A lot has changed since I last tried (and subsequently purchased) Factorio: my career, my lifestyle, the state of the world in general, and - critically - my expectations of modern video games. So it's something of a relief that, six years later, Factorio 1.0 still satisfies the same industrial urges as the demo.

I will say that I'm a little disappointed at the lack of narrative complexity; Factorio's setup is more like a Civ "campaign" than a story-driven one. But hoping for anything more was a long shot.

In spite of how popular and bloated the Open World Survival Craft genre has become since 2014, Factorio's focus on logistical automation doesn't feel stale or samey. The game does have a tough balance to strike between big-picture objectives and detail work, due to how many intermediate layers are involved in some recipes -- but at least so far, it feels pretty good. I like standing back and marveling at my well-oiled machinery, and I also like diving into the conveyor belts to fix or optimize specific parts of my supply chain.

What I'm still getting the hang of is the integrate-or-refactor dichotomy. Unlike Zachtronics and other programming-puzzle games, Factorio doesn't just accept your solution and move on; you'll need to continue smelting plates, or assembling widgets, as dependencies of later manufacturing. And while it's tempting to plug output X directly in as an input to Y, this becomes a liability when you discover that you also need X as an input to Z. Sometimes the assembly line for X just needs to be painstakingly re-architected.

I definitely need some more practice to develop good planning instincts, for creating infrastructure that's modular and flexible from the start. ... kind of funny how Factorio's learning curve resembles professional software development in that way.

Progress: Finished the tutorial (after nine hours!).

Architecturally and thematically, Dex is a 2D side-scrolling interpretation of Deus Ex: an open-world cyberpunk dystopia that encourages varied playstyles. It's an ambitious design to ape, and while Dex pulls off a surprisingly-good narrative, the execution of its gameplay leaves much to be desired.

Dex's story starts with a cryptic message from an elite hacker, a "chase" sequence (low-key since it's also a tutorial), and the reveal of the game's central conspiracy: a shadowy techno-oligarchy attempting to control society with weaponized AI. ... that summary may sound a bit hackneyed, but the game's writing and characterization are on-point, full of sordidly detailed technobabble to flesh the story out.

The pacing of story missions is a bit wonky, in part because a lot of exposition is saved for the end, but especially because some earlier missions feel like wild goose chases. To progress the story you need a hacking upgrade; but first you need to get an augmentation from the doctor; but first the doctor needs some equipment from the store; but first the equipment supplier needs you to run an errand; these missions are pretty transparent in their purpose of introducing new characters by stringing you along.

On the flip side, Dex's optional side-missions are more compartmentalized, and really great at making the game world feel alive. These missions are full of well-polished details like emails that reveal characters' secrets, notes that hint at safe combinations... the same kind of satisfying minutiae that makes Deus Ex so engrossing.

Sadly, inbetween talking to characters and hunting for information, the rest of Dex's gameplay is kinda just bad.

Melee combat is a mess, as enemies love to block your blows and knock you down (interrupting the game's flow while you wait for Dex to stand back up). They also take and deal out plenty of damage; I seriously could not get through the game's introduction until I lowered the difficulty. Gunplay is also a mess, as bullets don't do enough damage to stop enemies from getting in your face -- also, the control for aiming is the same as the control for dodge-rolling, so be careful with that!

The hacking interface is basically a twin-stick shooter, and on top of being fairly repetitive, it relies on an energy resource which you have to exit the interface to recharge. Lengthier hacking sequences are an exercise in entering the hack, making incremental progress, going back to the exit, recharging, and repeating several times over.

All of these mechanics can be made less awful by investing skill/upgrade points against them: punch enemies harder, shoot at them more accurately, hack faster, et cetera. But even fully-upgraded, these core components of Dex's gameplay peak at "mildly annoying." At their worst - especially early in the game, when you don't have upgrades yet - combat and hacking are frustrating chores.

And while Dex embraces the spirit of Deus Ex in providing non-combat methods to solve problems, in practice it's got the same flaw as Human Revolution's bosses: there are some fights that you just can't sneak or hack your way around.

Dex is impressively competent at the storytelling aspects of a techno-conspiracy thriller, and its world-building sidequests are genuinely awesome. But the game's non-narrative mechanics are poorly executed and un-fun, ultimately bringing the whole experience down with them.

Better than: Deus Ex: The Fall
Not as good as: Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link
This game was "enhanced" at some point in the past few years: which makes me wonder, and fear, how rough its original gameplay might have been.

Progress: Finished on "Casual" combat difficulty.

Ittle Dew 2+ is overall a competent and worthwhile iteration on its predecessor. It's an unabashed Zelda-like with a silly and fun story, and a keen focus on gameplay fundamentals: block puzzles, varied enemies, magic items hidden in dungeons, secret caves with optional upgrades scattered around the world map.

My only real complaint against the first game was that it was short, and this sequel remedies that thoroughly. Not just with a bigger map and more numerous dungeons -- there are also more items and gameplay mechanics to keep that more-expansive content feeling fresh and fun.

There is a dark side to Ittle Dew 2's ambition, however: boss fights. The game's combat leans toward "unforgiving" in general, but bosses are especially heinous in the amount of damage they can both take and dish out.

One dungeon boss had me dying and retrying so many times that I almost broke my chair. I did eventually win, though, motivated by my desire to see my way through the game. And then I got to the eighth dungeon boss, a seriously nine-minute-long encounter where dying at the end makes you restart the whole thing.

Which is exactly what happened to me, causing me to immediately quit the game forever.

Mid-encounter checkpoints, or even just a lower difficulty setting, would have been enough to push me into this fight again -- maybe even to win it, and unlock some post-game content. But the game clearly wants me to suffer here, and to that I say: no, thanks.

Up until that point, Ittle Dew 2 was a true pleasure, and I'm very satisfied with how it improved upon the first game. Exploring the map looking for hidden chambers was a delight, as was solving my way through each dungeon. I've got no regrets about the hours I spent delving into this weird world.

I just won't get to experience the totality of its content, due to punishing boss design. Oh, well.

Better than: Anodyne, Cat Quest, CrossCode, Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas
Not as good as: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
On balance, basically just as good as: Ittle Dew; more good stuff, tainted by frustrating bosses.

Progress: Gave up on the Passel fight.

Deadbolt feels like a mildly-Gunpoint twist on Hotline Miami. I love being able to see the level zoomed out, and plan my approach; I love the environmental opportunities to move through air ducts, or flip over a table for cover; I love the flexibility afforded by finding (or purchasing) additional weapons and varying my combat tactics accordingly.

Unfortunately, like Hotline Miami, Deadbolt kills you in one hit and makes you restart the level when you die. I don't love that.

This is a non-issue in the early game, when there are only a couple enemies to get rid of and a mission feels like a short puzzle. But as the levels get progressively larger and more full of instant-kill enemies, the repetition of dying and retrying just gets too annoying.

As much fun as the sneak-and-assassinate action is, and as curious as I am to see new weapons and environments, I don't have enough patience to keep trying a level over and over again.

Better than: Hotline Miami
Not as good as: Mr. Shifty
Maybe the Gunpoint comparison is rough: but the simple side-view art feels similar, and also, I miss Gunpoint.

Progress: Finished a few Zombie Kingz missions.

See No Evil does a respectable job of twisting and augmenting familiar puzzle mechanics. Sure, you push blocks to hold down buttons, and reflect lasers sound waves using angled mirrors bent pipes -- but you also use these tricks to manipulate enemies into hitting unreachable switches, or to distract them away from catching you.

In theory, this is a refreshing combination of sneaking and puzzles (like Boktai, sans combat). In practice, though, See No Evil suffers from some fundamental problems: visual ambiguity and fiddly movement.

The game is shown at an isometric 3/4 overhead perspective, and the art for objects and characters shows depth, but that depth doesn't exactly match up with collision; I frequently activated buttons that I was trying to walk around. Meanwhile, sound wave reflection puzzles require precise positioning while facing in a specific direction, and there's no control to rotate in place -- so getting it exactly right can take several walking-in-circles attempts.

Occasionally these issues combine: trying to push a block around tight obstacles is ... not fun.

As for the story, it's surprising enough that See No Evil has one - this kind of puzzle game tends to skimp - and it's admirably integrated with the game's presentation and mechanics. Between-level exposition scenes shed light on the game's macabre backstory, explaining why your enemies can't see, and why they're resisting your journey; it's kinda neat.

But, not neat enough to goad me into playing more. See No Evil certainly isn't the most frustrating puzzle game I've played, but its precision issues are just frustrating enough to turn me off.

Better than: Great Permutator
Not as good as: Toki Tori (2008)
Definitely not as good as: Mark of the Ninja Remastered

Progress: Got to Chapter 3.

First thing's first: MO:Astray's Steam tags call it a Metroidvania. It isn't. At least as far as I saw, there's no backtracking, no world map, and not a lot in the way of ability upgrades.

MO:Astray is instead a linear platform-puzzle game with a sci-fi narrative. The story seems fairly predictable: underground science facility, experiments gone wrong, scientists turned into zombies; you know the drill.

The protagonist, Mo, is a blob. It can move left and right on the ground, and can stick to walls or ceilings, but can't climb them. At least, not directly; Mo can jump from one wall to another, which is the foundation of most of Chapter 1's traversal puzzles.

These mechanics are competent enough, but ... kinda boring. The novelty of blob-movement wears off after a few rooms. And while the game does gradually show off additional traversal abilities (like a mid-air jump), these are introduced too slowly to keep the game interesting.

There is one cool twist in how Mo can leap onto a creature's head - be it a zombie scientist or a wall-crawling spike rat - and take control of it. But even this mechanic becomes underwhelming pretty quickly; mind-controlled creatures simply don't do very much.

Meanwhile, the atmospheric ambience can be engrossing in how well it pulls off the "post-incident" vibe, but is just as often spoiled by a general lack of polish. Foregrounds and backgrounds are difficult to discern in a dark room; positioning some movable platforms takes an unwelcome amount of trial and error; a swinging mechanic is inconsistently applied to some objects, but not others.

MO:Astray isn't a bad game, but it's not that compelling, either. There are plenty of other platform-puzzlers, and true Metroidvanias, with more interesting gameplay and storytelling.

Better than: Rise & Shine
Not as good as: The Swapper
Less combat-focused, but arguably on par with: Capsized

Progress: gave up after a few minutes in Chapter 2.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider feels strangely like a direct response to some of my criticisms of Dishonored 2, even though those criticisms didn't exist until yesterday.

Stealth tactics work much better here than they did in Emily's story. Billie's abilities are just more inherently stealthy: Foresight, alone, makes the game more about "planning" than "reacting." Tips about secret routes are more readily available and discoverable, thanks to ... rat-speak. There are no more mana elixirs - Billie's "Void Energy" fully recharges - so there's no risk of depleting your sneak-powering magic.

And many encounters, especially early on, are simply designed more for sneaking than for fighting. This game isn't afraid to put a ton of enemies together in one place; these crowded situations are clear and delightful opportunities to look around for alternate solutions. Sometimes they include the limited-but-fascinating Semblance ability, which is a really awesome trick to pull on unaware targets.

The levels themselves are richer, and bigger (at least they seem bigger), than Dishonored 2's. And, Death of the Outsider is more inviting in how it handles optional objectives: like the first game, it presents "Contract" side-missions up front (or after visiting the Black Market), rather than hiding them in a nook or cranny somewhere.

The result is that, while I'd still love a Prey-style fully-interconnected map, each of Death of the Outsider's levels presents a substantial, rewarding world of its own. Even though this game has roughly half as many missions as Dishonored 2, it doesn't feel short at all.

Its revised gameplay formula isn't perfect -- in fact, one significant flub is ability progression. Rather than finding runes and picking upgrade options, this game just unlocks active abilities after each mission, and replaces passive buffs with bonecharms. Which isn't a bad idea, necessarily, but the implementation isn't paced very well: you don't have any magic in the first mission, and most really-good bonecharm buffs don't appear until the game is practically over.

I appreciate how this design simplifies Billie's ability loadout, and I honestly don't miss the power-unlock screen. But I really wanted some magic in the first mission, to distinguish my experience from less-magical games like Thief.

I haven't even talked about the story yet, which is a step up from Dishonored 2's political vengeance boilerplate. It's in the title: Death of the Outsider dives deep into the mythos of the Outsider and the Void, and some of the dark magic it shows off is pretty damn freaky. There's not much in the way of character growth or empathy, but this side-story has higher stakes than Emily had with Delilah. (I'm also stoked that Michael Madsen came back.)

In spite of its smaller level count and running length, and even accounting for its awkward ability pacing, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider easily out-classes Dishonored 2 in my book. This installment strikes a much better balance between stealth and combat, and more-consistently fulfills the franchise's commitment to intricate, curiosity-piquing level designs.

Better than: Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches, Dishonored 2 (yes, better than the full-length game)
Not as good as: Dishonored (purely due to mission/locale count), Prey (2017)
Better gameplay than, but not as good of a story as: BioShock Infinite

Progress: Finished with high chaos.

The first Dishonored impressed me with its ambitious variety of gameplay options, in spite of an awkwardly-linear world and unsatisfying narrative "choice." Arkane Austin followed this up with Prey (2017), which felt like a great (if still-imperfect) evolution of gameplay freedom and narrative integration. So it's funny that, in parallel, Arkane Lyon's attempt to iterate in Dishonored 2 ignored those evolutionary opportunities and instead made the existing formula a little more bland.

Dishonored 2 is structured just like its predecessor: a linear series of semi-open levels, each of which has optional missions, collectibles, and hidden secrets to uncover. And as before, missions are designed to provide you with several options of varying "chaos:" brutal combat, stealth assassination, non-lethal takedowns, even environmental sabotage. That's the theory, anyway.

In practice, the sequel's new abilities and difficulty curve feel much more welcoming of the high-chaos, outright violence route. Stealth mechanics like monitoring enemy positions, or managing your visibility and noise, haven't improved; being sneaky is impossible without some upgrades, and trying to run from danger almost never works. Meanwhile, charging head-first into danger and spamming the sword attack tends to work just fine.

I actually enjoyed playing the game as an unstoppable angel of death: combining swordplay and gunplay mid-melee is pretty fun, and the kill animations are very visually satisfying. But I'm a little bummed that Dishonored 2 didn't incentivize or encourage its stealth options as much. (Actually, according to this abstract guide, stealth players are discouraged from trying new things as the game punishes killing with more enemies that make hiding more difficult.)

One caveat to my recounting of this imbalance is the - surprising - impact that character choice had on it. I chose to play as Emily because I figured her story would be more interesting (more on this in a bit), and didn't discover until mid-game that there are a couple of crucial differences between her and Corvo:

• Corvo's Blink ability keeps you hidden; Emily's Far Reach doesn't.
• Corvo's Possession allows you to sneak around un-seen; Emily's Shadow Walk is "less" visible than normal, but can still be seen.

If character choice was supposed to have an impact on playstyle, then the game wasn't up-front about this when I made that choice. And that, combined with the aforementioned "more kills more enemies" mechanic (also undocumented as far as I recall) and the linear level structure which prevents you from revisiting missed areas, feels like a disappointingly antiquated approach to player freedom: if you want to try something different, you're going to have to play the whole game over again.

Emily's story, by the way, did not turn out to be as interesting as I expected. Both the first and second games are essentially revenge plots with some political and supernatural dressing, but Dishonored at least had an unexpected twist or two up its sleeves. The sequel's storytelling is more by-the-numbers, each mission merely filling in some details of an overall picture that you already know.

Its premise is also shockingly ... lazy. Delilah, the game's main villain, is the same villain from Dishonored's Brigmore Witches DLC. (And to hammer home how un-memorable her story was, I didn't even recognize her until several missions into Dishonored 2. "Oh, it's that lady again!")

That said, while its big picture may be a let-down, the small details of Dishonored 2's world-building are impressively engrossing and evocative. It's always fun to find a written note planning a heist of some hidden treasure cache, or to see a cursed bonecharm surrounded by the corpses of those who tried to use it. This intricate environmental storytelling rivals the audio logs of a BioShock -- if not the rich email-hacking of a Deus Ex.

Ultimately, Dishonored 2 comes across as more of the same Dishonored, but with some smaller risks that didn't pay off. I still had a blast assassinating traitorous goons, but the protagonist-selector was more of an obstacle than a feature, and even the game's few attempts at impressively unique levels - Kirin Jindosh's mechanically-shifting laboratory, and Aramis Stilton's Link to the Past-style mansion - were more gimmicky than they were fun to play.

Prey (2017), with its liberating openness and thrilling plot, was a step forward for Dishonored's supernatural combat mechanics. But Dishonored 2 is more of a step to the side, and a slight stumble backwards.

Better than: BioShock 2 Remastered, Thief
Not as good as: BioShock Remastered, Dishonored (as I remember it), Prey (2017)
I really hope that there's some new story to uncover in: Dishonored: Death of the Outsider

Progress: Finished as Emily with high chaos.

"That's it?"

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus achieves the same bombastic narrative heights as its predecessor, The New Order. Eventually. And briefly.

In its first half, The New Colossus is ... depressing. Our dear friend B.J. Blazkowicz was gravely injured at the end of TNO, and the sequel's intro doesn't let up: B.J. is stuck in a wheelchair, resistance headquarters is attacked by Frau Engel, Caroline gets her fuckin' head cut off -- it's dark. The game's opening mission lays the pathos on thick, well beyond what's necessary to establish some Nazi-killin' motivation.

But this call to action doesn't actually turn into action until several missions later. The next handful of hours are filled with not just forgettable objectives and locales, but also with the protagonist feeling sorry for himself, as conveyed by frequent mid-mission sad-sack soliloquies. What could have been a poignant plot revelation about B.J. acknowledging his mortality goes on for far too long, and instead becomes a quagmire of melancholy melodrama.

Fortunately, a ladder out of this rut appears once you meet up with the Manhattan resistance leaders, who join B.J.'s crew and immediately turn this self-flaggelating bullshit around into killin' fuckin' Nazis. From here you'll nuke an enemy stronghold, assault a prison camp to rescue more sympathizers, infiltrate a damn Venusian base, and plan an attack on the propaganda machine to rouse the Americans against their oppressors.

These absurd plot events finally feel like a worthy follow-up to The New Order, setting the stage for an epic, ridiculous guerrilla war to liberate America. And then... the game is over.

Its last mission feels like the set-up to a final third of the campaign - hell, the artifact that Set is obsessing over is a clear macguffin for something - but this never comes. There are optional side-missions (which are bafflingly inaccessible until the very end), and you can revisit earlier levels to recover missed collectibles, but, why? The game's "big bad" is dead. The named characters are done developing. All the narrative stakes are gone.

And it doesn't take long to get there, either. HowLongToBeat may say 10-11 hours, but I rounded out this lackluster story in 7, and I am no speed-runner.

Granted, I did play most of the game on a very easy difficulty level. In part, this was because The New Colossus's underwhelming early chapters were simply insufficient motivation for me to keep going through die-and-retry combat loops. But that's just one part.

A much bigger part was that all of my deaths came by surprise. I don't remember The New Order having such minimal visual feedback for taking damage, but here it's seriously like I had no idea my HP was even "low" until B.J. suddenly keeled over. Way too easy for a laser drone to zap away my health without me even noticing, let alone how easy it is for enemies to hide and ambush in these maps.

The map design just seems ... bad. So many arenas are laid out like mazes, and multi-level mazes at that, while the game's map system has a surprisingly hard time marking objectives above or below you. I got lost a lot, especially in the between-missions headquarters map, even when an NPC told me exactly where to go. I could really have used a navigation HUD.

My opinions on the shooting gameplay should, of course, be taken with the grain of salt that I don't really like arcade shooters to begin with. No bones about it, I'm in this game for its story. But The New Order got me into its shooting despite that; The New Colossus really, really didn't.

Its back half succeeds in delivering a thrilling high-action campaign narrative, but is cut short before The New Colossus can really redeem itself. Overall, this sequel failed to live up to the expectations its predecessor so expertly set.

Better than: Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
Not as good as: Wolfenstein: The New Order
Maybe my glasses are rose-tinted, but also not as good as?: Bulletstorm

Progress: Finished on "Can I play, Daddy?" difficulty, did almost no side missions.

The past several months of quarantine have seen my local nerd gang turn to online multiplayer (largely, Steam Remote Play Together) as a substitute for in-person banter. And though we've tried a ton of different co-op and counter-op games, I think the one that's impressed me most is Moving Out.

At a glance, it resembles a chaotic move-fast-and-throw-things party game, like Overcooked!. But where those games tend to rely on awkward mechanics or random events to keep things unpredictable -- Moving Out has lasting appeal due to its very un-awkward, un-random level design chops.

The game's simple controls and straightforward carry-these-objects goal clear the way for later levels to devise truly awe-inspiring arrangements of obstacles - elevators, conveyor belts, flamethrowers, lava - without feeling unfair or punishing. (Except for the ghosts, which can fuck right off.) Solid fundamentals and well-crafted level layouts make these absurd challenges innately achievable.

Don't get me wrong: there is still plenty of chaos to revel in, especially in initial levels which provide generous opportunities to screw around with mechanical twists like fragile boxes, or ... chickens. But I feel like Moving Out is distinctive among party games for not using the "party" atmosphere as a crutch, instead delivering a legitimately well-built and fun furniture-carrying simulation, level after level.

The game's overall sense of humor is also an undeniable appeal, as are its many pop culture references. I'll put it this way: the "Frogger" level isn't even my favorite. (That honor might go to the Ferris Bueller house, which allows you to re-enact this memorable scene.)

Progress: We just got to ... outer space!