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Who would have thought that the solution to madness might be marriage?
Bloober Team has summoned a rich atmosphere, under all that writing, and one or two sequences offer glimpses of a purer game.
That's why, as much as Hitman III was a pleasure to play, it left me longing for the mood of the old games.
The scenes that have lodged most deeply in my memory are not those devoted to the chases, the shootouts, or the narrow squeaks, but those possessed of a quiet empathy.
What I didn't expect from the new Call of Duty was downtime, and the suggestion, at least in the first half, that guns, while great for going in blazing, can provide just as potent a thrill when holstered.
I would prescribe The Pathless to anyone feeling numbed and locked by our days of inanition; it's perfect if you feel your home becoming an isle on the edge of the world.
Where Sackboy: A big Adventure proves most winsome isn't in its play but in the surfeit of its surrounding glitter.
If you wish to see what your new console can do, this is the game to get; it provides the most whimper for your buck.
The developer, SIE Japan Studio, has forged a platformer from the same blend of delirium and precision that blows through Super Mario, and then filled it with fossils.
Far more than the combat-whose charm ebbs away on a tide of repetition after the first few hours-the draw of The Falconeer is its suggestion that, while we may be shaped by our stories, they don't pin us down, that the mere act of living is to take flight from the past.
Sadly, that string of hours, spent clambering up towers and defogging the map, bounding across the fields in a hopeful, happy loop, was the last of the fun on offer.
The developer, Insomniac Games, has a similar storytelling confidence to that of Naughty Dog-a natural cinematic ease, bolstered by money and technology, which gives equal weight to ground-level struggles as to those beyond the rooftops.
This is the crux of Yakuza: Like a Dragon. It is fascinated by the way that games lurk at the soft verges of life, vesting our days with dreams.
Where the action comes alive is in the leaving behind of bodies altogether. Most missions involve breaking and entering, and the thrill lies in the absence of any breaking.
In the earlier, sandy hours, that restlessness is a boon-the work of a developer surveying the drier sweeps of a genre and divining a bright pool of ideas.
It was clearly forged from a love of Solitaire, and even its failures feel like restless, riffled expressions of that love.
Faced with a declaration as longing and impatient as "It's About Time," I can't help but think, Is it?
You could argue that Squadrons breaks no fresh ground, that it is merely the latest in a prized patch of genre; but the ground, fresh or otherwise, was left behind long ago, and being the latest is no bad thing.
If you're hoping for a sombre tale of lives brought low by the touch of darkness, my advice would be to go for a ride and take in the sights instead.
The new studios pay both respect and homage to the original releases by valuing their clarity above all else.