Pocket Tactics' Scores

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For 912 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 45% higher than the average critic
  • 15% same as the average critic
  • 40% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 75
Highest review score: 100 Cinco Paus
Lowest review score: 20 Session: Skate Sim
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 565 out of 912
  2. Mixed: 280 out of 912
  3. Negative: 67 out of 912
914 game reviews
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    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Frontline : The Longest Day
    It is a competent entry-level affair that nary puts a foot wrong. But in a world of Panzer Corps, Wars & Battles, Commander, and myriad other all-singing, all-dancing mil-sims, Frontline: The Longest Day doesn’t exactly pull a Fred Astaire. This is a bog-standard wargame.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Stalag 17 Game
    Stalag’s problem is that it feels like it learnt too well the lesson that catch-up mechanisms need to be weak in order to allow the advantage of skill to matter. That’s true, but in a game with some randomness and a relatively low skill ceiling, advantages often come from luck.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Battle Worlds: Kronos
    Battle Worlds: Kronos is a fine, if somewhat unremarkable strategy title that does justice to the lineage. It doesn’t rock the boat, but might not do enough to float one, either.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Magnificent Pixel Dynasty
    The Magnificent Pixel Dynasty isn’t a case where more is better, or even a case where more is unobtrusive—rather, these half-baked mechanics that have been bolted onto the same construction toy as All Glory to the Pixel King! only serve to detract from the core experience that lays at the heart of both games.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nexionode
    In the world of home electronics, I’ve never been interested enough in apex experiences to bother with 3D, but puzzles are dearer enough to me that I’m quite glad to have played those final levels.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Russian Front
    In a complex genre where games like Unity of Command and Battle of the Bulge are like precision-engineered Gothic cathedrals, Russian Front comes across like a Las Vegas one-hour wedding chapel. It seems to have the basic form and function of an operational war game down, but it’s missing the nuance and subtlety of a truly good one.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ento
    That’s not a deep criticism, of course, and as a logic puzzle Ento is clever enough, but I find myself reflecting back to Zendo with a bit of nostalgia for the forthright inaccuracy of calling the rule the Buddha nature.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    XCOM: TBG
    XCOM: The Board Game is an elegantly presented and thoughtfully executed game that pumps out tense atmosphere like a neurotic smoke machine.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Honeycomb Hotel ULTRA
    This is the Enlightenment in video game form, and that’s a perspective I can really appreciate in moderation.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Santiago De Cuba
    In its current state it’s a better-than-average digital that’s fun to play until you pull off the AI’s fake Fidel beard and realise that it was Woody Allen all along.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hadean Lands: Interactive Alchemical Fiction
    Hadean Lands is an endlessly clever experience.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Choice of Robots
    It’s truly a fantastic gamebook, and one I would recommend to anyone.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Corto Maltese Secrets of Venice
    Corto Maltese is a visually diverse, moderately well-designed adventure which simply fails in a few key areas.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pre-Civilization Marble Age
    Marble Age can sit alongside other quirky tactical takes like Empire: The Deck Building Strategy Game and provide a snappy, short­-term bit of strategic jerky.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pentaction: Medieval
    The most interesting lesson Pentaction: Medieval has taught me is that there are some game mechanics I genuinely like which respond poorly to refinement.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    H.P. Lovecraft's - Kingsport Festival: Rituals of Mysteries
    The game translates a board game of the same name which itself borrowed very heavily from Kingsburg, a well-regarded Euro. Like the joke, there’s very little about the result which is original, and the new expectations created by the digital format create requirements it fails to satisfy.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pickomino - the dice game by Reiner Knizia
    It’s not going to knock off Agricola or Galaxy Trucker as a full-blown euro, but as a quick diversion, Pickomino is an excellent choice and another really well made board game app for iOS.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Coup
    From the perspective of a licensor, Coup is just about the perfect iOS adaptation: it’s polished, with some genuinely interesting value added (including probably my favorite game art in memory and a satisfying achievement system), and introduces the game very well without making a physical copy seem superfluous.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Atlantic Fleet
    Atlantic Fleet retains the endlessly playable turn-based combat of its predecessor, but now it’s been fitted with a thoughtfully designed open-ended strategy game superstructure.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Empire Building : SettleForge
    It’s a marvelous structure, easily allowing players to learn the game’s basics and discover whether the interface suits them better than it did me.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Infection: Humanity's Last Gasp
    Infection is one of the good ones, a board game port that will live on my iPad for a long time, and one that has me excited to see what other board games HexWar might be bringing to the platform.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Spirit of War: The Great War
    For all its pretension about history, Spirit of War is a disappointingly generic experience that could be set in any time period. Even on an App Store that’s chronically short of hex-based tactical games, it’s not particularly noteworthy.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sentinel Command
    Like its predecessor, this is a complex game with a lot of interesting ideas — but possibly a few ideas too many.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cyber Hacker
    Cyber Hacker is definitely worth a try if you’re into (fake) cyber security or lite-sim games, or if you just want the barista at your local coffee joint to think you’re toppling “the corps” on your tablet over a nice espresso.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    BattleRex: Genghis Khan
    An approachable beer-and-pretzels wargame like this one needs to have an inviting user experience that makes it more rewarding to play in short sessions and less of a management chore.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Warhammer: Arcane Magic
    As negative as I’ve been about it, Arcane Magic isn’t far from being a pretty good game. Its card mechanics are an interesting idea, but there’s just nothing of substance underneath it.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    XenoShyft
    As bad as the user interface is—and it is completely horrible—I still can’t hate too much on XenoShyft. Much like those old VASSAL modules of mine, once you get over the learning curve and figure out how the UI works, it’s manageable and the game underneath isn’t hurt by it.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pocket God vs Desert Ashes
    Advance Wars fans looking for a fix could do much worse, as could anyone else looking for a game that balances the simple and the cerebral.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Brass
    Cublo managed to take a game with a lot of information and complex interactions and turn it into a fantastic digital edition that both fans of Brass and newcomers to Wallace designs can enjoy.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Reiner Knizia's Dice Monsters: Holiday Spin
    Because of the use of monetization shenanigans, that feels like a deliberate attempt to push players to be more committed to the game so that, when their carefully-developed Dice Monster expertise no longer avails them, they’ll shell out for some extra boosts. It’s like the twist ending of Frankenstein, in which you discover that the real monster is the creator.
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