An interesting concept, a weak execution.

The best way to experience Shadow of the Colossus — play a couple of levels at a friend’s or use the Share Play function. This game was a hit in its time, on its original platform, but we all moved on, and now the remastered version feels archaic, especially its gameplay.

Alan Wake 2 is good at times because of a director’s work, but it often fails to deliver as a horror and action-adventure game.

There is no thrilling story, colorful characters or allure of the high seas. Instead, Return of the Obra Dinn is a bold, massive puzzle, an exquisite workout for your 'gray cells'. Unfortunately, the innovative gameplay mechanic gradually loses its appeal and excitement towards the finale, and I had to muster my willpower in order to beat the game in one go.

Dogtown without a single dog in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty looks more like a Potemkin village than an appropriate scenery for the final act of a protracted tragedy.

Jumping off Dark Souls, FromSoftware removed all the best components of its hit series in order to make Sekiro. It's a decent slasher if you like honing reflexes or breaking bricks with your forehead. More casual players will quickly get bored, though.

Legacy of the Void is hardly a milestone in the RTS genre, but it is a nice bookend to the trilogy. Blizzard has finally fulfilled its promise to StarCraft fans.

All in all, it's a decent platformer worthy of your 10-20 hours of free time. But, as far as metroidvanias go, there is so much stuff to improve in the potential sequel, for example, a map, a teleport system, a bag of collectable items and lots of well-hidden secrets.

This is a solid RPG/action game. Some elements of the game are unusual and fresh for single-player parts of the Final Fantasy series, but some are too dull and rudimentary.

Spider-Man is a stark example of an outdated "sandbox game” whose goal is not to entertain but rather preoccupy players, and it uses every cliche in the book to do that.

No one asked Guybrush to return, but he came anyway and crashed his own party. In the beginning, you try your best to acclimate to the unusual visual style, hoping that your patience will eventually pay off. In the end, you wonder how they managed to screw up a decent game with such a vile ending.

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is able to charm with artistic solutions, beautiful mechs, gloomy atmosphere of corporate wars. But there are too many of annoying factors in the game.

Gone Home is an ideological sister to Dear Esther, only not as beautiful or mysterious.

Angry Birds Star Wars is a solid game based on a tired concept.

Death Stranding is asking you to find variety in a daily rut, cooperation possibilities for a character who has fear of contact, scientific explanations in clear-cut mysticism. Today, you’re annoyed that the story doesn’t move forward, and you have to trek into the same ghost-infested area as before, but tomorrow you’ll gladly spend a few hours hauling resources for a new highway and feeling good about it. This source of joy is very weird and defies explanation.

It’s a standard ”enhanced port” from Wii U to Switch with minimal changes, but those who missed it the first time around will enjoy this tropical romp.

Days when people considered StarCraft a gold standard of the RTS genre are long gone. Nowadays, Blizzard tries to mask the old formula by grafting superfluous gameplay elements and tugging at nostalgia strings. Unless you’re a huge fan of StarCraft’s multiplayer, better save your money for Company of Heroes 2 and Wargame: AirLand Battle.

A bottomless chasm separating the story and the gameplay is the biggest problem of this Tomb Raider. Crystal Dynamics rebooted the series with an origin story. The developers wanted to show us how Lara learns to kill – first animals, then humans – in order to survive, how the hardships of the Yamatai island will make her into the tomb raider well know and love. But in reality, you can’t suspend your disbelief even for a minute. Though Lara sighs and whines a lot, her superhuman vitality would make Wolverine green with envy.

Anomaly: Korea represents the lazy approach to game development. The game is still fun to play, but it is not nice to sell the same product twice.

The developers chose an unusual path, but the product of their labor is neither roguelike nor a full-blown RPG. The game’s original concept is running idle.

Short, but enjoyable single-player campaign blending Shogo, Portal 2 and Mirror's Edge compliments the familiar multiplayer, which is equally fun and infuriating.

While AC: Origins was packed with interesting stories, Odyssey is a generic ’Ubisoft sandbox’ in the worst sense, with hundreds of the same-looking places, dozens of ”kill-fetch” quests and almost zero motivation to grind further.

The gameplay and its mechanics are incredibly simple, and there aren’t any new ideas, but boy, it can be so fun.

The Talos Principle’s worst transgression is that it is absolutely predictable. The levels are all too similar, and by the end of the game you do pretty much the same routine as you do in the beginning.

If Almost Human had made a strict dungeon crawler like the first Legend of Grimrock, but with a properly fleshed-out world, better UI, redesigned combat and role-playing systems, I would have recommended such a sequel in an instant. Alas.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is a weird amalgamation of two different games. One is almost like those classic RPGs from BioWare’s early years; it makes you sit on the edge of your chair, waiting for shocking twists, deliberate over moral dilemmas, laugh and cry. The other is a MMO with generic quests and soulless grinding, having slithered where it should not be. And, alas, there is no way to separate them.

If you value humor and atmosphere above all else, go forth and enjoy Tales from the Borderlands. If not, you will have a hard time enjoying a cartoon without gameplay, freedom and bedazzling graphics.

In contrast to the previous expansion, Afterbirth is just a collection of scraps and trimmings that has nothing original to offer.