PCGamesN's Reviews
In the end, Ark's ambition pulls it in the right direction with more force than its clunkiness tugs it the other way. It's always more enjoyable to spend time with a game that tries something new and exciting, stumbling along the way, than a game that tries to tick focus group-inspired boxes. If that game also happens to simulate an entire prehistoric ecosystem, and produces bewildering emergent scenarios like clockwork, all the better.
In its new expansion, XCOM 2 makes people of its soldiers and turns its aliens into personalities. It cares about the individual. But that's only so you feel the loss of your bonds more keenly, and hate the enemy more personally. In War of the Chosen, Firaxis are being kind to be cruel.
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider captures everything that's great about Arkane's assassination series, while also showing that it can still surprise.
There's a firm foundation for a great competitive shooter here, but the rest of the house needs to be built on it sooner rather than later. LawBreakers needs ultra-skilled players to come in and show the rest of us what's possible, but they need a competitive format to entice them in. Until that happens it's a dizzying and consistently exciting shooter, but one whose long-term appeal isn't yet locked in.
In the end, it's one of those 'good game buried in here somewhere' experiences.
Just as Endless Legend and Civilization V are now far superior to how they started, so can Endless Space 2 be. It's odd to talk of foundations in something so markedly floaty and space-based, so perhaps it's better to think of this as an outpost, plonked down on a planet waiting to be colonised. It's a fertile planet, sure, but one that's yet to be fully exploited.
An expansion that makes arguably the best game in the series, even if it was a tad conservative, better and more exciting. But the real coup is how it makes every turn feel important.
If you look at it as a reboot, a starting point for the series, there's lots of promise in that future. The first Mass Effect had countless problems, far more than here, but that will always be remembered as a classic, despite leaving similar threads hanging. Ultimately, this is a story about laying the foundations of a civilization, and it feels like BioWare were doing the same for the future of the franchise. In that way, these RPG developers have become Pathfinders themselves.
The '90s have nothing on this. Torment: Tides of Numenera might have been fuelled by nostalgia but outstrips its contemporary peers in reactivity, writing and invention.
A triumph in both mechanics and delivery, Hitman turns its controversial episodic release model into a true strength that's suited to IO's vast and nuanced sandboxes.
The new gold standard for Resident Evil. Capcom's latest revisits the series' survival horror roots while incorporating fresh new influences.
An endearingly daft sequel that ditches the original's dour action for a brand of subversive play that squeezes the most out of some cracking gadgets and a brilliant map.
Planet Coaster isn't Rollercoaster Tycoon, nor is it Theme Park. This may put off those looking for a simpler, more nostalgic take on the genre, but it's nonetheless the most creative, technically intricate theme park sim to date.
Inconsistent performance aside, Dishonored 2 is a marvel. It’s a magnet for positive adjectives, setting a new and extremely lofty bar for future stealth games.
FM 2017 is the best the series has been, and thus the best football management game around. But the improvements are too incremental and the new features too disposable to make this a value-for-money day one proposition.
In many ways Battlefield 1 is as strong as the series has ever been - but DICE haven't found a way to truly marry the historical setting with its mechanics in a way that feels satisfying or unique. Still, at least the launch was smooth.
It'll take a few balance patches and expansions before it achieves absolute perfection, but the list of wholesale changes Civ VI brings to the storied formula makes for an instantly sumptuous strategy treat.
It’s strange to be slightly disappointed with Leviathans despite spending entire days completely immersed in Stellaris, yet again. It’s not bad DLC, it’s just mostly invisible for large portions of the game.
Gears of War 4 epitomises the 'Complete Package' game. Its single-player campaign is simple but spectacular, and its multiplayer makes all the minor evolutions necessary to position it firmly among the big hitters of the online shooter scene. Even though I'm not enough of a shooty-shooter person to call myself a 'Gears fan', I'm certainly now a fan of The Coalition, who've shown a level of respect for gamers that's lacking among other triple-A shooter franchises.
Perfectly distilling the Horizon formula, Playground Games have produced a racer that's varied, exciting and gorgeous to look at - and arguably the best of the generation.