A successful revival of the mid-90's shooter. Shadow Warrior's combat is fun despite an irritating sense of humor. [Jan 2014, p.66]

A gorgeous, relentlessly entertaining open-world piracy simulator packed with interesting 18th century rogues.

Deep, exciting and, for the first time, as human as real football, Football Manager 2014 has hit the back of the net.

The fantastic Exalt missions, gene mods, and MEC Troopers are an excellent reason to play more XCOM.

Fascinating, fast, and friendly but far too forgiving. Wait for the patches and iron man/lady mods.

Burial at Sea, Episode One is good but not essential - the only piece of BioShock story content you could say that about.

A faithful representation of modern F1 diehard fans will praise for its depth while railing about real or perceived missteps. [Holiday 2013. p.70]

I don’t doubt that every gun, perk, and killstreak reward in Ghosts was implemented and tweaked with a fine brush, but painting in every individual eyelash of the Mona Lisa wouldn’t make it a better painting. That’s what’s been happening to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare since 2007—little bits have been scraped off and painted over again and again. With a broader brush, Activision and its studios might stop noodling around in the corners of Modern Warfare’s greatness and paint something actually modern.

Structural innovations and strong presentation, held back by grind and an old-fashioned business model.

A fine combat system soured by poorly explained complexity, and a lovely looking game let down by a lack of graphics options.

Free-flowing strategy with a wealth of features. An element of grind, but plenty of satisfying moments too .

Slightly overpriced, but a more than worthy successor to one of PC gaming’s greatest franchises that nails the important part: combat.

Enjoyable in places and very pretty, but sadly blighted by sloppy design, terrible boss battles, and a lack of new ideas.

A sharp, snazzy and accessible fighting game, held back by the unnecessary sexualisation of its antagonists.

DICE is certainly guilty of taking an “if it ain’t broke” attitude to creating BF4, but its modest multiplayer refinements alongside excellent maps are enough to make it one of our favorite current FPSes. A cynic would call BF4 a deluxe map pack in sequel’s clothing. If that’s your predisposition, know that it’s at least a wonderful map pack, one with enough variety, depth, and quality to survive a year of intense play.

A charming and inventive platformer that understands what makes the genre special, and never rests on its laurels.

Effortlessly inventive, frequently surprising and consistently hilarious. The Stanley Parable shows how to make a story about game stories.

The features that aren't missing are bugged beyond use. Takedown is a bare-bones wreck in need of substantial patching. [Holiday 2013, p.56]

A gorgeous world, bursting with personality. Great storytelling makes up for the short length and unchallenging puzzles.

An accomplished Lovecraftian adventure with a bunch of potential that gives up its deeper secrets too easily.

The Wolf Among Us deftly merges Walking Dead's moral quandaries with a noir murder mystery starring Fables' cast of fairy tale legends.

Enjoyable enough, with an undeniably good design pedigree, but marked down for the rush feel and lack of polish. [Dec 2013, p.68]

A truly magical fusion of tabletop RPG and CCG that’s only missing pizza and beer—and co-op.

Either I'm a masochist, or this game is worth the irritation. [Oct 2013, p.81]

A fine finale, which more than makes up for the failings of the first DLC and tells a great side-story of its own.

Leans heavily on nostalgia and sentimentality, but Gone Home is an affecting game that challenges you like no other.

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

A significant step forward for the king of military simulation offset by inconsistent graphical performance.

I just sat there and gambled until I finally felt so angry with the game that I wanted to stab my screen. [Nov 2013, p.78]

For all its technical cleverness, Cloudberry Kingdom fails to get the basics right. [Nov 2013, p.79]

FATE has all the touchstones of a BIT.TRIP game--the hunt for flawless execution, the grueling score optimization. It serves up the same boiled-down punishing appeal. [Nov 2013, p.74]

A work of sulky blandness that does itself no favors by latching onto better games and cooler vampires. [ Nov 2013, p.68]

A smart top-down reimagining of the Halo experience, let down by mobile game monetization. [Nov 2013, p.66]

Beneath the lo-fi visuals and simple animation is a sophisticated, thrilling, and occasionally brutal shooter. [Nov 2013, p.64]

Smart co-op shooting slightly undermined by poor stealth mechanics and dogged insistence on withholding the best toys.

An elaborate horror setting with plenty of effective scares – but not quite enough to last the entire game.

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

A cerebral and spooky sequel that expands on the franchise’s story and themes, while slightly dialing down the terror.

Straightforward and replayable, Spelunky is precision engineered to make death fair, funny, and a story worth sharing.

Fight past the niggles and you'll find a truly epic grand strategy game with a tremendous sense of spectacle.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified feels confused and half-finished, a hollow but beautiful slog through XCOM’s early years.

An RTS designed for entertainment rather than e-sport. Colourful, fun and memorable, its elements mesh surprisingly well.

A significant upgrade, supported by a clever eye for tactical diversity. An eye that is sadly poked by uneven execution. [Oct 2013, p.74]

While Rogue Legacy lacks the balance and crispness of Spelunky, it mostly makes up for its shortcomings with heart, imagination, and a killer compulsion loop. [Oct 2013, p.75]

Pinball FX2 is still pinball, and pinball is still best played on a real pinball table. But this is so good that it takes an extremely close second place. [Oct 2013, p.75]

The design could be tighter, the story a bit better paced, but it's still a fine couple of evenings' worth of puzzling, atmosphere, mystery, and magic, with animals cute and fluffy enough to see you through its more turgid bits. [Oct 2013, p.69]

Fun and deceptively simple, Joe Danger will have you laughing at the ridiculous ways you can fail(or succeed). [Oct 2013, p.69]

Joe Danger 2: The Movie manages to build on the fun of its predecessor--and make it even more preposterous. [Oct 2013, p.68]

Element4l knows what it wants to be, a new kind of platform game, and nails it with audacity. [Oct 2013, p.66]

But the world simulation isn't particularly deep either, and juggling resources makes you feel more like a manager than a god. [Oct 2013, p.65]

Van Helsing is long and unwieldy, but its schlocky tone prevents it becoming too frustrating of a grind. [Oct 2013, p.65]

Swinging wildly between inspired and tedious, Deadpool is an uneven and unpredictable as its lead character. [Oct 2013, p.60]

It might not have the sheen of Grand Theft Auto, but Saints Row IV is both gloriously stupid and stupidly good.

More rehashed than remastered, your childhood might be better served holding onto old memories rather than making new ones.

A textured and engrossing simulation that conquers the common ground between your average Civilization V player and the long-time devotees of grand strategy. Never before have I felt that “World at your fingertips” feeling as strongly, and you owe it to your sense of discovery to give EU IV an hour of your life or two (hundred).

Everything that you loved and hated about the 1994 original—ludicrous gibs, explosives, boss fights, and first-person platforming.

An original and pleasantly demanding puzzle-style game that leaves you wanting slightly more and slightly more variety.

A deep and rewarding competitive game that becomes something special when taken on in the company of others.

Shadowrun Returns’ bang-to-buck ratio is largely going to depend on the quality of content that springs up from the devs and the community after release, but as it stands today, it’s a mostly average RPG running in a visually underwhelming engine.

Low-key, effective storytelling and a hyperfocus on puzzles. The Swapper exemplifies the adage that less is more.

Never-quite-stellar puzzling fare punctured by erratic physics and makework. The scenery is nice, though.

Under-delivers on the promise of the licence. A middling action-RPG that you’d have to be a Marvel fan to love.

This is yesterday’s MMO by the merits of its own content, but compensates by potentially ushering in a DIY revolution.

There's nothing wrong with Uprising, but neither is there enough right with it to make it worthwhile for any but serious fans. [Aug 2013, p.75]

The Old Gods does just about everything you could ask for in a sandbox strategy game expansion, and with far fewer initial bugs and technical issues that any previous release of the series. [Aug 2013, p.75]

The ambition of Signal Ops is admirable, but playing it is like trying to paint your hallway through the mailbox. [Aug 2013, p.73]

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]

Kudos for the ambition and price, but Mars: War Logs needs more work. A game that succeeds almost in spite of itself.

Some omissions and flaws, but balanced by excellent alien races and ship design. A welcome addition to the crew.

Rise of the Hutt Cartel is decent in its own right, but ultimately too little too late for all but the most dedicated fans.

A good shooter that’s buried under a baffling UI, confusing rulesets, and a movement scheme that’s needlessly complex.

The last few herbs and spices that Civ V’s epic stew was missing. A recipe for hundreds of hours more delicious turn-based strategy.

Highly entertaining, substantial and a visual treat but with a slight whiff of Gorgonzola in the story department.

Another incremental upgrade, Magic 2014 is still just the bastard child of Magic Online and the physical card game.

Grid 2 is an accomplished and visually strong racer let down only by a bafflingly lame Career mode narrative.

A fantastic return of The Walking Dead, letting Telltale experiment with form without losing any of the magic.

Don’t mistake price for quality – this is a top-notch shooter, limited in resources but not in heart.

Wargame AirLand Battle is European Escalation escalated: more Cold War kit, more tactical tension and more replayability.

With its visuals, music and play all working in lockstep, this is the kind of game you can get completely immersed in.

Company of Heroes 2 is the USSR of real-time strategy games: huge, powerful and just a little bit broken.

Engrossing, lovely to look at and with a potentially healthy shelf-life, if the multiplayer gets a toehold and gels cross-platform.

Minimal game mechanics with no depth whatsoever, but a tense, well-made survival horror game just the same.

A gritty, brutal WWII shooter that uses its scale, setting, and fidelity to great effect.

Remember Me is a third-person action-adventure teenager. It tries to act insouciant, and tells its story with the breathless zeal of a youngster flushed with first love. But ironically for a game that requires you to build ‘Focus’ in order to achieve great things, it feels greatly lacking in that department.

Fiddly at times, and cursed with a lousy tutorial, the intricacy and scale of Cities in Motion 2 eventually shines through. [July 2013, p.74]

An apocalyptic disappointment that never rises above mediocrity, but often sinks into tedium. [July 2013, p.72]

Emotive storytelling that puts the tedium and stress of work before pleasure, but somehow still has a lightness of touch. [July 2013, p.70]

Merciless, frustrating, and harder than dry cereal, but exquisitely balanced. Few games are so rewarding. [July 2013, p.62]

It's lovely to look at, but the process of puzzle-solving feels pedestrian. [May 2013, p.61]

While its RPG aspirations may be overshadowed by your need to constantly source the basics like ammo and health, The Pit--with its random elements and permadeath--is justified in its boast of replayability, even if it is only out of necessity. [May 2013, p.61]

Travelling along a plane at a constant pace has never been so much fun – Runner2 is an addictive and rewarding experience.

A competent MMO shooter marred by a lack of polish, whose TV tie-in ambitions only seem set to cause problems.

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

A dumb shooter that feels like a rubbish stealth section dragged out across the length of an entire game.

Paradoxiana at its most approachable and bellicose. Engaging engagements, feisty AI, low price.

An accomplished and pretty strategy game, sadly hindered by a handful of questionable design choices.

It's a solid few hours worth a look. [Apr 2013, p.111]

For all its awkwardness and self-regard, we need more games like this, that try to broaden the medium and aspire to better it. Eventually, we'll get one that succeeds. [Apr 2013, p.109]