I think it was Jim Rossignol who wrote back in the day that Mirror's Edge is a racing game in denial of its nature. I guess that's more true than ever. Even though it was clear that a AAA game in 2016 never could dare being just one thing, and trying to excel at that, it's still disappointing. I really hope we will…

That was my exact reaction to Mass Effect, and one of the reasons why I never bothered to even finish part one.

Heck, it's not even much of a Firewatch.

10gp on that what he was muttering was "I have the weirdest boner".

Undertale did it well, in my opinion — one of the reasons being that it had multiple lanes of using comedy. Obvious ones (running gags, dialogue), but also things that are way harder to do — like constantly surprising you during battles with jokes that are a perfect hybrid of mechanics and theme, as well as having a…

I agree. A mentor figure that transforms in an over-the-top animation from a goat to an old, wise man and back? I can get behind that!

I have actually finished it on PS3 with the Move controller, which I bought specifically for this game (and Child of Light).

Didn't think of that one, but it's a terrific choice. And it reminded me that I wanted to replay No More Heroes sometime, anway. So thanks!

You could try Nelly Cootalot & The Fowl Fleet, another Point&Click adventure with a piraty setting. It's a bit rougher around the edges, and way more British, but what it lacks in budget, it makes up for in charm. And Tom Baker. Basically, if you think this here is funny, it's probably worth getting the game for the…

There's always money in the banana land.
[Cue an endless barrage of Donkey Kong sequels.]

The Souls games are pretty great when it comes to "Base" music, anyway. In Demon's Souls, it even is used to great effect to change your perception of the place — and hammer home the message that you are not save, ever.

Yeah, maybe I was a bit too harsh on it. The fact that I could go back later to the first area I visited (the one in the West) and find immediately a whole lot of secrets I missed the first time around surely proves that the game teaches you to "read" its language. I know, for example, that there is sometimes debris…

How delightful!

"School rivalries are an unfortunate and inescapable result of human tendencies."

To be fair, "relentlessly punished" might paint a somewhat misleading picture. Hyper Light Drifter has an approach to difficulty that is clearly inspired by Dark Souls or Hotline Miami:
You can't cheese your way through encounters, but the game runs on faith in the player's capabilities and his patience. Whenever you…

It's something that survival games sometimes do well, actually. One of my favourite game series of all times is Das Schwarze Auge, more commonly known as The Dark Eye-trilogy. I struggled to find a name for them for a long time, but now you could
just call them a hardcore medevial RPG game meets a survival game.

This is as good a place as any to drop the following (sorry for going all mini-essayish, but the people here are a fine commentariat to talk about it): Hyper Light Drifter seems like the devs had read Tevis Thompson's "Saving Zelda"-essay and decided to make a game out of it. Thompson argues there that the Zelda…

This is as good a place as any to write the following: Hyper Light Drifter seems like the devs had read Tevis Thompson's "Saving Zelda"-essay and decided to make a game out of it. Thompson argues there that the Zelda series has lost a lot what made them great by stripping them from the sense of discovery and mistery…

It's something that survival games sometimes do well, actually. One of my favourite game series of all times is Das Schwarze Auge, more commonly known as The Dark Eye-trilogy. I struggled to find a name for them for a long time, but now you could just call them a hardcore medevial RPG game meets a survival game.

To be fair, "relentlessly punished" might paint a somewhat misleading picture. Hyper Light Drifter has an approach to difficulty that is clearly inspired by Dark Souls or Hotline Miami: You can't cheat through encounters, but the game runs on faith in the player's capabilities and his patience. Whenever you die, you…