Way more Imm-Sim than I was expecting, Fallen Aces's first episode presents 5 delectable chapters full of secret-hunting, vent-crawling, and goon-busting - my favorite!

The combat is serviceable, with melee feeling better than most of its peers, but the real prize pony is the level design. Stacking crates to make ludicrous jumps to get into an open 3rd-story window for a sniper rifle or body armor is a constant in nearly every level. Player-expression-through-exploration is my favorite element of Immersive Sims, and that just happens to be Fallen Aces's biggest strength.

The other pillar to Fallen Aces's greatness is its music and art design. The hand-drawn old-school shooter has been done before (namely in the Forgive Me Father series), but I don't think it's been done nearly this well before, and that's largely thanks to how believable the environments are. I am ridiculously impressed at the sheer scope of textures here, which go a long way to making a hallway feel like it belongs in a seedy night club, and not just - well, a hallway.

Can't really beat the price, either, which means you'll have plenty of room left in your budget for a pound of gabagool