Quite a selection

Sid Meier once opined that a good videogame is “a series of interesting choices”. Once upon a time, that would have seen him fall afoul of the Edge style guide, since that particular adjective was outright banned for a while. This rule was, perhaps, born of bitter experience: ‘interesting’ is the sort of euphemistic response a parent gives when their child proudly brandishes a piece of artwork that is little more than abstract splodges on a page.

On to Sonic Frontiers, then, whose creators have certainly made some interesting choices. The game’s director, Morio Kishimoto, has since likened it to a “global playtest”, suggesting it is “not quite there yet” – quite the admission for something that is in the shops now and selling for £50.

You could spend that money a little more wisely on one of this issue’s two blockbuster releases, though neither consistently provides the player with interesting decisions to make. Modern Warfare II’s first half at least keeps you firmly strapped in for the ride; you needn’t stray far from the critical path before it demands you return to the mission area or die. God Of

War: Ragnarök’s routes are significantly less narrow and fork more frequently – though paths to supposedly optional trinkets come to feel mandatory, that telltale glitter of fresh loot proving hard to resist, not least since failing to grab it could potentially leave you under-equipped for later fights.

The most interesting choices come elsewhere. Marvel Snap gives you a few on every turn, the various special abilities on your cards combining with unpredictable location-based perks to ensure every two-minute match plays out differently. And in Pentiment, the decisions you make as artist-turnedamateur-detective Andreas Maler ripple throughout history, touching the lives of almost everyone in a Bavarian town across a 25-year span. Meier, we sense, would approve.