Tim McDonald
This particular episode is more a shaggy dog story rather than something that goes for the throat, but it's building up promisingly towards the season climax.
Perhaps a little short and a touch too narrow, but Sniper Elite 3 pretty much gives you a huge Nazi-filled playground, a sniper rifle, a satchel of explosives, and then waves its hand and lets you sort it out your own way. Which, really, is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.
Unlikely to live in infamy. Quest for Infamy is a reasonable attempt at making a Quest for Glory game, but it's let down by dull combat and puzzle design.
Gods Will Be Watching is an interesting and novel little game, but one that's quite horribly flawed in a number of ways.
Dead Rising 3's world is grey and bland, yes, but those aren't words that can be used to describe the frenetic zombie-culling action which forms the game's core.
The Sims 4 is just like a dollhouse: it's pretty and polished and there are all sorts of possibilities, but in the end, it's really quite empty.
A highly polished and generally entertaining romp, but it's missing a vital spark to bring everything together.
This remake of the legitimately classic Gabriel Knight takes a few missteps, but succeeds in putting the 90s adventure in contemporary digital hands.
Book One is a tiny taste of what's coming. It's delectably delicious and I'd love to rate it higher, but at this point, it's hard to say whether Dreamfall Chapters will be filling and satisfying - or if it'll leave us feeling a little empty.
A stealth-horror game designed, with precision, to make pretty much every single activity and objective as uncomfortable and tense as possible.
Advanced Warfare might not be advanced enough for my liking, but it's a return to the typical fast-paced, explosive gameplay of CoD titles that aren't called Ghosts – and it works alright on PC, too.
An entertaining comedy adventure, but too many of the puzzles in Randal's Monday are too far from even its own internal comic logic to really make sense. It's a fun ride, but it's also liable to frustrate if you refuse to use any outside help to solve this time-travelling puzzler.
It's Far Cry 3 again, for people who don't want to play Far Cry 3 again. Far Cry 4 doesn't innovate much and so there are a fair few I've-Done-This-Before moments, but it's still just as well-crafted and just as much fun.
Praise be: Tales from the Borderlands has a really strong opening episode, and easily proves that Borderlands' unique blend of comedy and ultraviolence (and occasional dips into heartfelt drama) is a really good fit for Telltale.
Rubbish controls, dull combat, and a general sense that it's not quite sure what it wants to be, let down an otherwise entertaining and regularly amusing world-saving romp.
Pix the Cat isn't the sort of thing that'll keep you staring at your monitor until 6am, but it is the sort of thing that you'll open every half an hour for just one more go.
A solid opening to what could be a genuinely interesting episodic adventure. The mystery seems compelling, the characters are largely likeable, and the presentation is impeccable - but the emphasis is on "could" and "seems". It's still just episode one.
Hotline Miami 2 is certainly worth a purchase from anybody who played the original over and over, but don't expect it to hit the same heights. Wrong Number? If only.
Less an endless voyage through the stars, and more a space-bus journey to the shops. If you're intimidated by Civilization this is an reasonable starting place for the 4X genre, but it's not for those seeking a deep or lengthy experience.
Definitely more bad cop than good cop, but LA Cops could at least be a fair cop, guv, if given a bit of post-release polish.