Every aspect of the game could stand to be improved a little: economic system is superfluous, leveling is hard at the beginning and much easier towards the end, and it’s always weird to take a castle with just a bunch of soldiers. But the atmosphere trumps everything. After all, it’s been a long time since anyone tried to make an RPG in at least quasi-historical setting. [Sept 2015, p.66]

The studio took a few liberties with the story, changing some things around and expanding certain segments, but thankfully, they didn’t neuter Crypto’s humor to cater to the easily-offended. [Issue#260, p.50]

For the entire game you’ll have the feeling that something significant is going to happen soon – but it won’t. Story never takes a sharp turn, every interesting character is introduced in the first third of the game and there are no meaningful rewards to find in Oakmont openworld. [Issue#239, p.56]

You will inevitably end up with a tangled web of lines, some of which are always operating at a loss, yet are necessary to keep the whole system running. It’ll take hours to think out and build this system, but it’s just so incredibly satisfying to look upon your empire and realize that yes, it works just as planned. [Issue#215, p.60]

This is the first Telltale game to have such an obvious stench of “Nothing personal, just business”. [Issue#203, p.74]

Beat Cop is less “Dirty Harry” than it is “Police Academy” or “The Naked Gun”, which makes for a good contrast with This is the Police – another “dirty cop simulator” of late. [Issue#220, p.62]

It may seem that SE3 is absolutely hopeless, but it is not. After all there are not so many games around where you have to lie on your belly for half an hour and methodically perforate your enemies’ heads. If you prefer that kind of gameplay then Sniper Elite 3 will be the right choice in spite of all the bugs. [September 2014, p. 72]

Pikachu is shown as an assertive man who can’t live without his espresso, loves to crack jokes and speaks in deep baritone of a hard-boiled detective. In short, he’s charismatic to the point of instantly becoming one of the best characters Nintendo ever made. [Issue#229, p.58]

Beautiful music, great humor and a lot of customization – Miitopia on Switch proved to be a great remaster of a 3DS classic. [Issue#253, p.66]

Newfound openness of Assassin’s Creed demonstrates just how inadequate its AI really is for a stealth game: pampered nobility usually simply ignores a bloodied body on the dance floor, and guards don’t care much either. At least they’ve learned how to fight: unless you “cheat” with smoke bombs, it’s highly unlikely you’ll survive a melee against a group. [Jan 2015, p.62]

Since it was Double Bear’s founder who drafted story of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and Alpha Protocol, one could expect Dead State to deliver some intriguing characters. But alas, in backwater Texas there’s no place for triple-agents, while clichéd Vietnam vets and truck drivers fail to deliver any surprises. [Feb 2015]

Diaz brothers undoubtedly have their charm, but they can’t compete with Chloe and Max. Let’s hope that next time developers will focus on actual story rather than current political agenda. [Issue#243, p.50]

The painter had been replaced by an actor, and old mansion morphed into a ship – but the gameplay and scare tactics have changed very little. [Issue#239, p.64]

The quality of fan service is simply breathtaking, so it’s a must for any fan of the cult classic movie. Still, as a game, Terran Command offers nothing new. Even less, in fact: there’s no multiplayer, map editor or even a skirmish mode, so once you’re done – you’re done. [Issue#260, p.54]

Non-combat side of the game is not nearly as diverse. Our PCs don’t play cards, there’s no more than 10 side quests and not even a hint of romance in this cold air. Still, it’s hard to put I Am Setsuna away – not because the story or the combat are that good on their own, but because it really captures that old school JRPG atmosphere. [Issue#211, p.69]

As it was with the first game, the future of StarDrive 2 depends on a single man – its main developer known as Zero. If he’ll give the game enough polish, it may become sparklingly brilliant. But the rough-cut diamond we have today deserves 73, and not a point more. [June 2015, p.74]

Whether you have to consume 10 bass or 10 human beings to level up, the basic gameplay loop stays exactly the same. [Issue#246, p.52]

Yes, it’s underpolished compared to predecessors. Yes, darksouls-esque mechanics don’t exactly click with traditional combat dynamics. Yes, acrobatics are straight up bad. But let’s give Darksiders 3 a little break – after all, the series did just come back from the dead. [Issue#234, p.64]

Well, the coveted Russian Fallout has finally been made. Hopefully, next time instead of Russian Fallout 2 AtomTeam will make simply Atom 2. There’re plenty of original ideas here that deserve to be developed further. [Issue#235, p.38]

Comeback of a respectable series made be a respectable company – what could go wrong? Turns out, a lot. [Nov 2015, p.70]

There are some minor improvements here and there, but there’s no new big feature that screams – that’s where 3 years of development went. The only one reason to get CMS2021 for the full price is if you somehow missed the 2018 version. [Issue#256, p.56]

Amusingly, Telltale’s Story Mode had more Minecraft in it than Dungeons does: it involved a little mining and crafting, at least. Dungeons features neither, and although its levels are made of blocks, they are indestructible. [Issue#247, p.67]

You run around for an hour or two, you mine stuff, you cut trees, you deliver packages from one person to another, and then you realize: that’s it. If you bring tavern keeper those flowers she asked for, you’ll get more tasks. You do them – you’ll get invited to a guild that will give you even more grab this, craft that jobs that somehow never start being fun – and Yonder has no combat to fall back to. [Issue#223, p.67]

Operations on the surface communicate the idea of “spreading evil” nicely and provide good change of pace from traditional underground war. Not a blockbuster yet, but quite entertaining nevertheless. [Issue#199, p.70]

Today’s strategy market is dominated by grand-scale games, like Ashes of the Singularity or Total War series. Compared to them, Halo Wars 2 feels like an echo of the glorious RTS past: small cozy bases, tiny unit limit, heavy focus on story in single-player and APM – in multiplayer. [Issue#218, p.54]

Spiritual successor it may be, but Road Redemption does one thing very differently: unlike Road Rash, it offers a roguelike experience with procedurally generated mini-campaigns. [Issue#226, p.56]

As a beat’em up, MRB doesn’t exactly shine, but its brutality and style almost make up for it. [Issue#213, p.57]

Like any golf game, Mario Golf is a niche product. But it has that amazing Nintendo magic – even if you aren’t a golf aficionado, you’ll still have a lot of fun. [Issue#254, p.66]

Original Pathologic was way too early to the “sandbox survival” boom, now its years too late. As for story – it’s basically the same: rich in ideas and lore, but very poorly written. [Issue#239, p.60]

Alongside old-school features that strategy aficionados were looking forward to, Sudden Strike reanimates some technical atavisms best left forgotten, with interface being the biggest offender. [Issue#223, p.52]

The thing that irritates the most is that in The Sims 3 you had the feeling that you're writing a story, and not for a particular family, but for the whole city. But The Sims 4 carved out the lion's share of content and broke a beautiful open world into couple of dozens of tiny paddocks. Therefore, instead of the epic story you are able to write just a pair of episodes for a B-Rate sitcom. [Oct 2014, p.94]

To their credit, in the sequel Bossa Studios managed to break new ground. Previously, you were basically chained to the operating table. Now you can explore the entirety of operating theater and beyond! [Issue#248, p.65]

It’s basically a quiz game, so it’s as suitable for a long-time gamer as it is for someone who just happened to drop by: all that it asks of player is to answer questions, take selfies and paint something from time to time. But its main advantage over its direct competitor, Nintendo’s party-game 1-2-Switch, is longevity – there are lots and lots of questions in That’s You! Also, it can be played by any number of people, and the more participants there are, the more fun it is. [Issue#222, p.69]

Procedural generation is another thing that’s killing this game. Each level is an agglomeration of rooms, streets and passages with no rhyme or reason behind it. Of course, new types of traps and monsters are being added to the mix all the time, but every new map ends up looking just the same. [Issue#230, p.62]

Even though the prologue is unexciting and finale drags on a little too long, Blair Witch’s atmosphere usually hits the right notes. [Issue#241, p.38]

Unfortunately, Pokemon SMD doesn’t have especially catchy tunes or good graphics. Still, it’s nice that instead of taking models from previous Super Mystery Dungeon game, developers made new ones. [Issue#206, p.71]

What used to be a norm in the 90-s doesn’t always become good material for retro; sometimes it just gets old and stale. Unfortunately, that’s the case with River City. [Issue#214, p.59]

When Youngblood falls back to its linear roots, like in Bruder missions, it turns into a pretty good Wolfenstein game; but its open-world segments and RPG elements feel entirely out of place. [Issue#240, p.58]

Where the season will end up is a question that even developers have no answer for. Media that was shown at E3 has no relation to released product; Clem’s voice actress mentioned that this episode’s story kept being rewritten on the fly, and work on the next one hasn’t even began. What’s even worse is that this special magic which made people fall in love with first season is nowhere to be found in A New Frontier: Telltale no longer delivers unique experiences; every new project seems to be made from the same mold. [Issue#216, p.54]

Events of the game take place sometime between 23-rd and 24-th comic volume, which violates basic premise of the series “Anyone can die” – we know that both Michonne and Pete will make it out unharmed. The second problem is Michonne herself – if you play in line with her established character, most of the time you’ll have to stare at people without saying a word. [Issue#207, p.75]

There’s no time to bother with tactics and individual units when entire armies are dishing it out: you have to keep your control points, expand your production capacity and methodically push back enemy. Warring sides are well-balanced, but that’s because they’re more or less mirror images of each other. Some diversity is brought only by upgrades and commander’s abilities like calling nuclear strikes or teleporting entire divisions. [Issue#209, p.62]

Gearbox had a great FPS-MOBA on their hands: loads of great characters, nice gameplay balance where everyone – melee and ranged DPS, support and tanks – had their roles to play. And they had to go and kill it with loot system that gives long-time players additional advantage over newcomers – not only they know maps and are better adjusted to local gameplay quirks, but they can literally have better stats right from the beginning of any match. [Issue#209, p.86]

The blame is on the poor assortment of weapons and primitive dungeon generation. The next floor is easy to be confused with the previous one, if you do not pay attention to the fine details. Traps often can’t do any harm to the heroes, and add to that the lack of a sane storyline. [September 2014, p. 65]

Solo incursions are definitely the best experience Extraction can deliver – although this isn’t exactly a high bar, considering how mediocre the game is. [Issue#259, p.62]

Sanctus Reach took a lot from tabletop rules, but not everything: for example, action points, square-based grid, abilities with long recharge time – all that has little to do with original Warhammer 40k. Although the game does get some things right: victory depends on control of key points, number of turns is limited, and RNG is just as capricious as dice: misses with point-blank shots and instant kills with lucky crits are par for the course here. [Issue#217, p.82]

Once you stop obsessively “clearing out” a province before moving to the next one, and instead start going after the nearest mission available, Wildlands suddenly becomes very diverse game: one minute you’re burning cocaine, next you’re chasing a convoy, and once you’re done, soon you might find yourself blowing up smuggler submarines. That’s why we weren’t bothered by absence of races, fishing and all other mini-games usually employed by open-world designers to break up the monotony. [Issue#218, p.60]

Game’s derivativeness doesn’t diminish despite developer’s diligence: the humor is noticeably stale, and game situations lack variety. There’s just no progress in the series, which in itself is a step backwards. [Sept 2015, p.83]

Middle-aged Cutter just doesn’t cut it as a hero. Everything about him screams that he’s old, he’s tired, and instead of going on an adventure, he would’ve preferred to spend the day playing Farming Simulator. [Issue#264,p.54]

Rebel Cops keeps the pace on small and medium-sized maps, but larger ones turn into a drag. [Issue#242, p.48]

Early on, it’s not that burdensome to personally lug around materials and process them into useful things, but as the technology marches on, you’ll have to do more and more menial tasks to make that new sword or casket that you need. [Issue#232, p.70]

For a 2016 game, Star Fox Zero’s looks are poor, but that’s because it renders two pictures at the same time: on TV, you see the fighter and its surroundings, while Wii U controller shows the view from the fighter’s turret – and you can move it around to turn the turret itself. It doesn’t impact the course of fighter itself, so you can fly in one side while shooting to another.

You’d think that in a zoo, there would be a team that handles healing of animals on its own (at worst – after getting chewed out via intercom). But in Jurassic World Evolution, director has to personally oversee that process, as well as numerous other tasks. [Issue#232, p.62]

The genius of Civilization 3 was in its simplicity. Then Firaxis began piling on additional mechanics and interconnections, losing that spark in the process. Millennia tries to fix that. [Issue#264,p.62]

Chaosbane levels are all made from a small variety of large “building blocks”, so when you’re sent to clean out another sewer of monsters – it’ll look just like every previous sewer you’ve cleaned so far. Boring and uninspired. [Issue#239, p.68]

In this co-op stint, Outlast lost most of its story content, ramped up its difficulty and became repetitive. The game has only a few maps and very little variety in tasks. [Issue#263, p.70]

First mission greets us with cheesy music, cheap special effects and blocky spaceships from an age long past. Time to file for a refund? Not just yet: despite poor presentation, Star Hammer is a very nice strategy. [Sept 2015, p.78]

A good old-fashioned action/platformer with unnecessarily childish looks. [Issue#223, p.66]

Skillful adaptation of setting and a fresh take on certain mechanics help Siege Survival stand out among other survival strategies. Too bad that the team didn’t find a solution to the basic problem of the genre: as soon as you figure out the right tactic, there will be no challenge left in the game. [Issue#253, p.58]

Looks like Konami managed to create perfect gameplay for virtual football: it has the right tempo, the right AI, and even goalkeepers are great – in terms of realism of the matches PES 2017 came close to perfection. Unfortunately, everything else is just sad. For example, licenses – they were never Konami’s strong suit, but this time there are only three real teams in Bundesliga, and even Juventus was turned into some weird PM Black White. [Issue#213, p.49]

High on Life works better as a sitcom about weird aliens than it does as an FPS. [page 46]

Although it deserves recognition for its attempt to be historically faithful, for hardcore damage mechanics and good combat dynamic, Tannenberg is also a little disappointing: weapons are more or less the same, unlocks lack impact, and class division is basically pointless. [Issue#236, p.38]

Despite all Suzuki’s claims that this series is his life’s work, Shenmue 3 feels more like a quick cash-in. [Issue#242, p.62]

A game for nostalgic Settlers fans. Very, very nostalgic Settlers fans. [Issue#204, p.80]

Definitely the best game in the series – but too niche to recommend it to everyone. [Issue#241, p.63]

There’s no denying that Aliens franchise was (and still is) a great source of inspiration for game designers. But its premise and lore are way too simple for a full-length game, and Fireteam Elite is yet another proof of that. [Issue#256, p.50]

The debut project of the independent studio Xaviant turned viable, albeit boring due to rudimentary plot and rather empty world. Locations turned to be beautiful but no one is found there with exception of few enemies and even in the city you’ll not see a living soul. [Oct 2014, p.89]

Tembo takes some notes from Metal Slug, but his closest relative is Sonic. While it’s not strictly necessary to keep your speed at maximum, it’s highly recommended to do so: our elephant may be a badass, but he goes down after a few hits, so speed in his case equals survivability. [Sept 2015, p.82]

Introduction of autoexplore mode shows that even developers realize there's something fundamentally wrong with the formula, but instead of making real improvements, they just duct tape it and call it a day. [Issue#244, p.62]

The story is the most important part of Maid of Sker, and it’s good. It doesn’t follow the original narrative word-for-word, but stays faithful to it. A good game for a Lovecraft fan. [Issue#248, p.41]

DXM introduces a lot of interesting mechanics, but they are sorely underutilized outside of specific missions. Picking up a rusty car and smashing enemy with it looks great – but you won’t be doing that, since proper weapons deal much more damage. [Issue#240, p.46]

Implementation of difficulty levels gives an unpleasant aftertaste: on easier modes developers forcibly cut from the game some locations and puzzles, leaving a lot of useless items that litter the inventory starting from the second hour of gameplay. [Oct 2014, p.83]

Everything about Agents of Mayhem screams underdeveloped and underfinanced. Nevertheless, blunt humor and straightforward action work well enough to qualify as a guilty pleasure, just like that junk food you like: you know it’s unrefined and unhealthy, but you just can’t help it. [Issue#223, p.64]

One of the major Gauntlet’ problems is a small amount of content. Game offers just three locations divided into four levels with three short stages in each that could be finished in a couple of evenings at a leisurely pace. And then Gauntlet asks to repeat the same thing at the next difficulty level. [Nov 2014, p.76]

Project CARS 3 leaves you with mixed feelings. It has wonderful controls and good arcade physics, but its tracks are too plain and boring for an arcade racing game. It’s even worse if you’re a sim fan – the game will leave totally disappointed. [Issue#248, p.54]

Even a great setting can’t save the game that’s mediocre in every other regard. [Issue#238, p.46]

Trine 3 doesn’t have skill improvement system, so no more fire arrows for Zoya, additional crates for Amadeus or special strikes for Pontius. Sure, there’s story reason for that – the Artifact is broken, so it’s not as powerful as before. Still, it’s sad. [Issue#201, p.68]

Snack World instantly charms you with little things, like names derived from various foods, or that your weapons get tired, so you might want to let your sword rest in the sheath for a bit before launching attack. [Issue#243, p.60]

Sufficiently good-looking, sufficiently entertaining and very antiquated. Still, it’s nice that you don’t have to buy a Nintendo console anymore to get acquainted with this part of the series. [Issue#206, p.61]

Even such an old-fashioned Sam is better than nothing. But honestly, after all these years Croteam should’ve brought more creative passion to the fourth installment of the series. [Issue#249, p.72]

A few jokes really nail it, including the ones that lampshade adventure game tropes. Still, it’s very hit-and-miss, and while the Darkestville Castle can be entertaining, it’s not something to write home about. [Issue#226, p.58]

Herein lies the main problem – Adventure Game has almost no way for players to interact with each other. You might as well gather four people in the room and roll dice for an hour and a half to find out who will get more sixes. [Jan 2015, p.76]

Just Cause 4 is just like its predecessor, but bigger, better, faster. Most of the grind was removed, while “creative destruction” aspect is better than ever. [Issue#234, p.34]

Russian proverb states that stability is a sign of mastery, but sometimes stability is only a sign of stability. Take Milestone for example: year after year they make games that always get very mediocre ratings. They’re stable to the point that most of their shortcomings can be copy-pasted straight from previous reviews. [June 2015, p.73]

The last hope of Ancient Space is the storyline which is called exciting by its creators. In fact it is rather beaten and absurd. There is scientific expedition sent to certain zone that is absorbing human colonies. Some sensors are not working and therefore scriptwriters assume that some pirates should take the blame. So player confronts these abstract leaderless robbers for a major part of the plot. Can somebody explain why scientists should fight pirates? [Nov 2014, p.101]

Each of the ten chapters has a storyline that somewhat overlaps with numerical Yo-Kai’s. But whatever the plot reason is, in the end you’ll find yourself plowing through enemies using the same two basic attacks. It’s a grind game, plain and simple – and an uninspired one at that. [Issue#234, p.58]

To boil it down to the very basics: Chronicles is a platformer, a reincarnation of old Prince of Persia. There are no famous landmark, no intricate story involving multitude of historical personages. Even the weapons selection is very barebone. [June 2015, p.80]

The game is incredibly boring. All you can do is crawling with the speed of turtle to nowhere, overcoming obstacles and cursing at each bump without having any global goal. Every puddle is a personal enemy, because the chances to get stuck are significantly large. The only things that give a certain aspect of fun are the physical models and graphics. [September 2014, p. 79]

Limbic’s creation doesn’t deserve being called “a new Heroes game”; at best, it’s a remake of Heroes of Might & Magic V. [Nov 2015, p.72]

There are many games where you can lose your best guys in a second and end up dead in a radioactive ditch, but in BEDLAM such misfortunes often come through no fault of player. [Nov 2015, p.69]

Although dialogue writers were burning the midnight oil, the team responsible for combat was obviously slacking off and did nothing to really improve that mess of a close combat which ELEX inherited from Risen. Monster fights are as choppy, unnatural and buggy as ever, for example, enemies slide right up a steep slope if they happen to dodge in that direction. [Issue#225, p.68]

NeocoreGames masterfully channels the grimdark atmosphere of Warhammer, but the actual gameplay is very barebones. There are three different classes, but they play pretty much the same, and most of the perks only add 1% to this or 1,5% to that. Oh, and that "open-world sandbox" you see on Martyr’s Steam page? It actually means "procedurally generated missions with simplistic objectives." [Issue#231, p.60]

Call of Cthulhu is an atmospheric game with a rather gripping detective storyline. Unfortunately, it fails to evoke any kind of fear of the unknown, which is essential for Cthulhu mythos. [Issue#234,p.66]

Michonne is terrible in her protagonist role – she is unsociable, cynical and silent. But she is the most mysterious and unusual character from the The Walking Dead. To squeeze player into her skin is a very convenient way to show how she came to such a life. [Issue#210, p.77]

Champions of Anteria plays almost like Dungeon Siege successor: multiple heroes, real-time pauseable tactical combat, RPG elements that dictate flow of fights. The only thing that’s missing is pack donkey, but there’s no need for it – instead of bags full of loot, champions are rewarded with additional lands that will be settled in Anno manner. [Issue#212, p.56]

Beloved characters, fabulous locations and familiar music – all of that makes you want to replay every Final Fantasy that came before. The only thing they fail to do is make you want to play Dissidia itself, at least for long: single player is very weak, and online mode has some game-breaking problems. [Issue#227, p.62]

Each of the ten chapters has a storyline that somewhat overlaps with numerical Yo-Kai’s. But whatever the plot reason is, in the end you’ll find yourself plowing through enemies using the same two basic attacks. It’s a grind game, plain and simple – and an uninspired one at that. [Issue#234, p.58]

A full playthrough takes about two hours, which is weird, considering that Infinite is advertised as a full game. Still, these two hours are good, so hopefully, next time the developer will get a bigger budget and will finally deliver a full-length game. [Issue#259, p.55]

Flaws in gameplay and storyline are compensated by the great skill of designers who have managed to deliver the spirit of spy adventure. Each level reminds the satirical Cold War Museum, whose exhibits can be examined for hours, and even angular character models do not spoil the experience. Of course, CounterSpy cannot boast of Evil Genius’ madness or No One Lives Forever’ charm, but it definitely shows the romance of the sixties. [Oct 2014, p.90]