A spin-off that lacks the scale of the main Halo games – you rarely fight alongside other Spartans and when you do they are usually passive and act as animated props. [07/2015, p.52]

It starts as a somewhat boring, unpolished scary game but soon turns into a fascinating, engrossing equivalent of a TV show. And I couldn’t wait to see the next episodes. [07/2020, p.60]

I did complain in this review but as a whole Shades of Darkness is the best thing Heroes VI has to offer. [CD-Action 08/2013, p.84]

Although first impressions are good, it soon becomes obvious that the ‘simulation’ is shallow, there’s too much chaos and the mech controls are not intuitive. [CD-Action 03/2013, p.60]

Gameplay is repetitive, level design is not too good and the player's influence on what's happening is limited, so the game gets boring very fast. [November 2011, p.83]

Intrusive microtransactions make Angry Birds 2 a game for either rich or patient. Without paying it’s almost impossible to play for an hour straight. [10/2015, p.74]

Pleasant exploration and interesting turn-based combat are unfortunately counterbalanced by too much backtracking, over-the-top number of fights and not very functional map. [05/2015, p.65]

I appreciate the solid research behind Bounty Train and pleasant music, but when I failed at the end of the game I realized I’m not willing to sacrifice over a dozen more hours to try again. [09/2017, p.45]

When I read that Crusader is slowly becoming the game the developers wanted it to be, I can’t hold back laughter. What are they going to do in Crusader III? Strip the visuals of distinctiveness even more? Simplify the economy further? Remove some more units? [Dec 2014, p.81]

Forge left me with mixed feelings. It has considerable potential but until developers fulfill their promises players will have to deal with an unfinished product. [CD-Action 02/2013, p.59]

Most of the puzzles were well-designed and I appreciated the chance to put my problem-solving skills and spatial awareness to the test, but the game is insolently short. I finished the campaign in approximately two hours, but it can be done much faster even without skipping the cut-scenes. [11/2020, p.54]

I liked the economic campaign but the historical one is not as good. The AI is awful, the redesigned popularity system promotes building the same structures over and over, the missions are not varied enough, and the game lacks atmosphere, because the whole oriental setting is pretty much just a skin for the original Stronghold. All in all, it’s an enjoyable game but there’s a lot of room for improvement. [05/2021, p.32]

People who gave us the excellent Slender: The Eight Pages suddenly ceased to understand what makes a good horror. [CD-Action 06/2013, p.69]

The style of poorly executed visuals is in discord with the atmosphere that Pendulo Studios tried to create. Yesterday is also too easy and generally just not worth spending 4 hours with it. [May 2012, p.78]

Remember Me is high quality from beginning to the credits. The developers managed to squeeze out much more than one could expect from the simple formula. The fact that the game was done by the French aided by the Japanese shows even in the main menu – it’s obvious that the artistic side of the project was very important. [CD-Action 07/2013, p.74]

One of the best stories among indie games of recent years. [10/2015, p.60]

Although Never Yield is a fun auto-runner with a great soundtrack and a valuable message (it gracefully brings up the subject of racism without being pushy), it feels like a short experiment rather than a full-fledged game. [07/2021, p.61]

Boring and lazily made, Phantom Fury desperately tries to be an homage to FPS games of the second half of the 90s but in reality is only a faded copy of them. You can find shooters that are much better in every respect, so don’t waste your life on this one.

Ash of Gods is the best Banner Saga since The Banner Saga. The problem is that its developers hung on to the standards set by Stoic a bit too tight. [05/2018, p.40]

The “medieval Slavic GTA” (inspired by the early GTA games, mind you, not the 3D ones) is crude but also fun, unpretentious and full of positive energy. Chock-full of jokes, easter eggs and pop culture references, Rustler is never serious. If you enjoy such titles and are willing to accept the game’s intentionally old-fashioned formula, you could consider giving it a chance. [11/2021, p.70]

Torchlight III makes no attempt at all to introduce anything new to the genre and this lack of originality is disappointing after 8 years of waiting. It’s quite easy to point out a couple of other flaws (e.g. the shallow story), but I chose not to dwell on them, because the game delivered exactly what I expected from it – around 20 hours of enjoyable hacking and slashing that doesn’t engage the mind too much. [13/2020, p.32]

Hitting the nostalgia notes is not enough to enamour the masses. [March 2012, p.68]

In theory it’s a relaxing experience, but before you start relaxing, you need to learn to live with InnerSpace’s quite a few problems. [03/2018, p.60]

Those who played Life Is Strange will surely feel similar vibes in Dontnod’s latest release. However, this game has even more sluggish pace and although I enjoyed reconstructing events in the mind palace, I was annoyed with the fact that I had to find every single piece of a puzzle even if the solution was already obvious. The story is decent, but some of its potential was wasted and the characters are not as well-written as in Dontnod’s previous games. [02/2021, p.32]

Maize is more memorable than your usual Dear Esther clone. I imagine the developers thinking: “We’re unable to make something outstanding with our budget, so let’s at least make something funny”. And they did. [02/2017, p.48]

Usually I’m not into artsy little indie games, but I was ready to fall in love with Feist. Unfortunately it didn’t want to love me back. Its difficulty level turned tension that I welcomed in the beginning of the adventure into frustration that prevented me from enjoying this beautiful, atmospheric game as much as I hoped to. [10/2015, p.53]

Call of Duty series is undergoing a serious crisis, and the new installment of Black Ops, instead of helping it get out of trouble, only exacerbates existing problems and adds many new ones.

The game itself is wonderful, still one of the best PC titles, but the HD Edition is very disappointing. Redrawing the game in higher resolution is not enough, especially that expansions are not included and program’s stability leaves much to be desired. [03/2014, p.60]