Sable Review: Serenely Satisfying Exploration
Sable is one of the most introspective, beautiful and captivatingly written games I’ve played all year.
Sable is one of the most introspective, beautiful and captivatingly written games I’ve played all year.
Deathloop is a classic timeloop game, expertly refined through the lense of Arkane Lyon’s effortlessly cool writing and game design. A must play.
It would be easy to dismiss Lake as another example of the “Pastoral Saviour” genre, akin to Animal Crossing/Stardew Valley. A stressed city slicker takes a break and goes out to the country to find themselves, their love and reset their life. They fix their life, and bring a little modern culture back to the boonies. You know this plot, because it’s also every other Hallmark movie. But that would be doing Lake a disservice. Because it is sort of that, but presented so beautifully and interrogated in such a meaningful way that it’s hard not to fall for the quiet pines and placid Lake.
Townscaper is a thoughtful small scale city builder that understands the small details are the most important thing to get right.
Twelve Minutes is a time loop thriller that doesn’t hold together as a mystery, a narrative or in some ways as a game.
Last Stop is almost everything I want from narrative games. An anthology of well presented short stories, each with a solid thematic throughline. It falters slightly with the wrapper story that the whole game comes in, but the experience is a delight for the most part.
A Trufflepig is a type of pig that sniffs through mud and find truffles. The Magnificent Trufflepigs is a grandiose name for a very sedate interactive drama that doesn’t quite reach truffle levels of richness.
We haven’t had a good single player 40k first person shooter in such a long time. Depending on your opinion of Fire Warrior, we’ve never had one. Necromunda: Hired Gun changes that spectacularly.
Biomutant, appropriately, feels like the hybrid blend of so many existing games. But there’s more than a few evolutionary dead ends to deal with in this flawed creation.
NUTS is a superb example of how a single well executed mechanic can mean an indie game punches well above it’s weight.