But what it's trying to be, and in most ways entirely succeeds, is something that will stick with me long after the credits finish and I sit in the dark hoping the child I'd been playing as finds better days to come.
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Shantae: Riskey's Revenge is probably the closest I've come to enjoying a Wayforward game.
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I think it's worth mentioning again that Escape Goat 2 isn't awful, and I don't regret the time I spent with it. It's simply that coming from such near perfection to comparative mediocrity is rather more shocking than it might have otherwise been if this had been the first game.
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Shovel Knight is quite possibly the best faux-NES game I've ever played.
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Remember Me seemed to have everything going for it. The premise blew me away with an exceptionally bleak opening, and the gameplay mechanics on paper seemed to be brimming with fantastically original concepts, with an outstanding presentation to back it all up. But in trying to differentiate itself from the norm, Remember Me only clings more closely to the tired ideas of so many action adventure games before it, restraining its ambitions at the best of times and causing it to fall over itself in failure at the worst. It’s not hopelessly lost, nor unplayable, but as it stands I have rarely been so disappointed that so much potential was put to such little use.
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The Fall has a lot to say for a game that doesn't want to tell you what it is.
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With how great the foundation of Contrast is, to see it come together in such a halfbaked manner is truly unfortunate. There's a very clear vision amid the mediocrity that the developer had much bigger plans than the neutered length allowed them to execute, which makes it so disappointing they weren't able to hold the game back from release until they could be better implemented. I hope this isn't the last I see of Compulsion, but I pray they're given a better time frame for future projects that allows them to capitalize on the potential they almost completely missed this time around.
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Sneaky Sneaky plays a little like a stealth board-game.
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Sure, BasketBelle's gameplay is fairly limited, its controls anything but smooth, and its length incredibly brief, but none of that really mattered to me. The imagination and love flowing through the constantly evolving journey was all I needed to allow me to sink into its gorgeous backgrounds as I dribbled with alien monsters, learned to fly, and bonded with my sister all in time for bed.
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The Banner Saga’s awe inspiring scope is both its biggest strength and weakness.
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I’m not sure I’ve ever played a game that’s taken me on the sort of rollercoaster of conflicting opinions as Alien: Isolation did.
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Flash forward many years later and here we have Double Dragon: Neon, a loving recreation of the now several decade old original, decked out with a slick presentation and some much-needed refinement to the now rather archaic mechanics that hold up much better in my memories than reality.
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After three games and two expansions, I thought Bioshock and by extension Irrational Games had run out of ways to surprise me. I thought I knew all their tricks, the sort of experience I was in for, and how to overcome the obstacles they threw at me. I thought I was prepared for the second half of Burial at Sea, Irrational's final piece of work before its disassembly, but, well, you can probably guess from this introduction just how accurate all that hypothesizing actually was.
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The first half of Burial Sea is that rare bit of DLC that manages to add to an experience without feeling like it was stripped out of the original game; expanding upon threads left over from Bioshock: Infinite and providing closure to a few loose ends it didn't have time to wrap up.
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The scope and ambition of Bioshock: Infinite is in itself difficult to fully take in, but it’s in seeing this ambition conceptualized in such astounding fashion that causes it to become almost exhausting to try to appreciate the vast amount of layers laid in such an intricate pattern required to make it what it is.
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It’s simple vector graphics twist and contort into images and designs which far succeed the simplicity with which they’re drawn, even more impressive in motion as you speed through levels barely having time to take it all in. The artistry and style expressed in these moments is at times stunning and always stimulating, mesmerizing and drastically different in tone and setting in each passing scene.
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Hatoful Boyfriend is more nuanced and compelling than it has any right to be.
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It’s probably not an understatement to say I was rather taken aback by how much I ended up enjoying The Curse of Brotherhood. Its beautiful scenery pulled me in, and the leisurely platforming and puzzle solving kept me there throughout an experience that continued to surprise me the further I got in. Some may scoff at the low difficulty, but in terms of simple fun and creativity I haven’t played something quite as nice for too long.
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Outlast might not be the absolute pinnacle of interactive horror, but it's certainly close and an impressive bar for other developers to shoot for.
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