Latest Software Reviews
SEE SOFTWARE STORIES BY CATEGORY
Reviews
Scanner Sombre review: A weird and unsettling glimpse into darkness
Introversion's Prison Architect follow-up is a highly experimental art piece about navigating a dark cave with a handheld LIDAR scanner. Scanner Sombre's weird and unsettling, if ultimately a bit one-note.Reviews
Wilson’s Heart review: Not a perfect virtual reality game, but certainly the best so far
With its unique 1940's monster movie aesthetic and excellent voice casting, Wilson's Heart feels like the first "can't-miss" VR game. Too bad it's a Rift exclusive.Reviews
Full Throttle Remastered review: A new coat of paint doesn’t quite hide this game’s age
Double Fine gives LucasArts cult classic Full Throttle the warts-and-all remaster treatment. The problem? Full Throttle has a lot of warts.Reviews
Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition is a fine remaster of an exhilarating game, at a not-so-fine price
With the original Bulletstorm port basically broken on PC after the demise of Games for Windows Live, it's a bit rough for Gearbox to ask people to pay up for a working version—remaster or no remaster.Reviews
Yooka-Laylee review: This nostalgia-fueled platformer is Banjo-Kazooie 4 in everything but name
Playtonic's Kickstarter promised a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie and that's what Yooka-Laylee delivers, flaws and all.Reviews
Mass Effect Andromeda review: As vast and empty as space itself
Mass Effect: Andromeda has literally an entire galaxy's worth of potential, but squanders it on meaningless missions and awkward dialogue.Reviews
Thimbleweed Park review: An incredible homage to point-and-click LucasArts adventures
Thimbleweed Park is a LucasArts adventure game the way you remember them being, with the same witty humor and, yes, the same sometimes asinine puzzles.Reviews
Rock Band VR review: Rock Band’s roaring PC debut showcases Oculus Touch’s potential
Rock Band VR drops you in the rhinestone boots of your favorite guitarists and puts the Oculus Touch controllers to a weird, but perfect, use.Reviews
Night in the Woods review: Small moments and Bruce Springsteen stuff
Night in the Woods is as much a coming-of-age story as it is one of America's lost manufacturing sector and small-town decline. Springsteen would be proud.Reviews
Ghost Recon: Wildlands review: 400 square kilometers of emptiness, but it sure is pretty
Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a technological marvel, but that's about it. The rest of Ubisoft's open-world shooter is a repetitive and mind-numbing jumble, particularly if you play on your own. Bring friends, or don't bother.Reviews
Ghost Recon: Wildlands (PC) impressions: A beautiful, buggy world with no load screens
Ghost Recon: Wildlands offers a big, beautiful world with no load screens and low frame rates. We dig into the game's PC performance.Updated
For Honor review: Satisfying melee kneecapped by microtransactions and online woes
For Honor's combat is excellent, but it's dragged down by…well, basically everything else, especially on the multiplayer side of things.Reviews
Halo Wars 2 review: Spinning its Warthog wheels in a stagnant RTS genre
Littered with microtransactions and featuring the same half-dozen campaign missions you've played since the days of ye ol' StarCraft, Halo Wars 2 is not the RTS genre's salvation.Reviews
Sniper Elite 4 review: Lofty aims battle grindhouse roots in this ambitious sequel
Still obsessed with exploding organs and a pseudo B-movie vibe, Sniper Elite 4 nevertheless improves upon its predecessor in every way—enormous maps, better stealth systems, and more good ol' American freedom.Reviews
Apricorn Aegis Secure Key 3z review: This USB thumbdrive is small, secure, and device-agnostic
Apricorn has taken the Aegis Secure Key 3.0 and made it smaller, less expensive, and more easily configurable in batches with a $99 USB configuration hub.Reviews
Quern – Undying Thoughts review: The closest we may ever come to a Riven sequel
Reminiscent of Cyan's style of storytelling and puzzle design, Quern is an excellent Myst or Riven homage in an era suddenly packed full of them.Reviews
Batman – The Telltale Series review: Wayne-ing interest
Hypothesis: The more beloved and well-known the source material, the more disappointing the Telltale adaptation. It's starting to look like a pattern with Batman – The Telltale Series.Reviews
Dead Rising 4 review: Slay ride
Fans of Dead Rising will lament everything this latest Christmas-themed sequel has lost, but it's still a pleasant-enough time for those who want a mindless zombie-killing sandbox.Download This
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware Free detects and removes malware on command
Add a layer of protection against malware with on-demand scanner Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Free.Reviews
Watch Dogs 2 review: A fresh, interesting rebirth that ditches the stale Ubisoft formula
Watch Dogs 2 is as big a series-defining comeback as Assassin's Creed II was back in 2009—and it does it by burning away all the worst parts of Ubisoft's formula.Reviews
Dishonored 2 review: New stealth highs hobbled by frustrating PC performance lows
Dishonored 2 has some of the most creative levels ever seen in a stealth game, but it might as well not exist if you're struggling with the PC version's performance issues.Reviews
Planet Coaster review: This joyful theme park builder offers a world of pure imagination
Planet Coaster is one of the best "builder" games ever made, with powerful tools that enable players to create practically anything they can imagine. Well, as long as that thing is a theme park.Reviews
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare review: In space, no one can hear you snore
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has occasional moments of brilliance, but in a year packed with good shooters it just doesn't measure up. And don't get me started on the multiplayer.Reviews
Tyranny review: Obsidian’s RPG ponders the nature of evil
Picture a world where the battle between good and evil already took place, and evil won—and then imagine you work for the villains. That's Tyranny.Reviews
Rusty Lake: Roots review: A grim sequel for one of 2016’s best gaming surprises
The bizarre and grim world of the Rusty Lake series has quickly led to one of the best point-and-click series of the modern era—provided you can stomach its gruesome imagery.Reviews
Titanfall 2 review: Prepare for more mech-dropping, wall-running action
Titanfall 2 has more to offer than the original, including a full singleplayer campaign. But is it better? And can it survive, sandwiched between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty?Reviews
Civilization VI review: Learning from some (but not all) of history’s mistakes
Civilization VI released and just like that, an entire weekend disappeared. We've pulled ourselves out of the "One More Turn" hole to deliver our thoughts on the latest entry in the long-running strategy series.Reviews
Battlefield 1 review: Satisfying chaos, solemn silence
Battlefield 1's solemn campaign and over-the-top multiplayer may feel like polar opposites, but the complete package is all-around excellent.Reviews
Shadow Warrior 2 review: It’s not the size of the game, but how you use it
Improvements to combat and a raft of new visual gags don’t make up for Shadow Warrior 2's flaccid story and aimless levels.Reviews
Duke Nukem 3D’s 20th Anniversary edition kicks ass and chews bubble gum
The Duke's come back to town, and the last thing that's gonna go through your mind before you die is his size-13 boot.Reviews
Gears of War 4 (PC) review: Passing the torch
Gears of War 4 struggles with pacing issues and a bland protagonist, but it works well as a passing-the-torch installment bridging the old and new trilogies.Reviews
Virginia review: This detective thriller adapts the language of film to games
Virginia's extensive use of jump and match cuts makes it the meeting point of games and film, though it's not the best of experiments.Reviews
Forza Horizon 3 review: The best arcade racing series around roars onto PCs
Forza Horizon 3 is the best arcade racing has to offer in 2016, and now it's on PCs thanks to Microsoft's Xbox Play Anywhere endeavor.Reviews
Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! review: A sprawling adventure of mind-boggling scale
The PC adaptation of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! gamebooks has some rough edges, but it's a thrilling, sprawling adventure overall.Reviews
Event[0] review: An ambitious 2001: A Space Odyssey-tinged adventure you can talk to
Event[0] isn't perfect by any means, but its experiments with text parsers might make it the most important (or at least most interesting) indie game of 2016.Reviews
ReCore review: The first Xbox Play Anywhere game is a beautiful chore
ReCore features charming robot companions and snappy platforming, but a chore of an end-game and terrible load times make it a hard sell.Reviews
The Turing Test review: A brisk, breezy test of your humanity
Every year there's a game like Portal. This year, it's The Turing Test and its lightweight philosophical pondering.Reviews
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain review: Another 1980s sword-and-board adapted for the modern era
Another of Steve Jackson's circa-1980 adventure gamebooks gets a hybrid RPG/text adventure adaptation, this time by Tin Man Games—and with an excellent tabletop gaming aesthetic.Reviews
Here’s how the Xbox One S stacks up to the original
Microsoft launched the Xbox One S earlier this month, revitalizing its current-generation console lineup with some new features. Here's how it stacks up against the previous version.Reviews
Obduction review: The captivating start of the post-Myst age
It's been ten years since Cyan's last Myst game. Can spiritual successor Obduction step cleanly into those shoes? We found out.Updated
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided review: Human Evolution
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided feels exactly like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, for better and worse.Reviews
Acer Predator 17X review: This gaming laptop packs attitude and speed
The Predator 17X gives you desktop gaming performance without a noise penalty.Reviews
Batman: The Telltale Series review impressions: Slow burn
Telltale's Batman adaptation starts off slow.Updated
Windows 10 Anniversary Update review: Cortana, Edge overshadow Windows Ink
Windows 10's Anniversary Update polishes mature features like Cortana, Edge, and Skype while pointing the way toward a pen-enabled future. Windows 10 users should be pleased, but Windows 10 holdouts may remain unmoved.Updated
Xbox One S review: The Xbox One moves into the 4K generation
Microsoft's Xbox One S sports a new paint job and a smaller size than its predecessor, but its real standout feature is the ability to play streamed or recorded 4K content.Reviews
Headlander review: Metroid meets 1970s retrofuturism meets disembodied heads
Double Fine's latest game is a pastiche of 1970s retrofuturism, from Asimov to lava lamps. Oh, and you play as a disembodied head.Reviews
Maxthon MX5 review: Rough-and-ready browser offers paid features for free
Maxthon's fifth-generation MX5 Web browser includes a number of key features, such as password management, that you might end up paying for on other browsers. Security vendors, however, have questioned some of the company's practices.Reviews
Song of the Deep review: Gorgeous, reflective, and not very deep
Song of the Deep is an introspective little game from a blockbuster studio.Reviews
Tested: The payoff in buying Nvidia’s $40 SLI HB Bridge
Nvidia says you need the SLI HB Bridge to get optimum performance from dual GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs. We want to know what the benchmarks say.Reviews