As the game continues to pull these wonderful tricks of staging, the world of things that The Chinese Room has created settles into a more comfortable balance with the game's other elements, giving ground when needed to the human - and the inhuman - drama that's unfolding. Counter to my own expectations, this is not a particularly complex story to follow, but it is told with a wonderful assurance and a disciplined eye.
Set in a drowned city, this game of exploration lacks the substance or conviction to hold your attention.
Sure, even middling ARPGs are almost always fun for an hour or so, but Victor Vran will keep you hitting stuff and collecting loot for a lot longer than you might expect.
Fast-paced stealth set to a ticking clock makes this a procedural platformer to savour.
There's XP beyond that, and the promise of a scramble up the leaderboards, but I don't think Rocket League genuinely needs these things to hook you and hold you. Aside from the compact drama of the five minute matches, this is one of those rare games where the simple act of throwing a car around an arena is enough to keep you at it. Newton would approve and so would Batman. What more would you want?
A bad game, then? Not at all. Most of the time it's quite a good one. But Woolly World sails perilously close to a genuinely great game, and with little of its own to add, it can only ever feel diminished by the proximity.
The opportunity here was to bundle up the wild brilliance of Magicka and finally deliver a campaign that was as exciting and unpredictable and astonishing as the powers you have at your disposal. Maybe next time.
And once the final mission's done there's a scamper up the difficulty levels, alongside endless, custom and time attack modes, the latter of which works a bit like speed chess, but with people getting whacked over the head. In truth, while pleasant, this is a covering of the bases that Invisible, Inc doesn't really need. Much like the lives of one of its secret agents, this is a game defined by short, sharp thrills. It's so filled with purpose that is has no need to outstay its welcome.
This is the strangest, most wilful game Intelligent Systems has ever made - and that's part of its greatness.
And then there's that one special audio cue: pok! You know that sound. You know it! It's the rounded, punchy, friendly smack of a bat connecting with a ball that was already doing around 90. Close your eyes and you can see the aftermath: the heads tilted skyward, the arms dropping to the side. No need to chase after that one. Home run.
Behind the stylish black and white art is a puzzle-platformer that really wants you to enjoy yourself.
Like most roguelikes, though, the true game is about fighting back against the randomness, and you do this with each lesson you learn about the sorts of augmentations to prioritise, and each trick you uncover for minimising battle scars and maximising scrap. If you've got the stomach for the learning curve, you can probably cut it in this army. And if you can, you'll discover a game that's tense and personable and clever.
Still, small beans in a game that is otherwise so elegantly put together. Starships isn't Civ, but it is Sid, and that's fine by me.
Speaking of replays, occasionally, on a very long pass, the ball will just freeze in the air, immobile as one turn ends and another begins. It's beautiful: so much attention focused on something so seemingly trivial. The ball hangs in space, while everyone on the ground rushes to switch up their plans to take into account where it's going to land. Adaptation, anticipation, creativity: this is what strategy is all about - and this is a game that really gets it.
The star of the show isn't your foes, though, and it certainly isn't the fascist 'goodies' you're cast as in this knockabout imperialist satire. The star of the show is the panic that's generated as you head into adventure, knowing that you're this close to screwing everything up for your team in a darkly hilarious manner.
Free from the claustrophobic Fordism that increasingly robs series like Assassin's Creed of their sense of wonder, this is a game that's taken shape at its own pace, and that has been allowed to find its own voice. Pick a point to aim for and jump. Jump!
Lumino City is an interesting design sketch, then, but the real building work is yet to be done.
The Temple of Osiris is a welcome throwback, and for the five or six hours it took me to barrel through the campaign, the rest of the world blinked away as the sands swept in and the ancient machinery started to turn. As with Osiris, I'm not sure Lara's reassemblage has gone entirely to plan, but the spirit remains intact - and the spirit is still strangely powerful.
For a game I've complained about a lot, I was pretty engaged with it at three in the morning yesterday, of course, shoot-'em-up headache setting in and an annulus of empty teacups starting to form. The problem, ultimately, is a philosophical one. I'm not sure if Lucid really gets the mentality behind this series, and that makes for a perfectly serviceable shooter when the lineage requires something more.
And yet beneath the mis-steps and the schmaltz, and beneath the dictatorial heft of the soundtrack - gorgeous and emotive, but laid on a little too heavily throughout - there's still that fascinating glimpse of a boy making the best of a lonely childhood. A boy in search of escape - escape from the empty world he's been granted and, perhaps, from the predictable narrative that's been imposed on it.