Satisfying, pen-and-paper-style zombie storytelling that's somewhat blandly presented and burdened by bugs. A worthy RPG that would've benefited from more budget.

There’s no strong sense of place, and nothing to anchor the high falutin ponderings that make up so much of the game. And even if we were to take it at face value, which seems to be impossible, it’s only a snapshot, a vertical slice of this world without much context, making it hard to reach any solid conclusions.

Door Kickers is a difficult, rewarding puzzler so obsessed with its tactical ideas that it rejects all else​—which is probably for the best anyway.

My main complaint is that there isn't enough of it—clever puzzles, shooting, and platforming have zero fat, and make its four hours fly by.

An adept and satisfying puzzle game with a narrative that requires a bit of player investment to yield its biggest rewards.

One of the most exciting racing game environments for years, unfortunately bound to a slew of dull races and superfluous story.

Difficulty spikes aside, this is a great PC edition of a fantastic arcade shooter.

Come for the one of the scariest environments you’ll sweat in, but try not to leave for the punishing level of difficulty.

Defenders of Time multiplayer mode is conceptually interesting, but ultimately not worth trying because of many technical issues and poorly-executed fundamentals.

A beautiful, fascinating exploration of a world that may soon be nothing more than fantasy.

An absurdly entertaining open world playground that’s at its best when it breaks away from script. Shame about those tailing missions.

A powerful reminder of why nobody has ever truly taken Warcraft’s rusty crown.

A stark statement about war delivered through deftly designed stealth survival and resource management. Important, but unrelentingly cruel.

The sentimental, dull, superficially interactive story isn’t worth a few cute moments and some interesting surrealism.

A triumphant return to the top for footballing’s favourite son.

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.

A magnificent city full of exciting assassination missions, marred by broken co-op and technical issues.

Despite being only a minor advance, this is certainly the definitive version of Icewind Dale. That itself is a fun, tough quest that brings back nostalgia for the beauty of the engine and combat system of those days. That makes it a nice stopgap between here and Eternity.

Though it’s not ambitious enough for die-hard flight sim fans, the Arma 3 Helicopters DLC adds flight sim-style depth to gaming’s greatest military.

At best, Randal's Monday has puzzles that professors at the Institute of Moon Logic would point to and ask "What the hell?" They're nonsensical, poorly explained, reliant on the most painful 'try everything on everything' guesswork, and feel longer than being strapped to a board until Stephen Hawking's voice synthesiser has read out the entire works of Dostoyevsky.

Valkyria Chronicles is one of the most unique and fun strategy games I’ve ever played, despite a few flaws with the port.

How much you enjoy Inquisition will likely depend on what it is you enjoy about RPGs. If you want complex systems and hardcore challenge, it could potentially disappoint. I don’t. I want a rich world, interesting characters, and a dramatic and memorable plot. Judged on those criteria, Dragon Age: Inquisition sits happily alongside BioWare’s best.

This is not the modern Transport Tycoon I hoped it would be, but it will fill a few hours before your attention inevitably derails. [Holiday 2014, p.66]

It just doesn't measure up to the imagination and potential of the setting, and you feel like little more than a jumped=up errand boy. [Holiday 2014, p.66]

A novel structure for competitive play, but can't match the depth of most MOBAs or the feel of a good shooter. [Holiday 2014, p,64]

Admirably back to basics, eschewing fancypants gimmicks to focus entirely on the ancient, noble art of hitting balls into holes. [Holiday 2014, p.58]

The campaign is mostly predictable, dumb fun, and the multiplayer is some of Call of Duty’s best—but still subject to every existing criticism of CoD.

The tractors look great, but the rest of Farming Simulator 15 comes off like shovelware from 2012.

For existing fans there aren’t a lot of compelling reasons to upgrade from last year’s edition, unless you’re really nostalgic for the Graham Taylor approach to football.

This is the detective game L.A. Noire claimed to be. It doesn’t have the inflated budget of Rockstar’s game, but it makes up for its rough edges with quality detecting, compelling cases, beautiful world-building, and and endearing gusto.

A sublime blend of fighting, puzzling and exploration, but the unforgiving difficulty may be too much for some.

Parts of Final Fantasy XIII are worth the absurd amount of time it takes to properly open up, but this port is a big letdown.

Dungeon of the Endless pulls from many popular games and genres from the last couple of years, but what's wonderful about it is that all these elements come together to create something entirely new.

Allow yourself to get pulled into the show, and it’s hard to see where real life finishes and NBA 2K starts. It's the best sports series on earth. By a distance.

If you have a capable rig—and don’t experience the crashes I did—I think it’s a worthwhile experience. Still, it’s less interesting than Dark Souls in terms of plot and setting, and full of wandering and grinding that first tested my patience, and finally made me as powerful as some of the bosses. If I could take its combat system, weapons, and enemies and put it in another more interesting game, I would.

The best fan experience for the series by far, but cut corners and poor design choices bog down an otherwise fun beat-em up.

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

Easy going in tone but frantic and stressful by nature, Screencheat seizes on a single novel idea and builds an enjoyable couch shooter around it.

The controls are sluggish, the video options are limited, and the aspect ratio decision is utterly stupid. All of the above drags The Evil Within from enjoyably challenging to needlessly frustrating.

Admirably open levels that reward exploration means there’s high replay value if you’re prepared to overlook the back-tracking.

With its fundamentals unchanged and last year’s foray into classic cars removed, F1 2014 provides very little beyond a perfunctory car and track.

Thankfully, smart as ever, Amplitude Studios has created another astounding story-driven game, that really has taken the best bits of RTS, RPG and 4X, drawing much from Endless Space, and spun it differently for every faction.

A well-executed but thoroughly unambitious extension of Borderlands 2. Low-grav jumping adds a new dimension to combat.

Adorable, amusing, colorful and well-animated, but the combat is too simplistic and repetitive to remain interesting throughout the game.

An approachable 3rd-person space sim with a vast, and often beautiful, universe to explore.

Ryse: Son of Rome's combat and incredible graphics are entertaining, but it's too narrow and repetitive, even for a short game.

I know that there's a great, massive RTS beneath all these issues. I've seen glimpses of it when everything works correctly, but at the moment I can't recommend Planetary Annihilation without a warning that it's bound to disappoint and frustrate, even if you do teach yourself to play it.

Isolation is a taut, confident, and electrifying horror game that perfectly captures the essence of Ridley Scott's legendary film. I just wish they'd been braver with the story.

It's familiar, but Crown of the Ivory King is still another gorgeous five-hour helping of Dark Souls 2. Cherish it—it’s your last.

The tech specs are demanding, but this is the Middle-Earth game to rule them all.

A tense and spooky stroll through a gorgeous world, some fun supernatural detective work, and an efficient script with sparse dialogue.

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

The Stronghold series isn't like Total War, doing a hundred different things; it just needs to get the castles and combat right. On the evidence of Stronghold Crusader 2, Firefly is moving in the right direction, but it still has a way to go.

Strong, handsome and, at times, fantastic, but FIFA 15 still never quite feels like football.

Know someone who's never experienced Fable, or has only played Fable 3? Get them on this.

Hack 'n' Slash starts as a clever game about game design, but ends up feeling like homework.

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.

Once more with feeling: this is a fine if familiar base game with great creative tools.

A fun throwback to the feel of Dark Souls, but easier than we’d hoped.

A much-needed and fun refresher for Blizzard’s card battler, although the next card expansion will need to be more sizeable.

The killing-lots-of-zombies genre is overcrowded, but Dead Rising 3 is one of the best, with a lovable dedication to fun, and some of the most inventive, hilarious weapons on PC.

A one-of-a-kind glimpse into the world of anthropomorphic-animal Japanese otome, Hatoful Boyfriend is surprisingly entertaining.

A lot of thought put into new chess pieces; not enough put toward PC gaming. Also, kinda pricey.

A beautiful and difficult action-RPG that rewards risk-taking—the complex magic system makes up for the bits that just aren’t worth playing over and over.

A middling contender in the most oversubscribed genre around. Trades too hard on being free.

Shadowgate isn't just retro, it's retrograde, and the visual update really isn't as impressive as it first appears.

A simple design that's devilishly clever at messing with you.

Still as atmospheric and impressively grim as it was last year, but inessential if you have the original.

A valuable remake that makes the original Metro feel complete on PC.

An innovative format for a mystery but lacking in story and performances, and overly reliant on peer approval.

The definitive version of Street Fighter IV, but not the best until its technical problems are solved.

Combat quibbles and muddy graphics do little to spoil the fun of this enjoyable RPG.

War Thunder rules the air but the lack of polish hurts, as does the dull ground warfare.

Makes you work a lot for very little. The repetitive churn of missions and activities further spoil an only occasionally entertaining shooter.

Dependence on other players means the game widely varies between completely hilarious and utterly boring.

A compelling story with many outcomes, but the game itself is a little too rough around the edges.

A relatively tough but mechanically lean sci-fi strategy game.

A great, merciless speedrunning platformer and twitch shooter with a mediocre presentation.

Gods Will Be Watching is a very clever idea well executed; one that opts to avoid the branching and overt morality of most similar games in favour of simply asking you to judge yourself as you see fit.

Lacks balance and grows repetitive, but provides a handful of good puzzle chambers if you're willing to pay for them.

Satisfying arcade skate-'em-up that's fun from the off, and promises many hours on the hard path to mastery.

Sunken King won’t do anything to convince you to play Dark Souls 2 if you don’t already love it, but stays consistently challenging for even veteran players.

After a promising start, Light's simplistic take on stealth quickly plateaus and then abruptly stops, falling well short of its potential.

A delightfully weird aesthetic is wasted on a fighting game-platformer hybrid with shallow combat and structural twists that failed to grab me.

Slow, technically flawed and dogged by premium microtransactions. A sorry take on a classic card game.

Old-school Japanese shooting, platforming action reminds us just how fun the simple games of the ‘80s could be.

A promising concept but dismal execution on just about every level.

Lacking in meaningful challenge, Murdered: Soul Suspect fails to deliver on its promising premise at every step. [Sept. 2014, p.70]

Despite some memorable imagery, Monochroma plays like a budget-price Limbo. [Sept. 2014, p.69]

A robust puzzler whose colourful visuals can't mask a lack of personality.

A little obtuse in places, but otherwise this is the best new RPG in years. Demands your time and your brain, but it's worth it.

A simple, bite-sized game that will still eat your face, but many levels shallower than its rivals.

A fantastic, morally ambiguous detective tale that sometimes struggles to make its interactivity meaningful and fun.

Shovel Knight lovingly recreates the simple pleasures of 8-bit platformers and improves on them with modern ideas that make every level different and worth playing.

Fun sniping and great mission design just barely eclipse bugs, exploitable AI, and other issues that would make a lesser game impossible to recommend.

The freshest shooter to sprout in recent memory, PvZ is shackled by asinine DRM.

Space Run is a fairly fun twist on tower defense, but it lacks much of the genre’s interesting experimentation.

A shot of adrenaline for the year-old game, these new armies bring the best parts of Company of Heroes into the upgraded Company of Heroes 2 world.