So, an expertly crafted space adventure? Yes. One of the best examples of this genre we've ever seen? Also yes, with the caveat that it's a style of game that's been sadly under-represented in recent years. The lack of heavy simulation elements and emphasis on combat makes this a game that's perfect for a quick blast as well as longer play sessions, but it's also a satisfying and, thanks to all the side missions, really quite long adventure that'll keep you looting and shooting through space for up to 90 hours.

As complete a chess package as you could want, although it's missing a few friendly touches. [Oct 2004, p.88]

Kalimba is a beautiful, cheerful platformer that finds a neat middle ground between reflex-oriented running and taxing puzzle solving.

Another superlative career mode, but the avatar customisation and tacked-on supercars feel like bullet points.

Novel presentation and a masterful complexity curve, but The Pedestrian's very shy about storytelling.

Balanced, innovative, gorgeous. Truly worthy of the series. [Holiday 2005, p.52]

I hope we don't have to wait another 10 years for more. [Mar 2010, p.81]

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

Agreeable hack-'n'-slash fare – the puzzling and platforming is lightweight, but offsets the roaming and robust combat well.

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

Periodically veers toward mediocrity, but wrapped in a richly drawn world that transcends the game's flaws--just barely. [Jun 2010, p.70]

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

Trials of Fire's list of features may read like a videogame word salad, but the resulting combination makes for a fine RPG feast.

It was originally conceived for the keyboard only, and though you can reconfigure its commands, the game isn't very mouse friendly. [Mar 2002, p.61]

It clearly remains the best chess game on the market, bar none...With few new features, though, where's the series heading? [Dec 2002, p.104]

Nothing truly groundbreaking, but it's an excellent multiplayer RTS game. [Jan 2004, p.106]

If you can’t find something to love about this game, dump your computer in the garbage right now. Arcanum epitomizes what people like you and me love most about PC gaming.

Definitely flawed, but still a serious threat to Papyrus' stranglehold. [Dec 2000, p.145]

Find a good outfit and learn the game's nuances, and you'll be hooked. [Sept 2003, p.76]

It can be difficult to keep your concentration when all hell is breaking loose, and I found myself pausing the game a fair bit just to get some bearing on what in the name of zombie jeebus was going on. But once the smoke, literally, clears and you come out the other side victorious, there's little more satisfying.

The Walking Dead's signature moral dilemmas are more nuanced than ever in a plot-heavy second episode.

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.

Excellent VR combat and movement wedged inside a repetitive quest system.

A promising, assured start, and a welcome return to form for Telltale.

Addictive action and loot collection make it worth putting up with constant irritation from nearly all other aspects of this uniquely beautiful shooter. [Holiday 2009, p.61]

Defense Grid 2 isn't just another tower defense game, it's the best new tower defense game.

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

I guess it's true what they say: Bad guys have more fun. [Oct 2007, p.64]

A captivating journey into a beautiful, atmospheric wilderness, with a touching story that doesn’t always hit the right notes.

It borrows from the proven models of other successful games, and puts them in a new venue. It’s fun, deep, and bug-free. [Jan 2002, p.70]

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

But even with so much free material competing for the attention of Oblivion fans, Knights of the Nine offers a compelling package of polished content. [Mar 2007, p.64]

An okay platformer but a deeply imaginative horror game, Little Nightmares is worth playing for its array of disturbing imagery.

At last: royalty I feel emotionally invested in! Reigns: Her Majesty is a smart and surprising extension of the original swipe-'em narrative game.

An extremely intelligent sci-fi interrogation sim that’s unpredictable for all the right reasons.

Judero is peak indie game: Funky, weird, rough and wonderful in a way only such a small, ambitious project could be.

Darkest Dungeon 2 is a challenging yet fun roguelite experience, even if it does sacrifice some of what made the original great.

Joyful and surprising, even when you're cracking open an anthropomorphised egg.

Marathon is a brilliant distillation of what makes extraction shooters great, and a glimpse at where they could go next.

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.

A survival colony builder that generates stories of triumph, disaster, and white-knuckle rescues.

Lots of nice tweaking and some sweet new courses. Otherwise, par for the course. [Dec 2005, p.70]

One of the best to ever do it. Rollerdrome is an action showstopper.

Tense and thrilling with finely tuned systems, Saints & Sinners is a must-have VR experience.

Like any good ride, it delights at every twist and turn and leaves you wanting more. [Jan 2005, p.74]

The PC port doesn't introduce much new and certain elements could be stronger, but Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen still shines as a uniquely enjoyable RPG.

A great expansion, and a promising sign of things to come. Some minor issues aside, Heart of Thorns is a clever addition to one of the best MMOs around.

Busy friends list but short of local pals? This safe but solid sequel was made for you.

Brings a generous number of new elements to the Sims 2 core game. But you're forced to focus on the more mundane, tedious aspects of Sim life, and that makes it a bit too hard to enjoy all the cool new stuff. [May 2005, p.68]

Without Evermore, Ni No Kuni 2 would have been good. Because of it, it's one of the best JRPGs on PC.

Although its foundation in Civ 5 makes it familiar, Beyond Earth is full of interesting surprises that are pleasantly difficult to master.

The definitive PES on PC, if you can get a game online.

There's a few bolts that could be tightened up here and there, but Jagged Alliance is back in business.

A PC port that minimizes Halo: Reach's flaws and highlights its strengths, from the unique campaign to the joy of a clean headshot.

As a game, there's not a lot of challenge to Eden--but as an experience, it's well worth spending time with. [May 2012, p.67]

While the name may be slightly misleading, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is a fantastic way to experience one of the best action games ever made.

A layered and engaging space opera that triumphs both on and off the battlefield.

This expansion has depth, it's incredibly challenging, and it highlights superlative production values in all the areas you'd expect, and even in some you wouldn't. [Feb 2003, p.83]

Despite rough edges, Flanker 2.0 is the best hardcore sim on the market. [Feb 2000, p.119]

Not only the most accessible wargame on the market, but it's also a rich and fascinating tactical simulation. It's war on your computer. [Mar 2004, p.76]

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

Wasteland 2 lives up to its legacy. It’s a game that has come full circle—from inspiration for Interplay’s Fallout, to spiritual successor for that franchise’s roots. This wasteland is deep and dark and dangerous, and a great place to get lost in.

Despite an annoying story mode, Anno 1800 is the biggest and best entry in the series to date.

Jamestown harkens back to an era when we played games just to get a high score--when beating a game this challenging actually earned you bragging rights. [Oct 2011, p.77]

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]

Modern Warfare evolves the series for the better, but it could be so much more.

I'm not a big fan of the game's pacing, either. Kohan II can be agonizingly slow in the beginning, which on the one hand is nice because it discourages rushing, but on the other hand...well, it's boring. [Nov 2004, p.104]

Tense, haunting and beautiful. Inventory shenanigans aside, one of the best survival horror games yet.

An RPG with a great sense of fun and whimsy, as well as surprising depth to its character building.

More of a refresh than expected, but still hands down the best modern way to conquer unknown space.

Keeper is a gorgeous little package of tightly designed puzzles and cerebral platforming that showcases what makes Double Fine's games so uniquely special.

Ultros is easy enough that you rarely have to fully engage with its most interesting mechanics, and its writing struggles to effectively convey its lofty ideals. But the lines still connect together at the end, turning this metroidvania into a beautiful, circular experience of presence and balance. It’s a game that wants you to see the world differently when you finish it, and the way everything is connected. If nothing else, what other game lets you take a stroll through an umbilical cord?

An atmospheric collection of clever, surprising interactive short stories with a gorgeous retro aesthetic.

Another strong (yet stressful) management sim from Frontier Developments.

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

A beautiful 2D soulslike with enough bright ideas of its own to stand out.

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

While it isn’t perfect, it does offer up one hell of a good time. [Holiday 2001, p.96]

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

The joy of Culture Shock is clicking on anything and everything that's interactive and listening to the characters riff on it in philosophical brain-gasms. [Holiday 2006, p.112]

One of the most fun and challenging local co-op games ever made, but the single-player experience is less thrilling, making the lack of online play disappointing.

A worthy new entry in the legendary series that’s equal parts progressive and dated.

Sharp and compelling strategy that expands on the first game with a clever new progression system, but at over twice the length it's in danger of outstaying its welcome.

Almost everything you'd want of a TrackMania, but as a TrackMania 2 it leaves a lot to be desired, and hopefully fixed. [Holiday 2011, p.76]

A smooth and mesmerising experience that includes nothing it doesn't need.

As chaotic and exhilarating as Battlefield has always been. Just don’t expect a dramatic reinvention of the series.

Breezy fun that also rewards combo-chasing mastery. Barrel through the story once for a laugh, then replay the best levels until you are John Wick on a skateboard.

A slick RPG with superb tactical combat, a detailed world to explore, and a gleefully crude sense of humour.

Coffee shop philosophy with a side of comedy banter, plated attractively.

While this in-game training certainly gets the action moving in a hurry, more of the actual Force-progression elements should have been set in the Academy. [Dec 2003, p.112]

An improvement in every area, including The Journey mode.

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

Technical shortcomings aside, Dragonfall’s story rocks; a well-spent $15 for any RPG fan.

A tense and taxing but wonderfully engaging hybrid of singleplayer roguelike and extraction shooter.

Company of Heroes 3 is a spectacular RTS that manages to shine even when the main campaign doesn't.

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.