It's a good approach, but the execution leaves something to be desired in almost every area.

Even before the half-way point you know: just like the old Bond movies, this game lives and dies by its charm. It's pretty, but shallow and doesn't quite feel complete.

A competent, entertaining strategy realisation of Age of Sigmar, let down only by its penchant for micromanagement and some monotonous mission design.

The predictable, mechanical side of Frontiers of Pandora pervades every aspect of this visually impressive experience and stands in stark contrast to the wonderfully organic and vibrant environment. It's two sides that don't fit well with each other, don't belong together - the movies made this part of their central message.

Entertaining arcade racer about past Formula 1 decades with exciting races, even though some content and gameplay issues irritate.

It's a shame that in the end, it's quite apparent that this project started as a tech-demo. As much as the bitter-sweet music and the story of an orphaned boy, his dead mother and a king that never seems to finish what he started try to get an emotional reaction out of you, it always stays a mess of themes and symbolism. If it had something to say, the message somehow got lost under a heap of its own metaphors. If your heart burns mainly for artistic visuals, though, this graphically visionary little game has a lot to offer.

The Serpent's Curse just feels rushed. The well-researched plot takes its sweet time to truly get going and when it does, it's already over again. So, taken by itself, this first episode feels pretty average. It's up to the second half to pull the chestnuts out of the fire.

I can look at Syndicate from any angle I want: In the end it stays a mediocre, though not entirely charmless Shooter, whose only real redeeming factor is the coop-mode, which also comes off a little bit half-hearted.

Getting spotted behind a bush from 300 yards away and subsequently getting shot right in the face wasn't especially fun back in the day, and still isn't. It's kind of surprising that after ten years and under these circumstances, this reunion still manages to be quite a blast at times.

The routes are short and monotonous, but the handling of the truck conveys, in an atmospheric way, what it must be like to steer a truck through space.

Pac-Man really wanted to go dark and chose a genre in which the bar had been set very high over the last decade. In the end, Shadow Labyrinth is a generally solid experience, but of little relevance to Metroidvanias overall.

The First Descendant does not yet feel like it could become a serious competitor to the big names in the genre. Perhaps the game will surprise us with more endgame content that will satisfy our looter-shooter needs. So far, my experience has been mixed.

Nice repurposing of Nintendo's NES classics, but the local multiplayer mode in particular lacks the options to become a real party hit.

The Posthumous Investigation is an adventure game that feels like a visual detective novel that's stylistically poignant yet shallow in terms of actual detective work.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a fast-paced and pleasantly challenging, but also very straightforward and short-lived adventure.

Etrian Odyssey will forever have a special place in my heart, and I'm happy with how the HD remaster for the Nintendo Switch turned out. Still, despite the thoroughly successful visual, technical and auditory performance, Etrian Odyssey doesn't play quite as smoothly as it does on the DS, though.

All in all, it feels like one of the weakest Call of Dutys I've ever played. It's not that it doesn't work, there are no serious bugs, glitches or anything like that, it's just the way MW3 was delivered. It gives the impression of a quickly put together, run-of-the-mill installment rather than a worthy, well-thought-out sequel.

Although Eiyuden Chronicle manages to capture a certain charm of the 90s, it is inconsistent in many areas. Above all, there is a lack of meaningful comfort functions. As a result, the game struggles to keep up with best of today's JRPGs despite a great deal of passion on display.

The resource management is pleasantly challenging, and the story poses interesting questions. However, the emotional component is crushed by inconsistent, far too pragmatic dialogue and decisions.

A somewhat sluggish version of Vampire Survivors with active combat and manual triggering of abilities. The number of enemies is lower, but some extras are exceptionally fun.

And yet I spent quite a bit of time with this, because when things are going well, Knights in Tight Spaces feels just as satisfying as its cool predecessor ... I just hope developer Ground Shatter will streamline the concept a little to ensure quicker battles, speed up the start a little and make the game a little less restrictive on the meta level.

I appreciated South of Midnight for its world, characters, and story. It's just a shame that its outdated and formulaic action-adventure ideas can't keep up with its powerful audiovisual and narrative imagination.

The physics and presentation are so well done that you can have a pleasant game. In terms of gameplay and audiovisuals, however, Zen's tables are still no match for the classics.

This 15-minute daily sitcom is wonderfully charming and often makes you laugh. But like a swing that you have to occasionally push, it’s only fun as long as you’re willing to put something into it. Occasional repetition and Nintendo’s sharing restrictions are annoying.

What remains is a solid new edition. Is that enough to fork out 40 bucks? As already mentioned, this is still a long way from a real "Master Crafted Edition" for me. It looks prettier, yes, it also plays better than the original on the Xbox 360, but overall it could have been even better.

Magin combines deckbuilding, an unusual dark fantasy world and challenging turn-based tactics but lacks some adjusting in melding all its pieces into a coherent whole.

Do you need to have played these games? No. But it's nice that Aspyr offers the opportunity to do it on modern systems with a few improvements. As always with Aspyr's releases, it could have been taken even further. In summary, more could have been done, but it's good entertainment and a chance to reminisce. As long as you don't expect miracles from it and know what you're getting yourself into.

Reveil is an atmospheric horror tale with memorable moments, whose strengths are successful puzzles and a visually and playfully vivid setting. Unfortunately, the ending fails to bring the emotional story to a convincing conclusion.

Charming adventure that's a little too similar to Journey and somewhat lacking in depth - but unique in how it has you herding fantastical beasts on a wordless trip into the mountains.

But that doesn't mean that Bearded Ladies' latest doesn't deserve a look, if this kind of game is usually to your taste. Especially if - for you - percentages are simply part of the turn-based tactics experience, if you like to plan your turns meticulously, and you love to save and load your games a lot, while exploring every nook and cranny of a game world, Miasma Chronicles might be your Eldorado.

If you go through a few fantasy books every week, love long texts or maybe even text-adventures and feel the urge to be the master of the battlefield for a day, then this might be the one for you.

Still, Deadlight has many visually striking and mechanically satisfying moments in store for you... In some ways Tequila Works might just have reached their goal: The punishing qualities of their game does indeed evoke its older cousins – Flashback and Another World. It's just a shame that they had to use the wrong means to do so.

It's totally okay that WRC 3 doesn't have the finely-tuned stylings of the bigger racing brands. Real rallying has become somewhat of an endangered species, so I'm fully prepared to even overlook the career mode that is all but completely absent here. Where a game like this absolutely cannot fail, though, is in the connection of car and road, which sadly is what WRC 3 does. Theoretically this could have been much, much worse, to be fair. And WRC 3 might even find some friends amongst the most starving of Rallye fans. But that's only because this is basically their only option right now.

Frustrations aside: playing this with a friend is still somewhat fun … again.

Arkane’s expertise in crafting an immersive sim does shine through, but a lot of Redfall’s mechanics, including the four-player co-op experience, feel undercooked and even faulty, resulting in a surprisingly mediocre first-person shooter in a bland open world playing field.

All things considered after a promising start, this title leads into an ultimately disappointing experience. If you like the design and also have a soft spot for games like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, you might find an afternoon's worth of decent entertainment with this.

You're only a few minutes into this, before you realize that "more of the same" was all they aimed to achieve with Riptide. The devs didn't seem to care about anything else, not even ironing out all the kinks of the original game. There will be people who think this was enough, as the basic lot of zombie killing and looting is still intact. In a week where Capcom gives us a Dark Arisen that encompasses all of the original game – Dragon's Dogma – for a much, much lower asking price, you really can't help but feel like someone's having a laugh at your expense.

This is not a real simulation, but there is also very little action to be found. ... Nothing here is really bad, but it looks more like the basic structure for something that one day may be… well, something. I hope Microsoft has a plan of what this future game might be like, because I don´t really have a clue. But it sure would be sad to see this time-honored franchise just fade away like this.

If you have played the first two episodes of this DLC and want to know how the story ends, this is not a total waste. Get it over with 'Tyranny', remember for its nice core idea and its two actually quite good first episodes and not for the weak ending 'The Redemption' so listlessly provides.

You can see the love for the topic in Swordsman VR. However, this does not make it a good game. The possibility to duel with human opponents would make a big difference, but that is not available here.

I don´t know if this botched port can at least in some ways be fixed by patches and it seems, that the PS3 got it even worse. Be that as it may, the way Konami presents these classics is neither a favor to itself nor the franchise.

Playing this with a friend, you might get a solid evening's enjoyment out of JoJo's ludicrous special moves. But that's about it. As a fighting game, this doesn't present any contest to any of the established competitors.

The story is cleverly constructed, similarities between protagonist Malachi and Gabriel Knight abound. But herein lies the problem: In comparing itself to the classic, the difference in quality becomes all the more apparent.

It's short, not particularly easy on the eyes and loses elements you'd expect from a new Army of Two game. There being only a meager handful of 'Contracts' missions to keep you busy after you beat the campaign, speaks volumes about the expectations EA had for this going in. It was always going to be a dumb, dirty – and ultimately one-off – weekend affair. As such, The Devil's Cartel is just about passable.

I'm not usually one to judge a game by its title, but in case of this game, there's really not too much behind its generic denomination. It's a standard multiplayer shooter with some nice ideas which lack quality in their execution. Skip this one, this genre has loads of better alternatives that will entertain you better and longer.

Between the ever present shortcomings in the fighting system, the increasingly dull environments and story and the resulting frustration there is something just tolerable in here – that is, as long as you really don't have anything else to play.

There's a solid game somewhere in here, but it's one that continually trips over itself and the big name game of old it's filling in for. All in all, it's a bitter reunion for Panzer Dragoon fans.

For 20 Euros I had expected another planet or at least a new region for one of the existing ones. But with the exception of the raid, this feels like somebody just started a random number generator in their lunch break.

Trials would have been able to survive the free to play treatment. But coupled with the downgrade in precision and, consequently, the lacking will to challenge the player, Frontier just doesn't manage to 'wow' in the usual Trials way.

Kinect itself might be a more powerful device that before. But without developers that harness its potential, the games for it will not make any progress for yet another generation.

In the end, it's all right there in the title. There's nothing here to elevate it above mediocrity.

A hack & slash game without a skinner-box loot reflex is bad enough. T o make matters worse, the quality of the fighting mechanics never holds up with the wide roster of heroes. If your favorite Marvel character is in the starting line up of this free-to-play MMO, one go can't hurt. Still, it's a shame what this turned out to be, considering the promising license.

Little Deviants is the sort of inevitable minigame collection that seems to grace every new console with more exotic control options, but is forgotton rather quickly. (...) You have to wonder why Sony saw the necessity to make a game that says little more than "We can also do smartphone-gaming". As if we ever asked.

It´s not a really an aggravating game, but one that could have used six months of extra development time, to make it an organic and natural extension to its PS3-counterpart. As it stands, Sony is leaving the ModNation Racers community hanging in the air – not a big surprise after the announcement of LittleBigPlanet Karting, though.

Playing Spellforce 2 – Faith in Destiny feels like watching a DVD of some show from the 80s. Before you do that, you have all those wonderful memories of heroes long gone. Afterwards you just shake the head and feel old. The world has kept turning during this time. (…) It has to be seen where Nordic Games will go with the license. There is still a lot of potential here.

The score alone doesn't fully mirror how I feel about Gods will be watching. It represents what I think about it as a fair and entertaining game, which is what most people will be looking for. As an experiment and a lesson in adventure design, though, it's worth so much more.

Karateka shouldn't cost 10 Euros, at least not in its current form, without any sort of challenge beyond the one it offers if you want to finish it with only one life. And even that isn't as challenging as it should be in such a short and completely linear experience devoid of any extras. Karateka is a game completely oblivious of its time and environment. Beautiful, fun even, for those few times you play it, but Karateka ultimately overstays its welcome all too quickly.

Ice cream was just so much sweeter in the nineties. Sometimes it hurts seeing your old favorites not having aged that well at all.

It's a likeable adventure, albeit a very short and easy one that's sparse in animation. Parents might want to try it out with their kid(s), but then again, there's so many more involving, clever and not least prettier games like this, Machinarium for example.

It's nothing new that a decent look can't rescue an otherwise failing game. Dark isn't exactly bad, but at the same time it is never interesting. There is a couple of good moments in this, but in the end, I was kind of glad it was over.

Escape Dead Island is a perfectly functional, if flat and quite interchangeable experience.

A Machine for Pigs is like a fully automated haunted house ride suffering a power outage. The carnies sure do their best to keep the tension up, banging against the girders from the outside and shooing some freak show attraction through the corridors every once in a while. The ride's boss even throws sinister letters over the paper mâché wall for you to read. Well-written as they are, you even like the story that they were going to tell you. But you just can't help but hope that somebody would finally find the god damned breaker box to get this whole thing going for real.

Make no mistake, 'functional' is the key word here. It is playable, not too much fun, though, and its tactics seem half-baked. Controls are serviceable but never really all that good. Enemy AI isn't up to much, never realizing the options the game presents it with. The game's biggest plus is how closely it sticks to actual history, meaning that you can actually learn a bit about this phase of war, if you should so desire. Also it doesn't hurt 'History' that, at least on 360, there's not that much competition.

There's some good moments and interesting concepts in here, together with the low price point, they counter some of the shortcomings a bit. Still, this is never more than a mediocre and ultimately a bit boring adventure-game, that lacks esprit and character.

My review in one word: 'meh'! You see a lot of good intentions, but in the end, the team somehow lacked the courage or the resources to execute on them.

Still, I do kind of like Quest for Infamy, even though it doesn't hold a candle to the original. For a price of almost 15 Euros, that's a bit sad.

It's competent enough, efficient as a means to fill the day and not totally devoid of fun, but you'll never be in it with all your heart. It's time to quit and leave EDN III. This time, maybe once and for all.

An average action-adventure, but with a little bonus for being likeable in an odd sort of way. That may not be much, but in some way a decent combat-system and a lovely lisp has to be rewarded.

If you´re not that into international teams, online- or score-racing, than better stay on the tracks of the 3DS or PSP.

It's charming, mind you, but it still boggles my mind how Yasuhiro Wada, the mind behind the brilliant Harvest Moon, managed to make this boring a game.

The atmosphere of the rundown City of Kowlong and the disgusting depiction of the Slitterheads show potential despite the outdated technology, but the game fails to create genuine horror. What remains is a somewhat stiff action game with horror elements that never really scare or disturb you.

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.

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.

These ingredients alone don't make a good game, just one that suggests the quality it could have had. It's almost tragic, really.

Some of the old strengths are on display here, though. The characters are likeable, the world is still a sight to behold … But playing the stuff that normally gets visualized by a loading screen is hardly an exciting proposition. Fable: The Journey started out as a lie and now ends as an utter disappointment. What a waste of Lionhead's considerable talents.

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.

Ferocious is basically Far Cry 1 with a dinosaur skin: punchy gunplay, great scenery, some smart ideas – but it’s in such an unfinished, buggy state that it’s very hard to recommend right now.

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.

Broken Roads lives up to its name, as it is teeming with breaks in both gameplay and content. And of all things, the interesting morality system disrupts the role-playing instead of deepening it.

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.

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.

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.

It tries, but gets outclassed by games that have been released years ago. That´s no easy feat to accomplish.

As it stands, Live 14 feels like something they cobbled together in about a year. Not for one second do you get the impression EA has harnessed the three-year time-out in any meaningful way. No wonder Kyrie Irving is making a grumpy face on the box of this.

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

Sony, again, proves itself as a publisher willing to treat itself to some unconventional and outright anti-commercial games. In this regard I would love offer the best of compliments to Datura and Plastic – too bad that I can´t think of a single one.

The worst thing, though, is that Knack is sabotaging itself with its weak technical make-up. And between this being unfit as a showcase title for the new hardware and not being all that entertaining to play, you really have to ask yourself if Knack has a right to exist at all.

Lots of content and a great Star Wars feeling clash with bugs and a host of other problems. This could have been so much more.

Before I play Jane's Advanced Strike Fighters again, I'd rather have another go at HAWXs 2. And that is not something I say lightly.

It´s understandable if your eyes tell you that this looks like a lot of fun. But after three stages at most your worn out thumbs will tell you otherwise. Trust them, they've had their fair share of real heroes.

While being just serviceable as a GT3 simulation Rennsport is a disappointment technically, content-wise and in terms of car handling.

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

It's not the worst game I've ever played and I'm not even sure that, by year's end, it'll be under the worst three. It's just that, all in all, this is a version of this world that's ugly and desolate in all the wrong ways – and one that doesn't add an ounce of..., well, anything to the story or its characters. It is a mish-mash of commendable concepts and mechanisms that never really do anything for another, resulting in an experience as emaciated and lifeless as the cadaverous nemesis that haunts Kirkman's universe.

Nonetheless, keep your chin up, Emobi Games. The first step has been made. 7554 brought Vietnam on the map of games developers. The next step is an actually good game. And you´ll get there. Someday.

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.

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.

Half-cooked, bereft of ideas and technically despicable, this would-be triple-A production is an overblown movie tie-in to a flick you wouldn't want to see. Randy Pitchford once said 'if you've seen the film it's fan service, and if you haven't seen them it's content'. Content it is, but I doubt any fan will deem this a service to their liking. Quite the contrary: When it comes to video games, H.R. Giger's movie-monsters are done for until further notice.

You'd have to have some pretty unhealthy attachment to these loony hares to get enjoyment out of this one. Because everyone else sees this as what it is: A collection of minigames which are average at best, hamstrung and held together by an overly dry board game concept - alone a torture, with friends just boring. If over the years the Rabbids were one big party for you, this is their get-out dance.