Virgin Spider-Man (2018):
– Mindless automated swinging where you don't have to think of anything other than having tall structures near you. No care for trajectory and momentum. Traversal is totally separated from combat.
– Mashy arkham combat that practically plays itself as you react to prompts on the screen. Doesn't even feel good since hits have zero punch.
– Ubisoft mush of checklists on the map with objectives as creative as "press A near the icon" or "defeat waves of generic enemies".
– Peter Parker fixes police surveillance network, larps as a cop and unquestionably trusts authority. Blatant copaganda that wants you be a part of status quo.

Chad Bionic Commando (2009):
– Detailed traversal where you have to consider trajectory and momentum of motion, not to mention the objects to swing on. Satisfying to get a grip on and use in combat encounters.
– Competent acrobatic TPS that requires mastery of movement mechanics to succeed. Pulling yourself to enemies to send them with a flying kick is peak instant gratification.
– Concise linear campaign encompassing a good variation of combat encounters and traversal challenges, alternating between action set pieces and moments of quiet exploration.
– Nathan Spencer despises every order from the government that marginalizes him despite making him a monstrous weapon in the first place. Proven to be right when it's revealed that his direct authority is behind the attacks.

Bionic Commando solos.

Stray is a game where you assume the role of a cat. This is the entire promise of its outward appearance. You control a сute furball navigating in a world proportionally large for your light presence. You can press B to meow and Y to cuddle with other cats. You can take a nap in allotted by game designer places. The cat mannerisms are meticulously animated and instantly gifable for twitter. An instant crowd pleaser of a concept, as Twitch and Steam numbers immediately suggest.

One of the first big puzzles you solve involves power outlets. You have to scout a room to find 4 cube-shaped batteries. You have to grab them with a floating button prompt and bring them to a computer. You have to MANUALLY (with paws?) plug them in power sockets. Surely, you already see a problem.

Stray takes place in a society of robots mimicking the images and idiosyncrasies of humans. Robots wear clothes, robots eat food, robots live in a police state – not because they need to, that’s just what we tend to do. The greatest irony of Stray is how it’s no different from the robots it portrays. It’s caught up in appearances, stupefied by feline oddness – and completely misses the essence of dubious little being.

Do you want to be a small rascal bumbling the way through, guided only by the most primal of instincts? Wrong game! And it’s mind-boggling to me how attentively every unique keynote of the whole premise is impaired here to create the most nothing hodgepodge of a modern action-adventure. You are pulled through a cat-sized theme park with the main attractions made up of the lightest of puzzles, dullest stealth sections and unlosable chase sequences. Traversal, which must pop with cats’ preciseness and unlimited agility, suddenly turns into a chore, because you can’t have a cat failing a jump, right? Even the animal inaudibility which opens the door for interesting environmental storytelling and silent interactions is undercut by the introduction of a companion drone acting as a translation layer between the feline friend and basically everything else in the world.

There are absolutely glints of creativity and good vibes here, and I decently enjoyed exploring the little hub levels where the game matches its title the best by letting the cat go a little astray. These bright moments though are far and between in this hugely underwhelming affair. Rain World: Downpour can’t honestly come soon enough.

Recommended by Lob the Dob

Sorry Lob, I can't do this.

Mechanics of this are very solid, I love platformers that have a lot of options backed in the moveset. This game has 4 (!) different ways to break your fall which easily combine into each other, and similar breadth of options propagates to enemies too. In no situation it's not fun to control which is definitely the most remarkable thing NUU achieved here.

The problem is, the difficulty stacks against the player so hard it reaches Volgarr the Viking levels of bullshit past the midpoint of the campaign. The levels are LONG, you die in 2-3 hits while food items restore 1/10th of the healthbar, checkpoints aren't numerous even after the supposed update, and Yuuka's hitbox is so large it's hard to be precise with the movement. Clamped together it makes for a very frustrating game where I don't feel like I'm that much in control. Plus the use of Touhou here is more or less for a backdrop with no regards for canon which I don't hold against it, but a big part of the enjoyment of Touhou fangames for me comes from how they deal with characters and concepts of the universe and adapt staple mechanics of danmaku games.

Really thought this'll be a hit for me and I'm disappointed I have to put it away, maybe I'll give it another go sometime later to see if I can crack it past the fourth world.

Got vibes in check, but honestly underwhelming. Kirby lives and dies by the breadth of things you can do, and there's exactly ten proper copy abilities with mostly perfunctory upgrades plus like 6 mouthful modes you use for the same contextual actions ad nauseam. This lack of gameplay options makes it a very monotonous affair until like the final hour where sick bosses finally rejuvenate the action. It's alright, but overall I'm not convinced Kirby benefits from Z-axis that much. HAL could totally make a sick third-person action game though.