Game:

Stray (2022)

Duration: 12:16

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Stray's an adventure game. It's got lots of verticality to it, relies on observation, deduction, and requires the solving of puzzles.

The game features small, compact, densely packed maps. Each corner distinct from one another, loaded with props and foliage, good textures, bump mapping techniques and neon like lighting effects.

Not all's good, tho.

Automated, fail proof platforming brings the experience down a notch, and little use of its mechanics take away from what could've been a more dynamic, engaging experience. The camera struggles to keep up at times.

Graphics suffer from dithering. Pushing the rendering resolution up to 200% helps, but dithering never truly goes away, and it tanks the framerate down to 40 and under.

Stray's an exploration game that could've been one with challenging platformer elements, but wasn't due to automation.