio's level of polish, where catapulting a bird at a precariously built structure filled with pigs felt as great as ever.

Horizon Chase

Arcade racers, when made well, always bring a sense of joy, even if, like me, you're generally not a car person. There's just something about a sense of speed without having to worry about boring things like realism that makes for a thrilling ride. Horizon Chase provided that and then some, taking you on a globe-trotting adventure as you weaved your way through traffic.

Alto's Adventure

Yesterday, I mentioned how Monument Valley was one of the most beautiful games available on mobile. A mere year later, we promptly received another in Alto's Adventure. It's an endless snowboarder with simple controls that see you flipping and sliding through a series of stunning vistas. It's a great example of the concept that not everything has to be entirely original. Simply package it in a compelling way, and people will flock to it. 

Lara Croft Go

Until Pikachu and co commandeered the word 'Go' one year later, the word was synonymous with Square Enix's franchise-hopping series. And in many ways, it's a shame it no longer is. Lara Croft Go was the next attempt at distilling a predominantly action-based series into a puzzler. You're presented with a series of screens filled with nodes, and whenever you swiped from one to another, everything else, be it lizards, boulders or blades, would move too. That meant you had to figure out where to move our hero to ensure she didn't meet an untimely end, while also throwing spears at snakes. As with all good puzzlers, it's simple in theory yet much trickier when you're in the thick of it. 

Downwell

Ever wanted a pair of gun shoes? No, I've not thought about it either. However, once you've spent a bit of time with Downwell, you'll probably want some. The vertical roguelike from Devolver Digital and Moppin sees you using your aforementioned kicks to kill enemies and smash blocks as you go down... the well. Obviously. It only has three virtual buttons to contend with, but don't expect a walk in the park. Downwell is tough, in a good way.

And, as I said yesterday, plenty of great games had been released for phones and tablets at this point, making it impossible to touch on everything. So, let's give a quick shout-out to some stellar ports in the shape of Transistor, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Her Story. Yeah, mobile was a good place to be in 2015.