Recent reviews by A trained chimp

Tasked with eliminating a crew of seven and taking the ship. Lure all the guards into a room with a ruptured fuel tank. One of them fires a shotgun at me. I teleport-swap with the pilot and take the wheel while everyone on the ship is wiped out simultaneously.

Tasked with stealing an artifact behind three different keycards worth of locked doors. Not allowed to be seen by or hurt anyone, not even with nonlethal weapons. Successfully finish the mission in 0.31. Not 31 seconds. 0.31 seconds.

Accidentally trigger an alarm. Consider the option of breaking a window to get sucked into space and try to catch myself with the remote-controlled shuttle before suffocating to death. End up deciding against it. That would be the safe and boring option.


This game uses a finely tuned set of interlocking mechanics to generate a variety of unique scenarios for emergent problem-solving. The real-time-with-pause gameplay creates a compelling moment-to-moment loop of setup and payoff, the latter enhanced by a robust game feel in the form of punchy animations and sound design. The controls are elegant, the AI and mechanics predictable once you learn them, and the art direction is (with a couple exceptions) very readable, creating a tight and controlled play experience. And the general aesthetic is solid enough to make the interactions with the game's mechanics read as meaningful.

To put it another way: this game is "Jesus f*ck, did I just DO that?", again and again.