Eventually you come to feel less like you're changing the world so much as being given a half-finished jigsaw: there's a certain pleasure to slotting in the missing pieces, but completing the job can be a laborious process. [March 2018, p.114]

Battles account for around half the game, and unless you're a fan of the TV series, it's much the better one. [March 2018, p.110]

What it does have is something an Activision or EA would kill for: a game built up around one good idea that drew in a community of unprecedented size. And that counts for a lot against PUBG's flaws: its rough-edged movement, animations, collision detection, character customisation, spectator functionality, and presentation. Perhaps you might hear all that and think this isn't worth your time. To do so would be to miss out on an absolute, and absolutely deserving, phenomenon. [March 2018, p.106]

In every sense, the pleasure here is in the playing. [Issue#315, p.122]

All told, it's a slight, essential basic little game. [Issue#315, p.121]

It's all a little rote - something we certainly don't associate with Final Fantasy. [Issue#315, p.120]

It's insubstantial but sweet, then: Trinket Studio's game may not linger long on the palate, but while it lasts, this delicate confection leaves a pleasant taste indeed. [Issue#315, p.118]

It still has much to do. But for the first time in a while, Destiny 2 players have finally been given something to be positive about. [Issue#315, p.116]

It's a game where stealth comes naturally for absolutely everyone, and is all the better for it. [Issue#315, p.114]

Rare are the games that can make us see the world a little differently; step outside and look around after playing Gorogoa and you'll realise it probably deserved that round of applause after all. [Issue#315, p.110]

When Before the Storm embraces its individuality, it produces stunning moments. [Issue#315, p.106]

[An] endearingly odd, memorable little game. [Issue#314, p.122]

It's a laugh, albeit at the expense of itself. [Issue#314, p.118]

Somewhere, Animal Crossing has mislaid its soul. [Issue#314, p.116]

Were it not for the driving model, which against all odds remains a pleasure, and desperately rare moments of imaginative mission design, this would be an abject failure. As it stands, it's simply a serious one. [Issue#314, p.114]

At its best it's a game of tactics for even the most casual player. [Issue#314, p.112]

It doesn't quite match the out-of-nowhere brilliance of the first game, not is it as bold as the daring, but flawed, follow-up. Still, those seeking a game large and enveloping enough to carry them through the holiday season and beyond will find that particular box well and truly ticked. [Issue#314, p.108]

It is especially abhorrent that this should happen in a game with almost unrivalled massmarket appeal...No doubt EA and its trio of development studios will fix this mess eventually, but the fact they deemed it fit for purpose in the first place is unavoidable, and damning in the extreme. Whatever happens next, we're afraid we don't patch review scores. [Issue#314, p.104]

Like most things in Luna, it complements the refrain of a children's storybook: work through your feelings, give them shape, and voice, and help others to do the same unconditionally. [Christmas 2017, p.123]

There's plenty to like here - the script almost justifies a playthrough by itself - but it's a little overlong, a little padded out, it's obvious charms soon obscured by busywork, reputation and irritation. [Christmas 2017, p.122]

Even as it lacks the same tactical depth and storytelling nuance, in its collaborative combat and earnest heroics, it captures the spirit of Fire Emblem really rather well. [Christmas 2017, p.120]

Whatever it becomes in time, the GT Sport of right now is defined by the features it leaves on the cutting-room floor, rather than those it adds. [Christmas 2017, p.118]

There's an incredible amount to do within the confines of a traditional racing game. Flawed, then, but pushing for the top of the podium all the same. [Christmas 2017, p.116]

Frustrations rarely linger in a game with such a bright, celebratory vibe. This is a love letter to the early history of two mediums - imperfectly written, perhaps, but deeply and sincerely felt. Charming, distinctive and impossible to forget, Cuphead is the kind of game you'll immediately want to talk about, yet be desperate not to spoil. Like we said, quite the paradox. [Christmas 2017, p.114]

A game of this size may please those who equate volume with value, but despite a handful of sensational moments, Shadow of War mostly proves that more can be so much less. [Christmas 2017, p.112]

For all its flaws, The Evil Within felt like the work of a singular voice. This feels like several shouting at once, eventually settling their differences by compromise. The black bars are gone; instead, it's convention that keeps The Evil Within 2 constrained. [Christmas 2017, p.108]

Like its predecessor, The New Colossus is a stunning technical achievement and an unusually stylish act of videogame cinematography. Yet where the first game gleefully took a scalpel to what had come before, there's no old order for The New Colossus to overthrow: just a New Order that it struggles to live up to. [Christmas 2017, p.104]

Its world may be memorable, but otherwise this is a series falling back on borrowed ideas, as if unsure quite how to properly reinvent itself. There are enough signs of improvement to suggest the next entry could be the fresh start Ubisoft promised this time around. But as a new beginning for Assassin's Creed, Origins is more of a stumbling step than a bold leap forward. [Christmas 2017, p.100]

Its ragged edges mean it feels more like a competent cover version that occasionally strays off key, rather than the genuine article. [Dec 2017, p.120]

It's an utterly huge, ambitious game - 100 hours MIGHT do it - but it never feels anything less than lovingly handcrafted, its every component part given the same special attention. Its individual elements, the combat, the writing, would be high points in any other game, but Divinity: Original Sin II has it all. [Dec 2017, p.116]

It's scrappy, sure, but no racer offers such a breadth of choice, or seems so willing to let the player set the rules of the road. When Project Cars 2 gets into gear, there's little else like it. [Dec 2017, p.114]

The best Metroid game in years. [Dec 2017, p.112]

The memories of that abysmal story mode soon fade, and those prepared to put the hours in by themselves will find a game as fluid and flexible as any on the market. [Dec 2017, p.110]

The purity and quality of Absolver's vision has provided and innovative, constructive take on an often impenetrable genre. [Dec 2017, p.106]

For the more casual - OK, more sane - player, however, Destiny 2 is almost a triumph. It is a game much better at explaining itself, that wants to be enjoyed and understood, and is happy to reward players for simply being there. [Dec 2017, p.102]

Like Breath of the Wild, Odyssey is a new entry in a long-running series that belies its age with sprightly invention, taking big risks with an established formula, and having all of them pay off handsomely. Mario might be getting on a bit, then, but a dinosaur? This astonishing adventure proves he's anything but. [Dec 2017, p.98]

It never quite feels natural, and you'll quickly find yourself pining for another recent Housemarque release, Nex Machina. [Issue#311, p.120]

This convincing comeback has been designed for the die-hards - and they haven't been this well served by a Sonic game for ages. [Issue#311, p.118]

In Agents of Mayhem, the limits are all around you, all of the time - from the moment you start playing to the minute you stop, it feels permanently imprisoned by its own lack of imagination. The result is a game that carries the weight of a litany of sins - a saint that has fallen far, far from grace. [Issue#311, p.116]

Played as intended, however, in local multiplayer, Nidhogg 2 sings. [Issue#311, p.114]

Knack II improves on its predecessor in just about every department, which is to say it is merely flawed, rather than deeply so. Yet for all its foibles and frustrations, it's all pleasant enough. [Issue#311, p.112]

Twelve-year-old fights feel brand new because of the inclusion of Yakuza 0's switchable combat styles. [Issue#311, p.110]

Lost Legacy's shorter runtime and reduced scope means it has something many of its mainline forebears lack: focus. There is a game with neither faff nor filler, no sense of a story being stretched too thinly across a game that is too big for it. Once it gets into gear, this is a rare breed: a finely paced action game with a story to tell and no creeping sense that the needs of one are undermining the quality of the other. [Issue#311, p.108]

No matter what comes next, Lawbreakers is a success. It's proof, among other things, that veteran design talent really does mean something - and that the shooters of the late '90s still have something to teach the modern game industry. This is more than nostalgia: it's a paean to the genre's potential, performed by people who know it well. [Issue#311, p.104]

If at times its volume of perfunctory unlockables remind you that this is a Ubisoft game, elsewhere Kingdom Battle boasts a generosity of ideas that feels startlingly Nintendo...It's perhaps not quite good enough to bring you to tears, but if Odyssey is to be Mario's best game this year, it has a pretty high bar to clear. Not THERE's something we never imagined writing. [Issue#311, p.100]

If only it played as well as it looks. [Issue#310, p.121]

This is a soothing lullaby of a game: a leisurely bit of counter-programming that, contrary to forecasts, doesn't disgrace the series' good name. [Issue#310, p.120]

It is, as a whole, smart stuff, and a refreshing new direction for McMillen's brand of twitch platforming. [Issue#310, p.118]

It's less a trip to another world than a slice of this one, warts and all, carefully preserved in the middle of a bewitching, inaccessible wilderness. [Issue#310, p.116]

It is wonderfully written, its world lived-in and vivid. It meets our expectations of a Fullbright game, but sadly leaves it at that. [Issue#310, p.114]

Ultimately what was intended as a thoughtful depiction of a terrible mental illness has ended up casting it as something of an asset: a helpful superpower that can give you the strength to soldier on through the darkness, so long as you can put up with the odd breakdown here and there. That, we suspect, was not what Ninja Theory intended. It's certainly not what we had hoped for. [Issue#310, p.112]

If Pyre never quite feels like a classic sporting struggle, your ragtag band of rebels and their delightful mobile home are a heartwarming upside to life on the Downside. [Issue#310, p.108]

If the thrill of the new is gone, old pleasures remain: the exhilaration of the final-minute countdown as the music increases in tempo, or the ice-cream jingle of the Tower as it advances into enemy territory. Crucially, that infectiously exuberant spirit is undimmed. More of the same? For once, that'll do nicely. [Issue#310, p.104]

The core racing is pleasingly intact for 16bit nostalgists, but that doesn't make Micro Machines a no-brainer for the new-school, season-based multiplayer model. [Sept 2017, p.119]

Despite the sheer, breathless volume of new ideas, there's a sense of wonder missing from the sequel. The well-meaning tale feels a little rote in comparison to the first game's supernatural arc of redemption. [Sept 2017, p.118]

A bleak meditation on the idea that the most one can do in such difficult times is to keep your head down, and keep moving. [Sept 2017, p.116]

There's a real earnestness to Ever Oasis's tale, as Ishii and team meditate on our relationship with nature and the value of coming together to build a better, more hopeful world. It's unfortunate that the actual substance of the game doesn't trouble itself to embody that reaching ambition, content to stay resting comfortably at the wellspring of other, better games' ideas. [Sept 2017, p.114]

For those already playing Final Fantasy XIV, Stormblood is a beautiful, essential expansion...It's not only a great expansion to a much-improved MMO. It's also, in story terms at least, a game that stands tall among the best Final Fantasy has to offer. [Sept 2017, p.112]

The result is a tiresome slog that proves the first casualty of war is not innocence, but brevity. Valkyria Devolution might have been a more honest title. [Sept 2017, p.108]

Though you might not see it at first, Nex Machina steadily becomes a more layered, complex experience the more you play it. [Sept 2017, p.104]

Sluggish menus, clumsy controls, and an intrusive, atmosphere-scuppering soundtrack mar each excursion, while excessive weather effects will have you straining to see as you awkwardly bump up against objects to find out if they can be ransacked. [Aug 2017, p.122]

What's here stands out simply for being the first convincing example of a VR FPS that doesn't make you feel sick. [Aug 2017, p.120]

Bridge Crew transforms an ordinarily isolating technology into something irresistibly social: it's an anecdote generator par excellence, and a VR experience that handily overcomes its limitations as a game. [Aug 2017, p.119]

Polybius is a profoundly consuming and transportive experience of eye-watering intensity that'll leave you dazed and bewildered in the best possible way. [Aug 2017, p.118]

There's much to recommend in Endless Space 2, and its art and writing has the potential to open up a complex genre to a new audience, but there's no escaping the fact it'll be a better game in six months. [Aug 2017, p.116]

Tekken 7 feels cynically put together, a solid but ultimately 20-year-old fighting system freshened up with mechanical twists and bulked out with gimmicks rather than gilded with the series' signature personality. [Aug 2017, p.114]

For a game that promises a degree of freedom in how you approach a job, you'll often find there's a clearly preferred way of doing things. [Aug 2017, p.112]

This is still a Neatherrealm game, with all that implies, and it isn't without its missteps. But for lone wolves, at least, this is the richest fighting game on the market. [Aug 2017, p.110]

Despite a multitude of improvements and a much larger offering than its predecessor, Dirt 4 somehow feels less spirited. Had "Rally" not existed, this latest game would've felt like more of an event, but in its current form it doesn't quite achieve the potency of its more focused forebear. [Aug 2017, p.106]

Yes, it's a little light on content, but what's in there is delightful, accessible, intuitive, playful stuff. From the off it's fun and, before long, it becomes oddly magical, too. Over time, it may become wondrous. At launch it will just have to settle for being merely excellent, and yet another standard bearer for Nintendo's new console. That, we suppose, is really the most important thing about ARMS. [Aug 2017, p.102]

Despite [North's] efforts, a couple of big laughs (the world's slowest lift; Drax's sincere literalism) and at least one genuine surprise, you're left with a gnawing sensation that Telltale's formula is becoming as creaky as its engine. And that's a feeling on which you're unlikely to get hooked. [July 2017, p.120]

With its bright, clean presentation looking resplendent on the small screen, it's a particularly fine fit for Switch's portable mode; for the next few weeks, your daily commute - and occasionally your stop - is likely to fly by. [July 2017, p.119]

Statik's greatest trick, among many, is to make the DualShock the star of this darkly comic puzzle game. [July 2017, p.118]

Strafe styles itself as both "the future of videogames" and "the most action-packed game of 1996", and there's a ring of truth to both gags. In folding together and drilling into layers of FPS convention, Pixel Titans has created a game that is at once sentimental and sharply contemporary. It doesn't so much take us back to '96 as transport '96 into the present, picking up threads left by Doom and Quake and weaving its own tapestry out of them, every time you play. [July 2017, p.116]

A remarkable, big-hearted game from a developer whose debut gave barely a hint of the storytelling confidence and poise on show here. What Remains of Edith Finch is anything but unfinished; it might even set a new benchmark for the narrative adventure. [July 2017, p.114]

FromSoftware's second stab at this stuff produced Dark Souls. Deck13 still has a way to go before it really delivers on the concept it holds so dear. [July 2017, p.112]

The result is a game that, while built from familiar components, feels unique as a whole. The Farm 51 should be commended for its bold design decisions, and for attempting to create something that dispenses with videogame conventions. That it doesn't always hang together quite as well as it could is disappointing, but that doesn't make experiencing the studio's singular vision any less worthwhile. [July 2017, p.110]

Prey is an accomplished game in an under-served genre. Its problems are those of a game that tries to do more, and give the player more, than most shooters aspire to - and to that extent, they're forgivable. [July 2017, p.106]

In pairing back its design and focusing on only a few key elements, the studio has created an uncommonly beautiful, open-hearted game. The team's self-deprecation and shaky confidence belies an assured, courageously executed vision. The resulting adventure will give you chills and should stay with you for a very long time indeed. [July 2017, p.102]

The difficulty curve quickly steepens - perhaps too quickly. [June 2017, p.107]

If nothing else, the wide-eyed manner in which Everything explores the interconnectedness of, well, everything feels faintly radical in these divided times - even when that means you somehow find yourself relating to a spiral of sentient poop. [June 2017, p.106]

Lego finally has creative expression in videogame form. [June 2017, p.104]

By the time we reached the end of Outlast 2 we felt drained for all the wrong reasons. In leaving the confines of its predecessor's psychiatric hospital setting for the wilds of southern Arizona, Red Barrels' horror series has somehow become more linear and less pliable. And now, in the long shadow cast by Capcom's excellent Resident Evil VII, Red Barrels' macabre tricks are made to appear somewhat less dazzling. [June 2017, p.102]

The Sexy Brutale's world is a delightful place in which to immerse yourself...This assured adventure will draw you into its world, and keep you there. [June 2017, p.100]

With a much better camera and less of a fondness for gratuitously fussy challenges - and a tendency not to combine the two - this could have been a minor classic. [June 2017, p.96]

It's the kind of game that'll have you advancing into the next room with slow, tentative steps, jamming hard on the right stick to shift the camera as far ahead as it'll let you see, and instinctively shushing whenever something - or someone - makes a noise. And yes, you may well end up fretting over screen smears and specks of dirt. For a game purpose-built to have you jumping at shadows, there aren't many stronger endorsements than that. [June 2017, p.94]

An earnest attempt has been made to create a new identity for a series here, but the question of how to best frame Mass Effect's narrative strengths is, once again, left open. [June 2017, p.90]

This characterful, sprawling throwback might well have been considered a classic two decades ago. But, as its creators have patently discovered, it isn't 1997 anymore. [June 2017, p.86]

This is a cheap game with an expensive price tag, and there's nothing remotely super about it. [May 2017, p.123]

Inventive, malleable and rambunctiously entertaining British puzzler. [May 2017, p.121]

Energetic if simplistic, shallow yet enormously replayable, it's the kind of game you'll forget about for months, rediscover during a party, and within ten minutes everyone will be shouting, laughing and clamouring to join in. [May 2017, p.119]

Perhaps that's Infinite Fall's ultimate triumph: with a group of 2D animals it's built a cast that's more rounded and identifiably human than any mo-capped blockbuster. [May 2017, p.116]

Sacrificing a degree of nuance at the altar of spectacle is a trade-off most Halo fans will be happy to make. Yet, at times it feels like you're just smashing toys together and watching the carnage unfold. But what wonderful toys they are. [May 2017, p.114]

It's feature-creep, in short, bloat orbiting an excellent core. In that regard, at least, For Honor is a Ubisoft game. [May 2017, p.112]

The focus on the rebellious, non-conformist side of youth has its drawbacks, but means Persona 5 is something to which its predecessors could never lay claim. It is, simply put, cool. Everything, from the intro movie's disco house to the battle-mode cutaways and even the basic UI, is achingly, confidently stylish. Criminally, the DualShock 4's Share button functionality is blocked for the duration, but this is one of few true blemishes on a game that, while at times a bit too familiar, never comes close to breeding contempt. [May 2017, p.110]

In the areas money can't buy, it stumbles; its driving model, AI, and repetitive mission structure all cry out for more elegant design, and combine to leave Wildlands in the strange position of looking expensive but feeling cheap. Its blithely misjudged tone and directionless structure suggests design on autopilot, and empty bigness is no longer enough to carry an open-world game on its own. The game's premise may come straight from Trump's paranoid playbook, but its hollow extravagance is arguably the more damaging point of comparison. [May 2017, p.106]

The biggest difference between Automata and its director's previous work is that those weird ideas finally have a robust mechanical shell to house them - one flecked with patches of rust, perhaps, but a fine piece of engineering all the same. [May 2017, p.102]

You'd have to be a bumbling turdbag not to at least give Yamada the chance to win your heart. [April 2017, p.123]