A rare game that actually has meaning to it, though you'll have to think about that for yourself as you play because it won't be crammed down your throat or handed to you. This is complex art. And in a Source first-person shooter, of all places. Let that tell you not to discount derivative seeming art, let that encourage you to abandon notions of high and low culture or whatever pretentious shitty attitude you have about these things. I recommend people play G String. It is a wonderful game, though I have to say it is deceptively more of a platformer than a shooter in a way that might be difficult for people not used to fucking around in Source games, like Garry's Mod or anything else, people not used , or never allowed by other games, to treat virtual space in games as playground jungle gyms will have a hard time liking or even understanding. No place in G String exists like a conventional videogame level, I think, and what you'll find is a surrealist scifi interpretation of realism that doesn't make sense to the gamer brain in all of us, so expect to be lost. But don't abandon that trained gamer brain yet, because, like I said, your experience in Source games will benefit you here as each level is designed around the fun verbs of stacking physics props, hopping on verticies that don't seem like they should allow you to stand on. You will be navigating these levels like you are trying to escape out of bounds, which is fun and perverse kind of and really cool to see a developer appreciate as an authentic way to design space and movement in games. This is a high recommendation!!! One of the best of 2020 for sure and a really rare and brave game in any year I believe.

Forgive the analogy, but Amnesia is one of those horror games that is good and scary so long as its fiction stays wrapped round its slight mechanical shoulders. In that stage of presentation and dress, the game is a good deal fun, with startles and moody atmosphere. We can love a game about nasty castle cooridoors down which terrible monsters amble as we shiver in cupboards listening to awful sounds and an unsettling score. And the torture, the screams for help from the innocents. These are good dress. But what if it slides off and we take in the naked horror game beneath? Well, Amnesia is not very good if we consider it just like that... but that is not all Amnesia is! Right?

I want to think so. Because this is part of the show: horror games thrive and perish within a small pocket of time where you're dumb enough to believe the threats are real, before you're jaded and see the skeletal mechanics covered over by the fictional dress it wears. And just because that time passes does it mean we should forget it completely? Aren't horror games good - amazing even! - for that brief period when we still believe? I want to think of that when I think about the way games make me feel.

Siren is probably one of the most progressive and bravely designed video games I have ever played - especially in the genre of survival horror, which, for a brief time was very expressive but became rather conventional. Siren, however, wields the familiar genre conventions in a terrifyingly strange way that places all of your training into question. There are only so many transferable skills from Resident Evil, Silent Hill, the other classics.

Siren comes at you with a sword - a seemingly familiar enough combat encounter, this should be easy- but you slowly realize something about it is so fucked up because Siren is holding that sword by its blade and still looks at you like a bloody dead monster who wants to KILL you. There is nothing like Siren out there. You would need to be brave to be like Siren, and Siren was far too brave for its own good. It is an extreme game. And using a walkthrough can only alleviate some of its stress because theoretical knowledge will take you just so far when you actually have to perform well to survive.

Even as a survival horror connoisseur Siren still managed to make me feel powerless and scared in the way I remember feeling at the start of my horror gaming career. And personally I loved the British voice acting.

If you like cool games then Siren is an absolute must.