Virginia is one of the best films I’ve played this year.

This may sound unnecessarily sardonic, but it’s both a positive and negative critique. Terms like “shot” and “framed” are hard to use in describing video games without wincing, but the way the first person camera is used to deliver narrative beats is often really striking.

My favourite moment came in one scene where a character was offering me a cup of coffee on the tray. When I took it, he moved away, revealing a character behind him I hadn’t expected to see - crucially, that reveal was given as a result of one of my actions.

It’s a lovely little bit of player agency that is sadly missing from the rest of Virginia, its environments not nearly as effectively used for storytelling as they could be. I’d love more games that let me be a passenger, though. Quite literally.

one-fifty is a project in which I try to write about games in exactly 150 words. Something you think I should play? Tweet me.