Many indie developers tried but failed to reach the bar set by TowerFall. They have no problem with generating cool fresh ideas, but few have turned a minimalistic prototype into a full-blooded game.

I hope that next time, Cliffhanger Productions will aim for the normal commercial model from the get-go, so they won’t have to make a shoddy rehash of the entire game when the F2P-udder suddenly dries off.

That 'early access' feeling is still present in what is billed as a finished product. In fact, it is even stronger than before, with the unruly camera, horrible interface, slow-thinking AI, long loading times, and the help system presented in plain text format. And the promised career mode is even more bare-bones than in Qvadriga and Armored Core: Formula Front.

A psychedelic look is not enough to make this ho-hum tower defense even remotely entertaining.

Finally, there is a game that I can safely describe as “Even Hotline Miami was better!”

There is no need to be creative when killing enemies in Lucius 2 — the game is inhabited by certified idiots.

Playing Ori and the Blind Forest is akin to having a piano lesson — it is fun only when you press exactly the right keys. Get off the mark for just a split second, and the entrancing melody is gone, the tempo is ruined, and all you can hear is the sound of your fingers frantically tapping the keys.

Outside of the spaceship editor, Kinetic Void is excruciatingly boring.

DBX is huge — it can entertain you for dozens, if not hundreds of hours. On the other hand, you have to be a big fan of the series to enjoy the game.

Morningstar reminded me of the movie Red Planet starring Val Kilmer: a promising beginning, a speck an intrigue in the middle and a devastating disappointment in the end.

Cities: Skylines has many annoyances and shortcomings, but still, it’s a fun game, and it has one huge thing going for it — its creators are passionate and enthusiastic. They’re neither corporate slaves who churned out the last SimCity, nor penny pinchers who sell the same product over and over again (hello, Cities XXL). I bet that when I launch Cities: Skylines 6 months from now, I will see a much better game, and my review will become obsolete.

If Ubisoft believes that this is a successful attempt at experimental gameplay, I shudder to think of what their failures look like.

The creators of Ancient Planet made a rookie mistake — when switching from micro transactions to a regular commercial model, they opted not to rebalance the difficulty. As a result, in order to upgrade towers and obtain better weapons, you need to farm insane amounts of gems by replaying the levels again and again.

Once again, Petroglyph produced an RTS that is not good enough to warrant its “From the creators of Command & Conquer” tagline.

It’s a one-off replacement for your daily meditation rather than a full-fledged game.

Freaking Meatbags excels at cynical jokes and dark humor, but no matter how amusing the dialogues are, they’re not enough to compensate for the excruciatingly dull gameplay.

Hand of Fate is ridiculously easy until the few final stages, and even then it’s not a challenge of your wits or skill, but a simple test of luck.

If you’re not a fan of the «early access» concept, don’t rush to buy Caribbean. It’s a good game in its core, it’s just not ready yet.

I hope that there is a special place in hell for the those who made this train-wreck.

“Objective: play for fun”, the game tells you after you’re done with the career mode. Alas, there’s no such thing as fun in Chaos Ride.

If you don’t mind the game’s somewhat clunky role-playing system, you will enjoy the humorous story that pokes fun at clichés found in JRPGs, other video games and pop culture in general.

Viking Conquest’s multiplayer mode pales in comparison to the expansive, highly detailed, albeit somewhat flawed single-player campaign. It’s not downright bad, it just doesn’t offer anything new, and there are too few servers online. So, if you’re going to the unforgiving Nordic lands, do it for the story.

There are no breathtaking vistas to behold, but still, Sunless Sea is a great destination for virtual tourists. If you only you didn’t have to suffer through the monotony and fight the hastily implemented, out-of-place rules.

Please try to bear with the game’s uncomely look. It is worth it. Bleak and plain, Particle Mace will not let you go once you start playing it.

Deathtrap is definitely worth your time. Though, it is more like a TD-themed expansion to Van Helsing rather than a proper stand-alone game.

Weak storytelling and some technical issues are the only problems detracting from a great experience. This is one of the best games about zombie apocalypse.

Are you ready to shell out for a pricey graphics update? Because as a simulator, Football Manager did not mature at all.

If you’re willing to give this game a chance, make sure to try the demo first before opening your wallet.

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.

You don’t have to invent anything new to achieve success — just take the best ideas from your competitors and wrap them in a slick package. Dekovir Entertainment did that in Craft the World, and I don’t want to criticize them for this approach, as the end result is a nice game.

I can’t recommend Disorder to anyone, be it puzzle aficionados or fans of gut-wrenching stories. It could have been appealing to hardcore veterans of N and Super Meat Boy, but there are too many better alternatives nowadays.

Introversion Software’s DEFCON is cheaper and way better than this one.

Without coffee, the hero can literally fall asleep during a chase. I don’t blame him, since I had the same feeling while playing the game.

The contents of the two available episodes extinguishes all hope that somehow, someday Majestic Nights will get better.

If you want to buy Hail to the King: Deathbat — buy the album, not the game.

The developers did not fix all the flaws of the original game, but still, they righted a lot of wrongs.

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.

Despite a broken narrative and some flaws in gameplay mechanics, the refreshed formula of Blackguards 2 is a clear improvement over the original game.

Of all the remakes that were released in 2014, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is truly a born again game. What once was just a sketch, turned into a beautiful painting.

You get two for one price: a boring movie and a poorly-designed game.

Lords of Xulima is really an old-school RPG experience. Don’t skimp on reading the manual, or your adventure will end quickly and painfully.

There is no point in spending time and money on Lords of the Black Sun. It’s not that bad, but there are much better alternatives available now.

Even though Ultimate General: Gettysburg offers just one historical event, there is enough variety to make your next play-through different than the previous one.

Wherever you go in Warhammer Quest, you will find nothing but repetitive dungeons and battles. The original board game was fun because you played it with live people, and it simply doesn’t work as a pure single-player experience.

It will take you just a couple of days to try every character, go everywhere and conquer everyone. Without a decent single-player campaign, there is no incentive to come back and save the Multiverse again.

The Old City: Leviathan is good only for one thing. Leave it running on your computer and go to sleep. Let your friends think that you’re philosophizing all night long.

I should also point out unpleasant visuals, crappy voice-over work, horrendous pathfinding and sloppy UI, but it all simply adds injury to the insult, since, first and foremost, JA: Flashback fails as a tactical strategy game.

This ambitious attempt to create an MMO racing game pretty much failed thanks to horrible bugs and poor gameplay balance. And if you prefer playing alone, The Crew is not good enough for that, either.

Maybe, a few patches later, Dead State will become a better game than it is now. Fiddle with the flow of time to make events unfold faster, fix the remaining bugs in the code, restore the cut endings, and you will get a great RPG, not just a good one.

I wish the game was just as amazing as the story it tells. For an adventure that takes 4-5 hours to complete, it relies quite often on repeating the same gameplay sequences.

A corny, simplistic zombie shooter, which also doubles as a collection of all the genre clichés.

The story is really good, and it’ll take you about 15 hours to complete all four chapters. The game’s problem lies in the boring, QTE-laden battles, and you can avoid it altogether by downloading official Lone Wolf e-books free of charge onto the platform of your choice. So yeah, just skip the game.

I can’t shake the feeling that Mojang lives (or, rather, lived before the Microsoft buyout) in the perpetual brainstorm mode, as if everyone on the development team shouts their suggestions, and then, instead of sifting through them and selecting the best ones, they just go ahead and cram everything in the final product. Maybe Minecraft actually benefited from this chaos, but for Scrolls, which has been stuck in a quagmire of half-baked ideas for two years, this approach brings nothing but death.

If you value your mental health, keep away from Cargo 3 as far as possible.

Sproggiwood is cute, but there is not enough substance to keep you interested after a couple of hours.

Armageddon is a game for those who see only war in the darkness of the distant future. Even if the developers decide to mimic Panzer Corps by releasing new campaigns and playable factions, they won’t be able to attract new players to the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

This updated version of Shadowgate is astonishingly close to the original game, but it is not a merit. The developers were high on nostalgia, and they ended up reanimating a decomposed corpse.

A nice Christmas gift for the fans of ‘classic’ Lara Croft.

There is nothing even remotely decent about this game; wherever you look, you’re bound to find only glaring mistakes.

Warmachine: Tactics is a promising game, but I would not advise buying it in its current state. Let the developers fix its numerous flaws first.

Monotonous gameplay flow, almost identical towns and quests, and there is just one winning strategy. It’s a good-looking, but brainless game; some solitaires are deeper than this one.

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.

For game that wants you to spend hundreds of hours playing it, Freedom Wars is depressingly shallow.

Even though Heavy Bullets flirts with roguelike ideas, it lacks replayability.

A disappointing debut by a clearly talented developer.

Another well thought-out, but painfully difficult, punishing game of an undetermined genre that future generations may someday describe as “FTL-like”.

Encyclopedia is the only decent thing about Space Program Manager, but the truly best part is not even in the game. The manual appendices have detailed descriptions of both US and USSR space programs, and even an interview with Buzz Aldrin himself. They should have published a book instead of a game, really.

As it turns out, Toybox Turbos is just a boring, simplified clone of Micro Machines, Codemasters’ old hit.

Door Kickers is perfect lunch-break entertainment, and it’s immensely addictive.

It’s not a fully developed tower defense game, but a sketch, almost devoid of tactical possibilities and balance.

Just like its zombies, Escape Dead Island is dull and predictable, but it does have a few moments of clarity. Overall, it’s just awful, both as part of the franchise and a stand-alone game.

Far Cry 4 is yet another collection of stale ideas that permeate every Ubisoft title of the last few years, adorned with a ho-hum story. But, even if you realize that you played almost the same game back in 2012, Kyrat is still a good place to escape from your everyday life.

While the story campaign is woefully short and there are very few gameplay modes, the controls and locations are quite pleasant.

The emotional side, be it notes scribbled by the characters or encounters with other survivors, is hands down the best thing in the whole game.

Mutant Games should have listened to the sermon of the mount for developers. First commandment: do not copy other people's ideas. Second: do not repeat yourself.

The gameplay mechanics of Ancient Space would have been a good fit for multiplayer, but there are no online modes at all, and the single-player campaign is hardly worth your time.

The process here is so mindless that, just out of curiosity, I recorded all my keystrokes, and the resulting macro automatically cleared the whole first dungeon and swiftly dealt with its boss. Too bad that you can’t mute the sound effects, otherwise I’d have just left my computer to entertain itself.

As I write this, Assassin’s Creed: Unity is a bugfest, but technical problems, however annoying, can and probably will be fixed. It is not cracks in textures that it is the most worrying thing about Unity, but the cracks in game design and writing.

You don’t have to think about tactics in Combat, not really – just shoot to kill and watch your six. Forget territory control, since there are no strategic points except your HQ. Faultline Games also designed 5 new maps, added a couple of assault rifles, reworked the interface a bit… and that’s about it. Since you don’t need to own the original Natural Selection 2 to play Combat, and the two games are actually incompatible, the developers nearly fragmented their tightly-knit community. But fans did not fall for the bait – Combat’s servers have been almost empty since day one.

Defense Grid 2 feels like a very conservative remake featuring new maps. No bold design ideas here – everything is almost verbatim like in Defense Grid: The Awakening which was released 6 years ago, only the gameplay is a bit simplified.

Double Fine overestimated its abilities and failed to produce a proper management strategy game. Remember Spacebase DF-9 every time before buying anything in Steam Early Access. Even a big name is not a guarantee that a game will be actually finished.

Spatial puzzles and meticulous optimization tasks go hand in hand with frantic escapes, intense shoot-outs and tense moments of silence. This mix is so engrossing that at first you don’t even notice all these minor annoyances that DotE is rife with. Still, even with them, the game is very enjoyable.

I never put down a puzzle game before I complete it, but TRI broke me on level 12th out of 16. I got bored much earlier than that, though. Unfortunately, the game is not only beyond hardcore, it’s simply rude to the player. I doubt that most of you will appreciate this sort of masochistic experience.

The difference between playing A Golden Wake and browsing through a screenshots gallery is that screenshots scroll faster.

Neverending Nightmares is a heavily scripted walk through a weird museum rather than a game. Even encountering monsters feels mundane here.

Thankfully, the short single-player campaign is not all that there is, as BlazeRush also has a very fun multiplayer mode.

A couple of evenings of wild, but fleeting fun – you will hardly get anything more from Screencheat.

Bayonetta 2 is nothing less than the best game in its genre, and it’s a solid reason to buy a Wii U.

Team Indie tries and fails at creating a coherent world for its borrowed characters. It just asks for comparisons to all these other games, and none of them works in its favor. Brightside Games could not digest so many original titles at once.

Ziggurat looks amazing, and at first, you can’t even tell that it was made by a small indie studio. Though the lack of resources is apparent in environments that lack variety – both visual and gameplay-wise. Plus, perks grant you only passive buffs, and aside from ‘guns’, your only other weapons are amulets which work for mere seconds when activated.

Despite the game’s shortcomings, you will hardly regret spending time with Lords of the Fallen. The developers set out to create a more humane version of Dark Souls 2, and they accomplished their mission, albeit not as brilliantly.

Even if Last Knight were the only ‘endless runner’ in the world, it still would not have been worthy of your time.

Better dust off the original Doom than play its pale imitation.

Instead of giving a new lease on life to the survival horror genre, Mikami, the creator of Resident Evil, produced a dud.

Ryse is very simplistic, but at least it’s beautiful to look at. No wonder Microsoft made it a launch title for Xbox One – it is an ideal introduction to slashers. Unfortunately, if you have played other, better-designed games, Ryse will quickly disappoint you.

Should you read lengthy Internet discussions on what is missing now in Beyond Earth, you may think that the game is simply guilty of being not enough like Alpha Centauri, when, in fact, the problem lies elsewhere. Beyond Earth is worse than its 15-year-old predecessor in all regards, and it has nothing to make up for it. Firaxis made a decent, but shallow game that gets old after 2-3 playthroughs, which is not a good sign in a 4X genre.

Misfortune follows Styx everywhere in his travels around Akenash. If you somehow managed to complete the campaign without using F5/F9 even once, congratulations – you have an iron will. Most of you, though, will be loading the last quicksave every couple of minutes, because Styx can be so clumsy, especially when it comes to jumping.

A rare thing happened to Frogwares: the studio had suddenly realized that it was moving in the wrong direction and made a 180. Crimes and Punishments still has some old sores, but overall, this adventure game is entertaining and it does not rely on tired conventions.