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A rare combination of accessible but strange and intuitive but mind-bending
A nice swim through a virtual world
Too many diversions lead to too much wasted time
Naturally, I hope that "Beyond Eyes" encourages other intrepid game designers to explore less bombastic realities than are found in most games. And although I liked its ending more than I expected, with little else to stand on apart from its atypical video game protagonist and appealing audiovisual presentation, I found myself wishing this already short game were even shorter.
"Tacoma's" core appeal comes from watching the characters behave differently as they move between areas and interact with each other.
'Cuphead' is really hard but learning its tricks is awfully fun
"Everybody's Gone to the Rapture" is an ambitious game that is fundamentally about the acceptance of death. It shows how video games can tap into the ordinary without unwieldy mechanics (I'm looking at you "Heavy Rain"). Though It doesn't offer the intellectual workout of another first-person perspective, story-first game such as "The Old City: Leviathan" it is the best scored, most accessible argument for how video games can prosper as narrative sandboxes.
Basically, you'll either dig the lush tedium of this game or you won't.
As an intermittent admirer of the series, I found "The Phantom Pain" unexpectedly emotional, not as a story or as an arrangement of digital things to play with, but as a parting gesture to a community of which I have occasionally been a part.
[O]ne of the most emotionally alive games on the market
"Far Cry: Primal" won't re-wire your expectations of what a game can be but it has just enough energy to pleasurably distract one over the length of its journey.
"Cibele" is an important game, not a great one. None of its individual parts are exceptional in themselves. To a certain extent that's a virtue when we reflect on the fact that most video games are constructed around heroics. The game's conceptual force, however, is undeniable, presenting a clear blueprint for how video games can be used as a prop to explore everyday life.
With her powers to rejigger events to save people from accidents and themselves, Max seems like an incarnation of Holden's catcher. Though sadly, her power is not immutable.
"Dr. Langeskov," the funniest game that I've played this year, features voice work by Justin Roiland of "Rick and Morty" fame, and it would be a shame to miss the tale about the attack of pencils that provokes a shedding of clothes.
Once you deduce how to use the multifarious forms of interactivity, The Show is wonderfully calming when the rhythm of pitching becomes zen-like. As the controller beats like a frantic heart when the bases are loaded, the physiological feeling of vibration sends you inside yourself.
If you note the two main characters' penchant for irony and have been paying attention to the clues in the game, such as the cheap mass market paperbacks scattered about the area, you'll sense that the mystery isn't on the level of some global alien conspiracy, but rather, like "Firewatch" itself, it's something mundane and graspable. In the context of a medium that's normally obsessed with feeding on the outlandish, I mean that as a compliment.
I found "Twilight Princess" to be even better than when it was first released. It felt like coming home to one's childhood bedroom, revealing the impermanence of "home" while affirming the life-giving importance of having such shelters to return to from time to time.
"Oxenfree" captures a mood (an eerie night), intensifies it (people get possessed!), and then efficiently wraps things up before anything becomes tedious. This analog, supernatural story unites its characters in a web of guilt and showers them in decorative static.
If you're looking for a soulful, artistic shooter "Superhot" is it.
In this Lego game, there's just enough comedy to get you by.