Being so devoted to Final Fantasy 7 means that there’s a lot of love to be found in Rebirth. And as a fan of that original game, it was so easy, for a while at least, to be swept up in the dazzling sights of Gaia, in the vibrant amusement park of games and sidequests at my fingertips, to hop on this rollercoaster journey with many of my all-time favorite characters and give myself to the joy of being able to spend more time with them. But all the charm and pageantry in the world can only distract me for so long before I realize: nothing has happened this whole vacation. The ship hasn’t even left the dock.

Despite it's killer opening act, Hi-Fi Rush fails to sustain its blend of rhythm and action all the way until the end.

A rough port and bungled narrative make The Last of Us Part 2 hard to recommend, though the remaster's additions and moment-to-moment action satisfy.

Technically impressive but just not as fun or innovative as its predecessor.

It still feels like PC gamers are getting short-changed, especially since the multiplayer game is still so weak. [Nov 2002, p.114]

Lovely, beautiful, heartwarming, and unable to convince me it needed my input as a player at all.

An imaginative management game but a weak story generator.

Monster Hunter Stories 3 delivers deep build crafting and battle systems, but they're wasted on a war story that's barely there.

More ambitious than its predecessors, but ultimately less balanced. [Jan 2001, p.148]

All of the money management amounts to nothing, because the ongoing saga of a single-player dynansty is built on a foundation of unrealistic and unsatisfying gameplay. [Holiday 2003, p.97a]

Demanding but excellent combat and gorgeous visuals sit awkwardly in a half-baked roguelike structure.

Still, Bionic Commando is packed with enough challenges and modes to woo even the most suicidal Spencer back into battle. [Dec 2008, p.58]

At its best when it's strangest, Inscryption doesn't know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

Titanium Court is a brilliantly singular roguelite with a surplus of style, but you're going to need to love match-three to want to stick around.

True, few games let you play as a soldier, tank commander, and pilot in the same sitting, but in order to enjoy yourself you must be able to feel comfortable with your controls and navigate the in-game menus intuitively.

Two Princes may not double your fun, but they will satisfy fans of the series. [Mar 2006, p.98]

Not everything it should've been, but sporadically brilliant and usually fun. [July 2004, p.56]

A palatable metroidvania with a mediocre story, my biggest frustration with The Lost Crown is how long it takes to get to the good stuff.

No FPS diehard should miss it, but I say that more for the Team Instant Action multiplayer than the enjoyable but forgettable single-player campaign. [Dec 2008, p.54]

Exciting combat and a plethora of sexy costumes can't totally save Stellar Blade's middling story and occasionally questionable level design.

Toca Race Driver 3 offers advancement over its predecessors, but until Codemasters recognizes and repairs the game's physics and AI weaknesses, this franchise will continue losing track position to the superior offerings from either side of the Atlantic that currently steer this game. [Apr 2006, p.98]

The Drifter is a gorgeous and moody point 'n' click adventure with impeccable art, but its pulp leanings undermine its best qualities.

Gris’s visual appeal hinders as much as it helps its exploration of grief.

Call of Duty's strongest multiplayer offering in years is dragged down by a tedious campaign.

The fighting is BG&E's weakest element, and there's a bit too much of it for the game's own good. [Mar 2004, p.71]

Climb aboard if your system has the juice. [Mar 2002, p.58]

Pretty visuals and fun multiplay aren't enough, though, and ultimately Zero Hour is cut off at the knees by a surprisingly long list of problems...There's simply no excuse for this expansion's bug-riddled state. [Holiday 2003, p.102]

Looks better than it plays, but it's got a good heart.

Repetition and trial-and-error learning can be numbing. Only dedicated explorers will unearth its interesting gameplay. [Sept 2011, p.80]

Starseed Pilgrim is composed of interesting elements and neat twists, but suffers from the assumption that you can encourage exploration simply by refusing to tell the player what to do. [Aug 2013, p.73]

A fun, charming, and occasionally brilliant Yakuza game, let down by an overabundance of repetitive turn-based battles.

In fact, World at War is a deeply symmetrical reapplication of CoD4's brilliant design, though executed with noticeably less polish. [Jan 2009, p.44]

A sensational audiovisual experience that starts to drag around halfway in.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles has the rush of excitement of the courtroom but chooses melodrama over mystery.

The crappy force-feedback effects and poor controller support (both my FF joysticks proved useless for playing the game) are sharp reminders of CMR 2005's console roots. [Holiday 2004, p.96]

The new design focus has created a schizophrenic game in which neither single-play nor multiplay is successful. [Holiday 2004, p.90]

Lies of P is a competent Soulslike if you can shrug off its flaws.

A mismatched mix of genres grafted onto a moving, beautifully presented story.

Sworcery is worth a look for the presentation and music, but despite the upgrade to HD the mobile version is still the one to go for. [Aug 2012, p.77]

The Prince's royale style-makers may have done their job, but the programmers needed to take another run at it. [March 2005, p.64]

There are moments of fun, especially towards the end, but too often I just wanted to ram a garlic-flavoured stake through Vampire Crawlers repetitive, grindy heart.

An excellent extension of "City of Heroes" with a too-mild mean streak. [Jan 2005, p.80]

Wonky mission design and technical issues drag down a solid stealth game that still has enjoyable multiplayer.

Good but not great, it's sweetly bland adventure porridge. [Feb 2004, p.79]

Raidou Remastered isn't the best Shin Megami Tensei game on PC, but its live-action take on a familiar turn-based combat system is as fun as it is fascinating.

A comfortable adventure on a noble path, but wearing spurs of a squire instead of the crown of a king.

The Bergson's are charming but their quest is a bit too lifeless. A middling dungeon crawler elevated by its style.

Fans of Warhammer 40,000 will be delighted by the spectacle and authenticity—but ultimately disappointed by messy action and unengaging multiplayer.

Pyre's campaign is repetitive and its combat never quite clicks, but a touching and thoughtful story makes it worth sticking through to the end.

Expanding a fine franchise, FT is the king of tactical combat games. [June 2001, p.72]

Offers some definite innovation in terms of unit creation and resource management, but the wretched unit AI and lackluster missions left me wondering what we were waiting all this time for. [Feb 2002, p.78]

There's the skeleton of a good Mortal Kombat here, but it's lacking in meat. Low on personality and half-baked in its attempt to reboot the story, it feels fated to be remembered as the least interesting of the modern MK games.

Bloody good combat carries Ninja Gaiden 4 through its more granular and extraneous "modern" additions.

If you're already hooked, pick it up. Otherwise, the benefits aren't worth the investment. [Mar 2001, p.68]

The one design flaw I can't forgive is the lack of in-mission saves. [May 2002, p.65]

A charming meowtroidvania.

This old-school shooter suffers from a lack of 21st-century game design. [Nov 2005, p.72]

The best Shadowrun to date, but the series is starting to go grey.

Technical issues marr an otherwise slick adventure. A must for Star Wars fans.

Flawed and overfamiliar, but still as joyously OTT and hilarious as ever.

​Stunningly rendered close-ups of nature make Unravel’s somber fable and irritating death traps just worth surviving.

Fortnite suffocates what could be an incredible tower defense game beneath the some of the most tangential, egregious, impersonal progression systems we’ve seen.

Hunt: Showdown is a clever, hard-nosed FPS that doesn't have enough substance to be truly essential yet.

Ghostrunner deserved a sequel; specifically, a sequel better than this one.

Great combat and mountains of loot can't compensate for Amalur's generic world design and familiar story. [May 2012, p.72]

Perhaps the beat-'em-up genre's best ever roster of playable characters, let down by an inconsistent campaign that wears out too fast.

A killer puzzle game that tests your skill and your patience.

Ostfront offers just a single, limiting game mode. [Jun 2006, p.46]

An endless font of bad jokes and cool guns in the series' most vapid story yet, Borderlands 3 skates by on watching numbers fly and goons explode.

You can probably find single-player games that are just as fun. [Jan 2005, p.84]

Skip the tedious single-player campaign, jump into the great, fast-paced multiplayer fray--and hope it works on your PC. [Feb 2011, p.66]

A slight and repetitive but cute farming game, Slime Rancher doesn't quite reach the heights of its sub-genre.

A must-buy for diehard "DS9" fans, and a decent game otherwise. [Feb 2001, p.87]

Wonderfully authentic, but it's too familiar, cumbersome with a pad, and the career management is unusually tedious.

A solid fighting game mired in its own questionable presentation. Superseded since its console launch.

Unfortunately, the platform physics are as bipolar as the hero, turning the game's excellent animation into a veneer for unpolished gameplay. [Sep 2006, p.96]

Visually beautiful and emotionally affecting thanks to strong characters, A Plague Tale suffers from missing gameplay variety and tonal inconsistencies.

Despite its greater scale and visual splendour, this sequel fails to escape the shadow of its predecessor with a muddled tale that Senua herself feels out of place in.

Puzzle design does the heavy lifting for Trine 4, a fun but ultimately hollow experience.

CMBfN is a very good tactical wargame saddled with pre-alpha looks and controls. [Dec 2011, p.74]

Fun and frantic, with plenty of challenge. GoNNER is weird and beautiful, despite its lack of depth.

A slightly messy first-person shooter lifted by some excellent weapons and a gorgeous art style.

Nails the look, the sound, and the speed, but Redout stalls on the sensation.

It's been an excellent year for the Freelance Police; it would be a shame for the series to end here, but it gives a fitting send-off. [Nov 2010, p.79]

There's nothing in its new content that can be considered absolutely essential. [Holiday 2006, p.76]

A messy story and horrible characters get in the way of decent, violent action in a scintillating open city.

The fact is, Syberia 2 doesn't top the first game. It starts out strong - Kate second-guesses her leap of faitih, yet perseveres to outwit a misogynistic monk - but there's just not enough narrative thrust to support a compelling second chapter in the story. [Apr 2004, p.71]

Occasionally fun but often unconscientious, Detroit: Beyond Human takes steps in the right direction but retains too much of the old Quantic Dream formula.

While its overbearing narrator robs Season of the wonder and meditation it so clearly aspires to, I still managed to find a little of my own. I just wish its letter to the future was one I got to write, rather than one I only got to carry.

Fun, not-too-hard stealth puzzles that look great, wrapped up in a humdrum story with a boring protagonist.

The latest iteration of Konami's football game is fine, but inorganic, stolid, and a little dull. Pick FIFA over this on PC.

Reanimal doesn't meaningfully develop Tarsier's approach to gameplay in the Little Nightmares games, but it's a grim sight to behold, and a worthwhile horror adventure.

A tightly written story with multiple endings and difficult choices would make this the best "Splinter Cell" game to date...if it had been released in a finished state. [Feb. 2007, p.62]

Entertaining storytelling and fantastic naval combat marred by terrible mission design and endemic feature creep.

It's certainly impressive in its own over-the-top way, but if you're looking for depth and strategy in a basketball game, you'll be thoroughly disappointed. [Feb 2003, p.76]

There were time when I felt more like I was playing an amateur mod than a professional expansion pack. [Apr 2006, p.51]

An uneven epic whose historical richness guides it through some awkward pacing.

As rough as the back of an old rocker’s throat, but gleeful whether you dream heavy metal nightmares or not.