MikeLane

This is simply a fun, busy, shoot-y, explode-y upgrade of what Privateer wanted to be. Immense fun, with an excellent soundtrack that you can customize with your own mp3s. It's not a space combat sim, it's a gleeful brawl in 2.5-D space with Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" screaming out of your speakers. It's what you'd get if Firefly and Star Wars had a baby in a spaghetti western.

I don't give a lot of tens - this is a ten. Classic isomorphic RPG with excellent writing, suitably tough combat, detailed storyline and the joyous immersion of Planescape:Torment, Baldur's Gate and the very best of the golden age of RPGs. If you ever enjoyed an Infinity Engine game, you will love this.

Sunless Sea is an interesting little gem. It has its issues (combat that needs to be more engaging/tactical, perhaps a bit of tweaking to the economy and an increase in the variety of upgrades for your ship) but the story, writing, atmosphere and setting is top-notch. If you are a twitch gamer, this is not for you. It is slow, but that slowness fits, somehow. Also, you will have to enjoy reading, and have a vocabulary that includes "tenebrous" or possibly "cyclopean". There's a swirl of Lovecraft here, with a dusting of Poe, but the cake underneath is its own recipe. You largely build your own narrative from the many, many stories you stumble across, which makes for unique possibilities. If Failbetter continues to add stories, the world will remain living and will gain a depth rarely offered. And do be warned: You will bury captains at sea. Often, at the outset, and whenever you foolishly think you are "ready" for what's out there. You're not.

This game - well, not a game, it's a piece of interactive fiction - surprised me. It is intelligent, moody and asks some very important questions and, most importantly, never forces an answer. It rewards introspection and thought, and would, I'm afraid, be crippled by a player in a hurry who refused to stop and read, examine and, most importantly, think. I hope this, and spiritual sibling The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, are hints **** that will grow. My only negative? It could have been longer - but what's there is amazing.

I had been hopeful, but the BFG edition is tiring, repetitive, missing the finesse of newer titles and the charm of the originals. And if you're running Windows 8, it's a crashfest. Not recommended. It gets 4 for having (average) ports of the original games.

Elegant and subtle, with an ending that added an entirely new dimension. This is a small jewel amidst a sea of bland gruel and a worthy addition to the Steam library. Recommended.

Approach this not as a game but as a novella, or any other literary form, and you'll be very pleasantly surprised. It's not a better game than the original, but it's a better everything else. A slightly snotty warning: If you have no idea who Ambrose Bierce was, or his contemporaries, maybe go buy the new GTA, instead.

A solid, old-school tactical RPG that stays true to its source material and remains fun to play on followup character builds. SRR is very obviously a work in progress, with the scope hopefully widening considerably in the upcoming Berlin expansion. The editor is going to be its ace-in-the-hole, with user content building an effectively infinite number of 'runs for players to explore. This'll be a good one. Oh, and to offer a counterpoint I actually appreciated the lack of an on-demand save feature. It required a little thought and care not to get killed. And your biggest setback was maybe 20 minutes of play, if that.