Dated and out-of-place
Fit for the red carpet.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is the most extensive Call of Duty game ever made, but not without its flaws. Dour storytelling and purely incremental changes to multiplayer prevent it from reaching the legendary status of its predecessors.
Star Wars Battlefront is remarkably beautiful. So much so that I genuinely believe it is the best realisation of the Star Wars universe we have ever seen in a video game. But it also feels empty. Simple, stripped back shooting is great in a game with tons of ways to play, but when it's confined to what feels like only two fully-fledged game modes, and the metagame is taken back to bare bones too, it begins to make you wonder if there's actually much there at all.
Ubisoft Montreal could have made a bold, brave statement as to what a hardcore, competitive multiplayer shooter should be all about. For all the joy of its exceptional gameplay, Rainbow Six Siege is suppressed by a lack of commitment to what makes it great.
Tearing up the rulebook but bringing back the fun, Pok'mon Sun and Moon make for the best generation in more than a decade.
Dawn of War finally returns with a fascinating, if imperfect, twist on the modern RTS.
Pok'mon returns for a 3DS victory lap in this generous, definitive retelling of the Alolan story.
Messy, boisterous, chaotic - Civilization 6: Rise and Fall is the antidote to the Enlightenment.
Quality of life tweaks and vast depth can't overcome Football Manager 2019's uncharacteristically clumsy, all-consuming training rework.
Pok'mon's Switch debut deftly toes the line between returning fans and all-new ones, with a few small wobbles along the way.
The former Civ 5 director's long-running passion project is filled with nice ideas, but they never threaten to pull together.
Ambitious and sometimes overwhelming, Three Kingdoms does a great job of capturing the complexity of China's vivid past.
Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is a gold-standard remaster, capturing the loveably janky, off-brand spirit of classic CTR - and then some.
Competent strategy pastes flat-footed, surface-level sci-fi over a genre that lives and dies by its nuance.
Pok'mon Sword and Shield add some brilliant new creatures, but like their gargantuan Dynamax forms, the games feel like a hollow projection.
A likeable indie with cracking source material and a special setting, The Flower Collectors is just missing the magic of detail.
A predictably grim spin on a legendary action license that really deserves better, Predator: Hunting Grounds is unworthy prey.
Pok'mon's first ever expansion offers sunny vibes and another, more open world, but is still lacking the substance to do much with it.
Riot Games delivers a masterclass in competitive integrity, soulless precision and zealous, life-consuming obsession.