There are a lot of games that get described as "walking simulators" to their detractors. The excuse is that the game is not a game because you don't do anything in it. In The Vanishing of Ethan Carter yes, you do walk around. But you are also exploring the mind of a young child and how real imagination is to children. The game offers basic puzzles that are easy to solve, with some dark storylines thrown in to keep you interested throughout. What happened to Ethan Carter?

This game is gorgeous. The grass is the best you will find in a game, not flat textures that fall over when you near them as in most games. The lighting is magical and you can feel the world come alive as you play. Character models have a cartoony quality to them, but that helps to keep the game from getting too dark, as with more photo realistic characters some of the scenes would be a bit too dark.

The story is engrossing throughout, although like most "walking simulators" nothing is always as it seems. And if you do happen to skip over a puzzle you cannot finish the game without going back and playing that puzzle. Which would be fine but some of the puzzles are hidden pretty well, and while you can fast travel to the puzzles, you then get to walk back to the end of the game. For the end of the game this can get frustrating, especially since I encountered an area that slows your movement down and if you try to go back you continue to walk at that reduced speed. So, I had to skip the puzzle before that section and then run back to the end after fast travelling to it in order to finish the game.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a great game. And while it might not be the best game released in 2014, it does make a good case for being in the top ten.