Play (Poland)

I might copy the takeaway message from the review of The Burning Crusade: the best game in the universe has been significantly improved. It's amazing what Blizzard managed to achieve in this expansion. [Jan 2009]

How to design a game that spans from swimming in a drop of water to ruling the galaxy? Will Wright knows how: as simple as possible. Spore deserves success on "The Sims" scale. [Sept 2008]

Foaming at the mouth, with a mad glint in the eye and a trio of trusted friends watching your back - that's how it's played. And there's no stepping away from it. When the consensus was that there's hardly anything more to invent in the survival horror genre, Valve proved it wrong. No other game made me give the medikit to another player despite being hurt myself. [Jan 2009]

You either love this game or hate it - all depends on whether you manage to get a grip on the controls. Because deep down this is not a shooter or a platform game - it's a totally novel racer with an amazing atmosphere. You'll need all your confidence in the abilities of Faith to run some crazier routes. [Feb 2009]

The ideal online shooter: average player can enter the fray and even hurt somebody, while pros will be grinding away milliseconds from the time to carry the suitcase on 2forts. And all thanks to the fact that among the nine classes there is exactly zero useless ones. The only serious drawback is the disgracefully low number of maps: only six. [Dec 2007]

A really solid add-on, as long as some full games and made like a good science fiction movie. At last the combat isn’t confined to city streets and cellars, so one can breathe freely. The only problem is the lack of new guns. But it’s an excellent sequel anyway. It has a megaton of mood, believable characters, sensible story motivating the hero and the old American clunker of a car switching gears with a wonderful grinding sound. It’s hard not to like it - and the Episode Two as well. [Dec 2007]

The idea stolen shamelessly from Prey, masterful implementation and... you won’t know when these three hours have passed. Zipping through portals and placing them on the fly (literally) makes for loads of fun, and the authors spice up the play with quite a story that’s not immediately visible and all the more enjoyable when discovered. [Dec 2007]

I wonder if the people at SI Games haven’t just reached a boundary that they won’t be able to cross… FM 2008 has over a hundred new features and although I love most of them, this game is becoming more and more like an encyclopedia – the entry is hindered by a barrier of countless details to grasp and things to remember. But behind it awaits the best football manager on Earth. [Dec 2007]

Novel rules, bizarre units and a twisted design style carry this venerable series to the new heights of glory, previously unattainable. The special abilities that can markedly change the role that any unit plays on the battlefield add a layer of goodness to the whole experience. [Dec 2008]

Real time strategy on a smallest scale or arcade RPG, Diablo style? New Dawn of War is both. And it's addictive. Continual battles with the enemy hordes reflect the epic WH40K spirit perfectly. [Mar/May 2009]