Unlike Phoenix Wright, Danganronpa is a fair-play detective – no one will barge in at 11-th hour with a crucial piece of evidence, so if you pay close attention, you’ll figure out the gist of “whodunit” well before the protagonist does. So if you missed western release of Danganronpa on PS Vita, now is the time to make up for it. [Issue#207, p.71]

Leisurely promenades and simple puzzles are interspersed with action moments where you have to flee from local aggressive fauna. There’s also some stealth involved. These segments aren’t stellar, but they do shake things up nicely. [Issue#260, p.58]

Metro has always been a very niche game series with poor storytelling, broken stealth and unsatisfying shooting mechanics, which are offset by original setting. The same is true for Exodus, although it also adds "pointless open world" to the pile. [Issue#236, p.28]

Usually, a planet has just one or two settlements and a bit of wildlands to explore. But that’s for the best – instead of exploring miles of filler content, Outer Worlds keeps you moving from planet to planet, from one tense situation to another. [Issue#241, p.34]

AKtR avoids usual crutches of episodic adventures: it doesn’t drop endless QTEs on player nor does it pretend you’re making a difficult moral choice every step of the way. Instead, developers fell back to trusty inventory puzzles. [Sept 2015, p.73]

Super Mario 3D All-Stars is for everyone who loves videogames. Hopefully, even though it’s a limited-time offer at the moment, Nintendo will change its mind and 3D All-Stars will be available for purchase even after March 31. [Issue#248, p.58]

A great entry point for people new to the Warhammer 40k franchise, as well as a nice throwback to the action games of old. No open world, no Souls-like mechanics, no “meaningful” story choices. Just you, your bolter and a whole lot of enemies to mow down. [Issue#265, p.72]

Game has the original setting, the normal economic part, many of the small and large original features and unusually lax battle system. It means unambiguous excess of debit over credit, at least – in absolute terms. But... niche is quite filled today, and everyone can find a game to his liking and suitable for his style of play. And Amplitude Studios definitely should not feel the shame for its creation. [Nov 2014, p.90]

One of the major Pyre’s features is that you can’t die. Sure, a fight to the death is nothing if not stimulating, but death is still a release – and no one escapes Downside that easily. Actually, inability to die is akin to a curse, because, although you can’t die – you still can lose. And you will have to find strength to keep going despite that loss, despite having let down your teammates and friends. [Issue#222, p.56]

It’s Part 3 of the trilogy, so if you’ve missed the previous two, there’s no reason to play this one first. But if you’ve been anxiously awaiting the finale of the story that began 4 years ago – The Banner Saga 3 won’t disappoint. [Issue#232, p.58]

A lot of interesting mechanics were implemented, but ultimately left stranded by tedious core gameplay. [Issue#242, p.44]

The studio redrew every model and changed the engine, but managed to keep the gameplay faithful to the original. Level architecture, Spyro’s abilities and his enemies – Reignited Trilogy plays just like the originals, only with modern graphics. [Issue#234, p.63]

A contradictory, heart-wrenching, sometimes even harsh, yet still stunning story about friendship, duty and honor, about deceptive freedom of choice in your actions, and true freedom in choice of your morals – which is both a blessing and an ordeal. [Issue#215, p.64]

EA Canada has done an excellent job. Yes, there are some rough edges like too many player errors during throw-ins or kicking the ball over side line in cases where it would be better to kick it to the middle of the field. Too many hits on the goal posts and bar. But developers have managed to conquer new heights where they will sure nest and polish this flagship series, until the time comes for a new breakthrough. [Nov 2014, p.96]

Unfortunately over time it becomes clear that the promised freedom is illusory. The finale does not depend on our actions, puzzles should be solved by all means all, and openness of locations results in monotonous races back and forth. But what is important – creators of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter managed to create photo-realistic frightening world that player does not want to leave. American backwoods is traced to the last crack at the railing of the bridge, to the last blade of grass on a mossy stone in the forest, to the last shingle on the lake shore. And all this is feast for the eyes was developed with the decrepit Unreal Engine 3 and by the tiny studio! [Nov 2014, p.110]

Vermintide 2 doesn’t solve the problem that the process is ultimately pointless: you increase the power level of your character just to play the same maps on higher difficulties, with no actual endgoal. In fact, it doesn’t even try to tackle that issue. But it’s still a great game that lets you spend your evenings slaughtering skaven and northmen in the name of Sigmar. [Issue#228, p.40]

Introduction of open world led to action slowing down a little, but new lore and world-building more than make up for it. [Issue#241, p.30]

It’s hard to shake the feeling that development time on Prey was seriously (and suddenly) cut. Developers took their time designing a magnificent space station, they worked out the relationships between personnel and outlined various background stories, they begun fleshing out the main storyline and alien ecology when suddenly they received an order to wrap it up and ship the game as it is. At least, that’s the most plausible thing I can think of to explain the staggering difference in polish between various elements. [Issue#220, p.44]

Characters and decorations are so colorful and lively that they fall just a few inches short of Pixar standards. It’s impossible to play GW2 with a hardcore competitive mindset, but it’s a great specimen of “shooters for all family”. [Issue#207, p.64]

If FIFA 15 seemed too fast and felt wrong for no apparent reason, it’s likely that PES 2015 is your game. [Jan 2015, p.74]

Numenera should be played like Call of Duty. Don’t try to make sense of things, don’t try to roleplay anything, just relax and take in the sights. Help a robot deliver his robo-babies, mess around with hi-tech devices, watch the story unfold. It’s not a worthy successor of Planescape: Torment by any measure, but a good enough ride on its own. [Issue#218, p.50]

Although Hong Kong is basically a clone of Dragonfall, it doesn’t diminish the game’s strengths: solid storyline and interesting missions (only a few, if any, are straightforward or purely combat-oriented). It has only one downside – the game expects players to read. A lot. Crime against humanity, I know. [Issue#201, p.50]

If such simplicity could be considered as a drawback of the game it will be a really minor flaw because even just experimenting with dozens of skills is very funny. [Issue#210, p.85]

One of the cornerstones of War Thunder is that player’s skill is more important than his wallet. Premium vehicles offer no combat advantages, there is no “microtransaction-only” ammo or consumables, so no amount of cash will buy you a spot on the top of the food chain. [Issue#216, p.56]

Every port is a unique and unforgettable adventure that comes together from pieces of past events and always gives the player a real, tangible choice. But the process of traveling between the islands is unfortunately lacking. [April 2015, p.66]

Compared to Wii U version, Encore offers not only prettier graphics, but new content as well. It’s not limited to a few new clothes or songs either; Encore has an additional storyline, as well as lots of nifty little additions. [Issue#243, p.52]

With Dontnod, there’s always a small town and the death of a friend to get the story rolling. But this time around, characters, plot and setting are far more developed than in previous games. [Issue#255, p.62]

Alien: Isolation can serve as an example of a solid adaptation of movie features to the game format: Creative Assembly have managed to recreate the atmosphere of the original film. They did not try to squeeze Alien within the frames of existing genres, but took the events of the original picture as a basis while not limiting themselves to them. [Nov 2014, p.68]