Mario vs. Donkey Kong offers entertaining puzzle fun with a nice, revised look and some new levels, but unfortunately it lacks almost any form of challenge and is a bit expensive for its size.

Almost seven years passed since Dead or Alive 4 – a long time in which beat'em ups progressed quite a bit. This progressed seems to have passed by Team Ninja. A little more action, a little less counter attack. The unique fighting system still is tremendously motivating and delivers. But that aside this T & A show doesn't have much too offer.

Fast katana action with Yokai as collectibles and a hint of Okami. Unfortunately it needs polish - mostly in presentation.

Fast-paced 2D action game - half remake, half sequel - that will keep you entertained for a couple of hours without big ideas and looks beautiful at the same time.

Playing Indigo Prophecy after ten years feels like coming home. The storytelling and direction that surprised the gaming world in 2005 still works. Yes: the controversy about the ending still is there, but there is no denying nonetheless that this is one of the few very important games in recent memory.

A solid beat-em-up that improves slightly on the predecessors’ formula, but also shows some weird design choices.

Timeless game concept, moderate modernization: Visually, Pharaoh - A New Era could have done a lot more, and important features were also removed. Nevertheless, the city builder in ancient Egypt convinces playfully.

After the disgraceful neo-western The Cartel, Techland goes back to its Call of Juarez-roots with Gunslinger. And while the arcade mechanics rarely go beyond average, the imaginative narrative and the visual style draw you deep into the alternative history of Billy the Kid, Jesse James and Silas Greaves.

On one hand Obduction follows the adventure traditions of Myst, while on the other it adds modern storytelling layers that remind you of games like Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture – just don’t expect a puzzle density like in The Witness.

Insomniac does it again. While it is rather short, the latest adventure of this duo is a well executed epilogue to a trilogy that shaped action platforming in this console generation.

This game still is very unique – at least stylistically. And on the PC you get the better visuals, the better controls and overall more value for your money in this intersting MetroidVania variation.

Conceptually this is a beautiful adventure set in an interesting futuristic world, but suffers from narrative weaknesses as well mechanical problems.

Quotation forthcoming.

While mechanically this action-adventure is mediocre, it shines with its story approach and its characters.

Trover is totally wacky - which makes this such an entertaining VR experience.

It shows the still known mechanical faults, but the story is worth every minute, as it sets the tone for a hopefully tense finale.

I have to keep an eye on my provisions, I have to leave the safe path and might have to face deadly foes. If I don't want to die I have to face my fears and accept a suspenseful and lethal game of hide-and-seek. I've never experienced a more intense fight for survival in an open world.

The visuals deliver but the fighting mechanics leave a lot to be desired, while the content side of the fighting pocket monsters falls flat.

Don’t expect anything fancy. This is a run-of-the-mill arcade style action with no frills and a cool soundtrack.

This is an entertaining puzzler, but in terms of finesse or cleverly constructed thought experiment this is as far away from games like Starseed Pilgrim as it is from Portal or Antichamber.

Solid expansion that replaces the dynamic battles with tenacious fights in the trenches.

Minimalistic, but pretty arcade racer rooted in Lotus, Out Run and other classics.

Short, charming, good: Jolly platformer that (unlike its role model Super Meat Boy) appeals beyond hardcore gamers.

An entertaining conquering expedition somewhere between Defender of the Crown and King’s Bounty.

With Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Bioware is returning to its more successful past. The fantasy role-playing game captivates with exciting characters and a crisp combat system, but is not quite able to revive the heights of its previous successful years.

The reboot of Twisted Metal is disappointing. The creative ideas give you a glimpse of what could have been, but in the end the driving action is too chaotic, too unfair and shows too many problems with the online stability.

Even with the sheer amount of content and the decent visuals, Super Mario Party fails to impress, mainly because of the mediocre minigames and the minuscule online-mode.

This is the high quality we’ve got used to from Alpha Dream. And even though some of the well known elements are getting slightly stale, Paper Jam mixes it up with some fresh parts and adds a quirky humor you wouldn’t come to expect.

The unusual scenario with its tongue-in-cheek humor manages to camouflage some of the strategic shortcomings in the realtime battles. And so does the clever combination of the political, strategic and tactical elements in Rivellon.

Once more Zuma's Revenge delivers classic ballshooting puzzle action you came to know and love since Puzz Loop.

A story-focused fantasy RPG with team-based realtime battles and handdrawn comic visuals: This is definitely not as generic as the title suggests.

I like the fact that Rufus returned to terrorize his environment. This destructive journey is a wild ride spiced up with time tiers. Classic point & click doesn’t get much better.

Entertaining mixture of desert exploration and basic builder, that would have benefitted from a coop-mode.

Fighting and exploration in a visually stunning pixel-art world that manages to captivate you without a single spoken word.

An improvement over its predecessor in every way. But there are still shortcomings in a few areas, most notably the improved, but still uncharismatic career, while beginners will miss a decent tutorial. Nonetheless this is the MMA game any fan should get.

With high octane vehicles being the new star I was shocked how slow and old-fashioned SuperChargers gets out of the blocks. But once they reach second gear the mixture of old-fashioned jump&run and vehicular exploration/racing/combat becomes one of the best toys-to-life games out there.

Conceptually interesting visual novel with too rigidly constructed situations.

Everybody's Golf always was and still is a challenging, very charming delight with a lot of content. But on Vita it lacks new ideas while the physics system doesn't seem to be up to date.

Interesting turn-based mechanics, a good map selection and important decisions: Broken Lines is a decent tactics game.

Driving physics are as intuitive as they are challenging. Opponents do a good job of advancing through thick traffic, although they do tend to cause unfortunate accidents.

This is a short yet intense challenge that mixes elements of Homeworld with Eve: Valkyrie, but it lacks variety and a narrative.

While the port is not the best, the balancing act on eight legs is as much of a fun romp as it was in its premiere.

A charming 2D action adventure that captivates with its pixel aura like Sword & Sworcery but suffers from technical glitches.

Mechanically well-working 2D action with competent comic design and slight rogue influences.

With its dice rolling it lacks the dynamics of modern videogames and the lowgrade AI might kill all the fun in offline play. But if you compete online this is a faithful recreation of the tabletop game.

It may be a little too easy, but nonetheless this is a lot of fun. Rhythm Thief is the best game of its kind since Elite Beat Agents.

Quotation forthcoming.

I cherish the medieval authenticity that Kingdom Come strives for. And that Warhorse implements some mechanics that separate it from other roleplaying games. But there are also loads of elements that are not worked out well enough, that are just painful to see unfold or plain buggy that I am really torn. I want to applaud the devs, but sometimes I just hate them.

While the concept of team action in an open world (in fact, the biggest one from Ubisoft yet) is interesting without a doubt, the execution is lackluster. This is a typical example for “Jack of all trades, master of none”, where every aspect of the game is overshadowed by competition which simply is more refined´.

Thanks to some well-written dialogue, directing your party of four can be entertaining. However, turn-based battles sacrifice tactical depth for gadgets and gimmickry, while collision detection as well as AI behavior leave room for improvement.

In terms of suspense, pacing or action this still is a masterpiece. But after almost a dozen years visually you can feel the age. So if you played it on any other system, you can pass this one by.

Charmingly staged retro flashback à la Shinobi: 2D action fireworks with many bosses, but few highlights.

If Disney would build a prehistoric theme park, this would be the blueprint. You can tame the wildest animatronics with one button, blinking areas show you where to go or what to do next and everybody makes you feel as happy as possible, thus cancelling out any sense of danger. Unfortunately the atmosphere suffers as much as the challenge. This could have been an important step for the franchise but instead marks its low point.

If you like your horror spiced up with action, this is for you. But if you're looking for suspense and mystery you should look for different tale.

It has its flaws, but in its best moments this is an intense VR stealth game with loads of phsical movement and a cool teleportation system.

While I am a fan of retro collections, this one is rather disappointing. The games itself are chosen well, but they also show with little to none mechanical progress over the years, why this genre is more or less extinct. And there is hardly enough bonus material to keep you happy, either.

The PC port of Days Gone is technically way more stable than Horizon Zero Dawn, probably because it uses Unreal technology. Having said that, the action-adventure in an apocalyptic biker world is still good entertainment.

Quotation forthcoming.

A compelling story and a great combat system suffer from a generic open world that offers nothing new or exciting. The change hasn't been good for Team Ninja, but Rise of the Ronin can still delight samurai fans with its characters and battles.

The extraterrestrial city builder has a lot to offer, but suffers from design flaws, feels downright unfinished here or there and would have benefited from more depth.

The basic concept is interesting enough to spark your curiosity, but in the end it stays too repetitive.

Quotation forthcoming.

Visually this interactive experience directed by Heavy Rain’s David Cage and starring Elaine Page as well as Willem Dafoe is stunning, but the mechanics as well as the narrative are mostly average.

In the dull routine of everyday life of military shooters, this is a colorful change – but the sometimes chaotic fights of flora and undead suffer from a limited number of maps and modes.

It offers you a decent amount of content with the open Chronicle mode taking all the glory. Aside from that don’t expect the Samurais to stray too far from the proven formula.

The direction is so intense that you get lost in this dark New York fairy tale with its surreal characters, excellent dialogue and morbid thriller flair. For the long wait it is rather short though.

The same weird microgame madness as usual. But the new character concept is not a good fit. There definitely is some party fun to be found, but it doesn't last too long.

The imaginative artdesign with its paperfolding antics feels fresh. Unfortunately you can't say the same for Paper Monsters' core mechanics with its simple jump-&-run gameplay that you've seen a million times.

This is dreary, sometimes plain boring and frustrating. Even if you get into the mechanics thanks to YouTube-videos (!), there are way too many shortcomings.

Fun, summery open-world racer in one of the most beautiful locations in the world that basically doesn’t do much wrong, but lacks a bit of its own identity.

Feeling truly powerless and helpless again? The latest Bloober Team game can help. In this space-age survival horror, people seem to die every second. You have to like it – but it's a lot of fun.

In terms of storytelling still interesting, but mechanically this remake of the apocalyptic occult rpg feels outdated.

In the long run the storm of rarely changing enemies gets monotonus. But if you're into dualstick action you can give this a shot – especially since the controls are surprisingly accurate.

Here you won’t find fresh ideas, but a colorful and varied overview of everything that makes puzzle platforming fun.

An entertaining thriller that strays too far from the storytelling of the first episode.

The presentation is minimal, there are no hires visuals nor multitouch. There is no tutorial and no campaign. There are no scenarios, but instead you get a cheating AI. But if you play online against human opponents the magic you associate with the board game, is almost there.

Fortunately Tower of Guns doesn’t bite off more than it can chew. It delivers a nice mix of arena shooter and rogue like.

Even though the director’s cut is better than the original, mainly thanks to the interesting story there is no denying that the ego puzzler is still in GlaDOS’ merciless hands.

Classic dungeon crawling á la The Bard’s Tale with fairy tale’ish visuals and intelligent puzzles.

Like on One or PC, this is no quaint river rafting trip where you can sense the spirit of Huckleberry Finn. This is a relentless beast that let’s you die without warning. But even once you got the basics covered this is not as engrossing as Don’t Starve – even though artdesign and music are top notch.

Unraveling the mysteries of the game mechanics set in this mystical environment is the main motivation. At least until you are lulled into the tranquil setting and start realizing that you are following a monotonous future unfolding here and then...

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.

So far I haven't seen an adventure where the puzzles were so plausible and seamlessly integrated into the main plot. Unfortunately character design and direction in general are far less perfect.

In theory this is the best Atelier in a rather bleak PS3-apperance of the series. Even visuals and level design are above the rest of the franchise. But with serious frame rate issues and a game-stopping freeze bug that can damage the console data system I suggest you wait until Gust releases a patch.

As if Sega made a sequel to Virtua Racing: Formula Retro Racing has a few minor problems, but overall offers a lot of racing fun nonetheless.

You miss Dark Souls? You yearn for Bloodborne 2? Then give Mortal Shell a try. It is not as brilliant, but delivers more than solid entertainment for Souls fans.

It is a new start. For mankind. For the hero. For the franchise. For Bioware. And for the most time, it gives you decent entertainment, albeit very safe and carbon-copied from ME1 and other sci-fi franchises - Andromeda treats the original basically like The Force Awakens approaches the elements of A New Hope. Just don’t expect anything new or fancy. Plus: the script quality varies between good, fairly decent and outright embarrassing and awkward.

Quotation forthcoming.

Against all skepticism the seemingly unholy union between Link and Koei's Warriors works surprisingly well. Tecmo Koei is far from delivering a totally new gameplay experience, but offers a nice take on the Zelda mythology and shows an interesting facet of the heroes and heroines in Hyrule.

Wraith is a tense, captivating stealth-adventure, held back by lack of finetuning as well as a few dull sequences.

Shootmania Storm proves everybody wrong who thought that there are no innovations possible in multiplayer shooters. But with the focus on competition, the potent editor as well as gameplay, the visuals suffer tremendously.

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

The star in Color Splash definitely is the art design. The consequence of the length the paper theme is executed is admirable, while the scripting of the stories you encounter is right on the spot. A higher difficulty level and a tighter direction are needed, though.

While the core mechanics hardly make any progress, in terms of storytelling Origins is definitely worthy of concluding the Arkham trilogy in thrilling fashion.

The Wild at Heart is a nice adventure fairy tale in an imaginative world, but suffers from AI problems as well as some bugs.

A playworthy history lesson about an undervalued shoot-em-up franchise. The collection is technically excellent, while the retro games keep up their fascination til today, mainly because of their imaginative bosses.

While this add-on shows some deficit on the amount of the content, what you actually get, shows the high production value you got used to from Blizzard. The pricing is arguable, though.

Entertaining as well as funny dungeon defense with roguelite elements and Twitch integration.