PCGamesN's Reviews
There's a brilliant game that mixes peril with colourful exploration inside We Happy Few, but it's buried under flawed systems and bugs
Monster Hunter: World is one of the finest action-RPGs ever made and a rich co-op title that's only made better with the PC version's technical improvements.
Everything about the dinosaurs is a joy, as it should be in a Jurassic World game, but it makes the weakness of the park management layer plain. The disparity between managing the dinosaurs and managing your guests is all the more apparent because Frontier made the excellent Planet Coaster.
What's struck me most about my time with Vampyr is that it manages to turn you into a predator through its mechanics as much as it does with its storytelling. It does collapse under its own weight by the end, but the fact that it so effectively seduces you, almost trance-like, into roleplaying a villain makes it worth biting into.
It's an extraordinary game. One that you'll feel faintly lost in at first, while its many systems permeate your grey matter. But all the while its story unfolds and reveals new wrinkles, the sense of place growing deeper.
This is where BattleTech shines, it's not about completing missions on your best day, it's about playing as best you can on your worst.
The various factions really give a different feel to each playthrough, so there's huge scope for replayability here.
Its failures prevent Far Cry 5 from being a classic, but its successes mean it has plenty to keep you embroiled in its reactive world.
11 Bit Studios have done marvellous work on evoking the symbolism of the engine giving life.
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is still lumbered with some of the quirks of its '90s origins. This is understandable - it is a remaster, not a remake - but those quirks do cause some friction. Beneath them, though, the underlying gameplay remains as solid as a fully upgraded phalanx.
Although the series naturally lends itself to scale, it has often been observed that Total War is at its worst when bloat sets in. So perhaps it should have been no surprise that Arena finds victory in focus, accentuating just a handful of tactical elements so that they become the totality of the game. Then again, that is exactly what makes Arena so much fun: surprise.
This is an ambitious game, polished to perfection when it comes to atmosphere, but rough and cumbersome in many of its moment-to-moment interactions.
Civ VI is undoubtedly a better game with the addition of Rise and Fall - especially when you are struggling to hold everything together through a Dark Age. However, I do not think this expansion brings it to a place where all of its core ideas have really gelled yet.
A hefty chunk of DLC that adds what is arguably Total War's most inventive race yet, along with four different ways to play them.
Life is Strange: Before the Storm is a masterful prequel, then. Easter eggs and fan service exist peacefully alongside a fantastic new narrative filled with characters I wish I could spend even more time with. Its story fills all the gaps it needs to while never feeling as though it steps on the toes of what is yet to come, and still manages to carve out its own space. In some ways, Before the Storm is only the start of the Life is Strange journey, but in many others it is a joyous adventure in its own right.
That is Wolfenstein II. A collection of perfected game elements built on an only slightly unsteady base. Do not let that worry you, but maybe turn the difficulty down if you are having a hard time. There is more that I have not fully explored, a series of side missions that reuse maps in odd ways, showing MachineGames have the intelligence to not overfill their main offering, but to give you a new perspective on it. I am also yet to entertain a whole other timeline which changes the plot, a further examination of the characters, and a gun that provides a second flavour that should complement what is already an incredible meal.
Star Wars Battlefront II houses a decent single-player campaign and good multiplayer, but, like the otherwise slick design of its multiplayer maps, that accomplishment is often obscured by distractions.
As a whole package, Call of Duty: WWII has a little something for everyone to enjoy, but that has been the story of this series for a long time. No, this homecoming is far, far better than the sum of its parts, a true return to form in practically every respect. It feels alien to be looking back on a new Call of Duty release as anything other than enjoyable yet unremarkable triple-A fare, but here we are. Call of Duty: WWII delivers on all fronts: compelling and heartfelt in its storytelling; imposing in its sense of scale and spectacle; and unremittingly addictive in its gunplay.
Ubisoft were hoping for two things when they decided to give Assassin's Creed a gap year: they wanted to deliver a more polished experience, and they wanted us all to have time to miss shanking people in the neck in a gorgeous historical setting. They have achieved both. Assassin's Creed as a series has had a strange evolution, but going back to the start of the story, the place where the entire Creed was formed, has breathed new life back into it. Absence really does make the heart grow, well, stabbier.
Aesthetic brilliance and great gunplay can't wholly save Destiny 2's campaign from trivial difficulty, repetitive action, and a go-nowhere plot. Its best content in the mid-game and beyond is betrayed by a reward economy that nudges you instead toward a vacuous treadmill made of public events, and which truncates the endgame.