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The specter of Kowloon Walled City looms large in the pop culture imagination.
But have you ever seen it through the eyes of a cat?
A swivel of the left analogue stick dictates direction while the right controls the camera.
As you approach a suitable ledge, a button prompt flashes, allowing you to jump gracefully toward it.
By foregoing failure for theoretically more seamless roleplaying Strayis part of a lineage of cinematic games such asUncharted.
The tightly enclosed alleys and squares are crammed with graffiti, trash, and other artifacts of human habitation.
In Midtown, shops and apartments tumble on top of one another.
In the sewers, a sticky slime coats the concrete.
Is this how androids dream of paradise?
Despite the dangling carrot of escape,Strayis about experience rather than challenge.
But these are easily avoided distractions rather than pulse-quickening moments of genuine conflict.
Strayflirts with horror in other ways.
In early parts of the game, cameras surveil your movements with unnerving persistence.
Theres frustratingly little for players to sink their figurative teeth into beyond the act of exploration itself.
These shortcomings dont entirely undermine it.
Strapped to the cats back throughout, all the while making bleeping quips, it becomes an indispensable aid.
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