Guardian's Scores

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For 1,012 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 40% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 55% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 75
Highest review score: 100 The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Lowest review score: 20 Alfred Hitchcock: Vertigo
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 684 out of 1012
  2. Mixed: 250 out of 1012
  3. Negative: 78 out of 1012
1021 game reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    OlliOlli World
    If you’re feeling understandably worn down by the monotony of the daily grind, OlliOlli World is the charming virtual alternative.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Two Point Museum
    Two Point Museum takes all the lessons from the previous games and builds on them to make a thoughtful and hugely entertaining contribution to the management sim genre.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
    Right now, it’s my main contender for game of the year, simply because, in its lack of pretension, its attention to detail and its understanding that video games first and foremost should be fun, it puts everything else I’ve played recently in its long shadow.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If Found...
    Despite its heavy themes, the game exudes fondness for the region it depicts. Wind whips across sandy beaches, chippies host late-night chats between friends, and Kasio gazes at stars through a broken roof while a house party rages below. Gaelic and local slang pepper the dialogue, alongside a helpful glossary. The sense of place, strength of writing, evocative art and elegant interactions make If Found … a moving drama, beautifully capturing the growing pains of early adulthood.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Case of the Golden Idol
    The Case of the Golden Idol is a game of reasoning, elegantly modest in execution – the artwork is rudimentary, but strikingly so – but one that often requires extravagant feats of deduction. Genuinely new and inventive forms of play are relatively rare in video games, a medium that more often trades in refinement than revolution. Which makes this even more thrilling. Its puzzles are inventive, but so too is the way they must be solved, allowing both a trial-and-error approach and pure deductive reasoning. A game of wondrous, Sherlockian texture that plays out in our own imagination as much as on screen.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dark Souls Remastered
    If you want to visit Lordran and enjoy a straight-up bash-the-baddies quest, then you’ll find no better collection of bosses than this. If a new kind of adventure appeals, however, one in which quick fingers matter less than brains and human cunning, there’s still nothing like Dark Souls. After seven years its mystery has diminished, but it’s still among the best of the best.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Battlefield 3
    Battlefield 3 was supposed to bring down CoD, and without a campaign – which seems to be DICE's approximation of a CoD experience – this wouldn't have been possible. This is unfortunate, because the instances in which DICE seem to have tried to beat their rivals at their own game have resulted in Battlefield 3's weakest content.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Assassin's Creed III
    It's possible to lose days in Assassin's Creed 3, although if players stick doggedly to the campaign, they'll clock in about 20 hours. On top of that, there's a multiplayer – and for a game where the focus for most of the fanbase will be the single-player, this one's actually rather good.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1
    In the background, the mystery at the heart of the game is subtly introduced and there’s much to anticipate from the second part. Mostly though, it’s the characters and their brittle relationships that stick with you. Three days after finishing the game I’m still thinking about them, worrying about them, inhabiting that old shack with them. Unless you simply refuse to indulge in emotional young adult drama, you will be right there, too.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gears of War 4
    Gears of War 4 may adhere to a seemingly old-fashioned template but, in practice, it feels anything but archaic. Its single-player campaign is much more varied and engaging than those of its predecessors and the online mode is exhilarating, catering for all shades of gamers, from the less adept to those with pro-gamer aspirations. The horde thoroughly deserves its 3.0 designation upgrade and as a whole, the fourth iteration gives the Gears of War template the rejuvenating shot in the arm it sorely needed.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Halo 5: Guardians
    With so much at stake, Halo 5 needed to be a new perfection of old triumphs, or a landscape-altering revolution. In terms of its campaign it falls short of both of these ideals. Online, however, 343 has taken more significant risks, of the sort that first convinced Apple and Microsoft to place bets on the series. Warzone, in particular, is a kind of bold design that we almost never see in expensive FPS game-making any more.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    F1 2018
    F1 2018 is a very, very good racing game. The authenticity is exceptional, whether you’re twiddling with the ERS system’s electronic boost-delivery as you figure out a way past the car in front, or trying not to get penalised for driving too quickly in a virtual safety car situation. For die-hard Formula One fans, it’s essential, but an abundance of driver aids make it forgiving enough to welcome more casual motor-racing fans, too.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yakuza: Like a Dragon
    Offering a unique brand of tongue-in-cheek escapism that should induce a laugh roughly every five minutes, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a perfect lockdown game. The one unintentionally amusing element is the voice acting, which you can thankfully eliminate by opting to keep the original Japanese dialogue with subtitles. Sega’s Yakuza games have always seemed like a well-kept secret, but they’ve recently been enjoying much more appreciation abroad. If you like the idea of a very Japanese, gangster-themed, interactive comedy soap opera, you’ll absolutely adore it.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Darkest Dungeon
    Darkest Dungeon is something fresh in one of gaming’s most overdone genres, and the stress system is a winner – a particular delight being how a long-lived character will accumulate various mental scars.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Killzone 3
    Online, Killzone 3 isn't going to cause mass outbreaks of tumbleweed on CoD and Battlefield servers but, once again, it improves on Killzones 1 and 2.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stacking
    Stacking is right up there with the likes of Braid and Limbo as an absolute must-download.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    F1 2011
    Pretty much an essential purchase for any self-respecting petrol-head, and a lot more compelling and enticing than those who don't dream about lap times might imagine. If he played it (it's not easy to imagine him sat in front of a games console), Bernie Ecclestone would surely approve.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    F1 23
    There is plenty of novelty here to attract seasoned F1 game pros and newcomers, who may start off with F1 World. It’s technically magnificent: it looks and feels incredible, and its off-track production values are sky-high. Sure, the continued presence of loot boxes – seemingly de rigueur in any EA Sports game these days – cheapens it slightly, but at least it doesn’t force them upon you too brashly.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Need for Speed: Most Wanted
    Criterion has done it again, setting a new standard for arcade-style racing games which won't be surpassed until the next generation of consoles has been on sale for a while. It actually leaves one feeling a bit sorry for Forza Horizon, which is a very good game, and infinitely superior to its predecessors. But Need For Speed: Most Wanted is, by whatever criteria you may see fit to apply, a great game.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
    Though The Lost Legacy boasts beautiful new environments to explore and for Chloe to take collectible photos of on her smartphone, the journey through them feels very familiar. The only thing that’s truly fresh about this game is the protagonists, but they’re a promising pair, and those who don’t mind a formulaic sequel should take the chance to get to know them. They’ve certainly proved that we don’t need Drake.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lair of the Clockwork God
    Size Five delivers both classic platforming and point-and-click adventuring in this self-aware and deeply anglocentric caper.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hogwarts Legacy
    Hogwarts Legacy starts to feel like countless open-world games of the past decade once you’ve been playing it for more than 15 hours. However, you get to ride a Hippogriff. It’s those magical moments and the setting that rescue it from mediocrity, but only if the Wizarding World still has you under its spell.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Resident Evil Village
    The brilliance here – as with all the best Resident Evil games – is the way it switches modes when you least expect it. You can be deep in thought, wandering familiar corridors searching for the solution to a puzzle, when suddenly a werewolf leaps out at you from a previously safe place, or a creepy doll falls from a shelf, and you jump five feet off the sofa. At the same time, it is rife with the ludicrous: weird voice acting, an unfathomable plot, hokey environmental storytelling – but none of it really matters when you’re being chased up some stairs by a gigantic slime creature that giggles like a baby.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bulletstorm
    With Casualty levels of gore, Itchy and Scratchy levels of violent humour and many, many hours of multi-player testosterone-fuelled fun, if Bulletstorm's not a classic in the making, it's not far off.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Fallout: New Vegas
    The map, though similar-sized to Fallout 3's, seems more jam-packed than ever – New Vegas is less a sandbox game than whole beach to play around in.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Viewfinder
    Viewfinder is magical, then, but also short-lived. Even with the optional puzzles, you can easily finish the whole thing over two or three evenings, and it never quite capitalises on the promise of the camera, the promise of getting lost inside picture after picture after picture. Each level is bespoke, tiny; although the very final sequence, a timed dash through puzzle after puzzle, hints at a grander potential. I’m left dazzled by the possibilities, but ultimately wanting more.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    SOMA
    Soma tells an affective tale and carries the horror genre a few steps forward. Had Frictional shown the courage to shake off tradition entirely, it could have carried it further still.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Venba
    Venba is a great example of stories we need to see more of. It would just have been nice to see more of this particular story, too.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gran Turismo 5
    But it has a sheer appreciation, and love, for cars and driving that is difficult to resist. At times it feels less like playing a game and more like indulging in a hobby.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
    Like Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which was also billed as a shorter, complementary adventure, Spider-Man: Miles Morales gains something from its more limited focus. The story isn’t massively innovative, but it is full of heart and genuinely engaging, and the action feels as enthralling and intuitive as it did in 2018’s Spider-Man. The message at its core is that self-belief is infectious and that individual actions can reignite whole communities: perhaps not something we might expect from a combat-focused superhero adventure, but here we are. And in 2020, many people will gratefully and wholeheartedly embrace this kind of positivity, wherever they find it.
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