Wargroove knows how to entice the player with a cute pixel art style, loveable characters, well written dialogue and a strategy experience that will satisfy newcomers as well as seasoned veterans. The story is simple, yet enjoyable ,and the editor - in which you can design you’re own campaigns –, whilst extensive, could be more enhanced on a technical level. A charming Indie-Strategy-Game that leaves room for improvement, but still manages to be a lot of fun.

Elegant game design paired with a smart interface and lots of replay value turn Slay the Spire into a fast, almost addictive experience, even though the game can be too punishing at times.

Nomada Studio – the Indie-Developers behind Gris – did not really aim for a classic gaming experience. They more so crafted an interactive art piece that shines through its aquarelle art style and music. Therefore Gameplay is very minimalistic ,and puzzles rarely require any real effort by the player. Yet Gris is definetely worth playing solely for the unique and beautiful design as well as the great score.

Its story and characters are definetly the Game’s forte. Scenes range from endearing and relateable to completly absurd and hilarious. All the while Gameplay is interesting at first, but becomes pretty tedious and - in parts - nigh unbeatable in later stages of the game. But at no time did we consider quitting, because the creative story and great dialogue always pulls you back in, as soon as you get annoyed by the puzzle sections. Atlu’s erotic-dating-adventure manages to deliver extremely well on various fronts, but sadly falls short of its gameplay variety and interactivity in terms of story. Nonetheless, all the other parts of the game are strong enough to elevate Catherine to a truly great experience.

Miles better than the technical disaster X Rebirth, X4 is still far away from its clearly recognizable ideal state.

Dusk does not reinvent the wheel and has no intention to do so. It offers wonderfully fast-paced and robust first person action that mostly lives up to classics like Doom or Quake. Add some great level design and a bold art style, and you get a retro experience that would have been an instant classic, if it had been released 23 years ago.

The atmosphere and presentation shine, but the gameplay in Below is at times frustratingly repetitive.

Sweet design perfectly combined with destructive mischief.

Just Cause 4 would have taken half a year of development to get the technology under control and would still be a small disappointment. The title gives you a huge game world as well as pretty cool gadgets and somehow makes nothing of it. The story is insignificant, the missions are annoyingly repetitive, the AI is unbelievably stupid and in addition there are technical problems like the constant pop-ups, strikingly late loading textures, broken shadow calculation and bugs, which lead to the fact that a running mission can't be completed. In addition, the storms that have been announced turn out to be pure farce without any playful benefit. Whatever went wrong during the development, despite good approaches, fun tools and a big game world, you can't get past the predecessor. Instead of a cool action orgy, Just Cause 4 has become a real nuisance.

Take a handful of XCOM, spice it with a pinch of classic roleplaying game and ad an unusual scenario – finished is lovingly crafted insider tip for tactics fans.

Even truckloads of patches couldn’t save this roleplaying mess from being one of the worst releases we’ve seen the entire year. Avoid at all costs.

I don't think I've ever had a game in the test that was so difficult to judge. It doesn't grip properly, but Fallout 76 makes me feel very contradictory. On the one hand, I really enjoy the game world, the exploration and all the stories told here. But I'm also someone who can get involved with this indirect way of telling stories. I can understand that for many this doesn't work without NPCs and dialogues. But I enjoy reading the different diary entries and listening to the holobands. On the other hand, the poor technical condition of the game really annoys me a lot. The poor performance despite average graphics quality is hard to understand. You can and must expect more from a modern game in 2018.

A mostly uninspired action-adventure, but very enjoyable nonetheless. Combat and exploration deliver good, old-school fun and the levels are brimming with secrets. However, the story turns out rather shallow and most of the collectables and upgrades are not nearly as motivating as in the first Darksiders game. But if you are a fan of the series and keep your expectations in check, by all means, go for it.

Battlefield 5 is a great successor, but lacks in the area of multiplayer maps. For the next game DICE should think about leaving out the non-essential single-player campaign.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is an incredibly extensive and complex RPG with great story, characters and fresh ideas surrounding the kingdom building. Unfortunately it suffers from some design flaws, bugs and excessive loading screens.

Call of Cthulhu has a lot of promising features, but it should have stayed just a detective game. The horror elements are not implemented well and they seem misplaced.

Hitman 2 is a good stealth playground, although it missed some of its best chances to be a great game.

Leisure Suit Larry is back and that’s a good thing. The game keeps the charm and humor of the first games and puts it right into the 21st century.

If you are a Wipeout fan and not averse to a round of Mario Kart, you belong to the target group of Grip and have a lot of fun with the game. Especially the speed devil races let the adrenaline level rise, while the weapon events provide a lot of pleasure. Unfortunately the joy diminishes with time, because career structure and presentation are rather dull. The PS4 version is technically clean and therefore absolutely recommendable for fans of action racers.

Thanks to an engrossing story and some tricky choices Thronebreaker kept us hooked for the 30 hour campaign, even though some of the puzzles can lead to frustration and the map exploration gets old pretty quickly.

The second DLC brings a few amusing quests to the otherwise more serious story of Kingdom Come and fits perfectly to the character of Sir Hans Capon. Sadly the questline is way too short and the usual player will complete it in less than three hours. For the price of the DLC we would have expected a little bit more. Even though the dice tournament is really fun and a welcome variety.

While both combat and puzzles in Bard's Tale 4 offer quite a bit of fun, it's hard to overlook the stale story, lifeless levels or technical shortcomings. The inventory and save system feel like they came straight out of an alpha version.

For me, Black Ops 4 is the best Call of Duty in years. I must also say that the single player campaign I haven't missed a minute. The three successful online modes are clearly more important to me than a bombastic, but very short single player fun.

Praise to Bigmoon for the courage to take on this difficult to implement racing game genre. The small studio has also mastered the big task properly, especially the challenging navigation is authentically conveyed to the player. However, Dakar 18 weakens in one decisive discipline: driving physics. In times of a Dirt Rally 2.0, which will appear next February, racing fans expect more from a game with a simulation claim. Also the missing vehicle tuning as well as the spartan damage model should be offensive to simulation fans. But if you don't let this spoil the fun, you'll get an off-road game of a different kind, which also creates a Dakar atmosphere thanks to the pretty graphics and the authentic navigation system.

Actually, I wasn't a big fan of battle royal games until then. But that had less to do with the concept than with the titles currently available. In my opinion PUBG is still not technically ready yet and I just feel too old to enjoy Fortnite. I love the blackout mode of Black Ops 4, because the balancing is already right for the release, the technology works well and the map is almost perfect. In addition, I've hadn't so much fun with a Call of Duty multiplayer mode since Modern Warfare 2, and the zombie fights are really entertaining - for me Black Ops 4 is the best Call of Duty in years. I have to say that I haven't missed the single player campaign. The three successful online modes are clearly more important to me than one bombastic, but very short single player fun.

Crosscode is an amazing adventure with more than 50 hours of content, charming retro graphics, likeable characters and tons of challenging puzzles. Jumping and aiming can get a little fiddly and a bunch of the brainteasers are simply too demanding, but if you bite through these slightly frustrating moments, you will get more than your money's worth.

A charming, rock-solid metroidvania that should appeal to every fan of the Castlevania series, even though it would have benefited greatly from a more interconnected game world and better use of its time manipulation mechanics.

Harkening back to the first game in the series, Valkyria Chronicles 4 does very little to improve upon its tried and tested formula. A new set of characters and a few welcome additions however are enough to make this one just as enjoyable as the original Valkyria Chronicles ten years ago.