It’s almost redeemed by some cool puzzles. Too bad most of them are way too simplistic and the core mechanic of the game just doesn’t function properly. The ability to make objects bigger or smaller with a simple change of perspective is a cool concept. Yet it makes for poor gameplay when you have to cross your fingers and hope you’re standing at exactly the right angle for that wedge of cheese or block to actually get bigger. It all comes across like a watered down The Stanley Parable. That dollhouse part was pretty neat, though.

The scariest game I’ve played that isn’t titled P.T. but might as well be P.T. 2. All-encompassing dread that permeates nearly every moment from beginning to end. Four stories told with refreshing straightforwardness and horrifying ingenuity. It’s not an experience to be taken lightly. Unfortunately the somewhat cruder gameplay elements like the sluggish sledgehammer add to the already arduous task of getting through it. Yet the majority of that challenge lies in what it should: the game being so goddamn terrifying.

True Colors is the first Life Is Strange to figure out how to gel its central gimmick with its more dramatic story beats. It’s also the first one to nail most of those moments; they feel natural instead of too saccharine or cringey. It only really stumbles in the smaller moments, but then you experience something like nearly the entirety of the third chapter, which is an ingenious portrayal of a LARP (and one of the best video game moments of the year). It also establishes a sense of a place that’s been missing since Arcadia Bay in the first game and features the most memorable cast of characters to date. I cared about the town of Haven, its inhabitants, and especially its latest arrival, Alex, a wonderful protagonist.

I grew weary of the characters squabbling, the word “flark”, the constant slides and gaps, and the combat/cutscene/combat/cutscene nature of the closing chapters. I still loved it. It has such great emotional highs and a chaotic joyousness pumping through its veins that kept me smiling and wanting more. It proves in this day and age that a linear AAA game can still offer up imaginative, wondrous ideas and sights. As a result it feels like a refreshing rarity in the current “bigger is better” market. Thank goodness it’s a single player game too and one that takes the time to build a complex, heartfelt narrative around its protagonist.

Another year, another Far Cry. Far Cry 5 is my least favorite entry in the series, following up my second least favorite numbered entry, Far Cry 4. So I wasn’t expecting much from this. Yet I had fun playing it because of the cool new systems in place and I found the plot somewhat compelling (mostly the great performance from Giancarlo Esposito). The world kept pulling me back in too even as I started feeling burned out by the length and repetition of the side activities. I still haven’t played a better Far Cry than 3, but this is a step in the right direction for the franchise going forward. I’m including the writing in that assessment, even if it does sacrifice real representation in its attempt at moral complexity.

This is one of the best of the long line of games that are obviously inspired by Resident Evil 4. Some say it isn’t as “scary” as its predecessor because of its more action-oriented approach (the common gripe also aimed at RE 4), but I love the kind of intensity this approach to survival horror provides. It’s a sort of “Jason Voorhees walking” vs. “Jason Voorhees running” scenario and I argue that Jason running is far more terrifying (probably why I’m not a fan of most of the Friday the 13th movies). It features such a great balance of various inexplicable grotesqueries. It’s a clinic of pacing. The plot is serviceable enough without being too over the top or too vague. The game nearly fires on all cylinders and offers something cool and new around every corner.

It shows that games do have new ideas to explore even within the confines of a familiar platforming adventure. I was surprised by how much new life kept being pumped into the combat system as the game progressed. And it’s gorgeous even on PS4, which is what I played it on…and wherein I believe most of my experience with it suffered. I’m sure the weird difficulty spikes that are tangled up with some lackluster boss battles that feel tacked on are present in any version of it, but the technical issues present in the PS4 port are almost impossible to ignore. The framerate sometimes can barely handle all that’s going on onscreen and the game froze completely a few times while I was playing it. It’s really a problem during an especially intense fight when the lag causes an attack to not land properly or Kena to fail to defend herself when I know I nailed the required inputs. A boss battle towards the end had me lowering the difficulty not because it was tough (it was), but because the game was stuttering so badly every time it wasn’t worth the hassle of overcoming the challenge. I wish I could play it on PS5 just to see it running as intended, but unfortunately PS5s are still unavailable to all but the most adept at clicking links in the blink of an eye. So what I’m stuck with is a tarnished beauty. I’m disappointed.