That being said I'd have to take my hat off to 'Race the sun' as that was a good game. I played it first as I thought I would like it the least out of all these games, but how wrong I was. This game is basically an endless runner as viewed from behind where you control a little spacecraft. You have certain objectives to complete as you go to unlock more things like speed boosting pads, jumps and paintwork which all (well, most) help you on the ultimate job of trying to get as far as you can without dying. It's a simple but great concept as you have to both dodge obstacles (moving and static) as well as make sure you're going fast because, as the title suggests, your ship is solar powered and when the sun goes down that's game over.
There are other modes you unlock too like a sort of maze mode, and an extremely hard mode, but the normal mode is where the most fun is as trying to get as far as you can. The only thing I found a disappointment is that there is no end, not even ridiculously far away, there is a point where the score stops going and 20 or so people have managed that world-wide (this game has been on Steam for a while too) but for most people, me included, it would have been nice to have a just about reachable end to game, so you could aim for it, as it is though, I know I'll never catch those 20 or so with unstoppable scores so when I unlocked everything, I just stopped, I did have all these other games to play too remember.
As for the other 3 games; The Unfinished swan, Ether One and Hohokum, I have completely different thoughts.
Firstly the unfinished Swan, which was more of an 'experience' than a game. Now, don't get me wrong, I played Gone home (another interactive story) and loved it, but this just didn't grip me. It was about a boy coming to terms with the loss of his parents (I think) which was doled out in small pieces of information between navigating mazes of no colour, which you threw balls of paint at to help you figure out where to go. That was the game play element of it really, throwing paint or water balls to help you see where to go in basically colourless landscapes. I think it was quite a good idea for a game play element to be fair, but as soon as they seemed to start getting somewhere with it, they'd change it to water, or night-time or other things and you'd be back to step one and you never really got to see how far that mechanic could go, which I'd think could be implemented very well in to a stealthy game (there's a money making idea for someone). I wish I could stay more about the story but after an hour or so, I started zoning out and lost interest, in fact the only reason I finished it was due to how short it was.
That's why I didn't finish Ether one. Again, it seemed like a good concept as you were some sort of mind changer that goes in to peoples dreams and solves their mental problems. You were accompanied by your boss' voice in a cheap GLaDOS imitation role. The problem for me though is that it seemed to be very reminiscent of point and click adventures where it was a case of trying to combine everything with everything else while looking in every little cupboard in the game, and being on foot (as it's a first person adventure game (just like unfinished swan before it)) it takes forever walking back and forth. I know this one is more personal opinion but I like my puzzle games more like 'The Swapper' (which I talked up a few months ago) and not in the form of trail and error of trying to combine everything in the game together. Sorry, it's not for me so I chucked in the towel after a few hours.
Hohokum is an interesting one. I can't decide if it's a terrible example of art getting in the way of a good game or a trippy masterpiece. I'm leaning towards the first one but I'm not sure. Basically you're a flying snake thing and you have to go around the world playing a very long game of hide and seek with your brethren by once again trying to interact with everything possible. The difference here is it's not a first person experience but a side on colour trip and you're basically interacting yourself with everything.
I'm not sure if I'm explaining the difference very well, but suffice to say there is a lot of similarities, especially in the trial and error sence. The biggest problem though is the lack of information it supplies.It doesn't tell you how many of the other snakes you've rescued, if the are you're currently in has a snake to rescue and most damningly of all, there's no overall map, so it would seem that if you get to a stage where you've only got one or two snakes to get (at least, you assume that) then you could be spending hours trying to navigate the giant map that tells you nothing, yet the game is happy to tell you how many eyes you've found in a level (they're a bonus collectible). I'm not claiming to have really been liking it before, but the knowledge of this to come totally put me off. That said, there's a few days until The Witcher comes out yet, so I may try picking it up again, certainly more likely than Ether One.
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