Closure has come a long way since the free/demo version however-many years ago, and it's in all the right ways.

Undoubtedly most important is the puzzle design, which - although I have a lot of the game left to explore - has done a really amazing job of gradually introducing puzzle concepts. The core mechanic, where the world is non-interactive until lit up, remains constant; but every proceeding puzzle is designed with a new light-related object, or a new combinatory quirk, to make every challenge unique. The puzzles are also atomic enough that, although it's possible to screw up and need to restart, you'll never lose more than a few seconds of progress.

The art style is also impressively complete, and cohesive. In keeping with the game's light/dark theme, environments are steeped in twisted, dark architecture, and everything from the flickering lanterns to the player character's spidery legs oozes a sense of "creepy." Comparisons to Limbo are unescapable, but fitting: take that game's stark, darkness-infused anxiety, combine it with the stylishness of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, and you'll have an idea of how slick Closure can be. Not to mention a moody, yet energetic soundtrack.

So far, the puzzles are pretty simple, but in ways that still make me struggle to mentally overcome them. And that's the real genius of the game, that the central light mechanic is such a radical departure from the norm, forcing you to laterally think about how ambient darkness can change the landscape. Remember when you first learned how to think with portals? Yeah, it's a little like that. Pretty cool.

Progress: Finished 9 hub-world puzzles.

I've revisited my Ouya a couple times over the past few days, and have some additional (and amended) thoughts.

• The console is not as "dead silent" as I previously remarked; watching some movies on it, the fan did kick in after several minutes of continuous use. It's certainly not louder than a current-gen system's fans or disc drive, but that the Ouya makes even this amount of noise is a bit of a let-down. For media viewing purposes, there are fanless Android systems with enough horsepower to decode video, at roughly the same price point.
• A new system update hit yesterday, presumably to prepare for retail launch. I haven't noticed many changes in the Discover or Play experiences, but the update does make it more difficult to use non-Ouya software -- a USB keyboard can no longer navigate the Make menu properly, so I need to use the controller to select the XBMC app, then switch to a keyboard to actually control it.
• On that note, an annoying quirk of the system is that when you turn it off from the menu - using the Power Off button/command - the system doesn't actually turn off; it only goes into a low-power mode. This means that turning it "back on" is almost instantaneous, but also that you have to power-cycle the console to truly reset it. Why would you need to reset it, you might ask? Well, if you have a USB keyboard plugged in, then a wireless controller will sync up as Player 2 instead of 1, even after un-plugging the keyboard.

I also got to try some new, or perhaps just newly-featured, games.

ShadowGun: The tutorial leaves out key (and fortunately obvious) mechanics, the voice acting is fairly awful, entire words are missing from the in-game text, and the controls are generally bad, with no aim button, a dumb cover system, and a few obvious button-timing bugs. But, ShadowGun is remarkable because it's a 3D Ouya game - or, to be more precise, Android/Tegra game - that actually looks pretty good. Other developers should take note of this, not PC games from 2004 or slapdash iOS ports, as the graphical bar they should be aiming for. And it's made in Unity3D, so, it's not like you have to make a huge engine investment to pull this off.

TowerFall: Solo, I can easily tell that this game is meant for more players. And the controls are a little iffy (which may have more to do with controller latency than the game itself). But this actually seems slightly promising as a Super Smash Bros.-style party game. If only I'd ordered three more controllers...

Summarily, I have less confidence in the system hardware/software quality than I once did, but more hope for its game library, which is really the important thing for Ouya. Time will have to tell if these launch games are hints of a brighter future, or red herrings in a sea full of, uh ... garbage fish.

Game design - or at least, good game design - is tricky. I'm no designer; I've never made a game myself. But I have played hundreds of them, good and otherwise, and I have been able to pick up on some patterns that work, and some that don't. To wit: when a game world is unreal or fantastical in some way, it is the job of the game's mechanics to make sense of those departures from reality -- to overcome high obstacles with a powerful jump, to conquer faraway enemies with a ranged attack, to deflect magic with a magic shield, and so on. To me, the fundamental failure of Blocks That Matter - and to be fair, what also makes it creatively interesting - is that its mechanics only add to its eccentricity. As new mechanics are unlocked, the game doesn't just become more nuanced and challenging, it also becomes more confusing and obtuse.

To begin with, your character can destroy certain blocks, by drilling into or jumping under them, and then place these blocks in the environment to reach new areas. If this sounds like Minecraft: Java Edition (and it probably isn't a coincidence that the block types are modeled after the types in Minecraft), then you'll be surprised to learn that you can only place blocks in tetrominoes -- that is, four at a time in a contiguous shape; although you can then proceed to break individual blocks out of this four. Furthermore, certain block types obey gravity and certain types don't (again, hello Minecraft), but these categories seem totally arbitrary: stone and wood can float in mid-air, but sand and obsidian fall if nothing is supporting them.

The last level I played introduced a mechanic where you can destroy eight (not four) blocks in a line, anywhere on the screen, but you won't recover the blocks -- they're destroyed, due to the law of "non-preservation" of matter, per the game's narration. But the mechanic that made me emit an audible "wut" was, uh, running. Yeah, you can run, and in so doing cross large gaps with a running jump. But there's no dedicated run button; while drilling, you are also running. Why are these two, completely distinct functions, simultaneous with one another? It's just so peculiar.

I don't know that I've ever given up on a game for this reason before, but Blocks That Matter is simply too illogical for me. It's not hard to play, but it's hard to understand; I guess it would be fair to say that I don't "get" it. And I don't have any reason to believe that I can "get" it through continued play. For me, Blocks That Matter is the antithesis of good game design - I'm effectively getting worse at the game the more I play it - and I have no interest in delving deeper into this rabbit hole.

Progress: 7%

Alright, so: last year, I pledged for a Kickstarter Limited Edition Ouya, with four controllers, each etched with my Ouya username. On Friday - four days before the retail release date - I received a non-limited edition Ouya with only one, un-etched, controller; essentially equivalent to the product that will be on retail shelves come Tuesday. Actually, since the controller I received still has the latency and button-stick issues that were fixed for retail units, retail buyers will get an all-around better deal than this.

I've submitted a support ticket regarding my obviously-wrong shipment, but there hasn't been any response yet.

So my opinion of Ouya's distribution and fulfillment is about as low as possible. With that bar set, let's take a look at the system itself.

First off, I have to give props for the mini-console's design and construction. The form factor is tiny, with just enough space to plug in power, HDMI, Ethernet, a USB device, and a micro-USB cable (more on these inputs in a bit). It's dead silent, and the power light isn't so bright that it'll keep anyone awake at night. The numeric specs are excellent, at least in theory, with current-enough video hardware and a hefty - for the price - amount of onboard storage for downloaded games and software. The little box is impressively solid, yet surprisingly user-serviceable. So, great job on that front.

That said: the controller is bad. Not the worst game controller in history, but certainly worse than current-gen console controllers, and definitely not worth the $50 that they'll be going for at retail. What do I mean by "bad?" Well, aside from the early-production flaws I've already mentioned:

• Putting the batteries under the left and right faceplates - in fact, having removable faceplates at all - is a dumb idea. There's no rational explanation for this. It would have been far more sensible to just use a covered compartment in the back of the controller, like almost every other piece of battery-powered electronics known to man; instead, the faceplate magnets must strike a balance between "too hard to remove by accident" and "easy enough to remove on purpose," with the result satisfying the former but not the latter. It's a completely unnecessary inconvenience.
• The rear (analog) shoulder buttons feel incredibly cheap, like the plastic covers could snap under moderate pressure, and the springs supporting them might fly loose at any moment. On my controller, even the left and right shoulders have different levels of resistance.
• The d-pad is awful. It doesn't feel as "loose" as the Xbox 360's, but you're just as likely to hit the wrong direction on the Ouya's d-pad, because it simply isn't constructed right: the whole pad can be pressed down independently of a directional button. There's no solid axis to move your thumb around.
• And the controller shape, as a whole, just doesn't feel right. The handle portions on the left and right side are wide and oblong, rather than circular, as with any other modern controller; and the shoulder corners are angled rather than rounded. So actually gripping the controller with your fingers, on both the top and bottom, isn't comfortable at all.

If Ouya was my baby, I would have outsourced the controller design and manufacuring to a Logitech, or a Mad Catz, or what have you -- to anyone who had any idea how to make a controller. Because whoever designed this one, clearly didn't. And it's no more technically complex than current game controllers: it has the same number of buttons and the same level of analog input as Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers, and uses plain-jane Bluetooth for wireless communication. This really shouldn't have been that hard.

Alright. Now what happens when you turn the Ouya on? Well, the first problem is the built-in wi-fi, which is absolute garbage. I'm far from the only one who's noticed this -- my personal experience was an initial failure to connect, then success when downloading the initial system software update, then another failure after the console rebooted. I was counting on using a wired connection anyway, and that works just fine, but be warned: if you're expecting to use your Ouya wirelessly, you might have to change that expectation.

The system-setup process as a whole is a bit rough. The parts where you have to make some kind of input - such as signing in with your username and password - work well enough from an Android application standpoint, but aren't really made for a controller. If you don't have any experience using a current (as in Jelly Bean) Android device, managing this part of the UI will probably be pretty confusing for you.

Once you get past that, you'll be in the Ouya interface, which is immediately friendlier than stock Android but more than a little obtuse. The main menu has four options: "Play," "Discover," "Make," and "Manage." The first thing you'll probably want to do is Play, but since you haven't downloaded any games yet, you can't; you have to Discover them first. (The system UI will assist you in this transition, but the terminology still strikes me as unintuitive.)

The Discover screen acts as the Ouya's storefront, and the most direct comparison I can think of is the Nintendo 3DS eShop, because both are equally arbitrary and unhelpful. Ouya's Discover page consists of rows of curated categories, like "Featured" or "Made for Ouya" or "Developer X's Playlist," each row consisting of an arbitrary number of items, with of course some overlap between rows. Further down the page are genre categories that you can browse through, but with eccentric genres like "Short on Time?" and "Fight!" this isn't a great content guide either. Finally, if you know what you want, you can use a search function and just type in a name -- not exactly what I'd classify as Discover, but it works.

I've tried eight free/demo games, based on the recommendations of the Discover page and of some other sources on the web - so, the cream of the crop, as far as I know - and here are my thoughts on each of them. Spoiler alert: I didn't play any of these games for more than a few minutes.

A Bit of a Fist of Awesome (a demo for "Fist of Awesome"): Playing as a lumberjack who punches deer and bears, there is a certain amount of quaint charm to this one. But the gameplay is incredibly shallow, and the faintly-humorous setting is completely offset by agonizingly slow movement and progress. The production quality is mediocre at best, except for the sound effects, which are actually painful to listen to.

The Bard's Tale (a port of the 2004 InXile adventure/RPG): I want to make sure the previous parenthetical statement is clear -- this isn't a remake, or even an "enhanced" port. This is a game from 2004, and it looks and plays like it. I could be wrong, but I think some of the assets were actually downsampled for mobile distribution; the intro cinematic looks lower-res than an iPod Nano. And, as an older game, it doesn't have the amount of respect for the player's time that modern games do. I force-quit after about three minutes of the "Beer, Beer, Beer" song.

ChronoBlade: While not an Ouya-exclusive, Ouya is supposed to be a lead platform for this sci-fi beat-em-up, which is why it's so distressing that the game runs like total shit on here. It's hard to get past the deplorable framerate, but if you do, you'll see a rather rote and unengaging button-masher. Of course it doesn't help that the game has no real intro or tutorial, so it's up to you to figure out which buttons to mash.

Flashout 3D: Really reminds me of Extreme-G, in the sense that the course is long and boring, and the AI isn't designed to form a pack -- so after the race begins, seeing your opponents again is a true rarity. There are a bunch of item pickups that ... I'm not really sure what they do. Since your racer accelerates automatically, all you have to (or can) do is steer and turbo-boost. It's just, really, really dull.

No Brakes Valet: No tutorial, no explanation. The game just started. So, I guess I'm supposed to steer this car into a parking spot? And it decelerates by itself? How the hell does this work? -- Whatever, not interesting enough to care.

Polarity: Although styled after Portal and its ilk, Polarity totally misses the point, which is to be fun, at all. You'll pick up blocks to activate widgets, and switch colors (red/blue) to either pass through or interact with similarly-colored environmental objects. But those mechanics are the only things happening here: there's no narrative, and there isn't any art. If I had cared enough to get past the first few rooms, I might have found that - according to web reviews - it's also extremely short. So, cool tech demo.

Saturday Morning RPG: This is the most fleshed-out game I tried, but still of a pretty low quality overall. The game's visual style, where characters are 2D sprites in a 3D polygon world, doesn't really work; the sprites aren't billboarded, they're just flat objects, and when the camera pans around them, characters will disappear into line segments. The combat gameplay is a mish-mash of simple, touchscreen-appropriate gimmicks, but other than a power-charge move, there's no depth in any of it. (There are also some real-time combat features, ala Mario & Luigi, but the Ouya controller's latency ruins them.) And while the writing has its moments - like a wizard who wears a Power Glove and uses the 1980's form of the word "bad" - most of it is workaday exposition to fill in an uninspired story.

The Ball: Yeah, the first-person puzzler that served as one of the earliest UDK releases. The PC release was pretty "Meh" on its own, but the Ouya version has ... dramatically down-rezzed textures! I know the Ouya is based on a mobile chipset, but that doesn't mean you have to use mobile-quailty art assets. Seriously -- on a TV screen, this just looks horrendous. And yet somehow, it's still a 725 MB download (compared to 10-100 MB for the other games I tried). Oh, also, The Ball doesn't take advantage of analog control stick input, so nudging the stick even a little bit makes you beeline in a cardinal direction.

As an additional note, all of these games had unexpectedly long load times, leading me to believe that the system's flash memory is cheap and slow.

Last year, I praised the Ouya model of requiring a demo or free version of uploaded games, as a great means of enticing people into the online store. Now, it seems like an absolute necessity for the console to get any use at all, because I can't imagine spending any amount of money on any of the games currently available. Will the store's offerings suddenly explode for the Tuesday retail launch, with new and exciting games, or at least something beyond "cheap port" or "tech demo?" I guess it's possible. But I'm not betting on it.

But my game experience isn't the end of my story, because even if I never use my Ouya for gaming, it's still got one trick left up its sleeve: a media center client. So I plugged the Ouya into my PC using the USB micro port, used the Android SDK tools to install the Android version of XBMC, eventually found the app under the Ouya's "Make" menu (since the Ouya UI was designed under the assumption that side-loaded software is a game you're developing), and ran it like any normal Android app. And XBMC works pretty well on the Ouya, so, that's cool. The current Android version of Netflix apparently doesn't work so great here, but an Ouya version is supposed to be coming eventually.

I still believe in the Ouya idea, and the product has in fact delivered on a few of its promises: specifically, a user-centric software experience, and a developer-friendly ecosystem with no exorbitant devkit costs. But it falls too short on too many others: certain key hardware specs (wi-fi and flash storage) are insufficient, the controller is terrible, the system UI isn't polished enough, the storefront doesn't solve the iTunes Store problem of software discovery, and the early-availability games - at least, the "best" ones I could find - are of a universally low quality.

If this system has ultimately succeeded at anything, it's being a $100 Android-powered media center -- which, to be fair, is still pretty nice. I dunno what I'm going to do with those four controllers, though. If I ever get the other three.

It's here; it's finally, finally here.

Now, if nothing else, I can pair the four controllers I pledged for, start up some multiplayer demo, and show my bu--

... Really?

Unlike Alice: Madness Returns, The Darkness II has more than one thing going for it. It has a cool art style, with semi-realistic elements bordered by comic-book-style thick lines; it has a nuanced story supported by a strong voice cast; and it has multidimensional, varied gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately, many of those mechanics are less-than-fully baked, and a peppering of design missteps ruin the goodwill that the game would otherwise garner from what it actually does right.

From the beginning, it's hard to identify with protagonist Jackie Estacado, and not because he's the vessel for a supernatural darkness monster. The game tries to play up his personal plights - cursed with a power he doesn't want, lost his girlfriend in a mob conflict - but whenever the game actually shows Jackie in action, he's no more human than the monster arms that sprout out of him, and the only emotion that comes out of him is rage. Jackie's no anti-hero; he's just a mobster sociopath. And it's too bad, because some of the storytelling techniques that surround Jackie are actually quite good! He simply isn't deep enough to be properly molded by them.

So then there's the shooting- and arm-grabbing-gameplay. This seems promising at first, since it's more than just pointing guns at things, but like Jackie himself there isn't much water in this pool. Weapon types are limited, precise aiming is a challenge, and the ammo caps are intentionally low, so as to motivate you to switch up gunplay and arm-whip-play. But aiming the arms is even more difficult than the guns, not to mention their short range; and in general, they're just less convenient than shooting mobsters in the face. (To be fair, I think there are other weapons and arm-powers that I haven't played long enough to unlock.)

These systems, limited as they are, would be sufficient to keep the game moving along if not for some significant implementation flaws. The same key is used for consuming downed enemy hearts (for refilling life), and for equipping guns, so it's all too easy to unintentionally drop your gun in a sea of bodies. For some reason, the game tends to think that you want to dual-wield handguns, frequently switching to this mode when you pick up a new weapon; but since right-clicking fires a weapon, you can't aim, and just waste a ton of precious ammo. A big part of the demon arm power is supposed to be picking up and throwing objects at enemies, but levels crowded with ambient debris, and enemies that actually take cover, make it very tough to actually get a clear shot with such objects. And while it's theoretically cool to cripple your powers in direct light, forcing you to shoot light sources as you fight, the tendency of placing lights on or near ceilings just makes this mechanic an annoying matter of looking upward every so often.

There is some good stuff in here, but The Darkness II doesn't get enough right to rectify its basic problems. Luckily, the story of the mysterious limping man is pretty well-telegraphed, so I don't really feel like I'm missing anything by giving up on it.

Progress: On the trail of my attackers.

The Assassin's Creed series has spent years now trading in its stealth for high-action, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Black Flag is so Bruckheimer-esque. The preview, at least, is highly characterized by rapid gunplay, hectic naval warfare, and a general proliferation of EXPLOSIONS. So, no, I have no complaints about this -- looks pretty fuckin' rad.

Madness Returns is a work of art -- and I mean that in two ways. First, that it's a beauty to behold, with a highly imaginative and appealing art style, intricately detailed characters and environments, and stunning visual effects. And second, that there's really not much mechanical substance behind it.

The basic story is easy enough to suss out from the game's opening scenes, although its attempts to relay this story plainly are somewhat excruciating. Picking up after American McGee's Alice, the titular girl is slightly older, and slightly closer to sanity, but still not all the way there. Her therapist is trying to help her block bad memories, and Alice's tortured mind is taking to manifesting her Wonderland fantasies and her dark fears all in one hallucinatory package. Victorian London transitions into a twisted Wonderland, and Alice quickly finds herself jumping on mushrooms and shrinking down to walk through keyhole-sized doors.

Again, the art surrounding all this is quite enchanting, but once that wears off - when you've been in an area for more than a few minutes, and familiarity starts to set in - what's left is a basic, mediocre character-action game with no real distinguishing characteristics. Although at first, new mechanics are introduced very briskly, they peter out just as fast: Alice can jump and glide, which is her primary means of moving forward in the game world; she can shrink, to get through certain obstacles; and she can fight enemies with melee and ranged weapons. Some scattered collectibles offer (very) brief insights into Alice's depressing reality, and some others act as currency for upgrading weapons. And that's basically all there is.

But the gameplay isn't the only aspect of Madness Returns that's lacking. The storytelling is almost totally vacant, aside from some incredibly sloppy and awkward cutscenes. The supporting cast's dialog is uncreative and lazy, barely a step above rote instructions for the player. And the voice actress for Alice herself, although evidently talented, seems to have been told a completely incorrect story about the character she's voicing: she's almost always upbeat and chipper, even in the most depressing and dull circumstances.

Aside from its generally-high level of graphical fidelity - at least with a sufficient PC, hair and cloth simulation is really impressive - Madness Returns isn't exactly a solid technical achievement either. Lock-on targeting seems to lose your target just as often as not, pop-up hints appear in blatantly incorrect places, and even in my brief play time, I encountered a handful of moments where the game stuttered to keep up.

Truly, Alice: Madness Returns isn't a terrible game, but it is terribly boring. It's really a shame that the game's brilliant artistic vision is completely unsupported by clever storytelling or engaging gameplay.

Progress: Half(?)-way through Chapter 1.

As befits its subtitle, "Tactical Espionage Arsehole," Stealth Bastard is cheeky and charming in all the ways you'd want from an indie game. But this wit isn't the game's strongest suit, nor is the simple control set, nor even the comforting hand-drawn graphics. What Stealth Bastard does right is, somewhat counterintuitively, that it isn't really "about" stealth at all -- at least, not in the sense of a Hitman, or Splinter Cell, or Metal Gear Solid, or Mark of the Ninja. Stealth Bastard actually has more in common with a platform-puzzler.

You'll run, duck, and jump around a level, pushing blocks, interacting with switches, and evading traps and alarms. Figuring out how to make it through a level's obstacles is a big part of the game's challenge, but it tends to place greater emphasis on the execution of these plans, specifically in timing your moves just right. Avoiding sudden death can be very difficult, which is why I'm grateful for the VVVVVV-esque checkpointing, ensuring that you never lose more than a few seconds of progress. As frustrating as it can be to die over and over to a (bastard) kill-laser, being able to instantly try again staves off discouragement and tedium.

My one complaint so far is that, although there are some slightly-ominous hints in the first levels, Stealth Bastard's dark backstory isn't really developing, at least not yet. The game's humorous style would really be more effective if there was some narrative material to work with.

Progress: Finished Sector 2.

As a post-apocalyptic, zombie-filled send-up of The Oregon Trail, Organ Trail has some really clever ideas: scavenging for supplies while shooting zombies, maintaining vital car parts, and keeping your party healthy as you travel across the U.S. to a safe haven (encountering hidden movie and TV references along the way). As a game, it's slightly less successful, arguably doing too-good a job of emulating ancient computer games. Poor luck can come in random, intense bursts; and some events, such as biker gang attacks, become extremely repetitive. It doesn't help that the game is balanced such that, to keep a healthy amount of supplies, you'll need to do even more repetitive scavenging and questing.

But I have to give Organ Trail credit for a genuinely cool premise, and for at least one really neat mechanic, in the form of its pull-and-release shooting combat. Even though it was clearly designed with mobile touchscreen gaming in mind, it works well enough with a mouse -- and confers an appropriately-hectic feeling in high-tension situations. If there's anything that makes the one-to-two-hour trip worthwhile, it's that.

Better than: Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim
Not as good as: Swords & Soldiers
Extra-special props: for the Breaking Bad reference in the Albuquerque portrait. The game's art is light, but a really nice touch.

Progress: Reached the Safe Haven on Easy.