With a room of onlookers, it's certain to provoke some of the most raucous laughter you'll hear playing a videogame this year. [Issue#392, p.122]

Sure, at times it's a little messy, but isn't that just part of the business of being human? Would that we could all create havoc with such irresistible style. [Issue#392, p.121]

You can't just mine your inspirations; ideally, you should build on them. [Issue#392, p.120]

And in a genre preoccupied with conquest, it's hopeful concluding note of independence - the Legion's actions in Russia are tied to the formation of the First Czechoslovak Republic - makes for a welcome epilogue indeed. [Issue#392, p.118]

Indeed, Tactica is very much a Persona 5 game, with all that entails: conceptually sound, visually stylish, lovingly assembled - and needlessly drawn out. [Issue#392, p.116]

Yes, it's a little too familiar in places. [Issue#392, p.114]

That central combination of philosophical debate and logical reasoning remains as robust as it did nine years ago. [Issue#392, p.112]

Perhaps, though, the reason A Highland Song stays in the memory is because of those bumps and scraps rather than in spite of them. [Issue#392, p.110]

The effect is simple but potent: this feels like a real place, and you feel like a real person. [Issue#392, p.108]

Without immediate course correction, Activision is likely to discover that even the most loyal playerbase can smell when it's being cheated. [Issue#392, p.104]

For all the nonlinearity of its telling, the strangeness of its details, at its heart this is a relatively conventional save-the-world narrative. Which is no bad thing, necessarily, in a game that elsewhere tends towards obscurity and excess. But it's those latter qualities we're here for, ultimately - and Alan Wake 2 delivers over and over. [Issue#392, p.100]

There is, at least, a pleasing weight to impacts as you thump enemies into walls or slam them into the floor. Good job, too, since there's precious little else to enjoy here. [Issue#391, p.123]

Jonasson is evidently confident that his game has enough to keep you coming back regardless. He's right to be. [Issue#391, p.122]

This pulpy provocation has more than enough ideas to take root in your own monkey brain. [Issue#391, p.121]

If its unpredictability is a double-edged sword, though, we can imagine ourselves returning to this as we would a beloved horror novel or film, albeit one whose macabre myths are capable of wrongfooting us even on the umpteenth revisit. [Issue#391, p.120]

Style can be substance, but it's fuel that burns quickly. [Issue#391, p.119]

Given all the admirable character work and tactical substance on display, it's a shame that individualism isn't spread more evenly. [Issue#391, p.118]

Like the early Tomb Raiders, this is a game in which you truly get to know your environment, connecting with it physically and emotionally: a puzzle to be solved, yes, and a story to be unearthed, but also a space to respect and to feel humbled by. [Issue#391, p.116]

This isn't a game about saving the world, but rather achieving some peace within it. [Issue#391, p.114]

In an era of flagging service games, it is refreshing to se an old favourite so thoroughly rejuvenated. Blizzard, take note: this is how it's done. [Issue#391, p.112]

Thanks to the feel, the car collection and the online toolset, FM achieves a victory by a fine margin. [Issue#391, p.110]

For a story centered on revolutionaries, Mirage is oddly conservative, mired in the middle ground between honouring tradition and embracing innovation. Ubisoft has seldom felt closer to delivering on the power fantasy promised by Patrice Desilets in 2007; equally, it has never felt farther away from its contemporaries. [Issue#391, p.108]

There is, at least, plenty to build on with the inevitable sequel, retaining all of this instalment's finer points and knocking the obvious dents out of its armour - a Lords of the Fallen 2.5, perhaps. [Issue#391, p.102]

This is the most unforgettable side-scroller Nintendo has put out in three decades. [Issue#391, p.98]

Whether this is the best Spider-Man GAME will likely be debated at length, but in so vividly capturing the intensity of the superhero experience, it is unquestionably the best Spider-Man simulator. [Issue#391, p.106]

Masterful use of haptics and audio ensures that when your finger, so often an unstoppable force, meets an immovable object, you hear AND feel it. To play is to experience the pleasure of successfully picking a lock, or cracking a safe, or perhaps even repairing a watch: there is a constant sense of tension and release, as you find ways to free those gummed-up gears, to oil that rusted sliding-bolt mechanism, to feel the click of that tumbler dropping into place. [Issue#390, p.139]

As dating-centered RPGs go, we know a spot, and it's not here. [Issue#390, p.136]

In reckoning so candidly with the conflicting emotions we've experienced over the past few years, Mediterranea Inferno achieves a purgative potency few of its peers can match. [Issue#390, p.135]