In theory, its intricacies should be bracing, but in practice the fixation on spacing and formation further slows down the pace.
Spelunky 2 remains staunchly committed to its immaculate core design.
Windbound is an exploration game whose sense of exploration is painfully rigid.
Make & Break is at its best when injecting variety into the campaign, not only mixing up the environments but the game modes.
Few of the game's problems would be insurmountable in the face of an engaging narrative.
Though you encounter familiar configurations of levers and passageways and other obstacles, the mansion’s rooms all feel distinct, subtly interconnected in a way you likely won’t even notice unless you hit the load screen and see that every puzzle is coherently plotted on a zoomed-out side view of the mysterious mansion. Creaks hums along smoothly and pleasantly without calling attention to itself, to its sporadic detriment but mainly to its strength.
The most impressive thing about the game is still the strength and specificity of its vision.
The world of the game may be small, but it brims with a weird sense of life.
The game reveals its brilliance by constantly and subtly reconfiguring the emotions behind erasure.
There's considerable joy to poking at the edges of its ingenious interlocking systems to see what happens.
For Cloudpunk, hardship is merely the wallpaper for a pretty yet thinly conceived gaming experience.
After a while, the game inadvertently becomes about the cost and upkeep of civilization.
The game offers a refreshing focus on its sense of place rather than ease of play.
There's something primal and thrilling to id Software's further embrace of video-gamey conventions.
The game is a charming concoction full of endearing characters and set to a wondrous soundtrack.
The game captures place and feeling through honing in on things that are singular, small, and warm.
Its point-and-click adventure elements eventually feel alternately rudimentary and more than a little tedious.
Kentucky Route Zero is about America in a way few games aspire to be and fewer still succeed at.
The game's themes feel like facile wallpaper over mechanics that feed into the ideas being critiqued.
Wattam communicates a poignant, refreshing, and all-too-necessary joy in the face of adversity.