With a working adventure formula that utilizes light and shadow, White Night offers a haunted house full of atmosphere and ripe for exploration. Just don't run out of matches.
ADR1FT uses simple mechanics to create a subdued and freeform space journey that is worth experiencing.
Discovering the past of an abandoned village in The Rewinder is satisfying thanks to a neat time-altering mechanic and basic adventure puzzles. This adventure only stumbles with some translation errors and minimal complexity.
Age of Wonders 4 is a deep and addictive turn-based strategy game that offers excellent player choice with custom worlds and varied rulers, alongside tweaks to the proven formula. Only its technical blemishes cast a dark shadow over the glorious realms found within.
Players seeking an adventure through fantastical worlds, with a slew of mechanical and spatial puzzles, will discover that Obduction is a gold mine.
The wondrous Dwindling Heights is well designed and gives Tilo plenty of opportunities to use his mousey avoidance skills and disguises to help characters. Although there is occasionally too much backtracking, Ghost of a Tale holds a memorable journey in its tiny paws.
Crammed with different modes and maps, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare offers extensive multiplayer possibilities. The online action is slower, with emphasis on sound cues and open maps, and the campaign is better than average thanks to mission variety and choreographed house incursions. Despite the PC technical issues, it is a noteworthy reboot.
LUNA The Shadow Dust is a streamlined point & click adventure that offers superb art design and peaceful music. While many of its puzzles are simple, some late-game challenges make fantastic use of the two well-animated characters in a brief tale told adequately without words.
Inspired by Portal, The Entropy Centre will make you think backwards as you complete good puzzle chambers with the help of an energetic AI companion and refreshing detours.
Amnesia: The Bunker has a fantastic dynamic involving light and power management, as you explore an atmospheric WW1 bunker and avoid a monster with a keen sense of hearing. Despite a lack of puzzles, a bland story, and a few monster quirks, it packs enough good horror to keep players on edge.
Underneath the spaceship setting in Between Horizons is a grounded detective game that features good logical deductions and math-based solutions. More case depth and presentation tweaks could have taken the mission further, but it is still a fine option for the gumshoes of this generation.
With excellent vehicle handling, DiRT Rally 2.0 finds itself in a strong position. It also has superb visuals and brutal simulation aspects. Apart from AI issues and track repetition, it should please most rally fans.
The Sinking City is a decent adaptation of Lovecraft's work, meshing dark themes with a variety of great investigations that culminate into tricky decisions. If the combat was less clunky and the world more polished, it would have beckoned all to its desolate shore.
WRC 9 finds itself in a healthy position with a fantastic driving model and a broad range of awesome rally stages. With pleasing visuals and a decent team management component, there are only a few issues that keep it from overtaking the competition.
Martha Is Dead is a good adventure thanks to its deep look into the mind of a character under stress. Aside from performance issues and missed opportunities, the game has great attention to detail and careful pacing.
Thanks to the foundation built by its predecessor, Sniper Elite 5 is a good entry in the franchise, with large open levels and capable stealth mechanics. While it has several decent multiplayer options, better execution was needed to really hit all targets.
With a delightful main character and tight-knit platforming mechanics, Unravel is a simple adventure that is worth playing.
Lara Croft GO is a brief, intelligent, relic-hunting, snake-shooting, boulder-bypassing, turn-based puzzler.
Diverse movie scenes, twisted dynamic levels, and a handful of good scares help make Layers of Fear 2 a fine piece of horror gaming. Better story pacing and a clearer start might have seen it outperform the competition.
Subnautica: Below Zero is a good survival game, even if the new frozen land areas are not fun to explore and the story has several pacing issues. Fortunately, the solid progression system and mastery of the sea makes it easy to recommend for fans of the original.