Once again, another puzzle game with a fascinating and original mechanic cripples itself with a naff story. Viewfinder is frequently surprising and has some pretty decent puzzling, but good lord the story is beyond mediocre. It wouldn't be so bad if it would just shut the hell up for a minute rather than constantly battering you with meaningless audio logs and incessant companions. Apparently, a pleasant English woman talking at you all the time isn't enough, you also need a pleasant Scottish cat to tell you how clever the puzzles are.

Even I feel that that was probably too harsh. But to be honest I'm so tired of playing these puzzle games that have such an interesting idea but instead waste time on nothing stories rather than building on the concept with more levels. Viewfinder is only about three hours long if you're experienced with this kind of game, so it doesn't have the room to cram in a saccharine and confusing yarn that could have been pulled from any other middling Portal-like. Just as Superliminal, Turing Test and Light Matter before it, Viewfinder ultimately fails its genius central mechanic.

There is plenty to be praised here though, don't get me wrong. The photo placing and manipulation is an idea that is as technically impressive and innovative as the Portals in Portal were back in 2007. The levels are fairly well paced too, but I found the levels I truly enjoyed were the optional puzzles, which were a lot trickier than the main content. Ideally more of these would have been fantastic. Portal can rest on its laurels in terms of optional content because Valve knows they have a willing fanbase who will churn out content an unimaginable rate, but indie puzzle games like Viewfinder don't have the luxury of mod tools, so need to come with more content. As it stands, I can't say that even half of the puzzling potential has been extracted out of Viewfinder's concept.

My opening tone is less an indication of anger and more frustration. I'm disappointed that such a great idea feels somewhat squandered, but perhaps I should be analysing what is here rather than what could be. And what is in Viewfinder is largely pretty good. Tune out the story and don't bother with the collectables and you'll find a fun, occasionally challenging puzzler that frustrates as often as it delights.

I've seen some people in recent years refer to DOOM 64 as a "forgotten masterpiece" and various labels along those lines. I'm going to be forthright in saying that I think that those claims are bollocks.

DOOM 64 is interesting and pretty decent, but "masterpiece" is beyond silly. It's a curio in DOOM's history, a spinoff from one of the most famous and beloved PC FPS games relegated to a console for decades. It's not even like Final DOOM or Master Levels, it's not just an expansion but a complete aesthetic overhaul of the base game too, making it all the more intriguing to most fans.

64 leans much further into the gothic horror vibes than the heavy metal tendencies of its progenitor. The soundtrack is bizarre and haunting, punctuated by distorted screams and babies crying over midi bass loops that can only be described as threatening. Even the demons have been overhauled, all of them recognisable whilst looking softer, stranger, more alien and almost like they're melting into the background. The earlier levels are more dynamic than the original DOOM as well, at one point your progression is gated by a drill built out of level geometry, a showpiece more creative than any keycard could be. Playing DOOM 64 feels like experiencing a twisted, nightmare of DOOM, an experience made all the more unsettling by its familiarity.

At least, that's the impression after the first few levels. The problem with this aesthetic overhaul is that it presents a huge dissonance with the gameplay, which is completely unchanged. Despite the haunting soundtrack and revamped visuals, you're still ripping and tearing as usual, speeding along at 90mph and reducing countless demons to viscera with the same weapon set. If anything, it feels like there's more enemies here than usual, and they're more bullet spongey too. The moment to moment experience of playing DOOM 64 is still an adrenaline pumping, twitchy blastfest, but now it's dampened by a foreboding, offputting aesthetic.

I want to love DOOM 64, I really do. Once I'd adjusted, I loved the soundtrack and new enemy designs. The lighting engine is brilliant, the more muted and varied colour scheme works wonders for the atmosphere of the levels. But I found it hard to find the motivation to keep playing when the gameplay is so at odds with this fantastic vibe. What would be exciting and visceral with Bobby Prince's crunchy metal is made frustrating and confusing by the new score. At the end of the day, DOOM 64 doesn't take enough risks, the gameplay should have been slowed down and the horror leaned into far more than it has been. As it stands though, 64 remains a bizarre curio, a fascinating glimpse into an alternate timeline version of DOOM.

I really don't like disliking things, honestly. When there's media or art that's incredibly beloved and I don't like it, my heart breaks. It can make me quite existential honestly, wondering if I even played the game right or zoned out of the movie, maybe something's wrong with me and that's why my experience is so different to everyone else's. Alan Wake was definitely one of those times for me.

I love Max Payne (ridiculously broken PC port aside) and really enjoyed its sequel too. But as much affection as I felt for the Payne games, I felt an almost equal amount of disdain for Alan Wake. A boring, trite sendup of Stephen King tropes wrapped around one of the worst combat systems I've ever experienced, combined with dull performances, ugly visuals and repetitive levels all together produced an experienced I loathed. I found little charming in its ten hour runtime, but I wasn't happy about the fact. At least with Quantum Break, I wasn't alone in my hatred, but Alan Wake seemed to be adored in a way I just couldn't understand.

But here's American Nightmare anyway. A truly pointless experience, it has less meaningful content in it than either of its progenitor's DLC, three short levels repeated three times tacked on to an arcade mode for a game with terrible combat. Honestly, I didn't mind it to start with. I enjoyed the FMV cutscenes and the notes, but eventually they become less frequent and less interesting, till you're playing what is little more than the same three or four fights over and over dressed up in an even more baffling story than the base game.

I'd say avoid this at all costs, but I might just be the only person that remembers that American Nightmare exists, so such a warning would be pointless. I really hope the Remedy-verse starts to click for me with Control and Alan Wake 2, but either way, I'll always have the sixth gen perfection of Max Payne.