Let's Talk... Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Comparisons to the various systems of Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and the Batman: Arkham games are extremely apt when describing Shadow of Mordor's core mechanics. The movement and parkour-like traversal are essentially identical to that of Assassin's Creed, only tighter and more responsive. Elements of exploration and a number of stealth systems feel very reminiscent of the Far Cry games. The combat is quite literally taken from an Arkham game. And yet, even though so many of SoM's core systems are so blatantly cut from major franchises, Shadow of Mordor still manages to feel wholly unique in its execution, due mostly to its truly remarkable "Nemesis system". A system that feels so concisely designed and so smartly implemented, the nemesis system adds so much to every moment of the game.

The narrative arc follows protagonist Talion on his journey to avenge his family, who were slain by the Black Hand of Sauron, and discover the past of Celebrimbor, the spirit of an elf living inside him. Talion seeks to simultaneously cure himself of the curse of immortality, which afflicted him after he was killed alongside his family. The story in Shadow of Mordor is well-written and well-acted, and the character of Talion is concisely and effectively humanized thanks in large part to Troy Baker's excellent voice-work and emotive mo-cap
performance. However, parts of the narrative feel a little tonally confused, whilst others just feel disjointed and unnecessary. 

Troy Baker's motion-capture performance really helps to bring Talion to life, concisely and emotively

The story attempts to blend appeal to the wider Lord of the Rings audience (i.e. people who watched the films) with deep lore callbacks that only Lords of the Rings fans who read beyond the books would appreciate. For example, one of the main characters in the story is the aforementioned Celebrimbor, a key figure in the LotR lore, but not a character that appears in any of the movies. The deep fiction cuts are well-executed and handled rather gracefully. The parts that are trying to appeal to the wider audience, however, are clumsy and feel very fan-servicey in a way that's very much at odds with the rest of the game's tone. Things like Gollum appearing for a couple of missions for no real reason, for example, feel poorly executed and wholly unnecessary. The story is well-done but perhaps a little thin, the real draw should be the game's variety robust and extremely effective systems.

The game's combat, for example, will feel immediately familiar to anyone that's played any of the Batman: Arkham games. You can dodge, you can counter, you can vault over enemies. Racking up and maintaining chains of uninterrupted hits allows you to pull off numerous special moves. It's impossible to deny that the combat in Shadow of Mordor is that of the Arkham games, but that's certainly not a bad thing. The Arkham combat is some of the best melee combat done in a long time, and to see another game replicate it so effectively and maintain the impressive fluidity and satisfying responsiveness is most certainly not a problem. Of course, there are elements of SoM's combat that are unique and novel. Enemies can be grabbed, interrogated for information on other Orc captains, or even be converted to fight on your side. Although the basic feel of the combat is in no way unique, these various elements add a lot to the combat, especially later on when converting multiple Orcs into allies is extremely necessary, and taking advantage of a captain's weaknesses is crucial. 

An example of a captain's combination of strengths and weaknesses, along with noticeable scars caused by previous encounters with the player

Early on, the game is rather forgiving with the combat, offering generous timing on counters and allowing you to cancel an attack to counter another enemy. However, it's extremely easy to get overwhelmed by the huge number of enemies that can appear, and higher rankings captains and warchiefs (the highest rank) can be extremely tough to take down. Especially once their various strengths and resistances (invulnerability to ranged attacks, for example) begin to stack up. A major part of dealing with captains and warchiefs is adequate preparation, which mainly takes the form of intel you can gather from various sources. This information informs you of a captain's numerous strengths and weakness, fears and loathings, as well as their location, power level, rank etc. 

Preparation for such fights is when the nemesis system really shows its fantastic design and impressive variation. Every encounter with a captain or warchief is different from the last. One captain might have a fear of betrayal, and so converting one of his minions might cause him to flee. Another might hate Caragors (large, warg-like beasts) and the very sight of one will send him into a frenzy, making him even harder to kill. In some instances, a captain or warchief might flee and get demoted, or they may actually kill you and grow stronger and get promoted as a consequence. It's the unique combination of strengths and weaknesses that every captain seems to have, and the impressive volume of factors that can affect a captain's behaviour that make the nemesis system work so well. The elegant and dynamic design and its volatile and completely unscripted results are what give it such a profound impact on every aspect of the game. Every side mission you take, every encounter you have with a captain, every victory and every defeat. It all feeds into the ongoing, and potentially endless, meta-game that the nemesis system sets up. A meta-game that is, in many ways, far more interesting than some of the game's somewhat stale and repetitive story missions.

A visual representation of the game's nemesis system

Alongside the fluid combat, the game also features a robust and fairly forgiving stealth system. It's nothing revolutionary, and may even feel a little too basic for those expecting more intelligent AI or more complex systems, but it works pretty well and the variety of visceral stealth takedowns are endlessly satisfying. Enemies will follow the fairly typical phases of alertness: unaware, searching, and fully alert. Furthermore, the game features the Splinter Cell "last-known position" mechanic, which gives a visual display of where the enemy thinks you are. The game also does a great job of giving you incredible mobility for getting around the reasonably-sized map, between the huge burst of speed you get after vaulting over an object and the ability to teleport straight to a target, alongside fast travel options available after activating various watchtowers. The incredible mobility perfectly compliments the fast and fluid feel of the combat, and really adds to the constantly reinforced idea that you're just a total badass.

Ultimately, Shadow of Mordor relies on admittedly well-established systems and mechanics to deliver on an excellently designed and extremely unique idea. An idea that improves on every aspect of the game, good or bad, with its sheer prevalence and the constant, on-going meta-game that it establishes. The nemesis system easily elevates Shadow of Mordor from a solid-but-unoriginal open world game into a unique, well-executed and extremely dynamic adventure that is one of this year's strongest titles.

KotOR's successes as a video game and as extended fiction

Knights of the Old Republic is undoubtedly an RPG classic, and even a decade later still remains a hallmark example of how to successfully combine interesting and unique narrative elements with compelling gameplay systems. A game that seamlessly blends a huge variety of deep and well-written characters with a complex, yet accessibly presented, combat system, KotOR attempts many things and excels at them all. In many ways, KotOR is arguably Bioware's strongest game to date.

KotOR takes Bioware's party-based systems and DnD ruleset and influences from their previous games (Baldur's Gate and Baldur's gate 2) and implements them into a well-realised 3D environment. Even now, KotOR stands as Bioware's most well-balanced game. Perfectly balancing excellent world-building, interesting characters, and a compelling narrative packed full of exciting twists with a combat system that manages to juggle being faithful to its DnD roots with being extremely accessible to players unfamiliar with complex and somewhat intimidating ruleset. Whilst Bioware's later games (with the exception of perhaps Dragon Age: Origins) evolved and improved Bioware's solid foundation for storytelling and character-building, they tended to lack depth in the gameplay department. Later entries in the Mass Effect series provide the best examples of this. Mass Effect 2 and 3 are highly esteemed games with extremely tight narrative elements that were backed up by simplified (albeit satisfying) combat. KotOR's combat does a great job of appearing simple in its presentation whilst simultaneously featuring impressive depth for those who wish to engage in it. 

Although DnD by nature, the combat system in KotOR could easily be understood and appreciated by someone who has little-to-no experience with its various complexities. A combat system that also quite smartly hides its turn-based roots behind a visual presentation that give it the appearance of being real-time, whilst allowing the player to freely move around during combat, as to deceptively give the impression that the player is not just simply picking options from a menu.

KotOR isn't just a fantastic RPG, however. KotOR is also regarded as one of, if not the, best Star Wars games of all time (and there have been hundreds). Star Wars is obviously a huge brand name, and a pretty old one at that. Whilst there have been dozens of real clunkers over the years, there have still been some really great games, too, and so for a game to be held as one of the greatest of all time is pretty high praise indeed. What makes KotOR stand out the most as a Star Wars game, however, (besides its exceptional quality) is that it is based on fiction entirely unrelated to any of the films. Although numerous planets from the films make appearances, not a single character from the original trilogy makes an appearance in the game. A game that uses one of the most well-known properties in the history of film and doesn't require a requisite amount of nostalgia or affection for the films themselves deserves extremely high praise. That inherent lack of reliance on the successes of its overshadowing brand name, and the sheer originality and creativity in both its execution and presentation is something that other pieces of adapted fiction (video game or otherwise) would do well to learn from.

Let's Talk... Metro 2033 Redux

Metro 2033 was a rather unfortunate game: an atmospheric shooter wrapped in superb visuals that told an engaging story but suffered from clunky shooting and some extremely rough edges. Thankfully, by fixing a lot of the game's biggest flaws, the Redux version finally offers a version of Metro 2033 that feels modern and polished in ways that the original never did. With its major graphical update and thorough improvement of various gameplay systems, it's clear that 2033 Redux is the game that 4A Games originally tried to make.

For those who are coming to Metro 2033 for the first time, Metro 2033 is a story based on a novel of the same name by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky, and is set decades after a nuclear war devastated the entire planet. The world is now inhabited by hordes of mutated monsters, legions of flying demons, and the scattered remains of humanity, who have taken residence in the deep, dark underground of Moscow's vast metro tunnels. The game's story follows protagonist Artyom on his journey to defeat the demons, known as the Dark Ones, that have been plaguing his home station and other civilizations throughout the metro. Eventually, Artyom is told the location of a mysterious bunker known as D6, which is fabled to house missiles to destroy the Dark Ones, but not before a number of nasty encounters with some of the Metro's warring factions: the Nazis and the Communists.

The story remains largely the same in the Redux version, although some areas have been tightened up and a couple of story beats tie together a little more seamlessly (for example, in a number of places, what was once an abrupt loading screen to connect two areas has been replaced by a short gameplay sequence that dynamically ties the two areas together). Moreover, the game's animations have had a major overhaul and are now dramatically better than they were in the original game, and many of the game's cutscenes have been re-done to take place in the first-person and never leave Artyom's perspective.

Cutscenes and animations aren't the only thing that have been redone, however. The redux version boasts vastly improved lighting effects, particle effects, improved character models, and some beautiful environments. The console versions run at a much-improved 60 frames-per-second, which is a huge improvement considering the console versions of the original game struggled to maintain 30. On top of graphical tweaks, the game's user interface has been changed to match that of Metro: Last Light, streamlining it in some major ways. Furthermore, the poor and heavily criticized AI of the original game has undergone some major improvements, but they're still far from perfect and can be pretty easy to exploit. Finally, the game now offers two separate difficulty modes on top of the traditional difficulty settings. "Spartan" mode offers a faster, more action-oriented approach, allowing you to take more damage before going down and making ammo far easier to accumulate. "Survival" mode, on the other hand, offers an experience more akin to the original, much more deliberate survival-horror, where stealth is less forgiving and maintaining a healthy supply of ammo is an actual concern. 

Although the various visual overhauls are the most obvious improvement that comes with Metro 2033 Redux, the game's most important changes come in the form of numerous and significant gameplay tweaks. 2033 Redux effectively takes a lot of what Metro: Last Light (Metro 2033's 2013 sequel) did so well and puts them into Metro 2033. The shooting feels a lot more responsive and much more satisfying, the controls have been tightened up, and some of the game's more survival-oriented mechanics (such as replacing dirty air filters on your gas mask when they get clogged up with filth) have been streamlined in some smart ways to allow, if you so choose, for you to completely ignore them. The game's stealth mechanics have been massively improved, too, with the addition of Last Light's lethal and non-lethal stealth takedowns, which helps to make the silent approach quicker and much more elegant. Other elements taken from Last Light include systems for customizing your arsenal with various scopes and silencers, and the ability to wipe the blood off your mask for when things get a little too hectic. Metro 2033 Redux ultimately does a great job of making the two Metro games feel like a much more cohesive whole.

The Redux version makes some extremely smart changes to a unique yet flawed game that allow it to feel truly modern and vastly superior than its original form. The seamless and unobtrusive way in which it implements some of its bigger additions allow it to uncompromisingly maintain the things that the original Metro 2033 did do so effectively, such as the unnerving atmosphere and effective world-building. Ultimately, the Redux release of Metro 2033 is far more than a simple HD re-release, and makes enough smart and substantial changes to make it well-worth seeing, whether you've played it before or not.

Let's Talk... Shovel Knight

It would hardly be controversial to say that retro-inspired indie platformers, with their 8/16 bit style and punishing sensibilities designed to invoke feelings of nostalgia, have become something of an over-saturated template for independent games in recent years. The novelty of "hey, remember what games used to be like?" is hardly enough to carry a game these days. Thankfully, Shovel Knight's extremely tight controls and varied and meaningfully unique level design allow it to easily stand out as more than just another pixel platformer, and prevents it from feeling like yet more more shallow exploitation of your memories of old games.

The game's rather pretty 8 bit art style

Naturally, the most noticeable part of Shovel Knight is its gorgeous 8 bit art style, which the developers claim to be as close as possible to something you'd actually see running on an NES. (Obviously, that's something of an exaggeration since it is running at a much higher resolution with much higher sound fidelity and the likes) Nonetheless, Shovel Knight's visual and audio design is certainly well-done and is a large part of what gives the game a lot of its charm, and although this kind of style isn't particularly unique, or even especially interesting, anymore, the level of quality and dedication to the look and feel makes it a lot more respectable than most games that attempt this style. The aesthetic of Shovel Knight serves as a great reminder that, when done well, this style can still be extremely charming, no matter how over-used it may have become.

Now, you obviously can't have an 8 bit-styled platformer without including various elements of 8 bit game design, no matter how frustrating or out-dated they may feel in this day and age. Some of these design choices, such as being knocked back everytime you get hit, feel somewhat intrusive and a little bit forced (in that these games don't include such mechanics because they're fun or challenging, but simply because they were in old games and so we're going to use it just to keep it loyal to what you remember), whilst others, such as the inclusion of the classic NES Megaman thing of enemies only appearing once the next screen has fully transitioned, feel like a fun and charming thing to include into a game that obviously doesn't need to do that for the same technical reasons. For the most part, Shovel Knight does a good job of balancing mechanics and features that make you remember that, despite what your memories keep telling you, old games were actually kind of clunky and frustrating, with elements of smart design that remind you of the numerous minor design choices that gave a lot of old games their weird charms.

An example of one of the game's later, more complex stages

Despite the games many clear inspirations, the actual core gameplay is most reminiscent of the original Megaman games. You move through relatively long levels based around a certain theme (which include things like a water level, an air level, an underground level etc.) and make your way through various level-relevant enemies to eventually reach the boss at the end of each stage. Unlike Megaman, you don't earn special weapons defeating bosses, but you are, however, constantly accumulating treasure throughout levels which can be spent on health upgrades, mana upgrades, and unlocking more spells and abilities (which range from fireballs to temporary invincibility, all of which costs mana to use)..Along the way, you'll be able to purchase a number of more specific suit upgrades that offer more powerful abilities like being able to unleash a stronger charged-up attack, or your next attack causing more damage after performing two consecutive bounce attacks (much like the one in the Ducktales' games). These upgrades and extra abilities offer some nice incentive to keep going and generally offer enough variety to remain interesting through the game's 5-6 hour length.

Ultimately, Shovel Knight is an excellent execution of a game that is both respectful and smart with the way it manipulates nostalgia for games from the NES era, whilst also offering enough unique hooks and tight gameplay that looks great and plays well. Even if you've grown tired of games that go for the same old nostalgic hooks, Shovel Knight is still well worth checking out, and actually manages to be fun even without any of the requisite nostalgia and fond memories of the games of old.

Let's Talk... Sniper Elite 3

Sniper Elite 3 is something of a rather strange game. Whilst respectfully adhering to its classic roots as a rather hardcore sniping sim, the game also manages to be a very modern-feeling and well-designed stealth game with satisfying sniping action and a hilariously over-the-top and brutally gruesome anatomy-rupturing bullet cam layered on top. The clever design and major differences of the various difficulty options (higher difficulty settings include things like bullet drop and wind speed, as well as other complex sniping considerations, whilst lower settings completely disregard such things) allow Sniper Elite to quite effectively be two very different games without one really interfering with the other. 

The choice between these two styles of play becomes very apparent in the game's level design, with the game frequently offering you the choice between sneaking around all stealthy-like dropping Nazis with a silenced pistol, and just going completely snipers-blazing. The game offers numerous (sometimes rather arbitrary) ways to snipe without being detected, namely through frequent use of Enemy at the Gates-inspired "shoot during the loud noises" moments set-up by loud engines or planes flying overhead. This most certainly offers you the chance to clear entire missions using nothing but a sniper and still manage to completely avoid sticky situations, but only if you have the patience, precision and impeccable timing to not screw up (although the game has a quick save function, so you could conceivably just re-load everytime you screwed up). Realistically, though, at least for most people, the reality of trying to play the game as a straight up sniping-action game is a little unlikely, and you're far more likely to end up playing the majority of the game as a stealth game.

The game looks great, and the UI is effective at communicating some key stealth-related information

One of the most effective ways that Sniper Elite manages to maintain its freedom of play style is through its surprisingly open and free-wheeling level design that frequently offers multiple paths and numerous ways to complete certain objectives. A lot of the openness of the design is a little more subtle than simply offering multiple paths to, say, infiltrate a hostile area, however. Some objectives may give you vague commands to destroy a patrolling tank, for example, without explicitly telling you how to (or just pointing you towards the nearest panzerschreck) and thus forcing you to figure out a way to somehow lure the tank into a makeshift trap created with your mix of explosives, guns and other tools. Although their are always a set of strict objectives that must be completed, the free nature of how to approach such objectives, as well as the way in which exploration is rewarded by opening up opportunities for optional objectives is well-done and completing objectives in your own way can be extremely satisfying. 

Fortunately for the players too impatient or otherwise too unskilled to play the game as the hardcore sniping sim it very much could be, the game's stealth is both satisfying and effectively designed to avoid frustration. Taking a page out of Splinter Cell's more recent books, the game employs the extremely effect "last known location" trick to ensure that the stealth is as transparent, yet fun, as possible. This mechanic will show a ghostly image of your character in the exact position that the enemy last saw him before he dropped out of their line of sight and will cause them to eventually investigate that area, allowing the player to slip away undetected. Although perhaps making the stealth a little too easy for some of the more hardcore fans of classic stealth gameplay, its nonetheless a mechanic that effectively communicates to the player information that might not be so readily obvious, and it fits in nicely with the game's sniping motif since it allows you to set up in a new position with a good view of your last known location. Naturally, Sniper Elite falls into the trap that a lot of stealth games fall into, which is the tedium and frustration of the very inherent trial-and-error nature of stealth as a concept, something which both the quick save function and the last known location mechanic alleviate that problem quite well.

Perhaps one of the most identifiable features of the series' more recent games is its wonderfully grotesque and almost frighteningly detailed bullet-cam. Upon scoring a kill with a sniper rifle, the game world freezes as the camera zooms into a cinematic perspective of the bullet soaring towards its target and subsequently rupturing whatever bone, organ or limb it hits. The absurdity of the whole thing makes it both hilarious and shocking everytime, and the dynamic destructibility of the entire human anatomy gives it a much longer lasting appeal than you might think. Furthermore, the relatively short single-player campaign is just about short enough for the bullet cams to still be novel and entertaining right to the end, your thirst for ridiculous violence may dictate your tolerance on future playthroughs, however. The bullet cam is a lot of what gives Sniper Elite 3 its uniqueness and personality, and although the option to turn them off completely is available to you, the game would just be a solid stealth game with some much less satisfying sniping action without it.   

That guy's skull just f'ing exploded!

The game looks great and runs really well (on PC, at least; the console versions naturally don't look quite as nice but still run pretty well) and everything about it feels really well-made. The controls feel solid and the aiming is as precise as you'd want it be (playing with a mouse and keyboard is a lot more precise, if possible). I ran into a number of small bugs with the scripting, where AI that needed escorted took a while to start moving again, for example, and there were a couple of instances where the AI (which is usually pretty solid but not exactly amazing) had some minor line of sight detection issues, but I never stumbled upon anything completely game-breaking.

Ultimately, Sniper Elite 3 is a somewhat mixed bag that offers a number of radically different ways to play it, all of which feel like totally valid and effective approaches in their own right. Some satisfying sniping action is accompanied with a hilariously brutal bullet cam that could easily be an educational tool for learning about the human anatomy, and the ways in which it reacts to being penetrated by a bullet. Sniper Elite 3 does a great job of being exactly what the title suggests, and also offering a well-made experience for anyone who isn't an insane sniping fanatic.

Let's Talk... Transistor

2011's Bastion was a huge hit that was both a critically and commercially successful debut for the newly-formed studio Supergiant Games, which meant that Supergiant Games' next game had a lot to live up to from a narrative, gameplay and presentation standpoint. Thankfully, Transistor manages to stand out as a fresh and exciting game that easily stands alone from Bastion but still feels very familiar to anyone who played Bastion. Transistor maintains the same level of extraordinary visual  presentation and thoughtful, ambiguous storytelling, and offers an attempt at seamlessly blending real-time action and dynamic turn-based combat that is unique and interesting but may be somewhat frustrating to some. 

The story of Transistor follows the plight of Red, the game's protagonist, who had her voice and implied love interest taken away from her by The Camerata, a small group of powerful, administrative officials implied to be similar to a governmental body. The Camerata unleashed a robotic army known as the "Process" into the city of Cloudbank, where the game takes place, to do their bidding and effectively act as, presumably, some kind of security force or law enforcers for the city. For reasons unknown, the Process go seemingly berserk and begin tearing apart the city as they appear to gain their own free-will in some way. Leaving Red and her sidekick/weapon referred to only as the "Transistor", the bad-ass greatsword-like weapon that has assumed the essence of a man heavily implied to be Red's love interest (he's never given a real name). The voice of the Transistor acts as a kind of real-time narrator, commenting on things as they happen and frequently weighing in on the situation, making him feel similar to the narrator in Bastion but not exactly the same, since the narrator in Bastion was telling the story retrospectively rather than as it unfolds.

The game's protagonist Red and her sword/companion, a talking sword referred to only as the Transistor, also an example of the game's fantastic art

Unlike Bastion, however, you should immediately disregard any plans to play Transistor as the fast-paced action game it may appear to be. Since the game's "Turn" system, a quasi-turn-based mechanic that you're heavily encouraged to use, combined with the speed at which enemies attack and  drawn-out length of your attack animations, makes playing Transistor as a real-time action game both highly undesirable and significantly harder. By effectively pausing the game world and freezing all enemies in place, the Turn system allows you to stop and form a plan of attack before quickly queueing up a set of movement and ability commands. You are limited to a small number of commands per each Turn (your abilities cost varying amounts and movement slowly drains the indicating bar), and are forced to wait a short period before using it again. During which time you cannot execute any abilities and are simply left to, somewhat frustratingly, run around like a headless chicken until Turn comes off cooldown. The Turn system and the explicit ineffectiveness of real-time combat sets up an unusual rhythm to the combat that is, strangely, very similar to a pseudo-turn-based game in the vein of XCOM, since when your combat meter is full it is your "turn" to attack and when it is depleted it is the enemies' "turn" to attack. However, calling the combat in Transistor "turn-based" is fairly reductive since you can still run around and dodge and avoid enemy projectiles during the enemies' "turn". Your appreciation of the Turn system ultimately depends on how much you like the idea of constantly, and very quickly, jumping between being in complete control to being an extremely vulnerable target just trying not to die before your next big move.

An example of a typical combat scenario

Regardless of whether you enjoy the occasionally frustrating combat system, it's impossible to deny the sheer volume of abilities and insane number of combinations, combat set-ups and ability mix-and-matching the game allows you to do. With over a dozen different abilities (referred to as Functions), four slots for passive abilities and four slots for active abilities (all of which have two extra slots for upgrades and added effects unique to each Function). An example of the customisation would be that there's a Function that allows you to summon a weird-looking cyber-dog to fight with you which can be upgraded, when combined with the right Function, to summon two dogs with 25% reduced damage instead of one. Add another of the right Function and you can summon two dogs with reduced damage but add another Function that increases all damage done by 25% to create two dogs with no damage reduction... And so on. Naturally, the sheer volume of combinations and customisation available prevent the combat from ever getting stale, and the frequency at which you can change your abilities around mean that you could potentially make every single combat encounter different from the last. Furthermore, the game allows you to increase the difficulty of the game in a number of interesting ways that make an nice change from the extremely arbitrary ways in which most games increase and alter difficulty. These "limiters" allow you bend and distort various values and behaviours of both enemies and yourself, ranging from simply doubling the damage of all enemies to giving enemies a chance to multiply upon death.

One of Transistor's biggest strengths is its amazing presentation throughout, with its beautiful art style, wonderful art direction and simply wonderful soundtrack, coupled with the stunning fluidity of the animations combined make Transistor an immediate eye-catcher. Furthermore, the game's excellent soundtrack and solid voice work from Bastion's Logan Cummingham (the voice of Rucks, Bastion's narrator), which is different enough from his performance in Bastion to not feel recycled and unoriginal. Transistor oozes so much style, from its presentation to its incredible art, that one could potentially enjoy their time with the game even the game's combat and story didn't do anything for them. 

The game's hugely customisable Functions system, allowing you to create potentially hundreds of combinations 

Ultimately, the game's wonderful presentation and interesting story easily make up some of the misgivings I had about the occasionally frustrating combat. Although a game that certainly feels familiar to anyone who played Bastion, Transistor easily feels fresh and original enough to feel like a new set of ideas and is different enough that those who didn't appreciate Bastion or couldn't get past a few things should definitely consider giving a Transistor a try.

Let's Talk... A Story About my Uncle

1st-person platforming is an idea that's been tried a number of times but never really been done right. Naturally, a side-scrolling or behind-the-shoulder perspective makes spatial awareness and navigation much easier in a 3d environment. Thankfully, A Story About my Uncle makes it both exciting and easy to handle by making some smart concessions to the platforming formula and adding layers of grapple hook-esque mechanics. The tight controls and easy-to-use setup makes A Story About my Uncle's unique blend work excellently.

Unfortunately, however, the game seems to think that it needs to have some kind of story to contextualise the world and the grapple mechanics, and so, for some reason, opts to have a bad and uninteresting story rather than simply not having a story at all. It feels extremely weak, poorly fleshed out and, frankly, completely unnecessary, especially in a game where the core mechanics are easily novel and interesting enough to make up for a lack of narrative. The story essentially is as follows: you are retrospectively telling a story to your daughter about a time when you went searching for your uncle (it is quite a literally a story about your uncle). The writing is clunky, the voice acting is kinda terrible, and the story mode ends before anything remotely interesting happens. Although it doesn't completely ruin the story mode but it certainly slows the game's fast and fluid pace with its frequent, though never particularly lengthy, storytelling moments, which usually just consist of listening to some people talk for a few minutes.  

The game's grapple device, and an example of the game's excellent environment design

However dull the story may be for the most part, the game's novel and unique platforming mechanics: a grapple hook that allows you to fluidly swing through the world. Starting with only one available swing per jump, you eventually build up the capability to swing three times before having to land and recharge (recharging your swings happens instantly when you land on a solid surface). Although 1st-person platforming has always been a pretty awkward thing, A Story about my Uncle manages to make it feel both natural and smooth, with the game's large, open environments feeling very suited to the way the platforming feels. On top of being able to swing, you can charge up your jump to increase the height of your jump, a mechanic that is hugely integral to some of the game's platforming puzzles. Furthermore, as you progress you eventually come across a pair of rocket boots that allow you to boost forward a significant distance in whatever direction you're looking in. It's another neat gimmick that really sets the stage for some rather complex manoeuvres, especially in some of the game's later puzzles. When all the different platforming mechanics come together and are used skillfully it feels extremely tight and making complicated jumps feels highly satisfying.

Despite having some novel core mechanics, the value of the game really depends on how much you're willing to dive into the game's time trial modes that unlock as you finish each respective level. The story mode lasts a couple of hours and there are approximately half a dozen levels to replay in the time trial modes, which, naturally, has you replay each level in an attempt to beat the game's set times for bronze, silver and gold medals. The story mode is a pretty linear endeavour, but the excellent environmental design and art direction make many of the game's larger set pieces well worth seeing, although the time trial mode allows you to experience many of the game's levels without having to sit through the rather tedious story elements of the story mode.

Although certainly more than just a simple gimmick, the grappling mechanics of A Story About my Uncle feel more like an impressive proof-of-concept for a larger, thicker and much more complex set of mechanics and future title. The story mode feels like an unfortunate and unnecessary inclusion, but thankfully the forced story beats are short enough to be easily ignored. Ultimately, it's an interesting, unique and well-executed platformer that's well worth checking if the idea of 1st-person platforming done right sounds appealing to you, even if it is a little thin on fresh content.