While lacking the ultimate sense for sober realism and clinical perfection that propelled Forza 3 and Gran Turismo 5 to the racing-genres pole-positions, Shift 2 Unleashed scores with its fast presentation and brilliant helmet-cam that boast of speed and adrenaline. Despite the sloppy and cumbersome menus and some problems in terms of balancing and over-aggressive AI, Shift 2 Unleashed closes the gap on these two masterpieces due to its intensive and enthralling performance on the track.

Fantastic visuals, fast combat and clever nanosuit mechanics more than compensate for some linear leveldesign, a mediocre story and unvaried enemy design. It's not as good as the first game in the series, but it's a great shooter nonetheless.

Don't get us wrong, Test Drive Unlimited 2 is a very decent game. With a massive island to explore, beautiful cars and scenery that can take your breath away, it's an absolute eye candy. Still, almost every aspect of the game can use some polish. [Mar 2011, p.99]

An avant-gardist skateboarding simulator that keenly lacks some ingenuity. [Feb 2011, p.114]

Feels like a "best-of" MMORPG. Trion Worlds uses well known content, combining PvE, PvP, crafting, collecting, public questing. The class-system is great, though still unbalanced and the rift-events guarantee lots of entertaining battles.

Fast-paced Fantasy-Action, story-driven with great characters. Unfortunately Bioware has kicked some classic RPG-elements, that made Origins that kind of great. Poor thing is, that identical Questareas are used multiple times, just with different names.

Bulletstorm certainly isn't a revolution amongst first person shooters, but it actually managed to surprise me in a lot of ways. While I expected nothing more than a brainless killing-orgy, Bulletstorm features cool characters, a solid story, creative and fun weapons and foremost a smooth and surprisingly motivating gameplay.

A great adventure game in the style of the Indiana-Jones-action-movies. The story about nazis searching for the secret kingdom of shambala and it's huge powers is thrilling and directed with lots of great cutscenes and detailed graphics. The game contains lot's of dialogues, some of them are very long though. The Puzzles are mostly fair but to easy to solve for genre veterans. If you liked the Secret Files-series, you'll have to play Lost Horizon!

Black Ops is quite a pleasant surprise: On the one hand former second class developer Treyarch reaches the Infinity Ward's standard of gameplay quality and inventiveness for the first time. On the other hand Treyarch manages to set a course of their own through the unusual story and a ton of tributes to other masterpieces of action, be it movie or game. Plus Activision conceded the time and resources to Treyarch to aspire a really great game. And that's something you'll notice immediately. You'll recognize the passion and the effort that went into making this new episode. Black Ops delivers Call of Duty gaming at its best as well as a distinctly individual approach to the whole scenario. Infinity Ward will have to put their shoulders to the wheel to outplay Black Ops with the next CoD.

Criterion Games hits the old and trusty NfS-Series with a welcome and refreshing blast from the past. It offers fast and furious oldschool-action, plenty of mileage and an overall good ride. A lack of modes, some rather bland racetypes, the always present rubberband-A.I. and a lack of challenge bothered us. But overall we liked what Hot Pursuit had to offer. A lot!

A good sequel with superior controls, some new features, a steady pace and a lot more action compared to the first game. With its short playing time of roughly five hours it fails to create as much atmosphere as The Force Unleashed 1 though and the PC-adaption suffers from a lot of technical issues, e.g. tearing, crashes, bugs and problems during setup. The gameplay itself will satisfy both Star Wars-Fans and those who enjoyed TFU1.

Great action game including huge boss fights against over-sized monsters. A must have for those who like to play coop games for up to four players. In case you play the game alone alongside AI partners the difficulty level may frustrate you from time to time.

While WRC definitely lacks the glamourous presentation and technical splendour of its main rival Dirt 2, it has something else to offer: Real rally gameplay. The classic rally-contests where you are racing alone on an empty route, just against the clock, are something that Dirt 2 cold-shouldered and WRC now picked up. And it even does a pretty good job there. We criticize the lack of variety (there is no rally-cross mode for example) and the antiquated engine, but traditional rally-fans won't find a more convincing simulation of their favourite sport at the moment.

The roleplaying game convinces with motivating quests, an entertaining magic system, a huge game world and only a few bugs. The balancing, however, makes for deductions in the rating.

Finally Blizzard revives the classic World of Warcraft. With a new livery the shattered Azeroth becomes more challenging for returners and encourages newcomers to start off. It's about time to play the best MMO ever!

In Hawx 2 there are new mission types like delivering suppression fire for allied forces or navigating spy satellites. Furthermore you can now land, start or get refueled in some missions. These new features provide a bit variety though they are not very demanding. On the downside Hawx 2 fails to create any atmosphere due to the boring and confused story. In short, Hawx 2 is an improved Hawx 1, with more variety and less story. Those who enjoyed the first game, especially the dogfights, will also enjoy the second one. Those who hoped for innovation might be disappointed.

The as of yet best game of the series. Varied missions with cool settings and fairish graphics make Emergency 2012 a fun game. The downside is horrible interface and handling.

This year's FIFA Manager 11 comes with a few new features regarding the transfer market and the players' abilities. FIFA Manager 10's big news - the online mode - has also been overhauled to run smoother. Though the game has been improved mainly in detail, the overall experience makes it the best manager experience in the last few years. A must-have for football fans.

Arcania is a good but not excellent RPG, that tries to continue the legendary Gothic-franchise. To achieve this it unfortunately lacks lots of the gameplay-elements that fans loved in former times. Arcania is still no bad game, but surely too casual for players who are used to other titles of that genre.

A huge world to explore, lots of quests and decisions, tons of items and great replay value are reason enough to pick up this fine roleplaying sequel. Sadly, there are some noticeable technical problems, controls could have been better and the graphics look a little outdated. Still, if you enjoyed Fallout 3 for what it is, you will have a great time with New Vegas.

An interesting story premise does not make up for the ridiculous puzzle design and some technical glitches. There are many better adventure games out there - you should avoid this one.

Easily the most recommendable adventure game in years. The production values are top-notch, the puzzles are fair and most of the characters are simply adorable. If only the story would keep up its suspense and finesse after the second chapter, I would consider this game to be an instant classic of the entire genre. Ah well, there is always hope for the sequel, right?

Runaway: A Twist of Fate is a great adventure and a dignified finale of the Runaway triology. It sure does not have the deep story of The Whispered World or A Book of Unwritten Tales but it sure feels like a monolithic system. It’s cinematic presentation with it’s stylish graphics and frequent cutscenes in cool cartoon-style along with some unexpected cliffhangers and surprises kind of forced me to play the game at a stretch. Runaway: A Twist of Fate is a thrilling adventure that entertains the player from the beginning to the end. Just great!

With dark atmosphere, good puzzles and excellent mouse controls this adventure game easily exceeds its mediocre predecessor in every way.

The world of Venetica is beautiful and unique, but it suffers from some serious technical issues and an overall lack of polish. Still, with its fun, fast paced combat, good atmosphere and engaging quests it's a fine gaming experience nonetheless and a solid recommendation for those who are not looking for an all to deep role playing experience.

There are plenty of good ideas in this shooter. None of them are new. And none of them are implemented as thrilling as they could have been. All that´s left is a decent shooter with a not-so-bad AI, nice but partly overdone graphics and a non-existent story. There are moments of fun, though. You just have to find them.

The Single-player part is inferior to the big combatants in the genre in almost every aspect. Though the pacing is right, the sounds are superb and Medal of Honor presents a solid shooter-core, the missions are repetitive, the AI is non-existent and the scripting is extremely bad. Finally: And if anyone can clarify what the incoherent story is all about, I will award him with a prize. The multiplayer-part is a whole different issue that we will deal with as soon as the servers for the retail-version go up.

The once great German subgenre of business simulations is brought back to old glory with Patrician 4. This game delivers the same enthralling and challenging experience as its predecessors and tops them with up-to-date graphics and modern-day-improvements such as a drag-and-drop-interface. Patrician 4 has a few design flaws and the campaign is far too easy. But the dynamic trade system, the manifold possibilities of commerce and politics and the detailed depiction of medieval business make for an entertaining game that stands as the best pure business simulation to date.