The hallmarks of Limbo and Inside are there- short runtime, clever puzzles, trippy story told without dialogue. But where Somerville goes wrong reveals just what made those two so special. The 3D environment makes it confusing where you’re supposed to go or what could be interacted with; the character moves slow enough to make a player want to quit; and honestly I had no idea what was going on here story-wise by the end. I do think a 3D Limbo-like (is there a term for this?) could work, but this one isn’t it yet.

A solid puzzle platformer in the vain of so many great games that have come before it, The Pedestrian lives and breathes in the world of signs, your 2D playing environments scattered around a lively 3D world. This setting allows for The Pedestrian’s greatest innovation, the ability to pick up and move these signs around, connecting them in new ways to alter the flat space your character will traverse. Early puzzles proved a little boring as some seemed to just throw as many signs as they could at you just to brute force the right combination of doors and ladders that will get you through them, but later puzzles really felt clever and by the end I felt plenty satisfied with the few hours I spent on The Pedestrian.

I love the attempt to reinvigorate the point-and-click adventure game genre with a big budget and an interesting hook- you're trying to piece together a mystery involving your wife and a murderous home invader in a world that's constantly resetting itself every few minutes. Unfortunately even for such a short game there is just so much repetition and wasted time every time you want to try something new. Some effort to make this more user-friendly (more shortcuts? selectable branching paths? fast-forwarding?) really could have improved the experience, and the payoff is pretty disappointing too.

I'll say this for Fractured Minds- I can think of no better way to farm for Xbox achievements. 1000/1000 completed in about 20 minutes, and the game itself isn't terrible. 6 quick levels completely designed and programmed by Emily Mitchell, a young woman dealing with mental illness, trying to demonstrate how that feels. It pulls off a few neat tricks, my personal favorite coming after maybe 1 minute of play time. But there's just not enough here to make much of an impression unfortunately. I'm curious to see what Emily could pull off with some more resources at her disposal, as this almost feels like a first draft of what could be a much better game.

I respect the hell out of Nintendo for taking a swing as big as this, mostly blowing up the Zelda formula and giving us something that plays out more like a Western RPG. It wasn't quite my cup of tea- my favorite parts of Zelda games is how incredibly dense and meticulously planned Hyrule always feels, whereas Hyrule here felt a little bloated and repetitive. But Nintendo took the "try the temples in any order" from Link Between Worlds to its natural conclusion, adopting that philosophy even inside the non-linear temples themselves, with a final boss you can take on an hour into the game should you feel up to it. I really hope the upcoming sequel strikes a better balance between this open-world ethos and the classic Zelda formula.