Colin Campbell
Semblance is a clever, intriguing world of likable, entertaining challenges.
Intriguing game has its moments, but flubs story section
For all its faults, Assassin's Creed Odyssey is one of the best explorable game worlds yet made.
Solis is a huge island, which allows for a realistic distribution of targets, and environmental diversity. There's some pleasure to be had exploring its various environs of city, jungle, mountain and beach-fronts, making use of an almost infinite variety of vehicles.
If you're looking for a game to enjoy with the people you care about, I'm happy to recommend Unravel 2. It's an agreeable, friendly, sometimes challenging world that encourages us to be the best version of ourselves.
Football, Tactics and Glory is an old-fashioned strategy game that's pulled me in, demanding that I keep playing and slogging towards in my quest to build a better team. It makes great use of turn-based battle grids to create a convincing simulation of soccer strategies.
Mike Bithell and his team are doing important work, struggling with a challenging genre. Quarantine Circular hasn't perfected it, but if you like stories, characters, dialogue and moral choices, it's worth one playthrough — or maybe even six.
State of Decay 2 made me sad, but mostly bored
All Surviving Mars' interlocking systems make for an arresting time-sink that merges logic, forethought, psychology and experimentation. If you're the sort of person who enjoys losing yourself in high stakes strategy, building and planning, Surviving Mars is worth a look.
Irritations don't entirely diminish the charm and ambition of the entire endeavor.
Even though the puzzles are simple and the interactions basic, I don't think this little piece of fun would work in the same way were it a static cartoon. Chuchel is a true universe, one that comes alive in bursts. This could not be done quite so well on TV or in a movie.
The Red Strings Club is a fascinating journey into the problem of free will
Fe is a magical, expansive and multi-hued world that creates a sense of marvel. Like a real-life walk in the woods, it is a thing of elemental beauty that demands to be inhaled and admired.
That Dragon, Cancer is the best of games. It reveals to us what it means to be a fellow human being finding the strength to survive terrible circumstances. It shares through words, pictures, sounds and actions. The actions give us a sense of the pain of others. They show, rather than tell. This story is unique in that it tackles the most dreaded of human experiences in the form of a video game. If you play this game, it may change you.
Return of the Obra Dinn is a superb murder mystery game
It's sharper than previous games, more openly designed, bigger and more fun. One of Forza Horizon 4's strengths is that it tends toward freedom, letting us do just what we want, and liberating us from races and activities that we don't fancy. Most of all, this is a fun, even joyful experience, a thrilling racing fantasy.
We Happy Few is uncomfortable, uncanny and brilliant
Crackdown 3 is a playpen of combat and destruction that sets itself up as a liberating journey into a barbarous fantasy of wanton mayhem. But its central proposition — the freedom to do as I please — is undermined by frustrating design compromises.
I spent the equivalent of a working week playing Aven Colony and it was hard labor. This is a game of relentless concentration and chore-work, with only the briefest flashes of magic and relief, offering almost nothing new to the city building, or resource management genres.
The Fidelio Incident makes an admirable attempt to approach a difficult subject from a unique angle. But it fails to capture the emotional subtlety or artful storytelling that games like Gone Home, Firewatch and Virginia have demonstrated within the same kind of framework.