6. The Swapper
Available through the Playstation Plus service, more people should check out The Swapper, an excellent little puzzle title from Facepalm Games. It's a curious game that rewards tact - one that can also repel quite a lot of gamers who'd be turned off by the quickly-scaling difficulty and unique puzzles. You see, pretty early on you're given the ability to create light-based clones of yourself, something that forms the core of the game, as they're ideal for standing on switches, pulling items and working through multiple level paths at the same time opening up evermore complex areas. Clones don't move independently either, if you move one you move 'em all, and they can be blocked by various pockets of light scattered around, which makes you stop and plan out your next move. One huge plus to The Swapper in the face of such a steep learning curve is the foreboding atmosphere, and the subtle confusion as to what's really going on. Throughout this writer's time with it, there was a constant feeling of isolation, which is something the game harnesses perfectly. It may not favour hand-holding, but it's interesting that there are developers still willing to make titles like this in the face of many other, more accessible games, and that alone makes The Swapper stand out.