PC Gamer's Scores

  • Games
For 3,862 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 45% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 72
Highest review score: 98 Crysis
Lowest review score: 7 NRA Varmint Hunter
Score distribution:
3877 game reviews
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    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]
    • PC Gamer
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Vermintide is a brilliant twist on the Left 4 Dead formula, and deserves much of the same praise heaped on Valve.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Riven is as impressive, immersive, and unmissable as it's ever been.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    For those with the machine to handle it, PlanetSide 2 is never anything less than staggering. On your own, it's a spectacle. Stand far enough back and you can almost take it all in, but there's just too much there to focus on. With teammates, the picture comes into glorious focus.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Smart without being overbearing, Zero Escape: The Nonary Games continues to set the bar for its genre.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lighthearted humor and creative story elements are unveiled at every turn, pushing this simulation to the head of its genre. [Dec 2003, p.96]
    • PC Gamer
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It seems crass to judge a game by quantity, but this is quantity of quality. So if the amount of money you spend on games is a practical concern, it's worth saying that this one is freakishly good value. Even if it's not a concern, it's worth saying that this one is freakishly good.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The best game on PS4 is now one of the best games on PC.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Quake isn't destined to revolutionize action games, but it's a very good first-person shooter from the guys who invented the genre. [October 1996, p.150]
    • PC Gamer
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Grounded is a delightfully creative and occasionally terrifying survival sandbox.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It’s impressively well thought-out, and a highly engaging MMORPG that’s kept me captivated for the last few weeks solid. [Jan 2002, p.80]
    • PC Gamer
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    An open world action RPG from FromSoftware that reaches new heights, but spends too much time in the familiar.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A powerful reminder of why nobody has ever truly taken Warcraft’s rusty crown.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Truly epic historical strategy. It's a good pick for RTS fans. [Aug 2005, p.60]
    • PC Gamer
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A beautifully constructed and powerfully atmospheric mystery that you really have to work to solve.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    One of the most enjoyable single-player and multiplayer action games ever. [Feb 2000, p.92]
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    What it lacks in flash, it delivers in sheer strategic brilliance. [June 2005, p.56]
    • PC Gamer
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A frenzied, elegant action game that pulses with great music and demanding thrills, for only £2/$3.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A stellar action platformer with gorgeous presentation and excellent combat. Punishing but worth it.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Just an utterly fantastic multiplayer shooter, and while it doesn't replace "Battlefield 1942," it's a perfect complement. [June 2004, p.64]
    • PC Gamer
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Football Manager returns with a kitbag full of new and overhauled features. It's the best at what it does, and FM 19 is the best it's ever been.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Wolf Among Us deftly merges Walking Dead's moral quandaries with a noir murder mystery starring Fables' cast of fairy tale legends.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Myth is a melee of a good time. [Feb 1998, p.180]
    • PC Gamer
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It forces you to think more like a real-world commander and less like a "wargamer." [Jan 2003, p.102]
    • PC Gamer
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A gorgeous, relentlessly entertaining open-world piracy simulator packed with interesting 18th century rogues.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Keeper is a gorgeous little package of tightly designed puzzles and cerebral platforming that showcases what makes Double Fine's games so uniquely special.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A beautiful, deep, and endlessly replayable murder sandbox, featuring some of the best levels in the series.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It's so goofilfy hilarious, you may just find yourself a wisecrack away from peeing in your Jockeys. [June 2005, p.76]
    • PC Gamer
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    But what separates Warlords Battlecry II from the horde are its scope and depth. You don't just have two or three races – you have 12. [June 2002, p.72]
    • PC Gamer
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Tales from the Borderlands is a big, funny adventure with great characters—worth playing even if you don't like Borderlands.
This publication does not provide a score for their reviews.
This publication has not posted a final review score yet.
These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation.

In Progress & Unscored

?
    • 87 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Clever innovations and a generous economy make Legends of Runeterra easy to love. [Open Beta review score = 85]
    • 75 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The result is a competent remaster and the best way to play this classic Total War, but it still can't compete with its modern heirs.
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    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]
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    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]
    • 40 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    It's a spectacular disaster, which feels like a rarity these days: there are lots of bad games, but for a game that was announced at E3 and made by a major publisher and studio to be this catastrophic is something.
    • 86 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition is a constant see-saw of noticing an improvement, then wishing it went further. You can sprint outside combat, but only for like three seconds. There's a dedicated melee button, yet no way to separate the sprint and take cover actions to separate keys. You can skip the elevator rides, which are the only way to hear banter that could be filling the stretches where you jog from place to place. The graphics are better, but there's no FOV slider. [Mass Effect 1 score = 77]
    • 39 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The action would be passable if it were buoyed by a compelling story, but I ain't gripped so far. [2-Hour Impressions]
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    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]
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Subnautica 2 is a decidedly well-balanced survival game. In a handful of hours of pre-release play, I've never found the scavenging and crafting grueling, but neither have I found it so easy that the expansion of my underwater base feels unearned. [Early Access Impressions]
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    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]
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    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]
    • 55 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    I'm enjoying Battlefield 1. It's not a huge departure for the series, despite the period, but it is meaningfully distinct from Battlefield 4. That may disappoint those who simply want progression that mirrors the jump from Battlefield 3 to 4 – more guns, more features and new maps.
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    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]
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    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]
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    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.

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