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]