When I first started Antichamber up, I noticed that the screen resolution was too low, so I hit Escape to open a menu and look for options. Nothing happened. I hit it again, and still nothing. Temporarily giving up, I moved the mouse around -- and that's when I discovered that I was in-game, in a room that also served as the options menu, with options projected onto the wall as clickable buttons. This room is an apt introduction to, and metaphor for, Antichamber as a whole: it subverts your expectations at every turn, but is designed so well, that you're bound to figure it out.

Antichamber is a first-person platform-puzzler in the vein of Portal and Q.U.B.E., where you must move objects, flip switches, and surmount obstacles to get from room to room. But where its peers are content to (mostly) play in the world of Euclidian space and Newtonian physics, Antichamber turns the player's concept of reality against him. Most puzzles are as much, or less, about how and where you move, as they are about how and where you look; the game world frequently shifts around you based on what you see, or don't.

This leads to entire categories of puzzle that have never been done before. There are also more digestible (but still unique) block-moving puzzles, based on physics guns you get ahold of as the game proceeds. But one common trait of all the different puzzle types, is that despite being totally reliant on lateral thinking, they never seem impossible. Antichamber's overall design - like an open-world of puzzles, where you can instantly warp to any particular room (from that same starting/options room) - allows you to approach puzzles in whatever order you please, and gradually, iteratively learn its mechanics at your own pace.

The puzzles are great, the open-world map is great, and the visual design is great -- a big part of the pleasure of Antichamber is seeing the spatial paradoxes happening around you. But there is one general shortcoming of the game: it doesn't really have anything else. There's no story, and there are no characters. There is a collection of captioned signs which operate as hints and punny life-metaphors, but they're more Fortune Cookie than true insight. The soundtrack doesn't have any real music; it's more of a collection of ambient sounds which, though striking and informative of your surroundings, don't invoke any real mood or feeling.

The amount of content and technical polish is understandable - actually, more than I would expect - from a one-man show; but while the mechanical uniqueness of Antichamber is engrossing, it completely takes the place of any kind of feeling or personality.

I wrapped Antichamber up, hidden exits and all, in about seven hours. I've heard that this measurement can vary widely, between two and ten hours, based on how your thought processes intersect with the proverbial box. But the amount of content - that is, the number and variety of puzzles - seems perfectly adequate and appropriate for the game's depth, feeling neither foreshortened nor overextended. That said, $20 seems like a bit of a stretch.

Antichamber is a fun puzzle game and a commendable design achievement; a real mechanical marvel. But as an experience, it feels lacking.

Better than: Q.U.B.E.
Not as good as: Portal
For a game with this many hidden rooms and clever tricks: it's downright baffling that there are no Steam achievements.

Progress: 100%

Borderlands 2's quest arcs had a good rhythm, of waxing and waning action, with large goals sliced up into numerous intermediate story beats, and less-intensive side-quests sprinkled throughout. The Captain Scarlett and Mr. Torgue DLCs found great success in implementing smaller scales of this same formula. But Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt feels like it's made up exclusively of the lower-action parts; like it's all side-quest.

It's especially disappointing because of the awesome premise: following Sir Hammerlock into the untamed wilds to track and kill fantastic beasts, should be a blast. But this only happens in optional quests, and only a couple of times. The DLC's main story thread is about pursuing Dr. Nakayama, a truly (and self-admittedly) pathetic villain who, at the end, is actually terrified to fight you. And the journey to him is a brief, yet still disjointed sequence of mowing down natives and having Claptrap flatly give up puzzle answers to you.

The Big Game Hunt is still more Borderlands 2, and in that it does succeed. There are environments to explore, items to collect, and interesting enemies to fell. Actually, some of the enemies are a little too interesting -- there are way too many warriors with shields and masks, making life disproportionately difficult for a sniper, reliant on critical hits. But I digress; on the whole, this DLC is more Borderlands 2, which isn't bad.

But it could be better.

Better than: Sleeping Dogs: Zodiac Tournament
Not as good as: Borderlands 2: Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage
And of course: there's another "invincible" boss, which will eat up plenty of your hoarded Eridium just to unlock.

Progress: Finished all the solo-able quests

Maybe it's just because of the surprising number of level 50, team-oriented quests, but the Campaign of Carnage seems a bit lacking in quest count as compared to Captain Scarlett. Nevertheless, this DLC pack's personality and charm makes it well worthwhile, even for the solo player.

Progress: Finished all the solo-able quests

Like Nightmare in North Point and cheesy horror films, the Zodiac Tournament side-story is designed to pay homage (and parody) the kung fu movie genre. And also like the Nightmare pack, the length of this DLC's campaign - at about one hour - is significantly shorter than one of those movies.

That being said, because this story is focused on combat, it is on the whole more enjoyable than the running-around Shen had to do in his zombie adventure. Aside from a couple of running-through-the-woods sequences, and the collectible martial arts statues (only a few of which are actually hidden), the Zodiac Tournament is all about fighting waves of thugs or unique opponents -- or both at the same time.

The Zodiac Tournament DLC is intensely short, somewhat slapdash in its production quality (check those heavily artifacted cutscenes), and very lacking in content different from the core Sleeping Dogs experience. But the melee encounters are entertaining enough to make the experience worth the time, if not necessarily worth the money.

Small side-note: I accidentally lost my game save file before starting this DLC up, so I went into it from a new game, without any upgrades or learned techniques. A few of the fights were unexpectedly difficult, but nothing a couple retries couldn't get around. If you were to enter the tournament with a fully-upgraded Wei Shen, the whole affair would probably be quite a pushover.

Better than: Sleeping Dogs: Nightmare in North Point
Not as good as: Borderlands 2: Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage
Not sure why: I would've expected anything different.

Progress: Won the tournament, collected all the statues

Don't be fooled by the name or the premise -- this isn't some simple arena event. Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage is, in fact, a campaign, with a story and characters and turning points and everything. That being said, it isn't a very nuanced campaign; it does revolve closely around climbing a (brief) ladder to the top of the Badass charts. But it's sufficient, and more importantly, a proper vehicle for Mr. Torgue to drive into a F*CKING EXPLOSION!

Yeah, there's a campaign and a solid collection of side-quests, but the real star of this DLC pack is Mr. Torgue himself. He really steals the show, despite it belonging to him in the first place. Mr. Torgue's writing is impeccable - including (and especially) his expletive-filled explanation of why his expletives are bleeped - and the voice actor's delivery is pitch perfect. At no point during the campaign does Mr. Torgue stop talking to you about badassitude or explosions, and that is AWESOME!

The Campaign of Carnage's level design isn't quite up to the standard set by Captain Scarlett, though fortunately some new enemy designs (can you say TORGUE ROBOTS!?) start to make up for that. But as nice and good as pretty much everything in this DLC pack is, the highlight is - again, easily - Mr. Torgue. He could make a much worse campaign worth playing.

Better than: Saints Row: The Third's DLCs (Genkibowl VII, Gangstas in Space, The Trouble with Clones)
Not as good as: Borderlands 2: Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty
Surprising side-mission note: there are several level-50 side missions in here!

Progress: Finished the Campaign, still plenty of side quests

The amount and quality of content in Captain Scarlett is just, really just commendable. In an industry filled with cop-out DLCs that do nothing but grift more money from loyal customers, this pack makes the case for meaningfully extending the game experience, with both an amusing story and a solid collection of additional quests.

Other than the slightly-disappointing ending, this is a real winner. If you've enjoyed Borderlands 2 and want some more of it, this is exactly perfect.

Better than: Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link
Not as good as: Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Word of caution: Just because the quest log says the Hyperius quest is level 30-something, doesn't mean you can solo it at 30-something. Dude has a lot of HPs!

Progress: Finished everything except Hyperius

I'll get straight to the point: Max Payne 3 is not a revolution in cinematic storytelling in games. It's another iteration of the same formula we've been getting since the invention of the cutscene. Story sequence plays, guys spawn and you shoot them, cue another story sequence, then more guys and more shooting. The cutscenes and the gameplay never influence one another, other than said shooting taking place in a room you saw in the cutscene. And to boot, Max's narration isn't even delivered that well, with frequent instances of awkward cadence and word emphasis.

With that said, the gunplay is pretty good, ... sort of. Max picks up a reasonably diverse set of weapons from downed thugs, and using these revolvers and shotguns and rifles et al with Max's trademark Bullet Time technique can be super satisfying, especially when special kill-camera animations are triggered. But there are flies in this ointment too -- many enemy encounters are severely lacking in cover, and sometimes (unarmored) enemies take just a few too many shots to the chest to take down.

There's a neat recovery mechanic where, if you take a fatal shot, you can recover by killing the guy who shot you; but it uses one of your painkillers (healing items) in the process, so once you expend those, the mechanic simply disappears.

I also have to mention a cool bug where Max can get stuck in cover -- unable to move, unable to shoot, waiting for death. This happened to me four times in the first level, and once more before I finally gave up. It's been a known issue for ... almost three months? Really?

Max Payne 3 feels like a big waste of 30 GB of my disk space (I can only guess most of this is from the game's Kojima-sized cutscenes). Although I only got an hour or so in, I have no interest in pushing farther.

Progress: Gave Up -- Chapter 3

There are parts of Mark of the Ninja - infiltrating enemy strongholds, using deadly gadgets and esoteric magic, systematically eliminating (or sneaking past) guards and evading traps, as you make your way toward an objective - that are impossible not to compare to Dishonored. The comparison actually feels pretty good; there are distinct differences, like Mark's extremely underwhelming story and Dishonored's irritating upgrade items, but the central conceits of both are both pretty great.

Last time I made passing mention of Mark's solid mechanics, which, impressively, continue to develop as the game proceeds: story progress unlocks new supernatural abilities (like sensing traps through walls), and upgrade points net your ninja new and awesome weapons and techniques. And like Dishonored, these various avenues of augmenting your sneaking/killing machine can feed into varied playstyles -- personally I'm all-in for the stealth-assassination approach, but the game has plenty of love for those who prefer to sneak and distract without killing anyone, and even some accomodations for players who want to face their enemies head-on.

As I said above, the story is pretty, well, meh. But it is at least well-presented, with some cool animation in (thankfully succinct) cutscenes, and a particularly excellent, highly-stylized final level. Otherwise this really feels like an interactive masterpiece: tight controls, exciting mechanics, excellent level design, and varied playstyle options.

Mark of the Ninja is great. You should play it.

Better than: Shank, most stealth games
Not as good as: Batman: Arkham City, I guess?
It is a shame I won't be playing New Game Plus: because it removes the sound indicators, which just turns everything into guesswork bullshit.

Progress: Complete

Unlike Torchlight II, Borderlands 2 is something that I can - and will - be revisiting on my own. That, to me, is the greatest victory in this sequel: that it's even fun to play solo. Maybe it's the robots.

That said, I've already conquered almost all of the main game's content, with the exception of the level-holy-fuck raid-boss. So it's a good thing that Gearbox is still pushing new DLC out.

Progress: Level 39, finished almost all quests (in Normal)

I may return to this godforsaken desert eventually, but it's wholly dependent upon getting people together. For all the mechanical and technical ways in which Torchlight II betters its Goliath of a rival, it still can't rival Diablo III's intensity and bombast. And while on paper, TL2's replayability dwarfs Blizzard's depressingly-anemic endgame, after enough levels it starts to feel samey and unengaging.

Except with a party, of course. And even though Runic hasn't done a perfect job in regard to multiplayer - latency can make the game a nightmare, some network configurations induce an invisible player limit, and the game browser could use more focus on finding your friends - it certainly puts Battle.net to shame.

Better than: Torchlight, Diablo II
Not as good as: Diablo III, Borderlands 2
Still worth it though: if you're addicted to the genre, or have a team to play with.

Progress: Gave Up -- Somewhere in the desert