Indisputable evidence of Ed’s hard work is the appearance of the game: nice graphics with a decent development of the landscape and models and simple but functional interface. However, we doubt that a handful of Meridian nice features will attract anyone but the most devoted fans of game design of the early nineties. [Nov 2014, p.100]

Later this year Devil’s Third will be ported to PC, but single player campaign won’t make it – DT Online will be a free-to-play multiplayer-only shooter. And it’s one of those rare occasions where cuts made during porting process are strictly beneficial. [Issue#201, p.60]

Hatred isn’t half as provocative as moralists claim: it doesn’t emphasize the act of aggression; it cares only about the number of victims. Executions are carried out with about as much emotion as stomping on a Goomba in Mario game. [Sept 2015, p.71]

Biggest problem of AG isn’t the story or lackluster graphics, but its incredibly poor AI. Should you cause an alarm, every guard on the level will blindly run to that spot, letting you shoot them one by one without even changing position. At some point, you start to wonder – why bother trying to stealth around if it’s so much easier to just kill everyone? [Issue#209, p.63]

Once Jen learns how to use a knife, Remothered stops being scary: instead of hiding from the enemies, you can just stab them in the back. There are also numerous technical problems, like getting stuck in the furniture or being spotted through solid walls. [Issue#249, p.70]

Daedalic knew how to make the adventure part work – and it does work, more or less – but everything else screams “amateur hour” so hard, it borders on naïve art. [Issue#262, p.64]

Every level is very small, and no matter where you decide to hole up, it will be easy for enemies to flank you. It’s not bad by itself, but such design makes cover system – which was to become one of Umbrella Corps’ trump cards – redundant. So it comes as no surprise that combat quickly devolves into chasing after one another with one-hit-kill ax in hand. Of course, it’s hard to talk about tactics or teamplay in this lumberjack’s paradise. [Issue#211, p.56]

We take the role of Christopher Raven, who became a pirate captain after his family... ah, screw it. The game is terrible. I say that as a guy who honestly tried to become enamored of it for a week straight. [April 2015, p.62]

Looks like all Codemasters’ effort went into making Fellowship of Evil look like a game. After watching a trailer you might think “Hey, it’s not Overlord that I remember, but it might be a good action-RPG”. But once you launch it, you realize that it’s not a game – it’s a cardboard cutout with zero gameplay value. [Issue#204, p.81]

Tales from The Borderlands shows that it has experienced writers behind it. It is interesting, sometimes funny and sometimes bloody – just what the doctor ordered for a good pastime. [Jan 2015, p.72]

Ostensibly a sandbox. Ostensibly an RPG with pirates. Ostensibly was in development for a long time – since July of 2012. And a lot of other “ostensiblies” that brought forward a radically new quality for the final product: “ostensibly a game”. [April 2015, p.64]

Soulless homunculus, poorly crafted Frankenstein’s monster. [June 2015, p.72]

Side quests are few and don’t shy away from ending up in all-too-familiar boring shootouts. Any joy that could be found in diligent dirt-digging quickly dries up, giving way to routine. Even simple travel is all too often gets interrupted by yet another shootout. [Issue#205, p.46]

Although ToS as it is today is full of shortcomings and technical problems, we hope that sooner or later it gets fixed. It’s been too long since we’ve seen a MMORPG that features enchanted chests which can be opened only at specific time, rewards you for pronouncing proper phrase in front of a magic obelisk, and has entire locations that are hidden away and can be discovered only through thoughtful exploration. [Issue#209, p.74]

One Day in London only creates an illusion that your choices matter, but it’s so well-written and charming that you can’t help but forgive this deception. [Issue#211, p.68]

The AI employs a few basic schemes with little to no improvisation, so fights are only difficult because enemies have numerical superiority and advantageous positions. Thus, it’s hard to call Codex of Victory a true wargame – at best, it’s a tactical puzzle. [Issue#219, p.87]

“Gentlemen, if you would completely redo the interface and provide player with more info about choices, consequences and inner mechanics, I’ll gladly get back to it. But for now, farewell” – that’s about all I can say to developers of the game I tried to fall in love with, but failed. Oh, I almost forgot the P.S.: “Fix the English translation, it’s laughable”. [Issue #219, p.82]

New approach to Sengoku period, intense focus on a single popular clan and interesting battles – Spirit of Sanada is definitely worth a look, although it has the same problem as the rest of the series: from certain angles character models may look alright, but everything else is just plainly dated. [Issue#221, p.86]

What did Argo inherit from Arma 3? Well, imagine you’re a taxidermist who has a dead wolf. You take its pelt, get rid of everything else... and then throw away most of the pelt as well, only to stitch together a makeshift hamster from the rest. That’s what Argo is – tiny awkward shooter with three game types for 5v5 gameplay. [Issue #222, p.63]

There’s only one major drawback for Star Story: one playthrough lasts under two hours. Sure, you’ll probably have to replay it multiple times to understand its story, but what that does for length, it subtracts from fun – there’s simply no way not to get annoyed when you have to click through the dialogue you’ve seen five times already. [Issue#223, p.71]

Instead of coming up with their own concepts, creators of Oure borrowed ideas from Shadow of Colossus and Journey. Too bad that they couldn’t even copy them properly, much less come up with their own stuff to let their game stand on its own. [Issue#226, p.60]

In original SPAZ you could tell at a glance what enemy ship’s armaments are and what to expect from him. Now, every ship looks like a barn with Christmas lights on it, so the best tactic is to turn broadside to it and just watch HP bars dwindle. [Issue#226, p.62]

A chopper in this game is just a big paperweight that’s brought to your garage with a note replace part X. You buy that part, take the old one out, place the replacement in, put back the screws – and that’s it, you’re done, time to move on to the next job. You can’t fine-tune it, you can’t take the chopper out for a test drive, you can’t even take an engine apart. [Issue#227, p.45]

Once you find a winning tactic, you’ll be able to stick to it in almost every situation. Only bosses require some improvisation, because if don’t kill them in a rather specific way, they’ll destroy you in their death throes. [Issue#230, p.60]

Most of the time our heroine needs to race from floor to floor to complete given tasks. Along the way she’ll meet other students and teachers that have some interesting stuff to tell, but there isn’t much time to chat – the clock is ticking, and if the time runs out, you’ll have to start over. [Issue#232, p.66]

While it really is a mix of FTL and XCOM, it lacks the quick pace of the former and budget of the latter. You’ll be fighting in the same levels against the same enemies for over and over again, which will soon begin to feel like a chore. [Issue #233, p.73]

Over six years of Early Access, developers added to Space Engineers a lot of options and objects, including entire planets. There’s only one thing that’s still missing: meaningful gameplay. [Issue#238, p.40]

Cuisine Royale’s main advantage is variety. Artefacts, magic, topography and scarce ammo – everything in this game was designed to ensure that even similar encounters play out very differently. [Issue#243, p.40]