meediocre

I played 190 hours and still haven't completed everything. This is a true gem of an RPG - immersive, funny, stressful, complex, weirdly compelling. It's a tough start, the first several hours you are learning systems, you have no powers and can barely fight, no money .. but stick with it and your Henry will grow into, well whatever you decide. Yes you can play as a thief, rascal and murderer, but expect to have consequences. Try and be a little angel and you'll get some nice comments and respect. The combat is the only area where the game annoyed me, and I know it's trying to be somewhat realistic rather than fun, but still, not for me, although it does get a bit better when you eventually have tons of perk points and good armour. So, what can I say, KCD2 makes you fee like you're living in medieval Bohemia and taking part in real history, helping to shape events and affecting people's lives. NPCs aren't just animatronics they move and live in the world. Some conversations are priceless. Hats off to developers, hope they make a great Lord of the Rings game.

Fantastic exploration, action-adventure game, highly immersive and faithful to the original Indiana Jones trilogy of movies. Tons to discover, the environments and objects are stunning. The story is compelling with top-notch voice acting. Gameplay is mostly a fun mix of stealth and melee/shooting combat, but nothing exceptional. The only problem is the PC performance, you'll need a beefy rig.

A decent and relatively lengthy campaign that has mission variety and a half-decent story. Highly entertaining, and not just run and gun. The environments are stunning, sound and gunplay are all top notch. That being said, the multiplayer action is too fast-paced, and the maps are too small for my liking. Just played for the campaign.

You are stuck in a labyrinth and constantly have to fight enemies as you move through it, which would be fine if this were a decent shooter, but the combat mechanics are simply ok. The rooms are sprawling and disorientatingly claustrophobic, which was fun for a while, but several hours in, and there's a repetitive pattern creeping in, of opening up new areas, then running into enemies, in every corridor and room almost, even the ones you've already cleared. The Hiss are annoying. Then there's the boss fights, which are also annoying, and made worse by the unforgiving save system where you need to start again from a pre-determined save point, which might mean running around for a minute to get back to the place where you keep dying. This game seriously lacks having a buddy companion, either A.I or friend. I think Prey did it better. I gave up.

Amazing attention to details, awesome sound effects and above-par graphics, plus this is Star Wars - what could possibly go wrong? Er how about no single-player campaign, no tactical depth and lots of little irritations that made me go back to Red Orchestra: Rising Storm, and Battlefield 3 - after about 10 hours. That being said, I had a little bit of fun for those hours, but the game just doesn't have the staying power. This, and that god awful new movie, major disappointment!

Awesome, meaty, enjoyably grindy single-player FPS campaign - not for little snowflakes. The game is all about movement, reflexes and shooting a shed load of demons - very addictive, be advised.

The problem with a third-iteration of what were already two great games (Arkham Asylum/City), is how do you take the gameplay and/or story in new or improved direction? The developers were standing on tall shoulders, faced a bit with the dilemma that Oasis must have had, after banging out two great first albums. So what we have here, then, is Arkham Knight - a new villain, a bigger city, more gadgets and, of course, the batmobile. On paper it sounds great, and for much of the time, I found myself having a lot of fun. The only trouble is that not so long ago I had played Arkham Origins ... so despite all my best efforts at once again being able to play my favourite comic book character in a beautiful-looking and technically marvellous game, I actually found myself suffering from Batfatigue. I couldn't help thinking that I was playing a game I had played before, a million times. Initially I loved the Batmobile, but after a few tank encounters, it became a chore. Didn't play the game til it was patched, and can confirm I had zero technical issues playing at 4k. Definitely would recommend this to a mad fan, or someone who hasn't played Arkham City.

The best-looking game I've played since The Witcher 3, looks awesome in 4K. But what the game lacks, as per the previous reboot, is a sense of "challenge". I grew up wasting many of my Uni days playing the original games on Playstation, fearing every new twist and turn, trap, puzzle and hostile encounter. In this game, all of the danger is basically scripted, and visually it all looks perilous, but technically it isn't. I loved the environments and character model/details, but found even the challenge tombs to be a bit too easy. Ok, I know they need to cater for a wide audience, and some people want a hardcore Lara Croft experience, and others want Uncharted, so I'm overall happy with this reboot sequel. The story is dull as dishwater, and Lara herself lacks a a bit of humour. Here's hoping for the next installment that there's more of a focus on puzzle-solving, platforming, and dare I say tomb-raiding?

Knowing you have the ability to reverse time somewhat diminishes the impact of the final scene .. This episode has some interesting but fairly easy puzzles, but mostly propels the story forward in terms of what happened to Rachel and Kate, which had previously been side-stepped for another, more weirder narrative .. something about consequences and the butterfly effect? Now, it's all about the end times and a dark conspiracy, which is kind of apt. Keen to see how this ends!

The most amazing virtual modern city I've ever been arrested in .. some ridiculous action and dialogue, very entertaining. The police car chases were the most fun I've had since Driver.

50 hours in, and there's no end in sight. The game is beautiful, enormous and full of content. The best game world for exploring I've seen in the last few years. In fact it's almost too much - too many side-quests, too much land to cover, and characters to meet. The only area I find it slightly lacking is with the combat. In comparison with the likes of Shadow or Mordor or the Arkham series, Geralt's sword-play (and especially boxing skills) is somewhat slightly unsatisfying. The music is perfect, but there's not enough diversity. You end up hearing the same tracks repeated endlessly for hours, until you get to Skellige. Anyway .. what a treat this is/has been, and I'll definitely play through to the end, and most likely check out the expansions. A vast improvement on the Witcher 2, I guess there'll be incredibly high expectations on the developers for their next game.

The game does a great job with the locations and atmosphere, on what I presume was a limited production budget. Obviously the actual detective work is over-simplified, all you need to do is explore and interact, then interrogate some suspects and piece together the clues. Except for one other thing you need to do, which for me, personally, dragged the entertainment/immersion factor down considerably. The PUZZLES ... are very frustrating and annoying. It's possible to skip them, but others you can't. They are tedious, and completely counter-intuitive. Other mild criticisms include: having to wait about 10 seconds every time you change location (even on an SSD), Watson is useless, and finally I guess this down to personal taste. But I would have preferred to have a the case completely solved correctly, rather than just making a guess based on the evidence. This was my first Sherlock Holmes game, and I admit I didn't get past the fourth case, but I would consider looking into the next one, if someone could please kill or radically improve the annoying puzzles!

Welcome to Kryat, a place where every 5 minutes you'll be attacked by an eagle, and either some wildlife having a bad day will spawn near you, or bunch of goons will materialise near you, with the most amazing bright red camouflage. Ultimately you have to confront a white-haired Asian-esque dude with a baddy Brit accent, with a pink suit, who will babble to you at the end about the meaning of making certain choices, but basically you don't care because you've already murdered so much wildlife and goons, you know you'll be heading where the sun doesn't shine when it's all over. Basically, I loved the addition of Fortresses, and the endless repetitive/samey side-missions were still addictive. But, what on earth is going on with the texture pop-ins, even on a Titan X! Music, fantastic, and seriously great animals. I reckon for the next one it should be Vietnam, but with a twist that deep in some Viet Cong jungle there is a dinosaur cave that accidentally gets discovered :)

Not often do I give up on a game out of protest, but what I presume was the end-level monster was just too hard, but mostly completely ridiculous. The New Order was a quality product, with an interesting take on alternative **** revenge fiction, but at in the second Act of the Old Blood it's like a zombie corridor shooter. Even though the same shooter mechanics are in place, I found myself growing weary of constantly having to look for Stormtrooper helmets, armour and bullets. This scavenge-athon every second detracts from the gameplay, and without the strong storyline as in the first game, there's just not enough to recommend playing this over other, better FPS campaigns. Having said all this, the game is not a full-priced product, and I did play for around 7 hours, so don't feel I've wasted my cash. Quite why I had to fight at lunatic chained monster at the bottom of a cave full of **** zombies, is beyond me.

Don't let the beautiful backgrounds and emotive soundtrack deceive you. As impressive as all of that is, what we have here is a side-scrolling game that lacks the fun and imagination of Rayman or Shovel Knight, and is thoroughly tiresome at various points. The combat is rather boring - just punch a button and fire random homing-missiles. Basically if you look torturous levels of platforming difficulty, and a ridiculous system of saving your progress, then this might be for you. The visuals though are awesome!

This is like hella a game for teenagers, but I'm a couple of decades older than that and found it kind of interesting. The environments are certainly more alive and has more things to check out, than your average Telltale game - but what is it with Square Enix games and the darn all-seeing-eye everywhere .. Anyway, I'm kind hoping that the ability to rewind time and story progression takes things a bit darker in the next episodes - am also hoping some part of the game will be at least slightly challenging.

Would have made a great piece of DLC, worth about £10-15. There's actually quite a lot of things to shoot, and endless run-of-the-mill loot, between various standard fare missions. I really got bored by the finale and actually gave up on what I assume was the final boss battle. I just didn't care. But I'm not placing blame here on the developers - it's just that eventually you get to the point when you realise that there are other games that do gun-combat better, story and and environment. This should have been an expansion or major DLC, is all I'm saying.

Brilliant Orc'em Up, with various nods to Arkham and Assassin Creed games, mixed up with a Middle Earth setting and a novel enemy system. Hugely enjoyable for around 25 hours or so, then it starts to get a little bit stale. Although I love SP games, I can imagine how much of a laugh it would be to play this co-op, with perhaps a wider range of enemies and gameplay options. Would love to actually create an orc army and attack a fortress or something like in the sequel, of which I definitely hope there is.

The Crysis games, and more recently the latest Wolfenstein, are all far more enjoyable FPS experiences, with better story and gunplay. Too much of the SP campaign in Advanced Warfare is (to be expected), on rails bombastic action. It's the first COD I've played since MW2, and I can honestly say that despite an upgrade in visuals, everything is still too much like sitting on a fairground ride, playing whack-a-mole and creeping forward. The exo-suit features barely come into play. Still, there is some fun to have here, and some of the levels are exciting enough to make me feel like I hadn't completely wasted my money.

A much bigger, fun and brilliant game than the original. You don't have to be someone who usually gravitates towards puzzle games to enjoy this. It's one of those rare games where you actually need to stop and think. Trial, error, experimentation and imagination will get you through those expertly crafted chambers, rather than quick reflexes. I can't give the game full marks, however, due to a very minor criticism. That being that as well thought-out the puzzle-based chambers were, they all had a similar look. The puzzles and tools at your disposal may evolve as you progress, but eventually my eye got a little bored looking at the same dark and dreary test chambers. Apart from that - amazing!

This is more of a review of the entire season, than specifically about this episode. Firstly, the game's artwork and visuals are exceptional, and some of the voice-acting is top-notch. And, in comparison to The Walking Dead's first season, it is something completely different, so well done developers for bringing to life a comic book I had no idea existed. However, as lovely as it is to watch and follow, the level of interaction is pitiful. It's basically QTEs mixed with dialogue selections, nothing else. Ok, you can move Bigby around a room a little bit, and sometimes when you're in a fight sequence you might need to thumb a control stick in a particular direction, but overall the level of interactivity is lacking. I know huge fans of the game will say that it's all about how you respond to conversational dialogue and situations, but it never really feels like anything you do or choose to say will make any kind of difference to the on-rails script. Ok, in this episode there is one choice you need to make that impacts which way a certain character is dealt with, and I really enjoyed being asked to make such a moral decision. However, when I play a game, I want to feel like I'm not just a spectator. I really hope that the player gets to do more in the environment and to alter the course of the narrative in future games. Probably a tall order, I know.

Connection issues aside, this is a solid open-world game that feels and plays like Sleeping Dogs, but with a hacking theme, and a less interesting story and central character. There's some genuine fun to be had with the online invasion and ctOS missions, as well as some exhilarating escape from the cops/baddies driving action. The world itself is incredibly detailed and there are plenty of side quests and distractions to keep you going for hours and hours, as per AC and Far Cry etc .. Negatives, in my opinion, include the average main storyline and the fact that graphically, even on PC it doesn't seem next-gen. Happy to have bought this title though, as it offers great value for money.

Above-average FPS shooter, based on imaginative alternative **** history mixed in with characters and a story that helps propel the action forward at a nice pace. Some imaginative detail in the environments. Enemy AI is sometimes challenging, as flanking manoeuvres or storm-troopers with armour can be particularly challenging if you don’t have the right ammo/weapon. In fact, on the higher difficulty levels, some of the combat scenarios are pretty tricky. Unexpectedly good stealth elements to the game allow for some degree of choice as to how you progress through levels, but even when alarms are raised and gun-battle commences, it is mostly a lot of fun. There’s also an impressive set of solid weapons to play with, and even duel-wield and upgrade. I had some texture pop-in issues, exactly the same as with Rage, but after downloading a beta Nvidia driver, the issue was mostly resolved. Regarding the tone of this nod to Inglorious ****, I couldn’t help but stab, shoot and kill **** with a certain amount of glee. There’s no love lost here for the future ****, after the opening sequence you feel a certain amount of blood boil and literally just want to get to the end as quickly as possible and enact a violent retribution upon the main villain. Ethically I have no problem with this, as long as you take it in the same vein as watching a Tarantino movie. You’re asked to commit an enormous amount of violence, but at no point did I feel worried that I had become “as bad” as them. There’s also some dry humour here too. Imagine walking around a **** moon base and reading a newspaper cutting that says that Brits have gone off fish & chips and now find sauerkraut more palatable! As much as I generally enjoyed playing this game and would definitely recommend it to those looking for a challenging and engaging FPS single-player campaign, I’m taking two-points away from Wolfenstein: The New Order for two reasons: Firstly, the final boss sequence is literally impossible on the harder levels, and rather annoying and not a lot of fun; the ending seems a tad rushed. The other reason is due to the texture pop-in issue. Surely someone should have realised, post-Rage, that the ID tech, whatever it is, has graphical/driver issue that should be fixed BEFORE launch. Was kind of annoying.

Apocalypse Now on steroids in the desert. Fairly satisfying gun-combat action, with an above average story loosely based on Heart of Darkness. Not much in the gameplay department other than pushing through linear levels and wiping out waves of enemies. If you like your military shooters, have a shot.

Who’d want to be a whistle-blower at this f***ed up place, seriously … Then again, without heroes willing to put their own lives and well-being first, who knows what kind of nefarious things would still be going on around the world. With that in mind, I felt slightly more attuned to playing as an unlucky whistle-blower, as compared to being an incredibly brave reporter. Technically in the first game you actually have a choice as to whether to go into the Asylum or not, whereas for poor Waylon Park, it’s literally a case of endless bad luck, with the occasional sprinkling of good fortune in his gory escape. Everything I chillingly enjoyed about the main game was present in the Whistleblower DLC, from the tense and immersive environments, to the macabre and downright scary weirdos and psychos you encounter. Don’t expect anything, mechanically speaking, to be different, new or improved. This is very much a case of the developers giving us about three hours of additional gruesome content to wade through, if you dare. Again, I have to say that playing on a PC with a large-monitor, totally in the dark, with headphones, and alone – it surely is still one of, if not THE scariest experience you can currently have in the gaming world. The only reason I’m not awarding nine-points in this review is because there was slightly disappointingly nothing particularly new or surprising in the DLC, just more of the same brilliant game. Can’t wait for whatever these guys do next.

Pretty pirate-simulator with some fun naval combat. Let down though by the usual repetitive quests, stupid sword-play combat, and lack of a particularly interesting narrative journey or characters. An improvement for sure on the last AC. The best aspect of the game is traversing the picturesque waters in changing weather conditions on a boat full of pirates singing a song. Not much tension or drama, plenty of grind.

I must be getting old, because even though I have watched every season of South Park and can appreciate how well-crafted this game is, there's something about Stick of Truth that's a bit like wondering through a town of over-familiarity and crudeness. The combat is fun at first, but after a while it soon transpires that you cannot really fail, there's not much of a challenge. Fortunately the script, side-missions and loot, all make this interactive South Park episode into a kind of ok RPG game of sorts. Still I think it's squarely aimed at South Park fans, so I'm not sure I'd recommend it to those who might have a bit of an issue with learning how to launch a fart spell called the Nagasaki, or play as a Jew whose best weapon is called the Sling of David.

The game is simply endless levels of bad guys coming at you that require shooting to death, or in some cases karate kicking or blowing up. The story is clichéd drivel, involving the Illuminati (Los Illuminados) and some zombie type infection-plague, with occasional references to Umbrella. I know this is considered a great classic, but playing for the first time in 2014, it takes a while to get used to. The controls and over-shoulder camera view are not very satisfying. Effectively the game is just about grinding and blasting your way from one environment to the next, in the search of an important young woman who has been kidnapped by some shady people – comical villains really. There are some puzzles along the way, but the boss fights are more challenging … According to my Steam stats I killed almost 900 enemies and it took over 16 hours to complete. That’s a lot of shooting. I may be in the minority here, but I actually remember enjoying RE5 more than this one. That being said, the game provides incredibly good value for money. According to my calculations each enemy I killed cost me 1.7p, based on 886 enemies taken care of, from an outlay of £15. I also died 92 times, apparently, so that’s 16p per death! Some comments on the port – I have never seen the original version or the previous PC version/s, so cannot compare. Yes I experienced a few annoyances, not just related to the controls. However, I never had any issues that impacted on my game experience other than a serious slow-down in FPS that happened sporadically. If we had better viewing angles and camera controls, this would have made a big difference.

Addictive, repetitive dungeon-crawler - ridiculously easy even on hard level for the first playthrough. Plenty of loot and a wide variety of locations, enemies and bosses to keep you pushing forward relentlessly. There's a familiar story of demons and angels, good vs evil, betrayal and bravery etc .. However there's not much else in terms of strategy or role-playing. This is a fast-paced action game that you literally play with one-hand on a mouse if you have some side-buttons for hot-actions. I think I had to press Q for a health potion about three or four times and that was it. Might consider the expansion and another playthrough or two in the future. By the way I had zero problems with the online connectivity requirement, so I don't know what people are moaning about.

It may be several years old now, but first ever experience with a Hitman game made me wonder why I managed to miss this gem. Obviously, the graphical fidelity isn't what we're used to from a modern game, and it does feel clunky at times, but it's still immensely playable. First off, you genuinely can take multiple approaches to your kill-targets and be stealthy or loud and brutal. As many of you have said on this forum, the game doesn't hold your hand, you have some simple weapons, a target-list and the rest is up to you. I suppose it this were 2006, I would be giving this a 9.

The carnage, mayhem and overall silliness of this satirical take on urban America and open-world games like GTA, is definitely fun for a while. It's completely OTT and ridiculous, and there's plenty to do here. The problem is that unlike Sleeping Dogs, for example, there is not even a half-decent story to pull you along, and nor is there really any kind of engaging combat, or sense of challenge to make it last. Ultimately, because it's too easy with all the weapons and upgrades you can get, it's just not worth attempting to complete. Funny though.

The Wild West on steroids! A tongue-in-cheek FPS with a non-stop narrative, which juxtaposes cowboy cliches with elements from games like Borderlands and Rage. It's not a high-spec or AAA title, so graphics look pretty dated. But that doesn't matter as you're driven relentlessly through fast-paced shooting gallery levels, not too challenging on hard. Not a huge fan of the quick-draw stand-offs you have you to complete. But overall was pleasantly surprised with CoJ.

Delightful game, undoubtedly could be enjoyed by anyone with a heart and some basic grasp of simple puzzles and a controller. It's (dare I say) beautiful and touching, and definitely worth your time (even if it is just a few hours). It's the kind of game that I will store in my Steam account, categorized as "classic".

A visual-treat, with above-average facial/character animations and good voice-acting. My first experience with DmC, and it was a fun one. It's a linear but imaginative brawler with a demon-limbo theme at times it feels truly epic, and others slightly repetitive and a bit clunky. I seem to remember this came out in January but I held off on buying it as I kind of suspected that it wasn't worth the then high asking price. It's no doubt a game I would recommend at a discounted price. If I were to complain about a few things then it would be, that some of the boss fights are massively grindy, also I think there are slightly too many combat moves and upgrades. The tunnel-like linearity of the game isn't too much of a problem, as the levels are well-designed and looks like plenty of effort went into them. The story twist at final "boss" is the biggest let down and feels just plain wrong. Anyone giving this game a 0 or a 10 is completely nuts. Currently the User Score is 6.5 and I'd say that's slightly low, but not far off the reality.

Talk about upping the difficulty! The first Exalt mission wiped out more than half my crew then suddenly in the next mission I'm up against some kind of mech-robot-monster with a shield and plasma weapons when I've literally only just managed to get some laser rifles. I tried it on Classic difficulty and was summarily annihilated after three missions, then I tried normal mode on Ironman and could not get get my head round how even with scopes my team was missing 70+ percent shots and they were taking out my squad with one or two hits with carapace armour. Maybe I've had a bad role of the dice, but I relatively easily completed Unknown, so I'm not a tactical idiot. Basically, it's a nice add-on and I will try again, but the steep and rather unfairly harshness of the various challenges have proven to be a bit frustrating this time round. I also could not seem to find time, to get enough satellites and planes in the air to stop panic levels around various countries. I was investing in power and uplinks but the aliens were coming in too fast. Guess some of you who've completed this expansion in a day will be chuckling to yourself. Rarely do I mark a game down for its punishing difficulty level, so if it were a bit more balanced/fair from the start then it would get an 8. I hear it gets easier at the end-game stage when you have all the upgrades and veteran soldiers, but alas, those pesky new enemies might prevent me from saving the earth this time!

There really is no pleasing some people! Asylum and City were both ground-breaking at the time, think of this therefore as your Return of the Jedi moment. Everyone knows that film was not the best, or the most popular, but still was Star Wars. If Metacritic existed back then, I'm sure there'd be similar comments to those below eg. "it's more of the same", "it's not as good as Empire", blah, blah ... Basically, what we have with Origins is a different studio and voice actors etc, but it's a pretty slick piece of work from where I'm standing. Combat is just as good as I remember, and having all the gadgets from the start is great fun. Indoor sequences are more interesting than the open world, I admit. The boss fights are actually in some cases better than any in the previous games, and I really like the new time-shift crime-scene ability. So I disagree that the studio has just tried to give us a clone of a previous game. As for the bugs, the only one I've noticed (which is pretty annoying), is that when Batman fast travels, the load screen gets stuck indefinitely, and I'm on an SSD. Apart from that I haven't seen any texture or load issues, frame-rate drops or any pullava like that. The bottom-line is that if you love Batman and/or combat games, buy this game.

Linear. Corridor. Shooter. Onrails. Scripted. Easy. These are some of the words I'd use to describe Metro: Last Light. However, none of those words necessarily mean you're going to have a particularly bad or boring experience, if done correctly which these developers have clearly done. This is a notable improvement on the first game, with more satisfying gun-combat, and an incredibly well-presented murky world, that in my opinion is not far off the attention to detail you see in something like Bioshock Infinite. The story arc was a bit tough for me to follow, being that I never finished the first game, but still you don't need to worry as Artyom narrates the basics through the loading screens and there are notes you can access to catch up. Add that to a rich amount of NPC conversations you can eavesdrop on, and there's certainly more to this shooter than just shooting at monsters. Actually, that's one of the areas that I wasn't satisfied with. The monsters you fight are far less fun that when stealthily trying to take out guards or goons. Mostly, the monsters just charge you very quickly, you fire some shotgun rounds and they're dead. The only other thing to raise issue with, is the major lack of freedom there is to either make any kind of meaningful decisions, or to move about. It's literally like being on a beautifully-crafted fairground ride, more so than other games in this genre. Had the player been given slightly more freedom to explore or do things off the beaten track then this game could have been a 9+. Still, I heartily recommend checking out this game that is if you like your action served onrails.

The single-player is a great cinematic on-rails experience, but utterly forgettable and lacks any depth, challenge or fun. If you see it as more of a tech demo and trainer for the multi-player then you can award a degree of sympathy. So then, multi-player is where the real action is going down, and wow it sounds and looks awesome. Tactically engaging and perilous. The maps are huge which fantastic for scale, but sometimes you will find yourself roaming around looking for people to shoot. You can pick up a helicopter or jet if you're lucky but good luck trying to control those things from ending up embedded in the terrain, and on fire. Work as a group, squad or team is lots of fun and there can be some genuinely intense fire-fights and tense situations. Sometimes though it's just too much and some of the maps have bottlenecks where everyone convenes upon. Would like to see some AI Bots as an option, so that some of us can get some multi-player practice and get to learn the maps, and a death-cam where you can actually see who shot or killed you would be nice. All told, this is solid and addictive FPS online game. Call of who?

For me, the wonder and magic starts to wear off after about 20 hours or so into the game. Truly wonderful, gorgeous open game-world, with great music and hundreds of hours worth of content to discover and explore, is unfortunately let down by rather repetitive and boring quests, characters and combat. It's a difficult one, because in terms of volume of content and ambition it certainly gets top marks, but just how fun and engaging is the experience of actually playing Skyrim? I guess that completely depends on the player, and I'm totally aware that this Bethesda RPG is considered one of the all-time greats. But, starved of any real narrative meat, tense combat and addictive reward systems, it kind of left me feeling like giving up, even though I've got the Legendary Edition and have probably only completed 5% of the game, or less. Despite having some essential visual mods, I still was annoyed by bugs and glitches in the game, or having side-quests that I just couldn't seem to complete. That being said, I'm still in awe of the value for money the game provides, and if I were a bit younger and had a lot more time to go traipsing around, then I might have carried through. This is a huge, epic game but it is not a fantastic gameplay experience.

Get a 2560 monitor or larger, make sure you only play at night with all the lights off (not even a candle or any ambient light if possible), stick some decent headphones on, make sure there are no distractions, and get READY for THE SCARIEST GAME EVER MADE. I don't say that lightly either, being a veteran of the first Amnesia game, FEAR games and several Resident Evil titles, as well as Alan Wake and Slender etc.. The amount of times I literally jumped and had difficulty continuing forward was unprecedented for me. Ok, I admit that after a few hours or so the fear-factor subsides a bit, but still the tension and surprises continue. This is an excellent example of how horror and survival can be blended expertly into a game that does the best job I've ever seen of re-creating how it must feel to actually be in a horror movie. Ok, the story of medical experimentation and a hideous secrets in an old asylum won't win awards for novelty, but it terms of its FPS platforming-stealth/survival-horror gameplay it raises the bar I think. When you walk through a pool of blood you even leave footprints, and can see your hand and body, hear your heart-thumping and breathing. The camera, being your almost sole source of light at times, works wonderfully too. The cat and mouse games with the inmates though, as well as the fidelity and atmosphere of the environment, and constant good level-design choices is what has pushed this game up the list for me as a contender for non-AAA game of the year. I hate to say this, but please punish us some more with some sequels or DLC!

Fun side-scrolling stealth-action gameplay, with some puzzles. Nice art-style and story as well elevate this game above its competition in the price-range. Level-design is hit and miss though needed a little more variety. Generally-speaking it's worth checking out.

I've died like thousands of times from bullets, grenades, friendly fire and artillery and every time it's infuriating not to know where on the map my assassin got me from. In action mode you get a camshot which indicates the area of the soldier that took you out, but on realism mode you just have to put up with the fact that every few seconds, or minutes if you're lucky, you WILL DIE! But then again, you can hit back too, and there's something really fun about only having a few bullets in a bolt-action rifle between you and and a banzai-charging Japanese soldier, trying desperately to defend his little islands. Having not played the original, Stalingrad, I can only really compare this to BF3. It's a less polished experience, but the maps are fantastic and just totally addictive. I've also had no issues with the servers. It's relatively quick and easy to find a game and lag is there, but not too bad. A pleasant surprise!

Fun, to a point. Ultimately this is a corridor, utterly linear shooting adventure from start to finish. Max Payne's narrative, some nicely coded locales and settings, and overall gunplay battles is what keeps the game better than mediocare. Having never played a Max Payne before, this game conformed to my expectations. It's a solid FPS with an achingly unoriginal story-line. But what let's it down is the distinct lack of freedom to do anything other than follow a cut-scene to action based continuous script. In the game you truly are either watching some dialogue and pre-sequenced action scenarios, or you literally pointing and shooting. That's it. However, apart from some issues with the cover-system and annoying ability of the goons to find pinpoint your exact location at all times, it was generally a fairly enjoyable experience. I persevered, had a bit of fun, but won't be coming back. Liked Max though, what a hero!

If you were an 80s kid, then you'll be giggling and smiling like it's 1986 all over again. Brilliant use of analogue and digital synths, the VCR overlay, cheesy dialogue and neon splatter, help to turn Far Cry 3 on its head. I got about 8 hours of solid gameplay. There are 13 outposts to take over, and side-missions. The weapons are very powerful and feel awesome. Still, I would say that the AI is terrible. Even on hard the enemies are so dumb, that it's so easy to breeze through. Cheers Ubisoft Montreal!

A gorgeous world and intriguing story, inspired by utopian/dystopian fiction and American history. Expertly-crafted and beautiful game-world with enough stop-and-stare moments to fill your hat. Very polished and technically almost perfect. However, I would agree with some of the comments here that the gameplay just isnt' quite as good. The shooting is a fun experience, but nothing that stands out. You won't remember the game for its gunfight action, but you will be mesmerised and propelled along by the sheer craft of the world, characters and unfolding story. If they had this world, mixed in with the kind of multi-choice gameplay dynamic of something like Dishonored, then the game could have got top marks. I'll certainly go back and play through again in the future a solid 8-8.5. Thanks Irrational!

Thoroughly enjoyable romp, with some jaw-dropping settings, atmosphere and perilous Croft-action. Lacks some of the puzzles and and feeling of totally getting lost that used to be part of the staple for the original three games, so there's a distinct lack of a mechanical challenge for the player. The story is also rather standard fare, and that's why I'm giving this reboot an 8 out of 10. I cannot fault the game, however for its ambition and detail with the level-design. Combat was solid enough and upgrades to Lara's weapons and tools were a cool feature. Let's have a bigger and badder sequel soon please!

The game starts off a blast, however straight-away it becomes obvious that the story is a bit of a mess, and it really struggles to develop. As for the game and action clearly it's a lush-looking and frequently dazzling to look at, but there's not much in the way of new ideas here, gameplay-wise. Also, I would say that Crysis 2 has some better stand-out moments and fun encounters, particularly with Cell. Apart from the mid-game boss, the Ceph are pretty much the same as before boring, but fun to kill. There are a couple of levels in this game that are epic and really well-designed, but as a whole this is a shooting gallery I have little intention or desire to replay through, unlike the previous games. A word on the multiplayer I had a go at it and gave up after about 10 minutes. Hunter-mode is just stupid. It's bad enough in multi-player games getting killed and not knowing where from, as it is. But this time it's from a guy who's wearing an invisible cloak, so er even less fun. Deathmatch is fast-paced, but there are certainly more fun MP options out there for FPS fans. In short, this Crysis has hit the mark in some areas but I feel a little disappointed especially at the end where my PC froze at the end boss, and I had to watch the ending on YouTube. I love my nanosuit action, but this is the end of the road for me.

The AI is seriously dumb man. I mean, leaving a tiger in their camp, surrounded by the flimsiest of cages, all pointing more-or-less in one direction and blindly chasing after the sound of a pebble hitting the floor. What chance do they have against Jason Brody, an unstoppable geezer with a tatoo and a flamethrower! It's an open-world game, with a linear plot that doesn't take itself too seriously with realism. Not quite as addictive as Borderlands2, for pure gunfight carnage, but where else can you wrestle with sharks, go hang-gliding over a beautiful tropical island and take hallucinogenic plants? Oh yeah your dreams of course!

This review is based having not got very far in the game at all, I've given up and uninstalled it - something I hardly ever do after spending significant cash on a AAA game. The most frustratingly annoying section a few hours into the game gives you a mission where you have to free some captives from three locations, two around a fort and one group on a ship. Now, it doesn't matter how many times I tried to do this, always I would get detected at the last minute, for reasons completely unknown to me, you then desyncronise and have to go through the same process again, and again and again. The enemy AI is not consistent at all. One time I was able to kill a guard at the same spot and no one noticed, the next time the AI guards decide to turn round at that exact moment. I've played I don't know how many stealth games, such as Deus Ex: HR and Dishonored, so I know what stealth-action is all about. However, AC3 does not allow for even one small deviation from what I've seen. The first few hours were ok as an introduction, but still a lot of cutscenes and glitchy combat. Sorry, I know my review score might well be better had I played more, but I think I got through 4-5 hours and then decided that was enough. Pff, disappointing!

It looks gorgeous, but the game-play gets tiring after a few levels. For me it doesn't succeed as an RPG or a 3D platform-shooter. There are some downright frustrating moments, but ultimately it's the beautiful gameworld that becomes so boring. I have played some indie titles, so I know that I can't expect big-budget production values. However, I can't quite work out how this game has such a good user score. It's not bad, it's just not that amazing, sorry.