3 reviews liked by juniornige


i just love killin stormtroopers. cuttin their hands off and seein em look for it. pushing them into fans and active flames. holding them up with the force like a schoolyard bully shaking change out of their pockets, watchin em flail around helplessly without hope nor friends nor god. for all that it matters now in their puny lives, i am god.

Stray

2022

Stray is a beautiful, poignant meditation on history's mistakes and on how future generations are left to -- and, with luck and determination, can -- pick up the pieces.

This game is being described as a platformer, but I don't think that's accurate. It's an exploration game. You traverse a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk city, with your progress being gated by environmental puzzles, locked doors, and occasionally hostile NPCs. People are calling it a platformer because of its emphasis on jumping and verticality, but the jumps themselves are handled by contextual button-presses -- you can't actually miss a jump.

The real joy of Stray lies in appreciating its world. Art direction, color and lighting, music and sound meld to place the player in a neon-lit purgatory that somehow manages to feel both cavernous and cozy. The choice of a cat protagonist is a stroke of genius here, as it helps the city -- which is objectively somewhat small by modern video game city standards -- to feel like a massive place in which to get lost exploring every alley and rooftop.

The game's shortcomings feel pretty minor after a first playthrough. My main complaint has to do with the jumping mechanics: it was often hard for me to tell where I could and couldn't jump, and progress in a given direction was often barred by the unexplained absence of a jump prompt for a surface that seemed clearly within reach.

Sifu

2022

Stylish and satisfying. It's not without its flaws -- the camera is uncooperative to the point that it borders on active hostility -- but the core gameplay is so much fun that they're mostly easy to overlook.