Platform: PC

I’m a sucker for these top-down shooter games. This is the type of game I imagined playing back when the cutting edge AAA title was Berzerk for the 2600. I have yet to find one that actually rises to my expectations. Shadowgrounds is okay, but there is a clunkiness to the whole package that keeps it from being a great game.

Aside from the wooden voice acting and forgettable story, the combat needed to be amped up a little more. Enemies take several hits to kill and the battles all feel like your just running backwards and shooting. Maybe some better designed environments, with more options for exploration and interaction, would have made the difference. Or maybe just a more massive onslaught of easier to kill enemies and a more arcade feel would have been better. I don’t know.

This three episode tangent does not appear to be connected with the other Walking Dead games. Maybe some of the characters will make their way into season three, but for the most part this is about Michonne coming to grips with the loss of her daughters while helping a family survive from the usual assortment of humanity free bad guys. I enjoyed the game, but Telltale needs to push their formula a little more and add a bit more consequence to your actions.

This has been my least favorite of the Telltale Choose Your Own Adventure style adventures. I think my main problem with it was the multiple character story lines. Jumping from character to character may be in the spirit of the books, but I felt like it diminished the feeling that I was actually a part of the world. Also, as a fan of the books and show, it was a little strange to be playing out this non-canonical story. It was like playing a Transformers game as a Go-Bot.

However, like all of the recent Telltale games, it managed to grab my attention (eventually) and I stuck with it all the way to the unhappy ending(s).

The Sniper franchise is all about stealth, planning and quick moments of anatomically correct violence. The previous game in the series was good, but it didn’t quite click with me the way three has. If my memory can be trusted, I feel like the biggest difference here is that there is now a much more open level design. The sneaking around feels like you are in control rather than being guided on rails. As before, the x-ray vision kill shots are an unnecessary but effective gimmick. There is a story about some sort of super weapon but, whatever. It’s completely forgettable. The game’s mechanics are real highlight here, and I now am excited to play IV when it comes out (just no more desert levels please… this ain’t Serious Sam).

I’m still waiting for that Wonder Twins game, but in the meantime this will do. After Arkham City this does seem less grand, but it still is more-or-less the same fantastic game. The fluid fighting system is just as good as I remembered it was in the sequel. Even the mindless Riddler trinket hunting works here. There is a wandering story about The Joker and super-henchmen that doesn’t really amount to much. But who really cares. When the game mechanics work this well, I’m fine with a second rate plot.

I enjoyed the original Call of Juarez and its spin-off, Gunslinger, but this one didn’t really grab me. It tries to mix things up by letting you play each level as one of two characters, Ray or Thomas. But, in the end, it’s still just a very standard shooter with bland environments and no real weapon variety. I guess learning Ray’s backstory (this is a prequel) was interesting and there was a real attempt to craft some genuine character development. Otherwise, it was just so-so to me.

Okay, here’s another Borderlands sequel. Actually, this is more of a large expansion pack to Borderlands 2—using the same engine and most of the same mechanics. The only new additions are the low-gravity environments and oxygen management. Admittedly, the ability to jump hundreds of feet into the air is pretty fun and opens up many of the levels, but, in the end, it’s still the same old game: run towards the map marker and shoot anything that gets in your way. Your reward is more guns and a mediocre story (unlike the excellent Tales from the Borderlands). Woo hoo. But really, the point here is that you are supposed to experience this mediocrity with friends and, as I begrudgingly have to admit, this is the best co-op game play experience out there these days. In the future, I would love to see more actual team-based tasks. You know, one guy holds the door while the other takes point or whatever military squads do when the aren’t practicing the Harlem Shake.

Okay, first things first. Machinarium is a beautiful game with excellent art direction, sound and music. However, something about this point-and-click adventure just didn’t… er… click for me. It could be the fact that the game erased my save files halfway through my first attempt. I didn’t pick it up again for at least a month after that. But I think this is just a little too puzzley for my tastes. At times I really didn’t have any motivation other than there was a guy who had an object that would obviously be useful somewhere. I can tolerate that in a Professor Layton game where there are funny characters and back story to reveal, but here it felt like tedium. Still, I’ll give it higher marks than I should for trying and being pretty. Oh, and the inability to use right click to drop objects annoyed me to no end.

Outlast is one of the most nerve-racking games I have played. The game delights in distracting your attention then blasting you with a heart-stopping jump scare. The first couple of hours, when you don’t really know what to expect, are the worst. This is a stealth game in which you have no weapons, no means of defending yourself. Your only tool is a video camera with an infrared mode to help you see in the darkness. Other than that, the available options to avoid being killed are either to hide or to run. As the game progressed, I realized that running was far more useful than cowering under a bed or in a locker.

The sound design and music are really effective in mounting the tension. As danger approaches, your character starts to breathe heavy and shiver and the music gets more and more intense. I only which it took better advantage of surround sound. It would haven been nice to be able to listen to where those footsteps were coming from in the moments before I got clobbered into a bloody pulp.

Most of the tale is told through found notes and documents. I really didn’t read too deeply into anything, but it really doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that you are alone in an abandoned insane asylum, creatures are trying to kill you, and you need to find a way out fast!

I was initially drawn to the isometric art style of this turn-based RPG. My hope was that it would play like Wasteland 2 but I wasn’t sure what to expect. The combat is similar, but it has nowhere near the depth and strategy. I some ways that’s good. Shadowrun Returns feels much more casual and less nitpicky with things like ammo and inventory management. But, even though it’s party-based, you only really control the development of your one character. The other combatants are just expendable hired hands with little to no backstory.

As a smaller, episodic type game it works well. The game ships with development tools and has a rather large Steam Workshop page, so the idea probably is that this is a framework to build on. The story here is very linear. I was surprised that there was no overworld to explore or major side quests to complete. If it wasn’t for the fighting, this could almost be considered a point-and-click adventure. Thankfully the story works well enough as a cyberpunk take on a film noir: A friend from the past has been murdered and, as a last request, he has a video message hiring you to find his killer. It’s nice that an RPG doesn’t need to have a “save the world from evil” plot (although it veers that way towards the end). Overall I liked the game, it just needs a bit more refinement and polish to make it great.