I think Ghostwire is neat. Its a game that falls flat in many ways but its world is so gorgeously detailed and well rendered that I hardly need an excuse to spend time in it. I love running through the streets and over the rooftops of a haunted Tokyo forever locked in a moody rainstorm. Im glad the Spiders Thread update/dlc exists because it gives me an excuse to come back and soak in the atmosphere a little longer.

The new content that makes up this update is interesting as it serves simultaneously as more of the same, an evolution of the original games potential, and an magnifying glass to highlight all of the games existing flaws. There is a small new area with a questline that serves as the most in depth sidequest the game has to offer. Its fun and decently spooky even if theres. nothing here that ghostwires horror contemporaries havent already done better. There are 3 new enemy types which range from cool to annoying. I love the mermaids who swim through the pavement and keep you constantly checking all your angles. I dont love the hovery guys who are hard to hit and love to fly around in places out of your reach. The new combat abilities are mildly interesting but struggle to find a home in combat encounters that were designed before they existed. The exception here is the dodge which is such a no brainer inclusion i cant imagine how they skipped it the first time.

The meat of the update is the new Spiders Thread mode. This is a run based rougelike inspired mode where you will tackle increasingly difficult levels of a sort of dungeon set in the ethereal otherworldy spaces that played heavily into the games launch trailers but ultimately dont show up too often in the main game. The problems with this mode are esentially all the problems that existed in the base game. Ghostwire is a game in which all of your abilities feel terrible until you max your skill tree, at which point you will finally feel base level competent and wonder why the game didnt just start you at this power level. Spiders Thread exacerbates this by resetting all your abilities to 0 and making you unlock them again. There was an opportunity here to throw lots of wild game breaking modifiers on top of the end game powers to make things new and exciting, but the opportunity is passed over. On the positive side the new abilities like a stealth zipline takedown and ground pound have alot more room to shine in combat arenas designed with them in mind. The spiders thread arenas also get to lean more into the otherworldly architecture and spacial design that I desperately wanted more of in the original game. It doesnt go as hard as i would like but ive only seen about half the floors, so things may get wilder as you progress. Oh you also get to hang out with a big magical cat and rescue strays.

Ultimately, its a decent enough mode and its cool to see how the developers restructured the game in a new way. The entire update is meaty, with lots of new elements to dig into. Its very generous to release this all for no cost. Theres lots here that i wont be experiencing (two new sets of collectibles are just not worth my time) but i think someone playing the game for the first time will have a much more accessible and fully realized experience. This is definitely the “definitive Ghostwire experience”.

This is a very cute little management game with fun art and some clever writing. I enjoyed building little rooms and the woodsy aesthetic completely does it for me. I might dip in and out as the year goes on, but in the moment its failing to keep my interest. Theres just a bit too much running back and forth to manage your bookings, which is time id rather spend doing the fun parts of the game.

Game highlight: decorating little cabins and fantasizing about leaving Brooklyn to go live in the woods.

Ive set this down long enough to mark it as no longer playing. This game obviously blew up for a reason but i found after the initial few hours of discovery i really want just a little bit more determinism in my runs. Its hard to stay engaged when i think “oo i wonder if i could do a run that goes all in on X” and then you just never get any cards to make that run possible over the course of an hour.

Game highlight: the visuals! What incredibly delicious art direction here. I love the look and feel of everything here.

This game is incredibly slick. The puzzles flow seamlessly into each other and every part of the world has been designed so that you never have access to more than you need to solve the puzzle immediately in front of you. Its all really brilliantly put together, puzzle design at its most accessible. But in being so well put together it is almost too smooth.

Cocoon was designed by Jeppe Carlsen, best known for his work on Limbo and Inside. What’s interesting about Cocoon is while it appears very different from those games at the outset, it ends up sharing lots of dna. The camera never cuts, flowing through and around pieces of the world as you navigate, your characters verbs are simple, and most importantly, you never stop moving forward. Cocoon is filled with “aha!” moments, but i can count on one hand the number of times i actually got stuck. It does this in the interest of keeping you moving forward but in doing so i find the whole game also flows together in my mind. Those points where i got stuck end up being the only parts i can really strongly remember, the rest of the game slipping through my fingers like sand. The world itself is gorgeous, and the sound design truly evocative. The puzzles are well paced and it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but i expect the gameplay itself to be something i largely forget about in the coming years.

Cocoon is a truly singular experience, unlike anything ive ever played, but its a puzzle game without any room for player expression. Its a game where solving a puzzle often feels more like connecting the dots than discovering a solution. Here are your blocks, here are your sockets, please plug the blocks into the sockets in the only way they can possibly be plugged in, well done, proceed. You get more friction in the final section of the game, but then its over, and im left kind of wanting more, but also feeling like any more complexity would start becoming more annoying than fun as juggling all the orbs starts to get a bit tedious once you have four of them. Ultimately, i enjoyed my time with cocoon, and its aesthetic trappings will likely stick with me for a long time. I just wish the game had been willing to take the training wheels off sooner.