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If ARPGs, particularly co-op ones, are your thing then Sacred 3 should definitely be on your to-buy list, but don't expect it to take over your life the way other games in this genre have a tendency to do.
Nearly the whole of Gods Will Be Watching relies on your ability to act within situations, but when these situations feel so limited it's annoying to not be able to express yourself freely. This makes the game immediately frustrating as its premise, intention and art set the experience up for something incredible. But the badly designed and unnecessarily hard game design stop your actions from really 'meaning' something. Gods Will Be Watching is not necessarily frustrating in its difficult, it's that it really didn't need to be.
Aside from the odd moments where Magic's innovative ruleset is allowed to shine, this entry feels like a complete cash-in, forcing players to rely on their wallets, not their wits. Long term Magic fans will want to avoid Magic 2015 to avoid utter frustration, whereas newcomers should look further into the Duels of the Planeswalkers' back catalogue for a more appropriate and fulfilling platform for inauguration.
Season 2 may not be overall better than Season 1 so far in my opinion, but Amid The Ruins is arguably the best episode of the entire series because it embraces story and choice/consequence gameplay better than all the others. And that's no mean feat. Kudos Telltale, now better it with the finale. And bring back that raccoon, he was great.
OlliOlli is the very definition of a love it or hate it game, and I apparently came down on the wrong side of that equation. I fully acknowledge that OlliOlli is not my kind of game and there are plenty of gamers and reviewers who already love it, but unfortunately for them and Roll7 I exist too and my opinion is just as important. And my opinion is that OlliOlli is getting deleted off my hard drive the second I finish this sentence. Try it, you may very well like or even love it, but don't come crying to me if you don't. I told you so.
Unless torturing your reflexive skills and muscle memory is a turn-on then Infinity Runner may be better left on the Steam shelf until it re-emerges onto a portable device. Either that or just run into a field of hungry cows and run like you've never run before - that's a real first-person endless runner experience.
Light has great ideas but fails to use them in any meaningful way or make any lasting impression - it's like the setup to a great game that never comes. Shame.
It means that for all Whispering Willows' atmosphere it can't deliver what it sets out to achieve. I don't often say games need to be longer but here, the experience needs more locations, more detail and more time to fill out its fiction to be able to tackle the themes it wants to tell.
It's a shame that Infamy devolves into such juvenile practices as there are some nice flourishes on display – for instance, the hand-drawn aesthetic lends a quaint, homely feel to adventuring that feels refreshing in light of the grandeur that western RPGs typically strive for – yet it's impossible to root for a game that makes such a critical misstep.
It is sad to think that with the Fables comics ending, the game presumably not being the runaway critical and commercial hit The Walking Dead was and Telltale having so much on their plate right now that The Wolf Among Us could be the last we see of Bigby Wolf. The season may have had down moments but it was never bad and certainly the story was never less than gripping - often the worst moments was just when there wasn't enough of it. Overall I'd give the season around an 8.5, but this last episode was an utterly superb way to finish it off.
While in my opinion it has a few flaws that hold it back from true all-time-classic status Divinity: Original Sin is an excellent, beautifully designed and engaging RPG that absolutely never gets boring.
With a driving model that feels unique MotoGP 14 is the (almost) lone two-wheeler in a sea of car games and it does its sport proud. If what you care about is high-speed, precision driving and the tension of catastrophe lying in wait, then MotoGP 14 could just be your favourite new racing game.
It makes progression through the long and winding career mode a touch tedious despite the excellent racing experience the game crafts. The more you play it the more it feels like a patched version of previous entries and less like a new iteration of the series. It doesn't mean you should avoid Autosport if you're looking for a return to form from Codemasters and the Grid name. Far from it. But it's a warning that the stripped down nature of this entry has taken away a bit too much to feel a complete experience even though the actual racing is the best I've played in years.
This, finally, feels like a game which knows how to play to its strengths and minimise its weaknesses. Anyone who enjoys a good tactical shooter, especially those with an affinity for the long-range kill, would do well to check it out.
There's not many video games that treat war with the respect its participants deserve. Metal Gear is too preachy and ham-fisted while Call of Duty & Medal of Honour are bombastic dude-fests disinterested in reality. Valiant Hearts, by using the war as a backdrop and avoiding too much direct conflict, pays tribute to the 16 million that perished in The Great War 100 years ago and does it with humour, pathos and melancholy.
If you're yet to try out Company of Heroes, which is one of the best multiplayer RTS experiences currently available, this is a great opportunity to do so. Just bear in mind that aside from skirmishes you won't get any singleplayer options.
Xenonauts is a faithful modernization of a classic. It retains the features that made X-COM such a tense and memorable game, with base invasions and a gigantic open-ended campaign of depth and freedom. If Firaxis' revamped take on the series felt a little too directed and linear for you, then Xenonauts is likely to delight. By removing the fat and giving us a non-headache inducing UI, the games strengths are allowed to shine through and they remained undimmed by the passage of time.
Wildstar may not do anything especially new, but it does things well, a distinction that means it has truly earned itself the lazy moniker of 'WoW in space'.
"When you need it there yesterday," reads Buck Mann's catchphrase in reference to his delivery ethos. As far as Space Run: Fast and Safe Delivery as a game is concerned, part of me wonders if yesterday is really where this adventure belongs.
You can't help but think that you're being falsely limited by a lack of hotkeys and limited visual scope (no radar, for example) whilst the AI is able to see and think about everything at once. At its budget release price tag it might still be worth picking up for gamers who like the concept, but I can't see myself spending a whole lot more time with it.