Despite the occasional stumble and sticking point, Transference will frequently leave you transfixed. [December 2018, p.120]

This is a game that understands that nostalgia is a core part of its appeal. [December 2018, p.118]

The scenarios are often ingenious finding fresh ways to breathe new life into familiar systems. [December 2018, p.116]

Generous checkpoints and quick restarts just about cover for awkward platforming sequences. [December 2018, p.114]

The friction between precision and imprecision is what makes the game unique. [December 2018, p.112]

There are whole essays that could be written about the depth of the tuning mechanics. [December 2018, p.110]

Disjointed and directionless, Croft's descent into darkness is, shockingly, one hell of a mess. [December 2018, p.106]

For the first time, Bungie has successfully remedied two of the most frequent criticisms of Destiny: that there isn't enough to do, and that its endgame is overly focused on raiding. [December 2018, p.102]

There's little here that truly improves the Overcooked recipe, an din that regard, only those with extra large appetites for this particular brand of couch co-op need apply. [Nov 2018, p.122]

A wonderfully honest game that points out how important it is to acknowledge the hole, but reminds us that, at the end of the day, it's what's - and who's - around it that counts. [Nov 2018, p.121]

The simple tasks - jump, drag, hide - create a sort of meditative state, where the bare bones of the game itself don't matter and your eyes are free to drink in its sumptuous world. Counterintuitive puzzles aside, that's a sensation worth chasing. [Nov 2018, p.120]

It's the curse of "better with friends" - if any member of your own personal brigade loses interest, it could quickly end up a dusty relic. [Nov 2018, p.118]

There are plenty of games with strong visual design and atmospheric settings that don't make you jump through nearly so many hoops to get to the good stuff. [Nov 2018, p.116]

It's tricky to pick dourly over the faults in a game that refuses to take itself seriously, even when the fate of Japan itself is at stake. [Nov 2018, p.114]

One supposedly shocking reveal is so transparent a five-year-old could guess it. [Nov 2018, p.112]

Bigger rarely means better, but Guacamelee 2 entertainingly proves the exception to the rule. [Nov 2018, p.108]

It is at its core a forgettably designed, cookie-cutter open-world game, that is elevated by its traversal, its combat and stealth, by the eventually irresistible pull of its story. It may not have legs, but while it lasts it is delightful. The Amazing Spider-Man? Not quite. But it is frequently spectacular, and given Parker's rather chequered videogame past, that feels like some achievement. [Issue#324, p.104]

Sure, Three Fields might not have the resources its founders once did, but it feels as if the studio was in rather too much of a hurry to get this one out the door. [Issue#323, p.122]

It's a little too simplistic, and repetitive, to stick with for long, but in short bursts the style of the thing comes to the fore. [Issue#323, p.120]

Combo timings can feel a little strict - and, like so many games in this genre, could be better explained to novice players - but that's easy to forgive in a game that strips away so many common fighting-game frustrations with such an easy elegance. [Issue#323, p.118]

Yes, it can be sticky work, but it says much for this bracingly exciting game that you'll be itching to put our headset back on just as soon as you've cooled off. [Issue#323, p.116]

What an achievement Hallownest is: its insect-themed design letting it dance either side of the line between adorable and unsettling, a place that tucks its tales away without guarding them too jealously, that prints its twisting tunnels and lamplit tableaus behind the eyelids and upon the memory. [Issue#323, p.114]

A frequently wonderful game...You might lose everything you've gathered when you die, but your love for Dead Cells will endure, and grow even stronger. [Issue#323, p.112]

Ferocious and heartbreaking, this is storytelling with serious clout: against the odds, Stoic has stuck the landing. [Issue#323, p.108]

For better and worse, Octopath Traveler manages to evoke the games its creators grew up with, without ever quite matching the profusion of new ideas that made them so beloved in the first place. There's still much to enjoy here, but if Acquire had shared the courage of its protagonists' convictions, this could have been a journey worth making eight times over. [Issue#323, p.104]

There are too many caveats, too many pieces that have to fall into place to experience Aces at its very best. And yet a game between two evenly-matched characters and similarly-skilled human players is an unfettered joy. [Issue#322, p.122]

It may drive you potty at times, but this really is Paris as you've never sen it before, and you won't forget it in a hurry. [Issue#322, p.120]

This is surely Nintendo's finest piece of DLC to date. [Issue#322, p.118]