The game is dripping with pathos, but I couldn’t invest myself emotionally in it, because it all just feels fake. [01/2015, p.42]

Catalyst is a triumph of form over substance. At first the city looks huge, shiny and perfect but soon turns out to be just a lifeless, empty mockup, where you distinguish the districts mainly by background colors. The character development system feels artificial and redundant. The story and characters are so shallow and badly presented that I quickly lost any interest in them and focused on what the game does quite well – on parkour. [08/2016, p.60]

News about Assassin’s Creed’s return to the roots turned out to be bogus, as the infiltration phase ended up being a bunch of the known tricks with a thin layer of makeup. Unique assassinations are a welcome addition, but the game’s formula didn’t really change. Valhalla’s fans should be content though, because the tried and true gameplay loop is still satisfying and the story is decent. [11/2021, p.59]

F1 Manager 2022 does a terrific job at recreating the atmosphere of Formula 1, but the simulation itself needs huge improvements, because poor balance and terrible AI strip the races of realism.

The biggest disappointment for me was that although you play as a Templar, it has almost no influence on gameplay. The historical backdrop is not exciting at all and it’s pretty obvious that the whole game was designed so that the assets from Assassin’s Creed III and IV could be reused. The whole naval module borrowed from Black Flag is still fantastic, but after having played 7 games of the series I need something better than just more of the same. [01/2015, p.46]

I value games about thieves and regret the fact that there are so few of them, so despite some obvious faults I devoted two intense days to Thief Simulator. Thanks to some simple but solid and addictive mechanics I enjoyed it, even though the game’s flaws are obvious. And now I’m waiting for a sequel. [01/2019, p.72]

Clash 2 has some advantages, including great music and neatly designed tactical combat, but it still needs a lot of work (especially in terms of AI and difficulty level) before it can challenge titles such as Heroes of Might and Magic or King’s Bounty. It’s quite enjoyable though and didn’t frustrate me even once.

Éric Chahi created an experience as intriguing, as sleep-inducing. [06/2020, p.65]

Armageddon lacks ideas that could help vary the experience. It's hard to tell the missions apart, because in almost every room and every tunnel you have to do the exact same things. The developer made a mistake of betting everything on just one feature – total destruction. [July 2011, p.60]

Cockroach took the legacy of the intriguing first and second episodes’ stories and just trampled it in the third one. [06/2020, p.66]

Pleasant and absorbing gameplay with minimalistic visuals. Unfortunately content is also rather minimalistic (only 7 types of structures to build and a handful of scenarios). [04/2014, p.67]

Tetsuya Nomura’s latest game resembles Persona to some degree, but offers real-time combat. Similarly to Kingdom Hearts, it goes for flashiness rather than a deep tactical system, but after you unlock enough psychic powers, the game becomes more varied. Overall, NEO is solid, but it needs quite a lot of time to gain momentum. [10/2021, p.64]

The most important thing in Sky Fortress is the jet pack which makes moving around, replaying the campaign and liberating regions a new, even more enjoyable experience. But if you’ve already done everything there was to do in JC3, the DLC will be too short for you, as the story it offers lasts for a mere hour. [05/2016, p.71]

At first contact Ganbare! Super Strikers is off-putting – it is ugly, sounds awful and the interface is a nightmare. It is a full-fledged tactical soccer game though (more competent than Football, Tactics & Glory, by the way) and that alone makes it an interesting proposal for a soccer fan looking for something other than FIFA, PES or Football Manager. [11/2018, p.65]

Colorful, pretty scenery, decent voice acting, lots of interactive objects, and a couple of interesting puzzles give the impression that the game has more to offer than it actually does. The atmospheric first half is good, but the repetitive second part disappoints. The plot makes no sense and the direction it takes is predictable to anyone acquainted with Lovecraft’s work. The further you go, the narrower the path is and you bump into invisible walls all the time. It’s a shame the game’s considerable potential was squandered. [02/2021, p.60]

Your choice of the character (Caddoc, a warrior, or E'lara, a ranged weapon specialist) determines whether Hunted turns out to be a generic hack'n'slash or a quite decent fantasy themed shooter. I was surprised how much I enjoyed scoring headshots with a bow. [July 2011, p.70]

An interesting experiment that’s only partly successful. Betrayer has its moments but in the long run becomes too repetitive. [06/2014, p.51]

All I need from such a simple first-person shooter is an array of badass guns and hundreds of stampeding enemies. Siberian Mayhem has that, but it failed to get some important aspects right – its maps are too bloated and the optimization is poor despite subpar graphics. It could have been a great game, but turned out merely decent.

It’s fun when your characters gang up against a single enemy, music is fantastic and the idea for searching for a random mole in your team is an original one. Unfortunately tight budget made both the story and gameplay tediously clichéd. [11/2015, p.67]

A minimalistic, good-looking RTS built around a heavily emphasised risk/reward system. It might not be remarkable, but it was still able to make me lose track of time. [01/2019, p.78]

Serial Cleaners is a clever story about mob’s crime scene cleaners, unfortunately spoiled with a couple of annoying flaws, e.g. an irritating save system or the tendency to waste your time by making you wait for something idly. Overall, it probably won’t wow you, but is quite engaging and has a distinct, enjoyable atmosphere backed by an excellent soundtrack.

I expected a Hearthstone clone, but Chronicle is closer to a board game. It's interesting, fresh mechanics need some tweaking though, because now the game is both a bit too random and a bit too predictable. [08/2016, p.73]

Dustforce requires absolute precision but unfortunately has some issues with controls. The level design is unforgiving enough on its own – randomly dying once in a while because that little %&#$ didn't jump off the wall when you wanted him to is maddening. [March 2012, p.47]

Those of you who played Bravely Default should also play Bravely Second, though you might be disappointed, because in my private opinion the previous game was better. [05/2016, p.74]

The phenomenal combat system is not enough to rave about Rise of the Ronin. The chaotic storyline, boring open world, clunky gameplay and outdated graphics distract too much from what works well in Team Ninja’s latest game.

Not as engaging and rich as Microsoft Flight Simulator, but still decent. [08/2016, p.73]

For me Shovel Knight Dig is the blandest of all games starring the blue knight. It does everything decently as a 2D roguelike platformer but fails to impress in any way and I would only recommend it to those fans of Shovel Knight who have already played all previous entries to the franchise.