This admission is better read than said: I'm hopelessly addicted to will and grace. A video game provides the ideal arrangement for someone -- like me -- whose extreme athleticism remains dormant in reality, but seeks expression just a few feet away from the couch. It's the basis for the accord I once made with the Prince of Persia. "With my will and your grace, your grace," I said, "we'll get through this elaborate death chicane in under an hour. And if you end up squirming with a spike through your chest, we'll just put that on me. Deal?"

In the low fidelity of Jordan Mechner's classic, the prince's form of movement became a mesmerizing, superhuman display of perfect movement ... and when it didn't you reverted to an older save. Outland, a visually arresting 2D platformer from Finland's Housemarque studio, is just as reverent to grace, personified by a tall, inexhaustible silhouette in search of the meaning behind his dreams. He runs and leaps with such intense confidence, some of it starts filtering through the controller and into you.