Review Archives (Staff Reviews)
You are currently looking through staff reviews for PC games. Below, you will find reviews written by all eligible authors and sorted according to date of submission, with the oldest content displaying first. As many as 20 results will display per page. If you would like to try a search with different parameters, specify them below and submit a new search.
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Crimecraft: Bleedout review (PC)Reviewed on January 30, 2011It has the chance to stand out from the crowd, to not be just another also-ran, but it would be unfair to say it’s there right now. Should it continue down this path, its future looks promising. |
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The Ball review (PC)Reviewed on February 06, 2011Ballin' |
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Canabalt review (PC)Reviewed on February 23, 2011I view people who subscribe to the holy book of Canabalt the same way that Orson Scott Card intended readers to view Xenocide's Qing-Jao: as obsessive and deranged failures, compulsively tracing lines in wood until they realize they've accomplished nothing. Then they die. |
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One Chance review (PC)Reviewed on February 26, 2011One Chance is a bad game for obvious reasons. The graphics are poor, the music is repetitive, the guy walks slowly, the story is silly, player interaction is minimal, and victory is achieved through repetition instead of mastery. Its claim to fame is that you only have one chance unless you game the system. |
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Lylian: Episode 1: Paranoid Friendship review (PC)Reviewed on March 10, 2011Some time into her stay, she mysteriously finds her restraints loose and door unlocked. Free to explore the bleak and darkened corridors of the institute in search of donuts and a kidnapped Bob, the child encounters many bizarre phenomena. Crazed nurses wander the halls, determined to kick the girl into submission, while donut-stuffed fatties try their best to crush her beneath their obese weight. |
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Myst review (PC)Reviewed on March 25, 2011If you bought a computer between about 1993 and 1996, you'll have got a free computer game with it. Perhaps your mum will have played it, sitting in front of the PC for hours on end, trying to figure out solutions to the game's many puzzles as she wandered around the pretty environments. Myst quickly became one of the most popular games in the world, mainly because you couldn't bloody avoid the thing. |
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Raven Squad: Operation Hidden Dagger review (PC)Reviewed on May 02, 2011I feel a bit guilty for panning anybody’s first effort, and my hope that a decent game can be made from this premise is genuine. But the only thing you’ll find here is mounting disappointment and enough dropped balls to start a play pit with. |
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Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword review (PC)Reviewed on May 18, 2011This kind of incompetence is old news, although one would have hoped that for the series' third outing the AI squadmates would be better at self-preservation. What makes it more frustrating than in the past, however, is that you simply cannot be enough of a superhero to make up for their ghastly mistakes. Because now there are all these guns, you see. |
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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings review (PC)Reviewed on May 23, 2011If you can look past the balancing, pacing and technical issues, there is an extremely solid RPG here - nothing especially innovative, but definitely a game that sets out to be the most absorbing, rich and spectacular experience it possibly can be. It’s a disappointment because it largely succeeds in that goal while fluffing the basics. The best RPG of the current generation? With a bit more care, it could have been. |
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Frozen Synapse review (PC)Reviewed on June 03, 2011Generally speaking, multiplayer matches consist of a few minutes of head-scratching, a bit of experimentation, a final check, a click of the ‘Prime’ button, and an edge-of-seat wait for your opponent to submit his or her next turn. It’s often sensible to go and get on with something else while the time ticks away, but it’s difficult to do so when you’re so invested. |
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Duke Nukem Forever review (PC)Reviewed on June 16, 2011The inspiration is, of course, the venerable Duke Nukem 3D, a groundbreaking over-the-top comedy shooter that had actual gameplay when it came out 15 years ago. But in Duke Nukem Forever, it's tough to use the word "inspiration". When you come across a nod to the original game, it feels like it was chucked in carelessly. Here's a trip mine. Here's a holoduke. Here's a pigcop. Here's something like a boss fight. Here's a gun that shoots blue lasers. Here's a stripper. |
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F.3.A.R. review (PC)Reviewed on June 26, 2011This means combat becomes an often entertaining game of cat-and-mouse. It’s bad news if you stay behind the same piece of cover for too long, as FEAR 3’s goons are more intelligent than that. They’ll lob in a grenade, or send someone to draw you out from behind. All the while, their defensive strategy is much the same as your own: hide, shoot, move, repeat. When you’re down to the last couple of enemies in a larger area, gunfights can end up drawn out for minutes, as you battle frantically for supremacy over the game’s AI. |
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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings review (PC)Reviewed on July 07, 2011The Witcher 2 doesn’t stop with waterfalls and ferns, though, or even with prostitutes and foul-mouthed dwarves and snide noblemen. It paints this fantastic world full of complicated people and it lets you interact with all of that in such a way that eventually, like Geralt himself, you are unable to continue as a passive observer. You have a stake in what happens to the people around you, a position in the middle of all of it that you chose for yourself through your prior actions. |
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Nancy Drew: The Captive Curse review (PC)Reviewed on July 07, 2011Young gamers, and perhaps those who are new to the point-and-click adventure genre, would find a lot to enjoy here – it is obviously marketed towards these audiences, and the developers succeeded in delivering a great product for them. |
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Puzzle Agent 2 review (PC)Reviewed on July 09, 2011Following the closure of his last case, Nelson Tethers is racked with guilt over the string of unsolved disappearances in the eerie, insular community of Scoggins, Minnesota. And so, after taking vacation from his job as an FBI Puzzle Detective, our protagonist fires up his snowmobile and treks back to tie up any loose ends. |
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Dungeon Siege III review (PC)Reviewed on July 25, 2011Weapon selection isn’t all there is to the combat, though. Each character can master specialized skills that you can then use profusely. A skill requires a bit of focus from your meter, but you can swiftly refill that meter simply by hitting your adversaries with a few standard shots or strikes. The result is that it’s entirely feasible to roll through the whole game using the “fun” moves almost exclusively. Yet you can also roll out of the way of incoming targets, block sword strokes and projectiles and even heal yourself. |
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Neptune's Pride review (PC)Reviewed on July 26, 2011Perhaps I betrayed they who trusted me the most. Maybe I delighted in the slaughter of those who stood in my way and maybe, when my strategies hit a speed bump, I manipulated the field to my liking. Maybe I broke more hearts than defensive walls, but I crossed that finish line first. |
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The Tiny Bang Story review (PC)Reviewed on July 28, 2011The latest lovely hidden object/adventure hybrid is The Tiny Bang Story - and, frustratingly, it gets the mix half-right. It’s evocative, painting a world that seems to spring more and more to life the further you progress into the game. But it falls into some of the classic traps that both adventures and hidden object games have succumbed to over the years, and the result is a game I wish I could recommend more than I’m about to. |
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Trapped Dead review (PC)Reviewed on July 31, 2011The errors, the bugs, the flaws, oh god, they're everywhere. In number and in menace, they drown out the game’s zombies. They’ll become your biggest fear. But instead of eating away at your brains, they’ll instead devour any interest you once had. |
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Bejeweled 2 review (PC)Reviewed on October 14, 2011Adding to the fun are the fruits of putting together four- and five-jewel combos. The former creates a magical sparkly jewel that, if placed into a line of three, will create an explosion to clear out ALL surrounding gems. The latter causes a weird amoeba-like shape to appear. If you find yourself stuck, you can click on it and any surrounding gem to make all of that color get eradicated. |
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