9 Terrible Video Games With One Incredible Mechanic

3. Contrast - Shadow Play

The Awesome Mechanic: This PS4 launch title is propelled forward by its entertaining art style and a platforming system which involves the player switching between the physical 3D world and the noir-inspired 2D world made entirely of shadows.

The tangible world informs the shadow world, and so the player will often need to manipulate light sources and other objects in the real world for them to alter the terrain of the shadow world. For a time, it feels positively genius.

The Terrible Game: The biggest problem with Contrast is that it's absolutely riddled with glitches that undermine its clever conceit.

On countless occasions you'll probably find yourself stuck in the environment to the extent that you'll need to reload the game, and elsewhere the puzzles are more irritating and frustrating than fun or smart.

If another game better-exploited this interplay of light and dark, though, it could end up a major indie hit, because those golden moments where the game really works are something very special indeed.