Uneven, bleak and unflinching. You won't enjoy it, but it's one of a kind.
Aliens: Dark Descent is an occasionally wayward but on the whole, inspired movie adaptation, and a suspenseful real-time tactics game.
A smart combat system straining under the weight of a characterful but ponderous pseudo-medieval soap opera, with some of the grandest bosses and dullest sidequests in FF history.
It's a sight for saur eyes, but not quite enough to make Exoprimal essential. There's real cleverness to the PvPvE balance, and to how Leviathan modifies that one, core mode as the game unfolds, but after 15 hours, it still feels like an exercise in reshuffling well-worn pieces. I don't think it earns that blockbuster price tag. As a subscription game, though, Exoprimal is dino-mite.
The road warrior provides a thrilling adventure, but the rust-ridden story can't keep up with the chase
An absorbing thriller with a splash of They Live and The Goonies, this spooky multiplayer game has you investigating paranormal goings-on in suburbia
The novella's dated metaphors are ousted in the best moments of this interactive homage, but its alternative endings pull their punches
In this brief but insidious information game, you're an aide to a defeated commander-in-chief who is refusing to concede
Singlehandedly manage a steampunk sailboat in this ramshackle but glorious anti-open world game
The latest DC adaptation struggles to craft something spectacular from its ensemble cast and role-playing action
This brief, raw and unsettling reimagining of a celebrated environmentalist's campaign against pesticides presents a sickly vision of nature contaminated by humans
Post-apocalyptic Washington DC is splendidly imagined but the insipid techno-thriller plot ensures the struggle to save civilisation can't be won
Outriders is its own greatest victim. There are some decent ideas in here – an absorbing cauldron of combat variables, some majestic geography, even a few guns worth holding onto – but they're dragged down and suffocated by a game that doesn't want to entertain you but hypnotise you with the prospect of another trinket.
Days Gone is far from the worst specimen of its genre but in a year already packed with 50 hour+ endeavours, it rarely makes the case for its own existence.
Arkane manages to better the already exceptional Dishonored in nearly every way, creating a masterpiece of open-ended design.
1992 is alive and well. Christian Whitehead and team turn in a beautiful rewrite of the 16-bit Sonic games with all-new stages.
Heart-stopping swordfights and deft, panoramic stealth waged across another vast, gorgeously rancid From Software landscape.
All the verbal artistry of Sunless Sea scattered across a gorgeous steampunk cosmos that's a little easier to navigate and thrive in.
A brilliant timeloop shooter that gives Dishonored's best tricks and techniques more opportunity to shine.
A splendid, moody elaboration of what makes Outer Wilds so special.