Measured against current games, SMT 3 simply cannot keep up here. I would recommend the remaster to fans of the series. Everyone else should think twice about getting the game, especially considering the high price.

If you like retro-style brawlers, River City Girls Zero is the right game for you; if you can life with things like laggy controls and a rather short play time, that is.

Quotation forthcoming.

The Legend of Bum-bo is more entertaining than I thought. But - and this is the big 'but' – I really hat Bumbo the Stout. I just don't like his playing style. But well, Isaac also has characters I don't like to play with (Blue Baby). I'm too spoiled by The Binding of Isaac in terms of size, and I've got a lot more combinations there because of the higher number of items you can collect (and keep). The bugs are annoying, the crashes too of course - after all, the developers try hard to quickly add patches. In the future I will see myself playing a fast run more often - and maybe another one, and another one. Presentation and faecal humor are a matter of taste, just like the rest of McMillen's games.

Ride 4 is tough, really tough, but not always in a good way. The penalty system is confusing, the driver’s A.I. is quite stupid and some parts of the game aren’t explained enough. However, if a challenge is what you seek, this might be the game for you.

Quotation forthcoming.

Serious Sam 4 delivers dumb, fun action, but not much more. The humour doesn’t really work, the story is as stupid as it gets and there isn’t really any variety. However, to relax after a hard day at work, this might just be what some people need.

The sequel to Far Cry 5 fails to add anything meaningful or fresh. Instead you get a forgettable story garnished with some half-baked crafting and a post-apocalyptic setting that never really comes to fruition. Thanks to the same open world action that we've come to expect from the series - a fluid mix between stealth and explosive combat-, you still get hours of fun with Far Cry: New Dawn, provided that you keep your expectations in check.

A short, but engaging mix of strategy and action, all wrapped in beautiful pixel art. The mechanics are fun, but lack depth and variety.

Ishin is playfully outdated in some areas and the technology is not entirely convincing. Series fans will still have fun with the atmospheric title. Newcomers, on the other hand, should rather choose another game from RGG.

Endzone is solid all round, it looks good, plays well and the setting is a smart choice for a Banished-style city builder. Some issues with balancing (damn those storms!) and some underdeveloped features - like science, combat or decrees - prevent it from reaching its full potential. The foundation, however, is pretty great and I am looking forward to the upcoming add-on which should arrive later this year.

Despite the limitations in terms of content, the developers were overwhelmed by the countless actions you can perform. Bugs interfere on a regular basis and there´s nothing you can get from exploring the rather interesting open-world. What saves the title and makes him, despite the flaws, worthwhile for HTC-Vive-owners is the immersive feeling of the game, at least when you’re not being interrupted by one of the third-person-cutscenes.

Still a pretty decent Warhammer massacre, but as a remaster it's simply not worth 40 euros.

Totally uninspired gameplay, technical bugs, design flaws – everything just for the sake of showing off some fancy new units. Uprising is EA’s guide to self-adulation. Whoever seeks an enthralling game with innovation: Look somewhere else.

The First Descendant had lots of potential, but now we know it’s just a mediocre shooter. The gunplay is fun, the descendants and their skills are nice to have, but a boring story, generic mission designs and big performance issues tarnish the reputation.

Battlefield 2042 had the Matchball against Call of Duty in 2021. When Fans were disappointed about the first look on Vanguard, Battlefield came as the Savior. But they dropped the Ball. Battlefield 2042 is a good game with great moments, but behind every new design decision is a big, fat “BUT”. The new Specialists are a great way to diversify the Gameplay and gives freedom to the players, BUT they kill the Teamplay with this new freedom. Hazard Zone has some great moments in it, BUT the devs forgot motivational systems for gamers to play it long time. The Gameplay is a good mix of the best Battlefields, BUT there are bugs all over the place. That’s all things that can be managed with patches and content updates in the future, but that should not be the standard for a release version. If DICE and EA would have delayed Battlefield 2042 maybe for six months, they could have made a masterpiece. Now it’s another blow in the buggy reputation of the franchise.

What the Fork succeeds in what it tries to do, which is to be an entertaining game in the vein of Overcooked. Especially the leveldesign is quite good! After a while, however, doing the same thing over and over again can become repetitive. However, if your’e looking to have a good time with some friends, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Viewfinder is a great indie game that doesn't quite know where it's going with the narrative, though. The basic puzzle premise is ingenious and doesn't wear out over the short playtime. Solution approaches are repeated, which diminishes the puzzle's fun a bit. The game was often compared to Portal in the run-up and the gameplay is very close to Valve's puzzle hit. We hope that Viewfinder will take the same step as Portal and follow up a very short but fun first part with a really great sequel that could revolutionize the world of puzzle games.

The expansion has even more technical problems than the base game and features similarly empty areas. But it offers a nice story with typical Pokémon characters and is particularly suitable if you not only want to explore the game world, but above all want to follow a storyline again.

Solid, if somewhat short, expansion. The highlight is the massive boss fight at the end.

Hot Wheels Unleashed could have been such a great game, but wasted his potential. Basically, it’s a fun arcade racer with an interesting setting which it barely uses in interesting ways. Also, the multiplayer is broken. Nevertheless, despite its flaws, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a fun racing game. Just don’t expect anything extraordinary.

Iron Danger has a couple of staggering flaws such as a lack of motivation, character progression or a good story. That being said, the well thought out battles and the rewarding challenge make the title a compelling strategy game.

While the solid gameplay from the PC version stays untouched, the new controls make it a little more difficult to keep track of bigger towns and all their similar looking buildings. The sluggish performance in later areas of the game make it even more clear that the PS5 version is not quite on par with the PC original.

Aside from higher resolution support and a modern savegame feature, this is more or less the original Doom 64 experience from 1997. Which is fine, since the game holds up pretty well. Despite some confusing level design, Doom 64 still offers tons of fun for those craving a retro FPS in the tradition of the first two Doom games

Atomfall is a thoroughly solid survival shooter that shines brightest between the lines. It has tons of mysteries to unravel thanks to its non-linear, hands-off mission structure and makes you feel clever when you’ve explored enough to piece it all together. The secrets at the heart of it all are far from new if you’ve played Stalker or Fallout before and the easily exploited enemy AI makes combat largely uninteresting, but this is still an entertaining and very British nuclear romp that’s well worth a playthrough or two.

While not as fast or manageable as the original PC release, Endzone still is one of the better city building games on Xbox. The addition of the first DLC is a welcome one, even though the price tag of 50 bucks seems a little steep.

Farewell North has moments where it drags, but once you get accustomed to its seemingly uneventful pace, you'll be rewarded with an emotional journey through a very scenic soulscape. By the end, you should probably have some tissues ready.

The games of the Gothic series had a decisive influence on my childhood and Piranha Bytes as developers have always had a special place in my heart. This atmosphere and credibility in a game world can hardly be found in any other role-playing game to this day. But the magic has slowly faded for me. Yes, Elex 2 also pushes the right buttons and the first chapters were among the best the studio has produced in years. So I could easily overlook the once again mediocre battle system and the weak technology. But I was all the more horrified when this whole structure began to crumble halfway through and completely collapsed towards the end. Piranha Bytes should have focused less on the long playing time and more on a consistently strong atmosphere and quest-design.

The debut of the Blazkowicz sisters does not provide the fully-fledged Wolfenstein experience. Nonetheless it is an action packed, entertaining coop shooter which is definitely worth its 30 Dollar price tag.

Biped is a cute little surprise for people who prefer to play in coop-mode. It offers an innovative control sheme and stages with a lot of variety. Everything falters the moment you start playing solo, however. Then it becomes a mediocre experience at best.

In Stonefly we are going on an adventure together with the main character Anika. Anika is very small, which makes the world around her really big. With our mech-bug, we explore the world, which looks like a Pixar movie merged with damped colours. Our biggest criticism are the many bugs – pun very much intended – which gave us a hard time. Many of the gameplay mechanics do not work the way they are supposed to or are just not well enough thought through.

Sandrock is a fundamentally solid life and farming sim with RPG and adventure elements and, above all, one thing: a matter of taste.

Cloudpunk manages to create a great cyberpunk-y atmosphere, but is held back by some limitations. Gameplay-wise, it doesn’t have a lot to offer and the sequences in which you get out of your car are a bore. Play it for the well-told story to get the most out of it.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

Octodad oozes charm like a leaky squid. While it’s disappointingly light on content and complexity, the game is sure to light up a room with its humor and whacky control scheme, especially in co-op mode.

The PS5 version suffers from performance and tearing issues that can be hard to overlook. But if you do, there is a decent action adventure waiting to be explored. It looks nice and sounds even better, the story is solid and we really enjoyed many of its locations, characters and dialogues. The open world however feels bafflingly empty and combat plays like a relict from the past. Loyal fans of Outcast deserved a better game – but that doesn’t mean they won’t like it.

Quotation forthcoming.

A relaxed chaos full of cute little animals that you shouldn't miss, as long as you can overlook minor bugs.

Shadow's section shows that the Sonic Team has learned over the years how to better transfer the blue hedgehog's speed orgies into the third dimension.

The learning curve is high and the interface a bit confusing, but in the end Imperator: Rome is a good game for all grand strategy fans.

The multiplayer has the potential to be one of the best in a long time. However, some weaknesses massively ruin the gaming experience.

I am a huge fan of Kingdoms of Amalur. That's why it hurts my soul somewhere to have to write negative about this game in this test.

Yes, the original Warcraft 3 is still a great game, but it is also clear that Blizzard has missed the mark with this remaster. The singleplayer campaign and gameplay mechanics have aged astoundingly well and the visual update is mostly successful. Newcomers will most likely have a great time experiencing the story and its four distinct races, which are still a lot of fun to play. But where are the vastly improved cutscenes that Blizzard has promised? This is simply not the game that has been advertised. Multiplayer comes with its own problems, from missing features (like a ladder or custom campaigns) to small, but irritating technical issues. Most of it can be fixed, for sure, but it appears rather baffling to me that this is a game from the same studio that brought us masterpieces like Starcraft 2.

Although the game is still fun, the updates in the remaster, when compared to the original, are just not enough. This is especially evident when looking at the controls, which have only been marginally optimized. It is also quite hard to keep an overview when there’s a lot going on and the original’s multiplayer mode is missing. If the developers are willing to upgrade the game via patches, we might be willing to give it a second chance.

The Cycle: Frontier is a game that has a great foundation for the future. The PvPvE shooter shows no mercy. Other players will try to steal your loot and the only thing you can do is either run away and hopefully lose them or fight back and kill them before they kill you. The feeling when extracting after a tough run is phenomenal. A recommendation for anyone who’s looking for a free PvPvE shooter. However, the game also has still a couple of issues, which need to be fixed.

Remnant: From The Ashes is a challenging third person shooter with light RPG elements and co-op. Though it lacks in high quality presentation and storytelling, it is still a lot of fun to play.

A solid city builder in the spirit of classics like Caesar and Pharaoh. The complex economic system is challenging but also can get frustrating towards the end. The lack of a sandbox mode is most unfortunate.

Falling down has never been this hard. Or this pixelated.

With its fantastic but simple gameplay, Minecraft Dungeons is not only for fans of the Minecraft universe. The design of the world and the adventurers is great and the multiplayer is fun. Sadly, the story is too flat and the game is too short to satisfy completely.

When it comes to presenting an accurate and impressively detailed version of Tokyo, Ghostwire makes a great first impression. Despite literally being a ghost town, the city feels alive and captures neon-soaked pop-culture as well as ancient mythology and folklore. The two main characters deliver a convincing performance, too, and their story is entertaining, despite being quite short. Everything else, though – the combat system, the progression and the quest design – is the bare minimum of what’s acceptable from a big budget open world game. The combat, while fun to a degree, is especially thin with just three laughable spells and enemies without any special tactics or weakpoints. The unlockable upgrades are boring and unoriginal and the side quests, while having interesting setups, are mostly short and lack satisfying payoffs. Still, there is fun to be had in exploring ghost-infested Tokyo – it’s just not a creative, unique sort of fun, but rather a pretty mindless and extremely familiar one.

Quotation forthcoming.

Despite the muddy graphics, an extremely ambitious port! But the weak performance prevents the medieval experience from unfolding properly. We would have preferred to see the game on the Switch 2!

This coop-shooter is neither really good nor really bad. It borrows different elements out from other games, but ultimately fails to combine them in a way, the majority would like. It’s still worth a look, since some people will like the mixture.

Atmospheric story expansion set in Rome, which only tells a short subplot and offers little new apart from a few puzzles.

If something stupid and wacky is what your’e looking for, Surgeon Simulator 2 is your game! Don’t expect any real simulation gameplay, also don’t expect working controls, long-term motivation or complexity, and you’ll have a lot of fun.

World War Z is a decent Koop-Survival-Shooter, which compensates for its lack of innovation with a lack of major flaws.

Fallen God is a good and lenghty standalone expansion to Spellforce 3, but it does not have the same impact as Soul Harvest did. The new troll faction is somewhat of a mixed bag, the dialogues drag out too much and the rts elements can feel a little undercooked. But Spellforce has always been more than the sum of its parts and if you loved the two previous games in the series, there is a good chance you will love Fallen God as well.

Despite a heavy nostalgic bonus, the snazzy façade does not quite comfort you over the outdated core. [..] In terms of graphics Second Contact appears like a full-featured Remake but in fact it's a remaster.

A lovingly crafted cozy game with plenty of story, but little depth.

The Precinct reminds of old GTA games but on the other side of the law. The story is interesting and the destruction physics in the open world sandbox are fun to watch. Unfortunately driving vehicles feels very clunky and the boring main protagonist is wasted potential. But overall, The Precinct is at the moment the best police simulation out there.

The bottom line is that Assassin's Creed Shadows is not a bad game, but unfortunately it is not really outstanding either. I had more fun with Naoe and Yaskue in feudal Japan than I had with Eivor in England back then. But it doesn't come close to Kassandra's adventure in Greece, for example. The design weaknesses mentioned are too obvious for that. Here, the game unfortunately wastes a lot of potential. And yet I will keep my adventure in Shadows in good memory.

With the usual Dragon Quest charm, Treasures convinces with its main elements: Exploration and collecting know how to entertain despite the simple story and optics. Treasures is a fun and engaging gameplay loop.

Pacific Drive has so much potential. The idea of a survival game with a car as main protagonist is great, the world looks wonderful and the story is interesting. But when we have to escape the radiation, everything becomes unnecessarily annoying. The balancing and some features should get a bit of rework, then Pacific Drive will be overall really enjoyable.

If you are into experimental games, you will find countless things in the desert of Midden that deserve to be found and will burn into your memory. However, if you have some difficulties with rather quiet and minimalistic stories and wish for an intense and huge adventure like Breath of the Wild, you might be disappointed. Sable is a small-scale project with a lot of heart that only works if you are actually willing to surrender to emptiness and peace. But trust us, it’s definitely worth your time.

For the most part, Aliens: Dark Descent is a really pleasant surprise. It combines real-time tactics, solid mission design and a good amount of suspense with some interesting mechanics that fit really well with the movie. If you are a die-hard fan of James Camerons Aliens (1986), you will find a lot to love here. The story however is mostly uninspired, it has its share of bugs and some encounters can lead to some serious frustration, especially with the limited save system, which might be off-putting for newcomers. But even with all these drawbacks, there is no denying that Dark Descent is still one of the best Aliens games ever made. Just keep your expectations in check.

With its repetitive missions and shallow live-service-elements, Suicide Squad isn't nearly as good as Rocksteadys previous Arkham Games. Still, it turns out better than expected, thanks to its over-the-top combat, eccentric characters and fun traversal mechanics.

Objectively speaking, Madden NFL 21 is not a bad game. It is a realtistic representation of the NFL, maybe even the best American football simulation out there. However, it lacks innovation on so many levels that players, who already own its predecessors, will really struggle to find a reason to pay another 70 bucks for it.

Solar Ash almost puts you in a trance-like state as you fluently move through gorgeous and varied worlds full of space magic. When it comes to side missions, dialogues and upgrades, though, the game slams the brakes a little too hard.

Windbound tries to combine Zelda: Breath of the Wild with survival gameplay, and altough it doesn’t completely fail in this endeavour, the end result still leaves a lot to be desired. There’s bugs, there’s repetition, there is, in general, just not a lot of interesting things to do. Which is a shame, because the game looks pretty and has a very nice atmosphere.

The Gunk is a wonderful game about good friends Rani and Beck. They have a small scavening business and harvest resources in order to sell them. The fascinating story begins as soon as you land on a planet full of disgusting gunk. Once you cleared it up you can see the fantastic and colorful world that is hidden underneath the slime. Soon they even found signs of an ancient civilization. They realized that they have to discover the secret of the colorful planet in order to remove the gunk and save the former inhabitants from the threat.

Parkasaurus is a nice little distraction for people who like park simulators, but way too easy and simple to entertain for more than a few hours. Also, there‘s a lot of technical hiccups and repetition which keep the game from being better than it is.

Albeit exceedingly tense in some places, Game of Thrones marks Telltale’s weakest interactive series yet since The Walking Dead. Characters are bland, plot holes abound, the writing is inconsistent and the ending just a setup for next season. There are some things to like for fans of the TV show, but not enough to recommend Game of Thrones over Telltale’s other success titles.

Wingspan did have so much potential to be great, but in the end, it is just okay. There is just too little variety to the gameplay and, being based on a boardgame, it doesn’t manage to justify its existence with any meaningful upgrades to the source material.

Chase a notorious and presumed dead masterthief in this new point and click adventure game by the creators of The Book of Unwritten Tales. In the first episode you play as swiss police officer investigating the ravens latest heist. Experience exotic locations such as the famous orient express train or a luxurious cruise ship in the Mediterranean and solve mostly logical, simple riddles.

The dynamic trading system provides variety and the handling is very comfortable.

A charming building game that would have benefited from more depth and doesn't fully exploit its fairytale theme.

Steelrising develops a nice story and atmosphere concerning an alternate reality about the French Revolution. Nevertheless the boss fights are way too easy and some technical and graphical issues are affecting the overall experience.

Scorn isn’t for everyone. Gameplay lacks depth and it is definitely on the short side. But none of that matters once you take in the incredible art direction and haunting atmosphere. Scorn may not be a great game at times, but as far as experiences go, this is a most memorable one.

El Hijo is not terrific, no question about it. The gameplay is too repetitive for that, the AI is sometimes forbidden stupidly and the story is simply not exciting enough. Nevertheless, the Western adventure can convince thanks to a beautiful graphic style and a nice sneak mechanic. El Hijo is definitely a successful game, especially for young gamers - and completely free of violence.

The difference between Civ 7 on Switch and Civ 7 on Switch 2 is basically day and night. Loading Times are much shorter, visuals and performance way better now I can at least play bigger maps with more players on the go. I even prefer the experience on Switch 2 to Playstation and Xbox since touch controls in handheld mode and mouse controls in TV mode are so flexible. For me it’s a perfect way to keep playing Civ 7 when I’m away from the PC.

Destroy All Humans! can't deny its age. Some parts of the game really feel outdated, the gameplay is too shallow, the graphics are too rough for today's standards. But if you ever wanted to play an alien villain enslaving mankind, this one is definitely for you.

The Ascent is by far the most beautiful top-down shooter we have ever played. Fun combat and a glorious world make the experience worthwhile, even though the story, RPG elements and co-op modes leave a lot to be desired.

The F1 series was getting better and better in the last years. Unfortunately F1 22 stops this trend. F1 Life and Supercars aren’t the new interesting features we were hoping for. The gameplay has weaknesses as well and on top there are some big graphic issues when it comes to rainy races.

A solid remaster of a good game. The ridiculous but funny story and the huge content thanks to all the included DLCs are now shining in a much better graphic. However, the remaster did not wipe out the negative points. The missions are still repetitive, the AI is stupid as hell and the world feels a bit empty, if you leave the path of missions.

The shooter portion is rock solid, but battles are generic and without real challenges. The game is still buggy and the first patches didn’t bring any new highlights or motivating content.

The waiting-mechanic restricts players and is frustrating at times, but simply changing the time of the system is an easy workaround, allowing for Cozy Grove to unfold its pleasant atmosphere and relaxing gameplay. The charming art style combined with dynamic surroundings make this game a laid-back life sim.

Quotation forthcoming.

Rarely have I been so torn when evaluating a game. Pleasure and frustration are very close together here.

WWE 2K22 is a lot of fun because the gameplay is faster, better and more fluent than in its predecessors. On the other hand it still has some technical flaws and some of the game modes – especially the extremely boring MyRise story mode – are rather disappointing.

Disciples: Liberation takes us on an epic adventure through a Dark Fantasy world that is filled with conflict and pain. The compelling narrative, characters and the tough decisions you have to make again and again to balance your standing in the four factions are what drives this game forward. The gameplay alone wouldn’t be able to motivate us for the 80 hour adventure, it is just to simple. The combat rarely presents a challenge and with the abundance of resources loses are easily replaced. We still had a lot of fun, since the roleplay aspect of the game works well enough.

The release of Project Motor Racing isn’t a disappointment, but there’s still plenty of work ahead. The car handling of the Racing Sim makes fun, even though there are also still some issues on technical site. It needs time and polish in the next couple of weeks.

WWE 2K22 is a step forward, but not the fresh start the fans were hoping for. Although the game is much more fun than its predecessors because of the improved gameplay mechanics, it still has some technical issues and some of the game modes are rather disappointing.

Cards on the table: Metroid is a series that I haven't had too close ties to for a long time. I am rather indifferent. That's why I didn't care about the open surroundings and the focus on hand-to-hand combat instead of firearms - but I understand if some fans of the predecessor would have wished for something else. On the other hand, I find it unhappy how lax and low-tension the fights are. For example, I raked the flying ox on the opposite side with an ice ax until it was dead. In such banal arguments, the joy of victory is limited. There are certainly people who have a better sense of direction than I do, because in some places I was quite at a loss as to where to go next. Here is my tip: If in doubt, go to the breach area. By the way, an all-round good innovation is the teleporting of memory points. That saves Indra a long walk or two.

At first, Dice Legacy was able to convince me with its look. Even if the first rounds went rather suboptimally and frustration quickly arose, I gave the game more time. Lo and behold, after a while you understand the individual mechanics and appreciate them. But the countless waves of opponents later in the game bothered me immensely. You always have to have a soldier's die ready to fend off them. It feels like the next wave comes after every defense. I would be happy about a patch that increases the time between waves.

Flintlock wants to pack a lot of good ideas into a fresh and exciting setting. Unfortunately, for some of them, this plan backfires.

Flintlock wants to pack a lot of good ideas into a fresh and exciting setting. Unfortunately, however, some of them backfire.

The open-world sandbox is so beautifully absurd, so funny, so broken that you just can't help but love this heap of dung that has become a game.