Amy

Sadly, Amy never truly explores these mechanics until they’re a matter of life and death. Suddenly, you must ride the zombie infection until you turn, use your new status as a walking corpse to shuffle, unnoticed, past the undead, and finally, distract the watchful walkers to clear a path for Amy. All this must be accomplished before the zombie plague kills Lara dead.

The problem is a function of the game’s length—with only six chapters, there’s little time to show players the ropes. So when the game suddenly becomes demanding and zombies gain the power to trigger “game over” by merely looking at you, it’s hard to maintain patience for Amy’s trial-and-error stealth.

If a revered game-maker like Hideo Kojima were to pull a gag like this, some would surely call the move a stroke of genius. The difference is that the Metal Gear Solid games earn player trust through thoughtful, assured design. Wandering Amy’s glitchy halls is like exploring a shoddy, carnie-built funhouse. Its never clear whether the next scare, though carelessness or outright malice, will actually hurt you.

Souls masochistic enough to conquer Amy’s pain-in-the-ass stealth challenge are rewarded with a no-brainer boss battle—another seeming left turn, since until that point, combat is largely clumsy and last-ditch. Once the final baddie is dispatched, an anticlimactic resolution hints at further chapters in the Amy saga. Oddly, it is tempting to look forward to a second outing, however unlikely. Because videogame disasters this gruesome are fascinating. And, to be dangerously optimistic, Amy can’t get much worse.