STEVEN POOLE
Picture an exploration videogame that gives you a novel way to traverse stunningly gorgeous environments, an original and beautiful fusion of character and atmosphere leading to a state of relaxed aesthetic bliss. And then imagine that the traversal of this fascinating place is suddenly made annoying and stressful. Because it’s a game, right, and games have to be annoying and stressful?
This has been a long tradition in games ever since Lara Croft, in her very first outing (Tomb 1996), was forced to spend altogether too much time shooting bats, and the boy in (2001) expected to fight off shadow-monsters with a stick instead of gazing in wonder at the castle interiors. Since I had not read any reviews of (2022) before playing it, however, the first 20 minutes of my experience with the game offered hope that, this time, things might finally be different. And then my cat was literally eaten alive by a swarm of robotic rats several times in a row because of a perversely annoying chase sequence that ruined the glorious placidity of everything that had gone before.
