In case it wasn't obvious from the past few weeks of rapid-fire glogging, I'm presently trying to burn through my backlog. No mercy; no remorse. I've been making it a point to target smaller games, and/or ones I expect to get fed up with quickly. In that respect, BattleBlock Theater is ... something of an anomaly.

I made the purchase based on interweb recommendation, but other than hilarious narration, I really had no idea what to expect going in. It looks like a multi-agent battle arena? Or some kind of platform-puzzle game, ala Blocks That Matter? In fact, BattleBlock Theater is a platformer -- and the reason that this isn't visually clear, is because it's a non-traditional platformer, in many ways. You'll drown in water blocks, but lava blocks aren't fatal, and in fact propel you to new heights. There are enemies, but jumping on them doesn't tend to hurt you, or them; in fact, you can ride them like platforms. There is a context-specific control for paddling your hand in the water, in order to draw a boat toward you. Yeah, it's, bizarre.

But it works! Actually playing the game, it's clear that this is a movement-oriented platformer with fresh and creative mobility challenges. Collecting gems and navigating to the end of a level is a unique and fun exercise in exploring the game's varied, wacky movement mechanics. And while early levels are simple, it isn't long before they get pretty challenging, between mazes of deadly obstacles (with thankfully-forgiving checkpoints) and time limits that turn some levels into hectic races against the clock.

So, BattleBlock turned out to surprise and impress me with its clever design. And, it is fairly fun, in general. But the catch is that - not unlike Behemoth's previous games, Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers - it's just a bit too repetitive. New mechanics aren't introduced quite fast enough, and variations on existing mechanics iterate a tad too slowly. The number of levels in a chapter seems high, and the differences between them seem low, given they block progress through the game's story. (And for what it's worth, the story cutscenes, while very funny, also feel like they drag on.)

And there is a glut of content in this game, evidently, somewhere on the order of 100-150 levels over eight chapters. Unfortunately, that's the punchline for me. I'm already getting a little bored with the level design, only one chapter in; so I know that I'll get tired and resentful of the game long before reaching the end.

BattleBlock Theater is a very cool idea, and I'm glad I played of it what I did. But, I'm also perfectly content to stop at this fairly early point, rather than trying harder and harder to squeeze enjoyment out of it as the story proceeds.

That said, the prospect of multiplayer co-op here sounds pretty appealing, as well -- so maybe I'll be back, with a friend, later on.

Progress: Finished Chapter 1, started Chapter 2.

Granted, I played it out of its release-date sequence -- but New Super Mario Bros. 2 just feels indefensibly not-new. The "New" SMB formula has run its course. And this installment's unique feature - excessive coin-collecting - just isn't that interesting. The moment-to-moment gameplay feels stale and sterile.

Also, I don't seem to be able to tolerate the 3DS's physical buttons as much as I used to. At least not in a realtime platforming context. Not sure why it's different now, but, holding 'Y' and pressing 'B' intermittently feels strangely uncomfortable.

Progress: Finished the first world mid-boss, collected 893 coins.

It took well over an hour of gameplay for me to get to what, I felt, should be the game's second level -- based on the complexity of its platform and puzzle design. This was actually the tenth level. Or maybe the eleventh. It's hard to remember, because they all blur together; as beautiful as Qbeh can look, its environments quickly become repetitive and dull.

With the game's lack of mechanics and glacial pacing - oh yeah, the second type of puzzle cube is ... barely different from the first - the burden of motivating the player falls upon the world design. And the world doesn't have enough features or variety to be compelling, either.

Qbeh isn't a bad game, but perhaps overestimates its ability to entice and excite, and feels overextended as a result. I think it would have worked much better if there were just less, faster-paced levels.

Better than: Kairo
Not as good as: Q.U.B.E.
Also: the name, I mean, really? I guess it's a prequel to a game called just Qbeh. Why is this installment numbered '1' and with a subtitle? It just sounds ridiculous.

Progress: Gave up in World 2, Level 6.

"Qbeh-1: The Atlas Cube" - or simply Qbeh as a less-insane person might call it - is not quite what it at first appears to be. It certainly has all the apparent trappings of a first-person room-puzzler in the vein of Portal/2, Antichamber, Q.U.B.E., et al. But inbetween the puzzle portions of Qbeh lies an environmentally-driven, highly-aesthetic experience, not unlike Kairo. There's a complete lack of narrative backdrop; only a wide open cube-world to look out at. Significant swaths of each level have no mechanical relevance at all; just grand vistas and fascinating architecture. The water and lighting effects on display here are surprisingly high-quality, for how humble a production it is overall.

And, well, it's a good thing that Qbeh looks as gorgeous as it does. At least so far, there isn't much else going for it -- the puzzles are pretty reliant on semi-awkward platforming, and the basic puzzle mechanic of the first few levels (placing and removing blocks) becomes repetitive in short order. There are barely even any hints of new mechanics, so far. Here's hoping they start to show up soon.

Progress: Finished Chapter 1

I wasn't super-into Shank, as I recall -- its button-mashy combat formula was okay, but, not really my thing. Where Mark of the Ninja really impressed me with its mechanical polish and sophisticated objectives, Shank felt more lke a loosely-defined muder-and-mayhem sandbox (murderbox?). Shank 2, somehow, manages to feel even less well-defined than its predecessor: there are variable loadouts, such that even the most basic assumption of what weapons to use, no longer held up; and as soon as the first level, a significant number of varied enemy types tackled me at once, demanding mastery over the controls that the tutorial really hadn't prepared me for.

I lamented of the original Shank that it lacked in pretty much everything, except hit-or-miss ultra-hectic action. Shank 2 seems to be made for the player who wanted more of exactly that, at the expense of everything else.

Progress: Didn't finish Chapter 1.

Brief and modest as it is, Finding Teddy manages to embody almost everything that I hate about "classic"-styled point-and-click adventure games:

• The controls are bad. Clickable hotspots are big, but hard to spot, leading to an unreasonably high incidence of mis-clicks. And the game's few puzzle-like mechanics are very poorly explained, if at all.
• Items and puzzle solutions are absurdly nonsensical. These things make Monkey Island 2's "monkey wrench" look downright intuitive. This shit is pretty bananas.
• There is a central puzzle mechanic that involves spelling things with shapes that look like letters. Except, they don't actually look much like letters. It would be one thing if it wasn't clear that they're supposed to be letters, but even after knowing that they are, reading them is almost impossible.
• Backtracking. For how short it is, there is a surprising amount of backtracking.
• And, yeah. It's short.

Confession time: I didn't get very far into the game before requiring tips from a guide. I don't feel bad about it at all, either; to try and figure out what Finding Teddy was trying to tell me, without some extra hand-holding, doesn't seem like it would've been even remotely reasonable. And unfortunately, with the route clear and the solutions exposed, the game's atmosphere is pretty wanting -- a bit like Limbo, but, less interesting.

I at least have a little admiration for the artistic theme. But it isn't worth trudging through the game to experience, and it certainly isn't worth going completely insane attempting to comprehend its puzzles.

Better than: Dear Esther, I guess
Not as good as: Broken Age, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, Gone Home, ... the list goes on
I was considering scooping up a few more easy Steam achievements: but some of them require playing through the game a second time. No, thanks.

Progress: Finished once.

Like Knife of Dunwall, Brigmore Witches is a nice little slice of Dishonored. This DLC has less levels than its predecessor, but they're larger, more varied, and fuller of free-form activities. It has more interesting encounters, particularly those involving the titular witches, which (more so than the magic-resilient overseers) inject some fresh challenge into the game's combat. Its story is also stronger - building on the previously-set foundation to wrap up its side-story - although the ending is a bit over-wrought, and ultimately it's content to live in the shadow of Dishonored's tale, freely giving up some opportunities to further explore the lore of the Outsider and the Void.

Together, Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches form a worthy companion to the main game. They don't exceed, or even quite meet, the level of satisfaction that Dishonored's original campaign delivered -- with its broader set of levels, and its greater amount of fun abilities. But they perfectly implement the original's same fundamentals of stealth, exploration, combat, and assassination. They offer more Dishonored, and that's a good thing.

Better than: Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall
Not as good as: BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 2
Strongly suggests: that, independent of Corvo (and maybe even of Dunwall), there is plenty of opportunity for a Dishonored 2.

Progress: Finished with high chaos.

Greed Corp's deceptively simple mechanics are implemented really well -- the ways in which they balance and counteract each other can turn the tide of a match in an instant. Consequently, skillful play involves a chess-like ability to think many moves ahead, predicting wildly disparate branches of possibility.

Unfortunately, I don't have this skill. And the game's campaign requires it pretty quickly: before the end of its first-of-four series of faction-specific missions.

I know when I'm beat. And I'm comfortable admitting that this (again, well-made) game has simply gotten the better of me.

Progress: Finished uh... four campaign levels.

Not having played Dishonored in ... wow, a year and a half?, I've forgotten a great deal about the core game's extensive and somewhat meticulous lore. The Knife of Dunwall DLC, taking place in parallel to the main campaign, unfortunately did little to meaningfully refresh my memory. To be more precise: what's unfortunate is that, although this is technically a side-story, it is steeped deeply enough in Dishonored's world that its characters and world design fail to resonate without that context clearly in mind. After that, all that's left to the story is a fairly obvious teaser for the next DLC.

Fortunately, the absence of a compelling story doesn't bring Dishonored's excellent gameplay formulae down one bit. Although Knife of Dunwall is a pretty small slice of the game's design - with just a handful of levels and only a few collectible upgrades - there is still plenty of opportunity in here to sneak, fight, and assassinate. It certainly looks like the DLC's missions preserve the game's core strength of tackling objectives in multiple ways, although I can personally only vouch for the same sneak-and-neck-stab approach I took in the original. And that remains unbelievably fun, so, I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Knife of Dunwall fails to distinguish itself from the original game's story, but is still a fun mini-campaign thanks to Dishonored's fantastic gameplay.

Better than: BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 1
Not as good as: BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 2
And though he starts to phone in his performance near the end: Michael Madsen plays a convincingly gruff mercenary kingpin while he's at it.

Progress: Finished with high chaos.

I'd read once - somewhere, on the interweb - Gone Home being called an "Oscar bait" video game -- and while it did win no shortage of awards last year, I don't think that evaluation of it is completely fair. While it's true that it tackles a story one could accuse of award-baiting, and its "gameplay" resembles that of an annoying post-modern walking simulator, this isn't just pretentious arthouse fluff; there is some real narrative substance to it.

Gone Home is a first-person, exploration-based, pure-story game. There's no action, and there are no visible characters; the story is told forensically, by examining notes and other objects found throughout the game's titular home. While there is an amount of reading to do, Gone Home also uses a bit of narrative liberty to provide voice-overs relevant to its main plot thread. This particular liberty is the only aspect of Gone Home I would really call unrealistic, but it's done so well that I didn't even think about it until after finishing the game.

It's important to note that the story Gone Home tells is a good one. It's well-written, it's believable and human, and its pacing is remarkably good at producing tension and anxiety (despite its retrospective context). By the end, I really felt close to the characters at the center of its story.

But here's where the other shoe drops: it is short. Steam tells me I finished my playthrough in 1.2 hours -- that's including a little bit of idle exploration and dicking around. I bet you could speed-run this thing in like 10, 15 minutes, without missing any significant content.

Gone Home could use more story. And what's interesting is that it seems like it might have had some, earlier in development. There are other characters - tertiary to the main plot - that seem to have tales of their own to tell, as shown in some other notes and items around the house. The house overall is super-well-detailed, and there is plenty of space (and narrative excuse) for it to accommodate even more storytelling. In short, all the materials to support additional story threads are here.

Instead, it seems like The Fullbright Company made a deliberate decision to focus specifically on one thread. And to their credit, it's really well done. But the game ends up feeling very small as a result. And the math is hard to deny: with a full price of $20, and a running time of under two hours, Gone Home has one of the worst dollars-per-hour ratios in the history of video games.

Buy this on a Steam super-sale for a few bucks, and enjoy it before bed, or while waiting for another game to download. Gone Home's story is a worthy addition to any mental library; it just isn't worth that much money. (I'm rating this "Good" on the assumption that no one would ever pay full price for it.)

Better than: Dear Esther
Not as good as: Analogue: A Hate Story
Seriously guys: Just, I dunno, do some DLC that narrates and completes the other characters' stories. (Free DLC. Come on.)