Queso_Gatame
2022
2022
2022
2012
2022
2022
2022
2021
This game is rad. The level design and aesthetics are delightful and the basic mechanics, while fundamentally quite simple, are both fun and varied enough to stay fresh. And while it's earned a reputation for being easy, I found some of the optional late-game content to be challenging enough to enhance the satisfaction of completing it.
2022
Stray is a beautiful, poignant meditation on history's mistakes and on how future generations are left to -- and, with luck and determination, can -- pick up the pieces.
This game is being described as a platformer, but I don't think that's accurate. It's an exploration game. You traverse a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk city, with your progress being gated by environmental puzzles, locked doors, and occasionally hostile NPCs. People are calling it a platformer because of its emphasis on jumping and verticality, but the jumps themselves are handled by contextual button-presses -- you can't actually miss a jump.
The real joy of Stray lies in appreciating its world. Art direction, color and lighting, music and sound meld to place the player in a neon-lit purgatory that somehow manages to feel both cavernous and cozy. The choice of a cat protagonist is a stroke of genius here, as it helps the city -- which is objectively somewhat small by modern video game city standards -- to feel like a massive place in which to get lost exploring every alley and rooftop.
The game's shortcomings feel pretty minor after a first playthrough. My main complaint has to do with the jumping mechanics: it was often hard for me to tell where I could and couldn't jump, and progress in a given direction was often barred by the unexplained absence of a jump prompt for a surface that seemed clearly within reach.
This game is being described as a platformer, but I don't think that's accurate. It's an exploration game. You traverse a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk city, with your progress being gated by environmental puzzles, locked doors, and occasionally hostile NPCs. People are calling it a platformer because of its emphasis on jumping and verticality, but the jumps themselves are handled by contextual button-presses -- you can't actually miss a jump.
The real joy of Stray lies in appreciating its world. Art direction, color and lighting, music and sound meld to place the player in a neon-lit purgatory that somehow manages to feel both cavernous and cozy. The choice of a cat protagonist is a stroke of genius here, as it helps the city -- which is objectively somewhat small by modern video game city standards -- to feel like a massive place in which to get lost exploring every alley and rooftop.
The game's shortcomings feel pretty minor after a first playthrough. My main complaint has to do with the jumping mechanics: it was often hard for me to tell where I could and couldn't jump, and progress in a given direction was often barred by the unexplained absence of a jump prompt for a surface that seemed clearly within reach.
2021