The first tactic game within the Musou-Universe since 2003 delivers decent fun. It is superficial at times and overall too easy, but with the character development and plenty of weapons console strategist get a fair amount of content.

In theory 8-Bit Hordes is "just” a reskin for 8-Bit Armies with two new factions and campaigns – which in return means you get battles full of action that will entertain you every now and then.

Yuke’s and Visual Concepts hit a dead end. In theory the franchise needs to take a break, leave no stone unturned and come back bigger and better. A lot of positive elements and drama that is worth of the WWE brand are wasted somewhere between technical problems, incoherent mechanics and leftovers from WWE games long gone.

Slight visual and content enhancements make this mediocre stealth-shooter a little bit better, despite new small bugs like sound problems.

Miles better than its predecessor, but still not outstanding: Lords of the Fallen is a rock-solid Soulslike in which a few major strengths collide with many small weaknesses.

Power of Illusion could be a fantastic jump & run, the foundation for a dignified successor to Castle of Illusion (one of my all-time favorites) is there. But the constant change between digipad and stylus for the sake of redundant drawings is disappointing.

It’s better and more focused in the sniping core mechanics than its predecessor. If you can ignore the irrelevant story and the minimalistic multiplayer you might discover a decent shooting experience.

While on part of this scenario collection is plain silly (and thus breaking with the gritty and dark undertone of the main campaign), another is merely an homage to Jigsaw’s sense of gaming torture that was evident in Saw. If it weren’t for “Daughters” I would suggest to skip this DLC.

If you can look beyond the narrative shortcomings you’ll get a solid adventure set in a captivating fairy tale world.

The redux versions on console are definitely more entertaining than their PC brother – mainly thanks to the various difficulty levels, more areas and fresh enemies. But some main problems like the missing flow you’d associate with Descent-style games are still existent.

Tethered is easy on the eyes. And easy in terms of mechanics. While it is always a joy to watch over your devoted followers the micromanagement soon becomes tedious and redundant.

A fun but very short return to Codemasters’ arcade roots.

A lightning fast reaction test that lacks accurate controls and variety.

Surreal and unforgivingly sinister Adventure in a post-apocalyptic world that stumbles over the generic puzzle design.

Quotation forthcoming.

Old wine in even older bottles: The developers make far too little of the possibilities of the medium. The only thing that's really creepy here are the numerous logic gaps.

EA's try to reboot the Syndicate franchise didn't succeed. Although the shooter offers some interesting ideas they are overshadowed by a feeble story and lackluster mechanics.

Despite its creative approach, The Shattering is a rather common Walking Simulator with an unsual artdesign that will leave even the most cheerful soul in a depressed state.

In the end Nintendo Land can't fascinate as Wii Sports did when Wii launched. From time to time it shows what the new touchpad controls have to offer, but most of the time it is more reminiscent of WiiPlay. And if you don't have friends to support you in the few minigames that are actually fun, the entertainment is short lived.

This is a nifty little arcade shooter that obviously took the classic Paradroid as an inspiration. It lacks variety though.

Solid but shallow adventure with loads of references to Grimms fairy tales.

It might have more options to adjust the visuals. But it still plays in the second league of open world games while the zombie outbreak lost its bite and Frank West lost his cynical touch, which was replaced by one-liners that would be too corny even for Evil Dead’s Ash Williams.

Despite its solid foundation this is not a good game. The techtree is too shallow, strategic finesse, cunning or defensive play is hardly rewarded. Add to that pathfinding problems, performance issues and even crashes and it becomes clear that the potential (or ambitions) were bigger than the final result.

In terms of complexity, this is a monster. Even experienced turn based strategists will have their patience tested. But in the end they might find success and satisfaction.

Ambitious dualstick action with randomly generated levels and love-it-or-hate-it retro-design that mostly unsuccessful tries to emulate games like Enter the Gungeon.

Storm Ground delivers solid hexfeld strategy, but cannot bring the enormous potential of Age of Sigmar onto the screen.

Challenging mix of base building, expanding and battle, that would benefit from more content as well as variety and the “certain something” that would seperate it from your common run-of-the-mill strategy.

While superficially Syndicate is not worse than older Assassin’s Creeds and gives you interesting new features, the magic is gone. Visually a step back, incoherent and bug ridden it might be the first sign that Ubisoft has to give the series a break in order to catch the creative spark again.

While the concept is a prime example for a meaningful implementation of VR into otherwise rather dry gameplay mechanics, the lack of content is very harmful. A great virtual experience hidden in a weak game.

Quotation forthcoming.

The concept still is promising but technical shortcomings harm this port of a theoretically thrilling future racer.

Especially the artdesing in this trip to Hell will remind you of Enter The Gungeon. But while the challenge is steep the rewards are too few and take too long to achieve to keep you motivated for a longer period of time.

An interesting puzzle concept that started on VR platforms and lost some of its appeal with the problems that came with the disorienting camera that replaced the head movement in VR.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a playful adrenaline rush with a humorous story, but is hindered by a lack of variety, bulky menus and a never-ending idea of service.

This might be something for fans of the legendary race track, but among ist weaknesses are the career, missing features and content in general.

I like samurais, I like strategy and I like castle-building. Nonetheless Stronghold: Warlords can’t reel me in. There is solid content on display, but it lacks finesse and depth.

Sniper Elite Resistance is stagnating. On the one hand, there is still good stealth gameplay with a varied level design. On the other hand, the 6th installment offers no real improvements, and the formula is slowly wearing thin.

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.

Against my biggest fears, Kylotonn slowly moves in the right direction. They still have a lot of work to do, but in terms of driving physics, track design and challenge WRC 7 is a big step forward.

In terms of content and challenge level Commandos 2 still is a great experience. But as a remaster it would have benefited from a more coherent modernization.

Fans will notice the mostly subtle changes that make this one of the best games in the series. But if you never were into Koei's “Warriors”, this iteration will not make you change your mind.

While the fighting mechanics are as good as ever and you get plenty of content, it lacks the certain swag and atmosphere that the other Ultimate Ninja Storms showed plenty.

Quotation forthcoming.

The concept with its mix of well-proven action and exploration on one side and tower defense on the other is interesting. But especially when it comes to everything associated with the latter the QForce leaves much to be desired.

It covers a fresh theme and delivers an interesting art design, but one run lasts merely 30 minutes. And the kind of similar “Papers, Please” shows more depth as well as emotional connection.

A no-frills, but technically sound reissue of a solid game, that still doesn’t live up to its potential.

Quotation forthcoming.

As weird as it sounds to mix brawling and bullet hell, Senko no Rondo 2 pulls it off. There are shortcomings but whoever is looking for a different approach to “duel” games, should give this beat-em-shmup a try.

A quite bizarre mixture of Qix-like elements and awkward anime shooter.

The nostalgic flair from back in the early strategy days is still there. But sind RTS came such a long way and has improved even with its successor (in 1999) tremendously, the gameplay deficits are also more evident.

Following in the footsteps of Dark Souls you can look forward to tense moments, a high challenge level and a lot of deaths. But you will dread the ridiculous dialogue and superficial world design.

Competent core with little flesh: The disciplines of Nintendo Switch Sports work well and are welcome party guests, but Nintendo has sloppy in scope, modes and many subtleties.

MXGP captures the motocross feeling and delivers decent dual-stick controls to keep bike and rider under control. Unfortunately technically the off-road travels don’t seem optimized for PS4.

While art design and location are the same as in Akiba’s Trip the fighting system as well as the narrative have changed and take their inspiration from Atlus’ Persona-series on one side and Groundhog Day on the other. Unfortunately this mix doesn’t bode well.

Technically old-fashioned adventure with real actors delivering a long forgotten trash factor. Puzzles and investigating the locations makes the trip to the past worthwhile.

Offroad racing with good driving physics and appealing DualSense-utilization. In terms of modes, content and tutorials Milestone has taken quite a few steps back.

Classical, but also old-fashioned and sometimes cumbersome turn based tactics based on the Netflix show.

Unfortunately this is not the spiritual successor to ThrillVille. What it gives you is a tremendous editor with convincing physics that tries to camouflage that the attached mini-games are average at best.

Solid (very old-)school survival horror with intelligent puzzle design and a strong focus on stealth and escape. With less trial and error it would have been even better.

It sounds more promising than it really is. With all due respect to the solo development effort of Denis Galanin the picture puzzles become redundant after a while – especially since they are almost void of Kafka’esque elements.

The surreal world with its design in the spirit of heavy metal album covers sparks your interest, but with the shallow characters and hardly-challenging puzzles you get little more than solid entertainment.

The newest episode of the RPG saga delivers solid entertainment with its dynamic turn based battles and the alchemy experiments the franchise is known for.

The audiovisual presentation with its retro flair is charming and thanks to the constant challenge the motivation starts on a high level. It is replaced by frustration though, because challenge quickly becomes routine, which in turn made me go back to more classic jump&runs.

If you look hard enough, you'll find the fun in Fable Heroes – especially with friends. But in the long run the lack of variety and more so the lack of content will keep you from going back to Albion.

The story is interesting, the logical puzzles are challenging. But nonetheless this is little more than an elaborate creative exercise.

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 design this is pixelart at its finest. But when you look behind the pretty facade the mechanics are not as refined and remain mainly superficial.

Yes, it is entertaining. But is also hardly more than a fairly short and repetitive time travel trip through Sega's console history.

This is the law-abiding step brother of Hotline Miami. But while the concept with the cop duo suggests tactical depth, it stumbles over AI faults. So in the end in terms of intensity, style and atmosphere there still is half a continent between the east and the west coast.

The semi-automatic rush from cover to cover gives this arena shooter a unique rhythm while clever drone deployment leads to tense moments. Unfortunately the battle arenas are as conventional and predictable as the weapons or the game modes.

Technically not without fault and in terms of game selection questionable. But nonetheless this is a solid collection.

A charming minmalistic endless racer, that will keep you entertained for 90 minutes or so, before it loses its touch.

This dungeon crawler offers conventional hack & slay-action for up to four hunters. But be aware: The loot system can be unfair and compared to other hack&slays this is a rather short experience.

15 years after the original release the visuals are outdated – even with the HD stamp while the font size is borderline small. That aside the search for the most efficient production routes is still captivating.

It starts slow. Too slow. But once this playable novel gains momentum, it gets interesting.

The entanglement of two realities is an interesting concept. But The Medium shows too many design weaknesses, can become tedious and doesn’t live up to the expectations you might have in an intense horror game.

The Avengers deliver great action and motivating character development, but also plenty technical issues, while it sadly feels unfinished in terms of content.

The concept is intriguing, but with this execution it just scratches the surface. This survival strategy relies too much on grind and not enough on storytelling.

It looks decent, it manages to entertain for a little while, but I expected more from the series’ premiere on Wii U than just a colorful snack.

Solid, yet clunkily presented wargame.

Graphically polished and therefore visually attractive gem for genre and series fans. However, a lack of depth in the story and characters quickly leads to monotony.

The version for PSVR offers light and shadow: While the immersion is greatly enhanced by VR, visuals and controls had to bite the bullet and make hurtful compromises.

In the wake of Street Fighter 5 games like Koihime Enbu have a decent chance to find their fans. The counter focused fighting system is rock solid, but the lack of content drags this beat-em-up down.

An interesting take on stealth action with a flawed checkpoint system and a serious lack of challenge.

Platinum and Activision deliver again. But even with the action flowing fast and an art design straight out of the comic books, this brawler lacks the certain “something” that is evident in Platinum’s proprietary franchises.

When it comes to the technical side, Sega did a good job with lifting the Dreamcast classic into the HD era. But the fascination is gone nowadays while the problems with the controls and the camera move more into focus.

It’s a great idea on the surface, but it lacks depth and polish. The combination of a road trip and a building simulation is nicely executed, but the empty game world, the uneven distribution of resources, and the lack of shortcuts give the impression that the game still needs a bit more work.

I still think that Monster Hunter belongs on a big screen. Having said that, even without a lot of innovation and relying on well-known mechanics this hunt still manages to entertain.

On the surface it tries to convince you it is a decent brawler with a rhythm attitude. But in the end it is only a rhythm game like any other – but a decent one.

It starts very promising. But eventually Blue Isle lost a grip on the direction this had to go. And at the latest when you experience that the life-and-death mechanics are superficial all that is left is to experience the interesting story and the sometimes beautiful visuals.

The fighting mechanics are easy to pick up and the all-female cast is varied. Nonetheless almost any fighter from ArcSystem gives you more in every aspect.

An interesting indie cocktail that blends elements of Left 4 Dead, Metal Slug and Tower Defense. With better partner AI, more stages and less technical issues this could be a sleeper hit.

If you’re looking for another addition to your collection of twin-stick shooters, you might give this a try. But the art design aside this is average throughout. Fun, but average.

It as a solid Trials Evolution clone through and through – minus the editor and the excellent level design.

Technically and conceptually this is a little gem for all the fans of games like Drox Operative oder Space Pirates and Zombies. But be aware that there are a lot of edges that need to be smoothed out and areas that need to be improved.

It is in fact an interesting collection with a focus on NES and technically sound. Due to age the software quality is not everybody’s cup of tea, though.

Entertaining arcade-surfing with beautiful locations that lacks gameplay variety.

It is in fact an interesting collection with a focus on NES and technically sound. Due to age the software quality is not everybody’s cup of tea, though.