REVIEW
Move on
One of the most crucial – and most often overlooked – elements of any action game is just the basics of how your character moves. The simple act of traversal, done right, can hugely elevate your experience – especially in the large open spaces so beloved by modern AAA games. This month’s reviews are testament to that principle. Spider-Man is, in many ways, a disappointingly basic world to explore, but just swinging from A to B is so innately fun that you never want to leave. Stray doesn’t just feel good to explore, it evokes the essence of a cat, using something as obvious as a jump to reinforce its themes. And in Rollerdrome, movement is perhaps more important than anything else, the core of the game’s score chasing, high-speed combat puzzles. If I never have to slowly jog to my next objective ever again, I’ll be a happy PC gamer.