Recompile

With just a few visual and narrative alterations, this could have easily been a branded Tron game. Recompile takes Tron's basic concept -- a program running around a mainframe, making perilous leaps between platforms and attacking enemy programs with sci-fi weapons -- and runs with it, giving you a world that is perhaps a bit darker and more dystopian than Disney's films thanks to its courage to dig into concepts such as what artificial intelligence might mean and how time passes within the confines of a computer system, which operates at nearly the speed of light. Everything's woven together with an artist's eye, creating environments that blur the line between what's real and what's digital while somehow managing to make tried-and-true game mechanics such as running, jumping, and shooting feel like a natural part of this virtual space.

But the experience could become a little frustrating for players who lack the perseverance to push through some of the game's trickier areas. Figuring out where you need to go and how to get there can be surprisingly challenging, given that the world isn't broken into clear paths with simple navigational lines to follow. And once you've found your way to an object of interest -- like a logic switch -- you'll need to work out what to do with it (plus any others to which it might be connected) in order to trigger the next event you need to progress. It takes patience, practice, and a willingness to experiment and do a bit of backtracking, but Recompile will likely feel like a tasty treat for anyone whose curiosity is raised by the idea of a game that combines the concepts of Tron and Metroid.