Quarter to Three's Scores

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For 391 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 37% higher than the average critic
  • 7% same as the average critic
  • 56% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 9.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 SnowRunner
Lowest review score: 20 Toy Soldiers: War Chest
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 192 out of 391
  2. Mixed: 69 out of 391
  3. Negative: 130 out of 391
391 game reviews
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    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Age of Wonders: Planetfall
    Of course, this mix-and-match approach will only be as good as the imagination that goes into its parts. Paradox tried something similar with Stellaris, using a set of opposing attributes. But that game’s spreadsheet-dry sci-fi doesn’t have room for the kind of glee, personality, and interactivity that drives Planetfall. Stellaris is the rasp of pages turning in a ledger. Run your index finger across the paper, along the row and then down the column, find a number that supposedly suggests the high-concept sci-fi in one of those dull classics you felt obligated to read and even more obligated to pretend to like. But Planetfall is a shelf of old sci-fi dime store novels in the back of a tiny bookstore inexplicably still in business. Pick the lurid title that calls out to you best. Pull it out and delight at the splash of imaginative cover art. This is your story for today.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Field of Glory: Empires
    Did I mention the unique gameplay touches designed into some of the nations? The excellent interface that makes it easy to jump to whatever information I need, whether it’s the size of the Carthaginian navy, the closest source of amber, if there’s a river crossing on the way to the next province, or how good that unit is at besieging fortifications? The scattered tidbits of historical flavor text, especially on each of the buildings? The post-release support, which includes a new diplomacy system currently available in a beta build? And did I mention that I haven’t played a strategy game this unique and absorbing since Victoria and Imperialism before it?
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
    Among the many insights offered in Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, it knows that if there’s one thing better than cruising around in a sweet ride blowing stuff up and flying through their explosions, it’s cruising around in a sweet ride blowing stuff up and flying through their explosions while listening to sweet tunes.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Transport Fever 2
    Like Anno 1800, it gives you plenty of tools to watch and admire, but unlike Anno 1800, it’s got all the time in the world for watching and admiring. The scenery goes by, the tracks rattle, the whistle blows, the truck’s engine purrs, the boat drifts lazily downriver, the plane banks and dips toward the runway. No one is pushing me to get out and build new plantain farms. There is no opponent AI whose company might get in the way of whatever railroad route I build later. There is no multiplayer. It’s just me and a map of stuff that wants to get somewhere else, waiting patiently for me to build it a way.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Spinnortality
    The premise is cyberpunk, the parameters are thoughtful, and the payoff is worth the bother.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Din's Legacy
    This is state-of-the-art for action RPGs in Soldak’s fantasy worlds.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Borderlands 3
    Gearbox is at their best when they’re engineering the act of shooting something. If their game would just shut up and let the gleeful gunplay speak for itself, Borderlands would go a lot further. Instead, the gunplay is clogged up with meaningless loot, smugly unfunny jokes, and lots of using the same ol’ gun while waiting for the parsimonious skill point drip to finally drop. Where’s the glee in all that?
    • 81 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
    In the campaign, white phosphorus is a horrific set-piece accompanied by screams and whimpers. That’s some heavy shit. In multiplayer, white phosphorus is a reward for competent play that brings high-fives and fierce guitar licks. That’s some badass shit, Bro! You can have this cake and you can eat it, Modern Warfare assures us. In past installments, this dissonance would be funny, but here, it’s another reminder that these are really two separate games, and never shall the twain meet.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Control
    I don’t want to use the word masterpiece lightly, but what else do you call the combination of gleefully chaotic gameplay with earnest storytelling in a setting as refreshingly unique as Bioshock? What else do you call a combat system that goes so far beyond the simple act of shooting a gun without drilling down into a set of intricate menus and complicated controls? What else do you call darkly malevolent horror that doesn’t feel like it was cribbed from someplace else? What else do you call the crowning achievement of a studio with a unique voice, an uneven track record, and 25 years of experience? If there’s a better word to describe what Remedy has achieved with Control, I can’t think of it.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Children of Morta
    But what the elevator pitch and basic description don’t convey is Children of Morta’s unique charm.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order
    These are the colorful bursts of superhero nonsense I’ve missed since 2017, splashy and unserious, as intricate as I want it to be, stretching out for as long a grind as I care to ride, brimming with the loot and customization I want in an action RPG, and enough content to make me forget I’ll never again play my leveled up Squirrel Girl. Oh, Marvel/Disney/Nintendo.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Sea of Solitude
    I don’t mean to make light of someone who’s obviously — maybe too obviously — writing about things that make her sad. I get it. But being sad doesn’t make your poetry worth reading. I’m sorry, I know that’s a dick thing to say, but I’m not your therapist. I’m not even your friend. I don’t know you.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Anthem
    How did BioWare, veterans of making games with fine-tuned progression systems, make this uninteresting slog of bad loot and dull advancement? How could the developers that gave us Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and even Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood create such a technically incompetent mess of loading screens and disconnects?
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Worbital
    What hasn’t been done before is something this accessible, smartly paced, and most importantly, playful.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Terraforming Mars
    That’s this boardgame port in a nutshell: an incomplete effort stripped of personality and then a door slammed shut before you can admire your work.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Diablo III: Eternal Collection
    It’s insane. It’s absolutely insane. Utter havoc. It’s what makes Diablo 3 the preeminent action RPG, even if there are newer and arguably better designs out there. I still grin, shake my head, and marvel at Blizzard’s ability to fuse charm, character, and technical prowess. They are the masters of swirling cartoonish videogame power fantasies, they belong on the Switch, and they’re here at last.
    • 97 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Red Dead Redemption 2
    Imagine an arthouse movie with summer blockbuster production values, as if Terrence Malick had been given a Star Wars movie. Imagine if Ubisoft had made Gone Home. Like Arthur Morgan himself, Red Dead Redemption 2 is meditative, laconic, a slow burn, drawn out and unhurried, sometimes even morose, more concerned with characters than spectacle. Let us go then, it suggests.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Strange Brigade
    A spirited shooter with an admirable commitment to aesthetic, but without the game design chops to pull off the progression system it wants to offer.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Shadow of the Tomb Raider
    Tomb Raider was personal because it was personal. But now it’s come full circle to yet another vapid videogame character muddling through bad writing, rote familiar gameplay, and fewer features than the last time. Wake me when the next reboot is here.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    State of Decay 2: Daybreak Pack
    Remember how good the DLC was in the first State of Decay? Lifeline and Breakdown? If so, definitely steer clear of this waste of $10.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Victor Vran: Overkill Edition
    Bring the Van Morrison with your shotgun and you should be fine.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War
    Too many strategy games mistake detail for design, activity for gameplay. Gladius knows better.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Crew 2
    What a delight to re-appreciate The Crew all over again! The first one. Not this underdeveloped and terribly misguided sequel.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wreckfest
    It is the anti-Forza. It luxuriates in the dents on a day-to-day sedan instead of the aerodynamic swoop of something Italian and impossibly expensive. It’s too serious for Electronic Arts, but too wild for Papyrus. It’s not interested in car culture or faux social media or sexy street racing. It hasn’t seen any of the Fast and Furious movies. It loves tough cars, not sleek cars. It knows dents add character. You don’t need to drive these beasts around in the desert to make them look like they’ve been scavenging the wasteland. They come that way.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cultist Simulator
    The end result is a glittering construct of stunningly good prose.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    One Deck Dungeon
    Unlike Sentinels of the Multiverse, I’d still rather play this on the tabletop. Handelabra seems so preoccupied with whether or not they could make a One Deck Dungeon videogame (they can!), but they didn’t stop to think if they should.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    State of Decay 2
    Besides, polish is overrated. Consider Dawn of the Dead. Both of them. Zack “Justice League” Snyder’s update is polished, contemporary, and appropriately dumb. But Romero’s original is raw, uneven, and still powerful. They each have their place, but only one of them is timeless. If you want the fullest and most thorough expression of zombie mythology in a movie, you watch Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. If you want the fullest and most thorough expression of zombie mythology in a game, you play Undead Labs’ State of Decay 2.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Metal Gear Survive
    Because it’s trying so hard to be a Metal Gear game, and falling so short, Metal Gear Survive is the wrong kind of off-kilter. Sometimes a Kojima game without Kojima just isn’t a Kojima game. Sometimes it’s just a snack to tide me over.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Far Cry 5
    What perfect videogame comfort food for at least, say, another 205 days.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Space Tyrant
    If I had to pick one thing Space Tyrant does best, it would be pacing. Because this is how a game has to move in order to cook a Marie Callender chicken pot pie in 20 minutes.
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