Even though the nameless hero can’t keep up with Rayman this is an entertaining straight forward arcade parcours experience.

The mostly gorgeous visuals add to the well captured Jurassic Park atmosphere. In terms of gameplay though, it stays mostly shallow.

If you don’t associate Rock of Ages with a Def Leppard song, you will be happy about this unexpected sequel. It improves on almost every aspect of the quirky original that mixed Super Monkey Ball with Tower Defense while maintaining the superb humor à la Monty Python.

Technically the Switch version of Resident Evil Zero delivers. Mechanically though the co-op focus was and still is a downer.

While the first hour is as im- as depressive (at times), the limitations of the mechanics slowly take over. The moral implications of each decision you make (or have to make) are clearly there and always impactful - up to the very end. But since it is always black or white with no grey areas whatsoever, the concept is reduced to trial and error.

After the gruesome Resident Evil 6 this is a first step to redemption. Atmosphere and exploration move back into the center, but are too often overshadowed by action. It it still a long way back to the old Resident Evil virtues, but you have to start somewhere. So why not here?

Crysis 3 gives you incredibly detailed, beautiful locations. But the core design is not as modern or progressive as the engine and the AI is far away from standards set by Crytek with their first Far Cry.

The mechanical core of the third Saints excursion is still intact, while the visuals are more polished and the framerate on consoles is finally stable. Nonetheless Saints Row: The Third lost some of its mojo in 2020 compared to the impact in 2011.

Taken the complexity out of its notorious fighting mechanics was a good choice - especially since playability wasn’t sacrificed over it. Having half of the roster staying hidden behind DLC definitely isn’t that smart.

Technically and mechanically well constructed Mech action. The challenging campaign is definitely more entertaining than the multiplayer skirmishes.

It may sport a new name, but still carries too many burdens of the past. The experience can be great, the build-up is pleasantly tactical. But there is way too much wasted potential.

A good soccer game with more strengths than weaknesses, loads of licenced teams and a great presentation. But while it looks better than ever it still is stagnating overall.

Very nice indie adventure with an exciting approach - but the gameplay is lukewarm and the story doesn't really get going either.

Sucker Punch plays it safe. Compared to its predecessor there is almost no progress. Of course the visuals are better – sometimes they are plainly brilliant. But at its core it could have been so much more.

It’s nice to see Sonic back on track: Mania manages to capture the franchise core better than Segas last tries like Sonic Boom. There are some shortcomings here but if you can look past them, you will get a decent comeback from the speedy hedgehog.

Slight changes in the fighting system, and slightly rearranged visuals: Even 30 years in the past Yaukza is the game it always was. The concept is still cool – but feels slightly overused.

You get more of everything: More content, more story, more abilities. But that doesn't necessarily mean more fun – unfortunately.

While the story marks an interesting step in a new direction for the shooter series, the mechanics stay very conservative. With the added gadgets you get more variety, but the level design doesn’t demand these mechanics too often. And while the multiplayer is as solid as always and content-rich I miss fresh and creative modes.

The mass pac-maning is a fresh breeze in this age-old concept, but it lacks detail as well as fine-tuning and leaves players a bit in the dark in the beginning.

Entertaining strategy that lacks the humorous punch of its predecessors. A jack-of-all-trades, but master of none.

Who would have though that Optimus Prime one day would be the protégé of the umbra witch Bayonetta. The fight system is tight, but not complex at all. And visuals with the distinctive 80s cartoon look are spot on. Platinum delivers the best Transformers game in a while.

While I still consider the campaign one of the best of its kind in an open world action game, the visual translation of an eight year old game to Nintendo’s leaves a lot to be desired, seemingly pushing the hardware to its limit - and way too many times beyond that point.

Even though it shows some serious weaknesses this game cost me more hours of my life than I’d like to admit.

While the star is undoubtedly the cartoony art design with its hand drawn backgrounds and animations that make you feel like watching a mafia show on Adult Swim the mechanics are as conservative as can be.

It's Peach Time! Creative and sweetly designed pastime with a lot of variety at the beginning, but which lacks motivating content as it progresses. The adventure would have benefited from more tricky puzzles and mini-games or additional game mechanics.

Decent football/soccer game with more strengths than weaknesses, a great presentation and a bucketload of licences. Having said that, it still feels more like an update, while Volta still lacks some punch.

Yet again Utawarerumono remains a solid, but still very unspectacular mixture of visual novel and tactics roleplaying game.

Quotation forthcoming.

A solid remake of a solid, albeit short biker adventure that is primarily focused on storytelling and the characters rather than puzzles.

Right now military shooters share the problem of the WWII action games from about five years ago: Eventually you have seen everything and played everything, over and over, again and again. Sure, the campaign has its moments, but nonetheless Black Ops 2 would love to be Modern Warfare – and that is a five-year-old game. And so it is once again the established multiplayer with its plethora of modes and personalization option (all of which are basically known) that comes to the rescue of this run-of-the-mill shooter.

Even though the underlying emotion system leads to very entertaining results, EAs sitcom saga falls short of the expectations. Senseless omissions and Maxis’ no-risk-policy make this a game that will grow better with every expansion pack. But in this state it is not as good as its predecessor.

A consequent sequel with a lot of enhancements on the predecessor as well as interesting new ideas and a mercenary system. Bugs and outdated visuals hinder the progress, though.

“They cannot be serious!” became my mantra with Celeste. I like a steep challenge, but this is way too much. While the retro platformer shows off some interesting ideas the fun largely depends on your capacity for suffering as well as patience. This is one of the hardest games out there. They cannot be serious.

If Platinum Games is involved, you can expect something exceptional. But with Star Fox Zero this is not always a good thing. Basically the fun and your ability to look behind the outdated visuals depends on how well you get along with the unintuitive control scheme that takes a lot of time to get used to.

Quotation forthcoming.

Well executed homage to the classic Dungeon Keeper that can’t escape the long shadow that Horny is still casting more than 15 years after his last PC outing.

The story is as confusing as the characters are interesting. But then, who needs a story, when you can have well executed old-school brawling fun? The multiplayer keeps things interesting, but be warned: Your frustration threshold will be put to the test before you start to enjoy the hectic, sometimes chaotic but always entertaining mayhem.

Sonic's new open worlds prove delightfully engaging and imaginative, despite lacking polish and sloppy fixed-camera "cyberspace" levels.

A pinch of Borderlands, a splash of MOBA and a collection of diverse heroes: While solo players get bored very fast, the coop- and versus-modes deliver solid action.

After what seemed like 100 add-ons or adventure packs I was hoping for more. Yes: it looks better. And yes: It has been fine-tuned. But in the end you’ll get the same joyful and chaotic spell action where the fun rises analogue to the number of players.

Visually this is the best mobile Pokémon adventure yet. And while the new pocket monsters with their final forms are creative as always the island hopping lacks the challenge of older Pokémon games.

Visually this is the best mobile Pokémon adventure yet. And while the new pocket monsters with their final forms are creative as always the island hopping lacks the challenge of older Pokémon games.

Interesting mix of virtual online rpg and occult visual novel with some technical issues on Switch.

While the puzzles are challenging and a clear improvement on act 1, the humor as well as the storytelling are below Schafer standards.

The mix of brutal anime action and the core mechanics of the Yakuza franchise works surprisingly well, but it lacks consistency and depth, while definitely not looking as crisp as Yakuza 6.

While in terms of story-mode finally on par with the sports game competition and filled to the rim wrestlers, modes and match-types, technical issues and longterm problems dragged around now for years hold this years’ wrestling back.

The motion recognition works well, the levels based on five of Pixar's iconic feature films look great and playing with your personalized character is a sure hit with the younger players. Unfortunately with merely 15 short levels the adventure falls a bit on the short side, although the hunt for the highscore might draw you back into the park.

Konami sets the wrong focus, namely myClub etc.While the core gameplay is really good the Master League and career are stale and old-fashioned.

Technically Capcom delivers an inspired restoration (minus the lowres videos) of a modern survival horror classic, but the focus on coop-play comes at the expense of atmosphere.

This is an interesting arena brawler with lots of action and a Sony celebrity cast. It can get quite chaotic though. Thanks to the tighter controls on the dual-shock controller the PlayStation 3 version trumps the Vita counterpart.

It finally had to come to this: Where Konami’s competition stagnates in terms of mode selection here you get a lot of content but hardly any progress on the pitch.

The strategic elements work well together and are surprisingly complex. But a lot of potential is untapped by the lackluster presentation, the boring dialogues, the superficial view on the matter at hand and the sometimes disrespectful treatment of NPCs.

The mixture of resource management, ship-builder and shooter is conceptually quite interesting, but especially the planetary missions don’t live up to the potential.

It lacks atmosphere and vibrancy, while the world might feel sterile and ungraceful. But with the D&D ruleset as foundation you experience some fresh options in fights as well as during exploration. In the end Solasta delivers decent entertainment.

At its core this is nothing more than common arcade carnage. But the B-movie presentation draws you into this bizarre and trashy world.

Overall it lacks the punch of the first two episodes and focuses too much on action, while character development is put on the back burner. Nonetheless I am curious how Telltale will continue their journey to Pandora.

Mad Riders is all about adrenaline, lightning fast quads and huge huge jumps. The vehicles are not as difficult to control as in nail'd and the stunt system has improved. But still AI and visuals are not up to standards.

This game is killing me. After a few days with Spelunky everywhere I look I see arrow traps and giant spiders. But why does it have to be so damn hard? One wrong step and there it is again: Game Over!

The two-color mechanics are reminiscent of Ikaruga, but be aware that this experimental shooter is as interesting and sometimes intense as it is short.

Just like Koei's musou games you’ll either love it or hate. I love it with all its shortcomings.

Bloody, brutal – but quite cheap and too linear at times. For fans of the art of boss battles this is an entertaining experience. But outside the arenas Dracula can’t motivate like Metroid Prime, Darksiders or Batman, from which it takes quite a few elements.

This is by far the best rally game by Milestone yet, offering a solid experience with challenging track design. But even though it is vastly improved, visually it still is not up to challenge the likes of DiRT, Gran Turismo 5 or Forza.

A solid motorbike racing game with some interesting new ideas for the franchise. There is still room for improvement in terms of AI, presentation as well as the career mode.

There is a lot of decent hack&slay fun to be had with Chaosbane. Nonetheless it feels bland, unfinished and in a few moments even unstructured.

The survival road movie mixes elements of top-down-action, text adventure and resource management and becomes quite interesting very fast. That is until you hit the wall of content repetition that games randomly generated content are infamous for.

It feels weird to experience the franchise that called Sony consoles a home on the PC for the first time. Having said that, the port is extremely polished and should be a good indication for things to come.

The action-packed madness on wheels features the most terrifyingly beautiful jumpscares in VR, albeit marred by technical issues.

No, Proton Pulse Plus doesn’t manage to dethrone my all-time favorite Breakout-clone Arkanoid. But with its neon design and the chiptune soundtrack it draws you into the roughly 50 stages. Unfortunately the VR experience is rather short, albeit intensive.

If you are interested in the dancing adventure of the Persona crews, get the collection. Not only is it cheaper, it is also the only chance for you to play the still superior Persona 4 Dancing on PS4.

I welcome the slow paced combat which puts soul balancing and character exchange before abilities. The surprisingly deep story also is a breath of fresh air. But not all is well, especially in the engine department.

Like on PC the star is undoubtedly the cartoony art design with its hand drawn backgrounds and animations that make you feel like watching a mafia show on Adult Swim. The mechanics are as conservative as can be, though.

Fast, good looking and mean: Strike Vector offers challenging dogfights and extensive modification. But the modes are just standard, while the number of maps simply is too low.

The controls are top notch, the sickness factor bearable for most of the time and the visuals are among the best you can get on PSVR right now. But the lack of content harms this proof that VR and ego-action indeed is possible.

Entertaining wave shooter with a nice variety of weapons and a colorful comic-design, but also a steep challenge level.

A charming surreal puzzler that lacks polishing.

An entertaining old school RPG with polarizing hit-or-miss humor and below-par visuals.

The tank mayhem is a worthy heir to the arcade classic. Simple at first, complexity is added by upgrades and slight tactical decisions. And furthermore it is a prime example for the usage of VR, when you get totally immersed in the colorful world. Unfortunately the AI is not with the name, while the difficulty spikes due to sheer numbers can become frustrating.

3D platformer with an oldschool vibe, but lacking challenge and variety.

At its' core this is a great simulation. But aside from the believable analogue swing it is also an uninspired sequel.

Great battles, but not much to back it up. Curse of the Dead Gods puts its focus on the brutal and challenging skirmishes and offers too little on the side.

The mission design as well as some mechanical weaknesses sometimes kill the mood. But presentation and the dogfights are top-notch – especially in VR.

Lightfield is the blueprint for an interesting idea not executed properly. The flow you experience in this futuristic racer is very unique. But without a career mode and hampered by technical problem the fun is short-lived.

This is more an add-on than a sequel. It even shares a lot of the strengths and weaknesses of AirLandBattle as well as European Escalation. The addition of naval warfare adds a new, welcome facet, but in the end there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Crysis still is a decent shooter – and looks better than ever. Nonetheless promised features as well as a full mission are missing, while the optimization is lukewarm.

Expeditions definitely has some strong points like the narrative, the choices or its dynamics. But when it comes to the presentation in general and the battle tactics it is not as strong.

The fights, the gun battles and all the little tasks are quite entertaining, but they all lack depth and finesse and often feel separated from the main story and its emotional impact. This is a solid but very conventional open world action.

The brutal combat, the cops and robbers attitude, the explosive narrative are as entertaining as they were two years ago. And although it of course looks better on the new consoles it doesn’t do the hardware justice.

Fun open-world kart racer that excels in chaotic racing but is held back by microtransactions.

The disputable song selection aside Let’s Sing shows promise: With four possible vocalists, the original music videos in the background and asynchronous online sing-offs it offers a lot. Unfortunately the voice recognition leaves something to be desired.

Ambitious and in coop quite tense thriller with technical faults as well as AI problems.

Compared to Van Helsing’s first console adventure this is a step in the right direction. Nonetheless I still don’t understand why Neocore keeps on porting the entertaining, but faulty hack&slays one by one, while they have a Final Cut waiting in the wings.

An interesting mixture of visual novel and tactical roleplaying game with a strong focus on the narrative.

A charming, wacky 2D adventure that keeps you motivated even though the tasks you’ll encounter could be more varied.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

Mystical, but sometimes bland and generic action rpg from the makers of I am Setsuna delivering solid entertainment.

This could have been one of the truly great RTS games. The sheer dimension of the mass battles is impressive. And while pathfinding and AI deliver, the game design, campaign and diversity of the two fractions disappoint. It’s a shame.

After years of modern and futuristic warfare the WWII-scenario feels fresh again. Although nothing is really new, Rebellion manages to conjure up interesting tactical sniping action.