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The developers totally failed to capture the essence of the elder scrolls. On top of that, it is by a country mile the worst MMO I have ever played. The combat is dumb-witted and lacks feedback, the quests are dull beyond belief, the game is riddled with bugs, you will struggle to group up as its bugged to hell, and you will feel the overwhelming regret of wasting your money. TESO is a strong contender for the worst MMO of all time. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY, AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

Average MMO, yet highly likable and polished. I first played RIFT at beta and early release before going back to my regular MMO of the time. I've been without a regular MMO and despite waiting for elder scrolls, most of my friends are on RIFT. In short, RIFT was 'something to do'. However. RIFT has the unique advantage of having an entirely original world, base, and story. At first glance the game world doesn't have the glamour and lore **** such as LOTRO or SWTOR, but RIFT doesn't lack in quality. The content is very versatile and available from level 1 to cap. Low level instances are fun, higher level players can scale down to do content. The main concept of the game, the rifts, are random and open. As hordes of monsters enter the landscape, a global quest, shared by all appears for that area. Players have to defeat invaders and aid each other to close the rifts and defeat the bosses. Not only is this fun, it has the ingenious advantage of encouraging group play without being forced or non existent. The thing that impressed me the most this second time round of trying RIFT was the number of players in the starting and low level areas, in short, they are packed. Other games are devoid of players upto cap level areas, RIFT is populated throughout and the level scaling plays a great part in this. The character skill trees are extensive and work well, there is plenty of choice for building the role you want. The RIFT store is accessible by a small icon among the usual cluster of buttons for various menus you expect to see on the UI, it is not forced in anyway and functional. The reason I mention the store is for the way it entirely prevents gold selling. Players can buy a barter item for points which typically sells for a large amount of in game currency, not exactly my cup of tea however no gold sellers is a plus for an MMO. RIFT is well worth playing, and free to play.

Very average I've always been a Pro Evo fan, the latest incarnation certainly isn't the worst, but its not the best either. Game play hasn't really improved at all over 2013, but my major gripe is the lack of depth. Master league is shallow compared to other football games, that goes for management games as well, the lack of leagues is disappointing. I loved being able to make my own club and enter the master league in past games but you can't really do that now. You could in the editor, but its not the same. Become a legend is much improved over 2013 but still lacking. I picked the english league and immediately got put into Hull's squad, which was a relief after 2013's garbage league of made up teams. The AI is improved but still lacks in a big way, its a struggle to receive passes at times. Even when you make runs or move into the right positions wide men are always trying to beat their man rather than pass. You'll see a lot of bizarre results as well which takes away from the realism. 2014 is ok, but it's not inspiring.

All things considered, a very good and challenging game. I would give Thief 8.5/10, but I will round up to 9 as this game has been on the receiving end of some unfair criticism. I'm a great believer in taking games at face value, games shouldn't be criticised for not being something that another game is. The first issue is the complaint of linearity, which is not strictly true. Yes Thief is restricting in a way that you can't go anywhere like you could in an open world game, however you are free to roam the city as you please, there are side jobs to be done, collectibles to find. Areas of the city are complex and dark, it is difficult to find your bearings at first and rewarding to find hidden areas and swoop across the rooftops above the unsuspecting guards below. Thief is not as linear as some suggest. The biggest part of what makes Thief such a good game is the gameplay. Some players have grumbled about the game being only first person view, which I was initially skeptical of. However you see the world through Garret's eyes, the player has to use their eyes and ears to get by. You cant see whats behind you, you have to physically turn the character around and that makes Thief much more immersive and challenging. There is no map or radar with little dots and cones of vision, players have to plan routes and there are multiple ingenious ways of getting around the city. Garret's main tool is his bow, which is only really a weapon is desperate circumstances, you will use the bow to fire rope arrows, blunt arrows to create distractions and water arrows to put out distant torches for example. Combat does get criticised for being difficult, which should really be expected. Garret wears dark leather clothing, not steel breastplate. Garret doesn't carry swords around. The developers cannot be faulted, they really made the objective of the game clear. You are a thief, not an assassin, Garret makes clear in the opening of the game that he disapproves of killing guards without reason. The objective is to be unseen. and intelligent play is thoroughly rewarding. Brute force and foolhardiness gets punished, and for me that is a plus for Thief. A worthwhile purchase.

Truly disappointing. Lets start with the positives of Helm's Deep; Western Rohan is a joy to explore, as usual the views are magnificent and the atmosphere of the world is great. However, this is as far as the quality goes. The levelling process is ok, there are quest lines that are interesting and gripping, but the occasional quest that tasks you, the conquerer of evils such as the watcher or a balrog, to inspect the Rohirrim's lavatories and run around doing petty errands are tedious. Now for the bad; traditonally LOTRO expansions include end game content, usually a series of instances and a raid or two. Turbine made a mess of Riders of Rohan last year leaving players disgruntled at a long and disappointing wait. This year, Helm's Deep includes no instance cluster, Turbine announced they had no plans for one and that the new 'big battles' was the content for end game. As for these 'big battles', the potential is huge, taking part in the battle of Helm's Deep? fantastic. However the word 'big' is massively misleading. Looking over the battlement at a poor arrangement of what look more like stick orcs is somewhat underwhelming, the player can assemble and fire siege weapons. This is a long process, which is typically rewarded by a message informing you that you have killed two orcs. To the rest of the 'big' battle, there are small groups of around a dozen rohirrim, which you do not get to control, you can command them to focus on damage or defence for example, but they will not move. Occasional waves of orcs will attack the rohirrim, but the npcs will down the orcs in one or two hits. Realistically the player cannot be involved in the actual combat. All that is to be done by the player is react to random events, typically go to point A, prevent the orcs doing something bad while the NPCs fight it out. Big Battles were littered with bugs and pathing issues, they have no atmosphere, the player feels detatched and not involved, they look incredibly poor, and it seems that Turbine have spent very little time and effort on this feature, which to be honest is an insult to player's intelligence. Worst of all is the price, Mines of Moria was £20, and arguably Turbine's best expansion. I only wanted the basic Helm's Deep which was priced at £39.99. Added to that if you are in Europe, turbine have the cheek to add the tax afterwards. I paid somewhere in the region of £47 for this expansion. It just is not worth the money. Overall Helm's Deep is a very poor showing which offers very little in the way of incentive for the player to renew their subscription. It is overpriced, represents poor value for money and Turbine will see further amounts of players leaving their already dwindling player base.