標籤彙整: reviews

The Blair Witch movie franchise started out strong, with the release of The Blair Witch Project. The pseudo-documentary became a cultural touchstone, with a companion website and TV special stoking the belief that the tale of three missing college students may have actually happened. A pair of follow-ups failed to capture the magic of that initial found-footage phenomena, because it’s tricky to pin down what exactly that magic is. Bloober Team takes a crack at it with its own Blair Witch game, telling an original story while tapping into the few common elements that the films share. The main character, Ellis, is a former soldier and police officer, but he’s just as susceptible as anyone when it comes to getting lost in the woods near Burkittsville.

Ellis and his dog, Bullet, are part of a search party looking for a missing boy, but it’s not long before the pair needs assistance of their own. The forest is dense and confusing, and it’s purposefully impossible to chart on a map. Walk away from an abandoned car in a clearing, for example, and you eventually loop back to it. Once that initial jolt of confusion wore off, I just wanted to be able to get to where I needed to go. Bullet can help navigate by sniffing out clues, but he’s hard to see in the dark forest and he tends to dart ahead. 

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Bullet is more useful during encounters with enemies. Unlike the films, which focused more on establishing a tone than overtly showing any supernatural beings, you’re going to see some weird things in the game. In the first type of encounter, Bullet barks at the enemies and you shine your flashlight at them to make them scurry away. Repeat it a few times, and they eventually leave. The other enemy encounters are less forgiving. In these stealth-oriented sections, you must avoid being detected by beings that you can only clearly see through your in-game camcorder screen. If you’re spotted, it’s game over. The balance between these two styles is inconsistent. The flashlight sections are trivially easy, and you’re allowed to mess up several times without penalty. On the other hand, the stealth parts are unforgiving. In one particular section, success and failure seem to be based on random chance; the visuals are so dark and murky that it seems impossible to know if you’re in the monster’s line of sight. 

Thankfully, these encounters are relatively scarce. Ellis and Bullet usually navigate the woods alone, save for a few radio conversations with the rest of the search party. It’s an isolating experience, and the atmosphere works well overall. Reality is fairly warped in the woods, as evidenced by that camcorder. During several key junctures, you get new videotapes. Some are just there to advance the plot of what’s going on with the missing child, while others show things like collapsing trees or slamming doors. By rewinding the footage, you can affect what happens in reality, like pulling a fallen tree up and out of the way, or opening a door before it’s shut. It’s an interesting concept, but the puzzles are so obvious that they don’t add much. Still, they’re a more interesting way to pass the time than going backtracking across a dimly lit moebius strip to find valves, cranks, and other doo-dads. Perhaps Ellis sums it all up best during a phone call with a friend: “It’s like we’re trapped in a never-ending cycle of bulls—.”  I’m with you, buddy. 

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The first three-quarters of Blair Witch are a bummer, but they’re redeemed by the last act. Here, Ellis confronts his traumatic past as he explores the interior of an abandoned house. It plays like a more realized version of P.T., with nonsensical architecture and imagery that’s flat-out disturbing. It’s a powerful counterpunch to the rest of the game, and it makes great use of the Blair Witch franchise’s limited mythology. There’s something unsettling about seeing dozens of child-sized handprints on the wall, especially when you know what typically happens to kids in these cursed woods. It’s not exactly scary, but a few decisions – and their outcomes – stuck with me hours after putting the controller down. 

Blair Witch ends on a high note, but you need to endure plenty of nonsense to get there. Navigating this world is more tiresome than frightening, especially once you realize that you’re not in peril most of the time. Instead, it’s more about how creepy you find wooden stick figures and walking around in the dark. 

Score: 7

Summary: Blair Witch ends on a high note, but you need to endure plenty of nonsense to get there.

Concept: A search for a missing boy gets weird as the hunt goes deeper into the haunted forest from the Blair Witch films

Graphics: Aside from a great ending section filled with trippy effects, the bulk of Blair Witch does a serviceable job in the visuals department

Sound: The soundscape is fairly sparse overall, which makes musical stingers and other moments pop all the more

Playability: You’re only armed with a camera and flashlight, which explains the emphasis on stealth. Enemy sightlines are poorly communicated and encounters can be more frustrating than freaky

Entertainment: Blair Witch does a good job capturing the sensation of getting lost – something I actively try to avoid. A memorable final act partially redeems the tedium of getting to that point

Replay: Moderately Low

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Most of the cars in Wreckfest look like they were hauled out of a junkyard and spray-painted to hide the rust. The detailing isn’t important here; all that really matters is that the car drives fast and can take (as well as deliver) a beating. Driving aggressively is what Wreckfest is all about, joyfully turning most races into highlight reels filled with flipping cars, pileups, and debris littering the track. Developer Bugbear Entertainment turns chaos into thrilling gameplay that makes almost every event in Wreckfest a heart-pounding delight to play.

Rather than making clean turns, some of your strategy involves deciding how much you need your front bumper, as a good, hard hit against your rivals can send them into the ditch or, better yet, flip them upside down. Wreckfest lives up to its name in most of its racing events, and the computer-controlled opponents are thinking just as devilishly as you are. They try to spin you out, and if they happen to hit you hard enough, they become an official rival for the remainder of the race.

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Most of Wreckfest’s tracks appear to be designed with catastrophic outcomes in mind. Straightaways are narrow, meaning cars exchange paint just out of necessity as they navigate these spaces, and the turns are often tight or filled with tire stacks cars can ram into. Even the side banks (which are there to protect the fans) end up doubling as dirt jumps that send your car sailing or spinning uncontrollably. These are the tame courses; others are more obvious in their intent to destroy you. These tracks may feature figure eights, loop-de-loops, and a lack of safety walls for oncoming traffic. Bugbear wants you to wreck, and the excellent tracks designs and aggressive A.I. make this happen, even if you are racing your heart out for first place.

As a spiritual success to the Bugbear’s famed Flatout series, Wreckfest also includes full-on demolition derbies that pit you against 15 other vehicles. Much like Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode, the goal of these challenges is to be the last car running. As amusing as it is to see 16 cars smash into each other to start an event, the demolition derbies push you to drive in different ways, especially backwards to protect your engine. These challenges hit at the right time to shake up the flow of play.

Damage in all events is persistent, and a handy meter on screen shows you exactly what shape your car is in, meaning you may have to adapt a protective stance just to finish a race. Again, you end up playing this game in a different way than other races, yet the goal remains the same: finish in first.

The driving mechanics are excellently implemented for the cars (making them feel like roaring weapons), and the upgrades you can give them can be felt the next time you take the track. The same cannot be said for the “gimmick” vehicles (like lawnmowers, harvesters, and RVs). Given their reduced speeds, awkward handling, or ear-piercing engine sounds, I just didn’t get into them. These vehicles are fun in concept, and add a nice diversion for one challenge here or there, but the true stars of the game are the muscle cars, which you spend the most time in, and can give different paint colors and liveries to.

Wreckfest is an old-school racer at heart. You won’t see a guide path on the road to follow, or a rewind function. I love that the game doesn’t give you any assistance, and instead pushes you to create your own opportunities, like smashing into cars to navigate turns or sacrifice a little speed to spin a rival out.

On the flipside of being old-school in design, Wreckfest doesn’t have much of a career structure. To unlock new challenges, you simply need to play what is available, and score well enough to earn points needed to unlock the next challenge or event tier. Money earned along the way can be used to purchase new rides, of which there are some fun and powerful beasts to sic against the competition. I didn’t dive into the marketplace often, however, as the event structure constantly shakes things up and often makes you drive in different vehicles. The career may not have depth, but it works well in terms of showing the player everything this game has to offer. Online play delivers almost every race or event you’ll find in the campaign, but again, doesn’t offer much outside of this.

The video game market is filled with racing simulations, and it’s nice to see oddities like Wreckfest that deliver the exact opposite. Why race a clean path when you can race dirty? If that proposition sounds fun to you, you can’t go wrong with this aggressive racing experience.

Score: 8.5

Summary: Bugbear Entertainment’s latest racing experience is all about aggressive driving and smashing cars to bits.

Concept: There can’t be a photo finish if your rival is in the ditch. Wreckfest is all about aggressive driving and smashing cars to bits

Graphics: In a race’s final lap, most tracks are filled with vehicle debris and stalled cars. The damage models look good, distracting you from the fairly pedestrian tracks

Sound: The roaring engines and sounds of vehicles colliding are excellent. The licensed heavy metal soundtrack is a bit much, but it can be turned off while racing

Playability: The vehicles control well and deliver the proper feel and physics to initiate takedowns and spinouts. Sustained vehicle damage also can be felt over the course of a race

Entertainment: Smashing up cars is fun, and Wreckfest is an old-school racer that delivers on that thrill

Replay: Moderate

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Shredding through packs of monsters and elite enemies through swamps, deserts, and technologically advanced hallways is what drives Remnant: From The Ashes, and the progression loop is alluring. Whether you enjoy the satisfying burst-pop from a single-shot pistol or the steady damage from a beam rifle, Remnant gives you myriad options. Since each iteration of the world is generated from a different seed, procedural pieces snap together to create encounters and unlocks your friends may not see, making your first run fresh, mysterious, and inviting.

Starting off in a version of fallen Earth, the player must restore a fantastical and futuristic world. While the combat system in Remnant is a compelling beast all its own, much of the structure and framework in the title taps into From Software’s iconic Souls franchise, from critically timed dodge rolls to limited-use health items, checkpoints, fog-gated boss arenas, and boss drops to unlock new gear options.

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Upgrading your equipment, traits, and active abilities is satisfying; I fell in love with a critical-focused build that increased crit damage along with tools to create a consistent barrage of critical hits. The first few times you face a boss and master their tactics are great, but too many use the “Well, here’s a big guy and lots of little guys” concept. Plus, none of the bosses are especially memorable, save for one errant bridge foe that may be a sly hat tip to Dark Souls’ Moonlight Butterfly.

The first trek through the world is the best and the most challenging, but Remnant is built for multiple playthroughs, enticing players to seek things they missed the first time around. Area after area, gun after gun, and boss after boss, your options continue to expand as you advance. Each playthrough’s seed comes with plenty of secret areas and a smattering of bosses, but you can’t do it all solo in one run. Instead, you’re encouraged to join other players to find additional bosses and special areas. You can always reroll the campaign over and over to find them on your own, but the game is substantially better with a little jolly cooperation.

However, the addictive nature of the title falls off hard after a couple runs; while there may be some secrets left to unearth, you just don’t have the incentive or drive to do so. After you understand the world’s rules and layouts, subsequent runs only take a few hours. The mystery of what’s to come next gets handily demystified as you realize that Remnant has only a handful of potential boss fights in any given biome, and relatively few decisions to make.

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Players pump points into traits, upgrade gear, and flesh out a bare-bones story hub that provides a marginal sense civilization’s fall and potential revival. Remnant delivers its story in conversations with random denizens and notebooks stuffed with lore. I’m a fan of this approach; the tale is out there if you want it, but it’s also completely skippable if you just want to cut deep into the meat.

Strong systems and a satisfying gameplay loop give Remnant: From The Ashes a powerful foundation, even if the experience is mired by repetitive and uninteresting bosses and environments. The first 10 hours are challenging and intriguing, leaving you voracious for more loot, more bosses, and more traits. After that, some of the wonder vanishes as you relive past glories rather than continuing to forge new ones.

Score: 8.5

Summary: Strong systems and a satisfying gameplay loop give Remnant: From The Ashes a powerful foundation, even if the experience is mired by repetitive and uninteresting bosses.

Concept: Take on big bosses, level up, and loot in a fallen reality

Graphics: Some armor sets and weapons look great, but many of the models and environments are uninspired

Sound: Repetitive chirps and generic sound effects do little to suck the player in

Playability: Mastering gunplay and defensive tactics is critical and could be overwhelming for those not prepared for a fierce threats

Entertainment: Gobs of lackluster bosses and lack of any real endgame experience drag down a whimsical world full of secrets, challenges, and fun customization

Replay: Moderate

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I adore the notion behind Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey: Follow not one individual, but an entire evolving clan of hominids as they navigate the vagaries of survival and evolution across an inconceivable stretch of prehistory. However, deep and fundamental faults riddle the experience that stems from that idea. As a simulation, it creates rare moments of discovery and reflection about the miracle of life. As a game, it collapses under the weight of history, the ambition of its own concept, and a gameplay model that offers too little reward at the cost of far too much frustration and routine.

To say that Ancestors has a “slow start” is like saying human evolution has taken “a little while.” With no perception of what to eat or safely drink, how to form rudimentary tools, or the myriad dangers of the world, early hours controlling these ape-like progenitors is rife with failure. Poisonous mushrooms, broken bones, and pure exhaustion create an endless series of condition effects that blur the screen, slow down the already glacial movement speed, or cause overwhelming audio noise that otherwise obscures play. Unexpected animal attacks are constant, and after hundreds of exchanges, those pre-scripted battles rarely end in anything one might term a success, thanks to a timing-based mechanic that remains a mystery to me after many dozens of hours. The absence of a map may be authentic to the experience of early man, but I bet those poor hominids hated getting lost just as much as I do. Gauging distance to objects is nearly impossible using the icon-based points of interest, creating a pervasive sense of disorientation.

An entire lineage can die out without careful decision-making, and a full restart is devastating, since it means having to once again burn time to re-identify every object in the world, and slowly begin the evolutionary climb again, but moving through exactly the same locations and situations as before. With no guidance about when to pass a generation or evolve to a new epoch, you’re left without any guideposts for how to succeed and a paralyzing sense of indecision, since many hours of playtime may be at stake.

Of course, those many hours help to clarify things, and open up moments of fun. Leaping off a cliff and successfully swinging through the jungle canopy can be thrilling. Finally figuring out how to fish, staunch a wound, or survive a night in the wild is an accomplishment. And every once in a while, you break out to a high vista, stare out over a sun-drenched lake, and bask in the sense of exploration.

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However, even these moments of exaltation are fleeting, as the frustration of not knowing what to do gives way to knowing exactly what to do. The realization hits home that you face many, many hours of identifying the same plant types, having sex and childbearing (far more boring than you would think or hope), and the endless maintenance of clan members’ wellness. Sharpening that stick for the 20th time is little more than a chore. An overwhelming sense of tedium sets in.                      

Between the increasingly lackluster excursions of third-person action and traversal, your analysis and learning of the surroundings fuels neuronal growth and development, communicated via a fascinating but ill-explained evolution menu that governs progression. I enjoy the indication of clan development, but individual nodes are often so subtle as to not be noticeable in practice, and the need to refill nodes on subsequent generations is both confusing and feels like a time-waster. Another layer allows you to catapult forward hundreds of thousands of years, sometimes witnessing the rise of a new species, and seeing how your clan’s development compares with an approximation of science’s understanding of human evolution. It’s a neat idea, but demands an unreasonable level of patience.

I was deeply frustrated by Ancestors, so it may seem strange for me to say that I found a lot of promise, complexity, and nuance here as well. The novel concept and grand scope are far more appealing than dozens of other action or survival games on the market. This is a deeply flawed but richly imagined effort, but like many ambitious gaming projects at launch in recent years, it can now either die off like the Neanderthals, or evolve into something better from here.

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Score: 5.5

Summary: An ambitious idea ultimately falls flat, as the rewards simply don’t match a continuous stream of frustration and tedium.

Concept: Confront the challenges faced by early hominids across ages of evolution as you grow a clan and explore the prehistoric world

Graphics: Janky animations and repeated preset visual sequences break the immersion, but the primates and their world are believable

Sound: A mix of classic orchestral and world-music instrumentation successfully adds emotional resonance, but individual tunes are repeated too frequently

Playability: Expressly defended as purposeful from the introduction, the figure-it-out-yourself gameplay is nonetheless off-putting and frustrating to grasp. The functionality of Ancestors’ controls and systems is obscured or poorly explained

Entertainment: Moments of beauty and distantly spaced moments of sublime discovery are separated by hours and hours of tedium and frustration

Replay: Low

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When Jesse Faden walks into the Federal Bureau of Control and picks up the director’s handgun, she inadvertently assumes authority over the enigmatic government organization. The director’s gun is a powerful and versatile tool, but it’s also a deception; Jesse’s greatest weapon isn’t the one in her hand, it’s the one in her head. Control gives players access to a host of powerful psychic abilities that are as satisfying to use as they are to watch. So Jesse has the gun, but she doesn’t need the gun. Jesse is the gun.

With games like Max Payne and Alan Wake, Remedy has always put care into telling stories through kinetic action. Control perfectly fits that mold, and it especially excels in its atmosphere. Remedy delivers an eerie, dreamlike experience that is hard to shake off even after you stop playing, and I loved being transported to this bizarrely fascinating world. As you explore the shifting, brutalist architecture inside the Federal Bureau of Control, you encounter an odd cast of amusing characters and interact with several seemingly ordinary objects that hold immense power, such as a mirror that sucks you into an inverted universe or a refrigerator that hurts people when no one is looking at it.

But powerful things are also very dangerous. An aggressive, multidimensional species known as the Hiss are trying to invade our world, and like a champagne cork, the Federal Bureau of Control is the only thing preventing these creatures from spewing into our reality. As you work against the Hiss, you learn more about Jesse’s place in this world, and I enjoyed the slow reveal of her backstory. Unfortunately, the motives of the rest of the cast remain incredibly vague, which leads to a few awkward and confusing plot points. Some of these moments are papered over by the overall strangeness of the Federal Bureau of Control, but they did ultimately pull me out of an otherwise expertly crafted world.

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As mentioned previously, the director’s handgun is an incredibly powerful tool in your battle against the Hiss. This weapon can shift forms, becoming everything from a long-range sniping tool to a crowd-control shotgun. Remedy’s gunplay remains as tight and precise as ever, but the director’s handgun does have one idiosyncrasy: It can’t be manually reloaded. It taps into an unlimited well of ammunition, but every time a magazine runs dry (or if you stop firing for a bit) it takes a few seconds to reload itself. It took me a while to get used to this rhythm in combat, but as Jesse acquires new abilities, managing ammo became less of an issue.

In the end, Jesse’s weapon feels like a secondary tool in combat. Her greatest means of offense is her suite of psychic powers – especially her ability to toss objects around the room. Remedy nailed the feel of telekinesis; picking up objects with Jesse’s mind and launching them at foes packs a satisfying punch. I never grew tired of pulling chunks of cement out of the ground or snatching missiles from the air and sending them back at a group of foes. Almost every object in the environment can become a bullet, and even in the heat of battle, finding something to launch is easy. In fact, you don’t even have to target objects to pick them up. If you hold down the telekinesis button, Jesse grabs the nearest object automatically, which makes using the power effortless and intuitive.

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Jesse has a few other useful abilities in her psychic toolbelt, such as grabbing nearby junk to shield herself from frontal attacks. This shield can even be upgraded to propel debris at enemies. Another neat power lets Jesse mind-control enemies, converting hurt foes into allies. These additional powers are fun to play with, but they pale in comparison to the telekinetic launch, and I had few reasons to return to them over and over again. Additionally, upgrading these abilities is rarely satisfying. While each new power provides a wider toolset in combat, most of the upgrades simply increase your damage output, meaning there were no new combat strategies for me to explore in the late game.

Despite a few drawn-out battles near the end, Control is a complete rush. With the power at Jesse’s fingertips, I walked into every room ready for an amazing fight. When I walked out, it often looked like a tornado had torn through the building. The Federal Bureau of Control is a fascinating place to explore, and I loved every bizarre encounter inside its creaking hallways.

Score: 8.75

Summary: Your greatest weapon isn’t the one in your hand. It’s the one in your head.

Concept: A secret government agency is being overrun by mysterious creatures from another dimension. Good thing you can move things with your mind

Graphics: Character models and animations look a bit generic, but the visual effects on display are -top –notch

Sound: An eerie, hyperactive soundtrack helps establish an unsettling mood

Playability: Remedy’s games have always felt good, and Control is no exception. Throwing objects around the environment never grows old

Entertainment: Control’s intense firefights are fun, but they don’t evolve much in the second half. Fortunately, its unsettling mood and explosive moments more than balance the scales

Replay: Moderately High

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In the world of Oninaki, death is inevitable, but the aftermath is different. Spirits who are grieved may become shackled to the living world, so everyone tries to approach death with a practical stoicism. However, when playing Oninaki, maintaining that kind of measured neutrality is impossible. This is an action/RPG full of highs and lows, with erratic swings between the two extremes that had me loving it one minute and hating it the next.

The last two games from developer Tokyo RPG Factory (Lost Sphear, I am Setsuna) emulate classic turn-based titles, but Oninaki has more in common with Diablo than Final Fantasy. You control a Watcher, a warrior who can cross the veil to the spirit realm and bond with wayward souls. These souls (called daemons) serve as your companions in battle, giving you weapons and abilities to manage hordes of encroaching enemies. Each daemon effectively serves as a complete build with different strengths and weaknesses, and you can swap among them freely. The speedy scythe daemon is great for mobility and crowd control, while the long-range gun daemon allows you to handle encounters from a distance. When Oninaki is at its best, you are taking down many foes by switching among your favorite daemons, deciding where and when to fire off special moves, and collecting the spoils left behind. It isn’t intricate, but it conveys a satisfying sense of power.

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Beyond the basic loop, I also got hooked by the daemons’ layers of progression. They all have individual skill trees, and you earn points to spend the more you use each ally, encouraging you to keep a rotating stable. In addition to passive and active abilities, the skill tree unlocks memories that tell the story of each daemon and how their lives ended, which adds a cool narrative incentive to experiment with your full range of options.

Diving into these interlocking systems was my favorite part of the whole experience, but the depth in the menus doesn’t always translate to gameplay. The enemy types and formations aren’t diverse enough to require many different strategies. On one hand, that means that your favorite daemons and abilities never feel completely useless, but it also means that your approach to combat is more of an aesthetic choice than a tactical one. This fosters a creeping sense of pointlessness and repetition as you move from one linear dungeon to the next, because even as you gain new daemons, nothing seems to evolve in complexity.

Another major problem is how the battle system struggles to deliver on the boss fights. While most of the action seems tailored to accommodate many possible playstyles, some of the most critical encounters can only be defeated with a handful of viable strategies. Not only do these difficulty spikes feel unfair, but they also isolate players who may have invested in the “wrong” daemons.  In these instances when timing and reactions are important, the sluggishness of the controls is especially damaging. If you didn’t spend your skill points on being able to cancel lag after certain maneuvers, you can easily find yourself helpless in the face of an onslaught, unable to dodge or heal as you watch your health drop.

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During the first few hours, Oninaki’s haunting premise was its biggest draw for me. You jump between realms, undertaking missions for the dead to set their minds at ease. The quest resolutions have surprising and dark outcomes, and you get wrapped up in a plot about reincarnation and a world-eating demon. Those pillars sound cool, but as the story continues, nothing floods in to fill the conceptual gaps. The plot beats and characters all feel like items on a narrative outline, but with none of the connective tissue that makes the events or motivations compelling. It feels like you’re watching the summary of a story, rather than experiencing it yourself.

No single flaw in Oninaki is damning, nor is any good quality redemptive. Some parts of the experience are genuinely fun and engaging, and others are baffling and frustrating. Like the real world and spirit realm in the game, the light and dark sides of Oninaki blend together as you move between them, resulting in a dull glow somewhere in the middle.

Score: 7.5

Summary: This is an action/RPG full of highs and lows, with erratic swings between the two extremes that had me loving it one minute and hating it the next.

Concept: Explore the mysteries of the afterlife as you plow through monsters with the aid of different weapons, powers, and spirits

Graphics: The environments in Oninaki have a gorgeous simplicity, but the rest of the visuals have an unimpressive, low-budget vibe

Sound: The music seems sparse, but I enjoy it when it kicks in. The voice performances (which are in Japanese) are minimal

Playability: Sluggish controls keep the action from feeling as fast and furious as it wants to be, but the overall mechanics are intuitive

Entertainment: Combat is fun on a basic level, but repetition and a lack of evolution blunt that over time. The story and setting also fail to live up to their initial promise

Replay: Moderately low

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When everything is a lie, how can you discern the truth? Telling Lies asks you this compelling question as you scour through video clips of dishonest people, and the answers can only be found with your own intuition.

Telling Lies is an adventure game from the creator of Her Story, and it takes the same clever concept and interface to greater heights and success. In Her Story, you search through grainy video archives on a retro computer. Telling Lies uses a modern interface, but you still type in clues (like phrases or words found in clips you watch) that lead you towards new videos as you piece together an overarching narrative. While that may sound mundane on paper, it’s far from boring in its execution, thanks to phenomenal acting and a deep central mystery with many different threads.

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You play as a whistleblowing FBI agent who stole an NSA disk drive, and you plan to upload its contents to the public. The entirety of your time is spent watching, rewinding, and fast forwarding through archived video calls (as well as some clips captured by hidden cameras) found on that drive in hopes of understanding what happened to four connected individuals. I don’t want to spoil the mystery, but the main premise is about a special agent infiltrating a certain group of people, and what’s most interesting is how this mission affects his life and the people around him. What was the point of this mission? How did a cam girl get intertwined in catastrophic events? I was fixated on finding the answers to these questions and more like them. Telling Lies isn’t especially challenging, but that works in its favor; the thrill comes from making connections and watching the pieces fall into place without feeling impeded by mechanics.

The four characters are all lying about something to someone, which makes connecting the dots an exhilarating experience. However, you can only hear the audio and see the video feeds of one person at a time. Sometimes it’s abundantly clear who they are talking to, such as a father’s animated expressions and simple language pointing to the fact that he’s speaking to his young daughter, but other times it’s more cryptic. Hearing half the conversation gives you only a fragment of the information you need, and assembling the rest is a lot of fun thanks to thoughtfully placed clues. For example, a tattoo on someone’s chest led me towards discovering their identity, since the character’s words couldn’t be trusted. Sometimes you find the other half of a conversation, and the moments of silence or facial expressions on a previous video make more sense and give you a better idea of what’s going on.

The best thing about Telling Lies is the fantastic acting from its cast. Whenever something felt off, like a badly put on Parisian accent, there was a reason behind it rather than an indication of poor acting. I loved getting to know the characters and seeing different sides to each person made them complex and real. This consistency of writing and performance is particularly impressive considering the non-linearity; no two players are likely to watch the same videos in the same order, so the story works regardless of your path through the clues.

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Every character behaves differently depending on the situation. They may have a shorter fuse when talking to their wife in comparison to how they speak to their boss. I was utterly fascinated by a man who could commit horrible acts but still be a loving father, and by one woman who was adamant about keeping her identity secret.

Telling Lies is especially interesting in how its themes connect to real-world politics and ethics surrounding privacy when in the hands of a government bureau. I empathized with certain characters, particularly because of their conflicted motives. Viewing different facets of their lives made me feel like a fly on the wall, and this voyeuristic touch bounces between unsettling and engrossing when peeking into these private moments.

Once I discovered the answers to the central mystery, I didn’t stop playing – I continued to find every bit of video content I could because I was enthralled by the people in this world. Attempting to understand the psychology behind each character’s actions made me all the more invested and perplexed, because in Telling Lies, even the smallest fibs lead to the biggest discoveries.

Score: 9

Summary: Phenomenal acting and a deep central mystery make this voyeuristic adventure game something special.

Concept: Search through video calls compiled by the NSA to piece together a mystery about four liars who are all connected

Graphics: The desktop computer aesthetic will be familiar to anyone who has used a Mac, and the glare of a woman’s silhouetted reflection in the screen fits the voyeuristic feel well

Sound: Mellow background music evokes emotion at the right moments. The characters’ tone of voice helps you decipher what’s real and what’s not

Playability: Swiping to the left or right easily lets you scrub through video content, and the desktop interface is simple to use

Entertainment: Excellent acting from actors like Angela Sarafyan (Westworld) and Logan Marshall-Green (The Invitation) brings depth and realism to the characters and their stories

Replay: Moderate

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Rad is a rogue-like taking place in a world that has suffered two apocalypses thanks to mistakes made by The Ancients and additional follow-up mistakes by The Menders (who only made things worse). As a teenager growing up in the post-post-apocalypse, the burden falls on you to explore the procedurally generated wasteland and bring life back to the world. Sometimes it goes well, and you get all the best mutations to help you complete your mission. Sometimes you sprout useless wings, take damage from health items, you lose all your currency, and you wonder what you’re doing with your life.

Highs and lows like this are typical of the rogue-like genre, and in many ways Rad sticks close to the rogue script, but it does manage to set itself apart with its leveling mechanics. Combat takes place from an overhead perspective, with the action playing out as a cross between a melee action game and a twin-stick shooter. As you defeat enemies, you build up experience that eventually causes you to mutate. These Exo Mutations are all unique, and even after successful runs and plenty of hours, I still saw new ones. You might sprout a cobra head and be able to perform venomous long-distance strikes. You might gain a tail that lets you lay eggs that birth helpful spiders. The mutations change your appearance and your approach to combat, and you can earn three on a single playthrough, so the combinations go a long way in making each run feel different. I was always excited to see what mutation I was going to get, but some (like the wings mentioned above) are a sign that the current run is a lost cause, which is a bummer.

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Along with the Exo Mutations, you also find Endo Mutations, which offer significant passive boosts like imperviousness to fire, faster running speed, or one that makes your long-distance mutations (like a boomerang arm) fly farther. You don’t know what they will be until you activate them and they’re automatically equipped. Coming across these Endo Mutations is also exciting, but sometimes it doesn’t seem to take your loadout into account. Gaining the ability to throw long-distance attacks farther is great, but if your random mutations are all close-range, it feels like a waste.

You can also come across negative Endo Mutations, which is an interesting idea, but they’re all so damning that I learned to avoid them at all costs, even with the chance of getting something good. One I came across turned my screen orange making it harder to distinguish items and enemies and just generally made everything look bad. That mutation was active the first time I made it to the final boss, so I didn’t even get to see what it really looked like until I got there again on another run. When the negative outweighs the positive so heavily, it discourages you from rolling the dice at all.

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I like the look and sound of the world, but the layout can sometimes be frustrating, thanks to the procedural generation. Underground hallways filled with enemies sometimes turn into boring dead ends without rewards, and above ground, necessary switches might be difficult to find or reach. The later stages are particularly labyrinthian; I had one run where I killed every enemy and was just trying to find the exit while outrunning frequent lightning strikes, which eventually caught up with me and killed me. It just felt unfair. I never ran into game-breaking procedural generation, but the annoyances were enough to make me pine for hand-crafted levels.

One random element I enjoyed was the world-building. Occasionally, as you find new items or areas, a young woman’s voice narrates a random snippet describing what you found, giving you little factoids about what happened and who the various survivors you run into are. These little story moments are short and sweet and don’t interrupt gameplay, but they make the world of Rad feel like a real place with history.

The rogue-like is a difficult genre to nail as it relies on balancing challenging action and myriad random elements. The trick is making sure the frustration meter isn’t higher than the fun meter, and Rad generally walks that line well. I certainly had my attempts where I felt like the game was working against me, but when I had a good run with mutations that worked well with my playstyle, I enjoyed myself and was thoroughly proud of my accomplishments.

Score: 7.25

Summary: Frustrating lows and and exciting highs are typical of the rogue-like genre, and in many ways Rad sticks close to the rogue script, but it does manage to set itself apart with its leveling mechanics.

Concept: Explore a rogue-like post-post-apocalypse while earning game-changing mutations as you defeat enemies and explore

Graphics: The neon-drenched setting is an enticing, overgrown apocalypse obsessed with ‘80s arcade culture

Sound: The music all sounds like synthy ‘80s songs and it’s great. The infrequent voice announcing various achievements is charming without being obnoxious

Playability: The twin-stick and melee controls work well, though slowdown during rain makes dealing with lots of enemies unnecessarily difficult

Entertainment: Frustrations related to random abilities and level layout can be annoying, but the overall aesthetic is inviting. Successfully completing a run is always an exciting achievement

Replay: High

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