It’s the underlying systems which let everything else down, and which felt incoherent to me. Some games only become fun once you work out what they expect from you, and I spent most of my time with Wildfire wondering if I was playing it wrong. Maybe I was, but if there was a fun way to play it, I never found it.
As it is, it’s the best way to play Valve’s original design if you haven’t done so before, and it’s a brilliant way to retread those old ventilation shafts, if you have.
It is a fine game, but it has already served its purpose: it entertained me for roughly as many minutes as it cost in pennies, and it left me refreshed and ready to play some longer games.
For all its hurried stabbing and spilled blood, Katana Zero is a beautiful game, from the juicy text boxes onwards.
My Friend Pedro does let you realise the fantasy of conducting a bullet symphony while hanging upside down from a zipline, but like most fantasies, it doesn’t survive past the initial rush of blood to the head.
Void Bastards is ultimately not more than the sum of the parts I outlined 1400 words ago, but it’s worth rummaging through all the same. Just like yer da said about the bins, when he finally found those Euros.
I got my money's worth and I've got enough complex games to play. I want more that are simple and that are as satisfying as this, and while I'm done with it for now, I'm betting I'll be drawn back before the year is done.
I can't talk about The End Is Nigh without comparing it to Super Meat Boy because in so many ways it feels like a conscious alternative to some of the defining properties of that rapid, colourful, classic game. But measured on its own qualities, The End Is Nigh is a good game, but not a memorable one.
Brute introduces a few twists as you go along that I haven't mentioned here, but doesn't do enough to establish its own identity and step out from underneath the shadow of its inspirations. That doesn't make it any less fun. If you've tired of its inspirations and are looking for something new, then it'll scratch that same itch.
By throwing out most of Spore's traditional mechanics in favour of a cross between Katamari Damacy and Nested, Everything gets closer to sublimity. And though I don't think it gets all the way there – not for me, not right now – the silliness is constant and delightful.
Across the board the game fails to support a footballing strategy or philosophy called anything other than “FIFA”.
The Final Station is a simple game, which is always just compelling enough for its duration. I’ve come to think of it as an efficient, low budget horror movie: it has a high concept it can’t afford to show directly and so it wrings as much as it can from the mystery and the satisfaction of piecing the plot together from snippets. It’s only a shame that its action suffers more from never having a particularly interesting concept of its own.
Mankind Divided is a new version of one of my favourite games of all time and free from the execution problems that hampered that last iteration. The levels are bigger and prettier. There are no dumb boss fights. It gives you slightly more agency over its story. The new abilities are nice, even if they don't dramatically alter the flow of the game.
It feels as if Quadrilateral Cowboy never finds a solution to this problem, but it moves through different ideas quickly enough, and does enough with its cool, colourful world and story of silent friendship, that I enjoyed my time with it.
So I'll end in the spirit of the game, with a refined version of what I said last time: Mirror's Edge Catalyst is good and you should probably play it, but damn, it could have been superb.
