98 PCWorld DECEMBER 2020FEATURE BEST GAMES OF THIS GENERATION
It’s entertaining though! That’s the best
part. “Edutainment” is a dirty word in video
games, and for good reason. A lot of
edutainment is thin, like a layer of chocolate
over green beans. But with Kerbal Space
Program, you learn not because you’re being
force-fed rocketry facts, but because you want
to build something better. That’s so rare, and
it’s so rewarding when you overcome your
previous failures and finally land on Mun or
orbit Eeloo—or even just parachute back to
Kerbin without exploding.
And to think that Kerbal Space Program
began with a single employee, Felipe
Falanghe, at Mexican marketing firm Squad.
The story of Kerbal Space Program’s
development is just as strange and surprising
as the game itself. I can’t wait to see what 2Kdoes with Kerbal Space Program 2 (go.
pcworld.com/ksp2), nor can I wait to play
more of Falanghe’s Balsa Model Flight
Simulator (go.pcworld.com/blsa).- CELESTE
There are games I struggle to describe
because they’re so strange or complex. Then
there’s Celeste (go.pcworld.com/cete),
which I struggle with because laying out what
it is in prose oversimplifies and cheapens the
experience.
Celeste isn’t all that complicated. On its
face, it’s a precision platformer in the vein of
Super Meat Boy—and a great one, I might
add. A lot of people have tried to imitate
Super Meat Boy over the past decade, but
Celeste is one of the few that managed to
7.