The Games Machine's Scores

  • Games
Select another publication »
For 2,656 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 71% higher than the average critic
  • 7% same as the average critic
  • 22% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 79
Highest review score: 99 Baldur's Gate 3
Lowest review score: 30 Dino Dini's Kick Off Revival
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,064 out of 2656
  2. Mixed: 569 out of 2656
  3. Negative: 23 out of 2656
2658 game reviews
view
per page
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Elder Scrolls Online: Markarth
    The content of this DLC for The Elder Scrolls Online, part of the Greymoor arc, may not satisfy in terms of content added but still manages to give a worthy ending to the Dark Heart of Skyrim storyline. Markarth is essentially a piece of content that focuses on the story; you should not expect new gameplay mechanics or anything of the sort out of it. Could it have been better? That is often the case, but the hopes for ESO’s future lie elsewhere.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Exit Limbo: Opening
    Exit Limbo: Opening is a violent, charismatic and gore-ish beat ‘em up which is not only a videogame, but also an heavy metal band. Just what you need to kiss any pent-up sense of frustration goodbye, for example after a tough day at work or, even worse, of domestic captivity during the lockdown. Immersing yourself in its bloody ultraviolence is somehow liberating and it does not matter if proceeding, at first, will be tough: once you get the hang of the complex control system and the wide range of moves available, dismembering all the enemies will be really fun.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Main Assembly
    Main Assembly offers many powerful tools to the most creative users with which to indulge themselves in building robots, as long as they have the patience to learn how the game works through a good dose of "trial & error" given the meager tutorial.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    The Wild Eight
    Surviving, nowadays, is hard. It’s DAMN hard. So it’s good to find a survival game like The Wild Eight that does not enjoy punishing the player without reason. I still don’t know if this softer approach is an attempt to offset some design issues (like the combat, or the clunky inventory) or if it was meant to be like this since the beginning. Anyway, The Wild Wight feels like a survival game approachable even by players that usually don’t like survival games so much, and at the end of the day this feels like good news.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Elder Scrolls Online: Flames of Ambition
    Flame of Ambition is an excellent introduction to the daedric theme that will be further developed with the next big expansion, Blackwood. The two dungeons are entertaining and are characterized by good level design and interesting mechanics, especially when it comes to the Black Drake Villa. We’re definitely excited to see where The Elder Scrolls Online brings us next June.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Empires in Ruins
    Hammer & Ravens developers have been brave and they got several good intuitions, even if the balance problems make the management component less engaging and the graphic style makes the tower defence not too sexy. The main character is a blast though.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Wardrobe: Even Better Edition
    The Wardrobe: Even Better Edition for Xbox is a good conversion. The transition from mouse to gamepad is almost painless. Years after his first release, the game is still good thanks to its iconoclastic humor and many, many geek references.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Cosmodread
    Cosmodread is an excellent sci-fi roguelite VR developed by a studio that was truly a pioneer in virtual reality gaming: their first game, Dreadhall, brilliantly experimented with some new concepts. Cosmodread follows in the same vein, and with a little more variety and graphic detail on PC VR, it might have been a true masterpiece. Nevertheless, it's still a masterful exercise in good mechanics, horror mood and style.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Super Soccer Blast: America vs Europe
    Super Soccer Blast: America vs Europe is a small, arcade soccer game that is super entertaining to play, at least for the first hours. As almost every other arcade sport game, when you learn to master all of its mechanics it gets a little less entertaining, but you can always use it as an old-style 1vs1 couch game with friends. Few rules, a fast pace and hilarious names are everything the Euro (or Copa America) summer needs.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Minute of Islands
    Minute of Islands is an adventure where the story and its themes get the main stage, while the gameplay is mostly there to get the story going, but it stands among other games thanks to the depth of its narrative. The added value are the outstanding illustrations, sort of a mix between Attack on Titan and Adventure Time, that manage to create a fresh, colourful, intriguing, but at the same time disturbing world, just like Mo's adventure.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    PULSAR: Lost Colony
    Pulsar: Lost Colony is a bold title, especially for an independent studio that formed it from a Kickstarter project. Leafy Games developers have cleverly decided to embrace the technical limitations of their production, choosing to offer many small moments from a science fiction anthology, with solid management of their spaceship through well-defined and specialized crew roles. The overly spartan graphics and some environments that are too empty risk breaking the immersion, but if you have a couple of good friends to cross the galaxy with, you've found your game.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Nemezis: Mysterious Journey III
    If you liked Schizm and its sequel, you will simply love Nemezis as well. However, 15 years later, we’d expect something more, with a slightly enhanced gameplay, while Nemezis is just a harder, shorter “more of the same” of Schizm 2.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Carrier Command 2
    The underlying gameplay is still so brilliant that it is painful to see it brought it down by obtuse and ancient systems that make the overall experience frustrating.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Baldo: The Guardian Owls
    A complex, amazing Zelda-style action adventure set in a beautifully crafted world with plenty of towns, creatures, buildings, shops and NPCs. There’s a lot to discover and a lot to play, although some mechanics might feel dated to younger players. The game suffers from some still-to-be-fixed bugs which can be annoying. Overall, NAPS Team did a great job, and brought us a game that Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli could have done themselves.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases
    Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases is a solid adventure game. Poor mouse and keyboard support detracts from the overall experience, but the product as a whole is a worthy rendition of Agatha Christie’s books.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gearshifters
    A small-scope but excellent game with very clear ideas, enjoyable, sincere and particularly exciting when the going gets tough, like during very intense boss fights. Pimping our ride to make it look even more aggressive and suited to the post apocalyptic world feels great. A Mad Max-like shoot 'em up is exactly what we needed.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Just Dance 2022
    It’s November and Just Dance is with us again. And it’s great news, because it’s as much fun as usual. Just don’t expect any innovations.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Gunfire Reborn
    Gunfire Reborn has great gunplay, huge variety in builds, and a formula as simple as it is immediate: you get in, you shoot, you hope to get to the end. It might not sound like much, but it’s more than enough to make Duoyi’s game incredibly compelling and almost addictive.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fights in Tight Spaces
    Sometimes a good idea is all you need, and Shatter Ground got a great one. The gamble of combining turn-based strategy with a card game and with the stylish fighting of Superhot ended up working quite well. I personally found Fights in Tight Spaces’ roguelite mechanics a little frustrating, but it is a matter of taste and in any case the game offers five different difficulty settings. One last praise goes to the artistic & technical aspects of the game, minimalist yet functional and pleasantly rich in details.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Gear.Club Unlimited 2: Ultimate Edition
    Gear.Club Unlimited 2 Ultimate Edition has a good Career mode, with plenty of races and events and a little bit of story, but it is far from enough to rescue its incredibly sub-par gameplay, to the point that it is incapable of conveying any emotion. And the game doesn’t fare much better graphically, with poor textures and unstable frame rates. A pity, given the resume of the developer.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Treasures of the Aegean
    Just when you think you've seen it all and know it all, out of nowhere comes a Catalan studio that puts together a combination of genres so finely crafted that it leaves you speechless. Treasures of the Aegean might look like a metroidvania at first glance, but exploration is not tied to upgrades. All that you need is the ability to run as fast as you can and make your brain work just as quickly, because the sea is about the claim the island of Santorini once again.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Go! Go! PogoGirl
    I had high hopes while downloading Go! Go! PogoGirl and luckily I wasn’t disappointed! The game offers exactly what it promises and nothing more: a colorful, valuable and exciting return to the nineties, with a 2D platformer that unaltered the dynamics of the time, adding that touch of Hoppin' Mad (a C64 classic) that absolutely adds to the experience.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands
    Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands is an elegant indie game perfect for anyone who loves winter sports and the mountain as a lifestyle. The camera doesn't always help to stay zen, those who want intense gameplay will be disappointed, but if you need a holiday on the snow this is the right game.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Keplerth
    Thanks to a constant hint system always suggesting what our next step should be, Keplerth guarantees a casual approach to the usually hardcore survival genre, as long as you select a low difficulty level. Just like in other sandboxes, you decide how to play, choosing whether to run along the main quest or dedicate to hunting, fishing, breeding, farming, expanding and improving our base. By activating permadeath the gameplay gets as tough as the meanest roguelike and it's worth a try.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition
    Honestly, I feel like I can’t do anything but completely pan Nightdive’s efforts on Blade Runner Enhanced Edition: from a technical standpoint, the game is indefensible, with plenty of bugs, and certainly doesn’t feel “Enhanced” compared to the original (luckily still available on GOG). Undoubtedly the lack of chunks of the source code and the format of the original assets did Nightdive no favors, but this is still a poor tribute to Westwood’s legacy.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Timothy and the Tower of Mu
    Timothy and the Tower of Mu is a declaration of love for the NES carved in pixels. It’s an hard but not frustrating platformer, with lot of contents and secrets to discover. It is unfortunately penalized by an imprecise control system and the lack of configuration options does not help. Players used to jump with precision and timing will ignore these shortcomings, but less experienced players may be put off by the difficulty and be unable to fully enjoy everything Kibou Entertainment created.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Re:Legend
    Re: Legend tries to keep pace in the sector panorama and it seems to succeed at first, diminishing shortly proceeding in the story.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden
    A bit of JRPG with cards, a bit of a board game, the last piece of a very particular set of three is not a narrative masterpiece nor a memorable challenge, it is a melancholy JRPG in which everything is lived through the cards, it can entertain as long as you accept its merits, defects and quirks.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Squad 51 vs. The Flying Saucers
    A great game that shows what R-Type could be like, if only it was coded in 1958! Blast the freaking aliens like it there’s no tomorrow, with this stunning shoot ‘em up action in black & white, with great FMV intros in every level.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    LEGO Bricktales
    LEGO Bricktales does only one thing, but it does it well: it allows you to play with LEGOs as you would do in your room, without placing constraints on your imagination. Its main limitation is a somewhat stubborn control system and a camera that is not easy to handle, but the final result repays the effort. The added value is a really appreciable technical compartment, which recreates small dioramas with enormous charm, based on historical LEGO sets that will lead to tears anyone who was young in the 80s/90s. It could mark the beginning of a new era for LEGO games, and that would be great news.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »