Why this game isn't being marketed as "Knives Out meets 16th Century Bavaria," I'll never know.

Pentiment is a slow-burn murder mystery game that takes its time in revealing every little way it can poke and prod at your emotions through religious themes and social quandaries. It sounds like a lot, and it IS, but it's worth it. The first hour of this game made me chuckle (picking my college? my social identity? ok sure) but it wasn't until I realized this is a solve-the-whodunit game that my interest was piqued.

Obsidian carved out some very interesting NPCs to progress the story, and over time I was surprised at how much of a relationship I had with them in addition to my avatar. It's rare that a video game (let alone one from a major publisher) tackles religion and history in such a singular way, but the results are fantastic.

I always felt like my choices had meaning and weight. They felt individual. Not many games can make the player feel that way. All that and it's a part of Game Pass? It's a wonder Microsoft isn't selling more consoles.

Somerville has been a game on my most-wanted list ever since the trailer debuted years ago. It had everything working in it's favor: minimalistic art style, puzzle-based gameplay, and a focused story on a family trying to survive a War-Of-The-Worlds type scenario. With better polish and some more thought out accessibility options, this game could've been a hidden gem for Game Pass subscribers. Instead the clunky controls, unforgiving checkpoints, and lack of direction given to the player makes this a chore to play instead of a joy.

Fulfilling puzzles make you go "That's it!" and not "...that's it?" Somerville ties up every introspective (and BEAUTIFUL) slice-of-life scene with a puzzle that feels like notes from playtesters never got acted upon. There is little to no information given to the player for how to succeed in using the puzzle mechanics, which typically invites the player to have ah-ha moments throughout a play session, but Somerville's clunky controls make it feel like work instead of play.

Some great ideas here, just a bit sloppy. It doesn't bode well that a 3.5 hour long game felt like much longer. Performance on my Series X was fine, but the game took a big hit framerate-wise on my Series S.

And I have a lot of thoughts about the Dog in the game, but to discuss them openly would be spoilery.

Are you ever really finished with Shatter?

I purchased Shatter: Remastered Deluxe based on some high praise from ResetEra folks, and it's pretty much exactly what I expected. This is a very glossy, hi-res, faithful remaster of the game I loved on Ps3 and about a decade later I'm finding that it just doesn't scratch the itch I once had.

It's perfectly competent and contains all the thrills I remember from the original version, but if I am going to play something like this now I will most likely opt for a mobile game, or even a mobile version of Shatter. That's not to say the high framerate and 4k visuals aren't fantastic (they are!) I just didn't get as excited by this in the way I thought I would.

If it's your first time, there's lots to love. Give it a whirl. At $10 it's a great price.