Hired Gun turns its back to all that’s promising about Games Workshop’s fiction.
It fits together disparate genres so perfectly that you wonder how nobody thought to combine them sooner.
The game is oblivious that its destination is more interesting and vital than the journey.
Even when the stories drop the ball, the allegories make them invaluable parables for this year in particular.
The irony here is that the more control it supposedly affords Hope, the worse the game itself functions.
Frictional Games has attempted to merge sci-fi horror with a philosophical investigation into the mind-body problem.
While the visuals are nothing to scoff at, this nascent title is a baby that could’ve been thrown away with all the bathwater.
Star Trek is plagued by bugs, monotonous co-op/single player gameplay, and flat, unexpressive graphics.
The attentive design has also yielded a story as daring as the original’s, though the focus has shifted from a cautionary tale of unchecked capitalism to an alternative world of segregation, class warfare, and religious fanaticism.
It remains fundamentally about proceeding straight to the next skirmish, killing every enemy in sight, and then escaping to a checkpoint so an ignorable, if attractive, cutscene can begin.
There’s no doubt how resonant Braid’s ending is. It will be remembered as one of gaming’s most organically shocking moments ever. But the gut punch it delivers has nothing to do with narrative.
It’s almost funny now, to think: it wasn’t that long ago that movie aficionados had to explain to people the difference between full-screen and widescreen.