For the purpose of simplicity, let's start by saying that Warlock is basically a fantasy-themed Civilization V. Which is pretty awesome! Warlock is a hex-based, turn-based strategy game, with empire building, research, unit combat, diplomacy, and multiple win conditions (set in the world of Paradox's Majesty series, which is apparently a thing?). There are some meaningful mechanical differences, though, which make Warlock play pretty differently.

For one, the research concept is pretty simple in Warlock. Instead of researching technologies in a tree, your Great Mage can research from a selection of magic spells; unlocking a spell - which may deal direct damage, heal a unit, apply some buff or debuff, or even alter the landscape - just allows you to use it. This research has no effect on how your empire or units in general operate. The closest Warlock has to that kind of mechanic is in the buildings you construct for your cities, which follow (fairly small) trees and enable the construction of new units or acquisition of more powerful effects.

One really cool feature in Warlock is that some buildings unlock perks, which you can purchase on any individual unit fitting an appropriate type (that is, some perks are unique to e.g. ranged units). What this means is that, once your buildings are constructed, you can instantly get upgrades for any new or existing units, on an ala carte basis -- maybe you're only interested in buying perks for your front line, or in buying defensive perks for the time being. It's a cool approach to ability upgrades, and since Warlock also has more traditional (well, Civ-like) mechanics like unit-type upgrades and perks unlocked from level-ups, the purchaseable perks don't feel like they come at anything's expense.

Empire building is pretty different too: unlike in Civ V, founding and building out new cities is quite easy, and in fact the best way to meet rising population and army requirements is by founding new cities like nobody's business. This feeds quite well into Warlock's sense of exploration and adventure, as you rapidly push the boundaries of your empire ever outward.

Which is especially important because of the ravaging forces of unaligned monster units in Warlock's game world. A far cry from the relatively tame Barbarians of Civ V, Warlock's monsters spawn from capturable factories, and at random, and will both guard precious resources and wreak various levels of havoc upon your cities. Monsters can found cities, and can even capture the cities of other Great Mages. Personally I found the monsters even more fun to fight than the AI players, since the AI is - at least on Normal difficulty - pretty retarded.

There are plenty of other cool features in Warlock too, like alternate planes (smaller maps which you can teleport to and from using special portals), multiple races with unique buildings and units, recruitable hero units, and a bunch of gods with which to curry favor or disrepute. Actually, one of the possible victory conditions is to become so hated by a god that you must fight his avatar. Suffice it to say, Warlock's mechanical complexity is very satisfying, and the map is a blast to explore and conquer.

But there are big problems with the game, which mostly come down to a lack of polish. Some aspects seem pretty unbalanced, like the amount of gold and mana you can earn with some basic min-maxing on your empire structure. As aforementioned, the AI is basically incompetent, to the point where they're more likely to harm you by accident than on purpose. And the game is buggy -- button clicks will not-uncommonly get lost in some nether-world UI layer, and a clear resource leak leads to deteriorating performance as turns proceed, ultimately resulting in frequent crashes (I crashed five times in the course of my nine-hour campaign). This seems to be somewhat expected, as the game auto-saves every turn, and the startup screen features a Continue button, so you can swiftly recover from a crash with minimal losses.

Summarily: Warlock is pretty damn cool. But, even more so than Civ V, technological infidelity holds it back. The game is already pretty cheap, though (and there's a Steam demo), so if the idea of a fantasy-Civ appeals to you, definitely check it out.

Better than: well, about as good as Sid Meier's Civilization V, though lacking in terms of real AI competition
Not as good as: Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods & Kings
Also, one feature I really wish for: the ability to continue a campaign after winning. There's so much to do in Ardania, and my last victory was literally an accident.

Progress: Finished a campaign on Normal

By all appearances, Home is like an old choose-your-own-adventure book -- an open-ended story filled with suspense and mystery, where your choices subtly, and not-so-subtly, change what you discover and what your interpretation might be. This structure encourages multiple playthroughs, so you can gradually piece together the whole puzzle. But this isn't exactly what Home is, after all. Home is a little more like an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

It's a shame, because for the majority of the game, Home really pulls off an air of mystery. It thrives on an excellent atmospheric presentation, with enough ambient sounds and visual effects to keep you wondering when something will jump out at you. There are early signs of betraying narrative realism for the sake of game-ification - hidden switches and simple puzzles - but these are fairly uncommon. Every inspectable object, every item you can choose to pick up or leave alone, every door you can enter or pass by, feels like a meaningful choice whether to investigate or to press on toward your titular home. You have plenty of opportunities to choose between going on with your current knowledge and assumption of the story, or taking pause to uncover more information.

But as Home nears its conclusion, this mystery doesn't come together at all. Instead, the game asks you directly what you think is happening, and then that becomes what happened. The real questions of the game's story are replaced with abstract twists, and any potential resolution is wiped out by total ambiguity. This doesn't seem to be an accident, according to the game's creator.

By all appearances - further supported by the game's closing screen, which points you to a story-sharing page on its website - the real "purpose" of Home is to forge your own unique story and share it with others. But what's the point of this when the unique aspects of your story are so arbitrary, and also so brief when compared to the rich mystery backdrop? To write all the components of a compelling plot, and muddle it with what just feels like a last-minute gimmicky twist, seems so wasteful.

To me, what's most disappointing about the open story is the parts that aren't open. The game's clearly-delineated levels are all one-way trips, even when the exit from one to the next isn't obvious, and so it's easy to permanently miss a clue by accidentally moving on to the next area. Why? Because the player character doesn't want to go back. In a game built around choices and interpretation, this limitation is a clear mistake.

Home is an interesting experiment in interactive storytelling, but I wouldn't call it a successful one. Calling it a total failure isn't fair, because it does build a great atmosphere and make fair progress toward a compelling mystery. But its missteps - which seem to be intentional, by design - make it impossible to take Home as seriously as it wants to be taken.

Better than: Shadow of Destiny
Not as good as: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
Would have liked it a lot better: if there was a clear ending, or if I could backtrack and fill in the rest of my own story. Either!

Progress: Finished one play-through, read about others

Dear everyone: this is the ninja game you have always wanted. You can silently climb walls, grapple between lampposts, shatter lights with throwing weapons, sneak through vents, slit enemies' throats from behind, and stash bodies in hiding places. You can opt to evade enemies instead of slaughtering them, if you're into that. There are unlockable challenge rooms. There are lasers.

Also, dear game developers: this is the ninja game you have always wanted to make. Sorry guys.

Progress: Breaching the Perimeter

Stacking takes a pretty interesting approach to its puzzles: for the main story's objectives, and secondary "challenges," there are always multiple solutions (anywhere from three to six) -- any one solution being good enough to proceed. While some of them are esoteric and obtuse, each challenge has at least one solution that's relatively easy or intuitive. So the game as a whole is a fairly smooth experience, with the more trying solutions available for players who want more.

Each of the game's levels - four plus a special ending sequence, and a whole additional level in the included "Lost Hobo King" DLC - oozes personality and charmingly-designed stacking doll characters. It's all tied together with a light but cute story about reuniting a stacking doll family. The whole affair is pretty short (maybe 3-4 hours straight through, doubled for total completion), but feels substantial and completely sufficient for its premise.

Stacking won't blow anyone away, but is distinct and very well-crafted. For the few hours it lasts, Stacking's game world is just fun to play around in.

Better than: Brütal Legend
Not as good as: Chibi-Robo!
And a lot of the puzzle solutions: are pun-driven!

Progress: 100%

What the hell is this simple-looking amateur game? Is it a Quake mod? Is it a lo-fi, Crackdown-meets-Zone of the Enders, hidden masterpiece? Is it a misplaced tech demo? Well, maybe the last one.

Look, guy who made Caster, this is an impressive solo dev project -- but that's it. Low production value is one thing, but there's absolutely nothing of interest here. Upgrading your physical abilities to become overpowered is pointless, when there's no compelling content to overpower. Caster's blandness extends beyond its world, enemies, and art. It's just a whole pile of bland. Even calling it a pile seems like an overstatement.

Asking people to pay for this ... engine proof is dishonest and shameful. Unless this is a Minecraft: Java Edition-type deal where the whole game will be pieced together over the next few years, but, no that doesn't look like it.

Better than: actually, it might be better than Jumper: Griffin's Story
Not as good as: Moonbase Alpha
Really, the screenshots should make these deficiencies obvious: that'll teach me to listen to random internet commenters.

Progress: Gave Up -- Tried the first couple missions

I tried Beat Hazard way back before it was Ultra, but couldn't get into it -- the Ultra expansion/DLC really adds a lot to the moment-to-moment gameplay variety, such that it can stay exciting over lengthy songs. (Incidentally, I also have a much more interesting playlist to use, now.)

Beat Hazard's action-heavy gameplay makes it a lot more engaging than other schlocky based-on-your-music games, and the musical factor also gives it an edge over a largely-stale space shooter genre. The explosive visual presentation doesn't hurt, either ... except when the screen gets too busy to see what's happening.

With well-paced enemy variety and your own favorite music, Beat Hazard (Ultra) can be great fun when you've got some time to kill.

Better than: Audiosurf
Not as good as: well... a real video game.
Also relevant: it's, what, $6.50?

Progress: Sub-Commander rank

There are two big new features in Gods and Kings: religion and espionage. But neither of them change the game as much as the expansion's general unit additions and modifications. Actually, Gods and Kings feels less like an expansion pack, and more like a large patch -- definitely good to have, but probably not worth paying too much for.

The religion system is a little different than what I expected: specifically, it's not all that powerful. There are some really cool bonuses you can get from spreading your religion (similar to the bonuses from selecting cultural policies), and spreading your word can have a subtle but real effect on diplomacy. But you can't just win, or even really manipulate your opponents significantly, by sending out missionaries and prophets. Since religious bonuses are picked first-come first-serve, the most important part of a religion is founding it early; after that, there isn't necessarily much to it.

Espionage is more interesting, especially since it becomes more relevant in the later game. Starting with the Renaissance era, every technological era gives you a new spy to work with, and you can send a spy out to enemy cities to steal their technology, or keep them in yours to protect against technology theft. You can also have a spy rig elections in a city-state to curry its favor, or stage a coup in a city-state allied with someone else. But arguably the best part of spying is in its side-effects -- when your spy is set up in an enemy city, you have a chance of being alerted when the enemy is plotting something. If they're plotting against another AI, you can even choose to tip the target off. Espionage is a welcome way to finally gain some insight into the AI's twisted scheming.

Aside from those, there are some new civilizations and new civ-specific talents, and even reorganization in the tech tree. But some of the biggest changes are to units and upgrades. There are new World War I-era ground and air units, new upgrades for ranged ground units, and - my personal favorite - new mechanics for naval units, which allow some ships to capture coastal cities. Finally, my obsession with churning out an overpowered navy pays off.

Like I said, Gods and Kings has some great improvements to Civ V, but they all seem iterative rather than transformative. This is unquestionably better than the original, but not by all that much.

Better than: Sid Meier's Civilization V
Not as good as: a $30 game should be.
The recent patch is also a general improvement: although there are still some inexcusable performance issues in multiplayer.

Progress: Finished a couple of campaigns

The demo may have shown how Spec Ops: The Line works as a shooter, but it didn't show how it works as an interactive story. Sure, the mechanics are fine, and fairly competent. But the real "meat" of the game isn't how it plays at all -- it's how the game plays you.

In the game's opening, Nolan North and his two buddies talk and act like they could be in any stereotypical modern military movie. But over the course of fifteen chapters, they'll face unanswerable questions, plumb the depths of war's horrors and inhumanity, and go well through the looking glass of morality. Even when the game is nudging you along its linear plot, you'll feel the full weight of its heavy decisions on your shoulders.

Spec Ops: The Line is one of very few games with a story that isn't just "good for a game" -- it's good enough to hold its own with film and literature. It'll resonate particularly with anyone who's seen Apocalypse Now, but does enough of its own thing to set itself apart. In the end, the game heartily achieves its goal of showing - not just that war is bad and not-nice, but - the incredible depravity of man.

Not to mention, the quality of this voice acting is some of the best the industry's ever seen. No other game uses dramatic pauses this well.

It's not a flawless experience: as is depressingly typical in third-person shooters, checkpoints seem to be missing exactly where you need them, and retrying a difficult and lengthy sequence can be grating. But the campaign overall is short enough, and generally well-paced enough, that these rough spots smooth over pretty well. It's also pretty bothersome how heavily compressed the game's pre-rendered cutscenes are -- next to maxed-out game settings, they're distractingly artifacted.

While it's a little disappointing that the campaign is over in six hours, it does feel tight and satisfying. There's also a little replay value in collecting intel (think BioShock's audio logs, but less plentiful), and in trying some decision points the other way around.

Given that, I can completely understand the lead designer's comments about how utterly unnecessary the outsourced multiplayer mode was. Rather than hopelessly trying to compete with best-in-class multiplayer shooters, Spec Ops: The Line would have been much better served just delivering its excellent story, and accepting that it doesn't have that much longevity. Maybe with a lower launch price?

Better than: BioShock 2
Not as good as: BioShock
Look, I'm not kidding: this is a good story. Find it cheap somewhere, and play it.

Progress: Finished on "Combat Ops" (normal)

Of course I was interested in this GTA-demake-styled parody game -- I pre-ordered this guy back in February. On paper, it's right up my alley, but, paper doesn't make a video game. Paper and video games are actually barely related. Anyway, Retro City Rampage is a bit of a disappointment.

The controls are a big part of it, and while using a controller does feel better than the keyboard (simply because all the buttons are close together and placed intuitively), RCR's old-school formatting is too restrictive for driving and shooting. The linear acceleration and limited turning angles make it impossible to maneuver accurately. Which is an especially big deal when you're driving too fast to see that the road ahead turns into a T-junction.

While I might be willing to put up with and power through these issues if the game content was shockingly brilliant, it isn't. There are some funny parodies, but nothing exceedingly clever (at least so far as I encountered), and the rate and density with which they're delivered - Duke Nukem, Metal Gear, Mega Man, and Bionic Commando all crashing in at once - gets exhausting after just a few minutes.

It's unfortunate, but all of RCR's flaws collude into a game that simply isn't fun. Getting around the city, trying to hit a specific target, even scrolling through the unwieldy weapon list, all feel like more work than they're worth, especially when the reward - more rapid-fire, somewhat-stale parodies - is so flat and unsurprising.

I know I'm not giving Retro City Rampage a completely fair shake; I've only put about an hour into it. But I'm already tired of it. I don't want to waste more of my life on this game when it seems like it's just going to disappoint me further.

Progress: Finished the Paperboy mission

Until I get a big enough group together to take advantage of Nintendo Land's multiplayer offerings, it's sort of a non-entity to me. I was told that Metroid Blast was the most game-like of its minigames, so I tried that first, but it really didn't impress me at all. That said, I feel like maybe the multiplayer mode - controlling bounty hunters directly rather than flying a wacky ship around using the GamePad - might be a better sell.

And why does this minigame collection need a minutes-long intro tutorial? (It really doesn't.)

Progress: Gave Up -- Played one round of Metroid Blast