While I really love this game, I have to dock points for performance issues. At release, a game shouldn’t have this many glitches, crashes, and other problems. Points also docked for the pacing misses and the difficulty spike at the beginning. Finally, points docked for the shoddy multiplayer, though I don’t weight this very high in my overall scoring of the game.

If you like your shoot-em-ups to unleash hell at an insane pace but all the while expect you to keep your head, then Dariusburst: Chronicle Saviours is definitely the game for you.

A thoroughly excellent game and one that Capcom intend to support for a good while to come. It is, however, an intensely involved beat-em-up, as well as a work in progress, and only time will tell if the online community will be able to support players unfamiliar with the series.

It’s a gripping, compelling story set in a truly beautiful world that’s worth exploring. Just go in with your expectations clear. This is a relatively short game that’s almost entirely about the story, which consists almost entirely of two people talking over radios to one another. You play a chubby guy in his forties talking to, presumably, a woman of a similar age who you never see. There’s really nothing else like it I can think of, which makes it all the more rewarding...I loved Firewatch, mostly, letdown with the ending notwithstanding

American Truck Simulator scratches the exact same itch that Elite: Dangerous does. While they’re vastly different games, both evoke a sense of the wide open road, of the perfect road trip. Both give you freedom and put you in control of your own destiny and your own direction. Both are ridiculously compelling and they let you set your own pace.

Your entire playthrough should take 4 hours, but Oxenfree’s story unfolds briskly. As do the stakes. There’s no filler here, just an increasingly fascinating, emotional story steeped in the paranormal. Night School Studio’s first effort is a brilliant one. Not perfect, but absolutely worth experiencing.

Like any good art That Dragon, Cancer redefines the boundaries of its genre. This is creativity unfettered, matched in weight only by the likes of The Last of Us. However, where that game told a similarly heartbreaking story, there is no need here to perpetuate preconceived ideas. Shooting had to continue one way or another in Naughty Dogs tour de force, but here even assumptions about God don’t have to perpetuate indefinitely.

Gransys is a fascinating, starkly beautiful world. Character customization, combat, and the weird story and brilliant end-game all make this one of my favorite action-RPG’s of all time. Meanwhile, the Dark Arisen changes make the game somewhat more traversable and streamlined, turning a fun but frustrating game into something far more enjoyable. There’s nothing really new here, but it’s great to finally have the game on PC.

I give Rainbow Six: Siege a Hold on my Buy/Hold/Sell scale. It’s a great multiplayer game and well worth playing, but it certainly won’t hurt to wait a bit until the price comes down. Better still, if you wait you can go and buy two or three copies with friends and play it the way it’s meant to be played: As a team.

Let’s try a metaphor and imagine games as drinks. Fallout 4 is a fine wine, aged, complex, and evolving, likely better with a bit of wait. Bloodborne is a single malt Scotch — dense, overwhelming and rarified. Destiny might be a well made cocktail — a bit trendy, probably too expensive, but eminently satisfying and possessed of a certain technical skill. Just Cause 3 is a Miller High Life. It might not tick those other boxes of quality that those other drinks manage, but damn if I’d have it any other way.

The Old Hunters is a devilishly challenging addition to an already brutal game. With its release, Bloodborne transforms into an even beastlier and more grotesque experience, and it’s better than ever—a blood diamond in the rough even in a year chalked full of incredible releases.

If you’re looking to capture that feeling of playing in a beautifully-realized Star Wars sandbox, albeit one lacking variety and depth, EA DICE nails it. If you’re looking for a shooter stacked with substance, engrossing character progression, and endlessly addictive gameplay to sink your teeth into for the months ahead, Star Wars Battlefront misses the mark.

The gameplay is the star here. Rise of The Tomb Raider does everything Tomb Raider did and does it better, taking a still-growing heroine into an unfamiliar location and unfolding its lethal mysteries as we grow to meet them. This is still not the game it could be, but it’s remarkable how quickly Crystal Dynamics has taken a half-dead franchise and turned into one of the most vital experiences on the market today, true to its essential character while still feeling absolutely new. This is the new standard for third-person shooter/adventure games. I want another.

Fallout 4’s greatest triumph, and its one major point of evolution is in its storytelling, crafting a lengthy, unexpected ending and resolution that I will remember for years to come. It also remains one of the best games in existence for those who simply like to wander and explore and unearth long-buried secrets. But it struggles with archaic gameplay systems and an inflexible engine that anchor the game to the past for all the wrong reasons. Fans may enjoy more Fallout and a brand new map to explore, but this sequel will not be heralded as revolutionary or overly impressive this time around.

While both the story and the multiplayer will likely be divisive—we’re a long, long ways from Modern Warfare or the original Black Ops here—I’m glad to see Treyarch taking risks, trying something different, and impressed that even with all the changes, the core game still feels very much like Call of Duty.

Halo 5: Guardians is a smashing success. The campaign isn’t the strongest of the series, but it’s still a fun space opera romp, and it’s ending transforms the Halo universe completely...The phenomenal multiplayer makes this a must-have game, and probably the most compelling Xbox One exclusive to date.

There’s just no spark of life in Syndicate. Everything is so by the book it feels like it was made in factory by the child laborers I’m trying to free. They have refined the combat, stealth and traversal systems to a point where they’re as close to perfect as they’re ever going to get, but the actual content of the game itself refuses to evolve.

At the end of the day, it’s just not innovative and fun enough for me to heartily recommend it, and that’s largely because of the cost.

Seeing the cars come alive on the track, commander characters speak back to you when you take them down, and the slowly evolving powers of each car is like nothing I’ve encountered before.

A great start to a new series. Although the child-like visuals will put some Telltale fans off this is to miss the huge investment and achievement so far. If the series continues in this vein it’s set to be warmly welcomed by both Minecraft fans and families.

I do wish there was a better deck-building mechanism and it could certainly use more character-progression—anything to lessen the random-numbers game (RNG) and increase player agency. Anything, also, to give it more longevity. Even a multiplayer mode would help give this game more substance. But as a simple pick-up game? It works.

It’s a simple remaster, but it makes a work of art all the more beautiful and immersive.

From exploration to puzzle-solving to the charming story and lovely graphics, King’s Quest: A Knight To Remember is a delightful game.

It was nice while it lasted, but I doubt I’ll keep it installed. I hate waiting for most things in life, but if I’m going to wait then it had better be worth it. Angry Birds 2 is not.

I’m sure it won’t be for everyone, but if you enjoy horror movies like Scream and want to experience the genre with some agency in the story’s outcome, Until Dawn is a great choice.

It’s an experience with considerable polish that will introduce many young players to Star Wars franchise for the first time. Equally it will re-connect many parents who remember the original trilogy to the more recent joys of Rebels, Clone Wars and Episodes I, II and III.

Superchargers is the moment we really see Skylanders deliver on its potential. It’s not the cheapest game to play with your family but it delivers a huge amount of value.

In an already crowded it stands out from the crowd by taking the toys-to-life genre another step in the right direction.