The biggest frights of the ever-expanding series without quite the same unease and variety.

A decent murder mystery game that suffers heavily from poor controls and menus.

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

An open-world samurai adventure with an interesting structure and a lot of personality that is, unfortunately, not very good.

An immensely satisfying mix of platforming, stealth, action, and resource management, with character.

A challenging and atmospheric platformer with a remarkable sense of tension, occasionally.

Lethis has gorgeous art and a terrific musical score, and it aspires to great heights. But the game underneath isn't fully baked, and the result is only an interesting experiment in frustration—when it isn't outright boring.

The best on the track but the weakest everywhere else, F1 2015 is an inconsistent lapper.

Occasionally punishing, but still a fun, time-bending, mind-rending platformer.

Legends of Eisenwald is a slightly rough-hewn romp through Germanic legend that's engaging and entertaining despite its lack of depth.

A wonderful art style and interesting setting can’t make Traverser’s shallow puzzles and exasperating stealth sequences acceptable.

Rocket League is fast, fun and relentlessly enjoyable. The best football game without feet.

Visually drab and a bit too taken with its own story, but otherwise a clever and fun exercise in creative problem-solving.

Despite wrapping up in a clumsy excess of ambition, Lemma is a thrilling experimental expression of the free-running genre.

An MMO for kids that doesn’t patronise. Accessible, sometimes repetitive, but with enough adventure to hold interest.

A hugely enjoyable addition to the world of Eorzea with plenty of room to spread your wings and explore.

A fun, if lightweight, stealth combat game. The turn-based fighting isn't perfect, but remains entertaining enough to be worth a look.

A moreish snack, You Must Build A Boat is whimsical enough to make you forget how efficiently it's sapping your attention.

An atmospheric, captivating crime thriller with an interactive story that unravels differently for every player.

A strange, intangible experience, with style that transcends its own rubbishness.

For those hoping for a game in which killing innocent people provides you with some sort of entertainment—be it humor, revulsion, guilt, a vicarious and morbid thrill—you can find it done better, in one way or another, in every other game I've mentioned in this review.

The most any studio has done to open up a complex genre to a new audience. Inviting, entertaining, and deceptively deep.

​Double Fine’s Massive Chalice takes XCOM’s DNA in a fresh direction, but doesn’t exceed it.

Sunset's themes, setting, and plot are plenty interesting, but the player's interaction with them feels incongruous.

Toren is a good story that suffers in the telling, with simplistic platforming that's hampered by a sloppy camera and controls.

An elegant, pared-down stealth game with echoes of the original Deus Ex, driven by a compelling story of paranoia and betrayal.

A leaner, smarter take on Magicka’s fascinating combat system, Magicka 2 is the co-op adventure you’ve been waiting for.

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

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

Stripped down to arcade basics, it's buggy, bland, and not much fun.

A big, beautiful, sprawling action RPG full of rich stories, and suffused with an oppressive darkness.

An old school point-and-click adventure with a captivating story, strong characters, and a rich, well-realised sci-fi setting.

Fun in a simple, almost mindless way, the oceans of Windward are beautiful but not especially deep.

A confident mishmash of a few different Resi games. [July 2015, p.70]

A habit-forming FPS for its strategic possibilities and tactical depth, but the lack of matchmaking is especially worrisome.

Engrossing tension between empowerment and disempowerment, greed and fear, across an eminently replayable system.

A massive, challenging retro-flavoured shooter that takes the Metroid formula and runs with it. Old school, but with a modern edge.

A beautifully designed, tough, and cheerful roguelike that rewards perseverance with a singular feeling of finesse.

Sledgehammer’s second swing at a DLC pack is a modest hit, but lapsed Advanced Warfare fans may return to find that few others have.

A great combat system is restrained by thoughtless multiplayer mode design.

Though this expansion is small and inexpensive, it fits perfectly into Endless Legend, filling in gaps and extending concepts. It’s a mite uninspired—as we said giants and wonders aren’t exactly alien to 4X games—and it doesn’t fix the bigger problems with the game—that underwhelming combat—but it certainly guards against anyone stealing the 4X crown, for the time being.

The Old Blood is a false start for Wolfenstein's life after The New Order, a creative step backwards that survives primarily because of the strong groundwork laid in the previous game. It will always be fun to fire these guns and MachineGames's presentation is still ahead of the curve, but this isn't the game you should play if you want to explore those qualities—that game was released a year ago.

Beautiful, bold and varied. Slightly Mad are uncompromising in their simulation.

A capable attempt to recapture the magic of WWE, let down by the decision not to update any single element of the console versions.

A perfect blend of science and slapstick, and a robust and compelling sandbox of possibility. Simply outstanding.

Play it for its novel ideas, not because you love Batman. Dwindling player numbers are a cause for concern.

Both land and space combat lack punch, but there's a fun if predictable 4X game waiting underneath.

The disappointing second half lets it down, but even at best, Broken Age is far from the genre’s greats.

A stripped down stealth offering that reinvigorates Assassin's Creed by putting attention back on the sneaky stuff.

Some flaws in design, but playing heroes with a limited lifespan provides interesting decisions and choices.

Fine fighter with an enjoyably daft story, marred by wobbly port to PC.

Some issues keep it from being a stand-alone great, but fans longing for a reboot of Dungeon Keeper could do a lot worse than this clever, enjoyable dungeon manager.

A sandbox of extraordinary scope created with a masterful attention to detail. A patchy campaign doesn't spoil this wonderful, evocative city.

More game than you might expect, but still best played for an audience.

It's well written, the pixel art and animation are nicely done, and the fact that you can draw your gun whenever you want, and that you can shoot key characters dead and just keep on playing, gives it a great sense of freedom.

One singular great idea is the foundation for a smart and occasionally thrilling action puzzler.

The most comprehensive sports sim going, and one that delivers fresh twists on old school, text-based systems.

Making a major impact to every basic combat operation in Arma 3, Marksmen is a substantial and successful overhaul.

Each new career is entertaining in its own way, but you probably won’t want to play through them more than once.

Etherium is never aggressively terrible, but there’s nothing to recommend it over other, more interesting RTS games.

Hektor's level design mind games are cool, but its 90 minutes of jump scares would be better spent on so many other horror games.

If you've never played an Oddworld, this is the best place to start. [Apr 2015, p.56]

Beautiful, well-written, and with an exciting finish, this is a strong start for Inquisition DLC.

A deep, rich, and wonderfully written RPG that lives up to the towering legacy of the games that inspired it.

A worthy upgrade to one of the best strategy games ever, featuring the best space battles in the business.

The excellently revised camera system and eerie villain makes Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 one of the better scare-fests out there.

A hard campaign (if you play on the hardest mode) and breakneck multiplayer are a good time, if often infuriating.

I love the new snowy setting, and there are some fun moments here, but ultimately Valley of the Yetis plays it too safe.

A great looking game, but its beauty is only skin deep.

Starships isn’t terrible, but it isn’t the polished product you’d expect from a studio with Firaxis’ history. Comparing it to its full-scale PC competitors, like Endless Space and GalCiv is cruel, as it’s sub-par in every single regard: unbalanced, repetitive, badly explained, rather ugly, with a dreadful mobile phone UI, and buggy as hell. Even judged against Firaxis’ other mobile games, Civ: Rev and Ace Patrol, this is small and crude.

Challenging and gorgeous, Ori is a classic platforming genre modernized and done strikingly well. Use a controller and save often.

The imperative to cash in on Black Flag is transparent, but as it turns out a location swap works wonders for igniting the hooded pirate in you again.

Restrictive design decisions sap the energy from a series that revels in it, and technical issues deal the killing blow.

A handful of flaws, but this fun and addictive city-builder still climbs high.

LA Cops has some cool ideas, but the frustratingly shoddy execution works completely at odds with the experience the game is trying to create.

A so-so start to this new series. The multiple character stuff is interesting, but weak shooting and bland environments let it down.

A solid, if thin puzzle game, with not quite as much to say as it thinks it has.

Beautiful and creative, but controls and design issues often drag it from challenging to frustrating.

There’s a lot to parse, but understanding the nuances of Frozen Cortex reveals a deep strategic experience that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Frozen.

A fun, unconventional RPG with interesting new ideas that aren’t entirely overshadowed by its repetitive nature and stale combat.

A refreshingly asymmetrical FPS with terrific competitive depth, but the thrill of the hunt eventually begins to wane.

A barbarous twist on Rome II, with a handful of fixes.

Wonderful writing resting on top of infirm foundations. Almost a classic, Sunless Sea falls a few leagues short of its final destination.

Life is Strange elegantly meshes time-travelling with nostalgia-riddled teen drama, producing a sympathetic debut.

Phallic imagery and sore wrists don’t stop this from being uniquely charming. Definitely worth a few quid and a few hours of your time.

A great game, unimpressively updated. Get the bigger, cheaper version instead.

Gravity Ghost hits the notes of big-budget platformers on a smaller scale; its story fumbles along the way, but it's short and sweet.

Despite a clunky story and technical performance, there's a lot of fun to be found in dashing and dodging through a zombie-filled city.

A confident remaster of a true classic. The puzzles have aged badly, but the sparkling humour and world design still shine.

A well-made stealth game that becomes tedious before too long.

Two very similar factions dull its edge, but Grey Goo’s old-school take on strategy still makes it one of the most interesting new RTS games in years.

A better game than XIII but with an intolerably bad story, this is a still-flawed sequel that clearly isn’t at its best on PC.

Gat Out of Hell offers all the open-world distractions of a Saints Row game, but precious little of what made the last two so remarkable.

A brilliant, brutal survival horror dripping in atmosphere. It’s from the oldest of schools, but still offers a rewarding challenge.

A mod too short on content and aspiration to warrant the price as a standalone release.

In summary, 'wrath' was an apt choice of name. [Feb 2015, p.77]

It's good, but yet another dramatic tale of intrigue in a game already packed with them. [Feb 2015, p.77]

A great game and, with time, potentially a classic. Much rests on Frontier's ability to build on these broad but somewhat shallow foundations.