First and foremost, Amnesia: Rebirth is an intriguing, well told story about grief, loss, dying hope and terrifying solitude. Beneath the skillfully laid out narrative you’ll also find a good horror game, though its ingredients feel a bit too familiar for Rebirth to be as scary as the first Amnesia. [13/2020, p.44]

Don’t expect a traditional point’n’click adventure game with engaging puzzles. When the Past Was Around is more of an artistic experience, a very easy, roughly hour-long journey into an intimate world of the main heroine’s memories. [13/2020, p.43]

Heart of the Forest is an instantly gripping, beautifully illustrated visual novel with a nicely branching storyline, difficult choices, and skillfully introduced RPG elements. [13/2020, p.42]

Despite its weak story, repetitive gameplay, and unvaried combat, Drake Hollow is a surprisingly enjoyable co-op survival game for casual players, especially those who love cute creatures but were disappointed by Ooblets. [13/2020, p.40]

I was sure Little Hope will improve significantly upon the first installment in The Dark Pictures series, but the developers opted for the bare minimum. The story is more interesting, the ending is more surprising, and the character cast is better. There are also some technical improvements. Little Hope is decent, but still fails to provide things I expect from a good horror game, like more engaging gameplay, interesting plot twists (Until Dawn!), and a real sense of terror. [13/2020, p.38]

Raji is set in a rarely explored (and therefore refreshing) setting of Hindu mythology that definitely works in its favor, and offers gameplay mechanics resembling a Prince of Persia game on a budget. The protagonist is as agile as Price and the game is generally enjoyable, but the platforming sections are too easy to pose a challenge, and the combat is not meaty enough to be satisfying. [13/2020, p.36]

The developers of The Girl of Glass did not lack ideas, quite the contrary – they had too many. The game would have scored higher, had it remained a simple point’n’click adventure, because its turn-based combat is a miss and later chapters focused solely on fighting are boring to the point of being unbearable. [13/2020, p.35]

I’ve had a weak spot for tactical games since 1988 (Laser Squad!) and during all this time I had my share of occasionally frustrating titles. Partisans 1941 is far beyond occasionally frustrating – it was infuriatingly hard even on lower difficulty setting, and additionally unfair due to chaotic combat and disheartening bugs (spotted by a sentry through a solid wall? Mission over!). [13/2020, p.34]

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]

In many aspects Valhalla resembles most of Ubisoft’s games, but fortunately progression feels a lot more natural this time around. The game’s not perfect but I had lots of fun conquering new territories, plundering churches, and pillaging coastal villages while following a mature story and enjoying gorgeous, believable medieval Britain. [13/2020, p.26]

Tamarin reeks of low budget and complete lack of creativity. How is it even possible that people who once worked at Rare (where they made Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country, among others) developed such a sad, awful mess? [12/2020, p.73]

Double Kick Heroes is a very interesting arcade rhythm game with cool pixel art, great soundtrack, and fun references to real-life rock musicians. Unfortunately, some poor design choices spoiled the overall experience for me. User interface items that you need to focus on to stay alive are too tiny and therefore tire the eyes very quickly. I had to take breaks every 20 minutes, because I simply couldn’t concentrate any longer. [12/2020, p.72]

BPM’s developers managed to bring together their love for classic first-person shooters and a fresh idea. The result of their ambitions is a hellishly fast FPS with procedurally generated environments and a twist. Good reflexes are not enough to complete even the very first level, because to survive, you need to sync your actions to the beat of the music (the soundtrack is fantastic, by the way). For instance, if you pull the trigger at the wrong moment, your gun will misfire. Once you get used to it, you’ll be rewarded with intense, satisfying gameplay. [12/2020, p.71]

“Huge mechs, a ruined city, and a hot female teacher in a latex suit”, is how one of the game’s characters described his visions. That’s, in a nutshell, the essence of this unique, crazy RPG where you face kaiju in turned-based combat one minute, and follow weird conversations of high-school students the next. And there is nothing wrong with that. [12/2020, p.70]

For a game that mocks RPG clichés and pelts you with endless stream of hit-or-miss jokes and cultural references, The Dungeon of Nabe… Nehu… Neul… goddamit… The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk is surprisingly solid in terms of gameplay mechanics and features genuinely fun tactical combat. [12/2020, p.68]

I wish I could call NBA 2K21 derivative but still good. It looks great as ever, but gameplay balance was ruined completely by the new shooting system, there are no new features, the MyTeam mode is going downhill plagued by microtransactions, and the game as a whole lacks even a tiniest spark of passion. [12/2020, p.67]

When The Unfinished Swan was released back in 2012 on PS3, it was unique. Today, upon its arrival on PC, it’s lost in a sea of much better indie games. [12/2020, p.66]

To put it simply, Star Wars: Squadrons is a low-budget X-Wing vs TIE Fighter II based off of Battlefront II’s space battles. I admit that I expected more, but after two decades we finally got a new Star Wars sim (leaning towards the arcade side, but still) and I did enjoy it. It looks and sounds like a Star Wars game should, and Motive’s successful effort to balance such dissimilar crafts as the X-Wing and the TIE Fighter is commendable. [12/2020, p.64]

This PS1 era antique was restored quite neatly. It was rebuilt almost from scratch (technical issues plaguing the prior Switch edition were eliminated), the gameplay is enjoyable and doesn’t get boring, but mainly because there’s no additional content here and the credits roll out after an hour or so. Basically, Panzer Dragoon’s remake is a short, sentimental journey for the most nostalgic fans. [12/2020, p.63]

Behind pixels the size of couscous pellets you’ll find sheer terror that even photorealistic visuals would not be able to mirror. The tension in The Enigma of Salazar House is so thick you could cut it with a knife, and I think only Song of Horror comes close in that regard. [12/2020, p.62]

I honestly did not expect such a stellar game. Crash Bandicoot 4 is breathtakingly beautiful, features an amazing soundtrack full of references to the original trilogy, offers tons of content, and thrilled me to bits with its brilliant level design. What’s more, it stayed true to its gameplay roots, while introducing loads of great new mechanics. For me it’s the game of the year. I salute you, Toys For Bob! [12/2020, p.58]

For its age, Crysis is still quite fun, but I don’t think bragging about the game’s ability to vanquish any PC should still be a thing today. There are many shooters that look much better and at the same time run much smoother on the same hardware. It’s also a pity that the Warhead expansion was not remastered along the base game and there’s no trace of the multiplayer modes. [12/2020, p.56]

We are probably all familiar with this phenomenon: you spend hours with a game complaining about it all the time, but you simply can’t turn it off. Having spent all evening with it, you feel guilty about wasting your time, but the next day you come back and play some more. For me, Port Royale 4 is one of such games. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the Caribbean and the depth of the trade system, but I’m not sure why I devoted so much time to a title that annoyed me with many ill-conceived bits, and whose low difficulty level often made me feel redundant. [12/2020, p.55]

The game’s biggest draw is the fact that it is based on true events. The developers changed the names of some places and people but all the stories you get to experience – some funny, some sad, others dramatic, or scary – really happened to someone. [12/2020, p.54]

This is without a doubt Supergiant’s best game – highly polished, designed to be replayed time after time over dozens or even hundreds of hours, friendly towards rookies, full of fun content, and addictive as hell. It also looks great and the voice acting is superb. [12/2020, p.52]

The world of Batuu is very polished, the environments are detailed, and there’s a story to play through, but there are also some issues that mar the experienced. You can’t edit lots without using codes, some missions are bugged (I couldn’t finish the evil storyline because of that!), and once you reach the pinnacle of your career, there’s not much left to do beside side missions. [12/2020, p.51]

The only problem with the Xbox version of Wet Dreams Don’t Dry is some technical issues, which are quite easy to ignore because the game is really good. It makes fun of itself, other adventure games, genre clichés, the past, the present, the developers, the player – and it usually hits the mark. What’s more, it can be surprisingly refined for a title which doesn’t shy away from penis jokes. [12/2020, p.51]

Unrailed! is intense, a bit chaotic, at times wearisome, but highly addictive. [12/2020, p.50]