Reading the feature promises for Civ 6, it's pretty clear that this - and not Beyond Earth - was always meant to be the next step in the franchise after Civ 5: Brave New World. So, it's good to see that progress is being made on truly enhancing and tuning the core Civilization game.

And I guess I'm glad that I never sprung for Beyond Earth, now.

There is a high-level misstep in Uncharted 4's early hours, haphazardly combining the flash-forward technique of Uncharted 2's opener with the flash-back technique of Uncharted 3's. So it's a big credit to the game's narrative implementation that this misstep is almost unnoticeable.

The way that Nate's brother, Sam, is introduced, you'd think that he was part of the series all along. And although Nate's lifestyle has slowed down since his last adventure, the human conversations and high-tension banter between teammates is as excellent as it's ever been.

As are the set pieces, with new navigation mechanics like sliding down hills and grappling rope points -- not to mention the incredibly welcome addition of stealth indicators; now you can have an idea of how and where enemies are seeing you, making it much more realistic to sneak around and take them out silently.

But of course, the most obvious and awe-inspiring improvement in Uncharted 4 is the overall graphical fidelity. Uncharteds 2 and 3 were no slouch in this department, but 4 raises the bar even higher. Clothes ripple believably in the wind as Drake climbs a sheer cliff. Facial animations are so fluid and expressive that you hardly even need to hear what a character is saying. And despite the game's pace, every now and then it's tempting to stare out at the far-reaching scenery (especially when the water is nearby, which is frequently).

I've got plenty of charting left to do, but this is already shaping up to be a more-than-fitting end to Drake's adventures.

Progress: Chapter 10

Uncharted: Fortune Hunter is a pretty great-looking mobile game, and even includes some fun, if you can believe it. Block and movement puzzles, you know?

But its bite-sized appeal is hampered somewhat by long loading times, and at least in the early game, the puzzles themselves are more laborious than they are clever -- flipping all the switches to see what they do, and waiting for Drake to finish walking to his destination.

It's a cool idea, and has a lot of graphical polish, but I think could have used some more gameplay polish. ... And seriously, those load times, come on.

Progress: Completed 6 puzzles.

Sure, Job Simulator fits firmly in the realm of first-round, relatively-light VR games; years from now, when virtual experiences have become several iterations more complex, it's unlikely that anyone will remember it.

But the genius of Job Simulator is that it's hit upon the most entertaining part of current VR technology, which is simulated throwing. Although it's dressed up in a variety of ways, and the sense of humor helps to sell it, all of the most fun parts of Job Simulator are when you're using the Vive controllers to pick up an object and then toss it -- into a trash can, at a non-player character, or just anywhere in the virtual room.

It's a highly enjoyable application of VR, and has me seriously considering the purchase of hundreds of dollars of equipment just to play it whenever I want.

Pokémon Picross allows you to assemble a party of pocket monsters and take them across a map made up of picross puzzles. It's more than a little absurd.

The Pokémon aspect of the game means that you can use abilities to simplify a puzzle, like adding hints or slowing the game clock. ... Since my personal interest is in solving the puzzles, not shortcutting or cheating them, this has absolutely no value to me. There is a whole world of party management, like in a real Pokémon game, that I never got close to touching because all it would do is dilute the effect of the puzzles.

But I don't care at all about that shortcoming relative to Pokémon Picross's economic problem. It's a free-to-play game, and there is a clear paywall around where I stopped, such that there's no realistic way for me to make progress without buying more "picrites" (in-game currency) for real money. Earning picrites for free is not only slow, but would require me to grindily re-play puzzles I've already solved, which is pretty damned stupid.

I barely even got a chance to get frustrated by the game's energy mechanic, which actually limits the number of tiles I can mark over time. That is, as you consume energy by solving puzzles, you'll reach a point where you have to wait for energy to re-accumulate before solving the next one.

It's entirely possible that, if I were to pay to unlock more levels and un-limit my energy, there could be a thrillingly-competent picross game in here (the game map certainly looks large enough for it). But in terms of overall design, the game assumes that I'm not interested in solving puzzles, which is very distasteful and off-putting.

Better than: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not as good as: My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
Nevermind the stupid control scheme: Which forces you to use either the stylus or face buttons, and doesn't allow you to switch without going to the options menu.

Progress: Got to the end of Area 04

Aside from the fact that you have to sit through Miitomo to gain enough internet-points to unlock it - and aside from the excruciatingly slow introductory tutorial - My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (or henceforth, "Picrozelda") is an astoundingly solid entry in Picross.

For one thing, it has an impressive number of puzzles, and they ramp up in complexity pretty rapidly. The 45 normal puzzles get up to 20x15 in size, which is more than Picross e managed.

What's that? "Normal?" Yuuuup: There are another 45 "Mega Picross" puzzles, which add a whole new mechanic to the game. In these puzzles, two adjacent rows or columns will sometimes have a grouped clue, indicating e.g. that there is a contiguous group of 5 blocks spanning two columns.

At first, this mechanic felt a little wacky (not unlike the quirks of SquareCells), but Picrozelda ramps up the complexity of this system gradually enough that you can learn its ins and outs -- what hints can be divined from what information, gradually and comprehensively. It works. And it's pretty cool.

There is even a third kind of puzzle, deemed "Micross," which is a bunch of 10x10 ("micro"-sized) puzzles grouped together to form one large image. The novelty wears off fast, but hey, more puzzles.

Beyond all that, what I really consider my favorite part of Picrozelda is that it has a versatile set of hint and correction options. I was able to configure it such that I could make wrong marks if I wanted, since my stylus fingers slip all the time. And there are more options in here for additional hints if you don't feel up for some real adult picross just yet. Rather than assuming everyone will play the same way, having the options feels very sophisticated.

Picrozelda is an admirable and satisfying entry in the ever-growing collection of Jupiter-developed Picross games.

Better than: Picross e, SquareCells
Not as good as: Paint it Back
Also much better than: Pokémon Picross, but stay tuned for that.

Playing the first Uncharted again on PS4 - more poignantly, playing it again after Drake's second and third outings - it's really hard to ignore its flaws. The sloppy gunplay, and that there's so much of it, with wave after wave of faceless militia inconveniently interrupting the storytelling--

Oh, did I already complain about this? Huh.

Yeah, it's still just bad. (Here's hoping for that film adaptation.)

Progress: Somewhere in the stupid jungle. Who can tell.

Hyper Light Drifer is pretty challenging. Part of that challenge is from some good old-fashioned action game design: Learning enemy attack patterns, dodging and striking judiciously, and being paranoid about your surroundings. With a few exceptions so far, I haven't been terribly inconvenienced by death, so I'm feeling encouraged to try failed encounters again (and again, and again) to truly figure them out.

Unfortunately, another part of the game's challenge is that the controls simply don't feel responsive enough. I have to assume that this is at least slightly due to the somewhat-bullshitty GameMaker engine underpinning it; but whatever the reason, Hyper Light Drifter demands an amount of precision that the controls feel inadequate for. Trying to pull off a chained multi-dash is ... infuriating.

That aside, I am having fun exploring the game world, slowly making my way toward bosses - which I've yet to fight - and finding hidden pickups for ability upgrades. It's a fairly hands-off, unguided experience, feeling more like the NES Zelda than any of its more narratively-iterative sequels. (While there seems to be a story in Hyper Light Drifter, with shades of post-apocalypse, cyberpunk, and Ghibli inspiration, I still have no clue what's really going on.)

Progress: found some triangles?

It would be easy to describe Aviary Attorney as Phoenix Wright with birds, instead. But it's not just an investigation-and-trial game about bird law -- Aviary Attorney's unique aesthetic incorporates the setting of revolutionary France, and animal puns, into an imaginative and greatly amusing tale. It's smart, funny, and almost entirely logical, despite ... birds.

The downside is that it's pretty short. You should be able to get to one of the game's three endings in about 3 hours. And the other two endings are worth seeing, but don't add much to that running length.

Aviary Attorney is super-fun while it lasts.

Better than: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Not as good as: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies (or any other full-length Phoenix Wright adventure)
I would happily give these guys more money: For more Ace Attorney clones.

Well-- actually, what I expected based on the campaign was a little joke game with some satirical nods to sandboxes like Skyrim and GTA 5. But that expectation faded once Bear Simulator's campaign updates indicated that the developer was trying to ... make a real game, I guess.

And the result is, aside from being fairly un-funny, just a poor game in general. Even disregarding its graphical infidelities (distracting pop-in and jagged terrain, for example), the game's mechanics and stats are poorly explained, and trying to do something as simple as bear-swipe a duck is bafflingly frustrating.

Bear Simulator could have settled for being a mild exploration-based game, at least, but the map's nooks and crannies tend to be unsatisfyingly empty. I felt like a chump after I scaled a hill and crossed a river using a makeshift log bridge, then found absolutely nothing on the other side.

I don't regret burning a few dollars on the campaign for my own amusement. But - based on the brief time I spent with it so far - I believe I would regret trying to extract more amusement from the finished product.

Progress: Killed by a bat.