Seriously, an average rating of 2.8? Really? I found The Way to be a somber but captivating 2D adventure similar in gameplay and controls to Another World and in atmosphere to The Dig.

The Way casts you as an unnamed astronaut, traveling to a far-away planet in search of the sector to eternal life. Along for the ride is his late wife, encased in a glass container that keeps her from decomposing. The essentials of the story are told early on, with the bulk of the game having you spelunk your way through alien temples in search of the mysterious McGuffin. But as days turn into weeks, into months, into years, into decades even you can feel the astronaut becoming more embittered and desperate in his quest.

The pixel graphics are gorgeous, taking you through lush jungles and decrepit alien installations, with an ambient and serene soundtrack underscoring the exotic locations. As for the gameplay, puzzles are challenging but far from impossible. To help you solve the game's mysteries you're equipped with a strange orb artifact. Its four distinct abilities help you traverse the many obstacles and deadly traps, like short-range teleporting or telekinesis. However, much thought has been put into making the various problems unique, which means that you rarely (if ever) feel like you're treading water with variations on the same set of puzzles.

The Way's biggest problem is its somewhat stiff and clunky controls. Most of the time they work fine, but come up short on a couple of occasions like the handful of platform jumping puzzles thrown into the mix. They're few enough for you to cool down pretty quickly, but good lord are some of them frustrating. Like a god-awful desert trek, with a sand monster ready to pounce at you if your timing is off by just a half-second. I'll admit that I was ready to walk away after 20 minutes of dying on the same damned screen. Glad I didn't though.