Redeemer is a flawed title at best. It's a brawler at heart and succeeds on that line, offering visceral and often entertaining combat. However, the inclusion of cheap enemies and a hugely fluctuating difficulty curve makes for often irritating experiences in a number of levels. Though not a large concern for the genre, the story is a mess throwing in characters and concepts with no explanation.
Rise of the Necromancer brings in what could be the games most entertaining class yet. Hugely adaptable with the ability to both summon minions and be active in the battle, the Necromancer has an excellent duality. However, this new class pack is very expensive for what it offers. Wether it's worth it or now will be very much down to how much you like Diablo III.
At best, MotoGP 17 can be described as a stopgap. With only minor at best improvements, the game leaves a lot of areas lacking. The major feature is a new career mode which is engrossing as you work your team up through the ranks. Sadly, the game does have plenty of bugs and technical issues, as is the norm for Milestone games at release.
DiRT 4 is a very good game, that much is certain. Retaining the fantastic control of cars from DiRT Rally, albeit made somewhat simpler, it offers almost endless rallying with a procedurally generated track system and a number of changing online challenges. Not without its flaws, including an oversimplified gamer control scheme and anemic career mode, it's still a worthy entry of the core DiRT franchise.
Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind certainly offers some great quest lines and a fantastic nostalgia trip for those familiar with Vvardenfell. However, it feels a lot emptier, with monsters being simply unexciting and the new PVP being abysmally balanced. The new Warden class, however, offers an interesting new way to play.
Jupiter's Forge expands on Offworld Trading Company, taking you to Jupiter's moon, Io. With this new area comes two new factions, a range of new buildings and a whole new way in how to manage resources. Io is a dry planet, there is no water to pump and the game will challenge you in a way that makes it feel fresh.
Endless Space 2 is a great 4X strategy game that is almost guaranteed to improve. While not free of bugs, including a few large ones, it's a title that oozes character. Each and every game offers the flexibility to play the way you want to and adapt as you please, while offering some excellently told stories with every game also offering a fresh emergent story to boot.
Expeditions: Vikings, while not perfect, offers outstanding tactical combat, with excellent character and world development. You'll encounter a host of interesting characters, fulfilling quests and important decisions as you travel from Denmark, to Britannia, in a quest to save your clan.
Dawn of War 3 may not be revolutionary, but it's certainly an improvement on the previous iteration. Bringing in the best of Dawn of War 2 to the RTS elements of the first, the game is only let down by a rather boring campaign that acts more as a tutorial for the excellent multiplayer.
The Crow's Eye is a strange title. It's a horror game in some ways, with great atmosphere for the most part. However, it's also not scary. For the most part it's more of a puzzle game, than horror game and has side-stories far more compelling than the main plot. In all, it offers an interesting, if flawed experience.
FlatOut 4 is a frequently irritating game that's held down by incredible amounts of grind, it has some saving graces with a variety of game modes and track types, but they don't do enough to balance out against the negatives like AI, physics and more.
Out of the Park Baseball 18 is one of the best sport-simulation games on the market. Lagging slightly behind its football rival primarily due to a terrible interface. Once you get sucked in, though, it's extremely compelling and a great learning aid if you know little about baseball.
WRC 6 has its positives. It's certainly more approachable than other rally games, but it's simply not improving enough. It's the best of the series but pales in comparison to its major competitor, Dirt Rally.
Ghost Recon Wildlands is just another in the long line of Ubisoft's vapid open world games packed full of content (collectibles and quests) with no real meaning. The setting is absolutely stunning and a joy to view, but there's nothing in the world to actually incentivise you to travel around. It's a sturdy, but average shooter with no variety. At the end of it all, it's mostly boring interspersed with moments of fun.
Horizon Zero Dawn is a pure sign of what can be completed with an exceptionally designed open world. Not only that, it has exceptional characterisation and a sincere story that doesn't shoehorn elements, allowing for the organic growth of characters. This is a game that I can barely find any faults with, except borrowing some elements from other open world games. Even so, it made each and every element its own in one of the best games to date.
Stars in Shadow, developed by a two man team, offers a compelling but simple approach to the 4X Strategy game genre. While lacking some depth in the grand scale, it more than makes up for it with compelling ship battles, using custom designed ships that offer a great amount of customization.
Halo Wars 2 is an ideal strategy game for beginners. There's little doubting that the action is solid and it looks fantastic, but other strange choices mar what would be a great title. From downright bad writing, to the inclusion of pay to win microtransactions in a premium game, there are some absolutely perplexing decisions.
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue is an adequate collection of what's left over from the series, with what also acts as an exquisite demo for the upcoming Kindom Hearts 3. This isn't to say that hard work hasn't gone into the remaster, but for a premium price point the game just isn't worth what it's asking, and the core component shows its age and origins a little more than could be hoped for.
Gravity Rush 2 is an excellent sequel to the first game. It's easier to control, has an incredible depth of quantity and while it doesn't all hit, the vast majority does. It has a few strange choices in story design, particularly a false ending in one of the worst places I've ever encountered. All things considered, it's an excellent game with some of the most entertaining gameplay around, set in a fantastically designed world with a great visual design.
Urban Empire aims to offer an interesting mix of political intrigue with city-building creativity and management. However, it doesn't give anywhere near enough information or allow enough freedom to make it as compelling as the idea could have been.