The inclusion of rhythm into otherwise “classic” shooting is refreshing and exploring all the secrets certainly is fun, but the difficulty level is frustratingly high, while you will encounter some problems interms of visuals and game design.

Little Hope is an atmospheric, mysterious and brilliantly presented horror story, with you being in charge of the course of the story via decisions and reaction tests. The movie-like experience dominates at the expense of rudimentary mechanics, though.

Despite frustrating moments, parkour and action come together culminating in demanding and exhilarating challenges.

Fast-paced shooter/slasher mix with great fight mechanics. If you don’t shy away from repetition and a multitude of deaths, this is definitely for you.

With its magical micro-cosmos the Switch port of Pikmin 3 (as a ‘Deluxe’ version) is a creative vitamin supplement for the system. This is very good entertainment for real-time strategists.

The final chapter of this civil war drama is old-fashioned in terms of presentation, but nonetheless delivers a deep story and faceted turn based tactics as well as character development.

Land of Lions is a great expansion and the best additional content for Anno 1800 to date.

Small, but interesting as well as challenging arcade action.

You can never have enough Doom Eternal. The Ancient Gods is a great campaign extension of a brilliant shooter.

This is definitely entertaining arcade hockey and better than its predecessor– unfortunately EA neglects the core simulation.

Quiplash still steals the show, but together with Blather Round it is not enough to save this rather weak selection of party games.

This is an atmospheric horror adventure that has just the right pace. The fear in the dark is presented convincingly, classic puzzles deliver solid entertainment and the well placed shock moments are followed by important moments of peace and quiet.

The new content and revamped elements are integrated seamlessly, but bugs, AI issues and well-known, yet still evident problems make this Definitive Edition definitely feel unfinished.

This action adventure is heavily inspired by God of War, but when it comes to battle and game design, it is rather dull. The presentation is easy on the eyes, though.

Errors, bugs, frustration and cringe: Remothered Broken Porcelain is one of the worst horror games of the year.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

Anime roleplaying game with high production value and a great entertainment factor – and all of that for free.

Realistic, yet extremely playable and enhanced with strategic depth: In the current shooter landscape Squad is one-of-a-kind.

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.

In theory, Ride 4 with its huge selection of tracks and vehicles is a dream for motorcycle enthusiasts, but with massive balance problems, chaotic AI and a dreary career mode the motivation takes a downward turn.

Furious Star Wars action with great cockpit feeling and tense team dogfights.

Vivid, varied and at times extremely challenging: Crash Bandicoot 4 builds on the success of the N.Sane Trilogy and enhances it – despite occasional camera angle problems.

And yet another lackluster Tennis game. A lot of stars are playable, but the presentation is stiff and the mechanics are almost like the players are on rails.

Ultimately a rather simple karaoke game, that in the end is quite entertaining thanks to the focus on the cult band and their great songs.

Interesting and quite amusing tactical roleplaying game that would benefit from more attention to detail.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

There might be a decent park management hidden somewhere underneath, but on Switch the control scheme for RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is not only clumsy but imprecise as well.

A drop dead gorgeous mix of time travel adventure and mech tactics told from 13 perspectives.

This is a solid over-the-top oldschool shooter carnage – that is, if no bugs, shallow jokes or monotonous level design get in the way.

Live. Die. Repeat. Hades is almost immaculate and with that the makers of Bastion, Transistor and Pyre deliver their best game yet – which is a feat in itself. With its brilliant fight system, the motivating progress and its story Hades pulls and, more importantly, keeps you in.

The remake stays true to the original, but storytelling and mechanics feel terribly outdated, giving you the impression that this is more of a remaster not reaching its full potential.

The concept is great: A motivating management game with a very creative approach, great characters and an empathic story. But the major bugs that still (weeks after launch) are present, are unacceptable.

Spelunky 2 was enhanced sensibly, offers a great balance and simply is not as unforgiving as its predecessor. The online mode is more or less a failure, though.

No-frills continuation of the steampunk dungeon crawler between Legend of Grimrock and BioShock that keeps its freshness.

For a good while this is a quite motivating, in terms of storytelling quite tense thriller - with a rather disappointing ending.

If you enjoyed traveling around the universe with the Unreliable and its crew, you will find decent, yet short-lived additional entertainment with this detective story.

Extra content, visual improvements or bonuses are scarce, but nonetheless these are some of the most important and influential classics of 3D platforming history.

A pleasant surprise: Journey of the Broken Circle turns out to be a small, but nice playable essay on human relations.

A mystery thriller set in a deserted hotel. Interesting characters und tense dialogue make this first person adventure a trip worthwhile.

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.

The clue is in the name... This is a neat, small funracer with slight balancing problems and a rather lackluster weapon implementation.

This is a complex Game of Patience: The global strategy slows the pace pleasently down, leading to royal roleplaying. This is downright good entertainment, even with the wars being a tad too static and some wishes unfulfilled.

Vader Immortal gives you a beautiful glimpse into the magic and force that VR can offer. Gameplay depth and lack of content are a problem, though.

On the court, this is the pinnacle of virtual basketball. But the microtransactions are still overpowering, while the plentiful content has just been modified slightly compared to last year.

Tell Me Why brings you an intense story of a traumatic childhood, but the boring gameplay elements as well as the superficial emotional connection of the protagonists rather are a disappointment.

Solid roguelite RPG with fancy pixelart visuals and pleasentlc tactical turn based battles.

The driving experience is awesome and together with the gorgeous drifts Hotshot Racing is one of the best arcade racers of this era.

The season-themed puzzles are exciting. The numerous bugs, tedious sidequests and bleak combat not so much.

At its core this is still an extremely good action roleplaying game. But it would have deserved a better and more intricate remaster treatment instead of this effort.

Invector is a successful combo of Best-of-Album and rhythm game, while at the same time recognizing the life’s work of an exceptional EDM artist.

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

Visually as well as mechanically very successful remaster of two skateboard classics. The Tony Hawk franchise hasn’t been served with this quality in a very long time.

Quotation forthcoming.

After a long period of waiting finally a good RTS arrives. While the scenario is great and the campaign is exemplary, the tactical complexity, AI and base building leave room for improvement.

Quotation forthcoming.

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.

An atmospheric adventure with some tense highlight, but unfortunately not reaching its full potential.

Authentic anime soccer with plenty of story dialogue. On the pitch it is rather average, though, and doesn’t give you enough options in front of the goal.

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

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.

A quite entertaining simulation of an alternative 90’s internet. The great art design aside the numerous beautifully designed websites keep you coming back to solve new cases as an enforcer.

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.

Downhill biking with relaxed drum’n’bass and the occasional stunt. A decent port with slight visual deficits compared to the PC original.

Quotation forthcoming.

Freeskate indie game with an accessible trick system. The lack of story or unlockables as well as the few locations give the impression that it is unfinished.

An impeccable console port of the old-school RPG with a decent control scheme and additions to the already deep battle system.

While the newest trip into the Octagon shows some noticable improvement at its core in terms of fight mechanics, there are a few surprising steps back as well.

Entertaining, well-thought-out and focused on depth: This fantasy tactic shows, that also on console there is something else to be found in hex-battles than rock-paper-scissors.

Even though the presentation is decent, the game is a disappointment – mainly due to the outright weird driving physics as well as technical shortcomings.

Entertainingly chaotic obstacle course à la Battle Royale.

How nice that this game is now available on more systems. The Touryst might be only a “small” adventure, but it is imaginative and thoroughly adorable.

Amusing anime rpg to Hiro Mashimas manga series of the same name.

A decent remaster. Despite some shortcomings it still is fun to join the destructive alien on his adventure, that not only appeals to a new audience, but to old Crypto-fans alike.

Unstable framerates, pop-ups and brutal aliasing – this console port of a decent shooter should have been scrapped.

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.

Creaks not only is easy on the eyes, but an entertaining mix of challenging puzzles and imaginative storytelling.

This is an intense puzzle game, that delivers loads of emotional moments – despite its reduced design.

Technically solid 3-vs-3-shooter aimed at a younger audience. Unfortunately there are no unique features found anywhere, be it weapons, abilities or arenas.

An atmospheric journey into Scandinavian fairy tales with loads of interesting puzzles. If only the story about the siblings Lars and Tove would have been giving more space to flourish...

Behind the stunning but hardware-demanding visuals you’ll find a complex, yet very scalable flight simulation – albeit one that has mechanical as well as technical flaws.

The clearer focus on the campaign as well as the cool mythical troops and the setting are on spot, but total standstill in terms of battlefield mechanics and minor flaws make sure that Troy doesn’t reach its potential.

A decent addition to your library of classic point & click adventures, without anything spectacularly good or bad worth mentioning.

The PC version of the visually stunning open world adventure delivers, even though it demands enormous GPU-power.

Short, but fascinating and surprisingly relaxed puzzle trip into a world full of bizarre creatures and mechanisms.

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

Despite its remaster label the Switch version is rather comparable to its siblings on PS3 or Xbox 360. AI-problems, framerate issues and crashes take another toll on a theoratically solid port.

Quotation forthcoming.

Alicization Lycoris is set in a new location, in which you like to spend time with your virtual friends and their stories. In terms of visuals and game structure there is room for improvement, though.

The concept-mixture of action, tower defense and tounge-in-cheek-humour still draws you in. But it lacks depth and convincing improvements.

One of the best GT3-simulations is held back on PS4 by technical problems and missing features.

With the new team-mode and intelligent detail tweaks Codemasters can lift their Formula 1 experience to a new level once again. Overall an absolute powerhouse of a racing game that is only held back by its microtransactions.

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.

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

The PC-version of Death Stranding is an examplary port of a phenomenal adventure and an absolute enrichment of the PC gaming cosmos.