It doesn’t look like a lot of effort went into porting a 2011 PSP game to current gen home consoles, as we got the same low-quality character models, cardboard box levels and ubiquitous loading screens of the original. Still, Final Fantasy fans definitely shouldn’t miss Type-0, if only to get a feel of FFXV’s director style. [May 2015, p.76]

Worlds of Magic invades your life like a hungry spirit of a Christmas long past due, its eyes alight with blue flame, its bony fingers grasping the autobiography of Master of Magic. In a few hours, after it’ll disappear in a puff of glitchy smoke, your head will ache and you’ll have trouble remembering the events of your time together. Still, you’ll have a feeling that it wasn’t all that bad. [May 2015, p.74]

Starships is, first and foremost, a mobile game. It’s way too simple and flat (in every sense of the word) for PC, but is OK for a tablet. [May 2015, p.72]

At first, Ori looks like a very easy game. But that’s a deception: the further you go into the forest, the louder cracking of your thumbs will become. Our condolences go to anyone who will try to beat Ori on keyboard+mouse combo instead of gamepad. [May 2015, p.71]

On its own, HM2 could be classified as an ‘indie hit’: it has challenging gameplay, great soundtrack and even a nuclear blast, – but it cannot hold its ground when compared to the first Hotline Miami. [May 2015, p.70]

Capcom doesn’t fund Revelations series properly, so Revelations 2 at times looks too old-fashioned and underpolished, – yet it still manages to be sufficiently tense, difficult and interesting for a series’ fan. [May 2015, p.66]

Veterans of From Software games may find Bloodborne a tad too easy, as it lacks input hiccups, weird hitboxes and other oddities that noticeably raised the difficulty in Souls-series games. [May 2015, p.62]

The game made its debut at a very fortunate time, when its closest competitors are at their weakest: new iterations of Cities XL content-wise are closer to a DLC, and SimCity remains a total disappointment. While Skylines doesn’t offer any groundbreaking novelties, it does genre’s basics very well and tries to make city-building interface as user-friendly as possible. [May 2015, p.60]

As it always is with Battlefield, Hardline relies on multiplayer to push its rating and sales. But, in contrast to its predecessors, Hardline’s online battles are much more dynamic and more akin to Call of Duty’s shootouts. [May 2015, p.54]

Attempts to crack a joke about every single thing lead to a humor overdose, while overbranching dialogues become a burden. But even if you’ll get bored, it won’t last long: something unexpected will definitely happen to jerk you alive. [April 2015, p.73]

Defiant Development tried to kill three birds with one stone, but managed only to wound one – namely, deck-building concept of Hand of Fate is a quite interesting experiment. But instead of polishing it, developers spent their time chasing after the other two avians – combat and trap-filled mazes. [April 2015, p.71]

About half of the mechanics don’t work as before and some are simply absent. As a result, people who’ve played the original Homeworld get confused by the remake: it looks like the same game, but the gameplay isn’t. [April 2015, p.68]

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]

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]

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]

Did Turtle Rock succeed in laying the foundations of 4vs1 genre? For the most part yes, yet they have too much riding on a person playing as monster – basically, he’s the one who ultimately determines how interesting the game will be. [April 2015, p.58]

During the development someone probably should’ve raised an alarm when it turned out that the game about monster-hunters doesn’t have interesting fights with monsters. [April 2015, p.54]

Of course, as with any episodic game, it is difficult to predict where do plot twists lead or how will we perceive this adventure once we’ve seen it in its entirety. But right now it’s very difficult to believe that this is Dreamfall we’ve been looking forward to for the last eight years. [Dec 2014, p.72]

There is no doubt that a number of changes led to better quality. But to play Monster Hunter 4 with a comfort you should obtain the New 3DS. [Issue #195, p.85]

That "I did my best but failed..." accompanies Grey Goo in almost every aspect. The game is really good but constantly stumbles on small, but noticeable imperfections. Excellent re-creation of the C&C game mechanics without the inherent C&C drive. Lovely base management with solely battle tactics of "grasp all units with a frame and send them to attack". High complexity, which is based on the cheating AI. Balance of a game from 1995 in a year of 2015. [Issue #195, p.82]

You will not find here the familiar classic DotA gameplay with towers, bases and infinitely spawning infantry. Instead, the CD Projekt RED created the team slasher in the format "3 vs. 3" with the main goal to capture and hold control points. [Issue #195, p.81]

More dull character for interactive drama is difficult to imagine. The LiS world is documentarily trivial, and the college, where Miss Caulfield will be studying managed to gather all the clichés from American movies for young adults: guys from sport team, kids with rich parents, nerds of all kinds... There is only one thing that is going to crush local routine: Max, for some unknown reason, is able to control time. [Issue #195, p.76]

If the first Blackguards was practically rail RPG with a well-developed tactical battles, then the offspring suddenly revealed some features of Jagged Alliance. After capturing the town in the lower right corner of the map the following Cassia’s trip to the capital can be laid as one please: horizontally, vertically, diagonally or as cunning sinusoid. [Issue #195, p.75]

The first seconds of acquaintance with a maze game makes it clear that we are facing an improved and expanded version of Etrian Odyssey – a niche game of good quality from the same Atlus, the Japanese anime relative of Wizardry and Might & Magic. [Issue #195, p.74]

Despite the sharp turn toward pacifism one can easily recognize Croteam style: unusual for puzzles large open locations, majestic architectural forms of ancient civilizations... It seems that you are about to hear the cries of a headless kamikazes. So when a screaming figure dashes nearby you start spinning the mouse wheel in search of shotgun on pure reflex. [Issue #195, p.68]

Night chases are the best moments of the game: a horde of zombies is stomping behind you, much more agile hunters are breathing in your neck and ahead you see the pack of undead, who has not yet realized what is going on. You have a split second to decide if you will try to break through the crowd, or turn to the alley and pray to all the known gods in hope to escape from pursuit. [Issue #195, p.64]

Total War: Attila clearly goes beyond the usual add-on, but it hardly can be considered as sequel. Despite the serious work on the bugs and several significant innovations it is almost the same Rome II. This is what Rome II should have been from the very beginning – with hard, dynamic and diverse gameplay which is equally alluring both to green neophytes and hardened professionals. [Issue #195, p.58]

Whenever Randal’s Monday stops pretending to be a classic adventure and forgoes tedious puzzles like "find the hidden switch," it turns into a vicious manifesto that mercilessly tears apart geek-culture. [Feb 2015]