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

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

The pleasure of creative block-building meets the satisfaction of puzzle-solving. [Oct 2015, p.66]

A vibrant presentation doesn’t save Sentris from a lack of depth or direction.

Casual and silly yet still tense and exciting. It's a shame there's no online multiplayer.

Baba Yaga has more of Rise of the Tomb Raider’s fun platforming and gorgeous Siberian cliffsides, but the condensed format only strengthens its problems.

Tree of Savior's biggest grind lies in chipping away all of its flaws just to experience its nostalgic charms.

A warmly affectionate remake of a browser classic, with enough new pieces to justify its existence.

A decent, but not essential, two-hour expansion for Mankind Divided that’s ultimately more of the same.

Slayer Shock has no dearth of interesting ideas, from the central conceit to the NPC gang, but few of them are ever taken far, or in interesting directions, leaving it with only the solid combat, half-baked systems, and repetitive missions.

Quality racing with lots of challenge. But it misses out on some of what makes Forza Horizon so audacious and fun. [March 2017, p.86]

As a free-to-play game it's reasonably generous. [April 2017, p.91]

Updates are planned, but this needs too much work under the hood to be worth your time or money. [May 2017, p.89]

A bright, fun and surprisingly substantial racing experience that does interesting things with Forza Horizon 3's core design.

I like Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator's conceit—I used to love creating AI skirmishes in Garry's Mod—but here any potential drama is squandered by the poor execution. UEBS is good at the moneyshot—the ridiculous joy of seeing an unreasonable number of chickens swarm over some Nazis, or a super-powered turtle take on a cavalry brigade. But the joke soon wears thin, and, outside of that single gag, Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator fails to entertain.

A varied, challenging platformer that's adept at forcing improvisation and punishing mistakes.

Deeper and more refined than the original, but there’s still room to improve its game.

Wunderdoktor's beautiful handmade world is a delight to travel through, but beneath that charming exterior lies a twitchy, unforgiving, and sometimes unrewarding puzzle game.

This journey through a dreamscape of loss and absolution is unique, if a bit uneven at times.

Wholly unique and deceptively punishing, Uurnog Uurnlimited is as clever as it is creative.

A fun take on a classic format, great to play with friends—hectic and unique, but easy to understand and play.

A one-trick pony of a multiplayer fighter, Gang Beasts is sometimes hilariously messy but often just a mess.

An entertaining, light-hearted point-and-click adventure game full of memorable characters and wholesome British humor.

Lumines Remastered’s lack of online multiplayer is regrettable, its session length still demanding and, frankly, it’s probably a better match on Nintendo Switch, but it does the important thing: it brings a puzzle classic back into focus and proves that Lumines can still shake ya body down to the ground.

Exapunks is a hacking game that will make you feel like a genius or an idiot—sometimes both in quick succession.

An often spectacular space shooter that lacks the variety and depth to justify serious investment.

DayZ has the power to create incredible stories, but the twitchy, weightless combat and buggy zombies let it down.

A refreshing hybrid of Metroidvania and roguelite, unfortunately hampered by inconsequential power-ups.

Sticking points aside, Streets of Rogue is absolutely worth playing, and once you start, it’s hard to stop. It gives you more freedom than almost any roguelike, and its varied cast of characters, combined with the randomness of traits and mutators, mean no two runs play out the same way.

With a fun concept, superb creation tools, and finely crafted puzzles, Besiege is a construction game to savour.

A faithful recreation, but why go back when Stardew has since perfected the genre?

Paper Beast's origami animals delight, but the resulting game is less than the sum of its parts.

There's two chapters left to turn things around but Tell Me Why is going to have to pull out all the stops to make up for a bungled first act.

A hardcore team game that's fun when you work together, despite some unfriendly systems.

Möbius Front '83 makes a difficult genre easy to understand, but it lacks thrills.

A functional, basic board game port isn't enough to truly shine off the tabletop.

Old School RuneScape is a massive but compelling time sink, and even after all these years, there's simply nothing else like it.

A deep but fragmented PvP MMO that's not nearly as original as its early promise suggested.

Wordle is a fantastic, mesmerizing daily puzzle that's bundled to a community offering some of the best vibes on the internet.

Mortal Sin is a skeletal roguelite, but the surprisingly meaty combat goes a long way to making up for that.

A choppy start leads to a compelling survival experience in Raft.

There's a decent space sim buried within Dual Universe, but you'll need to do a lot of digging to find it.

Roller Drama is charming but undermined by technical issues and obtuse puzzles.

Industries of Titan starts strong and has some bold ideas, but they just don't really go anywhere.

Mask of the Rose's writing and characters shine, but the game underneath them never fully gels together.

Lakeburg Legacies is an awkward, goalless mix of contradictions and impersonal systems.

A family-friendly adventure that captures the essence of the show, despite rough edges and a steep price.

While light on visuals and variety, Natsu-Mon's comforting world makes it a delightful summer escape.

Blowing out Factorio’s scale and reinventing its factory systems multiple times over, Space Age is an immediate contender for the best expansion ever made.

Repo is a fantastic co-op horror game that can hold its own against big shots like Lethal Company. It's also only in early access right now, and with plans to introduce more player customisation, story elements, equipment, levels, and enemies, all I can say is that I'm really looking forward to seeing where the devs take this co-op horror game. [Early Access Impressions]

Honestly, I would have preferred Krafton give this game even more time to cook. It almost feels like I'm playing pretend at playing pretend right now—engaging with a variety of set pieces I can do a cute peace sign in front of before moving onto the next thing. In an attempt to offer something different to The Sims, Inzoi has failed to establish any sort of identity of its own. I'm not even sure Krafton knows what direction it wants to take right now, but it needs to figure that out quickly, otherwise I fear it'll be another casualty of the genre. [Impressions]

It's so mundane that I expected Schedule 1 to get boring by the fifteenth time I'd lugged a bulk order of plastic baggies to my crappy apartment, but like my latest strand of weed called "Wedding Ass," the drug-dealing sim dominating Steam right now is undeniably habit-forming...Chalk up that success to a lot of smart design choices from developer TVGS—its constant sense of progression, clockwork open world, expressive characters, gratifying supply/demand loop, day one co-op support—but I reckon Schedule 1's secret sauce is a crafting system that doesn't suck. [Early Access Impressions]

Labyrinth of the Demon King offers familiar first-person retro dungeon crawling, but distinguishes itself with its overpowering—almost unbearable—mood of dread.

Pretty much just an ebook, but its form means you can gamify your progress and listen to some bangers while you read it.

Mycopunk shows a ton of promise, but that doesn't mean it's infallible. The progression can become a bit of a slog, and it can take a while to level up or collect enough resources to upgrade your kit. There's also definitely a cap as to how many missions you can do in a row before it all just blends into a violent blur. The variety in mission types only keeps things fresh for so long. There are also some glitches, many of which the devs are aware of, but that doesn't make them any less annoying. I've been lasered by an Abomination through a wall more than once now—you're never safe, even when you think you are. But none of this ruins the fun, it's just something to bear in mind: The fungal growths of Early Access. [Early Access Provisional Score = 79]

Caput Mortem is a little insubstantial, but reasonably priced for its short runtime and full of so many surprises and great moments, I can't help but love it.

Hyperbeat is brief and a little twee at times, but its lively musical flights are one-of-a-kind.

Speedy, stylish, and effortlessly flexible, Tokyo Xtreme Racer captures the raw spirit of street racing.

A high-concept, fascinating strategy RPG that can start to buckle under its own ambitions.

Prizing immersion and effort above all, this is a demanding, but very rewarding, RPG.

I haven't been too blown away by what I've seen of it so far, but if Masters of Albion could help revive the god game genre, at least a little? That'd be fine by me. [Early Access Impressions]

On the surface, Bond might seem a natural fit for IO: all glitz and gadgets that make it feel like barely a skip away from the world of Hitman. But what I saw had me feeling that the studio has not leaned into its strengths, trading the absurd clockwork worlds of Agent 47 for a more tightly choreographed, linear, and "cinematic" game that IO has never been all that good at. The last time it tried was Hitman: Absolution. We know how that worked out. [3-Hour Hands-On Impressions]

But as I should've guessed from developer Traveller's Tales' modern Lego run, Legacy of the Dark Knight is just too darn delightful to sustain a stormy mood. It took all of five minutes for the brick-based brawler to put a smile on my face, and it didn't go away for two hours of play. [2-Hour Hands-On Impressions]