I mean it with complete sincerity that Kenshi's gameplay loop is great because it is built upon one of mankind's greatest hidden truths: that it's actually fun as hell to play with dolls. Kenshi doesn't have any clear objectives and pretty much every system is designed around creating emergent stories as you puppeteer a legion of little action figures, dress them up, and have them fight battles and eventually build their own GI Joe Command Center. This probably sounds mean but don't get me wrong: Kenshi absolutely rules, and that is because in addition to being extremely imaginative, the other kid you're playing Action Men with is an absolute bastard who will stop at nothing to mercilessly kill or mutilate your favorite guys. He's crafted an intricate and beautiful fantasy world filled with a billion things that want to pull your characters apart. And it's that danger and struggle that sucks you in- you root for your characters, you feel a genuine sense of tension when they're bleeding out and you're unsure if you'll be able to rescue them in time. You want them to succeed so desperately, and it makes it extremely rewarding when they do.

Everyone was unconscious and my lead scientist, Bombingham, was dying. Beep, the iron-willed childlike Hive drone, who Bombingham had always looked after and made repairs to the robotic limbs of, had been crippled, but by the skin of his teeth he managed to crawl through a sea of corpses to patch him up before collapsing himself. It genuinely made me feel something. That's the appeal of Kenshi- the most harrowing playset money can buy.