Some of the additions in Afterbirth break whatever thematic cohesion might have existed more than what has come before. Laser-cyborg Isaac doesn't quite fit with my reading of the game but then, what the hell, maybe it's just a game about shit, blood and tears after all. And it's a fantastic example of the form.
If the game itself were as much of a mess as the port, I'd happily ignore the whole thing but Rocksteady are still capable of spectacle and style. Given the choice of one big budget collectathon series a year, and that's often all I can find time for, I'd pick Arkham almost every time.
For all of my complaints, I'd like to see more. More explorations of the weird places that we scrap, shoot and claw our way through as we play games. More short stories. More horror. If Funcom want to flesh out their Secret World with a few more side projects, I'll be a the front of the queue, even if I'm not convinced I'll enjoy the ride.
It's a shame that the skaven act so much like zombies rather than having their own distinct traits. But if Vermintide can act as the catalyst for a trend whereby at least one in every three zombie games is now a Skaven game instead, it will have served a wondrous purpose. The 'tide' suffix is excuse enough to have hordes of ratbeasts running mindlessly through the streets and it could happily be attached to 'Daemon', 'Corpse' or 'Green'. That said, 'Greentide' sounds like an off-brand toilet cleaner so perhaps that one would need a bit of a rethink.
Forget your Just Causes, your Uncharteds, your Battlfields and your Call of Duties – Broforce comes closer to capturing the beautiful chaos and heroic misadventures of a big budget action movie than any of them.
That I love the game even with a Virtual Boy palette is testament to how lovely it is. Very lovely. And very smart.
I wish there were more, particularly relating to team management and the persistency of the world, but this will do. It's not as clean and clever as fellow fictional ball-handler Frozen Cortex, but the messiness and violence really do add something. There's nothing quite like recognising that you're not going to score in the last turn of a half and concentrating all of your efforts toward obliterating the opponent team instead. Especially when they're High Elves.
While it is an enormously satisfying and well-crafted game, SOMA never managed to convince me that its themes and plot were in tune with its more traditional first-person frights. It scared me and it gave me cause to think about some of the issues raised, but now that I'm done, I doubt it'll stay long in my mind, or plucking at my nerves.
It's entirely possible that you'll respond much more kindly to Dropsy than I have. I wish it had been easier, with a second layer of clues accessible beneath the basic pictograph conversations perhaps. I also wish I'd felt more of a connection with Dropsy himself and I have no doubt that some people will.
Fran Bow made me smile more than any other game I've played this year. That might come as a surprise if all you've seen of the game is a couple of screenshots feauring gore and dead kids. Fran Bow opens with a gory murder scene and then traps its young protagonist in a creepy institution for (criminally?) insane children. But that initial setting and the dark tone are just a small slice of a story that spans worlds and perfectly captures the beautiful, delightful nonsense of Alice's Adventures, an inspiration that is imprinted on the game.
At its best, Satellite Reign has more in common with Commandos than Syndicate. It's a splendid construct, built to endure and to sustain repeated playthroughs in various styles, but I can't shake the feeling that, minute by minute, a little more chaos and unpredictability would go a long way.
The Swindle is a minor diversion at best, without the comic timing or cunning to turn anyone to a life of crime. A weekend of crime, perhaps, at most.
Smart, subtle and sinister, Cradle is a wonderful work of science fiction that doesn't quite fit inside the space Flying Cafe have designed for it.
Sorcerer King deserves plaudits for being something altogether different rather than yet another iteration of a game we've been playing for decades.
When all was said and done, I felt that my curiosity had been rewarded rather than rebuked. Her Story recognises that we have a habit of slowing down and craning our necks when we pass an accident, but it also trusts us to temper that urge with empathy. Maybe if we were separated from these events by a window and a motorway lane rather than a screen and impassable years, we'd slow down enough to pull someone out of harm's way.
Thankfully, the game never becomes grim. That light-hearted cartoon style shows its worth, allowing the game to lean heavily on the cruelty of crime in its mechanics without ever tipping into grotesque displays of violence or pain. This would not be the place for such things – the game asks you to experiment and play with life so often that it has to retain the feel of a toybox. And it does so, handsomely.
It's extremely rare to come across a game in which all of the details of that design intertwine so effectively. And then you realise it lets you redefine a lot of the parameters individually instead of having monolithic difficulty levels and, wow.
It's one idea done well, consistent and compact. As Bunnylord might say – Not A Hero might not be cooking with floppin' sexy gas on all cylinders but it's a facemurdering good time nonetheless.
Despite my uncertainty about some of the specifics, it's a game that has me firmly in its clutches and I'm happy to be there. Maybe it's a hug rather than a clutch.
Wizard Wars is a smart piece of design and worthy of far more attention than you probably imagine a free-to-play multiplayer spin-off deserves.