Final Fantasy Explorers never fully captivated me. Building up your character is fun and the Final Fantasy fan in me enjoyed all the callbacks, but it didn't keep me invested. It gives you plenty to tinker with, but doesn't have the meat to back it up.

Panzer Paladin also has a variety of extras, including a second run at the story mode with redesigned levels, speedrun and boss rush-style tournament modes, and even an option to design your own weapons. As throwback retro adventures go, it hits a lot of the right marks, even if some of those targets are ideas that might have been best left in the past.

A competent tactical shooter blessed with a dedication to narrative rarely seen in shooters. If Gearbox can build off this success with more inventive gameplay, the series has a chance of overcoming the boredom that curses so many WWII titles.

A sexy goth vampire chick shooting and slicing skeleton spiders and Nazis in the 1930s? You gotta love that! [Dec 2002, p.144]

Whatever critical punishment you can level at the game, its gameplay core packs enough punch to survive your flurry.

Escha & Logy may have some flaws, but it's good at providing a formulaic experience that rewards you with seeing your progression play out before you.

Under Pressure is moving Telltale’s Guardians series in a positive direction. The central conflict is more defined at this point, and the character setup work attempted in the first episode is already paying off. A few technical problems, including a couple of non-repeatable hard crashes during my playthroughs, dampened my enjoyment of this outing. However, this second installment left me interested to see where the writers go next, and in episodic video game storytelling, that’s what it’s all about.

The library with history, trivia, and details for each game, as well as galleries of old artwork are a nice addition to this collection. However, I can’t recommend this to anyone other than fans of the old games.

It does excel at what the movies do best: making mass bloodletting entertaining as hell, and at a handy $20 pricepoint. [June 2003, p.105]

Remnant II is most successful as a tour through a series of disparate dimensions, each contending with their own battles against the villainous Root plaguing their world. The gunplay is solid, the co-op with up to two other players works great, and the lore is fascinating (if you want to dig deep). Remnant II’s plot, characters, and progression are where it falls short, but I like its third-person shooter take on mechanics and ideas borrowed from the Souls games.

Soured by some nagging flaws, Legacy isn't a title that will appeal to everyone. However, its willingness to try something new deserves some healthy praise. [Jan 2007, p.92]

Unless you're going to dive into multiplayer, though, Retribution is a mediocre expansion pack even though the base gameplay is still quite good.

The control is solid and impressive. [Mar 2004, p.114]

When you spend some time with this game, you'll find that it slowly pulls you in, as it manages to turn what appears to be its weaknesses into pure positives. [Nov. 2003, p.148]

That cooperative vibe echoes the way many players first encountered the genre – a group of friends gathered around a screen, laughing at the crazy solutions required to slip past a perplexing blocked path. In replicating that novel experience, The Cave succeeds.

It's not going to win any literature awards, but damned if I can find anything about it that's not fun. [July 2006, p.109]

Instead of walking into the arena and making a grand statement, NBA 2K22 just plays decent basketball. You'll see a few highlight clips, but none that make you want to keep watching in awe. Still, NBA 2K22 is an improvement over last year, even if it's disappointing that it's not making more significant moves. Hopefully, next year we see more shakeups to the lineup to make the game a little more exciting and feel like Visual Concepts is gunning for that championship title.

A decent enough way to get your World War II on, but does nothing to move the genre forward or distinguish itself from other FPS games. [Dec 2003, p.136]

The turn-based system feels very artificial and makes gameplay very slow at times...If Silent Storm had a better time system, it could have been a classic. [Feb 2004, p.112]

At least you don't have to solve solo; The Cave supports up to three players working together on a single TV, but falls short of letting players split up, so you still have to switch back and forth as puzzles demand characters in different locations. Still, that cooperative vibe echoes the way many players first encountered the genre – a group of friends gathered around a screen, laughing at the crazy solutions required to slip past a perplexing blocked path. In replicating that novel experience, The Cave succeeds.

In all, this is a step in the right direction for Sonic, but one that ultimately fails to thrill. [Jan 2004, p.137]

I’m glad Activision tried to address some of the problems in the original game (including adding multiplayer), but Showdown suffers slightly by drifting away from what it had already perfected.

While many aspects of the story are on a linear path, the consequences of some defining choices do echo into the season’s end, including a few important characters being alive or dead. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that Guardians of the Galaxy offers a particularly compelling spread of choices across its many episodes. Instead, the biggest selling point of the season is the opportunity to glimpse some backstory for these popular superheroes, and explore the interpersonal dynamics that those histories have on the team. If that sounds appealing, there’s good reason to give Guardians a shot. The action may be lackluster, and the path through the story may not be filled with surprises, but I did manage to care how it all shook out for this mismatched squad of heroes, and that’s more than I can say for a lot of video game characters.

Predictable, it improves on its predecessor in some regards, while somehow sacrificing some of the addictive qualities that made "Brain Age" so compelling. [Aug 2006, p.92]

unless landing on an aircraft carrier and being saluted with the “Mission Accomplished” banner is all you’re looking for, you’re going to have to search elsewhere for a deeper experience.

I enjoyed my time with the first Halo Wars, so I’m glad that Microsoft took a chance with a sequel. Unfortunately, aside from Blitz, I don’t feel like Creative Assembly pushed the envelope. Simplified base building, smaller maps, and outdated level design keep Halo Wars 2 for achieving great heights. However, if you loved the first Halo Wars, this entry delivers more of the same.

LawBreakers delivers in terms of neat weapons, lightning-fast kills, and aspirational skills. You’ll look back in awe at performing feats like landing a triple kill while blasting yourself backwards into a zero-g environment. Despite the adrenaline-fueled highs, the title falls back to earth due to uninteresting environments, generic characters, and a lack of variety.

I admire a lot about Outer Wilds. The entire world operating on that 20-minute timer is a fascinating theatrical accomplishment of craftsmanship, but I find it more fun to think about than to play. A lot of ideas linger here, some of them beautifully executed, others slipshod and pushing against each other. I love roaming inside the bellies of mysterious planets, but don’t like how the urgency of the timer undercuts my exploration. I have left Outer Wilds’ galaxy feeling as much exhaustion as satisfaction, but also with a list of several enchanting interstellar moments.