Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture claims to be something more than a game, but that claim is completely groundless. [10/2015, p.50]

Instead of engaging interactions, great animations or wonderfully crafted characters The Beginner’s Guide offers empty, amateurish, uninteresting environments and a story about two immature game developers. [01/2016, p.54]

Super Mario Run looks and sounds like New Super Mario Bros., but unfortunately it does not play like it. It’s a runner that constantly annoyed me with its lack of precise controls I enjoyed so much in real Mario games. [02/2017, p.36]

Phogs! reminds me of many games based on physics, such as Human: Fall Flat, and I can’t deny that it is full of very funny moments. It is a shame that so many elements are botched (from poor responsiveness to flawed controls) and the whole thing is crawling with various bugs. [02/2021, p.36]

If this is how the rest of Telltale’s Game of Thrones is going to look like, I want nothing to do with it. Too many dialogues that lead nowhere, too much nonsense inconsistent with the source material, and the visuals are simply laughable. [01/2015, p.59]

How did such an attractive subject turn out so boring? The tactical component is almost as basic as it gets and the studio management has the depth of a mobile game. [07/2015, p.62]

I honestly don’t know who was the intended target group for Sorcerer King. There’s almost nothing fresh in this game to attract those who avoided 4X strategies and the genre’s veterans will snarl with disgust and return to much more complex Age of Wonders III. [10/2015, p.66]

A poorly animated, unbalanced game that I didn’t enjoy at all. Although it does offer a lot of different punches, kicks and throws, its gameplay resembles a long, boring QTE. [13/2013, p.74]

After having spent over 80 hours with Inquisition I was tired of it and Jaws of Hakkon did absolutely nothing to reignite the flame. [06/2015, p.57]

11-11 is neither an example of good impressionist art, nor a good war movie or a good video game. It’s unbearably pretentious and so shallow it does not reach beyond simple platitudes (“not all Germans were evil”, “global conflicts affect ordinary people too”). It’s sad that brushing against a mature subject and going for an artsy feel is enough to make many people overlook obvious flaws of a game (in this case poor gameplay, among other things) and the fact that games as a medium are light years behind movies in terms of storytelling. [01/2019, p.74]

If you’re really hungry for a metroidvania but you expect something more than “some indie jam stuff” go for a much better Axiom Verge. [09/2015, p.69]

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is a great game, but only on Xbox One. The PC edition is troublesome beyond belief. I had to face failing Windows Store download, abysmal performance (so much for the Full HD, not to mention 4K...) and lots of different technical issues ranging from missing textures to game quitting unexpectedly. [05/2016, p.45]

A great example of an eyesore spit out by indie devs convinced that only the story matters. The worst part is that they had no idea how to write the story to avoid it being a cliché running with the pack of sad, moving indie games. [08/2014, p.69]

They say size isn't important but clearly 9mm is not enough. A major failure by Gameloft – the game is mediocre at best and laughable at worst. [August 2011, p.74]

I was fed up with Steel Empire after 15 minutes. The game is too easy, weapons lack punch, action sequences are anemic. [03/2016, p.73]

Mocap team, the dancer and the choreographer did a great job, and it’s a pity their effort was wasted on such a mediocre game. [11/2016, p.58]

How to design an indie game to have it published on Sony’s platforms? It’s easy. The game just has to look nice and there may be some crumbs of gameplay in there somewhere. But not necessarily. If there’s no gameplay, you just call it ‘an experience’, not a game, and everything’s fine. [Nov 2014, p.73]

Beat Cop’s gameplay foundations are very interesting, but the initial tension fades quickly, the game becomes repetitive and its humor is crude to the point of being embarrassing. [06/2017, p.42]

Huge disappointment. Undisputed is a much, much worse boxing game than Fight Night Champion, which premiered over 13 years ago.

The Sims 4 is just a foundation of a game. How would you react if you bought a new Elder Scrolls game and realized that half of the cities are unavailable (because TES6: World Adventures is around the corner), there are only 4 weapons (TES6: Accessories), you can’t ride horses (TES6: Pets), there are only 12 quests (TES6: Careers), 2 guilds (TES6: Friends) and 3 spells (TES6: Supernatural)? [Nov 2014, p.50]

The Callisto Protocol is a strange game in which high production values contrast with serious problems that stem from the very basis of its outdated gameplay design. It looks awesome and sounds great but it is botched in so many ways. Clunky combat, bland weapons, awful boss encounters, heavy scripting, unintuitive interface and run-of-the-mill story built around boring characters with no personalities – it all adds up and amounts to a chore rarely interrupted by some enjoyable moments. What’s more, it’s not even a good horror game, as the designers went for annoying jump scares instead of trying to create real tension.

Captain Tsubasa’s biggest strength is its touching story about friendship, rivalry, and the love of football. Unfortunately, I’m not talking about the game. The narratives of both story campaigns in Rise of New Champions are boring, full of clichés and poorly written dialogues. That’s not the biggest problem though. As soon as a match starts, the abysmal gameplay turns the game from okayish to awful. [11/2020, p.32]

Shadows of Doubt has the potential to become a highly engaging detective immersive sim, but in order to achieve that, a lot needs to be done about technical flaws and clarity of gameplay mechanics. Right now the game can be summed up as a great concept with awful execution.

Resident Evil 0 was the weakest game in the series when it was originally released in 2002 and still is in 2016. [03/2016, p.43]

A perfect example of why things that could have worked fifteen years ago, have no place today. Especially if you sell them as a premium game. [05/2020, p.78]

New Tales from the Borderlands impressed me with its graphics and pleased me with settings that let you customize QTE’s or even turn them off completely. It’s a shame that the game didn’t inherit its predecessor’s cool writing and kept annoying me with cringe-making attempts at humor. What’s worse, it simply bored me.

Isn’t it high time to stop resurrecting this stale series? [07/2014, p.60]

The problem with Neverending Nightmares is that to understand it you need the developer’s sidenotes or your own experiences with depression. Otherwise it’s just a poorly designed, boring horror game. [01/2015, p.76]