Recent reviews by SabreCat

You've crash-landed on an alien planet. You have two or three minutes in which to get the hang of your character's four combat skills before things start getting hectic. Shoot! Jump! Run! Collect goodies! Release the boss! Stay alive! Clear everything out and move on to the next level!

It only ratchets up from there. Over the course of the game, tactical skill use and exploration give way to questions of preparedness: did you balance your pace of progress vs. leveling up and collecting loot? Did you have good luck with random item drops? Have you chosen a use item that plugs the biggest gap in your capabilities? Are your fingers still fresh and limber enough to handle the final stage of constant attack and evasion through wall-to-wall enemies?

A player of moderate skill can expect to finish this in 10 hours or so, but with much more to find and unlock from there. A master of twitch play, quick to find exploits, will probably want to opt for the upgraded difficulty option. A player who likes their games gently paced and forgiving of mistakes... should look elsewhere for their entertainment.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Caveats: Some of the unlock requisites are a bit ridiculous, so completionists, be wary. And I did encounter one bug requiring game restart, where my character kept falling through solid platforms. Beyond that, though, there's so much to like! Great gameplay, visuals, and soundtrack. Now I just need to find a friend or three metal enough to go co-op with me!

I had heard good things about this game. I'd heard that it had "LGBT themes". I'd heard that its creators, the Fullbright Company, are principled folks who pulled out of Penny Arcade Expo because of the PA figureheads' asshattery. And Gone Home tended to get mention when the question of "games as art" came up.

Wow. All of those things are right on. This game will hit you right in the heart, in the best way possible. It's video gaming's equivalent of high literature: the hours you spend with it are not wasted time or recreation, they're enlightenment. When you get the chance, Go Home.

I wasn't smart enough for this game. At least, that's the conclusion I come to from reading so many glowing reviews and having such an ugly experience trying to play it.

Braid has a lovable core time-warp gimmick: if you make a mistake, you can rewind your playthrough of the level as far as you like. It makes the first several levels' platform action-puzzle gameplay forgiving and enjoyable.

Then the game starts layering additional gimmicks atop the gimmick. A level where simply moving in a particular direction reverses time for everything but you. A powerup that causes you to clone yourself when rewinding. Areas that trap objects such that they don't get rewound when everything else does.

These things sound awesome, and they could have been, if the difficulty curve didn't go stratospheric as soon as they were introduced. I found myself skipping level after level, because the solution was either so opaque and convoluted that I had no idea where to begin, or because I could see the solution, but it required such flawless timing and precision that full play sessions of practice got me no closer to success.

Then I learned that in order to finish the game, you must complete every. single. puzzle. Collect every widget in the game, cleverly disguised as bonus challenges. And I was done. Game uninstalled, added to my "Let's Not" category.

Clever idea. Infuriating to actually play past the second major area. Later levels consist of targets behind indestructible barricades which you need either insane skill, ridiculous luck, or some sort of cheat that gives you infinite magic. If this game comes in a bundle (as it did for me), go ahead and try it, but not one worth buying outright.