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Unrest offers a gripping story about hope, failure, action and inaction, fear and security, which feels more like an interactive visual novel than an actual game. And a well-written one, at that. Sort of like A Game of Thrones without endlessly waiting for the dragons to come, the game delivers its quick shot of gripping narrative, challenges you to make a couple of life and death decisions, then leaves you boiling in the karmic print of your choices.
It's hard to get ten functioning buttons along with a pointing device emulated on a touchscreen and having it work seamlessly, while still being able to discern what's going on on a screen that's only a few inches big, and so the reign of limited interaction and low complexity games lives on.
Concursion has a great idea but, unfortunately, it manages to waste most of its potential due to glaring issues with the controls, the difficulty curve, not to mention the awful visuals. The boss fights reward only the most patient players and, in true retro style, if you can't complete a level, you can't progress any further.
Whispering Willows is an enjoyable experience, even though it's a bit disappointing that it doesn't live up to neither the gameplay nor the writing of old adventure games.
The game will clearly appeal more to casual gamers than to the hardcore, but it does show how the Wii U can deliver interesting games when the developers try to introduce some innovation.
Xenonauts is a good game, designed specifically to appeal to the group of gamers who have solid memories of the classic X-Com experience and want to play something that's familiar and slightly different at the same time.
The Wolf Among Us Episode 5 delivers a stellar conclusion to the adventures of Bigby Wolf. There are great conflicts in terms of dialog and combat, so players will be solicited in all sorts of ways. It also displays Bigby in all his big bad wolf glory and leaves a fair amount of possibilities for a likely second season of series.
It might have its limitations, but it's still probably the best modern rendition of a classic PC role-playing game, one that is born out of love, and one that will surely stoke long-dormant passions for the genre, as well as spark some new ones.
Sniper Elite 3 is a relatively fun niche shooter experience that improves some of the faults seen in its predecessors, particularly in regards to mission design and the open nature of levels. It's still weighed down by bugs, erratic AI, and a shoddy story, but it will certainly entertain fans of the franchise and those looking for a thinking man's shooter experience.
If you loved the first Transformers games, odds are you'll also like this one. If you liked Michael Bay's movies, Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark is worth a shot. But if you're expecting a redeeming experience, this is not it.
Grid Autosport is a pretty fun racing title, but in the pursuit of addressing every bit of feedback after Grid 2, Codemasters hasn't delivered the most cohesive experience. You still need to endure some of the disciplines that you may not like in order to progress through the career, and the two cockpit cameras feel more like a fan-made mod than something devised by the developer itself. Throw in the erratic AI and you might get annoyed quite a few times while playing Autosport.
The Fall attempts to pose the same questions that some of the most well-known classical science fiction writers did, tackling the very notion of what it means to be alive, to have a conscience and purpose, touching on themes that Phillip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov played with, and attempting to explore the consequences of the realization of free will within the boundaries of a complex but ultimately very finite system such as the one found inside a machine.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a truly impressive experience that manages to focus on the realities of World War 1 without becoming a dull or upsetting experience. It adds just enough cheerful moments to stay upbeat and you're certainly going to care and fall in love with the main characters, especially the small dog.
Company of Heroes 2 – The Western Front Armies is a solid expansion package for a very good strategy experience and offers enough new content to justify the purchase price.
Lifeless Planet seems to have a ton of potential beneath its lackluster surface, always seeming like a better game is lurking in there, just beyond your grasp.
Wolfenstein: The New Order is a great reimagining of the series, delivering a fun experience to shooter fans, while bringing a good story and some solid mechanics that feel fresh but still know the roots of the franchise. The stealth could have used a bit of improvement, but Wolfenstein is still a shooter at its heart and works very well in a delightful old-school way.
The game offers many hours of fun content for free, content that is true to Marvel's universe and pretty familiar to those who read the comics, letting you fight crime with your favorite superheroes, so I think nobody can complain when it comes to the choice of characters.
Among the Sleep is a horror experience that's more interested in delivering on its premise of exploring traumatic events from the perspective of a two-year old than in shocking you with gore or employing jump scares in order to get a cheap reaction out of you, which is good.
Anomaly Defenders is a good final hurrah for the tower defense series from 11 Bit Studios. It has gorgeous maps, fun and hectic gameplay, and a lot of strategic opportunities via the deployable powers and the complex tech tree. What's more, the difficulty modes that affect the layout of the maps are quite impressive.
Murdered: Soul Suspect could have been a really fun detective experience, but it's actually an average point and click mystery game with higher production values. The possession mechanic is underutilized, while the game uses the demons to create a fake sense of difficulty towards the end. The story is good, but the road towards its conclusion is filled with problems.