PCWorld's Reviews
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is all about the journey, and the journey here is spectacular both visually and narratively. This game is something special.
This War of Mine conveys some horrific truths about civilian life during warfare, and it does so in a way that only video games can accomplish.
Harmonix's rhythm-based shoot-em-up A City Sleeps is nightmarishly difficult, but that shouldn't stop you from playing.
Tony Hawk who? This skateboarding game turns America's favorite extreme sport into a puzzler, with excellent results.
Starships condenses Sid Meier's knack for turn-based strategy into a short, two-to-five hour burst of board game-esque tactics that's as satisfying as it is approachable.
Cities: Skylines somehow lives up to the unfair expectations heaped upon it, presenting one of the best city builders in years.
Just Cause 3 embraces the series' dumb thrills to create a ridiculous sandbox orgy of wingsuits, tethers, and explosions.
Rainbow Six Siege is, to me, an indicator that maybe we don't always need new genres of games as much as we need to reexamine our approach to old ones. It's not that anything Siege does is particularly new—tactical play (Counter-Strike, Arma, et cetera) mixed with a bit of destruction physics (Battlefield, Red Faction). But by taking these two aspects and expanding them to a scope supported by current hardware, Ubisoft has created a compelling game that feels unique.
It may not be as influential or creative as either the original Doom or Doom 3—which, although it hasn't aged well, ushered in a dozen monster-closet copycats. Still, Doom in 2016 is successful because it knows it's dumb and leans into the fact. There are no pretensions towards artistry here, no delusions of grandeur. It's a popcorn flick where the main character can only speak in gunshots.
Night in the Woods may be a pastiche of influences, but as far as video games go, there's really nothing else like it, and there's a lot to be learned from spending a dozen days in Mae's life—about her and her friends, about yourself, about America and towns forgotten by time.
Stellaris is great. Maybe not Crusader Kings II great yet—give it a few expansions to fill out—but it's a compelling bit of player-directed science fiction. Freed from the chains of history Paradox has created something creative and bold and inspiring, something that illuminates just how vast and unknowable space is and how tiny our place in it.
Total Warhammer doesn't tamper with much, but it injects enough personality to revive a series that's been steadily collapsing under its own weight.
I've been addicted to 2205 all week, but remain disappointed Blue Byte doesn't push its ideas further with each new entry. The future's impressive. Just not quite as different as you might think.
Dropsy's a pretty good point-and-click, but more importantly it's clever and weird.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong isn't the best RPG Harebrained Schemes has put out, but it's still a great game in its own right.
I imagine the day Gearbox gave Blackbird Interactive permission to use the Homeworld name was triumphant, but also terrifying. Triumphant because the project involved a lot of the original team members and they got to resurrect their mothballed series. Terrifying because doing so meant making a successor to—seriously—one of the best strategy games ever made, and doing so after twelve years of rose-colored glasses.
[SPOILER WARNING] The White March has its issues—pacing problems in the first half, an over-reliance on huge groups of enemies in the second, and three companions who aren't given enough time to breathe before their quests are over—but it's a solid expansion with some incredible moments sprinkled throughout.
Is there enough here? I think so. Superhot is a gimmick game, and it was always going to be a gimmick game. I never expected otherwise. But as far as one-trick ponies go this one is pretty stellar, doing its damnedest to make you feel like the consummate badass and leaving you with all sorts of "That was amazing" moments, feats that could never be pulled off at full-speed. Or, at least, not on purpose. And at two hours it gets in, hits hard, and then knows when to get back out again. A rarity, in games.
New journey, old friends. I don’t know what possessed Beamdog to make Siege of Dragonspear an expansion to the original game, nor do I know what devil’s pact coerced them into making it thirty-odd hours long. It’s insanity.
The PC adaptation of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! gamebooks has some rough edges, but it's a thrilling, sprawling adventure overall. [OpenCritic note: This review was for both parts 3 and 4.]