Overall, it’s a calm and relaxing journey through a strange fantasy world that will be exactly what some players are looking for.

It feels sometimes like Deathloop couldn’t decide what it really wanted to be. Stealth game? Bullet opera? Retro-cool ‘60s spy romp? Mind-melting time travel story? When it tries to be all of these things at once, it ends up not being very much of anything. I liked the core concept but after twenty hours I didn’t feel like I knew more about how an island could get stuck living the same day over and over than I did at the outset.

Visually, Elex 2 is uninspiring and lacks a competent UI to make its plethora of quests enjoyable to keep track of and complete. Its visuals are also severely lacking for a game where its whole world is filled with interesting people to meet and various locations to explore. Once you get past this initial shock, however, you will realize Elex 2 is a solid RPG with a unique story that grows on you over time.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure brings back Max for another instance in her life where her powers grant her the means of righting a wrong, but instead she discovers an alternate timeline and events that remind her of her past. Instead of fully diving into it, the game ultimately shoves her past and present aside and tries to make you forget it leaving you with unanswered questions. It has some strong points and features thought-provoking storytelling the series is known for, but it ultimately feels like a roll of film needing some development.

While some things work beautifully for the game considering its inspirations, Scars Above fails to catch up them due to its limitations in design and gameplay. It’s an ambitious game, for sure, and while its combat is fun and story strings you along, you will wish that it was more polished and more of a challenge.

Assassin's Creed: Shadows is a game full of contrasts. On one hand, it offers solid stealth mechanics and a great combat system, but on the other, it features a lackluster storyline and generic exploration. If you're a fan of the series, you'll likely find something to enjoy here, but if you weren't convinced from the start, the combat and stealth may not be enough to win you over.

Star Wars Outlaws is a smuggler with flaws that are easy to turn a blind eye to and be charmed by despite them. The cinematic story told keeps you intrigued until the end, the worlds are pleasing to the eye, and the gameplay offers a variety of attractions. Yes, there are problems, but they are not very painful, you can get used to them, sometimes you just need to grit your teeth and curse at the screen. The Force in this game turned out to be stronger than I assumed.

Overall, my experience with Lords of the Fallen was average. The game has its pros and is an improvement over the original from 2014. The combat is better, although in terms of bosses, you can see that sometimes the developers had to resort to controversial choices. In addition, there are numerous technical issues and a somewhat limited world, which is quite pleasant nonetheless.

Saints Row left me wanting more. Even the radio stations you can listen to and the track selection felt small in comparison to how bombastic of a soundtrack its past games had. While its side missions checked the open-world box of giving you something to do to keep you busy during or after you finish the story, most of them felt repetitive and only some truly captured the fun the games are known for thanks to some clever writing and line delivery.

I will say the amount of art, voice overs, and unique environments is really impressive. You’ll still have to do plenty of reading but they do a good job of making the world look, feel, and sound unique. Everything feels handmade and it almost makes me think if this developer team remade Fallout I just might make time for that trip back to the wasteland.

If you can forgive a pretty forgettable combat system you’ll have a pretty decent fantasy romp with King’s Bounty II.

While Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree reads well on paper and boasts an intriguing premise, it stumbles in execution, delivering a game that needs more polish to truly shine as the next great Soulslike Metroidvania.

Call of Duty: Vanguard is built like a rollercoaster so you have your highs, your lows, and moments that flatline. There’s no question its three modes are fun to play and offer fans enough content to keep them busy for some time, but this is Call of Duty, after all. Until Activision does something completely different with the series, don’t expect it to feel too different each year.

Stressful yet relaxing, realistic yet laughably stiff at times – Bus Simulator 21 is full of contradictions some will appreciate and others won’t understand. It succeeds in giving you a faithful recreation of what it’s like to drive around a bus all day and all the ups and downs that come with the job. It also keeps things as safe as possible causing it to be as mundane as, well, driving a bus all day.

B4B has so much potential and if it does end up getting the classic versus mode so many L4D fans want so badly then it will end up being a near-perfect game. For the time being, it’s a solid bit of zombie slaying fun that’s a cut above some of the other undead shooting gallery games out there. I just hope Turtle Rock gets the message and brings classic versus mode back from the grave, because the current incarnation of PvP is dead on arrival.

We get the same, great framework, lots of bugs, and a promise for a better tomorrow. But that's probably not enough to give Modern Warfare 2 a higher score. During the 80 hours that I have already spent with the game, I did have a great time, and the developers still promise mountains of gold. I don't believe in these promises. Although I am happy and I can't stop playing, I also have the impression that I am participating in an it-was-supposed-to-be-so-great type of event. And I realize that in a month, six months, even a year, this game will probably look completely different (it will, Activision, right?!) – but today? It is what it is. Just a good game. Still addictive, but I was hoping for more.

“Hoa” means flower in Vietnamese, so it makes sense for the game to be ephemeral, delicate, and yet beautiful all at once. If you strip away its art and music, would be a very boring game. But its art direction and wonderful soundtrack truly turn it into a playable piece of art that you just want to explore. Where it lacks in ingenuity, Hoa makes up for in the mood it creates for you within its short life.

Overall, this is a great game that is bogged down by a handful of issues. Many of the problems with this game come from the genre it’s replicating but Cris Tales still manages to add some new and exciting mechanics. Going forward it will be exciting to see what new and creative ideas Dreams Uncorporated thinks of next.

Developers from the Polish studio Red Dot Games have chosen the path of slow evolution of their brand – I'm still waiting for a revolution. I wanted a shiny new car straight from the factory – instead I got a decent used car, which, albeit pretty and working, isn't that spectacular.

Unbound is a middle of the road platforming experience with some nice art but some rough edges when it comes to difficulty scaling and design. Unforgiving sections also hold the game back and without a great story to push you through the hard parts it winds up being a tough sell. If you’re into the Dark Souls level of challenge then go forth and platform. More casual players will want to seek out something more palatable.

If Visions of Mana spent as much time and energy as it did in its battles into its narrative, we would have gotten a very different game. Instead, the game seems off-balance but definitely has the potential to be a fun experience if you solely focus on the battles and not on its plot. Don’t get me wrong—there are moments in the game where the story introduces some action elements that make you feel like you are getting somewhere, but these moments are overshadowed by the rest of the story’s rather bland narrative.

Dead Island 2’s witty lines, weapon system, and combat customization options save it from obscurity, but let’s hope the next installment offers a lot more variety and creativity to compete with the other zombie titles out there doing it better.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from MachineGames studio is a true love letter to fans of the original film trilogy. (But it's not without flaws).

As Blightbound emerges from its year in Steam Early Access one can’t help but think that it might be doing so a bit too early. Lingering issues with the pretty visual elements overlapping each other, uneven party balance, repetitive loot with lackluster stats, AI/single player issues, and a bare-bones leveling design suggest that this game could do with more fundamental development work before taking the main stage. With its creative art and engaging voice talent, there is definite potential here for a terrific dungeon crawler, but the overall elements just have not entirely come together as of yet.

Detective Pikachu Returns is a fun albeit flawed game designed for children to enjoy with a family member next to them. Its core gameplay does get repetitive the more you play it, but what brings it all together and keeps you engaged is its story and themes that give it depth despite taking place in a game that looks too simple to even make an impact.

Quality-of-life improvements here and there, preserving its online modes, and additional content would have made this the “ultimate” trilogy fans may have been hoping for. Instead, newcomers will enjoy playing one of the best, if not most challenging, action games ever made and older fans will remember why they fell in love with the series in the first place, all of its flaws included.

Darktide looks great, sounds fantastic, and even with all my complaining… I've spent 53 hours playing it. 53 hours of the kind of fun that no other game this year gave me. And I'm sure that in six months, or a year, Darktide will be a game that will deserve a much higher rating.

And there is one more advantage of GRID Legends over its ancestor – graphics, obviously. Actually, the game looks really pretty on its own terms and won’t be ashamed in front of Forza or even Gran Turismo 7. Rain is especially well done; it may be the first time when I was impressed by weather effects nearly as much as in DriveClub (yup, the one released in 2014; this game still has stunning graphics). Also environments are very detailed and decorated with dense crowds of people or fireworks.