Dishonored is a wonderful addition to the Thief/BioShock genre. Excellent world-building and character upgrades meets level design that allows for numerous approaches and possibilities. Everything in the game world is well-thought out. If I try to scale a fence with spikes, I get hurt. If I try to sneak by guards while carrying a body, they get suspicious. If I show up at a party with guns drawn, I get a lecture. I can use blink to zip past a guard shooting and make him shoot his own colleague. Every mission allows for every possible combination of playstyles. You can go full frontal assault. You can just kill minimally and surgically. You can sneak by everyone. Or you can play hacker style, rewiring all the alarms and security system. And the parkour is excellent. Arkane would later adapt these mechanics to Prey, and they aren't as smooth here as in Prey, but the still great movements of climbing, jumping, and sliding are on full display, and a joy to use. Everything is fun about this game, including trying to find all the secrets. If you like the FPS/RPG genre, this is at the top of the class.
Superliminal is a very clever puzzle game, using forced perspective to create counter-intuitive solutions that require the player to rethink their physics assumptions. The concept is excellent, and along with great aesthetics and a chillin' soundtrack, makes for a pleasant and satisfying game experience. But it is quite limited in its implementation. Too many puzzles feel redundant, and the game is suprisingly conservative in how many variations on the puzzles it is willing to take. It never reaches Portal aspirations. The whitespace sequence lost me a bit - cool visuals but a lot of feelings of pointlessness. Still, for anyone looking for a twist on the puzzle genre, this is a must play.
Hard Reset is run-of-the-mill FPS, but it does it well. Nothing revolutionary here: it's the standard scripted shooter action, with tons of FPS loot (ammo and health), and a very, very linear game. The story is incoherent, but it's told through some cool graphic art. Why play this game? Because you love FPS and you're looking for something that has few surprises but does FPS really well. The secrets are easy, the ambushes straight out of the Doom textbook, but ... everything blows up and the carnage is quite fun. Plus, the game looks great. The whole Blade Runner feel of it is very strong. So get it for when you run out of your favorite FPS and you need something to tide you over.
I loved the first Little Nightmares. Not only is its creepy art and world-building an absolute delight to explore, but the platforming is fun without being overly frustrating. So as soon as LN2 went on a good sale, I grabbed it. And while I think they have recaptured the artistic majesty of the first title, I found this experience less satisfying. It's not bad, but it's not that engrossing either. Again, the artwork is fantastic, and it's interesting to get a kind of backstory to Six. But the game falls short on two dimensions. First, the gameplay is very frustrating in sections. LN2 kind of makes the same mistake as Outlast 2 in relying much too heavily on chase sequences where the only means of progression is a precise sequence of platform jumps. Unlike LN1, which had lots of great stealth mechanics with multiple pathways, LN2 goes for forced pursuits with very little window for error. They're terrifying moments, but also involve tedious blind trial and error. I think the other major shortfall is the story. The first LN1 was this masterful mystery slowly unveiled as we try to figure out who Six is and where she is. The momentum of the game comes from both Six's attempt to escape and our curiosity to see what exactly she is escaping from. The Maw is a highly original, twisted world, and exploring it very satisfying. I didn't find the Pale City nearly as interesting, but more importantly, the "story" is so abstract I didn't feel like each chapter really cohered with each other or led to anything important. Whereas LN1 feels like the peeling of an onion, LN2 feels like a series of disconnected storyboards arbitrarily forced together. It lacks unity and purpose, and the same impetus of trying to understand where we are. Still, I did enjoy it, and there are several breathtaking scenes of beauty and ingenuity. It's worth playing once, but don't expect anything near the genius that was the original Little Nightmares.
Amnesia: Rebirth is a brave game. It isn't as scary as its predecessor or Outlast, and its story isn't as strong as SOMA. Frictional doubled-down on two key elements: incredible atmospheric immersion, and a brave choice of protagonist. Their gamble pays off. First the immersion. A:R has gorgeous textures, Lovecraftian lighting, exquisite sound design, and a protagonist with a full body that plays an integral role in the gameplay. Play it with headphones on in a dark room at night, and it soaks the creepiness into your bone marrow. A:R has fewer monster encounters than A:TDD, it seemed to me, but they're utterly terrifying when they do come (especially The Hunting Grounds). Instead, A:R focuses on their mechanic that the darkness is your greatest enemy. I spent a lot of time in this game worrying about being caught alone in the dark without matches or lantern oil. The crackling sound that comes as the tentacles crawl acroess your screen is wicked; you'll do anything to keep it away. The game has fantastic environments, inventive puzzles, and a few chase sequences (they're better than Outlast 2). While the story isn't the strongest, the excellent voice acting and realistic world-building makes up for it. More importantly, I love this protagonist. Unlike the "nominal" female hero in Metroid or Tomb Raider games, here she really means something. A pregnant hero, who goes through the cycles of pregnancy as the game evolves, not just visually but as a basic mechanic to the game. Her water breaks, you even have to guide her to breastfeed her newborn; it's wonderful to see games expanding to include far more experiences in its characters. Tasi is wonderfully voiced, lovingly rendered, and a joy to have as an avatar. It's as much art as game, and if you loved Amnesia, this gives you so much more context for the story. If you loved SOMA, this provides another startling world, full of monsters, but also full of beauty. Highly recommended.
Thief is a classic, and rightly so. Alongside the stealth mission from Rainbow Six, Thief ushered in the modern first-person stealth alternative to the shoot 'em up genre, and laid the groundwork for future steath masterpieces like Splinter Cell, Dishonored, and Metro 2033. Thief is full of brilliant ideas and impressive ambition. Light and sound are intricate to the gameplay, and it featured some of the earliest attempts at creating enemies with graduated suspicion. It also innovates one of the first "vulnerable" protagonists; Garrett is not Doomguy. He's slow, his fighting skills are mixed, and this forces you to rely more on the element of surprise and your equipment than your mouse-clicking skils. Not all of the missions are particularly engrossing, although the later missions get really interesting, with objectives constantly changing and some really cool stealth challenges. It's fun screwing around with the AI enemies and spooling them up while keeping yourself hidden. Still, unlike Half-Life or System Shock 2, this game has not aged well. The controls are pretty clunky, leading to some frustrating gameplay, especially in the combat. Yes, as I just said, Garrett is supposed to be sub-par in a sword duel, but it can be to the point of tedium. The bigger issue is the graphics. While the game sports some really good sound design, the visuals are, frankly, quite ugly. Blocky, tired polygons litter the landscape, covered with grainy textures set within poor lighting. The level design can be quite clever (e.g. Constantine's mansion), but it never looks good or ends up being particularly interesting to explore. A wonderful game that played a critical role in the evolution of gaming, but it is a very dated product of its time.
Deliver Us The Moon is a visually sumptuous feast where you play as an astronaut uncovering a sci-fi mystery as you explore an abandoned moon base. The environment is truly remarkable, a work of craftsmanship and detail that makes for a believable, immersive experience. The voice acting is very strong, and the soundtrack simultaneously chilling and inspiring. Genre-wise, Deliver Us The Moon is closest in style to Tacoma. They're both space mysteries that slowly unfold as you uncover audio logs, holograms, and other bits of information. The one major difference is that Deliver Us The Moon features some gentle survival elements. They're never severe enough to stress you out, but they do add a level of realism and adrenaline to the game. For this dimension, the experience is a bit like Kona, another mystery game with lite survival elements. If either of those games suit your fancy, then Deliver Us The Moon is another must-play. The story is very good, with some interesting philosophical themes alongside a small cast of characters that allow a bit of drama to unfold. There are a few loose ends up the ending is still pretty satisfying. The whole shtick of having both third-person and first-person gameplay turns out to be more a gimmick than doing anything interesting. I found the switches to FP distracting and disjointed in the early parts of the game, and then bizarrely the FP goes away almost entirely in the second half. The one place where the FP makes sense and adds realism are the spacewalks; for the rest of it I would have preferred it just stay third-person. Still, good experience overall.
To The Moon is a sweet tale of how we bring life to a satisfying conclusion, but it ends up being more heavy-handed than profound. The music is beautiful and the artwork very good, but there is little gameplay here. Other than occasional adventures in pixel-hunting, mostly To The Moon just involves click through dialogue boxes. Which means all the value rides on the story. And while it has some nice elements highlighting aspects to life normally ignored in video games (e.g. childhood trauma, medical disabilities, etc.), the narrative feels very plot-heavy and staged for sentimental value. It's like a Lifetime movie turned into a video game. The dialogue wasn't novel enough and the story wasn't inspiring enough to keep me focused and invested. I finished in a little over 4 hrs, and while I certainly don't regret it, it left me feeling like this could have been so much more.
Little Nightmares is a feast if you love creepy good fun. It's the closest game I've found to the terrifyingly absorbing atmosphere of Limbo. The game is weird and disturbing, with some freaky moments, but it's never overly scary. Instead, Little Nightmares settles in your bone marrow, leaving you with dread and wonder. The Maw is a bizarre, disgusting world and a ripe allegory for the hierarchies of society. The gameplay here is pretty smooth, with some fluid control movements. Puzzles are never too hard, leaving you free to soak in the ambiance and haunting cooridors. I love the abstract ideas and the lavish detail, the fun collectibles and the strange secret achievements. Get it on sale, and it's worth every minute. Took me about 5 hours to finish, taking my time.
GRIS is a wonderful, peaceful platforming experience. It goes in a direction I wish more platformers would explore: a mostly enemyless journey. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy all the classic platformers like Mario and Donkey Kong Country, but why does every game have to be oriented around us vs. them? Enter GRIS, where a large portion of the game involves either neutral NPCs or NPCs that you have to collaborate with to advance. I just loved the puzzles, the elegance of the gameplay, and it's surprising originality. This is not for hardcore gamers; none of the challenges are particularly difficult. It's more about the joy of exploration and discovery. There are a number of cool challenges a long the way, but I mostly came for the gorgeous water color design, the clever abstract world-building, and the excellent soundtrack. If you like puzzlers such as Art of Gravity or Zenge, or platformers like Limbo or Inside, GRIS is a necessary addition to your collection.
