This PES delivers a stability in the build-up and situative elegance – almost like in the good old PS2 era. But with an unstable online mode even a few days after release as well as a few visual shortcomings this is only one more step back to greatness. It will still take a while to get there.

The open world is more of a con than a pro for Code Vein 2, but the soulslike-game still has some unique strong points to its name.

While playing alone is a disaster, the multiplayer-portion of the game is surprisingly fun and diverse. Nightreign is an experiment that not always succeeds, but definitely a bold endeavor and if FromSoftware decides to tweak the balance a little, we might get a game that is eventually good no matter how you play.

Visually it is mostly stunning and while the antagonists are highly charismatic, they are also very one-dimensional. Mechanically on the other hand the series takes a few steps in the right direction but the main story missions aside there is nothing that its predecessors or the Just Cause franchise haven’t done before. But even that could be forgiven, if there would be an ounce of either believable or challenging AI behaviour could be found.

Interesting stealth-game with a wild west scenario and without violence throughout. But mechanically it comes across quite unsophisticated.

It has the right ingredients and captures the jungle hunt like a movie – but it demotes the Predator to an accidental source of irritation for the co-op-play of the soldiers.

Run-of-the-mill re-release of a content rich JRPG, whose visuals and mechanics are simply not up-to-date.

Charming and true to the source: The digital Talisman is no fancy interpretation but an authentic port of the board game with all its rules.

I am really happy that Suda 51 and his excentric style of gamedesign are back. But you cannot help but notice the “ring rust”. A decent effort, but not quite at the level of Lollipop Chainsaw and other Suda-masterpieces.

The online mode is basically broken. Which is a damn shame, since the simulation itself is actually pretty good.

It has some flaws like a weak story and a brash art design. But it also has some innovative ideas and stages the strategic battles of minatures in glorious dioramas.

Dead Rising 4 was and (with all the added modes) still is just a shadow of the franchises former self. Having said that, especially the new Capcom Heroes mode embraces and emphasizes the new arcade direction and is actually quite entertaining.

It's difficult not to draw parallels to Portal. You are a test subject in a unique environment interacting with your surroundings in a creative way. But here you are alone: There is no humor, no cynicsm, no cake lie, only partially frustrating puzzles thanks to the imprecise controls – nothing else.

There is no doubt: This Total War has its moments where it shines in size, content and strategic power. But in the end you won’t remember all the things it succeeds at, but the plethora of annoying little things, where the Roman conquest falls short.

Quotation forthcoming.

It may look like a casual game but the mechanics including tactical party management as well as unlockable and combinable abilities keep you motivated. At least until routine sets in. Solid entertainment for aficionados of turn-based board games.

A great artdesign and a good direction make this a very special horror experience. But you have to get over some mechanical flaws.

Technically sound port of two great ninja action games, who visibly aged, but mechanically are still appealing. But don’t expect any bonus content – and the third game in the collection never was really good.

The tactical as well as explosive action delivers and gives me loads of options. I am changing the skirmish with my behavior, I can play it to suit my play style, from straightforward attacks to sneaky head shots. But I also find myself in the middle of a mountain range theme park with animals more fierce than any herpetologist could imagine while the map throws places at me that I rather want to discover myself.

Maybe it is time for Yuke’s to give the pro-wrestlers a break, take a good look at their game, question everything and leave no stone unturned. While the fight mechanics reflect the tension and pace of the “real” battles of the WWE superstars and the roster is more stacked than ever, there is nothing surprising in this year's grappling attack on your wallet.

The PS4-premiere of the anime pirates plays like classic Tecmo Koei warriors – with all its glory and all the hate you might associate with it.

It's as good (or bad) as it always was. The motion recognition is not just faulty but can also be cheated. Nonetheless the song selection is good and with a few friends there is a lot of fun to be found. The Wii U gamepad is totally underutilized though.

The idea with its mixture of platforming and physics based puzzles is good - and so is the minimalistic anime design. The mechanical execution with its surprsingly inert controls and the oversensitive physics calculations not so much.

Quotation forthcoming.

Beats the demo by far: Extremely fast-paced shooter that expertly combines shooting action and melee combat - a fast-food snack that should also appeal to FPS connoisseurs.

There is more of everything and it works as good (or bad) as always. But you won’t find an important ingredient: Fresh ideas.

The co-operative alien hunt is a decent Left 4 Dead clone that lacks variety, a decent balance and content in general.

Visually captivating narrative adventure with interesting ideas which become routine too soon.

While solid as a brawler in the tradition of Guardian Heroes with added roleplaying elements Code of Princess shines when it comes to the absurd, funny and sometimes plain silly characters and story.

Quotation forthcoming.

Visually appealing and placid strategy with an interesting scenario, but not enough depth.

Shark vs. human in a tense atmospheric setting. Unfortunately it lacks variety.

Challenging battles and dungeons filled with intelligent puzzles are overshadowed by lack of direction in almost every aspect: artdesign, storytelling, quality assurance.

Action snack for the occasional funtime. Mechanically motivating re-imagination of an arcade classic, that unfortunately ends too soon and looks quite cheap.

Nicely revamped and expanded collection of atmospheric horror madness that still lacks gameplay substance.

This is like a digital séance. It is quite monotonous, but you’ll encounter some eerie and disturbing moments.

Solid WWII strategy that tries desperately, but never manages to emerge from the shadow of Company of Heroes.

Overall you'll get a solid and entertaining beat-em-up experience, but if you plan to challenge your friends online, look somewhere else.

This minigame collection serves as a good example for the potential of the various control options the Vita has to offer.

More pirates, more text adventures and more upgrades: Space Rangers HD benefits from additional content. While I don’t see anything that would justify the “HD” label this remake is worth a look.

Sorcery is a charming adventure. But in the end you'll remember too much hectic destruction and too little mysterious magic.

If you dissect Warfighter, every little aspect is better than in its predecessor, which in the end only means minimal progress. As a whole it is nothing more than an average shooter that has problems in leaving its mark.

If you don’t bring a certain amount of serenity to the table, stay away from RymdResa. It will take you on a trip where the journey is the reward and patience is the key. Unfortunately story and gameplay mechanics stay superficial.

The granddaddy of shoot-em-ups gets an interesting touch remake, but fails to motivate in the long run.

The mission design is almost excellent, the action is ridiculously cool and together with the trashy dialogue a cornerstone of this hellride. Unfortunately the story is as bland as the visuals or the challenge level you encounter.

A simple mix of dating sim and dungeon crawler that, despite some obvious weaknesses, scores with a large portion of heart and humor.

A tactical 2D dungeon crawler that doesn’t even try to hide that it was heavily inspired by Darkest Dungeon. But neither mechanically, in terms of storytelling nor artistically it is nowhere near its role model.

Quite old-fashioned, yet still entertaining roleplaying game.

At its core this still is a challenging and beautifully crazy old school platform adventure. But technical faults like framerate problems and the low quality soundtrack make it difficult to love Rayman in 3D.

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.

For a short while Marooners presents neat party fun. But compared to games like Mario Party it lacks substance and content.

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.

Eutechnyx manages to reproduce the essence of this demanding sport. But there is hardly any progress compared to its predecessor.

Despite the larger world and more tasks, the playground for explosive silliness only motivates in the short term. It gets more fun in co-op with up to four participants, but only with friends or online mistakes.

This is a surprisingly charming rhythm game. The music is a little bit too generic though, while the cool drumming mechanics lack a serious amount of content.

This is not your run-of-the-mill hack&slay. The combination of the magic globe, special attack and environmental puzzles is worth a look – especially if you can look beyond the weak online-mode.

The initial grind can be annoying, but once you get past that phase and start carrying out the big money loads, the fun to be had with this platforming crime caper is surprising.

The entertaining story with its interesting themes is held back by bland minigames and clunky controls.

Nicely presented puzzle game with a light-/shadow-theme. But it just doesn’t take off, neither mechanically nor in the narrative.

You can look forward to beautiful vistas and loads of quests, but the pirate fun is spoiled by engine problems, a lot of inconsequences and a truly terrible fighting system.

Quotation forthcoming.

The concept is imaginative and puts you in control of a rather cool monster. But leveldesign and monotonous gameplay are disappointing in the long run.

It bites off a little more than it can chew. Starting out with the premise of being a full political simulator in the end it is little more than an turn-based interaction with a population. But on this level you’ll get the high complexity that you’ll miss in macro management.

The space battles and Warhammer flair are top notch, but the strategic core is too generic.

Skilled tactical role-playing game with good real-time battles, monotonous missions and often just average scenery.

On consoles this is almost unbearable. But also on PC it falls short, even though the open world looks beautiful in most places. You have lots to do, the fighting system is solid, albeit hampered by a bad camera. But in the end it is rather a superficial experience on almost every level.

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.

The mix of shooter and realtime strategy takes getting used to and eventually delivers tense battles – despite the AI issues and other flaws.

Mike Bithell fills the most simple geometrical figures with tremendous life. While the storytelling is absolutely charming the mechanics in this puzzler stay too simple most of the time.

Remake of a mediocre and seemingly outdated action roleplaying game with only little Final Fantasy flair.

The charming and idiosyncratic mix of platforming and action roleplaying is held back by some design flaws as well as some inconsistencies.

A charming adventure with interesting viewpoint changes as well as enchanting music and art design. The puzzles on the other hand are way too easy, while the story feels unnecessarily rushed.

Especially when it comes to combat it is evident, that Spidey tried to copy a page out of Batman's Arkham travel guides – and failed. It is fun to swing thru the beautifully designed Manhattan though.

Stylistically Brut@l is a close to the classic Rogue as Rogue-like can be. But with all its nods to its heritage, this dungeon crawler lacks character.

Nice old-school action with challenging boss battles and rad sound, albeit not as pretty or polished as Blazing Chrome.

The fighting system is solid, the online mode is lag free, the character design is as good as the story is bad. But overall the fighting ladies (and gents) of Tecmo's once proud beat-em-up franchise are just not as entertaining anymore…

The gesture recognition works well, the pacing of the fights in this fantasy rail shooter is well executed. The coach riding as well as looking after your horse lacks variety though. In its best moments, this journey delivers a solid experience, in its worst it is just boring.

The MediEvil remake stays true to the original and was modernised quite well despite some minor deficits. In terms of gameplay it is a tad too old-fashioned.

Solid turn based tactical ops with well-executed pixel visuals.

A solid Tower Defense with loads of possibilities but general lack of variety within the battle system.

This is a solid shooter reliving in the tradition of Descent or Forsaken that lacks variety in the long run.

While the basic core mechanics are as good and spot on as they were over 20 years ago, this new iteration of a beat-em-up classic has problems to make its mark.

The foundation draws heavily on the classic NBA Jam and tries to deliver a modern rendition of the arcade basketball that started it all. And while Saber added a few interesting elements the mixture is just lukewarm.

The action is explosive, the direction of the story sequences is intense at times, but still I can't really feel at home on these islands. Far Cry 3 is the ultimate open sandbox: The player can do what he wants, where he wants it, when he wants it. But the credibility of the world suffers – and with it my motivation.

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.

In terms of content this is the Titan Quest you love. But technical or interface problems in handheld and even more so in docked mode, hold this action rpg classic back.

Livelock is a solid twinstick shooter that doesn’t excel at anything but also doesn’t make any major mistakes.

With opening up the world this is the most radical step the series has taken since moving from classic brawling on the original PlayStation to the musou-action we love and hate for almost 20 years now. And while some elements are overdone and others are not elaborate enough, at its core this is still a good first step into a promising future of the franchise.

Stagnation instead of progress: Milestone once again lives up to its reputation of preferring fast recycling instead of developing the franchise in a meaningful way and addressing points of criticism in terms of AI, among other things.

Jodie suffers, she fights, she cries and she loves – but over a long period of time you’re reduced to being a spectator. There is no emotional link like towards Clementine in Walking Dead or Ellie in The Last of Us. There are moving moments and the visuals are impressive, but David Cage sacrificed his trademark design with its fascinating emotional focus for the sake of lackluster action.

A production that hits the hearts of comic fans as unerringly as Arrow's arrow is overshadowed by an extremely flat combat system, inappropriate design decisions and outdated technology.

A solid Trials Evolution clone with challenging level design and an underutilized editor.

The quality of this Russian odyssey is as inconsistent and varied as its climatic zones. But despite all its flaws and weak AI it still manages to create a solid post-apocalyptic action experience.

Not as rich and stylish as the competition, but an entertaining construction kit for straightforward online games.

Charming loot and monster hunt with a high grind factor and unfortunately without any splitscreen option.

Remember Me is a game of discrepancies. You’ll encounter incredibly atmospheric scenes just to be followed by weak or boring moments. The art design is exquisite, but the linear levels hardly make you want to look around. The most interesting part, the memory manipulation falls short and is overshadowed by incoherent fighting. What could have been extraordinary, is something you won’t remember in a few weeks.

Capcom delivers a horror carnival with a ringmaster, who wants to deliver the maximum amount of beasts, stunts and clowns. You will experience spectacular boss fights and beautiful audio as well as visuals, but also quite a few embarrassments and frustrating elements.

It starts very mysteriously and sparks your curiosity. But unfortunately you’ll see through the mechanics too fast and while the idea of conveying the story via scribbles is interesting, the lack of gameplay challenges drops the suspense too soon.