Adding comments for more recent games.
1. The Room (Android)
2. The Room 2 (Android)
3. Monument Valley (Android)
4. The Unfinished Swan (PS4)
5. Flower (PS4)
6. Age of Zombies (Android)
7. P.T. (PS4)
8. Thomas Was Alone (Android)
9.
Space Expedition (Android): Really nice little Android platformer with some Metroidvania-lite gameplay touches and lovely pixely aesthetic. Not the hardest game in the world but satisfying to work through and comes recommended.
10.
Xon (Android) episodes one and two (all that are available right now): very pretty Myst-y puzzler for Android. I'm not always a fan of these types of games but the world it's set in is oddly atmospheric for being so simple and I found the puzzles very logical. There's just enough feedback and clues hidden in the setting to lead you in the right direction but you still feel smart when you figure out the various solutions. It's free to try so well worth a shot if you like these types of game.
11.
Republique episodes one, two and three (all that are available right now) (Android): interesting and highly produced stealth 'em up for Android. The USP here is that you don't control the protagonist directly but inhabit the surveillance system in the game world and use the view from the various cameras to guide the girl out of trouble. It does get a bit repetitive at times and you can be surprised by a guard at a crucial point sometimes but getting caught just sends you to the nearest detention cell which is never far away so mistakes aren't unduly punished. The dystopian sci-fi story the game tells isn't quite as compelling as it thinks it is but it does the job; and the parts where you infiltrate the homes of some of the guards and hear the background that led them to work for your captors does breathe an amount of life into the setting as a whole.
12.
Gunman Clive (Android): 2D platformer with an interesting graphical style. This was massively well reviewed on all the platforms it came out for (including the 3DS) and while it's fun I don't entirely understand where all the praise is coming from. Worth a go no doubt, but don't expect something amazing.
13.
Pixel Staff (Android): short low-fi looking Metroidvania thing. Feels like more of a demo than a full game but I did enjoy it while it lasted.
14.
Hellraid: The Escape (Android): a first person puzzler with a survival horror aesthetic. Made with the Unreal engine so very pretty in action, although often it felt like the lavish level architecture was being used to artificially raise the difficulty by hiding critical items. Worse than that though the puzzles were often very cryptic and illogical which took the shine off the whole thing. Not a terrible game but not brilliant either and I suspect the visuals alone were the reason it got the praise it did from review sites.
15.
Forever Lost: Episode 1 (Android): pretty standard puzzle game raised above it's peers by the generally logical and well thought out puzzles. I only got completely stuck a couple of times and spent most of the game genuinely figuring stuff out with a bit of thought which as it should be. Not the prettiest game around but a fun example of the genre.
16. GTA 5 (PS4): Meh. I got into it more as I played it, and certainly further into the game the constant driving around wasn't boring the fucking tits off me any more, but it just never properly grabbed me by the balls. I think perhaps I was expecting a gameworld that properly rewarded exploration (a la Fallout or something) but quickly realised there's close to fuck all behind the facade of the place. This massive city just seemed weirdly dead and pointless with you weren't presented with any reason to visit parts of it unless a mission demanded it. The best I can say is that I will now probably play the next GTA game that comes out but I certainly won't be expecting a lot from it.
17.
Gene Effect (Android): sci-fi explore em up containing mild peril. The levels do get a bit repetitive by the end as each one boils down to much the same thing eventually but I really enjoyed my time with it and controlling a ship that's so hilariously fragile in the depths of an alien mine did bring no small amount of atmosphere with it. Aside from a couple of timed levels and some instant death section it's not very difficult but then I was playing it on the easiest setting. Which was on the advice of various reviews which reckoned it was too hard if you moved up the scale but I'm now wishing I had played it on medium at least. Although doing so does cut your allotted time on the timed sequence which I was only squeaking through on easy so perhaps I'd have regretted that decision.
18.
Nihilumbra (PC): puzzle platformer in which your character controls an increasing array of powers that you can 'paint' onto the landscape to alter it's properties and get you through the levels. The graphics are pretty but there's something off-puttingly low fi about them which only serves to make the game look cheap unfortunately. It also desperately wants to be mentioned in the same breathe as Bastion but the VO guy is no Logan Cunningham and the actual dialogue is pretty lumpen stuff. It's not a bad game mind and it's short enough that it doesn't outstay it's welcome; not least because most of the puzzles are pretty straightforward. Well, that's for the 'normal' game anyway. Once you complete that it unlocks a new 'void' mode which turns all the levels into ludicrously difficult versions of themselves. I'm talking 'seven attempts to get off the first screen of the first level' sort of difficult which can GTFF. Which is a shame as it shows the developer does have the sort of fiendish imagination required to make something of the concept but the normal mode is, arguably, too easy and the void mode is just too stupidly difficult. A single mode lying somewhere between the two would've really transformed it.
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