Instead of surviving Salt and Sanctuary's horrors by obsessively dissecting them, liberation comes as a result of being able to execute ever more deft acrobatics with a few simple twitches. In this way, the game helps us learn to shed the burden of realism by flattening it, reducing its physical and emotional details into obstacles that can be overcome with the flick of a button.
Solstice tends more toward murder mystery dinner theater than fantasy film noir. A penchant for playful melodrama and comedic banter in many ways undercuts the tension established through the game's mystery and its interactive methods for unraveling it.
Mini Metro submerges its formulae to create a space for more organic play. Like a city that leaves its streets to pedestrians, pushing highways underground and elevating trains overhead, the game seeks to avoid the anxious hustle of a traditional simulation by reducing clutter and keeping things at a more intimate, human level.
Far from the distilled purity of the sport it seeks to celebrate, PES 2016 comes across as an over-engineered appliance—an unfortunate reality, given the craftsmanship being smothered underneath as a result. For all of PES 2016's inching improvements in the way players interact on the field, the game seems more intent on bombarding you with the number of licensed leagues, kitschy diversions, and other doohickeys vaguely associated with soccer at its disposal.
Spend some time with Project CARS and you'll be fed up with how unforgiving each turn is on your over-eager vehicle. Spend a little more and you'll grow to appreciate each unique, licensed hunk of steel as it groans under the stress of constantly alternating between accelerating and braking. But play any more and you'll start to feel slightly detached, barreling aimlessly between locations and race courses.