The basic principle as well as the presentation are still cool, but the newfound focus on action, special abilities and the randomized “runs” harms the motivation.

The open arenas look good, you'll get chaotic races in interesting modes, but the fun is short lived.

There wasn’t much effort put into these upgrades. Especially with Blood Money the age is clearly visible in almost every aspect.

It is entertaining as before, but don’t expect any progress of the snowy mascot battle.

Depending on the collection of Skylander figures that you already own, the number of areas that can just be opened by your wallet will vary - and so will the fun you will have with the Giants. That aside the new adventure in the Skylanders shows improvements on almost every level. Unfortunately the use of the Wii U GamePad is quite superficial.

A successful city-building simulation that builds on the strengths of its predecessor, but is dragged down by terrible performance.

A stylish open world and a great driving experience are held back only by minor niggles. If only those last two hours weren't there.

Lucky’s Tale carries a lot of potential. But in the end it suffers from simplistic game design and quirky development decisions. [Tested with Oculus Rift]

At its core this is still a good hockey game. But it is streamlined too much towards arcade-action while offering basically the same content as last year.

Mimimi Productions did it: Finally a 3D action adventure found a home on the PC again. In the end you can feel and see the lack of the teams’ experience though. But even if it falls short of giving the likes of Sly Cooper a decent challenge, this is an entertaining trip into a colorful world of paper mâché.

The RPG saga benefits from new battle and fighting systems, but still has lot of room for improvements when it comes to visuals and staging.

Even the inconvenience aside that this year (unlike 2016 and 2015) the console DLC is not included and has to be paid for separately the direction of the dominant wrestling franchise is still unclear. You have more wrestlers than ever before, but with just marginal enhancements of the proven fighting mechanics and reduction of modes you wonder what’s next.

This variation of the classic board game Risk isn’t pretty, the UI is rough sometimes, but it has a very vivid community that gives you an enormous supply of maps where you can try to conquer almost everything from Middle Earth to Westeros.

Visually appealing retro racer with great music, but also very evident weaknesses in terms of AI and controls.

I was looking forward to the new Fox-Engine as a foundation, but the next big step for the series is just not there. Instead of reaching a new level the gameplay is hindered by the teams’ problems with the engine, resulting in bugs and loads of minor flaws. That’s a shame, because the core mechanics are better than ever.

Delta Force hits the mark as a challenging tactical shooter, but it lacks the original ideas and authenticity to be a real hit.

Take the Lemmings out, put sheep in and you have a solid puzzler that doesn’t risk anything but is challenging enough to keep you going.

Twinstick action with on-the-spot retro feeling. Short, sweet, but mechanically limited.

Some inconsequences, e. g. in terms of AI and the short leash are annoying, but story and characters are very convincing.

It’s quite rough around the edges, it lacks variety and the balancing could be better, but nonetheless this is an interesting turn-based-strategy set against the backdrop of 80' slasher movies.

In terms of gaming history this collection is actually reasonably interesting, but it is not top quality throughout.

While the basic premise of controlling various aircraft in their descent and landing with its mission variety on the nicely designed maps stays intact, this is one of the very few games where the devteam was not able to implement a proper tracking of the Touch controllers.

Ambitious 2D-horrortrip borrowing heavily from Silent Hill, but the suspenseful narrative is not enough when level design and game mechanics are too foreseeable and repetitive.

This time the screenplay just doesn’t work. But even though this is the weakest episode of the whole series by a mile, it still shows enough “Walking Dead” to be entertaining.

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

The mechanics are as mediocre as they were on the other systems, but additionally the Wii U version suffers from a stuttering framerate and superficial usage of the Wii U gamepad.

Same procedure as every year... a few optimizations here and there, but unfortunately also noticeable improvements that make things worse. If you don't need UT, you can stick with EA FC 24.

As a door opener into the world of Vive-VR Valves tech demo The Lab is the perfect start. But when it boils down to games and mechanics there is not enough substance. [Tested with Vive]

A solid HD remaster of a hidden gem from the PS2/Xbox era. Unfortunately all the visual improvements cannot hide the age of the original while the changes to control and cover systems bring their own problems.

I didn't have to jump over my shadow to give this rating: Even if SCHiM falls short of its ideas, the charming game treasure offers a great presentation, a beautiful story and a fun gameplay flow.

Interesting at first, but in the long run this turn based tactics experiment gets quite monotonous.

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.

This is the weakest Immortals DLC. It takes a gamble with the new perspective, but it doesn’t pay off – the action rpg is not a good fit for the Immortals world.

At one point Max mumbles almost like Sylvester Stallone. And that's when I thought "Killing is as easy but also as boring as breathing". What once was a stylistic masterpiece with rough edges now becomes mass compatible mainstream action for the Call of Duty generation.

You don’t get the ultimate complete packagae nor a technically perfect conversion. But Duke Nukem 3D still is an entertaining oldschool shooter.

Invincible VS is a well-crafted and stylishly animated 3-on-3 brawler. It stays true to the cool source material, and the characters are brought to life effectively. Unfortunately, it lacks standout features and thus falls short of some of its competitors.

At its core this is a decent port of the intuitive touchscreen jump-n-run-builder: Proven mechanics, technically sound and easy to control. Unfortunately Nintendo decided to take the online level exchange out.

Graphically expandable tennis with few options and a lame career - but this sports game has its strong moments on the court.

Creatures of Ava has many ideas that work, but not all of them are fully developed. All in all, the colorful mix is ​​entertaining despite some weak ingredients.

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

Technically crisp hybrid of dogdeball and online-action. But despite on-the-spot controls you’ll never get the “one-more-match"-urge.

If you don’t own a New 3DS, stay away from this, since the old-gen 3DS-systems can’t cope with the technical requirements. If you are the owner of a new system though, you’ll get the same musou fun in Hyrule as on the Wii U.

In local co-op-mode still somewhat entertaining, but if you play alone it gets stale quite quickly.

A basically competent campus construction simulation, whose humor doesn't hit enough and doesn't fully ignite with too much repetitive hard work.

This two year old adventure looks great on PS4. And with the addition of playing the episodes in chronological order this is clearly the best version of Beyond. Nonetheless some of the old basic problems remain.

The board game was optimized for mobile gaming needs, but the fun factor of the minigames fluctuates quite a bit.

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.

Even though this is a good port of the Action RPG that appeared on PC, I ask myself the question “Why?” over and over. Why take the two year old game including its expensive character micro transactions when over the course of the last years this character as well as the content evolved into the Final Cut that was just released recently? Why?

A neat collection of JRPG classics for Switch, a little light on extra content though.

A colorful combo bang in the style of Genshin Impact, Bayonetta and Dynasty Warriors cannot hide the weak visuals of the surroundings and a repetitive gameplay.

Gylt is an accessible mix of stealth and puzzles in an interesting storytelling environment. Unfortunately Tequila Works runs out of ideas too fast, though.

While the concept with its “groundhog day of destruction” is intriguing, the technical as well as mechanical execution is not.

Solid old-school dungeon crawler with quite challenging puzzles.

Definitely better than the first expansion, even though the mission design is flawed while the paleo botany content is a bit superficially implemented.

A simple, yet entertaining old school point&click adventure.

The crossover of Bridge Constructor and The Walking Dead works well, but doesn’t offer the creative energy from Bridge Constructor: Portal.

Larry is back. Not as lude, but charming nonetheless. Too bad that the finicky inventory as as well as sometimes illogical puzzles con become frustrating at times.

The LEGO expansion scores with a great toy world and of course everything that is great about the main game,, but lack of content as well as missing active building are quite disappointing.

It is not just the frustration that comes with the randomly filled and arranged levels and the difficulty spikes that can occur that harm this nonetheless entertaining roguelite shooter. It is rather the technical hiccups that you wouldn’t expect on current console systems.

Most of the puzzles are well balanced and cleverly connected – a bit of experimenting quickly leads to the correct solution. Although finding alternative paths can be frustrating.

The difficulty level goes way beyond what you usually describe as "challenging, but fair" – this is do-or-die-retro-feeling. This illegitimate spawn of Ghosts'n Goblins and the humour of Monty Python doesn't disappoint when it comes to the audiovisual design. Unfortunately the mechanics are not near as creative.

Mighty No. 9 suffers mainly from one problem: An identity crisis. Technical difficulties aside Mighty just can’t manage to step out of MegaMan’s shadow. It feels more like a solid homage than a serious contender.

Colorful, minimalistic, creative. A very short, but entertaining skill test with very reduced retro visuals.

The botanical garden is a better fit for the citybuilding world of Anno 1800 than the sunken treasures. Still fresh production lines or new goods are dearly missed.

This is definitely not what the fans wanted nor what they expected from a new Metroid game. But as a coop shooter it is fairly decent nonetheless.

Assassin's Creed Shadows immerses us in a beautiful and, above all, atmospheric feudal Japan, where individual aspects of the game have been cleverly improved. However, an unexciting story, weaknesses in the AI and the repetitive, monotonous gameplay prevent the latest installment in the series from generating much excitement.

A lot of the problems that made its PS3-sibling such a bittersweet pleasure to play are gone. But while I can appreciate the effort Acquire made to enhance and improve the surreal vampire/beat-em-up/roleplaying mix, still a lot of the potential remains untouched.

The arcade approach actually works – in a way. But with outdated visuals, AI problems and a few other issues this is less enticing than its predecessor and a racing game that fails to define its character.

It can’t keep up with Legend of Grimrock or the group tactics of Etrian Odyssey. But nonetheless this is a labour of love that will keep fans of retro dungeon crawler happy.

Depending on the collection of Skylander figures that you already own, the number of areas that can just be opened by your wallet will vary – and so will the fun you will have with the Giants. That aside the new adventure in the Skylands shows improvements on almost every level.

Technically solid port of a 23 year old shooter. The once N64 exclusive episode can’t keep up with modern retro shooters, but still delivers a lot of fun.

AWE has problems to separate itself from the main game in almost every aspect. The connections to Alan Wake are interesting, but rather an appetizer. ‘The Foundation’ is the better expansion.

Even though the acrobatic slay-em-all gets dreary after a while, this is a solid action game set in the unforgiven Attack on Titan universe.

The five new missions are varied and intense, but overall there is a serious lack of content.

At its core this is first class hockey. But the virtual standstill in almost all areas while focusing more on arcade aspects makes me go back to last years’ version.

Compared to games like The Raven everything seems old-fashioned. But in a kinda good way.

Leviathan combines real time strategy with turn based elements and confronts me with fleet combination and ship specialization. Unfortunately the campaign is too short and suffers from weak presentation. The multiplayer skirmishes are actually quite good though.

Two years after ist PC premiere the Vikings start their realtime battles in a diorama-setting with tabletop flair.

With the added campaign, more traps and improved (yet still not contemporary) visuals, the Nightmare Princess on PS4 is the best Deception 4 you can get. Too bad that Tecmo Koei didn’t improve AI as well.

A remake that is mostly true to the original with small changes that improve the feel of the game, but compared to its genre colleagues it is no longer up-to-date.

L.A. Noire transcended quite well into this console generation. The crime solving adventure still has some highly captivating elements. But it also kept its deficits like the boring fist fights, the trivial shoot-outs or too little mechanical variety overall.

Toby is as close to Limbo as you possibly can be without lawyers getting involved. But where Limbo is a piece of art where every element comes together this is merely a collection of mechanics that do a decent job. Or with the words of Oscar Wilde: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

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.

A rudimentary karaoke package with a fairly recent song selection and an interesting option for four vocalists.

The puzzles are well implemented, but nonetheless it would have worked wonders if Nintendo had given more time to TriForce Heroes in order to polish the gem that’s hiding under the surface.

If you’re into accessible over-the-top arcade sport this might be for you. But be careful when you play: At certain times the network problems are horrible.

A nice entry to the block building worlds à la MineCraft that’s perfectly suited for beginners. But don’t expect the complexity of Mojang’s masterpiece nor the roleplaying ingredients of Dragon Quest Builders.

You have a lot to do, a lot to learn and a lot to forgive. Especially since the battles might be impressive, but haven’t progressed for years.

A short but sweet day trip to a playground dedicated to beloved Pixar franchises that basically caters to younger players. Since its original release in 2012 they could have added more movie themes than just Finding Dory.

FIFA 20 stagnates on a solid level. Volta can’t utilize the fresh potential of street football enough while on the pitch the balance between offense and defense is missing.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 satisfies multiplayer and zombie fans, but the co-op campaign is a complete disappointment.

A return that could make fans of the series happy. Graphically and technically magnificent; a small roster and lackluster presentation of some modes prevent a better rating.

In terms of content you’ll get more Inazuma than ever before. But unfortunately it is also more of the same.

The spruced-up port of Sonic Generations isn't worth mentioning apart from the 2D levels, but the Shadow campaign scores points with fun levels and serves up a worthy comeback for the shadow hedgehog.

If you're looking for a challenge and appreciate interesting game mechanics, Cairn is the right choice for you. However, the story and atmosphere fall somewhat short of expectations.

Solid conversion of two classics, albeit with quite a few technical issues.

The cardboard is surprisingly robust, the assembly of the sometimes intricate designs is a as time consuming as it is fun. But despite the interesting concept, the minigames that come with it are merely snacks.

A solid conversion of two roleplaying classics. There are technical issues though.