Here I go, getting stuck in yet another time-looping mystery. This time, it's Groundhog Day with ... ancient Romans?

The Forgotten City began life as a Skyrim mod - an award-winning one, apparently - and while its transition to a standalone Unreal title hangs on to some "Bethesda game" aesthetics and control quirks, it's remarkable how clear and uncompromising The Forgotten City's narrative focus is.

The game makes its intentions clear pretty immediately: you're going to watch an NPC's face move as they talk at you, you're going to respond to that NPC with a menu selection, and you're going to remember pertinent facts in a "Goals" list that points you toward the next clue, in each of a number of varied mystery threads.

At first, the world and its cast can feel a bit bewildering -- no thanks to a lack of minimap and in-game timeline. (Elsinore has clearly spoiled me on those.) It can be hard enough to keep the names Galerius and Horatius straight, nevermind remembering where their living quarters are.

But as you listen to and verbally dissect these characters, you'll become closely acquainted with their personalities, their motivations, and how they're putting up with one another in this unusual city. It doesn't take long to get invested in the fates of these weirdos.

The Forgotten City's story is not a straightforward one, but it hums along naturally and believably thanks to the cast's expressive dialog and well-acted voice work. Even if the facial animations can look a bit off, and even if there are a handful of "exposition dump" moments where someone drones on and on... they're still a pleasure to listen to.

It may lack some user interface sophistication, and its puzzles probably won't blow your mind, but The Forgotten City's great writing and voice-overs deliver the hell out of a distinctive time-travel detective story.

Better than: Why Am I Dead At Sea
Not as good as: Elsinore
True to Elder Scrolls form: I've hoarded all this bread and now I don't know what to do with it.

Progress: Saw all the endings.

Gears 5's opening act is peak Gears, a tutorial-ish opening mission followed by scope-setting exposition that quickly gives way to a bombastic non-stop thrill-ride through multiple set-piece moments overflowing with bullets and explosions.

Then, the game slows way down for a jarringly mellow walk-around-town sequence. You can eavesdrop on NPCs' idle chatter, and collect a bunch of nigh-meaningless collectibles, until you eventually find out that Jimmy Smits was re-cast in a narratively-weighty sequence that finally plots an interesting character arc for Kait.

And then, surprise! It's an open-world game now. Your mini-crew of Kait and Del hop on a skiff with a windsail, and cruise around a ... mostly-empty ice-scape, to freely pursue your choice of ... a very short list of side-quests.

Suddenly the meaningless noise back in town makes sense: those NPCs were probably going to be quest-givers, maybe with objectives like "destroy 3 Swarm hives" or "collect 10 Scion helmets." One of their chatter topics about some runaways does relate to a couple of optional objectives.

But, for whichever assortment of reasons, it's clear that a larger plan for sidequest content never came together; and the map that we're left with is just a dull navigation chore. (The few quests that did make the cut aren't very enthralling, either -- just brief fights that're rewarded with a minor robot-helper upgrade.)

Once you finish the primary objective in ice land, you're then transported to ... a sandy desert map, along with your skiff. Rinse and repeat. At least, this time, your fireteam grows and there's some fun traveling banter.

The game's final act is another linear series of shootouts, but shorter than the opening, even padded up by several not-really-interactive scenes. And a bafflingly-late narrative choice that comes out of nowhere and has no meaningful consequences. Why is this even here?

Gears 5's reach definitely exceeded its grasp. The open areas have excellent visual design, and it's impressive that they work technologically, but scant sidequests and a total lack of sandbox content makes them feel incredibly empty. And while it continues to do fine with linear encounters, these peak early and run out of steam by the end.

Not to mention, Kait's character growth is once again drip-fed and left dangling until the next game.

Better than: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Not as good as: Borderlands 3, Gears of War 4
About as good as: Rise of the Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider (2013), granted my praise for the latter did not age well.

Progress: Finished the campaign on Intermediate.

My recorded memory of Gears of War 3 was surprisingly positive, especially about the quality of its writing. What happened in that game again? I think... a grizzled old military scientist, the presumed-dead father of the franchise's protagonist, committed chemical-weapon genocide against the under-dwelling "Locust" bug-mutant people...?

Well, whether or not that memory is reliable, I know it's possible for an action-oriented shoot-bad-dudes game to also have great writing and showcase compelling characters (like Nate and Sully). And I know that Gears of War 4 doesn't come anywhere close.

I'm not complaining about its non-subtle, obviously-reiterated premise of "human-on-human conflict interrupted by gross monsters" -- hell, a prologue chapter goes out of its way to remind you that this has happened before. The theme of failing to learn from past wars' mistakes is practically in the title.

But this iteration's cast of characters is summarily, thoroughly uninteresting. JD Fenix (hey, legacy) is the leader, 'cause he's mildly decisive; Del is the comic relief, with all of three or four jokes throughout the campaign; and Kait is present. Uncle Oscar has a little curmudgeonly charisma, so of course he dies in the opening act.

Dialog in Gears 4's cutscenes has all the dumb bravado of a space marine stereotype without any over-the-top self-parody. There are brief, as in fleeting, as in blink-and-you've-missed-it, hints of interesting stories behind these characters: JD rebelling against his father, JD and Del going through COG training together, Kait and her mother raising an "outsider" village. But the game doesn't tell any of these stories, or even leverage them for meaningful characterization.

Alright, alright, so the story is a flimsy excuse to stitch action setpieces together. How are those? They're ... fine?

For most of the campaign, Gears 4 succeeds at re-doing what previous Gears have already done. Not just in the abstract, like coordinating with your team behind chest-high cover, and paying close attention to your reload timing; but even in specific mechanics, like swarm nests which are the same thing as emergence holes, and wave-based defense sections demonstrating "Horde 3.0" which doesn't really stand out from version 2.

There are some new robotic enemy types who bring a few new weapons with them ... in the first third of the campaign, before they virtually disappear. Then the "swarm" enemies, who have the same archetypes and behaviors as the Locust, show up carrying Lancers, Hammerbursts, Longshots, Torque Bows, and Mulchers.

Even Gears 4's lowlights, super-annoying swarm grubs and occasional bullet-sponge mid-bosses, are overtly (1) familiar (2).

I know I'm sounding pretty down on Gears 4, and its seeming contentment to exist in its predecessors' shadow, but it's worth keeping in mind that a different development studio made this. From a technical and production perspective, it's pretty impressive that The Coalition was able to replicate Epic's trilogy so competently.

Still, as a player, I would've been "meh" on Gears 4 if not for its genuinely fresh and awesomely satisfying final act where you pilot a g-damn giant mecha, and literally stomp on enemies like they're ants.

Gears 4 shows that the new crew can do what the old one did. Now I'm looking forward to seeing what else they can do.

Better than: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Not as good as: [my memory of] Gears of War 3, Titanfall 2, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
I just hope that Gears 5's campaign: reaches a little higher than "somehow, the Locust returned."

Progress: Finished the campaign on Normal.

There's only a little bit of time looping in Tacoma. But it's still weird how I keep running into it.

Anyway! Tacoma, from the makers of Gone Home, is more than "just another walking simulator." Sure, it's a first-person narrative exploration game, and sure, the main story beats are in a forced linear sequence; but Tacoma uses self-directed interactive elements to fill the space between those beats, and rewards your curiosity with additional background and scene-setting.

Its core mechanic, replaying recordings of a space station crew's movements and dialog - and learning what happened by following and snooping on them - is really great at immersing you in the game's world. It's actually surprising how much walking behind a 3D recording pulls you in, as a means of both revealing the plot and illustrating the crew's characters.

(Tacoma also has a subtle, but elegantly-done, "puzzle" mechanic of cracking keypad codes by ... well, I won't give it away.)

It's not a surprise that Tacoma's story is well-written and well-acted, but it is impressive how poignant that story feels in today's pre-cyberpunk (or... early-cyberpunk?) landscape. The greedy corporations treating workers like garbage trope may be well-worn, but, Tacoma does the hell out of it.

Despite being a brief experience (2-3 hours), one could argue that Tacoma's real-time events and interactivity elevate it beyond a mere "walking simulator." I, for example, would argue that.

Better than: Analogue: A Hate Story, Gone Home
Not as good as: Elsinore, Outer Wilds
Shorter than, but just as resonant and fulfilling as: Eliza (2019)

It's been a while since my last fully linear, rollercoaster-ride shooter campaign. (I checked! it was Wolfenstein II.) Your everyday Call of Duty or Battlefield entry just doesn't catch my eye; but Titanfall 2 did, with its generally positive internet reputation and its - well - big ol' robots.

The campaign's story isn't very noteworthy, really just an adequate excuse to run through levels and chase down some big-bads. I appreciate that the game's mid-bosses have just enough personality to make defeating them feel satisfying; but it's hard to take the story's stakes seriously when villains pop open their cockpits mid-battle to taunt you, or when ridiculous shit like time travel happens and everyone is totally unfazed by it.

And the shooting is also, really, "just pretty okay" in both Titan and Pilot formats. Most of the Titan loadout options feel like they exist more for variety than for practicality, and few of the Pilot's weapons were particularly memorable for me. (Which creates a usability problem, since the game doesn't tell you what kind of gun you're looking at until you pick it up. Like, dude, just show me the "shotgun" or "rifle" designation when it's on the ground; the models aren't distinctive enough!)

But! What does make Titanfall 2's campaign stand out, and what enhances the story's pacing as well as every shootout encounter, is its slick locomotion. Like some kind of Mirror's Edge-with-jetpacks chicanery, Titanfall 2 lets you wall-run around the arena, vault over enemies with a double-jump, even crouch-slide past a vanguard and shoot them right in their confused butts.

And although the campaign doesn't last very long (4 hours), it nevertheless manages to take great advantage of these parkour-with-guns mechanics with some really radical level designs, from floating walls and rotating platforms to running around the exterior of an airship. All while shooting at things!

Titanfall 2 doesn't exactly flip the script on first-person shooter campaigns, but its high-maneuverability combat encounters are a bunch of fun while they last.

(Also, between this game's BT and Jedi: Fallen Order's BD-1, I'm starting to suspect that someone at Respawn likes robot characters more than human ones.)

Better than: Bulletstorm, SuperHot, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Not as good as: Wolfenstein: The New Order
More engaging gameplay, but a less compelling narrative, than: Spec Ops: The Line

Progress: Finished campaign on Regular difficulty.

So... this time, it's Groundhog Day with Shakespeare.

Elsinore is, from the jump, a contemporary re-telling of Hamlet. You've got your throne-stealing fratricide, your dead king haunting up the place, your angsty teenage prince hanging out in graveyards, all the classic plot points; but Elsinore's dialog is written more like what human beings in the 21st century might say to each other.

There are a few casting adjustments, including gender-swapped Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (now, cheekily, "Rosie" and "Guilda") and multi-racial Ophelia and Laertes. These aren't just superficial tweaks: female characters lament their lack of freedom and influence in the world, and Laertes' personality is shaped by the alienation and discrimination he's faced in super-duper-white Denmark.

(Laertes is also a fascinating foil to the more laid-back personality of Othello, who makes a surprise crossover appearance in Elsinore's castle town.)

But Elsinore isn't just a punched-up and self-sufficient take on classic Shakespeare -- it's also a time-looping murder mystery game. You, as Ophelia, must prevent your own untimely death!

The majority of Elsinore's gameplay is information gathering, talking to and observing characters to learn their scandalous secrets. An in-game timeline (like the Bombers' Notebook in Majora's Mask), and a map tracking the cast's movements, guide you toward the story's many parallel and intertwining threads; being in the right place at the right time, to eavesdrop on the right person, will unlock some new information that you can reveal to someone else leading to more revelations and so on.

And as you gradually uncover the truths behind King Hamlet's death, and Claudius's plans, and the Norwegian spy, and the castle guards' late-night tomfoolery, you can use this information to change the story. Tell someone a secret - or even a lie - that will influence them to do something different, and that could alter the chain of events throughout Elsinore.

Even if you still die, the info you gather might let you try something new in the next loop.

There are some parts of the game that feel a little under-polished: like the bland "Try Again" screen at the end of a loop, and the lack of a Skip button for conversations you've had before (so you need to furiously click through each dialog box again), and the timeline's fairly inaccurate timestamp values.

The ending situation is also a bit unsatisfying, although that seems somewhat intentional and very "on brand" for Shakespearean drama. After going through a few of the fate options in the Book of Dionysus, they start to feel tedious and checkbox-ey, which certainly reinforces Quince's ranting about the futility and boredom of mortal existence.

But ultimately those are pretty minor defects in Elsinore's expertly-written story and compelling detective mechanics. And there's so much written content to explore, here, that I was still peeling away and finding fresh layers more than a dozen hours later.

Not what I was expecting from a game based on Shakespeare.

Better than: Eliza (2019), Omensight: Definitive Edition, The Sexy Brutale
Not as good as: The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures, The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve
A much slower burn, but about as good as: Outer Wilds

Progress: saw all the endings, with some internet tips.

Baba is You, with its straightforward way of messaging "the rules" on the game field - but spiraling in complexity as you modify those rules to solve the puzzle - hooked me right away.

That was six months ago.

While Baba does a much better job of constraining state than Recursed did, and that (plus step-by-step rewinding) makes it easy to gradually stumble through its earlier puzzles... it nevertheless reaches a point where rule combinations and intricate solutions require plotting out a brain-breaking number of steps ahead.

And while Baba is kind enough to provide multiple choices of which puzzle to do next, I got stuck in a spot where all of those choices were making me go cross-eyed.

Taking an extended break, and returning to the game with a totally clear perspective, unfortunately didn't help. The rules are clear, but these puzzles still confuse the absolute shit out of me.

I really enjoyed figuring out the less-intricate puzzles, though.

Better than: Recursed
Not as good as: Khimera: Puzzle Island
I even got stuck with hints: because, honestly, these cryptic hints aren't that helpful.

Progress: 62 spores, 4 blossoms.

These misfits may not look quite like their big-screen counterparts, and their backstories may diverge from the movies', but make no mistake: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy thrives on the same rogueish quips, silly humor, and 1980s rock music that's made the MCU Guardians so compelling.

The game starts with our lovable mercenaries, somewhat predictably, "going around the law" and getting themselves into trouble; and as their reckless decision-making gradually heightens those stakes, the Milano puts in some serious miles taking them to various familiar (and unfamiliar) places and characters. Their journey is a surprisingly epic one, always managing to pack in some unexpected and wacky detour while still maintaining a coherent overall plot.

Sometimes the story gives you a choice for what Peter Quill says or does, and sometimes an ominous "Rocket will remember that" may appear in the corner, but this is more for comedic value than for role-playing. And there aren't multiple endings or significant narrative branches here: Guardians focuses itself on a linear thrill-ride of a campaign.

It has some combat, too.

It's not that the party-based fighting action is bad, in fact its combination of mechanics works pretty well!, yelling orders at your AI-operated crew like a Secret of Mana or a Tales game while you yourself hover around on Quill's jet boots taking pot-shots.

But aiming and dodging feels a little more clunky than it should, especially in hectic fights with lots of enemies and flashing effects. And of your special abilities, and the debuffs your crew can apply, only a few really seem worth using (those with stun effects and high-damage explosions).

It's fine, though - as are your very limited level-up and crafting options - because combat is simple enough to be fun, and rarely a frustration or annoyance. And more importantly, because your team is yelling at each other the entire time! The voice-acted back-and-forth, like some spacefaring Nate and Sully routine, continuously reinforces the characterizations of the Guardians.

And the "Huddle" mechanic is an utterly transparent way to give you a quick break mid-battle, then replace the soundtrack with a rockin' power ballad. It's awesome.

Guardians' shooting action could have been more fluid or tactical, and its progression could have been more elaborate, but they didn't really need to be -- the "gameplay" is more than adequate in accompanying, puncuating, and spicing up its protagonists' banter on their crazy, dramatic, hilarious adventure.

Better than: Mass Effect 3, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Not as good as: Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Most-wanted addition to the MCU: definitely Cosmo, although this game universe's Mantis is a close second.

Am I in a time-loop of playing games that are, themselves, time-loops? Maybe. But Omensight isn't another Deathloop or Katana Zero or Outer Wilds so much as it's another Stories: The Path of Destinies.

(It's from the same developer, so, makes sense.)

Just like Stories, this is a hybrid of button-mashy combat and choose-your-own-adventure-style branching paths; here, the trick is that some information you learn - the titular "omen sights" - can be shared with NPCs in the next loop, causing them to make different choices and reveal even more clues.

With well-written hints at every beat, suggesting your next steps without giving them away, and with merciful time skips when you've already seen some events, Omensight's mystery-adventure storytelling is a pretty great iteration on Stories. And the plot that you gradually uncover is ... fine, given that its original ending is unsatisfying as hell and a "good" ending had to be patched in later.

The combat is improved too, though still fairly imperfect. Well-timed dodges slow everything down, helping you set up counterattacks; and diverse enemy tactics keep fights from becoming too repetitive. But shoddy auto-targeting, lengthy recoveries from interrupts, and a few particularly annoying enemies (like dudes with shields who can also teleport away) can make some encounters fairly frustrating.

It's still fun most of the time, though. And even when it isn't, combat is kinda just punctuation between story events.

At the end of the day, Omensight is a better version of Spearhead's previous time-looping adventure, and I don't think I'd be disappointed if they keep on making them.

Better than: Stories: The Path of Destinies
Not as good as: The Sexy Brutale
It's funny: I hate dying-and-retrying in a game, but these time loop narratives do the same thing and I love it.

Outer Wilds has a strangely bland opening, with lifeless NPCs spewing control tutorials at you and sending you on errands to talk to other lifeless NPCS, but after exhausting those errands (or, when you finally get tired of them) and climbing into a ramshackle spaceship -- you sloppily blast off, gaze in awe at a weird, mystifying solar system, and (if you're as bad a Kerbal as I am) crash into the moon at fatal speed. And then you wake up ready to do it again.

If Deathloop is Groundhog Day with guns, then Outer Wilds is Groundhog Day with a spaceship.

But while Colt's time-loop detective work was tempered with firefights and magic abilities, Outer Wilds is all in on investigation. Each loop gives you an opportunity to explore another location, or try walking another path, to discover something new; to gradually unravel the mysteries of this system's exotic and bizarre planets, and records left by a long-dead spacefaring civilization.

If you ever wanted a version of Metroid Prime with no combat, like, just solving puzzles and scanning for info about the Chozo and Space Pirates, then this is definitely the game for you.

And as difficult as it is to do open-world, non-linear mystery solving, Outer Wilds pretty much pulls it off -- thanks to great hints in the log, to alluring visuals that draw you toward interesting locations, and especially to the ingenious "signalscope" which points you toward tantalizing radio signals. When this formula is firing on all cylinders, it's delightfully empowering, finding clues and connecting leads all at your own pace.

It doesn't always come together, though, and it's really a shame that when your leads aren't quite leading enough - when you've explored an area but missed some key detail, when you're struggling to understand the map, or when you're in the right place but at the wrong time - having to restart the loop and try again can make Outer Wilds feel... samey. (Liability of a time loop, I guess.)

The flaws are easy to criticize in retrospect: it's hard to locate specific milestones in dense locations like The Hanging City and The Sunless City, and it's hard to schedule time-sensitive paths like Ash Twin's partially-sandy hallway to the Sun Station portal. One non-obvious solution in particular, having to move Brittle Hollow's Black Hole Forge and then go to Ash Twin to portal back to Brittle Hollow, is a pretty significant bottleneck in Outer Wilds's trail of investigation.

And after a few instances of "wasting" an entire loop because I couldn't find the right log, or didn't do something in the right order, I started resorting to online guidance. Which dulled the satisfaction of discovery, but at least helped me see the mystery through without losing my mind.

I enjoyed exploring the world of Outer Wilds, and I really enjoyed following its in-game breadcrumbs, feeling like I was uncovering revelatory information every step of the way. I do wish that its in-game hinting was a little bit better at linking everything together; more signalscope targets would've been great!

But its obtuse points are a small part of the overall experience, and that experience, the joy and thrill of discovery in a weird solar system, is absolutely worthwhile.

Better than: The Sexy Brutale, Stories: The Path of Destinies
Not as good as: well, I think there's yet to be a better time-loop detective story.
Just as good as: Deathloop, but with, y'know, less death.

Progress: completed the ship log, with internet help.