Some of the short stories are nice to listen to and the driving itself feels good - but that's about it. The decisions made have no consequences worth mentioning, neither on a large nor small scale, the many repetitive races against depressingly lame opponents are potently sleep-inducing and even the protagonist's story is frighteningly irrelevant. Neither the damn good soundtrack nor the strong presentation can really do anything about this.

If you liked LocoCycle's acting achievements and value plain silliness over gameplay then Roundabout might be worth a look. But even then you better hold out until the next sale.

The bottom line is that I had to force myself to stick with this fundamentally likeable homage. Because as much as it is indeed reminiscent of Silent Hill and similar titles, I found it to be rather dull in terms of gameplay.

Well-made homage to the early days of gaming with an unfortunate use of AI art. Moreover, its physics system hampers movement while AI behavior can be erratic, making a lot of the puzzling a frustrating experience.

For a developer so adept in the mimicry of familiar horror tropes, it's both ironic and tragic that their take on 'pod people' horror, of all things, missed the mark. A bloody shame.

The Suda51 faithful will find more of the same, wrapped in at best mediocre gameplay - no surprises to be found. And that is probably the most damning thing you can say about one of his games.

Where Winds Meet impresses with a strong Wuxia atmosphere and a vast, vibrant world. At the same time, it feels overloaded: multiple in-game currencies, cluttered menus, and bugs slow down the flow. Still, somewhere beneath it all lies a satisfying free-to-play experience.

You can make anything into LEGO, but you shouldn't always: a relatively grown-up open-world game doesn't make a good mini-level co-op kids' game. Mediocre combat, little iconic lore, there's not much here to get you through the worst version of Horizon.

It's a nice idea for sure, but Mercenary King's parts just don't come together in a satisfying way.

It gives me no pleasure to dismantle a game that many people fondly grew up on. But in case of the ToeJam & Earl collection none of the two titles has aged particularly well.

Heartworm is a likeable homage to Silent Hill in particular. As a game, however, this declaration of love remains far too superficial.

Puzzlingly, it seems there are more than enough people whose standards for entertainment are low enough that companies can make a lot of money with products like The Simpsons: Tapped Out. The problem is, that this takes away resources for the development of 'real games'. Economically, it might be a sound strategy, but it's also one that could conceivably prompt me to quit this job some day.

For a few bucks less, Ninja Theory should just have ditched this lackluster mini-campaign and instead have thrown Vergil into Dante's adventure and the Bloody Palace as a playable character. As it stands, I can only really recommend Vergil's Downfall to people who desperately want to burn a couple of hours time and /or types who revel into mastering a new character. So yeah, you should probably give this a miss, as long as Capcom doesn't make Vergil an option for the main story.

Not for one second, the game's controls feel right, and the botched level structure does not help. Only dedicated Cobra fans need this one and they should get a physical copy. That way it looks good on the shelf, and they don’t have to actually play it.

On the outside, charming time travel with some nice ideas, but also a lot of boredom and some frustrating moments.

Too bad, that the multiplayer offers no online mode. Playing it with a friend is almost fun.

Atmospheric scenario notwithstanding, this horror story is neither scary nor does it well told. The true horror lies in the atrocious combat against boring enemies.

Everybody's Golf Hot Shots is a faithful successor with fun multiplayer modes. The PC version in particular, though, adds technical issues to a number of unfortunate design choices und glaring oversights.

From a technical standpoint, there's a decent foundation here for an entertaining trip into a dark parallel world. The initial question of what happened between the two timelines alone keeps the suspense going for long enough. I therefore find it all the more regrettable that this horror trip is told like a bedtime story, written with remarkably little care and also offers little incentive to get involved for longer.

Expressive design like this might get you into the MOMA, but in the end good looks aren't all that matters.

An only seemingly amusing parody of survivor and roguelike games, which quickly runs out of steam in terms of both gameplay and content.

So what do we have? A Good presentation, a multiplayer concept which is definitely not for everybody, technical issues galore, tiny maps and recurring problems with the servers... There are irritations in the basic mechanics and some bugs that are just not acceptable. As much as I, a fan of the series, want Maxis to succeed in fixing all of this over the next months, I fear those are not the sort of problems that you can do away with a couple of patches. In this state, SimCity is a real letdown.

Narratively dry, mechanically unrefined, and entirely devoid of surprises—Aphelion fails to live up to the high standards set by previous Don’t Nod hits.

The Inquisitor has a lot of interesting things going for it, but its shoddy execution makes it hard to recommend.

Beautifully wrapped but hollow inside: Bloodlines 2, dazzled by its own shine, forgets what once made the series special — depth and the courage to take risks.

A flashy and demanding character action game with challenging boss fights and plenty of combo freedom, but undermined by a generic story, shallow characters, and uneven polish. Fans of precise, skill-driven combat may enjoy its encounters — everyone else will likely struggle to look past its flaws.

Even though Sacred Citadel isn't an offensively bad game by any stretch, I find it hard to say anything positive about it. Sure, it can be pretty, isn't frustrating and works on a base level. But that's about it. Every mechanic is half-baked and heedlessly thrown in.

In Journey I bonded more with my playing partner than any virtual café ever could facilitate. Bientôt l'été feels like a few steps backward trying to mask its emptiness with pretty pictures and French language. It screams for attention, eager to appear stranger than the rest, just foundering in the process.