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.

I didn't play enough of Rebel Galaxy Outlaw to give it a fair shake; just enough to recognize what I miss - or to realize what I don't miss - from space-life simulators like Escape Velocity.

Something I miss: "safe" progression options, or to put it another way, options to create my own stepping-stones toward a fully decked-out warship. Modern games in this vein do consistently include features like asteroid mining, commodity trading, and simple transport missions, but as I lamented in the first Rebel Galaxy, they tend to be very ornamental and not worth the time. (Outlaw has at least some of these, but they're so poorly tutorialized that I don't think the game even wants me to do them.)

Something I don't miss: destinations, like planets and space stations, that are really just text menus. 3030 Deathwar Redux did a great job of building the illusion that you were actually walking around a spaceport using computer terminals and chatting with NPCs; I wish more genre revivals would take that hint instead of copying the same menu UIs from 20+ years ago. (Outlaw has 3D renderings of your character interactions, and even some voice acting, but you still click through menus - and submenus! - to initiate actions, so the facade is entirely transparent.)

Something I miss: a bit of substance to space travel. Pointing at a nav marker and waiting for time to pass is no fun (yo, Starpoint Gemini 2), but neither is fast-traveling straight to your objective. Between sublight piloting inside a system, and hyperspeed navigation across systems, one or the other should have enough mechanical complexity to make star-hopping feel earned. (Outlaw lacks complexity in either, with automatic docking and one-button autopilot jumps.)

Something I don't miss: impenetrable ship combat. As with navigation, "some" complexity in targeting or maneuvering can be thrilling, but if a game can't pull off Strike Suit Zero I'd rather it keep things simple like the original Rebel Galaxy. Clunky aiming and firing (like Space Pirates and Zombies), or a proliferation of fiddly energy options a'la "redirect weapons power to shields" (like Outlaw), can make dogfights feel more like work than a game. (Outlaw does implement a great "follow target" simplification, but throttle-control and evasion are terribly unwieldy.)

And something I kind of miss: compelling storytelling. I know the old games' mission narratives were just walls of text, and that doesn't cut it anymore, but you can't just whip up some 3D character models and lip-synced voice acting and call it a day. Without interesting characters or engaging events, why should I upgrade my ship or explore the galaxy? (Outlaw starts with a wordless animated short that feels like a concept pitch for investors; then the main character's voice-overs sound genuinely uninterested in her own plot.)

I think I'd be kidding myself to believe that substantive, well-written, and well-acted story content could come from anything short of a AAA budget; and even epics like Mass Effect miss those marks pretty regularly. But I do want to believe there's some satisfying compromise, some way for a small, independent production to deliver a good story - and a few fascinating side-stories - in an open galaxy with fun (if simple) mechanics. Like a sane version of Star Citizen.

Dystopian future sci-fi. Neon vaporwave art and music. Sword-slinging bullet-deflection and dismemberment. Tactical slow-mo. What's not to like about Katana Zero?

Well, believe it or not, this time-manipulation action game doesn't let you rewind mid-level -- despite having narrative justification for it. Instead, when you die, the game rewinds all the way back to the start of the level, making you try the whole thing again.

This is a little annoying in early levels, and becomes quite annoying as enemies become stronger and levels become more complex.

So when I reached the halfway point of the game's final "bunker" area, and needed a break from the die-and-retry stress, I checked a look at what lies ahead of me and decided ... nah.

Katana Zero's storytelling and aesthetics are really compelling; and when the action is flowing, it's a thrill. I enjoyed those parts of the game in spite of its frustrating retry loops. And I'm acutely aware that, if I kept going, the frustrations would overtake the fun.

Better than: Deadbolt, Ronin, Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones, Super Time Force Ultra
Not as good as: Mark of the Ninja: Remastered
It's a short game, but: its soundtrack will be in my playlist for many more hours to come.

Progress: gave up in the bunker.

With a grid-based map, save-point safe rooms, hidden treasure chests, button-mashy combat, level-ups... I really thought that Batbarian's demo was teasing a full-blown Bloodstained-style Igavania. But after soaking in the full game - now en-subtitled Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials - for a couple hours, I've come to realize that it's really more of a platforming beat-em-up adventure that's borrowed a 'vania framework.

That is, instead of rapidly accruing new equipment and upgrades that unlock new map areas or overpower enemies, I'm really just solving mildly-puzzling navigation and combat challenges by feeding specialized berries to a magic bat.

That it's more of an action and platforming game than I expected isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I still appreciate the game's humorous dialog...

... but without an abundance of Metroid-ey upgrades, or the mechanical complexity that can make a puzzle-vania, I'm just not that interested.

Better than: Chasm, Pocket Kingdom
Not as good as: Iconoclasts, Timespinner
Narratively better, but playing it feels more tedious, than: Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

Progress: Level 8, rescued Twigs, got to a dried-up underground lake?

Untitled Goose Game has more of a QWOP-like, hard-to-control angle than I expected. Not that it's an outright gamepad stress-test, but, moving around and picking things up is just difficult enough (and slow enough) to discourage me from experimenting in the game's sandbox.

Which makes "playing" the game, as in figuring out how to fulfill its puzzle-y objectives, basically moot: I'm not having fun discovering how the level's elements work, let alone putting those elements together for a solution.

Being a jerk goose sounds a lot more fun than it is in practice.

Progress: got to the Back Gardens