Ten years ago no one could think Syberia would ever get a Part III. Second game nicely wrapped up the story, mammoths were found, we’ve got closure – what’s more to talk about? But for Microids the Syberia series is probably the biggest and best thing among its meager assets. So, want it or not, Kate Walker had to have another adventure. [Issue#220, p.64]

Dark Souls success naturally led to appearance of imitators, some of which are worse than others. The Surge inherited everything that was wrong with the original: bugs, sudden spikes in difficulty and general lack of polish, – yet captured none of its magic. There’s no fascinating world, intriguing story or thought-out combat mechanics to find here. [Issue#220, p.50]

Historically, Polish taverns offered a dish called bigos: basically, everything that was left on the plates by richer customers went into a cauldron where it boiled or simmered for some time before being served to poorer clients. Similarly, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 was made from leftovers of Far Cry, MGS5, Call of Duty, The Witcher 3 and many other blockbusters. It’s 100% derivative, there are literally no fresh ideas here. [Issue#220, p.56]

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]

Persona 5 is an incredibly rich, detailed and nuanced fantasy JRPG/school-life sim that may very well take more than 100 hours to complete. A must-see for everyone except people with strongest aversion to Japanese culture. [Issue#220, p.78]

Original Outlast’s setting worked well with its linearity – after all, no nuthouse is built in a way to make it easy for a patient or a visiting journalist to run around. But it’s simply impossible to make a believable rural setting in the same manner, as evidenced by Outlast 2: there’s too many fences and too little everything else. Even the cornfield that was a point of pride for Red Barrels is about as big as your average backyard lawn. [Issue#220, p.68]

Although Narcosis turned out to be pretty monotone, it has its own strengths: limited oxygen reserves make you think twice about stopping to take a breather, while subdued sounds keep you on edge. It probably won’t scare you, but it’s certainly an interesting experience. [Issue#220, p.55]

Despite its direct relation to Wii U version, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is nothing less than gorgeous, with its scintillating colors, varied decorations and abundance of interesting details on tracks. It’s a perfect game for parties, but online championship is where your driver skills are really put to test. [Issue#220, p.74]

Most importantly, it’s an interactive movie made by professional movie-makers, not by game designers (for example, writer Michael Robert Johnson also worked on 2009’s Sherlock Holmes). Its biggest gameplay shortcoming is that you can’t skip dialogues you’ve already heard in previous playthroughs – but for a 2-hour long movie it’s not that much of a deal.[Issue#220, p.72]

There’s a lot of little details that reflect your past choices. You won’t notice them the first time around, of course, but you may very well miss them on subsequent playthroughs – they’re worked into narrative that well. On the flipside, we have same old shortcomings: worn-out engine and QTEs that serve no purpose but to check if the player is still there. [Issue#220, p.67]

Previous game from Logic Artists, Expeditions: Conquistador, didn’t leave lasting impression on me, so I didn’t expect much from Vikings either. As it turns out, I was wrong – developers really nailed the setting and gave some mechanics a much-needed makeover. [Issue#220, p.52]

For those who didn’t fall in love with these games way back when, they’ll look too childish and, at the same time, punishingly difficult. There are no endless respawns on checkpoints, so if you run out of lives – you gotta start from scratch. For a fan, however, that collection is a real treat. [Issue#220, p.77]

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]

Level design also feels dated: there are a lot of ways to attract player’s attention where it’s needed, but Yooka-Laylee ignores them all: you can spend dozen minutes platform-jumping to reach a door – only to find out it won’t open because you missed something. Sure, it could be called “fair” or “realistic” – but how fun is it to run in circles? [Issue#219, p.80]

Combat boils down to cutting off and devouring everything that can be cut off and devoured. It’s enjoyable for a while, but there’s a lot of missions in the game and not nearly enough variations of monsters, so hunts quickly become very MMORPG’ey in terms of predictability and routine. [Issue#219, p.74]

It’s nice to know that Dave and Sandy from Maniac Mansion are doing fine, but they have no relation to this story. Same can be said for many others: storyline is chockfull of side stuff that ends up going nowhere. It’s also missing an ending – instead of resolving everything, Thimbleweed Parks plays a postmodernism card that leaves an extremely bad aftertaste [Issue#219, p.78]

Styx is a through-and-through stealth game, so scoring system doesn’t approve of murders, and enemy placement always leaves a way to slip by. But, unlike Thief, you’ll feel the desire to cut some throats. There, stealth was like a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse; here, it’s personal. It’s vendetta, where mercy has no place. Also, there are few things as satisfying as pouring acid on still-warm corpse to completely dissolve it. [Issue#219, p.68]

“Think like a snake” – that’s the motto of this game. No, that doesn’t mean you should hide in the sand behind some rock and wait for an opportune moment to snack on eggs of our calibri pal. Instead, you need to guess how many times you need to wrap yourself around some beam to avoid slipping into the abyss. [Issue#219, p.86]

Tasks that you receive before a match push the madness even further: “body-check that player”, “get 5 minutes of penalty time”, “win 3 fistfights”. In our days of sterile, cookie-cutter hockey sims a crazy (in a good way!) game like this one would instantly get a spot in hall of fame if it wasn’t for a number of shortcomings. [Issue#219, p.71]

Every hero chains his attacks, so to make sure that everything goes smooth – fast strikes take out shield while strong one lands on HP bar – you’ll have to juggle them from line to line. Add buffs and abilities to the mix, and you get a lot to think about. Too bad that progression in Has-Been Heroes heavily depends on luck – you can’t even buy a spell that you want, you have to pay for a cat in the bag. [Issue#219, p.67]

It feels like a StarCraft mod where unit models are replaced with Warhammer figurines. Grimdark and gore that are synonymous with Warhammer 40k were carefully gelded. Intro cutscene aside, this game could easily get 6+ age rating. [Issue#219, p.64]

“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]

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]

During epic battles Berserk fits musou genre nicely, but when Guts’ story gets at odds with game mechanics, things take a turn for the worse. [Issue#219, p.72]

Even the easiest difficulty presents a considerable challenge, since winning a fight in Battle Brothers isn’t the be-all and end-all, it’s equally important to keep your mercs alive and well. [Issue#219, p.90]

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]

A game that justifies buying Switch – or, at the very least, renting it for a good while. [Issue#218, p.72]

Whether intentional or not, Tank Troopers looks like a wannabe World of Tanks clone; too bad that it missed its mark by about the distance between Tokyo and Minsk. Good tank action needs good balance as well as nice variety of vehicles, maps and modes. Tank Troopers is lacking in each and every category. [Issue#218, p.56]