Mario Strikers: Battle League Football relies too heavily on whether you fall in love with the core gameplay. Because there’s not much else here, you can either consider it a highlight of the year, or a really mediocre entry in Next Level Games’ track record.

All would be fine if not for the necessity to collect stars to unlock stages. At first it’s not a problem, but later you’re forced to replay missions or pay to avoid it. [10/2015, p.76]

My first impression was great and early on I was sure this pretty action adventure game will score higher. Then the difficulty level rose drastically and allied itself with frustratingly imprecise controls to murder all the fun. [04/2021, p.62]

Will the thrill provided by permadeath be enough to keep people playing this new Wizardry that is not really a Wizardry? [CD-Action 04/2013, p.72]

A must-have for all Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics fans. Not because it’s as good, but for its price it emulates them surprisingly well. [10/2015, p.77]

I appreciate Daedalic’s ambition, but I prefer FTL, which is smaller, simpler and offers gameplay condensed to most interesting interactions. [07/2017, p.59]

Foregone lured me with its beautiful art style just to disappoint me with repetitive levels, shallow story, uninteresting combat and total lack of originality. [05/2021, p.52]

I’m not sure who’s the target audience for Silent Sector. Those looking for a shoot’em up will find it overcomplicated, RPG fans will probably call it primitive and too arcadey, while space sim enthusiasts might dismiss it as derivative. Actually, Silent Sector doesn’t offer anything I haven’t seen done better elsewhere. [05/2021, p.56]

It’s a 4-5-hour long game after finishing which most players will simply move on. It doesn’t enrich the survival genre in any way and the competition is better in almost every aspect. [07/2020, p.50]

A decent hybrid of genres but why is it so short? [CD-Action 04/2013, p.78]

I feel that instead of building on the experience gained with Planet Coaster, the developers have taken a step backwards. While they added a handful of improvements to the game, they also made poor design decisions. The predecessor was groundbreaking; its sequel is merely okay.

Quantum Break is a bad movie, but a really good game. It did not convince me with its poor (and poorly told) story and characters that I did not care about at all, but as a shooter it is really enjoyable and creative. [05/2016, p.38]

It’s evident to me that HD Trilogy was cooked up quickly, without investing neither sufficient means nor heart and soul. [CD-Action 04/2013, p.80]

A cute little game that fails to offer much more than a cool visual style. [CD-Action 04/2013, p.81]

Despite dated visuals J.U.L.I.A. offers around 8 hours of interesting story, unusual gameplay mechanics and varied puzzles. [June 2012, p.71]

Combining very good components resulted in a disappointingly average game. It would stand a chance as a freemium, but what you get for a full price is a mediocre single player campaign and a potentially great online mode that might soon die away due to lack of interest. [June 2012, p.74]

In terms of improvements and the overall quality of the remaster, Nightdive Studios did some really solid work. The problem lies in the game itself – Acclaim was overly fixated on Valve’s success and as a result published something that was neither a good Half-Life nor a particularly satisfying Turok.

I launched Cyberpunk 2077 on my PS4 Slim several weeks after the release and most of the bugs were fixed, so I was able to play the game from start to finish. However, the quality of textures was painfully low, I usually had only 20-22 frames per second while driving around the city (with dips below 20), and some objects tended to disappear. The technical state and graphics of the PS4 version are awful, which is a shame, because the game itself has one of the best stories I have ever encountered, its gunplay is really good, and Night City is very impressive. [02/2021, p.30]

The PC version of NfS is the prettiest of them all, but it is the same game with all its flaws, including horrible AI that sucks all satisfaction out of races (even if you stop completely, your rivals will wait for you) and scarce content that leaves you with nothing to do after around 12 hours. [05/2016, p.53]

Besides delightful visuals and some Botanicula vibe Morphopolis doesn’t offer anything that would set it apart from other hidden object games. [Nov 2014, p.61]

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is not terrible and I’d be lying if I told you I suffered through it, but I expect more from a AAA title than a semi-polished gameplay, a run-of-the-mill story and environments that oscillate between breathtaking and mediocre. Ubisoft Massive’s game has moments showing it could have been great, but overall turned out uninspired.

It is truly impressive that you have the whole planet to explore and build over. What caught my attention in the first place, was the deep, realistic simulation of terraforming, but unfortunately the game turned out to be tedious and boring. I also wish I could manage my settlements better and plan their development in details, as the only decisions I got to make were where to place the structures and how to prioritize them. The rest is up to autonomous drones. [02/2021, p.34]

A charming but unpolished adventure/puzzle game with an environmental thread. As a photographer, your job is to document the existence of a magical island and its extraordinary species of animals and plants. Slow pace and unusual atmosphere are relaxing and make Beasts of Maravilla Island a good family title. It’s a shame the developers failed to take full advantage of the game’s potential. The photo mode (which of course is the central mechanic here) and interactions with the environment could have been done better. [10/2021, p.38]

Andy Davidson (the original Worms creator) returned to help refresh the series. It didn't really work out the way it should have – Revolution is not what I was hoping to see. [12/2012, p.57]

Football Manager 26 never made it out of beta – the game is so unfinished that it cannot be considered a full-fledged product. Wait a year, maybe two, until „early access” ends.

Asterix & Obelix Slap Them All! 2 looks gorgeous and makes pummeling Romans fun, but it is painfully derivative and repetitive and doesn’t deserve the 2 in the title. It would be more honest to call it a standalone expansion and sell it for a lower price rather than pretend it’s a full-fledged sequel.

Road 96 tries to strike the right balance between randomization and the emphasis on the story and kind of succeeds at that, but fails in many other aspects, e.g. there’s no challenge here at all and your actions lack actual consequences. I was also unable to get through the new game+ without the impression that I had already experienced most of the events during my initial playthrough. [11/2021, p.44]

Heliborne’s biggest problem is that it’s still far from the state of completion that would justify calling it a final release. [13/2017, p.55]