Dungeons 3 has taken the series to its highest point yet. While overbearing on the forced comedy, it can be genuinely funny. Most of all, though, it's addictive. Dungeons 3 features incredibly polished gameplay with great visuals and audio and the wide variety within the campaigns 20 missions never gets boring.
In addition to poor audio and visual qualities, including large re-use of assets, Empyre is let down by the poor world and character building. Sadly, in addition to this are poor audio and visual qualities. Sadly, I can't say much positive about the game, besides it having an interesting setting and a decent combat system, neither of which are used as well as they could be.
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus subverts the old-school shooter tradition by featuring an incredible cast of characters with varied personalities in a world that makes you want to explore more and more of the society it features. The gameplay is very engaging, though can sometimes outstay its welcome at parts with a mixture of levels that range from the extremely interesting to dull and repetitive. Whatever its flaws, Wolfenstein is a great game that's well worth playing and will keep you coming back for more as you purge the US of Nazis.
New features have brought Football Manager 2018 closer to the beautiful game than ever before. Personalities, the heirarchy and social groups all play a part in the way you interact with the players. The system is rusty but still revolutionary for the series as it brings an ever more emergent way of telling stories. In addition to this are improvements throughout the game in how data is viewed and represented.
Ashes Cricket offers the very best cricket game so far. As well as being the most realistic, it offers more approachable gameplay to help draw you in and looks excellent, particularly the licensed players and major stadiums. While it has a few bugs here and there, it also features an extensive customisation system and a number of game modes. There's a lot to love and keep you engrossed.
Nioh: Complete Edition is a great game. That much should be expected as the original release was. However, much like all Koei Tecmo PC ports, this release suffers from some glaring omissions and limitations. Fortunately, Team Ninja have already announced some patches to start improving the release.
SpellForce 3 isn't a bad game, it can even be pretty good at parts.
Nantucket is a strangely compelling and addictive game that acts as a follow up to Herman Melville's Moby Dick. While it can be quite repetitive, it's this loop as you develop your ship and crew that lets the game sink its harpoon into you. With a great visual design and some songs made just for the game, alongside the in-game newspaper that sticks true to the in-game date, Nantucket has buckets of atmosphere. I doubt it's a game for everybody, but Moby Dick, Strategy and Simulation fans (you don't have to be all three) will find this a charming game.
Railway Empire is a strong but shallow entry into the railway management style of games that has gone long ignored. With a few slight downfalls, primarily as a result of the game only offering limited maps and time periods to operate in, it can go by a little too quick and become repetitive. However, the journey to get to that stage can be enthralling as it offers a high level of tactical thinking as you interlink your network of rails. Strategic purchases of businesses lets you get a leg up over opposition businesses in a race to become the dominant company. Railway Empire is a very good game in its genre, without a shadow of a doubt. It could become a great game, should Gaming Minds Studios open it up that little bit more.
Rise and Fall is an expansion about strategy, storytelling and is an absolute dream for anybody a fan of long-termism. While it may not initially seem as large or expansive as other expansions in the series history, there's a pervasive nature of all the new additions. These impact and influence everything else within the game. While there is a level of balance forced on players with the new Ages system, it allows for the telling of a true development of your civilization from start to end and keeps things interesting even at later stages. More important is the inclusion of loyalty and governors, which increase the already strategic approach of cities in Civilization VI. Rise and Fall is all about keeping a game interesting and engaging from start to finish and it's hugely successful at that.
All things considered, Attack of the Earthlings is a good, fun and funny game. While it's fairly short and has very limited replay value, the time you spend with it is genuinely fun. More than that, it's funny where most games will feel forced or simply re-use aspects to their death. It may not surpass even other indie titles like Xenonauts. This doesn't detract from what is an altogether good experience and one that's well worth playing if you're a fan of the genre.
What there is to say about Monster Energy Supercross is that it is an improvement from Milestone on the MXGP series. It certainly can be gripping and it's more than challenging once you get the settings right. Racing through your own career is pretty fun to say the least. The only thing is that, like other Milestone titles, it has it's issues that could do with working through.
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition has certainly got the nostalgia factor going for it. Despite its age, and the numerous problems that come from it, Age of Empires is still a good strategy game. The major issue is that everything about the game has been refined and done better, even by its own successors. As a way to promote Age of Empires IV, it's a sensible move. As a way to revive the series using older titles, that was already done best with Age of Empires II HD.
While Gravel has issues like strange collisions, cars literally merging into each other and some issues with shadows, there is a lot to say about it. There's a wide variety of racing types, tracks and cars to use. Almost everything is fast paced and entertaining and simply gratifying. Simply put, Gravel is a very good arcade style racing game and Milestones best game yet.
39 Days to Mars is a short but funny and compelling trip from Earth to Mars with you and another person, or you and a pet cat. Designed for couch co-op, it doesn't penalise you for being a misanthrope like myself and offers a good amount of replay value with varied paths to take. It's well worth taking this trip to the red planet.
Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is a more streamlined, sleeker and quicker Total War than those before it. However, the changes to make it like this offer new opportunities and one of the more tactical campaign maps than ever before. While it still suffers from some issues, like boring end game and being altogether too easy, there's still a whole lot to gain from playing Thrones of Britannia.
MachiaVillain has a decent amount going for it, there's little doubt there. The concept is fun and one that isn't explored enough, with the added twist of a Cabin in the Woods vibe only helping matters. Once you get into it, the gameplay is engaging, particularly building. It does turns into a bit of a slog as you advance through the ranks though. A lot is also buried beneath the large amount of micromanagement.
It's an improvement on the previous iteration, even if only visually. Aside from that, it feels like the same game but ever so slightly improved. That's the real shame, the jump from Milestone's ageing engine to Unreal had a lot of potential. Considering everything, do I recommend MotoGP 18? If you want a motorbike racing game now, then go for it. If not, you may be better waiting for Ride 3.
The Crew 2 is an impressively large game with a lot to do. Cars, planes and boats, travelling the USA is fun. The problem is that almost everything else ends up feeling the same and, eventually, boring.
MXGP Pro is the best of Milestone's Motocross series of games, that much is certain. It doesn't differ too much from their previous Supercross title, which is a negative, but certainly offers their best outing on two wheels so far.