A Golden Wake is not the kind of adventure game that will convert non-believers any time soon, but those who enjoy the genre and can stomach its lo-fi visuals will definitely be entertained by its numerous quips and lighthearted attitude, as well as challenged by its more somber undertones.
Runers offers a truly enjoyable experience, with a good marriage of standard roguelike mechanics expanded by the real-time top-down shooter gameplay dynamic and by the spell crafting system.
Legend of Grimrock 2 is a great improvement over the original, a fantastic journey with a distinct old-school vibe, with a lot of heart and with a glossy modern veneer. Even if you haven't played the first one, it's a proper standalone, self-contained experience.
To sum it up in a handful of words, the entire game is about an unfair, unwinnable boss fight that you're doing your best to avoid. It's as difficult and frustrating as an Alien game should be. It's not a ride in the park and you're not an action hero. You will die a lot and you'll like it, because almost every time, it will be due to a mistake you made.
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary is a worthwhile remake of the classic Sierra point-and-click adventure game. However, big-time fans of the original will most likely dislike some aspects of the newer incarnation.
I liked Dungeon of the Endless a lot, mainly due to the fact that it does pretty much everything right. It has the right balance to allow for longer play sessions once you start getting the hang of it, but it also pays respect to the roguelike elements at its core.
In a nutshell, this isn't a revolution, but rather an evolution of the game in the same direction that Blizzard has been pushing the game for the last few years.
The game is deceptively fun and captivating, in spite of its seemingly basic interactions. Every screen is a new puzzle tasking you with figuring out what the best way to deal with the enemies is, and after your plain is laid down, there is still the issue of mechanical execution, as some of the action sequences require you to move in time with your foes.
Not being a fan of Russian roulette, I like it when my saved states are neatly stacked on top of each other, to the point where I can always go back and alter recent events in a way that will help me finish the game faster so I can go on to the next one, instead of repeating the same unrewarding experience that teaches me nothing new.
The first chapter of Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms is pretty solid, offering a great mix of narrative and combat, but the following ones seem to favor combat over substance, which is a bit of a disappointment.
Elegy for a Dead World is a game so unique that there is no point of reference for it. Nothing like this has been done before, and it fills a niche that many gamers will appreciate.
This is far from your average puzzle platformer, as its main audience is not the die-hard old-school fanbase of the genre. Never Alone is first and foremost an educational experience, and this is the standard to which you have to judge it in order to fully appreciate it.
Fenix Rage knows that you're here for a challenge, and that's exactly what it serves. Through the highs and the lows, you don't really have any time to think about what's going on or to be bothered by the simplistic and overly saturated visuals and repetitive generic music.
The game delivers in all major areas that old-school role-playing game fans care about. It has pretty good and satisfying combat that oftentimes challenges you to actually get involved and perform some tactical magic, it has a huge world to explore, a ton of characters to meet, and a pretty good story.
Dying Light is everything you wanted from Dead Island. Only instead of stepping into the shoes of a Mr. T and Ice T crossover, you're a deadly spy or soldier, and everything is bigger and better.
Supreme League of Patriots is kind of a mixed bag: you have a decent adventure game that tries to work in a new direction, driven by plot and dialogue more than random puzzles and inconvenient coincidences that force you to play MacGyver or to do random strangers favors and run errands in exchange for items that could have easily been acquired from any department store.
Apotheon seemed like a very promising game from its trailers, and now that it's out and I got the chance to play through it, I can finally justify liking it from the very beginning.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishment isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's probably one of the best narrative-focused mystery games on the market. It's definitely a polished experience and may very well be the best Sherlock Holmes video game ever created, with a tense atmosphere, satisfying cases, and varied mini-games and puzzles.
I have mixed feelings toward Randal's Monday, mainly due to the fact that it's not bad. It has a pretty interesting story to explore, but it's just bogged down in a ton of unneeded detail and contrived puzzle design.
Republique Remastered cannot simply be summed up by saying that this is how a PC port of a mobile game should be done, because the original material itself transcends the usual limits of tablet games, merely content to offer an experience that's similar but of a lesser quality when compared to console games.