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.

At first you’d think Home was a retro-looking point and click adventure, but that would be giving it too much credit. It’s really one of those trendy, arty indy games that supposed to be a deep meditation on interactive storytelling. In other words it’s a bore. Like Dear Esther or even Photopia (although Photopia is actually good). The pixel graphics are neat and it seems to be a nod to Atari’s Haunted House in the way it treats stairways and the use of atmospheric sound. It’s just not fun to play. Thankfully it takes less than a half hour to finish, so good riddance.

I went into Bulletstorm not knowing anything other than I heard there was a lot of cursing in the dialogue. Well, that much was true. This is a first person shooter based around the mechanic of building elaborate kills in order to score points. The points can then be used to buy ammo and upgrade weapons. Higher scores can be had by utilizing your grappling tether or your powerful kick to throw enemies into the various sharp objects that litter the landscape. After a while, much of the novelty is lost, trying to manipulate bodies as they drift by in slow motion. It doesn’t help that there is absolutely no exploration in the level design and therefore not much strategy. Basically the game is one giant long hallway with your final boss at the end. Imagine an on-rails light gun shooter with a bit more control over your character. Every four or five levels there is a slight variation on the game play, such as a runaway train set piece or one where you remotely control a giant monster, but then it’s back to the boots to the head. The story is simple, but the focus is more on the relationship between you and the other surviving member of your doomed pirate crew, Ichi. Hey, it’s not My Dinner with Andre, but it suffices and, though there’s not much depth here, Bulletstorm is a rather fun romp that doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Wadjet Eye continues their run of solid point and click adventures with their latest, Shardlight. This may be their best looking and best sounding game yet. You play as Amy Wellard, a member of a lower caste in a city recovering from a nuclear-scale bombing. On top of the misery of scavenging for food and dealing with the iron rule of “The Aristocracy,” you also have caught a case of the green lung for which vaccinations are in short supply. The plot is pretty linear and avoids that open, branching middle that adventure game devs of yore seemed to love. Really, we are just here for the story anyways and, at times, even puzzles get in the way of that.

The puzzles are fair and only a couple really require a little deeper analytical thought. I was only stumped once and I feel so stupid for missing the solution (hint: paper is far more rigid in the post-apocalyptic future). The focus here is dialogue, storytelling and characters. Unlike Technobabylon, conversations are concise and to the point and I was not clicking past the voice acting as much as I am wont to do. I almost would consider this Wadjet Eye’s best game but there are a couple of weird choices near the end of the game that kind of spoiled the immersion and narrative for me. It made the ending somewhat unsatisfying, but all-in-all the game up until those final moments is stellar.