PCWorld's Reviews
Call of Cthulhu should be a great horror-detective game, but lackluster mechanics and a heavy-handed story undermine its stronger points.
Like Game of Thrones, Telltale's Batman tries to escape the constraints of its well-established universe but ends up falling into the same patterns and railroading the player through a story devoid of...
Virginia's extensive use of jump and match cuts makes it the meeting point of games and film, though it's not the most successful of experiments.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands is not a fantastic game. Some part of me is fascinated by Wildlands in the same way I was once fascinated by Crysis. Look at what we can do. Look at these amazing virtual worlds people create from thin air. It's just a shame so many of these worlds are about as meaningful as virtual bubble wrap.
Two weeks ago I went to a doctor and they told me it might be cancer. Not a thing anyone wants to hear. I came home, told my editor I'd probably take a few days off work, and then launched Unravel. Why? Because I wanted to think about literally nothing at all.
Add in more than a few grammatical errors, some spelling mistakes, and a few bugs (the ending crawl described how one of my staffers both stayed at and simultaneously left the newspaper), and it's hard to recommend The Westport Independent. Which is a shame because I think it has at least one extremely important learn-by-example thing to say about media bias, and how it can manifest in something as simple as a lie of omission. That's a powerful message, and one it would be useful for more people to understand. To ask questions of the media, people need to understand how the media operates.
ReCore features adorable robot companions and snappy platforming, but a chore of an end-game, bugs, and terrible load times make it a hard sell.
It's mediocre, not awful. This review slants negative because I find the writing mostly bad, but my experience with Andromeda is almost worse in some ways: For much of my 55 hours with it, I felt nothing at all. It just exists, content to let you run from fetch quest to fetch quest, chasing the appearance of importance while saying nothing at all. It'd be easier to just condemn the whole endeavor and write it off, but that's not entirely fair. I'm mostly ambivalent, or "I'm not mad, just disappointed," as my parents might've said—and ouch, that always stung much worse.
Crytek brings its Xbox One launch exclusive over to the PC and it's not great. But PC graphics enthusiasts should probably check it out anyway.
Randal's Monday has a decent story, but playing through this point-and-click isn't worth the effort—illogical puzzles abound.
Broken Age's first act was mediocre but had potential. Potential that its conclusion squanders.
Assassin's Creed: Unity would already be a mediocre game, but the quality of this PC port brings the series to new lows.
Pyre, the latest from Bastion and Transistor developer Supergiant, is as gorgeous and creative as anything the studio's done—but repetitive.
Highly experimental, Introversion's Prison Architect follow-up has you mapping out a dark cave with a handheld LIDAR scanner. It's an inspired premise, but doesn't go much of anywhere.
Outlast 2 has a few solid horror moments, but undermines those scares with tedious gameplay.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare occasionally rubs elbows with the best moments of its predecessors, but too much tedium and half-baked multiplayer make this one hard to recommend.
Fans of Dead Rising will lament everything this latest Christmas-themed sequel has lost, but it's still a pleasant-enough time for those who want a mindless zombie-killing sandbox.
Halo Wars 2 is fine, but definitely not the real-time strategy genre's long-sought salvation. Same-old missions, same-old structure, and with a layer of console-style oversimplification on top.
Dishonored 2 is an excellent stealth game bogged down by a terrible port. Consider this score provisional until Arkane fixes its myriad issues.
Firewatch is beautiful. Firewatch is intriguing. But ultimately I don't think Firewatch is very good. At its best, this is a quiet game about two characters struggling with real-life insecurities. But when that's sidelined to make room for a main plot, Firewatch suffers. It's a game perfect for trailers, a game full of excellent dialogue and breathtaking moments and stunning vistas that ultimately amounts to nothing much at all.