All in all, it's just the shadow of a bigger, more ambitious game and proof that it's not always sensible to listen to that angry mob on the internet. Sometimes you just have to stay the course, weather the storm and trust that your vision was right all along. Otherwise you end with something that – solid as it may be – is missing consistency, direction and identity. It's just a shame that it had to happen to this one.

If you liked Dishonored, but always thought it could have done with a more interesting protagonist and a dash more mystery, you're not only right, but also in luck: The Brigmore Witches delivers just that!

As soon as this gets a map editor, I'll happily bump up the score [twenty] whole points. Until then, this extremely authentic and well done representation of the beloved board game is frankly just missing one of its most important features.

The camera does its part in making some sequences a tad bit annoying, but that's just a small irritation in a game where everything else is so absolutely spot on. The whole game world feels like a gigantic box of toys come to life, bustling with charm and lovable characters.

In the end, its faults are only minor, really. This is by far the most engrossing co-operative arcade experience I have had in a while, probably the best since Left 4 Dead 2 came around. Pulling the trigger of a Uzi in close proximity of an enemy is like shoving a rabid Tasmanian devil into someone's face. The guns really feel that exciting and dangerous - one of the key differences between a good shooter and a great one. I have a feeling this one will stay with us for a while.

It's just a joy to play, even though Saints Rows biggest accomplishment is leaving its troubled – and troubling – early phase behind to become gaming's one true enfant terrible, fleet-footedly hopping back and forth between infantility and pure genius.

Blacklist doesn't do all too much to bring the series forward, let alone reinvent it. But it still is a good looking, supremely solid crafted and well-balanced stealth game that knows exactly what it needs to accomplish. I know a lot of people who will find quite a lot of beauty in that.

Guacamelee does a brilliant job in blending the highlights of the genre's corner stone titles such as Metroid and Castlevania, while still retaining it's own brand of charm.

Between the clever level design, the game's gentle way of teaching you the mechanics and the simple, heart-felt story with it's phenomenal finale, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons should be played by pretty much everyone.

Thing is, my considerable enjoyment of this remake would probably still be the same if they had put much less of an effort into this. So, should I commend them for putting everything they had into this love letter to a really, really good, if imperfect platformer, or complain that they didn't use the budget to port 20 different Capcom classics in a more humble, functional manner? Maybe both, but probably a bit more of the former.

At this point, though, you already know, if Killer is Dead is for you. It's shrill, chaotic, stupid and quite simply all sorts of genius. Finally, Suda did that one final step to grow as a game designer, no longer banking solely on the weird.

In this medium, you're better off knowing that your faves from the past are never really as good as your rose-tinted memories make you believe. Still, taking a look at this remake, you will be equally aware that they were rarely as bad as this.

Guillermo del Toro once said in an interview, he made the film for himself and his children, and it shows. The game, on the other hand, might just be the perfect instrument to penalize adolescent troublemakers.

A sterling example for an effective and utterly successful overhaul of a proven and compelling concept, rather than a fundamental shake-up. This might not be a system-seller some people might have hoped for. But those who already own a Wii U can and should look forward to many, many hours perfectly tuned Nintendo entertainment.

If you're willing to put in the effort, you'll get a game with unparalleled depth and competitive fun. This one has one hell of a learning curve, but climbing it, you'll find, is a huge pleasure in and of itself.

The focused narrative and fighting mechanics work hand in hand to make for a real alternative to more expensive (and expansive) monster-rpgs, without being any less deep or engrossing for it.

It's easy to pick up and play, the cash shop is non-intrusive and the combat is quite dynamic. It's a solid piece of MMO, easily warranting that client download, maybe you even try out your dungeon master chops in the foundry editor?

This still is a seasoned and distinct piece of rpg. But between the slow start, the often slumberous and drawn out palaver and some redundant carrot-dangling in the main quest, this clearly is the weakest entry in the acclaimed series.

It's a brilliant add-on, going in with a master surgeon's precision to subtly tweak and change the mechanics for maximum impact. More than ever, this is a Civ, where you want to preserve peace, all the while showing the rest of the world that your way of life is the best one.

The Inner World is a game of opposites. While the puzzle design and characters of this debut manage to pleasantly surprise, the voice acting is in parts atrocious. Also, the stark contrast between the quality of the background art and the rather crudely drawn characters is a bit jarring. Still, this unevenness only really hits home because the rest of this point-and-click adventure is really well done.

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.

Curiously, this offers about the same value as the recently published Stadium, but costs about twice as much.It's not exactly worse than that one, but, crucially, by far not as good a deal.

With Stadium, TrackMania 2 still holds true to the core tenets of the series, catering first and foremost to those, who'd do everything to shave that elusive hundredth off their time to beat the competition.At only 10 Euros, it's also a great place to start, if this games sounds like your kind of deal and you haven't gotten around to trying the series out.

Gameplay-wise this is mediocre, it's got some rough edges and only a few truly great moments. It really is action from the assembly line, nothing more, nothing less. The meta-humor on the other hand is fantastic and well delivered, if an acquired taste. Deadpool aficionados might just enjoy their five to six hours with this.

Saucy dialogue with a dash of sarcasm – even 20 years on this mix manages to entertain to a degree you'll forgive the game's relatively short story and the pretty pedestrian puzzle design.

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.

So, is it trashy enough to gather a cult following, however tiny? Partly. The funnily deformed characters, gallons of bad pixel blood, choppy dialogue and the surreal scenes of arbitrary love-making do exude a certain broken brand of charm. But even these traces of unintentional hilariousness don't change the fact that actually playing Ride to Hell never is anything even remotely resembling fun.

Portal's influence is on evidence at every turn, but Magrunner still retains quite a bit of individuality, enough at least, to not come off as another clone. Still, the certain something is missing from this, which I found mainly to be down to the game not playing the horror card more decisively.

This is a game that puts the racing experience front and center. The physics model of the pros at Milestone is a piece of art that has only matured over the years. The sensation of speed might not be there yet and the console versions' 30 FPS are an issue, but the handling of the bikes is almost perfect.

Even though its level design capabilities are kind of rudimentary, the game still manages to give its short intense bursts of action some variety, ensuring that you return to it for another round. This, and the lovingly – and knowingly – dilettantish Amiga-style graphics makes this a really solid sleeper of a game. Had Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara not come out shortly before, this would most probably haven gotten more buzz.

Many, many years we had to wait for the next chapter to one of the best strategy games ever. Naturally, not everything still feels as fresh as it did almost seven years ago, with Relic clearly going for a natural evolution, rather than a revolution. However, this doesn't change the fact, that, a few issues with close camera angles and the AI pathfinding notwithstanding, Company of Heroes 2 makes for an experience as tactically engrossing and challenging as its predecessor.

This double feature is one of the best games of this type and era...It's a revelation for everybody who was there when it first came out in the arcades and for those who just dream of simpler times. Better yet, Capcom didn't content themselves with forking it out for the sake of quickly getting another product on the market. They spent ideas, love and not least considerable resources to get this version right. You know what you're getting yourself into with a brawler like this. If that's what you're looking for, you can hardly do any better than with Chronicles of Mystara.

The first two thirds are a contemplative puzzler with dreamy art direction, beguiling music and sound effects you can turn off, should you so desire. It's a small idea, but one worth playing. Had the developers withstood the urge to go a bit overboard with the action in the last bits, this would have been a really great brain-teaser. In any case, you should give it a chance to enchant you before it'll almost inevitably spite you a bit. Sometimes there's something to be said for that, this is not one of those times. But what can you do? Weather and seasons tend to come and go as they please.

In this new iteration, Animal Crossing: New Leaf still may not be the most complex sim there is. But it has a special brand of charm that transforms even the most basic of activities, like sitting on a virtual bench, into a wonderfully soothing experience. This is why I love it.

Cutting your teeth on astonishingly good-looking and immaculately presented fluff pieces and then going ahead to produce arguably the darkest game of this generation – that's the sort of trick only the real heavyweights can pull off. Naughty Dog's game ain't begging for sympathy, it doesn't care if you like it or not. As such, it's a wake-up call for the medium, determined that the line isn't drawn between good and evil or right and wrong, but between you and the others.

Undeniable technical difficulties aside, with a price tag of only 20 bucks nobody should miss out on State of Decay. It's easily one of the most complex and elaborately designed XBLA title to ever grace that service, so clever and mature I'm struggling to name another open world game that has felt this fresh in the last three years since Red Dead Redemption rode along.

In spite of all the criticism, Legacy of Romulus is a step in the right direction for Star Trek Online. It's just a very short one.

It shines in each and every discipline, only taking the very occasional and tiny misstep, you'll be hard pressed to notice or get in arms about. It's one of these games that gets you thinking long after you finished it, which makes me want to recommend it even more.

Rising Storm is a very special brand of shooter, not that you'd expect any less from Tripwire Interactive. The pacific setting gives the trusty Red Orchestra gameplay a fresh coat of paint and the game does a good job in keeping a good balance between American and Japanese forces, which could have easily been skewed against the latter. Instead, Rising Storm shows very well that it's not always down to who's got the bigger guns at their disposal.

In a desperate attempt not to scare anyone away with their choice of style, Insomniac made a game that will have a hard time getting anyone to love it. Don't get me wrong, the basics are there. And when a team of four unleashes an eardrum-busting cacophony of powerful weapons effects, you do feel solidly entertained. But it's never more than that. Nothing will ever stick out and it's only the passably rounded basic mechanics that pull you through the campaign, never to return once you finished it. The old art direction would probably not have saved it, but at least it would have had an identity.

You get a fascinating vision of the future, in which you have to fill a few gaps yourself, if you don´t want to fall into its holes. But at the core it is a very solid story, entertaining, with a few fresh ideas – something that can’t be said about every work in this genre – and would not have been misplaced in one of the books by Gibson/Sterling. As it is, I experienced Remember Me first as this story and only second as a game of decent climbing-passages and solid brawling, which I enjoyed more as a nice form of diversion.

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.

In spite of all the youtube-nonsense and the useless frame of a story, Grid feels like a game from another time. It just didn't really evolve all that much from its predecessor, which fit its era much better. The generation was still young back then, but today, Grid 2 has to ask itself, where its place should be, between Shift 2, Forza, Most Wanted, Hot Pursuit, Gran Turismo, iRacing and all the other ones. This field of gaming has great titles for every type of player and the high quality that's on display all throughout Grid 2 has become sort of the bottom line expectation.

Gameplay-wise Call of Juarez: Gunslinger doesn't do too much different from all the other shooters, but the way Silas' memories shape the campaign gives it a really fresh feel. It really elevates an okay and arcadey corridor shooter to a fascinatingly told western-adventure, that has Fans of John Ford and Sergio Leone fork over the 15 bucks without hesitation.

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.

Anomaly 2 is a fresh coat of paint on the tower defense genre without being all too new or disruptive at the same time. It's a well done and refined version of what came before, adding a multiplayer mode. If part one was to your liking, you're not doing anything wrong with this.

If the technical mediocrity and a short campaign don't shock you, you will find quite a bit to like in Thunder Wolves. In any case, I did. It is a really solid little shoot 'em up with a firm grip on its mechanics. 'Fire and forget' in the truest sense of the word, then.

It's a difficult case. There's a boatload of good ideas in Game Dev Tycoon which expand one of my favorite mobile games ever – Game Dev Story – to a huge degree. They alone should have made for a far superior experience. Sadly, there's no effective way to channel all the tools the game gives you to produce the perfect videogame. Come on, Game Dev Tycoon, give me some spreadsheets, show me what made my successes and missteps what they became. In short: Talk to me!

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.

It plays super-slick, is easy to learn, all the while still offering enough depth to take on the competition. Just like with all the other Beat 'em' Ups, though, you can't help but wonder when the genre will take its next evolutionary step.

This is not the game that would have single-handedly saved THQ, but we're still lucky to be able to experience it now. Metro is quite unique in varying its pace, showing you its world and its inhabitants in between the action. All in all, this is an atmospheric, modern and utterly compelling journey.

Thanks, Ubisoft Montreal, for getting this right on the first try, because this is undoubtedly the only time it will be fresh and exciting. Still, the degree of creativity and the load of ideas on display really demonstrates which ways you can treat your source material inventively via spin-offs or DLCs. I really could get used to that.

It's a shame then, that the beginning section gets way too tedious after the first few tries and the fights are a bit bothersome. Also, the story mode needs to be implemented better, so that you don't have to literally search for it for hours on end. There's really only two ways your first contact with Don't Starve will turn out: Either you really enjoy it for a bit, just to drop it like a hot potato pretty suddenly – or you totally get absorbed in this for quite some time, looking under each and every stone, reading up on the mysteries and workings on forums and so on. As it stands, I see the majority of players in the first camp.

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'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.

In the end, this is a solid cover-based third-person shooter with co-op, a decent story, with some technical shortcomings and mediocre graphics root it firmly in the realms of licensed gaming. Still, Trek-fans will get about 10 hours of worthwhile entertainment out of this.

Technical difficulties aside, what you should take away from this is an astonishingly entertaining first four hours that are well worth the ten bucks, especially if you plan to play this with some of your friends. Enjoy two good evenings of entertaining and don't bother with the later unlocks. Instead, grab the starting weapon, upgrade the hell out of it and beat every map a couple of times until you eventually find it a bit tiresome and turn towards something else.

This expansion continues to exude the of strange charm of the original, in spite of retaining all of its awkwardness. But, again, this Dragon's Dogma manages to grow in parallel to the engagement you display. You're going to sweat, you're going to get really, really mad – all of which makes your hard earned triumphs all the sweeter. You'll gaze in amazement at some of the sights the well designed Bitterblack dungeon has to offer, an island you'll just as much struggle to comprehend as Gransys before it. Maybe that is why in total I'm 200 hours into this and the original, and I still can't get enough of it.

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.

I really loved the character design and the make-up of the interactive stages. Plus, it's without a doubt the most interesting story mode I ever had the fortune playing in a beat 'em up, and I would have loved have gotten a few more hours out of it. Even if the rest of the package can be a bit workmanlike, everything works splendidly.

The Knife of Dunwall is a good, solid DLC, that strives to give you more of what made the main game something special. This only serves to show that Arkane can trust in the base mechanics they thought up for Dishonored. It's just a shame it only really gets going soon before the credits roll, so make sure you're prepared to pay up for a follow up to this.

Do yourselves a favor and buy this one. And if you don't have a 3DS, get one in a bundle. Then show it all your friends and colleagues so that they proceed to do the same as you. This way, and no disrespect to Fire Emblem, maybe Intelligent Systems can procure the resources to produce a Game of Thrones spin-off I keep dreaming about.

This is what ShootMania is about: consistent minimalism, first-rate e-sports suitability and loads of creative potential. Still, sometimes you might hunger for something more that a bare bones match with three different guns, after all, games like Quake and Unreal Tournament didn't become classics in spite of, but because of their ludicrous arsenals. If you can live without the graphical opulence of the other offerings and are dead-set on pure playability, you won't regret getting this.

Evoland lives off your nostalgia, which, in turn, is the only reason for you to keep on playing it. After the first 30 minutes, where the evolutionary steps come in entertainingly swift succession, the game actually stops evolving much, settling for a mixture of mindless fighting and lowbrow puzzles, chucking in the occasional graphics update. Also, it promises to be a virtual history lesson of the genre, only to perpetually being stuck on A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy VII. Evoland early on just loses track of what it set out to do.

Lords of Football's problem is that there's a load of well-established games which fare much better in almost every aspect it tries to simulate. You want to test your mettle as a manager? Get Football Manager or EA's equivalent. You want to simulate the daily life of different characters? Get The Sims or even The Movies. Because, in the end, just throwing all of these elements into the same kettle doesn't automatically make for a good game.

All in all, this is a disappointment. It sure is great to see this cornerstone of real-time strategy in higher resolution on a modern PC, and it certainly isn't less fun as it was all those years ago. Still, I would have expected more that slight visual adjustments, especially regarding the steep 18,99 euro price tag. If you're into the multiplayer side of AoE2, this might not really bother you, since, thanks to Steam, this remake has got you covered for months and years to come.

Tiger Woods bids this generation of consoles its farewell as a well-rounded, expertly balanced and matured game. It's a worthy swan song for this era of the series.

There's a good four years of development time on display in Battleblock Theater and even though the light-hearted but mischievous brand of carnage tries its best to ensure you that you are only partaking in a boatload of puerile nonsense, you really notice every hour The Behemoth has put into this. The fighting might not be up to scratch, but the measured level design shows a degree of polish worthy of this genre's masters. So, it's up to you to decide, if the style and its over-sugared, over-caffeinated Saturday morning cartoon sensibilities float your boat. What you can't do anything about, though, is the fact that The Behemoth has mastered three different genres with only three games.

Defiance does more things right than you might initially think. The MMO shooter does take its sweet time until it gets going, but the collecting of weapons and the massive battles kept me engaged even when not doing some quest. It's a surprisingly eclectic title, that managed to do away with my skepticism and that still holds my attention, even after many hours of play. If the team behind this one doesn't let up, Defiance could realize its immense potential – even without a TV show to back it up.

It's one of those games with loads of untapped potential, which is how it ultimately traps itself in the shadow of its big role-model. It manages to create an atmosphere on a comparable level of quality, but lacks in finesse of design. You're only a third of you way through this adventure until you hunger for more skills and weapons, and long exhausting marches regularly get in the way of any real adventuring. Still, Anodyne manages to entertain and displays a level of talent which has you wonder what its creators will be up to next.

Do yourselves a favor and continue to keep this as far away from your hard drive as possible. Even the most world-weary of trash and simulation enthusiasts should only give this a go if they're in desperate need to get rid of 20 bucks and the window is either broken or not in reach.

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.

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.

Like Minecraft, the biggest difference to most triple-A titles lies in Terraria not wanting to tell you a story. It's waiting for you to craft one of your own. Think of a "normal", big action-adventure game as a glass of your favorite beverage. Terraria just gives you a pitcher and a bunch of ingredients to brew one of your own. Some people will prefer a walk to the bar, to get something prepared in advance. Others will happily go ahead and create the drink of a lifetime.

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams never ceases to impress. But it's not only pretty. Instead it's a very thoughtfully arranged, challenging platformer that six months after its initial release holds up just as well. This currently is, quite frankly, the jump and run of choice.

What it is missing to really deserve your full attention would mainly have been more content and secondly more freedom in the way you approach its missions. A Ghost Warrior 3 in Crysis-like environments would truly be just what the doctor ordered.

This is the sort experience you don't get every day: an easy-to-like spectacle for the masses with enormous production values, but a story right out of the art-house cinema. Granted, the gameplay side doesn't do as much for this experiment as the story and world design do. But this is a balancing act the fewest of teams could pull off. And even if you have the chops, in this risk-averse day and age you still have to have a healthy dose of irrationality to go through with a game as clever as this one. No wonder Levine's team had exactly what it takes.

I didn't get what I initially wanted: A great campaign. What I got instead was something that was almost better. A multiplayer mode that birthed quite a bit of enthusiasm and some challenging and thrilling trials deeply engrained into the core gameplay.

It's been a while since I have laughed this hard at and with a game. From the light-hearted start to the furious finale, I spent 80 percent of LEGO City Undercover either with a smile on my lips or a big laugh in my throat. In many ways, there not being a second license on top of the LEGO brand seems to have freed up a lot of the humor that was previously untouched upon, in spite of the other LEGO games being pretty funny in their own right. But here, instead of taking on just one or a couple of films as a basis, TT Fusion just did whatever they felt like. Sometimes dryly humorous, sometimes more absurd, sometimes just incredible even – this is pure bliss on a disc.

In its good moments – of which there are quite many – the fight against 'King Washington' DLC still features some of the most engaging Assassin's Creed gameplay we have played over the last few years.

Blizzard has once again proven its flair and a sure hand in expanding upon StarCraft 2's multiplayer. Don't expect big innovations, though, it's just reasonable improvements that are on display here. The campaign is entertaining enough and some of the mission designs are a real treat, even though 'zerging' through enemies by way of simple bases still promises sure success a bit too often.

Resurrection is great and just one of the many little treasures buried deep in Capcom's lair of gaming classics.

In the end, it all depends on what kind of game you are looking for. If you want sprawling, open worlds, bustling with life and interesting inhabitants and their stories, Monster Hunter has nothing to give you. However, if you like the idea of your character as the immovable center of a game's universe, one that's yours alone to perfect and hone – and the notion of interacting with others to hunt down some really gigantic beasts, then what are you waiting for? Go ahead and let the hunt begin!

It might sound a bit more harsh than the game deserves, but sometimes you have to call the developers out when a game suffers under ill-advised direction. Thanks to the beautiful and richly filled houses and some really great characters, Luigi's Mansion qualifies as a really good game. It's just not the fantastic one it could have been.

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.

What remains is a passable action game over the course of all of its four character-arcs. It's a shame that the exploration just isn't where it needs to be, even if Mercury Steam manages to marry its new fiction with the history of the series. Had this come out between Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia, people would have forgotten about it by now. Still, Ecclesia is for years old by now, and the fans really long for a new Castlevania in the classic style. If you're one of them, have a look into this mirror. It's got some ugly cracks in it, but you might still like some of what you see.

I'd have to make things up to find anything else that's worthy of complaint about this wonderful game. Gaijin Games has taken the best and most appreciated entry in the Bit.Trip saga and honed it to perfection, small lapses in creativity in the final levels notwithstanding. I honestly don't think there's much room for improvement for a possible part three.

If you are longing for a final goodbye with some of your favourite characters of this series, you won't get a better chance than this... Citadel is Mass Effect 3's 'Lair of the Shadow Broker'.

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.

For just about ten bucks you get a nice little multiplayer game, which could have done with a few more maps out of the box. It's enjoyable enough to slice, bash and shoot your way through hordes of other players, even though beginners see themselves in way out of their heads in the first hours of play. The tutorial doesn't really help and you have to get all your practice in real matches. As soon as you're over this steep hill, it is decent fun. For this to grow into a lasting success, though, the game would need much more content – and some fine-tuning regarding the player movement would be appreciated as well.

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.

Even if the puzzles are a bit uneven in their quality, it is still one of the best hack and slash games around. In the past this series managed to elevate itself from other solidly entertaining games of that ilk a bit better, with all the glorious set-pieces and awe-inspiring moments. These are harder to find in Ascension, though. But what did you expect, when the gods themselves have already been felled? Still, this was a lot of fun, but the next God of War better have some really interesting ideas, if it wants us to really marvel at it again.

It's not easy to score Kentucky Route Zero's first act. It's not an isolated product, as it sees itself as exposition to a much bigger narrative. Even though it succeeds marvelously in opening up the game, we don't know anything about where this "Lost Highway" will take us. Who didn't fall in love with this on first sight, should rather wait for the next few acts to come around before he decides if this is something for him. If you did though, get it. It may not have a lot of gameplay substance, but its atmosphere will suck you in quite like nothing else.

It is a symbiosis of elements from the old titles and a lot of Uncharted. As such, free-form exploration, puzzles and tombs to raid meet big-screen action and frenzied shootouts. It could be a great way into the future for Lara, one you couldn't really picture before. For now, this really works.

This is a game primarily for people who want to see everything and try to play as well as possible at all times, until they're sitting enthroned on the defeated beast, all achievements or trophies acquired. Every encounter teaches you new intricacies of the brilliant fighting engine, honing your skills in the process. If that's what you're looking for and thought of the last Devil May Cry as a bit too easy, you should rush out and get this.

Still you'd have to be pretty cold at heart to not give this charismatic funny vocabulary driven insanity at least a chance. Sure, most of what it does is only funny the first and maybe the second time around. And it is also true that many of the smaller challenges it pits against you aren't interesting (or challenging) at all. But there's also recurring moments of pure comedy gold, when your words prompt characters to do hilarious five-second skits or random items send the scene into a cartoonishly homicidal chain reaction.

Proteus' metaphor for life is a more lonely one than Journey's and I did miss the more personal note of thatgamecompany's title. Also, the static movement hinders immersion a bit, you don't really feel like you're moving an entity through this sprawling three-and-a-half-bit world. Still, this is worthwhile for one or two goes. Games like Proteus are important – if only to show us how ridiculously reliant we are on genre denominations and categories. Or, to quote the great Frank Zappa, 'without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible'.

Crysis 3 is a big, fun summer blockbuster of a game. Sometimes that's all you need and if it's done as well as in this case, all the better. Get in, enjoy the ride, but don't expect to think about it next year. From time to time you have enjoy the now and not think about what could have been. You might miss all the fun that's undoubtedly to be found here.